Friday, 13th Nov, 2009 @7pm
I get a call from our spiderman (How do we call a man with Spidey???) asking if I am joining for the OTR on 15th Nov. There are guys going for the camp one day before. I can join them if I wanna camp or join Khan-saab, if starting on sunday morning.
Ha, the mentioning of the word CAMP rung a huge bell in my mind. I have been thinking of camping for quite some days and seems I got a chance now. I tell him, will join the guys for camp, call up Vijay & Vijay confirm things and all set.
Saturday, 14th Nov 2009.
I got ready, start my Honda (Activa!), curse the saturday afternoon traffic, crawl like a snake in between those traffic and reach Vijay's place by 3pm. I met Krishna there. Had a small chat (Quick meet!!) and bye bye to him.
Around 3:30pm we start from Koramangla, and reach the meeting spot @ 5pm. Met with Mr.Srinivas, Rajesh and Dwarak sir. On the way picked up Vijay's friend (Kempraj) from Hebbal.
Did a small shopping and started for the camp.
Traffic was manageable, but after crossing the Airport, it was simple empty. We entered the town at 6:30pm and made the first halt.
The plan was to have short eat and proceed to camp spot. Then cook and have dinner there. We had a new variety tiffin. Buns , the fried buns seems to be a famous dish of costal karnataka.
When we finished Swatik Vijay and Shakir joined us. Then we left the place at 7:30pm. When we took the deviation to the spot from town, this is how it was.
Dark, darker and darkest!!!.
We zoomed through those dark forest and reached the entry point to the spot. Now time to engage the hubs and be ready for the 4x4 to be in action.
Man in action
If not for Mr.Srinivas, I dont think we would have navigated ourselves to the camp spot so precisely in those dense dark forest. All we know was to follow the vehicle in front. The lead here was the
Explorer.
We park all the vehicle, get the torches, lamps ready and gather for the camp fire. Our Srinivas comes and here is the conversation.
S: Please be careful not to go near the bush. We have snakes here.
We: Oh, really?
S: Yes. Make sure you dont keep any eatables outside, we have wild boar too.
We: OMG
S: Yes, there are talk about other animals, but so far we have not been lucky to see.
We: What?
And praying we should not be
so lucky, we start the campfire.
Dwarak sir, brings the wood logs, assembles, fires and there you go. Fire in between the dark forest.
While Sir was engaged in keeping the fire, our other friends had fun in their own way.
Have you heard of the phrase "
Sooriyanuke torcha???" ["Showing torch to sun"]
If you have been in the camp you would have seen that. Only difference is, there was no sun. So, our guys started showing lights to the on coming traffic. Traffic here is - Big birds, the Airplanes.
With all those funny things around, some feeble music, we started to go back to our olden days. Oops, not days, its generations!!!
yes, bake the potato and capsicum in fire. No utensils, no cookeries, nothing. We just tried to live our ancestors life for a while. And man, it is so nice. Except the thought that we should go back to normal life in a day, worried all of us.
Forget it for a while. Lets have fun for coming hours.
Then around mid-night, we get our tents ready, and go for a sleep.
And while sleeping, we had noises from every corner. The moment I hear the noise, first thing came to my mind was what Mr.Srinivas mentioned "wild boar"
But, this was so rhythmic, as Rajesh put it, that then I realized it to be the snoring sound from people.
Thinking about the next day OTR, the stuffed capsicum we had, talking about the bunch of guys who are gonna join us next day and all sort of topics, we finally slept.
No one knows when we slept. But we were given clear instruction not to wake up until 8am the next day. To take good rest and be ready for OTR.
But seldom our warden knows that we always like to do the things mentioned "
NOT" to be done!!!
P.S. Anyone has the pics of the campfire? I doubt if anyone took, but just in case. Please post it here if you got it.