Oh man, what fun And I did rappelling for the first time!

I like to plan my trips. But I have friends who don’t. Now when we travel together, is it easier for them to put up with me or vice versa? That’s exactly what I was to find out when I had been to Chennai/Pondicherry this weekend.

The challenges of traveling without advanced planning starts with tickets. All trains, buses and flights are packed on weekends and the travel guys make hay by ripping us off. So I wasn’t surprised when I couldn’t get tickets to and from Chennai when I tried booking a week before the trip. Eventually I left by the Friday afternoon Brindavan express to make up for unavailable tickets and left it to Uday, my friend & travel companion at Chennai to book return tickets from Pondicherry back to Bangalore on the 13th night. At the time of departure, the only information I received from Uday was that my return tickets were booked after he paid 40% over the regular price. However, it was only later that I came to know that the ticket he booked was from Chennai to Bangalore and not Pondy to Bangalore. Anyways, the plan was to visit Auroville, near Pondy where Uday had a friend (friends?) doing internship. That was the ‘plan’ in the broadest sense. I didn’t know the details until we actually got to Chennai, after which I was to realize that even he didn’t have any concrete idea of how to get there and where to stay. Nevertheless, I wasn’t expecting much cos I have known Uday since college

In such a situation I prepare myself for the trip by understanding the people I am traveling with, and the destination. I anticipated what it would be like, traveling without knowing where to stay or planning when and how to get to the destination. This is totally not how I am, so I packed for a rough ride by I taking only my 70-200mm and my Creative Zen Vision W. No wide angle, no tripod…nothing. Going to Auroville/Pondy and not carrying all my gear? Crazy? Yes, but sometimes we have to sacrifice opportunities when foreboding thoughts loom large

Getting to Auroville

The first half of my Chennai trip went fine. I stayed with an old friend on Friday, and we had a good time. On Saturday morning I called Uday and we mutually decided to leave for Pondy by 2 pm. I didn’t ask him where we were going to stay and how we were going to reach Auroville because I knew he wouldn’t know. So we met up at Thiruvanmyur and waited for an ECR bus. This is were express buses to Pondy have their last pick-up. On this particular hot afternoon, the stop was unusually crowded. But we kept each other good company and didn’t join the zillion other travelers in their frustration. Because of the crowd, we skipped one bus after the other, hoping that the next one would have vacant seats - but in vain. Imagine standing in the hot Madras sun at 3 in the afternoon (temperatures were crossing 40°C) with backpacks, ready to push and shove and fight for vacant seats. I was already feeling glad for having brought only one lens.

Finally we decided to board an express luxury bus which the junta avoided big time because of higher priced tickets. There were, of course, no vacant seats so we made ourselves comfortable wherever we found a place to stand. A loud, silly but funny Tamil movie was being played, and most of the folks traveling in their comfortable push-back seats were dozing away to glory. Luckily the bus was traveling at a decent speed and the blowing winds cooled down our sweaty bodies. We traveled this way for 2 and half hours. In spite of knowing that we could have done better than traveling this way, I didn’t feel a thing because I had predecided to travel without expectations

It was way past 6:30 and we were just about nearing Pondy. At that point of time, there were two things that occurred to me -

1. Auroville closes early, so if we had to get there and find a place to stay, we had to do so fast.
2. The road that deviates into Auroville from the highway comes before the town of Pondy.

I shared these facts with Uday, and we consulted a fellow traveler who advised us to get down from the bus shortly. Because of point #1, we knew it was too late to do any kind of sight-seeing in Auroville.

The bus conductor was kind enough to let us get off at the right place (which was a tiny hamlet of houses, shacks and shady places offering rooms). From the road sign we learnt that Auroville is 8 kms from the highway so we took a smart decision of hiring a bike. Our next best option, an auto, would have cost us 150 bucks. Meanwhile Uday had called up his friends who informed him that there were no rooms available at the ‘Bharat Nivas’ guest house where they were put up (inside Auroville). They told us to try another dorm called ‘Mitra’, which was supposedly close to Bharat Nivas. We grabbed something to eat at a rather pathetic shack, and then went looking for a bike to hire.

We found a shop bang in front of where we got off, and the ‘thatha’ at the shop told us that a TVS-50 moped would cost us 70 bucks per day and we took one gladly. Note: The TVS-50 is the coolest thing to ride off-road So we began our journey into Auroville. The roads were good, but it was getting dark and we had no clue where Mitra was. We just kept riding into the darkness, and on either side of the mud road we were surrounded by trees, trees and more trees. We were riding through sparsely populated country side. Finally, after numerous wrong turns, ‘just over there’ replies, misleading road signs and vacant looks, we found something that looked like a dorm. It was Mitra indeed, and the time was 8:o0 pm. En route we discovered the ‘Visitors Center’ and ‘Matrimandir’, the two main landmarks of Auroville. The Matrimandir was light up and quite a sight in the dark jungle, but since I was not carrying a tripod, I couldn’t get a good shot

Finding a room

Mitra was being manned by a chinki watchman. Mr Chinki had only one piece of information to give us - call this guy, Samrat, to book rooms. Where is Samrat? Chinki didn’t know. When will Samrat come? Chinki said probably around 9…maybe 10 and sometimes even 11. Are there any vacant rooms? Chinki was positive and optimistic about that, but he had no powers to give us one. I tried calling Samrat but the call just wouldn’t go through. So there we were, in the middle of nowhere, not knowing what to do. Another quick call to Uday’s friend cheered us because she too was positive about us getting a room at Mitra. Only problem was locating Samrat.

We thought it would be a good idea to find some grub instead of just sitting there and waiting for the missing dorm in-charge. But finding a restaurant meant risking losing our way again. Nevertheless in the spirit of adventure and hunger we retraced our steps till the ‘Visitor’s Center’. When we told our predicament to the watchman there, he gave us the best piece of news we wanted to hear at that time - The Visitor’s Center had a restaurant. We parked and walked in.

The Visitor’s Center is a stone building right out of some French town, and we had only firangs for company at the eat-out. We ordered some totally firang dinner, binged and rode back to Mitra filled and satisfied. Small accomplishments like this make life less boring The time was 9.30 and there was still no sign of Samrat when we got back. We began discussing the prospects of riding back to Pondy (another 15 kms) and looking for a room there. But since Uday wanted to meet his friends, we decided to stop at Bharat Nivas first.

Bharat Nivas turned out to be another secluded building in the middle of the jungle. Unique architecture, single cottages circling a main verandah and the use of earthly materials for landscaping made it a beautiful sight. We met the in-charge there and explained the situation. He was an acquaintance of Uday’s friends, who at that time had still not returned from wherever, so he was keen on helping us. Luckily there was a vacant room at Bharat Nivas itself. He let us take it for 420/-, instead of the regular price of 500/-, ‘because we were friends of Shivani’s’. Neat
So finally at 10 pm we got a place to crash. And when we entered the room, where we happy or what! The room was as beautiful as the exteriors. A fine ending to an adventurous evening. After a much needed shower, I joined Uday and his friends who had returned by now. We chatted into the night and crashed after 1.

Living it up Auroville

We had decided to to head out to the beach at 6. It had rained during the night, so at 5:30 am when I opened the door, I was greeted by the most beautiful morning ever. The air was cool, the air calm and the grass greener than ever. I hadn’t woken to a morning like this since my college days (when I had my room in a similar jungle). The girls and us got ready and headed out to the beach. We had good fun there, playing in the water and watching dolphins jump around in the sea (!). We returned by around 9 and after a sumptuous and relaxed breakfast at Bharat Nivas itself, we headed out to the Visitor’s Center to get passes to visit Matrimandir. The girls meanwhile got ready to leave to Pondy where they had decided to spend the day shopping.

Buying souvenirs at the many boutiques at the Visitor’s Center was on my agenda but unfortunately I didn’t find what I wanted because some of the shops were closed (being a Sunday). Having acquired the passes, and seeing educational videos of the place, we set forth to Matrimandir on our TVS-50. But were in for two surprises. Firstly, we weren’t allowed to take the vehicle anywhere close Matrimandir so we had to park it in a nearby building after buttering the watchman there. Secondly we realized after walking in that tourists weren’t allowed anywhere near the main building, let alone enter and see the crystal - the main attraction of the Matrimandir. It was a total let down, but we were glad that unlike the other tourists present there, we had seen the Matrimandir lit up in all its glory the night before. Again, I didn’t feel depressed about not having the tripod, because I was mentally prepared to trade a photo-op for foraying into an unplanned vacation. I wanted to challenge myself and not be me. And it worked!

The adventure never stops

If you thought that we were through with our adventure, you are wrong. Cos after seeing Matrimandir, we got back to our room, freshened up, vacated and headed out to leave Auroville only to find thatha missing from his seat back at the bike hire shop. We had planned to join the girls at Pondy, but the missing thatha ensured that we don’t leave for Pondy just yet. He had our deposit of 500 bucks and also Uday’s ID. We asked around but no one knew where the man had disappeared. It was 1:30 and hot as hell. A boy, who I think was his grandchild, came to help us out but even he couldn’t find thatha. The boy managed to find the ID card inside the shop where we had taken refuge from the heat but the 500 quid was yet to be returned. With no sign of thatha, it was time to take another decision on the fly - and since it was lunch time, we headed back into Auroville to eat. We had yet another firangi meal, and it was as delicious as ever. Back to the shop, we found thatha just returning, so we finished with the formalities and crossed the road to flag down a bus back to Chennai. We had decided to return to Chennai and skip Pondy. But it was not to get over that easily, cos no bus was willing to stop.

With no other choice but to go to Pondy left, we crossed the road again and boarded a bus that took us to the Pondy bus depot. And boy, was the bus depot a mess or what! There was absolutely NO information about which bus to catch and every bus going to Chennai was just overflowing with villagers. The ratio of men with pants (like the 2 of us) to men with lungies was something like 2:20 and we were feeling so bloody lost. Everyone around seemed anal about something or the otherso our questions yielded rude replies but no useful information. But we were, of course, riding high on the chill-pill so we maintained our cool Also, I had a 10:30 bus to catch from Chennai to Bangalore.

Finally by some sudden brainwave, I realized that we had to catch an ECR route bus to get back to Chennai the fastest. Uday stood in the mad queue and reserved tickets for the 5:50pm bus. Since it was only 4:30, we decided to visit the beach at Pondy, which was rather uneventful. Oh, we so lot of sloshed men. It was sad what Pondy had become. We saw more when we got back to the Pondy bus depot. They were puking all over and I think I don’t need to get more descriptive.

We boarded our bus at 5:50. The seats we had reserved where placed just after the back exit door, so we were comfortable. But only till the bus started. And it didn’t start easily because of a couple of villagers who created a scene about the whole reservation system. See, no one likes reservations. Basically this one dude didn’t understand that all who had seats had got them because they had made a ’seat reservation’ earlier. He was one of those people who jumped in from windows/threw in towels/pushed their children etc to reserve seats, and probably that is how he had got the one in which he was sitting. So he wasn’t ready to give it up to someone showing him a reservation ticket. It was quite a sight watching him defend his stand, and until the cops came, he wasn’t ready to let go of his seat. In fact, he wasn’t ready to let the bus go, threating to stop it unless he got his seat.

The bus finally left Pondy at 6:10, but we couldn’t sit back, relax and watch a movie on the ZVW as we had expected. The bus was stopping at almost every other village and people were boarding in hordes. So pretty soon the entire bus was jam-packed and even the ones sitting weren’t comfortable. It was turning out to look like a city bus, and we still had over 2 hours of travel time left. Nevertheless Uday and shared a joke about the situation every now and then, and about the number of drunk men we saw in one day. In fact, it was the number of people whom we saw throwing up, which was the highlight of the day. It was all funny until the kid standing next to me threw up. Yes, he puked. I’ll save the details, but it is worth mentioning that the sick kid was sitting on me for the rest of the trip. He grabbed the opportunity when I showed him a little bit of pity, and it wasn’t until 8:30 when the bus stopped for dinner an hour away from Madras that he let go.

So the Pondy trip ended with us traveling in an very uncomfortable bus, seeing too much puke but generally having a good laugh about the situation. The Pondy bus dropped me till Koyembedu from where I caught another bus back to Bangalore and reached home on the 14th fully refreshed and thankfully in one piece.

Sure, things would have been different if I had planned everything to the T, but I would have surely missed out on such an adventure. So I have no regrets. All’s well, ends well. Cheers to that

I got to try out the new version of Photoshop - CS3. I have been using PS from version 7 and the UI improvements in CS3 are more than welcome. In fact, it is interesting to note how the guys at Adobe have managed to make UI improvements within the given real estate. Everything is intuitive and I didn’t even need to look at the ‘What’s new’ section. What’s more, Digital Photographers have finally got a lot of what they’ll need in Photoshop - better B&W controls, improved Camera Raw etc. And it is interesting to note that ImageReady no longer ships with Photoshop. Has it been laid to rest?

Here is a snap that I worked on using Lightroom and the new Photoshop CS3. I am not pleased with the outcome (the original file itself was underexposed) but it’s me and not the tools to blame

Updated the snap with a better version

Stagnation is one thing I always fight in my life. I like the feeling of freshness and newness. Even if it means re-installing the OS on my comp for the n+1 th time But OS apart, I just upgraded my blog to WordPress 2.1. Lots of new features - one of them being the ability to import from old Blogger accounts. And yes, I imported all my posts from my first blog - All You Touch And All You See…

You can browse the Archives of this blog and read how I sounded couple of years ago. I miss the freshness of then

Talking of new, DigiComp replaced my motherboard with a new upgraded board. I have had the MSI K8N Neo4-F motherboard for more than a year now and it has given me more problems than I have patience for. When it died on me this time, I decided to just ditch AMD and go for a new Core2Duo (although the cost meant I would be staring at a bottomless pocket for months to come). Maybe God took mercy on me or maybe my smart idea of contacting the service guys myself (instead of the ass of a comp dealer that I have been going thro) worked, nevertheless the new Platinum version of the K8N Neo4-F is working like a charm and I am all happy

Did a bike trip to Mysore last weekend and that was a first in my life - my first real long distance bike trip. Nothing to brag about, but I am glad I did it. The photography experience was very rewarding as you can see on my Photo Blog.  I am currently looking to revamping my entie website and install a new gallery. I have to take my photography to the next level…Yes, this has been pending for long and I am running out of excuses….

I returned from my Himachal/Delhi trip on Monday night after a very delayed take off from Delhi. The weather was quite bad and I don’t think we could hold the airlines staff responsible for the delay. Even at 1 pm, anything beyond 100 mtrs was barely visible!

I have been totally disoriented for most of yesterday and today. The shallowness of office life is hitting me now and I feel an urgent need to escape from it. After having spent 10 days in the ‘real’ world I am back to corporate hypocrisy, faking deadlines, listening to managers with byte-sized IQs et-al. Of course, I could keep myself busy, but his 9-5 behind-glued-to-chair thingy is keeping me from the many things I have to do (like process 5 gigs of RAW files).

I am actually a tad bit disappointed because the snaps did not come as good as I expected. Let me say that again - the snaps are not up to the mark as per my expectations. I was hoping to do some Ansel Adams kinda magic but the cold and having to move along with the rest of the trekking group did not allow me to do quality photography. However my gear withstood the elements, and everything from the bag that I got stitched for my new tripod to my LowePro AW Orion Trekker came in handy during the rain and snow. That is something worthy of mention because when you have gear worth your life’s savings and are trekking in a jungle which can kill you with just the cold, you gotta have piece of mind. The only let down were those SterlingTek batteries. They did not last even as long as the regular Canon one. They are supposed to last longer because they are of higher capacity. I think I got duds. In any case this trip has been a good practice ground for a Leh trip which I am eager to do sometime next year. And this time I will not go with YHAI. With all due respect to the very capable field officers and camp leaders, I have certain hygiene standards which I’d like to maintain always and that was very difficult when there were 50 other people crammed in confined spaces. Sorry, even National Integration is not a good excuse for such overcrowding. I think I’ve seen enough of this in our unreserved compartments (read, bad loos). However the good part that came out of all this is the fact that I survived -1°C and learnt a few important things about warm clothing and backpacking.

Apart from the trek itself, the 2 days in Dharamshala and 3 days in Delhi were a blast. We were unprepared for that part of the trip too - we weren’t carrying extra empty bags! Both these places are shopping havens and I now miss not having shopped more Dharamshala is also a great place for street photography and this brings me to another crib - overhead wires criss-crossing all over the towns, country sides, jungles, highways…. These darn wires make the nicest of scenes ugly

Anyways, got to get back to work now. Hoping to complete processing the snaps and writing the catalogue by the end of this week.

Climbing to Kalatop. First signs of snowfall

…I leave Bangalore for the YHAI National Himalayan Winter Trekking expedition. As an inauspicious start, my flight has been delayed. I booked the 2:15 am Spicejet flight because I got cheap fares and now the flight has been postponed to 3:30. No sleep and that's bad for me. Nevertheless, I am saying my prayers and hoping for the best

My initial apprehensions about joining YHAI in Dalhousie kinda grew thanks to an overly idle mind and I frantically started looking for alternatives yesterday. Most websites offer customized trips, and that does not make sense when not travelling as a large group. We are only 2 as of now, so we have no other option but to join YHAI. I started asking around, mostly in Orkut, and I actually found more info there than anywhere else. Something I least expected, considering my natural dislike towards that site. I even found another guy who’s on the same trip, and interestingly on the same dates as mine. He’s been to the Saurkundi trip and his gallery’s got some interesting snaps. Something similar I am hoping to achieve on the Dalhousie trek. All photo galleries I’ve managed to google regarding this YHAI Dalhousie trip have been pathetic, to say the least, and that’s partly the reason for my apprehensions. Maybe I need to relax a bit The hunt for more info on how to make the trip better is on nevertheless.

There is another hunt happening parallely. It’s for my new camera. It feels like starting from scratch. I actually got to hold the 400D today, and I have to say that the new 2.5″ LCD is very nice and probably addictive. A real Chimper’s delight! I also got to handle the D80 today. It sure does make the 400D look like a toy. In fact, if you visit the D80 forums on DPreview, you’ll hardly find any imbecile posters, unlike the Canon forums. No fanboyism, no deep-rooted insecurity manifesting itself as ‘Canon is better than Nikon/I am jumping ship and moving to Nikon’ posts. The Nikon forum almost looks boring!! The reaons obviously lies in the fact that the D80 is a more mature camera, or at least that’s how it projects itself. The Canon 400D is the most likely choice for P&S upgraders, so you can understand why the average post on the Canon forum is more froth than beer. Or at least that’s my theory.

Anyway, I found the D80 to be a very good camera. Handling was superb, and the viewfinder was awesomely bright and clear. I am tempted to jump ship myself (no, I won’t go post this in the Canon forum :)), but at 66,000 bucks, the camera is waaaay beyond my budget. I can only afford a 45k Digital Rebel XTi But look at the bright side. This lower priced camera offers the best of features and Image Quality (IQ)!

The next few months is going to be hectic with lot of hunting, planning and researching. And oh, I bought a second hand Monopod today (Bogen / Manfrotto 680B (3249B))

PS: The chick Storm Large on Rockstar Supernova is HOT!!

I got the green signal from my boss yesterday so booked tickets for the Youth Hostels Association of India trek scheduled for December. The trek starts on the 24th, and will go on for 6 days. After mucho rearch, I concluded that it is best to avoid budget airlines that can't maintain a decent website. I am specifically mentioning GoAir. GoIndigo is good, and so is the trusty Spicejet. Booked my to ticket on Spicejet and return on GoIndigo. Spicejet fare was actually the least, a ticket to Delhi costing just 2k (but departure at some ungodly hour of 2 am). And anyone knows why GoAir calls itself a budget airlines? Their website (which didn't work well on Mozilla) showed tickets from Bangalore to Delhi at 10k. Even AirIndia is cheaper. What's up with that?

I have a couple of misgivings about the trip. I prefer small groups of people, so I wonder if 50 in a batch would make it fun. This number may also hamper my photographic oppurtunities. But who knows, maybe more the merrier. Also, I have to carefully plan on what camera gear to take. Suddenly the prospects of buying a wide angle sounds better than going for a zoom. But let me buy a camera first :p

I need to now research on:

1) Clothing - Thermal wear - where to buy (in Bangalore)? Brand? What other warm clothes?

2) Shoes - I have never seen snow, so I'd like to know which shoes/boots would be best for trekking on normal terrain and snow. Again, brand and where to buy (pref in Bangalore). I would be stopping over at Delhi, so purchasing this in Delhi also would be an option. 

Feeling very excited :D