Venakatagiri - Shangrila of Andhra

Question 1: Mix 1 ounce of food +
2 ounces of water +
3 ounces of bonding +
4 ounces of fun +
5 ounces of laughter +
6 ounces of drinking sewage water +
unlimited ounces of jokes, leg-pulling, cheering up = What do you get?

Question 2: Mix excitement of a bond movie, style from Thalaivar Rajnikath, curves from A.Jolie, sensuality from Madonna, class from Kamal, originality from A.Kurosawa, Masala from Vijay...what do you get?

Answer: You get Venkatagiri 4!

wooosh! What an ideal treak it was over the weekend for Venkatagiri 4!
First off, I feel so sorry for the folks who dint make it. Everything turned out to be at its best: weather was purrrr-fect through out! We dint even need the bed-sheets during the night! Ye guys should be kicking yourselves for not Venkatagiri-ing :-(

Heroes of the Trek: Chencu, Andhra Naveen. More about them later!

3 cars, a bike and 16 CTC peeps with enthu oozing out of their ears were zipping onto Venkatgiri early Saturday. Majority were new-comers and first time CTC trekkers. Ice-breakers were dime a dozen and bonding happened very early on!
Like our cars for instance: we had a scorpio, a santro and an A-Star: more about the A-Star later :-)

Blooper 1: Many time, Radha (one of the Scorpio gang) would call us and plod us to driver faster, Scoprio had zoomed past ahead and awaiting for the slow-pokes to catch up. To our amusement, we found out during all these times Scoprio was actually behind us and the tortoises had to wait for the hare :-)

Breakfast of different kinds of buns and cheese at a scenic drive

Blooper 2: While stopping for breakfast, Mohan (A-Star owner) drove into a small ditch and got stuck, and car was precariously placed. Couple of inches more and it would have toppled! After 10 minutes of struggling and bombardment of advises from all people on how to get the car of ditch (most of them never having driven a car, so naturally they had to give out driving tips), Mohan made it out of the ditch!

A very nice, calm place for breakfast. We saw couple of cranes and a birds nest on a lone tree on the sceneic place we had stopped.

Onto Naidupet, and our maps went for a toss! There was absolutely no relation to the map and route we were taking :-)
We reached Venkatagiri, hooked up with Chenchu and onwards for the trek!
People unanimously voted for above-medium difficulty trek than the relatively easy one. And the above-medium trek it was!

After walking thru agricultutal fields, dry river beds, thorny\balmy forests, we reached base of the mountain.
Onto the climb with constant jokes and leg-pulling. After couple of hours, half the new folks were repenting why they came to the trek! It might have been above-medium diffulty per CTC standards, but definetely difficult for a CTC newbie. Was worth this and more in the end though!

Couple of people in the gang were having a very tough time climbing up in the beginning itself. They completed the trek thanks fully to Vitamin C (Chenchu) and Vitamin A (Andhra Naveen). Their constant, unrelenting motivation, egging on and prodding made everyone complete the trek! And for this, C & A were heroes of the trek! Question: Why are ALL Andhra folks so nice, helpful, humble, respectful? Its always a shock for someone who's been born and brought in Chennai! (yours truly)

Breaking for lunch and having masala vadas and veg briyani and so many jokes (some I cannot name here, lest I be banned from CTC!) we ran out of water. eep! The guides went ahead to get us water. What is a difficult trek to a city dweller, is a walk to get water for them!

Blooper 3: We carried huge amounts of food and ate only like 50% of stuff we brought. Criminal wastage on our parts :-(

The terrain so far was rocky, thorny, lots of plants. There were shades hither and thither so the hot sun was honestly not that big an issue.

Onwards and we hit a beautiful small pond that was made for Gods. Thought I'd Died and Gone to Heaven. Purfect setting of sweet water, cool rocks, complete shade, honey bees zipping about, tired CTC trekkers replenshing their energies....this place was heaven at its best.

We were climbing for few hours now, and real fun began afterwards. Nature dared to show its pristine best to us in very, many places from here!
Couple of land-slides in the distance, unbelievable shades and hues of greens and yellows down below, sheer drop to the valley inches away from us, outcropping of a rock sticking out in the sky, crystal clear sky pregnant with twinkling stars....... I can go on!
It got dark round here, first thing we noticed was forest fires in the near-distance. It was breath-taking to watch them.

Blooper 4: Four brave souls and couple of gudies ventured ahead in the darkness and trekked on a most difficult, dangerous curve. We stuggled for 20 mins on this bit, there was no trial, recent fires had burnt the grass to ash which made it very slippery, trees were very weak and dangerous to hold onto.... somehow we managed to cross this bit and to our chagrin found rest of the folks came thru an alternative, very easy route! Is there no justice in this world?

We reached a flat surface and laid down for rest of the gang to catch up. It was a wonderul, clean night and plethora of stars were twinkling brightly. Sky was made-to-order for a Discovery Channel Documentary!
From here-on, it was pitch dark. Out with the lights and the most dangerous last bit. Rocks were small, unstable, some places there was none: you had to hop-skip and jump! Long grass on the rocks made it very slippery and difficult to get a grip. We made it to the top and what a night and sight! Couple of old, abandoned, derelict buildings, tall grass, weather as perfect as you could imagine, soft grass to make your beds softer. People crashed after a quick dinner.
hmm....dint know so many young folks snore.

Early Morning on Sunday and a beatiful sunrise. Some brave souls ventured to a a very scenic hill behind the place we bedded. It was a trekkers delight! It was more an outcropping of rocks hanging in the middle of nowhere, a single big tree and beatiful drops to the valley all around!
We finally made the difficult decision to head back. Getting down was scary and dangerous, general consensus was most of us would not have climbed up if there was daylight and folks saw what a sheer drop it was couple of inches away from the trail.

We made it down to the bottom, and people were so thirsty that they began to drink seewage water, the only water source available!
Balaji took the cake: folks decided to test it out on him, he drank the seewage, heaved a sigh of relief and started yucking!
"Yenna Kodumai Saravanan idhu, vaandhi varudhu!"

Back to starting point, and some of decided to head over to a nearby dam for a dip. Fresh, clean, sparkling water that was cool!

Water came from nearby river\waterfall and was extremely pleasant for aching muscles and joints!

Bloopers, bloopers and more bloopers when getting down! And some jokes and incidents:
* Karthik hurt and scraped few boulders when he decided to play slide on rocks. We had to bandage his hand.
* Radha skipped and almost fell to the valley, but smartly thought of catching a nearby tree and swinging onto it and making a full 360 degress back to safe ground. She wanted to look like South Indian heroines dancing around the trees, but general opinion was she looked more like Tarzan of the Apes!
* Balaji and Andhra food dint go together (really, even though his name was Balaji!) He puked we-all-forgot-how-many-times!
* Naveen (Karnataka) was constantly fighting with his girl over cell throughout and keeping everyone entertained. He was very nice company to yap with.
* Laksh was christened Arab Sheik\Sheik for wearing a long kercheif on his head. Wish I also had the oil money! I was made to enact the famous tamil comedy about Kalla-Thoni-Gaja!
* Balaji (youngest in the gang, 23 years?) was the source of many leg-pulls and jokes. He was a real sport and took it in his stride without a winch
* Dilip (oldest in the gang, 46 years?) was full of jokes and wit, constanly pulling everyone's leg and keeping it lively. People were ROFL with his on-the-spot comic sense
* Shyam played the cool dude from city, wearing a fancy hat that did nothing to block out the sun.
* One dude was almost made to wear Geetha's pink-girly cap!
* Radha scared the heck out of all of us with her hair-style: leaves and branches dropping down from her hair
* Geetha scared whatever was left when she decided to comb and make-up her hair. Balaji shouted out of fear!
* Big Blooper:  Couple of vehicles left early after trek got over. Remaining vehicles left after few hours and reached chennai at 11PM. Should have left together with hindsight.
* Mohan played the cool-dude. When we took a dip in the dam, everyone mistook him for a crocodile lying on banks of a river. He really did look the part though :-) Good for him people dint pelt him with stones, maybe we could've made a quick buck showing the killer croc to natives. Mohan was a real sport, no airs about him, friendly and very easy to converse with.
* Yuvraj was the perfect and suave gentelman. I laughed the hardest with him, never have laughed so much with anyone else!
* Wipro Ravi was the savior: he carried couple of extra bottles on way down and distributed it to people in dire need. First time trekker but he was easily one of the fittest in the gang
* Sukumar was saying he came to the trek without informing his wife! The wife was thinking he was relaxing at a beach, drinking beer with friends! While he decided to scoot off and come a-trekkin'
* One of the girls was christened "Cat" as everyone thought she was trekking like walking the ramp on a fashion show. It was later said walking the ramp is her long term goal and walking on rocks will help. Go figure.
* Saravanan repented bringing his Cowboy hat. Everyone wanted a piece of it! And a bunch of folks wanted to borrow his cool hiking stick for couple of years.
* Andhra Naveen was a hero! He carried a huge log for few hours to base-camp so that it can be used as a flag-post! He constanly motivated, prodded people falling back, we couldn't have done it without him
* Pradeep played a super-duper sweeper role. He also somehow found Shyam's lost cell in the forest!
* For many questions, answer was simple. Couple of people are lagging far way behind, will they make it? Looks very dangerous, this dude already dead-tired, hope he's ok? We're out of water, what are we gonna do? Looks very dangerous and slippery, how are we gonna climb? We seem lost, is this right way? Who's gonna solve global hunger crisis and economic downturn? This last question was the only one that was not asked :-) But answer wuda been the same. "Checnhu is there right, he'll take care" was a very oft repeated answer during the trek. Chenchu on this weekend was Superstar Rajnikanth and PrajaRajyam Chiranjeevi moulded into one. Ever-helpful, kind, motivating, nothing could have got done without Chenchu being in the midst. He was very friendly and humble in doing all this, I think only Adhra people can pull it off like this! I'm not an Andhra dude btw

I could go on but I gotta wrap up sometime, a blog is gross injustice to all the fun, jokes and good times we had. A book is more justified!

One hell of a trip overall. People were already thinking of next trek and very many suggestions were discussed.

Some other interesting threads of discussion in the gang, but I digress. Thats something I'll mail to organizers later.

As I said in the beginning, folks who missed out: we completely understand and empathize if you are kicking your butts for not coming to Venkatagiri :-)
You missed out on some serious bonding with 17 swell-as-they-come trekkers!

Cheers,
Laksh

In This lifetime

Places I wanna see and Things I wanna do in this lifetime

(2) Camel Camp, Rajasthan
(3) Koh Tao, Thailand
(4) Great Barrier Reef, Australia
(5) Grand Canyon (One more time!)
(6) Macha Pichu
(7) Bay of Fires Walk
(8) Nam Ha, Laos
()Maldives, Lakshwadeep, Andaman

Ultimate Vacation:
(1) Chadar Trek - Ice Walk

My Thailand Trip

Thailand
Visited: Dec 2008
Places visited: Phuket, Phi-Phi, Pattaya

Suggested Itinerary:
* Visit Thailand if you wanna see nature, beaches, snorkeling, diving, etc.
* Skip Bangkok and Pattaya. Go directly to Phuket.
* Book your own hotel thru internet. I stayed at Royal Paradise Hotel, Phuket. Was very good.
* Make your plans after landing in Phuket, dont go thru the travel agent. It might sound fuzzy to make plans after you've landed, but this would work out best for you.

There are so many things to do in and around Phuket, you'll know what you want to do after going thru all that Phuket has to offer.

Day 1: Arrive at Phuket city. Check into hotel and sleep for some hours. Evening walk around Phuket city and finalize trip for next 2-3 days. Recommended is the 2-day, 1-night trip to Phi-Phi and Krabi, with overnigt stay at Phi-Phi. You have to bargain for the prices, dont go by whats on the brochures.
Once you've finalized the trip, spend some time at Patong Beach. I found it a joy to jog here. Night, go to your hotel via Bangla Road.

Day 2, 3: Take the Phi-Phi, Krabi tour. You can do your fill of Snorkeling, swimming in the sea, etc. If you wanna do diving, scuba diving, take an appropos trip. Phi-Phi is bang in the middle of the ocean, you travel by boat for ~2 hours into the ocean to reach Phi-Phi. Boat ride is very pleasant!

Day 4: You will be dead tired by now. Take it easy and take a customized Phuket City Tour. There are couple of good places near Phuket City. 2-3 places offering good views of a cape, beaches and a view-point. There's a snake show which was good. Rest of the city tour is crap and commercialized for tourists. Hang out at Patong beach or Bangla Road. Visit the A-Go-Go bar on Bangla Road, was good.

Day 5: ciao Thailand!



The place: Exotic place, laid-back beaches. Easy on your wallet! Land of smiles, very respectful & humble people.
Ocean, ocean all around, and bang out of nowhere stands huge cropping of rocks (islands). You can see this funda all over Thailand. It is blessed with plethora of islands.
Rains for 10 months a year, one of the greenest places I've seen. May and Decemeber are the off-rain months.
Famous for Massages. Google for it, this is not that kinda blog!

Food: Various cuisines available. Mainly sea-food. Many Indian restaurants. Do try out Thai Veggie food.

Currency: Baht

Visa: Available on arrival. But get it done before so as to skip the visa queue at Bangkok airport.

Bangkok: Big airport, reminded me of Hong Kong Airport, looked very similar
Pattaya: Give Pattaya a skip if you want nature stuff.
I suppose Bangkok-Pattaya would be the cheapest package. If cost is not the deciding criteria, skip this place. Very commercialized for vacationers.
Coral Island: They take you to do a 10-15 min Para-Gliding for ~20$. Was good, never tried it before! Take the water-dip, not as scary as it sounds.
Under-sea walk: Skipped. Seemed like a rip-off for ~1000 Baht
Coral Island Beach: A nice, small beach. You can spend 30 mins-1 hour on the waterfront. Lots of small bits of coral splattered on the land\water, hence the name of this island.
Alcazar Show: I Skipped. Transvestite show. Very popular with angrezis.
Nong Nooch Village: Was okay-okay. You can spend half a day if you have the time. Tis a botanical garden, nature village, and coupe of native Thailand cultural shows.

Phuket: Phuket is a small town\city, you’ve to fly from Pattaya to Phuket. ~ 2 hours flight.
Things to do in Phuket:
Patong Beach: I stayed near Patong beach, was a nice beach though a lil commercialized. But you can get lot of info here. Its also a central place in Phuket. Every place is walkable within Phuket City.
Bang La road is a famous, happening, partying place. Spend few hours on a leisure evening here. Navrang Mahal, a desi restaurant serves good food.

Tips:
Lots of 7-11 stores, buy water and other stuff from here. Much cheaper.
Take good slippers! Slippers have a better use-case on most of the days. Wear joggers on the day of walking around Phuket city.
Swimming trunks, swimming cap, coolers, sun-block must! Towels, I took from the hotel I stayed. Snorkeling masks are provided by agents wherever you go (phi-phi).