It is especially rare when one's plan and execution of it fall in place exactly... and this kudremukha trip was one such rare occasion where the execution did follow the plan...
In my previous post, I'd described about the plan to kudremukha and nearby places we (5 friends) wanted to visit. We had decided on the following places to visit - kudremukha, sringeri, hanuman gunDi jalapatha, gangamoola, Jamalabad fort, and horanaDu. Of-course there was "bhadravathi Nature camp" but we had dropped it since we had decided to stay in a home-stay at kudremukha itself.
The Friday, 29th of October 2010, morning started as usual. I wasn't exited. In-fact I was still skeptical about the trip. Since my group is famous for canceling the shows at the 11th minute, I wasn't still sure that I'd be going to the trip. Anyway, I left office at around 5:30 PM and reached home at around 6:15 PM. No major traffic jams. So the travel time was surprisingly lesser! As soon as I reached home, I called up the travel agent and asked him to give me the cab driver's mobile number. The reply I got from the agent was shocking and brought immediate anger to me. I was told by the agent that I'd not booked the cab though I'd booked the cab in advance (2 days prior to our planned departure from bengalooru). When I argued that I'd already booked for a Toyota Qualis on so-and-so date and time, he asked for a few minutes' time and hung up the phone. After a while, the agent messaged driver's number to my mobile. And I took care of the rest. So the first task for the evening was done.
The next task was to get ready. I had to go out and buy a few things - medicines, snacks, etc. etc. Once I finished doing all that, I returned home, had dinner, and then started packing clothes for the 2 day trip. I had actually bought a lot of snacks for a mere 2 day trip with a 5 member group. And moreover all these snacks were deep fried items. Nevertheless I didn't want to see my friends or myself go hungry anytime during the trip, so I packed as many snacks as possible in the bag though most of them weren't necessary. The snacks itself had taken more than half of my 50 liter backpack space! In the remaining space I stuffed all the required clothes, toiletries, water, and also a pair of shoes for trekking. Now I was still left with my DSLR camera kit with no space in the 50 liter backpack! I decided to take my other 40 liter backpack, stuffed in my DSLR camera kit (1 D40x camera body, 3 lenses - 18-55mm lens, 55-200mm lens, and 70-300mm lens, lens cleaning materials, lens filters, charger, and a tripod). By the time I finished doing all these things, it was around 9:45 PM!
My friend, S, had called me up at around 9:20 PM. The cab had picked him up and they were moving towards the next pickup. P was picked up next and then the 3rd pickup were R and S. Mine was the last pickup and I was the 5th person to get into the cab. When I boarded the cab it was around 10:30 PM. And so did the cab start towards its actual destination.
In the day P and I had decided that the best trip circuit would be to go to sringeri first and then cover the rest of the places - hanuman gunDi jalapatha, gangamoola, Jamalabad fort, kudremukha and horanaDu - in the same order. It was early morning, 530 hours on 30th of October 2010 when we reached the sacred town of sringeri. Immediately P and I booked a hotel room, and then one by one we all got ready, visited the temple, had breakfast and returned to the hotel to wake up the driver who was happily sleeping until then. After the driver woke up, we gave him enough time to get ready, and have breakfast. The time was around 10:30 AM when we started from sringeri towards hanuman gunDi jalapatha.
In the wee hours of Saturday morning an incident had happened. We were in the verge of going off-road and hitting tree(s). But then somehow we had escaped unscathed. The reason for this was the sleepy driver and his high speed cornering at around 100 Km/H, even in hairpin corners. The vehicle had almost lost control - the front left and the rear wheels were completely off-road and the only wheel/tyre that had any control of the road was the front right one. The driver somehow managed to pull the vehicle back on the road and he continued driving towards our sringeri. Though we were angry and scared we didn't say a thing. The driver too, I guess, understood the seriousness of his mistake! From then on he drove carefully and well within the speed limits. So the rest of the journey was safe and sound without any bad incidents or any accidents.
The Friday, 29th of October 2010, morning started as usual. I wasn't exited. In-fact I was still skeptical about the trip. Since my group is famous for canceling the shows at the 11th minute, I wasn't still sure that I'd be going to the trip. Anyway, I left office at around 5:30 PM and reached home at around 6:15 PM. No major traffic jams. So the travel time was surprisingly lesser! As soon as I reached home, I called up the travel agent and asked him to give me the cab driver's mobile number. The reply I got from the agent was shocking and brought immediate anger to me. I was told by the agent that I'd not booked the cab though I'd booked the cab in advance (2 days prior to our planned departure from bengalooru). When I argued that I'd already booked for a Toyota Qualis on so-and-so date and time, he asked for a few minutes' time and hung up the phone. After a while, the agent messaged driver's number to my mobile. And I took care of the rest. So the first task for the evening was done.
The next task was to get ready. I had to go out and buy a few things - medicines, snacks, etc. etc. Once I finished doing all that, I returned home, had dinner, and then started packing clothes for the 2 day trip. I had actually bought a lot of snacks for a mere 2 day trip with a 5 member group. And moreover all these snacks were deep fried items. Nevertheless I didn't want to see my friends or myself go hungry anytime during the trip, so I packed as many snacks as possible in the bag though most of them weren't necessary. The snacks itself had taken more than half of my 50 liter backpack space! In the remaining space I stuffed all the required clothes, toiletries, water, and also a pair of shoes for trekking. Now I was still left with my DSLR camera kit with no space in the 50 liter backpack! I decided to take my other 40 liter backpack, stuffed in my DSLR camera kit (1 D40x camera body, 3 lenses - 18-55mm lens, 55-200mm lens, and 70-300mm lens, lens cleaning materials, lens filters, charger, and a tripod). By the time I finished doing all these things, it was around 9:45 PM!
My friend, S, had called me up at around 9:20 PM. The cab had picked him up and they were moving towards the next pickup. P was picked up next and then the 3rd pickup were R and S. Mine was the last pickup and I was the 5th person to get into the cab. When I boarded the cab it was around 10:30 PM. And so did the cab start towards its actual destination.
In the day P and I had decided that the best trip circuit would be to go to sringeri first and then cover the rest of the places - hanuman gunDi jalapatha, gangamoola, Jamalabad fort, kudremukha and horanaDu - in the same order. It was early morning, 530 hours on 30th of October 2010 when we reached the sacred town of sringeri. Immediately P and I booked a hotel room, and then one by one we all got ready, visited the temple, had breakfast and returned to the hotel to wake up the driver who was happily sleeping until then. After the driver woke up, we gave him enough time to get ready, and have breakfast. The time was around 10:30 AM when we started from sringeri towards hanuman gunDi jalapatha.
In the wee hours of Saturday morning an incident had happened. We were in the verge of going off-road and hitting tree(s). But then somehow we had escaped unscathed. The reason for this was the sleepy driver and his high speed cornering at around 100 Km/H, even in hairpin corners. The vehicle had almost lost control - the front left and the rear wheels were completely off-road and the only wheel/tyre that had any control of the road was the front right one. The driver somehow managed to pull the vehicle back on the road and he continued driving towards our sringeri. Though we were angry and scared we didn't say a thing. The driver too, I guess, understood the seriousness of his mistake! From then on he drove carefully and well within the speed limits. So the rest of the journey was safe and sound without any bad incidents or any accidents.
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