Sauvik Biswas

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A short Jaipur trip Last November, I was informed by my good friend Firoze that AirAsia was running discounts on its flight to Jaipur during this time. I had impulsively booked the tickets. My only agenda was to meet him and have some fun along the way. My stay was only for four days, starting from Wednesday to Saturday. Hence, there wasn’t much I had planned to do. I was dead tired when I reached Firoze’s place and Jaipur’s heat kind of added to the effect. Needless to say, I slept through the entire Wednesday morning. Day 5: Nothing to see in Ooty We went to Connoor. All we saw were cliffs, valleys and generic tea estates. There is a small botanical garden called Sim’s Park which was in full bloom. Ironically, this smaller sister of Ooty’s Botanical Garden had better flora than its elder sibling. Some random shots of flowers to show off my camera. Some more camera-show-off stuff. Day 4: Caught a cold and a glimpse of Pykara at Ooty An overnight bus ride from Kodaikanal to Ooty # The bus journey from Kodaikanal to Ooty wasn’t particularly a pleasant ride. As soon as the bus descended to Palani, the heat and humidity made us feel uncomfortable. To top it off, the bus stopped at at least 3 places for over 30 minutes each time. The temperature dropped rapidly as soon as we ascended the hills again. When the bus reached Ooty, it was 4:30 am in the morning. The temperature was 12 degrees. The bus conductor said that we would get an auto easily. He was wrong. We abandoned any hopes of a vehicle and walked the 750 meters from Charring Cross to our hotel using Google Maps as our guide. Day 3: A trip to Berijam Lake Our hotel did not disappoint us with the breakfast. We checked out at 10:00 am. Prakash was late because he had gone to get permission for our visit to Berijam Lake and was stuck in the traffic. Meanwhile, I went around clicking some photographs. This strange and absurd sculpture was in the fields in front of our hotel. Bush and Bin Laden proxying as scarecrows? Day 2: Kodaikanal is not a place for site-seeing The unrestricted area of Palani Hills Forest # We hired a car for the entire day to roam around the forest. Our driver Prakash kept calling this trip ‘one-way’. I realised later that the trip was a round one-way trip. Maybe that’s why he called it so. Since this is the tourist season and today being a weekend, a lot of tourists had flocked into Kodaikanal from the neighbouring cities and towns. This made driving through the narrow and congested roads very difficult for Prakash. Still, it wasn’t as bad as Bangalore roads after office hours. Prakash stopped at various designated spots. These spots are well marked by the forest department. To tell the truth, Kodaikanal isn’t a place that has much historical or natural significance. Instead, it is well suited for a leisurely vacation. In fact, that’s exactly why this place was built. Day 1: Walking around Kodaikanal town Yesterday, it took us 122 minutes to cover a distance of 16 kms from my home to silk board. By the time we reached our boarding point, we barely had 15 minutes to gulp down some dosas and board the bus. The bus was supposed to drop us at Kodaikanal at 6:00 am today. Thankfully, it was late by two and half hours. We were not equipped to combat the early morning temperatures of 14-16 degree Celsius. Gakken's New Blocks: an alternative to Lego bricks Last Friday, I came across a bag full of building blocks in my colleague, Rueben’s apartment. It was gifted to his son, Rehaan, by a Japanese lady who used to stay in the same building. The blocks looked like this. There were a few wheelsets, too. There was a worn out instruction manual that made reading the actual name of the product difficult. The company that made it, Gakken, has a website but has such a diverse set of portfolio that I couldn’t find anything regarding the product at all. How much did my past trips cost? A lot of my friends and some colleagues have asked me how much my past trips cost. I do not have data from my North-East trip. Back then, I was piggybacking on Nandi and kept passive tab on the expenses. I had computed the cost of my Kerala trip after I had completed it. For three of us (me, mom and sister), I had spend about 27000 INR. This was significantly lower than a guided trip that one of my colleagues had done via some agency. Not to mention, we had lavishly spent on food. Lunches and dinners were always at some top rated TripAdvisor restaurant. Theft of bicycle accessories from my office parking lot Something unthinkable happened last evening. Someone stole my cycle’s headlamp and cyclocomputer display unit (along with its mount). All this happened while the bike was parked in the Xylem premises (where I work). The thief was not aware of the quick-release mechanisms in the mounts. As a result there were quite a few marks on my cycle’s handlebar. Thankfully these were not permanent scratches. I called up the security and lodged a report. Today, when I got to work, I found that the company which provided security had changed. It appeared to me that some security personnel from the older company thought that it was a good idea to accumulate some devices on his last day of work in the premises. While the headlamp can be used as a powerful torch, the cyclocomputer display unit is useless without the sensor which is still mounted on my bicycle’s fork. Chikka Tirupati Trip (no. 3) https://www.strava.com/activities/526809859 This was the third time that I had ventured towards Chikka Tirupati. The road from my house to Whitefield has improved. However, the road between Whitefield to Chikka Tirupati at present is doomed. There were segments which would put Paris-Roubaix’s cobbled roads to shame. In the wee hours of the morning, when the light was insufficient, my ride companion accidentally steered into a pothole and fell. He had minor bruises on his palms and one light scratch on his knee. The roads in Bangalore are too dangerous and it is advisable to mount a front light.