Here I am sitting at the Bangalore International Airport between departure gate nos. 8 and 9 waiting for my flight Indigo 6E-115 to Kolkata scheduled at 11.50. Reading from my laptop there’s still 90 minutes to go. I will have to publish the post later on. Not because there isn’t a Wi-Fi network available but because the password is sent to your mobile and unfortunately my cell has decided not to receive any messages for the moment. By the way, BIA is by far the best airport I have seen (not that I have seen many but still..) Mr. Mallya sure has spent a lot of money on this. The airport premises including the ground area is huge, really huge. But I’ll come to the airport later on.
I was a little anxious as to how will I reach the airport from Arakere which is easily 50 km away. Shared car hiring services like Airlift charge Rs. 338 but I knew about the buses to the airport – the Vayu Vajra Volvo Bus Services or the BIAS (Bangalore International Airport Shuttle) Bus Service. I had read on the internet that the service is pretty decent. But then I didn’t want to miss my flight, and my experiences with Government services have not been that great in the past. So for the 11.50 flight I left at 7 in the morning. Anyone who has been to Bangalore knows how the Auto Rickshaws loot the passengers. For 42.50 on the meter, I had to pay Rs 70. Anyways, atleast he dropped me to one of the BIAS pick up points. BIAS-5 was waiting. I was impressed. For once, I had underestimated the Karnataka Govt. I approached the bus conductor to find out that the bus would depart at 8 and reach the airport at 9.30. Wow! That was quite early for me. I could have easily taken the 9 am bus which would have, taking into account the increased traffic, reached by 11 at max. That way I could've had another hour's sleep. But then, this post might not have come!
By the way, the BIAS service is quite regular. There’s a bus every 20 and 40 min alternatively. I wonder how many people travel to the airport daily! I was impressed when as soon as my bus left at 8 sharp, another BIAS-5 came and took its place waiting for the next set of passengers! Now you would think a Volvo Bus fully AC with such a regular service must be expensive. No way! 150 bucks for my ride! Way cheaper than any other transport available.
Coming back to the airport, the main airport building is quite beautifully built. Bangalore at 10 in the morning is never hot. It is a pleasant day. In fact, awesome breeze was blowing just outside the terminals. I wanted to sit there and enjoy but then it was pretty deserted ..dunno why..Reminds me of the famous lines by Davies: "....we have no time to stand and stare"
BIA doesn’t have a separate X-Ray Baggage Check. Its done at the Check in counter itself. I liked the concept. Saves time and harassment. Also the airport is fully commercialized with big branded stores. The maintenance is great and I have heard the Wi-Fi is really cool. (Mental note to myself: Dont buy or recommend Nokia 3110c ever!)
Its 10.45 now and all seats around me are vacant. Suddenly it dawns upon me that this might be the last of Bangalore for the rest of my life. Yes, my internship in over. IIM is a nice place to spend your PG years. I totally loved the 2 months of my stay in Bangalore. With the great company of the "Hum Pathar" Banglore intern junta (Bajo, Bhanu, Gautam, Julio, Kanchi, Manu, Neel, Nonedone, Onshui,Purr, Subji), the awesome climate of Bangalore, our amazing trips, about which I have already written in detail – this has been the best summer till date and it isn’t over yet. I am going home to family and old school friends. Thank you God!
Also thank You for stopping by here and commenting from time to time.
This is probably the last post on this blog.
Sayyonara! Au Revoir! Adieu! Tchao! Goodbye!!
Will miss you Bangalore!
P.S: I shall continue writing on my other blog Zeitschreift. See you there!
Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts
Friday, July 3, 2009
Sunday, June 7, 2009
and Mysore it is!
Around 3 pm this Saturday afternoon, I was wondering what was I doing staring at this palace turned museum. It was a flop show, atleast for me. Allow me to take you down my memory lane as to how I reached there and what exactly was I doing there!
11 of us (God, the number is rising day by day!) boarded the 11.55pm passenger to Mysore at Bangalore City Rly St on Friday in the hopes of a great Saturday. An old guy from the nearby compartment tried to make our journey hell by forcing us to sleep and not talk. Now, no one could actually make the 11 of us sleep when all of us were so excited except for the fact that he complained the rly police. :(
While 6 of us did fall asleep the rest 5 didnt. We kept our conversations hushed for what was left of our 4 hour train journey. We even played hushed word building for quite a long time and it was gr8 fun. Seems like we can have fun in the worst of circumstances! :D
A little something happened during the night. We heard beeps. The sound wasnt familiar and the beeps were abrupt and arbit. For some time we ignored it. But it continued and sounded close enough. All of us checked our cell phones. Negative! This wasnt good. The train halted at a station and the beeps stopped instantly. All went quiet and then after a minute it happened again. A single isolated beep! We could have yelled bomb anytime now!!
But then we realised it was actually the cell of one of our sleeping friends beeping because the write message application was open and the cursor was blinking and beeping...
So we reached Mysore at 3.40 am the next day. Man, was it cold! It felt like winter had suddenly arrived without the fair warning of an Autumn and I once again had no shield except coffee. Anyways, we decided to wait for the sun at the station itself and sat down on the platform and played cards for about an hour. And guess what! to prevent cards from getting blown away we kept cards in a book and passed along. Jugaad! thats what we are great at :P
We set out for Chamundu hills and reached there at 6 only to find that the temple opens at 7.30
Now with nowhere to sit (and play cards) we started roaming around on our own, took few pics of the beautiful landscape views. The dense fog played spoilsport. The wind was freezening our bones. We finally queued up for the temple at 7.30. The atmo inside was so comforting. Bhajans were playing on stereos at just the right volume and sweet fragrances filled our nostrils. It felt really good.
After breaker, we went to the Karanji lake. This time I decided NOT to go boating. The weather had mildened by then. Walked through an amazing aviary at that place. Even white peacocks exist btw.
Another incident happened there. Few of the tree leaves caught spark and even the electrical wires short circuited. It was quite a blast. Scared us! Thank god it didnt turn into a forest fire. Second accident averted in the day..LOL at that..
The next stop was the zoo. The animals were sprawled across a 3.5 km long walk. Was a nice experience. But a tiring one. Anyways after that we went to the Mysore palace. It was beautifullt built but due to lack of energy we couldn't enjoy it. After the 1st palace we decided to skip the second one and sat down to play cards only to be asked to quit by a security personnel.
Then we had lunch. This was good. The food was quite satisfying, though expensive. Now we desperately needed sleep. It was also raining. So we headed for Srirangapatnam hoping the long drive would give us some rest and the rain would stop as well. Well neither happened. The drive wasnt long enough. And so we were in front of the Tipu Sultan's Summer Palace-turned-museum. As I said earlier, it was a flop show.
After that we retreated to a water shed nearby. This was the best place to be although did not look very attractive at first. Dipping your feet under water after a tiring day and poor weather could be so refreshing! We climbed into the water and onto the rocks and sat there rejuvenating ourselves..
Our last stop for the day were the beautiful Brindavan Gardens. Well maintained trees, shrubs, water fountains, artificial water falls, lightening...it has them all. The musical fountain was also worth seeing. Awesome!!!
Mysore was fun except for Srirangapatnam and we took infinite pics this time...and I mean it when I say infinite...over 300 in a single day!
11 of us (God, the number is rising day by day!) boarded the 11.55pm passenger to Mysore at Bangalore City Rly St on Friday in the hopes of a great Saturday. An old guy from the nearby compartment tried to make our journey hell by forcing us to sleep and not talk. Now, no one could actually make the 11 of us sleep when all of us were so excited except for the fact that he complained the rly police. :(
While 6 of us did fall asleep the rest 5 didnt. We kept our conversations hushed for what was left of our 4 hour train journey. We even played hushed word building for quite a long time and it was gr8 fun. Seems like we can have fun in the worst of circumstances! :D
A little something happened during the night. We heard beeps. The sound wasnt familiar and the beeps were abrupt and arbit. For some time we ignored it. But it continued and sounded close enough. All of us checked our cell phones. Negative! This wasnt good. The train halted at a station and the beeps stopped instantly. All went quiet and then after a minute it happened again. A single isolated beep! We could have yelled bomb anytime now!!
But then we realised it was actually the cell of one of our sleeping friends beeping because the write message application was open and the cursor was blinking and beeping...
So we reached Mysore at 3.40 am the next day. Man, was it cold! It felt like winter had suddenly arrived without the fair warning of an Autumn and I once again had no shield except coffee. Anyways, we decided to wait for the sun at the station itself and sat down on the platform and played cards for about an hour. And guess what! to prevent cards from getting blown away we kept cards in a book and passed along. Jugaad! thats what we are great at :P
We set out for Chamundu hills and reached there at 6 only to find that the temple opens at 7.30
Now with nowhere to sit (and play cards) we started roaming around on our own, took few pics of the beautiful landscape views. The dense fog played spoilsport. The wind was freezening our bones. We finally queued up for the temple at 7.30. The atmo inside was so comforting. Bhajans were playing on stereos at just the right volume and sweet fragrances filled our nostrils. It felt really good.
After breaker, we went to the Karanji lake. This time I decided NOT to go boating. The weather had mildened by then. Walked through an amazing aviary at that place. Even white peacocks exist btw.
Another incident happened there. Few of the tree leaves caught spark and even the electrical wires short circuited. It was quite a blast. Scared us! Thank god it didnt turn into a forest fire. Second accident averted in the day..LOL at that..
The next stop was the zoo. The animals were sprawled across a 3.5 km long walk. Was a nice experience. But a tiring one. Anyways after that we went to the Mysore palace. It was beautifullt built but due to lack of energy we couldn't enjoy it. After the 1st palace we decided to skip the second one and sat down to play cards only to be asked to quit by a security personnel.
Then we had lunch. This was good. The food was quite satisfying, though expensive. Now we desperately needed sleep. It was also raining. So we headed for Srirangapatnam hoping the long drive would give us some rest and the rain would stop as well. Well neither happened. The drive wasnt long enough. And so we were in front of the Tipu Sultan's Summer Palace-turned-museum. As I said earlier, it was a flop show.
After that we retreated to a water shed nearby. This was the best place to be although did not look very attractive at first. Dipping your feet under water after a tiring day and poor weather could be so refreshing! We climbed into the water and onto the rocks and sat there rejuvenating ourselves..
Our last stop for the day were the beautiful Brindavan Gardens. Well maintained trees, shrubs, water fountains, artificial water falls, lightening...it has them all. The musical fountain was also worth seeing. Awesome!!!
Mysore was fun except for Srirangapatnam and we took infinite pics this time...and I mean it when I say infinite...over 300 in a single day!
Monday, May 25, 2009
Nilgiris...!
Another weekend at Bangalore and we, the lukkha interns, set out for Ooty!
We reached Ooty Saturday morning at 7 after an awful 8 hour bus ride. Without any woolens and draped in only a half sleeve T-shirt and jeans, I was shivering amidst the cool morning air. We booked the cheapest lodge around and dumped ourselves on d bed wid memories of d bus journey almost luring us to sleep. But the prospect of sight-seeing was more enticing! After freshening up and a light breaker we set out for the Rose Garden on foot.
It was a long walk and not helping at all in reducing my exhaustion..But as I entered the garden the smell and sight of a million roses captivated me. Welcoming us in, there were a chariot and a peacock decorated with roses. It was beautiful. The whole garden had roses planted on either sides of the passageway with weird labels to each of them. Some of them were quite ironical, others humorous and while the rest seemed logic-less! We took a few pics here and there before we set out for the Botanical Garden, again on foot.
Once we reached the famous Botanical Gardens there was a long queue, discouraging us from getting inside. We ditched the plan to see the Garden and retreated, only to move towards Dodabetta peak, the highest peak of the Nilgiris.
After a couple of kilometers of walk and futile attempts at hitch-hiking, we realized that there was no transport to Dodabetta from our present location and we had to go back to the town bus stand for conveyance, which was quite far. Thus, we postponed our plans of Dodabetta to the next day and this time, wisely enuff, booked a Sumo for the 7 of us for the next day which would take us to Pykara as well.
Having nothing better to do we set out for the Ooty lake and boat house expecting to finally find a place to sit on the lakeside. Hence, we started out..again on foot for a 3-4 kilometer walk..Having walked for atleast 10 kilometers from the moment we reached Ooty, we found a place near d lake to sit and relax. We played cards..and it was awesome. The fitting end to a not-so-good beginning. The next 3 hours flew by and were total fun. The weather didnt dissappoint us either. After the amazing evening, we returned to our lodge and I slept like a horse.
Sunday morning we set out for Pykara at 9 on the Sumo we had booked for the day. We saw the Golf course in the passing, and later stopped at Kamraj Sagar Lake. It was a nice lake bordered by pine forest and was below road-level meaning that we had to descend quite a steep slope to reach there. We clicked a few pics and returned to the Sumo.
The next stop was the 9th Mile Wenlock Downs. It was basically an undulating hill covered with grass and very good scenery providing excellent scope for more pics :P
Then we went to the Pykara falls and the Boat house where we did boating. Our return journey took a lot of time coz of heavy traffic. We passed our times singing songs: old songs,new songs, love songs,sad songs, happy songs,arbit songs, bad songs, more songs :D
By the time we reached back Ooty, it was past 5 and we had to skip Dodabetta (was it jinxed!?)
We settled for in a CCD outlet and occupied the corner couches. I had Irish coffee and Choc Fantasy with ice-cream and choc sauce. We stayed put at CCD till 9.30 gossiping and watching the DC innings of the IPL final.
On our way to the bus stand we suddenly realised we had to buy the famous Ooty flavoured tea and home made chocolates. In desparation, and due to shortage of time we grabbed watever was nearest at hand and boarded our bus. How was the journey back? Don't even get me started on that!
Overall it was an awwessuuumm trip!!!
P.S:Thanx to Bajo, Fengshui, Mayhool, Manu, Nandu n Subject (in alphabetical order)!!
P.P.S: i ll post links for the pics in the comments soon..
We reached Ooty Saturday morning at 7 after an awful 8 hour bus ride. Without any woolens and draped in only a half sleeve T-shirt and jeans, I was shivering amidst the cool morning air. We booked the cheapest lodge around and dumped ourselves on d bed wid memories of d bus journey almost luring us to sleep. But the prospect of sight-seeing was more enticing! After freshening up and a light breaker we set out for the Rose Garden on foot.
It was a long walk and not helping at all in reducing my exhaustion..But as I entered the garden the smell and sight of a million roses captivated me. Welcoming us in, there were a chariot and a peacock decorated with roses. It was beautiful. The whole garden had roses planted on either sides of the passageway with weird labels to each of them. Some of them were quite ironical, others humorous and while the rest seemed logic-less! We took a few pics here and there before we set out for the Botanical Garden, again on foot.
Once we reached the famous Botanical Gardens there was a long queue, discouraging us from getting inside. We ditched the plan to see the Garden and retreated, only to move towards Dodabetta peak, the highest peak of the Nilgiris.
After a couple of kilometers of walk and futile attempts at hitch-hiking, we realized that there was no transport to Dodabetta from our present location and we had to go back to the town bus stand for conveyance, which was quite far. Thus, we postponed our plans of Dodabetta to the next day and this time, wisely enuff, booked a Sumo for the 7 of us for the next day which would take us to Pykara as well.
Having nothing better to do we set out for the Ooty lake and boat house expecting to finally find a place to sit on the lakeside. Hence, we started out..again on foot for a 3-4 kilometer walk..Having walked for atleast 10 kilometers from the moment we reached Ooty, we found a place near d lake to sit and relax. We played cards..and it was awesome. The fitting end to a not-so-good beginning. The next 3 hours flew by and were total fun. The weather didnt dissappoint us either. After the amazing evening, we returned to our lodge and I slept like a horse.
Sunday morning we set out for Pykara at 9 on the Sumo we had booked for the day. We saw the Golf course in the passing, and later stopped at Kamraj Sagar Lake. It was a nice lake bordered by pine forest and was below road-level meaning that we had to descend quite a steep slope to reach there. We clicked a few pics and returned to the Sumo.
The next stop was the 9th Mile Wenlock Downs. It was basically an undulating hill covered with grass and very good scenery providing excellent scope for more pics :P
Then we went to the Pykara falls and the Boat house where we did boating. Our return journey took a lot of time coz of heavy traffic. We passed our times singing songs: old songs,new songs, love songs,sad songs, happy songs,arbit songs, bad songs, more songs :D
By the time we reached back Ooty, it was past 5 and we had to skip Dodabetta (was it jinxed!?)
We settled for in a CCD outlet and occupied the corner couches. I had Irish coffee and Choc Fantasy with ice-cream and choc sauce. We stayed put at CCD till 9.30 gossiping and watching the DC innings of the IPL final.
On our way to the bus stand we suddenly realised we had to buy the famous Ooty flavoured tea and home made chocolates. In desparation, and due to shortage of time we grabbed watever was nearest at hand and boarded our bus. How was the journey back? Don't even get me started on that!
Overall it was an awwessuuumm trip!!!
P.S:Thanx to Bajo, Fengshui, Mayhool, Manu, Nandu n Subject (in alphabetical order)!!
P.P.S: i ll post links for the pics in the comments soon..
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