On the road to Trivandrum
Coconut oil in my hair
Warm smell of avial
Rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance
I saw a bright pink tube-light
My tummy rumbled, I felt weak and thin
I had to stop for a bite
There he stood in the doorway
Flicked his mundu in style
And I was thinking to myself
I don't like
the look of his sinister smile
Then he lit up a petromax
Muttering "No power today"
More Mallus down the corridor
I thought I heard them say
Welcome to the Hotel Kerala-fornia
Such a lousy place,
Such a lousy place (background)
&! nbsp; Such a sad disgrace,
Plenty of bugs at the Hotel Kerala-fornia
Any time of year
Any time of year (background)
It's infested here
It's infested here
His finger's stuck up his nostril
He's got a big, thick
mustache
He makes an ugly, ugly noise
But that's just his laugh
Buxom girls clad in pavada
Eating banana chips
Some roll their eyes, and
Some roll their hips
I said to the manager
My room's full of mice
He said,
Don't worry, saar,I sending you
meen karri, brandy and ice
And still those voices were crying from far away
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them pray
Save us from the Hotel Kerala-fornia
Such a lousy place,
Such a lousy place (background)
Such a sad disgrace
Trying to live at the Ho! tel Kerala-fornia
It is no surprise
It is no surprise (background)
That it swarms with flies
The blind man was pouring
Stale sambar on rice
And he said
We are all just actors here
In Silk Smitha-disguise
And in the dining chamber
We gathered for the feast
We stab it with our
steely knives
But we just can't cut that beef
Last thing I remember
I was writhing on the floor
That cockroach in my appam-stew was the culprit,
I am sure
Relax, said the watchman
This enema will make y! ou
well
And his friends laughed as they held me down
God's Own Country? Oh, Hell! *
The above is the parody version of the famous song 'Hotel California' by Eagles....
The song has been sung in a mallu accent using the above lyrics and its damn funny...
you sure will ROTFL...
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Day 3 : May 18th, 2008
“SWAAAATHIII!!!! Wake up!!! We got garlic bread with cheese and an Exotica with extra Jalapeño toppings on it!!”. If, they had said that, I guess I would’ve woken up! But no. It was “Swaathhiiii!! Wake up! We’ll get late and we’ll never be able to camp! You have to have a bath immediately and a quick one! (That’s the last thing someone should say to wake me up. I hate baths. Especially short ones.)” I wish I knew how to drive, because Hrishi got to sleep for longer simply because he was supposed to drive. Anyway, I reluctantly got up, brushed, had a quick bath, had tea and sat next to Sanju watching TV, until everyone got ready. We went to “New Hotel” for breakfast. We needed enough Shakthi to last the trek. The hotel was just down the road. It seemed like our home-stay was in the center of the town. But maybe it was because Kalpetta was such a small town. It is probably as big as Malleshwaram. New Hotel had pakka Kerala food. We saw weird looking idlis and a strange noodles-like item. There was also the normal vada, dosa and all that. First thing Hrishi ordered was “Soodu Vezam”, that was actually hot, pink water! It looked really nice. :P And then Sanju ordered for the one and only “Puttu”. Haha. That’s actually what it’s called. The waiter brought 5 pieces of the idly kind of thing and served us one apiece. It had a lot of coconut sprinkled on it. Sanju asked for Coconut milk as a side dish. The guy brought a whole bowl of grated coconut and placed it on the table. Haha. Poor chap! Given a chance, I think Keralites will eat raw coconut with all meals! The guy brought coconut milk, which was a side dish for everything, the Puttu, the appam, the nool Puttu (the noodles-like thing). It all tasted pretty decent. Sanju fell in love with the Puttu. He literally went crazy!! Kept saying “Puttu rocks” and kept talking to his Puttu. It was too funny. After paying the bill, we got our arses out of that place and started towards Chembra peak.
At 2100 mts above mean sea level, Chembra is the highest peak in Wayanad and is ideal for trekking. It’s a 6 km long trek and apparently, the view from atop the mountain is exhilarating. I’m saying “apparently” because we couldn’t reach the peak. It was very tiring and hot. We had to drive till a point by car and then move on foot. There was some Malayalam movie-shooting going on there. We walked for like 5 minutes along the path and Hrishi got bored. He looked towards his left and said that was the way and claimed that he had taken the same route when he had come here previously. There was an overgrowth of grass and I don’t know if it was because I didn’t have my glasses, but I could see absolutely no path there. We followed Hrishi, uncertain of what was in store for us. It was completely erratic. We didn’t know where we were going. All we knew was that as long as we’re going upwards, we’re going in the right direction. The ground was slippery. I was told to hold on to the roots of the grass and that I could completely rely on them. So we all went up, grabbing onto all the blades of grass we could. By the time we reached a small landing, all of us had deep cuts on our fingers. Yes, when I say blades of grass, I mean it. They mercilessly cut into you. I guess I have very sensitive skin because my hand had so many scratches and fresh cuts; it looked like the aftermath of a catfight. After a short water break, we looked upwards. There was no more grass. There were huge trees that cut off the light before it could reach the ground. This time, Sanju led the way. He had a sharp blade in his hand to cut the branches that came in our way. The trees were really tall and the atmosphere there reminded me of the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts. I was a hoping to see a snake. But I was unlucky. All I saw was a dead earthworm. :-/ We rested for some time in the forest. Silence was pressing into my ears. But then the crickets were chirping away and there were other insect noises coming out of nowhere. It was nice sitting there and listening to the sounds of the forest. Peace, finally. We thanked Hrishi for taking us in the wrong path because the correct one seemed really boring. We left again, this time we had to walk through tea plantations. There are billions of acres of tea plantation in Kerala. Kannan Devan tea is manufactured there. The estates look heavenly! While walking through these estates, we finally heard human voices and were so happy that we were moving in the right direction. That boosted up our energy and we tried finding the path faster. Hrishi kept talking about this heart-shaped lake, which we would reach when we were half way through. We made it quite quickly to the actual path. As we walked we came across a piece of land that looked like it had water, but had dried up because of the heat and Hrishi said that was the heart-shaped lake. Disappointed of not having been able to see the lake, we moved on and stopped at a spot for pictures. The scenery was spectacular. While we were at it, some Malyali dudes called out to us from 15 ft above and said that they found the lake. I ran towards the lake, closely followed by the rest of them, glad that I would be able to dip my feet, which were baking in my shoes. The lake was not even close to a heart-shape. I don’t really know how it got the name. But it sure was amazing! The peak was around 50 mts higher. Since we were all tired we decided to end it at the lake and go back down. We sat down on the rocks by the lake. Navu was having trouble with her extremely long toenails, which Sanju had to cut off using his “multi-purpose super blade”. Hehe. Su made some bread–jam sandwiches for us. FYI, Bread-jam-kurkure is an awesome combo. And then everyone made fun of the way I say “kurkure”. Seriously! I say it as normally as everyone else does! My name through out the trip was “Dumb Blonde”. X-( Again, %#^&** Hrishi! All of us mimicked the NRI’s we knew and had a good laugh. One of the Malyali dudes, whose name I figured out was Kanta (Haha), kept making uncanny sounds to contact his friend who was at the peak. They communicated weirdly. A bunch of boys came running down the hill and had a dip in the lake. They left along with us. I must say, Keralites are pretty damn friendly. The boys ran down pretty fast and screamed out to us if they had to wait for us and if we needed their help. We said “no” and they left. We started trekking downwards, this time I led everyone. :D Going down was slower than the other way round. The probability of falling off is greater, especially if you don’t have shoes with proper grip. Slowly, sitting down at all places required, I went, followed by Su, Hrishi, Sanju and Navu. We came across a peculiar person who I thought was dumb, in the sense, he couldn’t talk. He said something about his manager climbing up the hill and made Hrishi touch his heart(which he thought was in the right side :P). He also did some dance moves and left me wondering what kinds of maniacs exist. Navu had swalpa fear of heights. So she took her own time and Sanju and Hrishi came down with her. Su and I found ourselves down in a jiffy and we waited for the rest of them. After we were all together again, we started towards our car. We drank water from a tank, which we found on the way. God knows how old it was, but it tasted really good. With Sanju driving, we reached the bottom of the cliff and back at the home-stay. We had to pack up quickly as we were to camp by the riverside that night. We left ASAP. Pavithran sent a guy called Mani (the Dude!) with us just in case we needed help.
Kuruva Island was the place where we were to camp. Every time I think about it, “Kyeruva Island” comes into my mind. Damn that was so funny! It was around 40kms from Kalpetta and we didn’t know the directions. Sanju had completely lost it. He tried to make people think he was a Keralite and asked everyone directions by imitating the Malyalis. “Kyeruva Island?” he said. He got super jacked by one guy who corrected him and said “Kuruva Island”. Haha. Sanju’s crazy act and our “Hotel Keralafornia” song left the horrible, bumpy, mud-roads unnoticed. We met Mani who was the only one we knew in Kerala so far who could speak Kannada. He actually knew every single person in the town. He led the way to the island on a bike on which two people were already seated. We liked to call this guy “Money” rather than “Mani”. He showed us a spot were we could install our tent, said he’d return at night and with that, he left. Navu took out the tent, which I thought would fit in only one person, judging by the bag it was in. It was fun putting it up (I didn’t do anything. I shot a video. :P). Navu was a pro at this, so was Sanju. We let them do the work. And when it was done, I was dumbstruck! Holy cow! That was a huge tent. It could fit in 6 of us easily both for standing as well as sleeping, and mind you, Hrishi and Sanju are more than 6 feet tall. We walked around a little, picking up wooden sticks for the campfire. The auburn branches of the bamboo trees around looked beautiful against the blue sky, which in no time turned into shades of pink and orange. The green trees surrounding the river Kabini added to the beauty of the whole place. We were back at our tent in half an hour. Navu cut up onions and other vegetables and gave us tasty boiled egg with salt and pepper, Sanju made maggi with Knorr soup, Hrishi blended the Russian distilled spirits and the liquid made from fermented sugar-cane product. Su and I made egg sandwiches. We hogged quite a lot. Tired, the married couple went to sleep. The three of us packed up everything and waited till Money arrived. After what seemed to me like an hour he came, talking happily over the phone. We assumed he was talking to his hot, girlfriend, who would have coconut oil smeared on her head 24*7. And then I was teased with him, because I said he was hot. Haha. It was getting cold, and the air was filled with mosquitoes and fireflies. They looked really pretty. Hrishi caught one of them, but I didn’t have enough guts to catch one. Hehe. We went inside and left Money and his hot girlfriend to themselves. We played Dumb Charades for sometime, acting out words from Pictionary cards. Soon, we fell asleep, waiting for the next day, which turned out to be one of the best days of my life. :)
Click here for pictures
At 2100 mts above mean sea level, Chembra is the highest peak in Wayanad and is ideal for trekking. It’s a 6 km long trek and apparently, the view from atop the mountain is exhilarating. I’m saying “apparently” because we couldn’t reach the peak. It was very tiring and hot. We had to drive till a point by car and then move on foot. There was some Malayalam movie-shooting going on there. We walked for like 5 minutes along the path and Hrishi got bored. He looked towards his left and said that was the way and claimed that he had taken the same route when he had come here previously. There was an overgrowth of grass and I don’t know if it was because I didn’t have my glasses, but I could see absolutely no path there. We followed Hrishi, uncertain of what was in store for us. It was completely erratic. We didn’t know where we were going. All we knew was that as long as we’re going upwards, we’re going in the right direction. The ground was slippery. I was told to hold on to the roots of the grass and that I could completely rely on them. So we all went up, grabbing onto all the blades of grass we could. By the time we reached a small landing, all of us had deep cuts on our fingers. Yes, when I say blades of grass, I mean it. They mercilessly cut into you. I guess I have very sensitive skin because my hand had so many scratches and fresh cuts; it looked like the aftermath of a catfight. After a short water break, we looked upwards. There was no more grass. There were huge trees that cut off the light before it could reach the ground. This time, Sanju led the way. He had a sharp blade in his hand to cut the branches that came in our way. The trees were really tall and the atmosphere there reminded me of the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts. I was a hoping to see a snake. But I was unlucky. All I saw was a dead earthworm. :-/ We rested for some time in the forest. Silence was pressing into my ears. But then the crickets were chirping away and there were other insect noises coming out of nowhere. It was nice sitting there and listening to the sounds of the forest. Peace, finally. We thanked Hrishi for taking us in the wrong path because the correct one seemed really boring. We left again, this time we had to walk through tea plantations. There are billions of acres of tea plantation in Kerala. Kannan Devan tea is manufactured there. The estates look heavenly! While walking through these estates, we finally heard human voices and were so happy that we were moving in the right direction. That boosted up our energy and we tried finding the path faster. Hrishi kept talking about this heart-shaped lake, which we would reach when we were half way through. We made it quite quickly to the actual path. As we walked we came across a piece of land that looked like it had water, but had dried up because of the heat and Hrishi said that was the heart-shaped lake. Disappointed of not having been able to see the lake, we moved on and stopped at a spot for pictures. The scenery was spectacular. While we were at it, some Malyali dudes called out to us from 15 ft above and said that they found the lake. I ran towards the lake, closely followed by the rest of them, glad that I would be able to dip my feet, which were baking in my shoes. The lake was not even close to a heart-shape. I don’t really know how it got the name. But it sure was amazing! The peak was around 50 mts higher. Since we were all tired we decided to end it at the lake and go back down. We sat down on the rocks by the lake. Navu was having trouble with her extremely long toenails, which Sanju had to cut off using his “multi-purpose super blade”. Hehe. Su made some bread–jam sandwiches for us. FYI, Bread-jam-kurkure is an awesome combo. And then everyone made fun of the way I say “kurkure”. Seriously! I say it as normally as everyone else does! My name through out the trip was “Dumb Blonde”. X-( Again, %#^&** Hrishi! All of us mimicked the NRI’s we knew and had a good laugh. One of the Malyali dudes, whose name I figured out was Kanta (Haha), kept making uncanny sounds to contact his friend who was at the peak. They communicated weirdly. A bunch of boys came running down the hill and had a dip in the lake. They left along with us. I must say, Keralites are pretty damn friendly. The boys ran down pretty fast and screamed out to us if they had to wait for us and if we needed their help. We said “no” and they left. We started trekking downwards, this time I led everyone. :D Going down was slower than the other way round. The probability of falling off is greater, especially if you don’t have shoes with proper grip. Slowly, sitting down at all places required, I went, followed by Su, Hrishi, Sanju and Navu. We came across a peculiar person who I thought was dumb, in the sense, he couldn’t talk. He said something about his manager climbing up the hill and made Hrishi touch his heart(which he thought was in the right side :P). He also did some dance moves and left me wondering what kinds of maniacs exist. Navu had swalpa fear of heights. So she took her own time and Sanju and Hrishi came down with her. Su and I found ourselves down in a jiffy and we waited for the rest of them. After we were all together again, we started towards our car. We drank water from a tank, which we found on the way. God knows how old it was, but it tasted really good. With Sanju driving, we reached the bottom of the cliff and back at the home-stay. We had to pack up quickly as we were to camp by the riverside that night. We left ASAP. Pavithran sent a guy called Mani (the Dude!) with us just in case we needed help.
Kuruva Island was the place where we were to camp. Every time I think about it, “Kyeruva Island” comes into my mind. Damn that was so funny! It was around 40kms from Kalpetta and we didn’t know the directions. Sanju had completely lost it. He tried to make people think he was a Keralite and asked everyone directions by imitating the Malyalis. “Kyeruva Island?” he said. He got super jacked by one guy who corrected him and said “Kuruva Island”. Haha. Sanju’s crazy act and our “Hotel Keralafornia” song left the horrible, bumpy, mud-roads unnoticed. We met Mani who was the only one we knew in Kerala so far who could speak Kannada. He actually knew every single person in the town. He led the way to the island on a bike on which two people were already seated. We liked to call this guy “Money” rather than “Mani”. He showed us a spot were we could install our tent, said he’d return at night and with that, he left. Navu took out the tent, which I thought would fit in only one person, judging by the bag it was in. It was fun putting it up (I didn’t do anything. I shot a video. :P). Navu was a pro at this, so was Sanju. We let them do the work. And when it was done, I was dumbstruck! Holy cow! That was a huge tent. It could fit in 6 of us easily both for standing as well as sleeping, and mind you, Hrishi and Sanju are more than 6 feet tall. We walked around a little, picking up wooden sticks for the campfire. The auburn branches of the bamboo trees around looked beautiful against the blue sky, which in no time turned into shades of pink and orange. The green trees surrounding the river Kabini added to the beauty of the whole place. We were back at our tent in half an hour. Navu cut up onions and other vegetables and gave us tasty boiled egg with salt and pepper, Sanju made maggi with Knorr soup, Hrishi blended the Russian distilled spirits and the liquid made from fermented sugar-cane product. Su and I made egg sandwiches. We hogged quite a lot. Tired, the married couple went to sleep. The three of us packed up everything and waited till Money arrived. After what seemed to me like an hour he came, talking happily over the phone. We assumed he was talking to his hot, girlfriend, who would have coconut oil smeared on her head 24*7. And then I was teased with him, because I said he was hot. Haha. It was getting cold, and the air was filled with mosquitoes and fireflies. They looked really pretty. Hrishi caught one of them, but I didn’t have enough guts to catch one. Hehe. We went inside and left Money and his hot girlfriend to themselves. We played Dumb Charades for sometime, acting out words from Pictionary cards. Soon, we fell asleep, waiting for the next day, which turned out to be one of the best days of my life. :)
Click here for pictures
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Day 2: May 17th, 2008
Trrriiiinnggggg!!!! (6 am) Snooze. Trrriiinnggggg!! (7 am) Snooze. Trrrriiinnggg!! (7:30 am) Snooze. Trrriiinnnnggggg!!! (8 am) Argh!!! I hate alarms! They’re so pissing off! I got up and found everyone out of bed. We were supposed to leave to Wayanad early in the morning. We found ourselves rushing to get all the work done and seeing this, Sanju made a declaration – “It is OUR trip and we will do what we WANT to do WHENEVER we want to do it! Time doesn’t matter!” Gee. That did reduce the tension a little. We had breakfast at a place called Mahesh Prasad as Su unintentionally cracked some perverted jokes while giving a speech on “How to clean your ear”. Haha.
We left leisurely at around 10 am to Wayanad, which is around 150 kms from Mysore. It is one of the loveliest hill stations of Kerala, nestled among the mountains of Western Ghats. We drove for the better part of the day with music playing on my iPod. Sanju made a statement that this trip was going to be a “purely high spirited” one. (Which it was) Hehe. We had to pass through Muthanga wild life sanctuary. En route I spotted a leash of foxes. They were hardly 15 ft away. They resembled wild dogs actually, but Navu, the animal lover, confirmed that they were foxes. After a silent photo session, we left the cunning animals to themselves and moved on. Not far from there, we found a parcel of spotted deer. Su and I had a vivid recollection of our father singing a Kannada song called “Nee jinkey mari naa?”. Haha. Personally, I felt the deer looked pretty ugly, but the fawn looked cute. The deer freaked out when they saw us and sped into the bushes. Again, we moved on. We stopped at this small, battered shop where Sanju bought a 2-litre bottle of Fanta, which tasted pretty awful. He insisted on having lunch at that place but the rest of us refused. Some uncle we met suggested a clean, vegetarian restaurant called “Kalpakka” which was situated in Sultan Bathery. Sultan Bathery is a small town on the way to Kalpetta (which was where we were going to stay for the night) from Muthanga. It lies approximately 25 kms from Kalpetta. Sanju was behind the wheels this time. We reached Sultan Bathery and found Hotel Kalpakka with no difficulty. Famished, eager to taste some delicacies of Kerala we entered the restaurant. It was a pretty clean room, had air conditioning and looked decent. (Ah! I remember, I had to pee all along! But the restroom was stinky. >:P ) Anyway, we ordered for three meals and two veg biryanis. While we waited, Sanju kept us entertained by opening and closing the door behind, which made a funny creaky sound, like a hen squawking. He was simply fascinated by the sound. Haha. And then the food arrived, bringing with it a strong aroma of coconut oil. Ughh! Should’ve seen that coming. Everything in Kerala has coconut oil in it! But it didn’t taste as bad as I expected it to be. After having a chapatti with some curry and Kerala’s famous Avial (which I hated) followed by some rice, I was pretty full. As we waited for the bill, we realised how many small cups were there on the table. Holy cow! 11 cups per meal plus 4 with each biriyani! That made it 40+ cups on the table. Hrishi thought out aloud “how many cups could probably be there in the kitchen?”. Haha. We had a good laugh wondering how many could really be there. After a pista flavoured ice cream and choco-bar we left the restaurant and headed towards Kalpetta.
Kalpetta is the District Headquarters of Wayanad. Beautiful place, with weird coloured houses. Seriously! Most of the houses were painted with jingbang colours and they all looked newly painted. I felt if you stare at the houses for too long, you’d probably go blind! Now, we were on a mission to find a place for us to stay. We called Pavithran, who is a trek organizer (or that is what I thought he is). But he couldn’t find a place for us. So we went to PPS tourist home for rooms, but they were full. And then we called a female called Fathima, who apparently rented out flats for tourists. She said those were full too. I felt homeless and lost in a city full of people whose language sounded like gibberish to me. We called a guy at PPS who helped us out and told us about a home-stay about 100 mts from PPS. We searched for the place for about 20 minutes. We couldn’t recognize the place even though we went past it about 4 or 5 times. Even the guys in the garage opposite to the home-stay didn’t know of it. Losers! Navu and Hrishi went in to talk to the Malyali kutties who owned the house. All they understood was Rs.2000 and Rs.1500. Hehe. Their language is pretty funny. I would have laughed on their faces if I was in Navu’s or Hrishi’s place. Later Sanju went in with Navu to do the final talk and came out with nothing. :P (No offence intended). It was the same deal. We had to pay them Rs.1500 for a night. After A lot of thinking, we decided to take the place.
“Iqbal Mahal” it was called. It really was a palace. It was a brand new house, with two huge bed rooms, a kitchen, a drawing room and of course a bath room. It also had a back yard, which looked freaky at night. It was around 4 pm and we all freshened up and got ready to break some rules. :P
It was finally time to click pictures and I bet Navu (the professional photographer) was the happiest! Hehe. We admired Mother Nature for about an hour and called it a day. We drove back to our home-stay, tired and strained. Sanju made us some Maggi and Egg bhurji (which I ate in spite of having quit eating egg) blended with pride :P .After burning some unwanted plants and highly spirited conversations, Navu and Sanju hit the sack. I turned on the TV and watched Roadies along with Su and Hrishi. I found a really comfortable sleeping bag. It was so soft and warm. I was fast asleep within minutes. Su and Hrishi stayed awake and stole the sleeping bag from me when they felt it was safe! Grrr!! Idiots!
Trip to Wayanad
Day 1: May 16th, 2008
Our trip began when we left from Navu’s place to Mysore. It was around 10:00 pm. Surprisingly, we were allowed to leave in spite of the lateness. And so we did. We reached our destination at around 12 am and according to Hrishi, we were “early”. So we decided to go to Chamundi hills. But then, Hrishi suggested we go to this place he had been to before, which was apparently a huge piece of land with a few abandoned houses and a canal. Navu seemed to be dead scared to go there. After lot of contemplation, she reluctantly agreed and we left.
We went about two kms away in the opposite direction and took a deviation to the canal. The place was deserted except for a Police jeep. We went in anyway. Omfg! It was the scariest thing I had ever seen! There were around 40-50 unoccupied houses not far from us. It was pitch dark and all I could see is that the houses had metal doors and windows that creaked and banged against the wall in the cold night air. It was a breezy night. Su and Navu refused to get out of the car but Hrishi insisted we go a little further and claimed that there was an interesting board in there. We went in, all of us clinging onto Hrishi. There we saw a board facing a wall so that it’s contents were hidden from view of the passers by. I went forward and read the board. A shiver ran down my spine and immediately I turned around and ran towards the car. The board read
Al-Huja housing and Burial Ground
Damn! Who could possibly take us to a graveyard so late in the night?! *%^^$% Hrishi!! Su wanted the car to be checked for maybe ghosts :P before we sat in. Haha. I gave the houses one last glimpse and got into the car. We sat in silence. I guess none of us could get over the fact that we had just walked into an effing graveyard, except Hrishi of course who seemed to find it quite normal. We reached home and had Sanju waiting outside for us. It was around 1 am. The bed was already made, for us to crash. But we decided to watch a movie instead. We watched a movie called “The man from Earth”. It was an excellent movie about a 14,000-year-old man. Gradually, everyone fell asleep and it was around 3 am when I slept looking forward to the next day.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)