Bytes were being churned, products were being released, books were being digested and Life continued monotonously. It was time to go off the beaten track again and this time our journey took us to that majestic corner of Kerala called Wyanad.

Bachu, Kurian and I started off from Bangalore towards Kozhikode on a rainy night. There we were joined by Ranjith, Hazer, Anand bhai and Bose from such far away lands as Chennai, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram ;) The plan was to rent a car and drive into Wyanad and as usual do what we do best – go where the roads take us. Using the deep rooted network of Bachu (the king of Kozhikode) we managed to rent a Toyota Innova without driver at a very cheap rate.

First day we started off with the goal set to Kuruva islands, but on the way after some typical spontaneous (in)decision making, we shifted target to Chembra peak. The route to Chembra is through a private estate and you need to pay a 20 rupee gate pass to take your vehicle through. We could travel only up to the end of tea estate and from there began the long 5Km (estimated) trek. It was incidentally Bose’s birthday that day and we gave him a grand celebration he will not forget, atop a small forest guards’ watch tower on the way to the peak. Half way through the path to the peak, yours truly lost all his stamina and decided to wait, while others tried for glory. It was a big miss though, and from the photos they took the peak was an amazing place with a small reservoir on top of it! Anyway Chembra is definitely in the must-visit list for Wyanad.

By evening we left Chembra for Thirunelly. The drive through the forest in the night was fun. The major attraction in Thirunelly was an ancient Vishnu temple there, and in another first for our trips, this was the first spiritual destination in all of the 16 trips we have had. We only just had time to have a quick darshan just before the temple closed at 8PM. That night we stayed at a decent government owned lodge there costing us merely 40 bucks per head.

After visiting Lord Vishnu again the next morning, we headed down towards the Kuruva islands. En route, I managed to put the car into a small gutter resulting in some annoyed looks from the co-passengers. Shrugging off their looks I continued on and 100 metres ahead as I looked into my rear view mirror, I could see a tyre lying on the road behind us! And yeah you guessed right, it was one of ours! Shocked, my first reaction was “Oh my god! Am I driving on 3 wheels?” Well that couldn’t be.. it was only our spare tyre that somehow slipped from under the chassis. Hazer the master took to the task and in no time we had the tyre back up. It was an experience especially since all this happened right in the middle of the forest and we had seen 2 or 3 boards saying ‘Do not stop your vehicle’ and ‘Do not leave your vehicle’. ;)

We did’nt find Kuruva island that interesting, but probably because we expected more because of a lot of hype surrounding it. Anyway crossing the river by walking across it to reach the island was not that bad. We left the place by afternoon in search of a lesser known destination Meenmutty waterfalls near the Tamil Nadu border. This is one thing you should not miss! I do not know how to explain the adrenalin, the nature, the greenery in words. You have to be there to believe it. The place requires a 5KM walk of which 4KM is a treacherous climb down through non-existent paths. It was the most thrilling experience I have ever had. For every small step you take, you need to convince your brain that you are not going to die. Seriously!

It was an early start to Sunday as we headed towards the Muthanga wild life reserve. Though we were early, we were unlucky and couldn’t see too many animals except for some deers, foxes and peacocks. Hard luck! But anyway the forest experience was enjoyable indeed. By afternoon after a brief stop over at Banasurasagar dam, it was time to head back home. The journey back again was another adventure. We had to stand all the way from Kalpetta to Mysore in a KSRTC FP and just about got seats in the last non-stop bus from Mysore to B’lore, reaching home somewhere around 2AM.

It was tiring but brilliant fun! So glad that these trips keep on going.. on and on… Lesson for the day? When you need a break, go back to nature, its well worth the effort :)

The Route:

Kozhikode – Kalpetta – Meppadi – Chembra
Chembra – Meppadi – Panamaram – Thirunelly
Thirunelly – Kattikulam – Kuruvadweep
Kuruwadweep – Meenangadi – towards TN Border – Meenmutti
Meenmutti – Sultan’s Battery – Muthanga
Muthanga – Sultan’s Battery – Ambalavayal – Banasurasagar Dam
Banasurasagar Dam – Kalpatta – Sultan’s Battery – Gundalpet – Nanjancode – Mysore – Bangalore

Tips:

• Petrol pumps are few and far between, so ensure that your tanks are filled at the major towns.
• Keep your base as Kalpetta or Sulthan Bathery and then plan as it is difficult to get acco. at other places, unless you are looking at expensive resorts.
• Have some salt handy as leech attacks are possible in the forest.
• When going into the forest, do visit the nearest forest department office as they might have important information and some places do require a written permission from the department to travel into (which is free of cost).
• English is more or less understood but don’t always bet on it especially in the more remote areas, so it is always better to do your homework and plan if you do not have someone with knowledge of Malayalam with you.
• Enjoy the forest and don’t complain too much about inconveniences, because the whole point of going to the forest is that it is a Forest… away from civilization! :)

Its been two weeks. I see a lot of changes here and there, but the essence of “home” remains the same.

I was in Bangalore for a week and in Trivandrum for another. Bangalore, every where I turn, there is something new. Trivandrum has a few things changed here and there, but overall it is just that same old city! Everybody was also apprehensive of me driving, to say the truth even I was, a bit. But it was not the least difficult. Ok, first few minutes I tried to do things “right” but very soon my Indian instincts took over and lo I was honking, not stopping at pedestrian crossings, not following lanes.. hehe.. it was smooth from then on! One thing that changed regarding driving in Trivandrum is the number of FM stations available. When I left, there was just one.. now I turn the radio on and there seems to be a channel every other frequency – Big FM, SFM, Club FM .. what not! Then I see that there *are* traffic symbols posted neatly in India, just that before I never noticed them before and even if I did, never knew what they meant. Enough of blaming the government, our road culture is the first problem, nothings gonna change without improving that!

Most of the week in Trivandrum was spent visiting & being visited by friends and family. I even cooked for them. The shock on my mother’s face when she saw me cooking (‘Chicken Trivandrum’ ;) ) was a priceless moment. Nobody thought I had it in me to cook :D Well, not any more dear ones.. Even I can cook! Many evenings were spent idling away in the city.. brought back many flashes of nostalgia. I even managed to go to a cultural show organized by some department of my old college in the amazingly beautiful Kanakakunnu palace grounds. Sat there for hours with my college buddies… it was the best feeling ever! :D

It was a not a totally smooth transition, but not as difficult as I expected. Things seem changed, and I look at things differently than before.. But I am so happy being back :)

In the first 22 years of my life, I have never been anywhere far from home. To be precise, never even been beyond the south of the country. And now here I am… 8 months in Europe, having visited 8 countries, experienced cultures totally different from what I am used to… It would not be an understatement to say it was all a life changing experience.

So what did I find different? The people, the attitudes, the landscape, everything is different, sometimes better, sometimes worse. The most important thing I learned is that if the attitudes are right, and everybody does what they are supposed to do, the whole setup just works. The foundations are similar and it is not impossible to make the setup work even in India, just that nobody is willing to make the change. Ok, I am not going to start preaching… And definitely not everything was perfect here and in a lot of things India has done much better, we just dont realize it.

On to the less serious matters… As you can see from the blog, I did travel a lot and had a lot of experiences. I had a lot of fun. Here I present my ‘Top 10′ (yeah, I can see some of you laughing ;) ) experiences in Europe…

1. Driving in the autobahn
2. Formula 1 at Nuerburgring
3. Ocktoberfest
4. The 5 days spent driving around Norway & Sweden
5. Venice – absolutely beautiful
6. Neuchwanstein – the fairy tale castle
7. Berlin on a rainy day
8. Vfb Stuffgart vs Wolfsburg – the football match live!
9. Trekking in Oberstdorf
10. Europa park

I was also very lucky to have a few of my close friends here with me during the whole time. Having them here, the time spent with them & the trips with them, ranks above all. What would I have done without you guys!

When this gets posted and if everything goes right, I would have already left Germany…

Auf wiedersehen, Deutschland!

The main purpose of this particular trip was to meet Anu in Frankfurt. But this was possible only on a Sunday and we had a full Saturday to be planned for. After going through a list of possible points of interest, we zeroed in on Trier. This particular German city, located right at the border with Luxembourg was quite different from other places in the country. I don’t know how to explain, but let me just say it felt different :)

Trier claims to be the oldest German city and is famous for its ancient roman architecture mostly in ruins now. It was once the capital of roman prefecture of Gaul (remember Asterix anyone?). We started off with Porta Nigra a large city gate now also standing in as the office of the Trier tourism department. It is a nice old building with a good view of the city. After exploring this old structure we walked through the Marktplatz where a friendly German lady offered us some tips and directions to the worth-seeing attractions in the area. Our first stop was Constantine Basilica adjoining the grand Trier palace. Nothing special of note here, except for the sight of some young kids showing off their skateboarding skills in the area around the church.

Our next stops really had that Roman touch. The “Roman Bath” was amazing. An underground network of tunnels which the romans supposedly used as their spas. Hmm.. Why they would ever want to have a bath in a dark spooky place like that is beyond me! Well.. the things the Romans do! ;) We did have our fun though, playing a bit of hide-and-seek & peek-a-boo like little kids and also scaring the hell out of Renu! Next after a long winding walk up some street we reached the ruins of the Amphitheater. It totally reminded me of Russel Crowe and Gladiator and they did indeed have events like that held over heremthousands of years ago. In ruins and still so magnificent! I stayed wondering, how it would have been with the crowds cheering the gladiators along… hmmm.. that would have been an experience indeed! :D We came back to Marktplatz and the whole area was filled with people now. There was another huge Christmas market here, the countless ones I have seen already, but still filled with wonder for me.

After that, we drove in Luxembourg. In 15 minutes we were in a different country! I guess this one is so small that we could have driven through all the roads in the country in a day if we wanted to! Instead we parked in a side street and walked around, seeing what we could. It was all over in an hour and a half. Well that was the shortest visit to any country I have ever done :) We drove back into Frankfurt before night fell and then had the fun of our lives finding a parking spot. Unfortunately our hostel was located right next to the busiest railway station in Germany and had no parking facilities. We drove round and round, until we found a little bit of space just enough to fit a Mercedes C220. With precise instructions from Ginu and Sandeep I somehow managed to fit in the car in that space. The proudest moment in my “parking” career especially after a gang of Germans in a smaller car taunted us shouting that we will never be able to fit the car in there.. ha.. take that!! :D

Next day we left to a quiet suburb to meet Anu in her cousins home. After a while of chit-chatting and a delicious desi-lunch, we set off with Anu to drop her off at the Frankfurt station. Dropping her and the others off there, I thought I would try my luck with finding a parking spot again. Hmmm.. Lets just say I know the surrounding area of the Frankfurt station pretty well now. Who wouldn’t after driving around the same area 5 times!!

Anyway this was my last day before my driving license became invalid in Germany and I decided to enjoy it to the last bit. We skipped the autobahn and decided to take the country roads. Oh boy! This was great… empty winding roads on a Mercedes C class… well it was a dream come true.. :)

Last but not the least the trip in which I touched my personal land speed record… 243 Km/Hr.. yeah, you have seen the videos! :)

Berlin – the capital. It is miles away from Stuttgart, but whats a visit to Germany without at least a peek at Berlin!

Though they say there never is a bad time to visit Berlin, we certainly did find one :) . It was raining quite bad and we had to shorten our visit to just over a day and a half, due to both bad weather and bad planning. Anyway what we saw was pretty good. We left in the early morning on a Toyota Avensis, a big but comfy car, and managed to avoid most of the early morning traffic somehow. We reached Berlin quite early in the morning and checked in to a youth hostel in the Eastern part of the city. We began our journey from the Prenzlauer Allee railway station. Our first destination was off course Alexanderplatz. It is a very nice open area, right in the middle of the city. Some attractions around were the Fernsehturm (the TV tower) and Marienkirche. We walked around the place and along the boulevard Unter dem Linden with a lot of beautiful buildings all around.

The end of a long walk lead us to a park (I forgot the name) with two huge statues of the founders of Communism – Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Spending some time there we headed towards Bebelplatz. It was Christmas time and the place was lovely with a big Christmas market. We continued our walk through Friedrichstrasse and finally reached Checkpoint Charlie. The whole place spoke of a lot of history. This was the dividing line between East and West Berlin. It is well preserved for everyone to see, including the sandbags for the soldiers and signs warning that “You are about to enter the American Zone”. It is unbelievable that this city was divided between two countries just around 15 years ago.

Tired legs told us to take the train and we reached the most famous landmark in Berlin – The Brandenburger Tor. It is a magnificent piece of art, I must say and naturally it was time for the cameras to click! We then moved to the Reichstag – the German parliament. The sun was already fading and it was getting really cold, so we had to call it a day and went back to the comfort of our hostel.

Next day it started raining, so after a stroll through the not-so-spectacular park built by the Soviets (again my memory fails me to name it) we decided to leave Berlin. We then drove to the famous Magdeburg water bridge, we had seen only in email forwards. It was not so easy finding the place, but for once our navigation system was a great one and we did manage to reach the place, though not after getting misled several times, but I blame human error for this one :) The bridge is a great engineering marvel to say the least. Walking on it was a different experience altogether, fighting off the strong and cold gusts of wind, blowing from all directions. The town of Magdeburg was beautiful too and as Renu quipped, every street in town did have a story to tell.

Well the other highlight of the trip was off course the blitz through the autobahn on the Avensis! Another great trip despite the weather…