Date : Saturday 5th May, 2008
Time : some unearthly time before 6 O’Clock
rudely woken up by the alarm set on my cellphone, i groggily opened my eyes to see even the sun still sleeping… “reach there by 6″… these words started haunting me again when i tried but failed to keep my eyes open and immediately fell back on the bed…
Time : few mins before 6
my eyelids opened up on their own to reveal a clock showing “5.50” panic rushing through me i got up and woke my roommate up… about 10 mins later (by now we’ve established that i’m late to the bus stand) we’re pelting on the poor Bajaj Caliber to the Suburb
BTW, if you have not been able to comprehend why i was awake at this unerthly hour, well it was the day to go to Coorg – the land of Coffee upon the invitation of one of our friends, Muthu… he’d given strict instructions to be at the bus stand before 6 to catch the bus leaving at 6… well thats about the introduction to the trip…
Time : few mins after 6
parked my bike at some undesignated parking spot and ran into the bus stand thinking of all the shouting that i’d get from the guys… i run inside to find none of them on the platform… call nishu only to find out that i’d put myself and my bike at risk only to see these fellows sitting at the restaurant and having breakfast!!! anyways… news was that the 6 O’Clock bus left before 6!!!!!!!!! now whoever has heard of a bus leaving before time $#$)*#$
Time : well past 6
waiting waiting at the bus stand… trying hard not to look at the carcass of a dog that had earlier been run over by a bus… anyways…. so many buses came and went but not one to Virajpet (thats where we were supposed to reach)… finally around 7 an enquiry to KSRTC official and we realised that we could have taken a bus that was almost full now and ready to leave… anyways… we got into the bus and managed to find seats for all of us…
after quite an uneventful bus journey we reached Gonikoppa by around 9.30 and caught a private bus to Virajpet… waiting for Muthu to come and pick us up, we decided to have breakfast in a nearby restaurant… a breakfast of Puttu, peas curry and some other mallu specialities that i cannot pronounce… let alone pen down here… and then, along comes Muthu, in his Van (which was going to be our transport throughout coorg for the weekend)… we all crowd into the van… yours truly shoved into the dicky along with RC…
driving through the picturisque countryside of Coorg, we reached Turn View, a bungalow in a beautiful setting located just adjacent to a road turning on the highway… a nice, old style house, with tiled roof, wooden ceilings… muthu was pushing us to get ready to in a few mins to leave for sightseeing for the day… but for us, travel weary boys, we took more than a little time to get ready…
a bit of a wash, a little playing with his little niece, we were ready to hit the road for a sightseeing trip of Kodavanadu…….