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I hadn’t travelled much around India except for the south. So when Prema asked if I was interested in a Sikkim trip, I yelled my yes. After a long wait, the day finally came..

Getting there
Kolkata, Siliguri (West Bengal)

First stop was Kolkata, and I reached there by flight from Bangalore. The Kolkata airport was disappointing, a sad relic for a metro. I was to stay at the IIM hostel, arranged for me by Gayathri, Prema’s friend and my soon to be co-traveller. The way to IIM (at Jokha on the other end of the city) was filled with curious sights and sounds. Kolkata took me totally by surprise, I was expecting a modern city with fancy buildings. But what met me where old dusty streets, colonial era buildings and narrow lanes filled with cycle-rickshaws. Even though initially it felt like a city stuck in the ’60s, thinking back I guess that gave an amazing charm to the city, that was very different from the other Indian cities I’ve been to.

Next day morning, we got out from Kolkata and visited some places around the city, including the Indian Museum, the Howrah bridge and the Victoria Memorial. And we were joined by the fourth traveller in the group – Deepak. By evening, after roaming around the city on rickshaws and shared taxis we reached the Sealdah railway station to catch our train towards Siliguri.

New Jalpaiguri (the Siliguri railway station) is the starting point of the famous toy train to Darjeeling. This was initially in our plans, but reaching there we found, to our disappointment, that the toy train was closed due to torrential rains and Darjeeling was on strike due to the Gorkhaland issue. With a quick change in plans, we decided to move to Sikkim a day earlier.

The journey to Pelling
Siliguri – Melli – Pelling (Sikkim)

We met our incredible driver – Mr Anjun Rai from Darjeeling – at the railway station and he was to take us up to Sikkim on his Innova. As soon as we neared Sikkim the whole landscape changed and we were now in the vicinity of the foothills of the Himalayas. The roads that were already in difficult terrain, were damaged due to heavy rain. But our ‘Schumi’ negotiated all the curves, bumps, landslides, waterfalls(!) expertly and soon we gained his complete trust. The scenery was incredible, with the road winding around green mighty mountains all around and the Tiesta river roaring in all its full glory below us. It is a sight to behold. And I would definitely rate this as one of the best (and also among the hardest) drives in India.

Pelling is famous for its majestic views of Mt. Kangchenjunga, but unfortunately the cloudy weather and all the fog around us made us miss the view. Pelling was an interesting little town though, with lot of sight seeing opportunities. We visited a few waterfalls and a rock garden. Next day we bid adieu to Pelling and headed to our next stop – Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim.

Pelling to Gangtok
Pelling – Rabdentse – Legship – Gangtok (Sikkim)

On the way back, Schumi gave us two unsolicited stop overs – one at Pemayangste and the other at Rabdentse. Pemyangste was the first glimpse (of many) Buddhist monasteries that we would visit. It was an interesting building, which is around 300 years old. The sights and sounds of the monks praying inside (no photos allowed, but you can visit the prayer hall) is something not to be missed. The second stop – Rabdentse, was our only little trek in the whole trip. It is a moderate 2 km walk on a well laid but slippery stone path away from the main road and once there you are treated with the ruins of the old capital of Sikkim. It is well organized, peaceful and full of green. We spend sometime there and after a few customary snaps we continued our journey through the mountains to Gangtok.

We made our tea-stall stop at Legship, a small temple town on the banks the Teesta. There’s a queer little pedestrian hanging bridge with the river thundering below. Spend sometime there having chai and laddu Sikkim style, with Prema engaged in her ’streetscaping’ experiments. That was our last stop and we reached Gangtok by nightfall.

Gangtok

Gangtok is a lovely small city set on the side of a hill. Being the state capital it has all the stuff you need including movie theaters, petrol pumps (a rarity in Sikkim) and even a Dominos. In the morning we did a small tour of the places in and around Gangtok – visiting more waterfalls, monasteries, museums and the awesome nature. The best pick of the lot was the journey on a ropeway above the city which gave a magnificent grand view of the Himalayan landscape around. Our last stop for the day was Tashi view point, from where we were supposed to see Kangchenjunga. We thought we had finally managed to catch a glimpse, and we were quite certain that the peak we saw was Kangchenjunga. But alas after consulting with the locals, we learned that the clouds had cheated us again. What we saw was no where near Kangchenjunga

After reaching Gangtok, we had our lunch at the delightful Tangerine restaurant, an upmarket place. After finding that I had lost my watch when we reached our hotel, Prema and I decided to walk back up to the restaurant to try our luck. We were told of a shortcut to reach the place after consulting with a traffic policeman, and to our surprise we discovered the M.G Marg. A pleasant shopping street, devoid of vehicles. We bookmarked this for later and walked up the road to hunt for my lost goods. Luckily we found it at the restaurant. On the way back we called up Deepak and Gayathri to join us on the M.G Marg, for an evening stroll around the place. Highly recommend a walk on this street anytime you visit Gangtok.

Hello China!
Gangtok – Tsomgo – NathuLa – Baba Mandir

Next day morning, after taking permits from the tourist office, we headed towards the Tsomgo lake and the Chinese border at Nathu La – treading on a part of the ancient silk route to China. This was the highest point I’ve ever been in my life – around 16000 ft high at the Nathu La trading market. On route we saw the highest telephone exchange, the highest ATM and the highest post office in India. We didn’t have permits to reach the border, and had to stop at within 3kms of it. There’s a small memorial of an Indian general there and also a cafe called the Cafe 13000 run by the Indian army. Had some delicious momos (ok, maybe delicious is a bit relative) and a hot cup of coffee up here. We were not allowed to stay for a long time, and we headed back to the Tsomgo lake. There is a small market at the lake, where we had our brunch. The noodles we got were actually transported from China just a few kilometres away . We chitchatted with the lady over there for a bit and it was time to return back. The roads were extremely difficult, and we had to take regular breaks while the army was working fulltime clearing off roads blocked by landslides.

Back to Siliguri
Gangtok – Pekyong – Rangpo – Siliguri
The way back to Siliguri was blocked again and we had to take a round about route to come down the hills. Sikkim’s new (and first) airport is coming up on this route at a village called Pekyong. That’s definitely going to make access way easier to this amazing land. We finally bid goodbye to Sikkim and to our wonderful driver Schumi at the Siliguri station. That also ended the first leg of the trip with Deepak and Gayathri leaving back to Kolkata and Prema and I going to Bodhgaya.

Bihar!
Patna – Gaya – Bodhgaya

Bihar was all what I expected and more. It is a totally different world out there and the place does lives up to the tag of the wild wild west of India. Our train had taken us to Patna, and a Rs.70 bus ride took us to the Bodhgaya gate on the highway. It was already quite late and we had to travel 3km to reach Bodhgaya proper. We met a monk, a local and two Dutch guys there, and our queer gang managed to get a shared auto up to the city. We didn’t have bookings, but managed to find a decent hotel not far from the town center.

Bodhgaya is sort of an oasis amidst the chaos of Bihar. It was a very spiritual place, and it looked like a international meeting place of countries and cultures. Lots of monasteries and Buddhist temples belonging to countries from around the globe. We visited most of them including the ones from Thailand, China, Japan, Sri Lanka, Tibet, Bhutan and even Bangladesh. The main attraction though was the Mahabodhi temple, were Lord Buddha attained enlightenment. It’s a well preserved monument, and its a joy to take in all the peace and serenity surrounding it.

Our train back was at 11PM in the night, but we decided to get back to Gaya, basically because it was a bit risky to travel late on the Bihar roads. It was time to wind up the long trip, as we waited a long wait at the Gaya railway station telling each other the interesting bits of our lives . And as we did that, the Rajadhani Express to Delhi, rolled in to the station.. And that was it, a great 10 day experience.

The Route

View Larger Map

6 PM on a Sunday evening, and me and my friend, Hazer are chatting away at our usual hangout – the parking lane in between the museum and Kanakakunnu palace in Trivandrum. Not knowing what to do next, we decide on going for a movie. Now, the best part of Trivandrum city is that there are atleast 15 cinemas that you can browse through during a 2km drive. I have read somewhere that probably Trivandrum has the highest density of movie theatres of all! So we screen movie by movie en route and finally reach the New Theatre which was showing ‘Kites’. Just about managed to get a ticket in the non-balcony section, with 5 minutes to go for the movie.

After so much fanfare the movie ended up being a disappointment. As the movie started I had this feeling (which I seem to get regularly while watching Hindi movies nowadays) that I have seen all this somewhere before. After some hard thinking, it turned out that the starting plot of the movie was eerily similar to Woody Allen’s ‘Match Point’. But somewhere on the way it started deviating from that plot and merged into the plot of Quentin Tarantino’s ‘True Romance’. Bollywood script writers are getting smart these days. Blending and mixing. If only they knew how to do it better! The last 15 minutes were the worst! It was slower than watching paint dry. You knew what was going to happen, and the director seemed to be bent on killing you softly while unveiling his masala melodrama. Ouch!

Outside after the show, it was raining heavily. And that ended up making me totally over the moon with nostalgia. That regular routine we had almost every other evening after college – dropping off my friends at their homes, the lonely 10km drive to my house, the sound of the rain drops and the perfect old mallu songs on the radio. Atleast the movie gave me a chance to do all that once again. The saving grace!

02:15 am, National Highway 63, around 15 kilometers before Hubli…

A Mahindra Bolero screeched to a stand-still on the other side of the road. As we got out of the vehicle, I could see 2 burly guys in white shirts holding something that looked like a hockey stick. My skin went pale and I could feel a cold chill pass through my spine. Scared to death, but the first thing I thought of? ‘Finally, the “blog” incident I needed for this trip!’

Two days earlier…

This was going to be my third Goa trip in 6 months. But I was always thrilled by Goa’s atmosphere, moreover we were driving and it was my first chance to try the Scorpio. So I could safely say that I was all excited in anticipation.

For the onward journey, we had taken a rather unconventional route from Bangalore, via Belgaum into Maharashtra (Sawantwadi) and then to Goa. The roads were narrow and mountainous after we crossed the Maharashtra border. But it was decently maintained and had low traffic with the added plus of a scenic drive through the villages and mountains. We reached Goa by about 10. The next two days was spent on experiencing the things that you come to Goa for – the beaches and the booze! My co-travelers were also much luckier than me with the casinos and managed to win around 5k!

But the real adventure started after we left Goa. We took the more standard route back, via Karwar and Hubli. Somewhere on the forest roads towards Hubli, after Yellapur, our headlights started to dim out. We first thought the battery had gone weak and then realized that the alternator had burnt out. The electrical systems in the car started failing one by one and finally our headlights were gone and we were left with just one feeble park-light. There were no big settlements before reaching Hubli, which was still around 50-60 kms away. It was already 11PM and our best chance would have been to get to Hubli somehow and find a mechanic there. So we stuck to the first truck we could find with a proper enough backlight and tailed along with it, with no lights of our own at all.

After a few kilometers of tagging along, the truck driver in front of us stopped as he realized that we were in trouble. He came to have a look but there was nothing he could fix. Hubli was still 25 km away and the driver told us to keep following him, and that he’ll guide us to Hubli. So we went along. 10 km ahead and our engine cut off. There was not enough power to even drive the control unit of the engine. Tough luck. The same technology that is bread and butter for me via Bosch, made us get stuck in the middle of nowhere.

We asked the truck driver to carry on, since there was nothing more he could do. We pushed the car to the side of the road and tried in vain to reach everyone (the limited few) whom we knew of, in Hubli. We called up the Hubli traffic police and informed them of our situation. But they couldn’t do anything either till morning. We couldn’t even lock the car, because the battery didn’t have enough power to roll the car windows back up. We were basically stuck; without food or water till morning which was still 8 hours away. So we set up camp inside the car. The mood was still ok, with everyone joking about all that happened. Then came the Bolero; just after 2 o’clock while we were still sitting and chatting.

…

The two big guys rushed towards us and asked me something in Kannada. I told him I don’t understand the language very well. He gave me a cold stare, and then proceeded to go through all of our luggage. We (atleast me) were still scared to speak much. Suddenly as the Bolero moved to cross the road into our side, I noticed a green board with the lettering ‘Police’. I breathed a big sigh of relief! They asked us a lot of questions and still looked very intimidating. They told us that the road is not very safe, but what could we do – we cannot abandon the car there and go. They told us to stay there at our own risk and then get a mechanic in the morning. Then they took away 3 bottles of port wine that we had bought in Goa telling that it wasn’t legal (my @#%#)! But loosing a bit of wine was way better than what I had thought would happen initially; so it wasn’t that bad . We were terribly disappointed by the attitude they showed to us; though. Not even showing a hint of helpfulness.

After this incident I guess we all started to get tense. Only then we started to realize how much of a risk we were taking staying at that place. There were too many what-ifs running through my mind. What if the an overtaking truck knock us off the highway? What if a group of thugs come and beat us up? etc etc. I couldn’t sleep for even a bit, till the sun came back out.

Morning came as a relief of all of us. Ranjith suggested that we push start the vehicle. It didn’t seem a great idea to me; since the engine could cut off while running at any moment the battery dies out. But we decided to try and then limp ahead to Hubli some 15 more kilometers ahead. We pulled out all the equipment that could take away even a milliamp of power – the horn, the music system, the brake-light, the indicators – everything, leaving the engine control unit all the bits of power it could get to make the engine running for atleast 30 minutes. We push started the car and went as fast as we could to Hubli. And we made it! 8.30 am and we were finally back in civilization and in the Hubli railway station parking lot. We got a mechanic to repair our alternator. It took us 5 or 6 more hours; but finally we had the car repaired; all roaring to go. No worries left, we reached Bangalore, just before midnight.

All’s well that ends well!

Map of the route we took. Marker ‘F’ is approximately the place we got stuck.

Goa photos coming soon!

Thursday night. I had gone to sleep quite early thanks to a darned headache. I heard the landline ring. Irritated again that people call to the stupid landline rather than to my mobile (technology has grown, wake-up sheeple!), I got up and picked up the call. It was Bachu, my roommate, all excited telling me that if I don’t want to miss Sachin’s 200 better come fast to Shyam’s house (we are a TV-free home, you see). So I get dressed quickly and run to our very own homely sports-bar.

There’s some excitement going on in there as I reached. Sachin has reached somewhere around 170, Bachu is yelling trivial anecdotes about Sachin, Tony’s not combing his hair or looking at the mirror and even Shyam’s not playing TF2! That was when I knew this was going to be something special. So I took a seat and joined in. As soon as I sat down, Raina gets out. Hmm.. I thought I brought my bad luck with me. Boy! Was I right.

The game was taking interesting directions; with Ravindra Jadeja keen on taking singles every last ball of an over and not giving the strike to Sachin; when I first noticed an unlikely visitor in the kitchen. A pretty big rat; let’s say the biggest I have seen; not that I have seen many. I announced our royal visitor to the other friends in the room; and the usually cool Shyam all freaked out. “Oh! Its going to bite me when I’m sleeping. I’m going to get swine-flu and stuff”.. hmm.. swine-flu from a rat? Well, let’s discuss that later.

So we decide to fight this guy. And by chance it got trapped inside one of the plastic carry-bags lying around. The rest of the party wanted to kill the rat; but I somehow found a bit of compassion towards the animal and convinced them not to do it. Since the rest of us had an excuse that we didn’t have shoes on; we assigned the task of capturing the rat in the bag to Tony. Naturally the rat gnawed away the other end of the sheet and was on its way to its next hiding place.

Meanwhile in TVLand: Tendulkar has no chance to reach 200; but India can still win. If only Mr. Jadeja gave some strike to him. We are all in a dillema now whether to watch the TV or mind the rat. Every 3 balls or so, the little guy would peep out from its hiding place and as soon as we make the slightest of movements; it would go right back in. This hide and seek continued for a while… and then the unthinkable happened … Tendulkar got out

While we were mourning the departure of Sachin, our hero peeps out from his hiding place and runs right into the sink drain. Sensing the kill, the brave Tony Thomas strides in for the final act and closes the drain with a mosaic tile in pure ‘Quick-Gun Murugun’ style. That’ll do, we all thought. Shyam runs out to get something to seal our hero shut. But alas before he reached, the little guy, amasses all the power he has; slides out the tile; rushes out; and winks at us proudly for the effort (ok it didn’t; but I’m sure it would have, if it could).

The Indians are sinking to deeper trouble; while the rat is still playing hide-and-seek with us. Finally we managed to trick it to go back to the drain. Everybody quickly swings into action and we trap that darn rat finally. Victorious we set our focus back on the tv set. India may have lost by 3 runs and Sachin may not have hit a double-ton; but we did win our chase against the rat!

So what’s so blog-able about this? Small moments like this; tend to be lost in bigger memories of the past. I just wanted to treasure a few ‘big’ small moments… so that I can be all nostalgic in the future

It is a very strange point in my life now. I turn 25 in less than 2 weeks; and if you ask me: Am I what I wanted to be at 25? I am undecided.

This is a season of changes for me. Friends getting married; people going off far far away; my parents almost into retirement. And me? Well; I am just going where the wind takes me; rudderless. I suppose that’s not how it should be once you are 25. You need to have a sense of direction I suppose; but even as I write that; it is extremely difficult for my mind to consider that reality. My friends tell me I still act like a teenager sometimes and some others say I act like a 50 year old. Maybe they are right. But what’s a 25 year old supposed to act like? Well – I am even more confused.

The easy-go attitude seems to be very difficult to shake off for me. Nothing affects me profoundly; despite my outer mask suggesting otherwise. You call me; I always pick up. There’s no bad moment to talk to me. I have seen many people tell; this is a bad time to talk. But honestly I don’t remember a moment (ok one; but that’s it!) when I’ve said that. Others of my age have already started tackling life’s difficult tasks and they already have had that turning point but I am somehow stuck. I started building a house on my own (“my own” is relative) and I thought such a huge responsibility would mean that would make my life change. But it didn’t. Even that for me seems to be a snippet for conversation with my friends and nothing more. It doesn’t give me the tension I wanted it to give me. But no. Not even that. Some people say that’s a good thing; but no; not for me. I am bored; I need some stress to cure it I suppose and to feel like not being an alien in a strange planet.

I have a job I like (despite peer pressure to not; hating your job seems to be in-fashion); I have a steady income; I am surrounded by friends; I have a supportive family and my problems are miniscule compared to others’. Even then I feel incomplete. Every single day; even the productive ones; even the entertaining ones; seems to be one more day wasted. But “wasted” vs what? I am unable to define that.

Is this my quarter life crisis? I think so… and I have no clue as to what the remedy is. Here’s going back to where the wind takes me… see you at the next place I crash into.

Went for a trip to Nandi Hills early in the morning today. We wanted to see the sunrise there, and we were lucky enough to reach there on time for that. Contrary to my expectations, it was a real nice place indeed. So close to Bangalore, yet so far from the hustle and bustle. Too lazy to write a long blog post, so I leave you with some pics. Didn’t come out as good as I expected, but trust me, it was more beautiful than what the photos could record.

Photo Credits: Espresso and Me!