31st July 2007, 12:30
| #46 |
| Senior - BHPian Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: N.A
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31st July 2007, 20:37
| #47 |
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31st July 2007, 20:50
| #48 | |
| Senior - BHPian  | Quote:
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31st July 2007, 21:21
| #49 |
| Senior - BHPian  | Ok here goes the rest of the report: Day I: I leave Mumbai for Kochi on Thursday evening on a GoAir flight via Bangalore and as is the norm with LCC's these days, we are delayed. Apart from that I get the last seat in which the legroom is fit for a hobbit & most of the time I'm sitting sideways with my legs in the aisle! Finally after a delay of about 2 hours I land in Kochi & promptly recieve a nice & explicit message from Steer, welcoming me to Kerelafornia! Since this is a public forum & I don't wish to be banned, I'll refrain from pasting the text of the message here! Immediately we pile into his Safari & leave for the city (the airport is quite far away from the city) and the first song I hear on the Safari's nice sound system is GMD, those of you know the song will know how weird it feels, especially with Steer requesting me to kindly explain the whole song to him since he doesn't under a few of the hindi lines  Imagine just getting off a plane after a 4-odd hour flight & being asked to explain an explicit Hindi song the moment you get out of the airport!! Anyways after about 30-odd mins of driving we hit the city & promptly stop at a supermarket to shop for some supplies (drink mixers & snacks mainly!) and Steeroid wants to pick up some cigrattes. Suddenly a taxi stops outside & a man with a long beard & an even longer robe walks into the shop, enter Zak! We exchange some pleasentries in chaste Hindi!! (Zak knows hindi well since he's stayed in Delhi for quite a few years) As for dinner it's decided we'll go out for dinner at a 24-hour restaurant since we have a sober driver in Zak. Finally we hit Steer's apartment (lovely place on the 8th floor so nice view too) and put away our luggage. And as expected the drinks start flowing with some nice Single Malt from Steer's collection! Fellow member Aha! has also come along with Zak but needs to be dropped home at around 1-ish so Zak decides to drop him & come back while me & Steer continue enjoying our drinks & chatter away. Finally Zak arrives & by the time we decide to leave for dinner it's around 4am and it's pouring outside. We reach the restaurant but by then Zak's family starts getting worried & calls him a number of times, Zak's wife (just to be absolutely sure even calls Steer to check whether Zak is really with us or not ). Finally some food is ordered for our hungry stomachs & quite relish the Chicken Stew Zak orders for me even though it's way too sweet for my palate!! Anyways for a couple of hungry drunks, it's good food!We reach back home at around 5:30am & immediately go off to sleep. Some plans are made for next morning. Some pics:    Day II: We get up at around 9, groggy from last night's drinking & slightly hungover! We get a call from Stumpy aka Mclaren who's been on the way from Bangalore from the day before but couldn't reach since he got stranded in Coimbatore due to lack of connecting transport! Steer & me decide to go out for a nice traditional South Indian breakfast & on the way we can collect Stumpy too since Zak's (who was supposed to pick him up originally) phone is switched off. After a nice breakfast of Idli Sambar & piping Hot Tea, we pick up Mclaren & drop him off at the hotel. Telling him & Zak (who's gotten up by now) to get ready by 1pm so we can leave for a nice boat ride in Kumarakoam. However, as expected Zak is running late so me & Steer have some time to kill so we goto check out the new JBL store on the bypass as Steer wants to pick up a remote for his stereo & also look at some new alloys for his truck. When we reach there we are quite impressed by the showroom & the range of products available there. I'm especially happy to see the huge variety of Alloys the store has. Here, while the remote is being fitted Steer decides to give all the shop employees a quick demo of "Hotel Keralafornia" & "GMD" which leads to a lot of smiling faces & guffaws amongst them! Some pics of us there:      Finally, Zak calls to tell us he's on his way and we leave for the hotel to pick up Zak & Stumpy, while there Zak gives me a couple of the CD's he's made for the last meet & I must say they were a treat! Well designed & lovely covers along with some very nice music! Apart from that bloody instrumental piece obviously! So we are now on our way to Kumarakoam. More updates in a bit! Stay tuned!  P.S. Mods, long post so please excuse the excess smilies. |
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31st July 2007, 21:24
| #50 | ||
| Senior - BHPian | Quote:
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P.S. JKD - Tried Kallu and how should I put this, umm... it was weird! I'll stick to Scotch, thank you! Last edited by iraghava : 31st July 2007 at 21:27. | ||
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31st July 2007, 21:40
| #51 |
| Senior - BHPian Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: N.A
Posts: 7,046
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31st July 2007, 22:06
| #52 |
| Senior - BHPian | Crap, just lost a long post due to some browser issues  Day II (Continued): So after picking up Zak & Stumpy from the hotel we leave for Kumarakoam Chetty at about 3 pm. We know it's late but what to do, our Zak is an extremely busy man! And while we are leaving the Hotel Zak gives us the CD's he had made for the last meet & must say he's done a fantastic job with a lot of hard work & even the covers are very nicely designed! Since around the same time we also get to know that Sam is not well we decide to send him one CD through courier to cheer him up along with a small page of our good wishes in our own style! On the way the rain clouds are coming in so we get to see some nice views with the light playing hide-and-seek, many pictures are already on the thread but I'm posting a few here:   Sicne it's late & all of us are hungry we decide to stop at a eatery on the way, about an hour away from Kochi. More importantly it also has a Bar, so we can tank up on some beers!  Then with our stomachs stuffed we continue to head towards Kumarakoam with me taking the wheel of the truck for a while! Enjoyed the drive through rainy conditions & specially enjoyed the big water splashes the truck does! Finally, around 5:30 pm we reach our destination & start our boat journey! It's the time when people are usually finishing their trips & since it's a little rainy too so we have the place pretty much to ourselves! While starting off we see a High-tech house boat with Solar Panels & a Split A/C!   Finally we ease out into the waters with the cloudy sky & fading light creating some great scenes!   A beautiful resort with individual swimming pools with every cottage in Kumarakoam.  P.S. More pictures of the boat ride have been posted earlier. So while we enjoy the nice boat ride, Mr. Steer decides he's had enough & decides to take a short nap on the deck of the boat!  He continues napping happily until we reach the return point where you get some snack & more importantly "Kallu"! We also spot some house boats anchored here since it's off season & they've been stored away.  We order some Kallu for ourselves since Steer insists I must try it! I reluctantly agree! Here is Stumpy with the bottle of Kallu:  I taste it & well it's ok, slightly pungent in smell so that puts me off as this is the first time I'm having it whereas Steer who drinks it regularly (or so Zak told me!) really enjoys it & goes through nearly a bottle alone! Which is fine until you learn what happens next! After the Kallu, Steer forgets all about his sleep & get full of energy! And decides that he's "Kate Winslet" & this boat is the "Titanic"!!!!! Ladies & Gentlemen, may I present to you "Kateoroid" re-enacting the famous scene in the movie with a Kallu bottle in hand   So after having a nice laugh, we come towards the end of the boat ride and the end has us feeling a little concerned since it's dark now & the driver/captain of the boat is finding it hard to negotiate us back to base! After a few close calls we make it back safely & after paying the boat guys leave. However, instead of going straight back we decide to stop at the Taj resort nearby & have a cup of Coffee to re-energise ourselves for the drive back to Kochi. While we're here sitting in the outdoor coffee shop, there is a recital of Classical Music & Dance happening which really gets Steer & Zak happy! Zak also reveals a few secrets there! So after a nice coffee & snacks we decide to head back home. While on the drive back we discover what a chatter box Stumpy is! Finally Steer asks him to shut up for a while so he can concentrate on the drive It's dark & drizzly so not the best conditions to drive but the coffee helps us a lot & we make it back safely albeit all of us are dead tired by now. After dropping Zak & Stumpy at the hotel me & Steer decide to get some pizza packed from Pizza Hut & crash early to make up for last night's lost sleep. And by the time we finish our food we are so dead that we doze off the moment we get to our beds.More updates tomorrow! Hope you guys enjoyed the report till now!! |
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31st July 2007, 22:08
| #53 | |
| Senior - BHPian | Quote:
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31st July 2007, 23:14
| #54 | |
| Senior - BHPian Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: N.A
Posts: 7,046
Thanked: 2,751 Times
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31st July 2007, 23:40
| #55 | |
| Senior - BHPian | Quote:
"mazhavannal poppy kuda" have seen cars with stickers on its side panels etc, but stumpy on you tshirt too??? 4th one  Last edited by jkdas : 31st July 2007 at 23:41. | |
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31st July 2007, 23:54
| #56 |
| Senior - BHPian  | So you finally deign to post those pics, huh? By now its time you came over here for another round! |
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1st August 2007, 00:38
| #57 |
| BHPian  Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: I am lost....
Posts: 339
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| that JBL store looks like its got everything have to visit this place in cochin next time i am there! so when are we meeting! also i have only heard things like this regarding Steer , i am seeing this for the first time. toddy mone! kull anne original!Last edited by xinome : 1st August 2007 at 00:43. |
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1st August 2007, 02:19
| #58 |
| Senior - BHPian  | So in short you Drank and Drank and had fun ... More pics... more pics!! |
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1st August 2007, 02:29
| #59 |
| Senior - BHPian  | Nice trip there Ishaan and btw its Kumarakom boat jetty and not chetty . |
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1st August 2007, 09:39
| #60 |
| BHPian | Ha Good one !!!.I liked Kateroid!!! |
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