[Driving_Dreams]

Very well written travelogue. Very good One Liners. And Above all a good gang to hang out with. Most of us do have such freakish, naughty, childish fun with our friends but fail to capture them and document them. Thank you for sharing these lovely pics which brings us a lot of old memories which we had failed to capture as photos(though they are etched in our memories). Continue the Travel.

[SmartCat]

Hmm yeah. Between 1996 (start of engineering) and 2003, we did a lot of weird things too - but we didn't have a digital camera with us at that time. Although we might have taken some photos in those old cameras, I have no idea where they are right now.

I have few scans of some of the old photographs though -

Pic 1: Graduation day. From left -> Binny is the third guy, Karthic is the fifth guy and I'm on the right hand side.



Pic 2: At "Ideal Ice Cream", Mangalore. This was during our Engineering college final year trip.



Pic 3: Binny (on the right) chasing girls on Om Beach.



Pic 4: The gang at Murudeshwara (at the Pillars-In-The-Sea restaurant)



Pic 5: Binny & myself, trekking up the hill to get to Om Beach from Gokarna.

[Driving_Dreams]

Nice to see u folks bit younger. Hardly Changed in terms of Physique.

Hmm You & your frnds seem to be in love with the travel along Konkan Coast. Out of 100K kms how much kms would be along that coast 10 to 20 % I suppose.

But to see the beaches in comparison from time to time, No such observation of beaches getting shorter in Twelve to Fifteen years along these stretch.

[SmartCat]

yeah we are beach bums allright

Part of the fun is getting to a beach from Bangalore (altitude: 3300 ft) - it always involves driving through a nice long ghat section.

COASTAL KARNATAKA - GOA TRIP (CONCLUDING PART):

Pic 1: Jagga has a much smaller surface area. He is done in 15 minutes. From some angles, he looks like Pamela Anderson (you need to look closely at the right places).



Pic 2 & 3: The sun is about to set. Since we had brought along a two wheeler with us, we decided to get back to our lodge before it became dark.





Pic 4: Jagga wakes up. We talk among ourselves about his new improved looks. He is as pleased as punch.



Pic 5 & 6: We all took a final dip in the sea, to get rid of all the sand from our undies.





Pic 7: Jagga refused to come out of the water. But this 5 foot wave slapped him from behind, and in the next moment, he was on the shore lying on his stomach and face in the sand. Waves can reach 6 to 7 feet here.



Pic 8: We get back to the lodge, take a bath and drive down to one of the restaurants dotting the Palolem Beach. Our dinner takes 3 hours. Not that we eat a lot - its just that in Goa, things are done rather leisurely.

20 mins for the waiter to come to the table, 20 mins to get the plates, 20 mins to get drinks (no wait, drinks come in quickly), 40 mins to get the main course, 1 hour to eat, 20 mins to clear the table, 20 mins to get the bill - and so on.



Pic 9: Next day, we check out of the lodge and drive straight down to Bangalore (via the usual Hubli route). Since we had to cover 650 kms that day, I take over the WagonR. And yes, since petrol in Goa is about 15% cheaper than Karnataka, we fill up both the cars to the brim at the border!

[MX6]

since another commodity is also cheaper in goa, normally people fill that up to the brim as well. But good that t-bhp-ians don't do that! dsc00444 looks very nice. And what are you trying to do secretly filming Karthic and his better half in sea? bad boy.

[aargee]

^^^ Right; to me DSC00437 & DSC00444. If you've some ghat section photos - pls post them too.

[sushrutha]

smartcat,
Which engineering college ??
AFAIK, I remember filling petrol in the same bunk once. Enroute to Karwar Is it on NH17, towards right ?? Before Panaji ??

[SmartCat]

MSRIT Bangalore (Mech Engg Dept).

And no, the petrol bunk is just before Karnataka border, close to Karwar.

since another commodity is also cheaper in goa, normally people fill that up to the brim as well.

Jagga always buys the other commodity and gifts it to his colleagues, especially the boss - that's how he gets all those holidays from work.

If you've some ghat section photos - pls post them too

No photos while coming back. All the photographers go into sleep mode during return journeys from Goa.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by smartcat

Jagga always buys the other commodity and gifts it to his colleagues, especially the boss - that's how he gets all those holidays from work.

I sense some one washing his dirty linen in the name of Jagga.

[sushrutha]

Originally Posted by ampere

I sense some one washing his dirty linen in the name of Jagga.

I don't think so,
Smartcat runs his own business...

[SmartCat]

I sense some one washing his dirty linen in the name of Jagga.

I don't think so, Smartcat runs his own business...

I too have a boss (at home), but she doesn't drink.
Jagga reads this thread as a "guest". So unfortunately, I can't cook up too many stories about him. I would have loved to, though!

Coming up later tonight, travelogue of our small trip to BR Hills (Biligiri Rangana Hills). Sneak preview -



I guess the trip was somewhat boring. We hadn't done any research on BR Hills Once we reached that place, we couldn't find anything interesting there - so we drove back.

[MX6]

Originally Posted by ampere

I sense some one washing his dirty linen in the name of Jagga.

That's not called washing dirty linen. That's called giving gifts of class.

[Ranjan Sharma]

Originally Posted by smartcat

MSRIT Bangalore (Mech Engg Dept).

No Wonder I see similar activities. Am from MSRIT too, 2008 batch. Same pinch

[SmartCat]

Ranjan, 2008 you got in or got out? Mine was 1996-2000 batch. Doing those times, MSRIT used to look like 500 year old Hampi ruins - with half broken statues, temples and palace like structures. I heard our college looks like an IT park now.

BR HILLS TRIP

BR Hills is a part of hill-range that links Western Ghats with the Eastern Ghats and is inside a wildlife sanctuary. It is about 200 kms from Bangalore. Although it is shorter if you go via Kanakapura, we took the faster Mysore route. Even if you take the Mysore route, you don't have to go all the way to Mysore. There is a road to Kollegal - Chamrajnagar - BR Hills from Mandya.

Anyway, as mentioned before, we didn't do enough research before embarking on this trip - so we drove all the way to Mysore and from there, went to BR Hills.

Pic 1: Our new travel buddy Sandeep (my cousin) is an IT guy, like most others I know. And these IT guys have a strange habit of carrying a laptop/college bag wherever they go. So although this is a day trip, the boot is full of bags.

Pic 2: Just as we entered Mysore city, cops flagged us down and asked us to pay up Rs. 300 for overspeeding. Fine for overspeeding? In a small city like Mysore? In 2005? Naturally, we denied overspeeding. Our arguments were the usual - No way! Do you know who I am? We are a distant relative of the Mysore Police Commissioner's neighbor. And we were hardly doing 30 kmph!

Pic 3: The cop doesn't argue, he smiles. Now that can't be good. He pulls out this picture.

Pic 4: We were genuinely shocked! Remember this is 2005, and we are not exactly on Pune-Mumbai Expressway. This was in a city like Mysore. We were doing 67 kmph in a 40 kmph zone. We paid the cops Rs. 300, chatted up with them for sometime and left. If our faces were visible in the photo, we would have paid the cop a Rs. 200 tip!

Pic 5: Outside Mysore, we stopped at a roadside sugarcane juice vendor and ordered 4 glasses. Jagga found a housefly in his juice. When he showed his glass to the juice vendor, he simply put his hand (4 fingers) inside the glass, removed the fly and gave it back. Jagga looked at us, shrugged and drank the juice. Apparently, it was the best sugarcane juice he ever had.

Pic 6: We found this temple on the Mysore - BR Hills road. Looks pretty cool. Any idea what this is?

Pic 7: BR Hills/MM Hills hill-range in sight, and the road narrows down. We are forced to park behind this mound to allow the bus to pass.

Pic 8: We reach the BR Hills forest checkpost. The guard asks for a tip, and we pay him Rs. 20.

Pic 9: On the road to BR Hills, we saw this rare Blurry Elephant (normal sized elephant but looks blurry all the time).

Pic 10: The roads are nice and curvy - but we don't speed (not after getting that speeding ticket) inside the Jungle. We came across a "View Point". But in the afternoon, the scenary was so dull that we decide to take our own photograph from the view-point.

[MX6]

Originally Posted by smartcat

We were doing 67 kmph in a 40 kmph zone. We paid the cops Rs. 300, chatted up with them for sometime and left. If our faces were visible in the photo, we would have paid the cop a Rs. 200 tip!

Next time stick your heads through that sun roof while speeding in mysore. You'll surely get your faces in the photo.