Trip to Dandeli - The start of the journey

Before I start, I want to dedicate this post to Sowparnika. Had I not seen her comment in the previous post, I wouldn't have started writing this now.

Continuing from the previous post: The 8 of us met on the Rani Chenamma Express train and exchanged pleasures. And of course plans. Because of which we finally realized who's coming back from Dandeli when! :)

We found our seats and started cribbing about the stink from the adjacent toilets. The benefits of booking tickets online. It always allocates tickets from the outside to the inside. That means the chances of getting seats near the toilets at either end of the bogie is almost certain.

While we were at it, a familiar face came and stood beside us stretching his/her hands. Could you guess? I'm not sure if Eunuch is the right word for them (because I just did a look up of Eunuch and now I'm unsure). I said familiar because we had encountered the same person when I made my last trip to Cochin (for my alleged Bachelor's Party). And something really funny (not for the hero of the story) had happened.

I'll quickly recall what happened that night. Yes, it was around the same time that night on Trivandrum Express I think. This person came up to us and asked for money. None of us gave any. This person was facing my friend - Guru and I was behind this person. Guru and I could see each other. When that person was pestering Guru, I couldn't help but giggle. You know, smile spreads like wild fire sometimes. And this is exactly what happened.Guru couldn't help and started giggling too! That person got really annoyed and slaped him on his face and ran away! Yes, our hero was slapped by him/her! And none of us knew what to do!

Back to the current story. This time, we didn't want to take any risks and specially when Guru was still with us on the train! We gave some petty coins and sent the villain away!

The train started moving on time and we had begun our journey now. I made an announcement saying that I had done an search on Google just before I left home. I wanted to know which platform at the Bangalore City Railway Junction this train starts from. I searched for Rani Chennamma Express on Google (and not Bing this time because I was using Google Chrome). In the first page itself, I saw this link, which basically gave the news of the train derailing at Kakol earlier this year. It happened between 4 and 5 AM. It was thrilling for a few seconds and we all just at each other and jovially decided to wake up at 4 AM just in case! :)

Most of us had dinner before we left our homes, so we didn't order any food on the train. But after some time - after talking nonsense for about a couple of hours - we were naturally hungry. One of us had brought a big cover of puffed rice with masala which kept us going for the next half an hour. We finally gave up and went off to sleep among all the cockroaches on the roofs and walls and rats on the floor!

Fast forward to the morning, because I don't remember what I dreamt! :) We all woke up when we were close to Hubli. We had to get down at Alnavar, which is 2 stations away from Hubli. I opened Google Maps on my Blackberry Bold and kept track of the distance of the train from Alnavar. Time pass activity until we reached there. It is so hard for guys to keep away from their gizmos. I could have enjoyed the early morning scenery from a moving train but I was more happy to find geo-stationary satellites finding my phone more often that Guru's! Silly boys!

Trip to Dandeli - Part 1

The List
Dandeli was in my list of places to visit for a long long time. Never had the time to spare or the courage to drive that far (It is about 500 km from Bangalore).Finally, I got a chance to strike it off this week. My friends and I made a quick trip to Dandeli for 2 days this week and it was an activity packed trip.

The Planning
As usual, the plan for this trip started 3 weeks ago. How to go? Where to go? Who all to go? When to go? Where to stay? What to do? and the sorts.

We had a Monday and a Friday off this week and thought that if we took the Tuesday, Wednesday and the Thursday off, we will have 10 days of leave and we could have a lot of time at hands to visit a lot of places. But due to many reasons, we had to cut down the trip to just 2 days - on Tuesday and Wednesday. Funny, as most people go on vacation when they have holidays. I actually applied for leave and went on a vacation and chose to stay at home during the holidays (Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday). But I think it is good to get our minds off office once in a while like this.

We first made up a list of all the places where we could stay in Dandeli. After a few email discussions, we settled down on one that was of moderate cost, not too high, not too low and filled with just enough activities for 2 days.

We initially thought of going by car and have a 5 day fun filled road trip. But the rain havoc across Karnataka made us rethink this situation. Finally, we settled down for buying tickets on our favorite Indian Railways. Cheap and convenient. If we had gone by car, we would have spent about 2,500 INR per head as against 500 INR that the Indian Railways charged. And not to mention the strain of driving and the waste of days for travel (we don't prefer to drive by night usually as it is risky - specially during rainy days).

The Confusion
A couple of our friends had to return back on Thursday, one of them had to return back by Friday and the rest were free till next Monday. Though we all knew when we were going, there was a confusion as to who would return back when. It was when we all met on the departing train, that this confusion was cleared. 5 of us decided to return back by Thursday morning and the rest, by Saturday morning. The 3 decided to go to Jog Falls from Dandeli and then come back on a train from Shimoga.

I will pen down the rest in Part 2 and Part 3.