Talkona falls trip

It has been another very very long time since my last blog. I have so many things to write here as so much instances/incidents happened in my life both officially and personally. Like few of my colleagues left from the current project, few of my friends have gone to onsite, many friends came back from onsite assignments due to global impact and so...

First day: Ok, the content of this blog should match the title. So I am going to write something about the trip. It is about my weekend trip to Talakona Falls, next to thirupathi, andra pradesh. With so many alternates for weekend trip, we have finally chosen to go to this Talakona falls as it is bit near to chennai and 36 hours is enough for us to complete the show.

The trip was on 21st Mar2009. We guys started discussing about this trip about a week before the trip. My friends (yes, I prefer to call them as friends rather colleagues), have started sending mails to whole to team to bring everyone to trip. Usually all outdoor events in NCS are planned by our prestigious one and only lead Anandraj, but unofficially. Raja expected that someone will join from Chennaione for trip.

We have planned to start from Chennai on Saturday 21 mar at 11.30am. As everyone follows IST, we exactly started at correct time 1.00pm from Anandraj house at Velachery. From anand home we started in two cars. One is Anand's car and he was accompanying his friend, Siva, annamalai and Tarique and another one is Lakshmi's car with me, Dhana, Raja and Guru. Lakshmi was wearing 'I am lost in HONG-KONG' t-shirt.

On the way in chennai borders we were accompanied another car with unique color Violet( i guess so). It is none other than our johnty's car. Yes, Kathir also joined us with his car carrying one driver, Ganesh, Vijay and Hussain. Raja was expecting a Karakattakaran style open type classic contessa car from kathir and he was disappointed as he saw chotta zen car there. I should tell about Kathir's T-Shirt, he was wearing a t-shirt with message 'I am #1, why try harder'. I dont know, he tried what and achieved what. Anyway something behind his life too as Anand has many.

As we were crossing lunch time, we guys got down at Puttur, AP famous for "kattu vaithiyam" and refueled ourselves. Half of us have really refueled by original and foreign formulas. Hope you understand what I am talking about. We have reached a small town near about 15km before talakona falls to purchase non-veg items for dinner. While others were purchasing something, Anand was feeding a street dog with biscuits (similar to the one in Winner movie that Prashanth was providing biscuit to a dog while Vadivelu was in action). I was enjoying my travel as Dhana, Raja and Tarique were teasing each other and just recalling all the events from PSS team.

We were going by lush green fields, yellow sun-flower fields and forest roads with sunset but without traffic and pollution. we guys had thriller ride also inside the forest. As we are not familiar about the route, we went a bungalow inside thick dark. We thought it is the actual guest house where we are going to stay. Finally we found that it is Ghost bungalow and we took reverse slowly and we were waiting for others in the main road for other cars with no light to scare others. but Anand car also had a similar plan to frighten us. But nothing has happened and reached AP guest house at around 7.30pm.

We handed over purchased raw chicken to Guest house authorities to prepare. Around 8.30pm we were given 3 rooms to accommodate ourselves. We started our party at 9pm. We have started party with bottles and foods. Meantime we were served dinner parcel with chicken fried in Golden color by warden. As usual Anandraj has begun the show for everyone. All non veg guys had taken bottles while veg guys have taken plates for dinner. Program or discussion was going fine. All of us were requesting anand to share his past. He also shared with us with open mind without actual names. All of us were enjoying. I and annamalai have got scolding as we were trying to get some truth from anand. We came to know all nicknames of Anand. As usual, Gurumurthy was pulling each others leg to tease. He was bit silent; I guess he felt that it is better to keep away from drunkyards.

Finally we could get only outline from Anand. Otherthan anand, noone has shared anything eventough there are many to share in their life. After our party, we have gone for walk in midnight in the dark roads. Nothing was visible there, climate was so chill, little stars were blinking on top of the head, insects were singing in sides and we heard even some strange sounds too. Dhana was walking blindly just with confidence and without visibility. We just walked for half kilometer and sat down on the road. We were discussing and Siva and Annamalai were cracking jokes as usual. Then we went back to room and slept after keeping alarm 5am for the next day. Thats all about our 1st day. There are lot to share, you can find another write-up from Raja at 'http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddrvx4sf_3hfd67qcr'

Next day: I dont know who wokeup first. Raja came to me in the early morning at 5am and asked me to wakeup. We went to each room and asked everyone to start. I thought that we will start immediately. We first had coffee and dosa with Kadalai chuttney. The breakfast was good at that time with bit spicy.

We have started our trekking at 8am with necessary items at back. Raja and Dhana have started their journey with more enthu and they have scrapped as memory in stand para-wall before guest house. It has scribbles like 'dhana loves pradhan' and 'raja love .....a'. The pitty news was that Annamalai was not well and he could not make for trekking. He has gone for resting. We walked for 2kms to touch foothills. By that time we could see some family and friends have already reached to falls and enjoy bathing. We were able to reach water falls foot very easily and effortlessly. But as the purpose of the trip is for trekking, we need to climb to the top of the hill. From falls foot, we have started almost crawling within 2 minutes. It took almost 45mins to reach 200ft hill top from falls. With heavy weight body, Hussain had made it possible to climb. While it is a bug for our Cine-star Bugs to climb, for Hussain it was JUJU BI in Super Star's style.

Finally we all have reached to top. But Ganesh has reached 10mins before us. I guess he has good stamina. He was the first in NCS 5k run too. Raja and Dhana had bit tough time to climb. Finally Raja found a secret boost of ..... Slogan. Once they started chanting that mantra, those two could climb to the top like anything. Dhana has reached and fainted. On the top, Dhana and Siva had a small snap while Anand and Ganesh have gone out for navigation.

Again, we have started our navigation. The hill top is a flat land. There are even roads too. There are some old age huts too in destructed state. I dont know, how the construction materials were brought up. We all have found stream also. It is a clear stream of sweet water. We all had tasted the water for our thirst. There were even small falls too when we had climbed down further at the other side of the hill. We planned to find some falls at the end of the stream. So we have climbed up to the top the other side of the hill. Unfortunately we have divided into two groups while in search of falls. I joined a group which was climbing down to falls. I also thought that anyways the other gang also will come to the falls at last.

We have enjoyed the water falls. The floor was bit slippery. Raja and Dhana fell down when they were enjoying the bath. Eventhough they were hurt, they managed and showed that flop as flick. I guess falls is 150feet height. When water drop falls on us, it is almost like pinching our body with needle. We cant withstand the force of the water falls under that. Drops are hitting our body with force. Anand has tried to climb the sides of the falls. He climbed though, he was struggling to come down as it is slippery. I could see panic on his face. Because the same feeling I had earlier when we were climbing up.

While we were coming out the falls, the lost gang having Bugs, Lakshmi and Siva has come. Bugs were feeling that he was not accompanied by a camera when they found pond and had a small swim over there. Siva was sitting the side of pond it seems, while a snake was resting nearby. The small snake actually it is an earthworm, made them to vacate the place. Finally these three guys also went to falls to enjoy it. Others are mentally prepared to start back to guest house.

Finally we also started climbing down in two batches. I was coming with batch of youngsters. Dhana has turned actual monkey whenever he finds a tree. He started climbing the trees. He also took raja and Tarique along with them. They also tried climbing trees, but they were not able to climb as like Dhana. Dhana has recalled origin of human being. Finally Kathir has managed to drag all 3 monkeys to guest house.

When we reached the guest house, it is started raining and lunch also was ready. Climate was so cool. We had stomach full lunch. Bhaskar had 4 rounds of meals. Andhra meals is for andhra people only. We have bagged and started from guest house in heavy rain at around 2pm. When we drove for 5 kilometers, the rain stopped. I was coming in Lakshmi's car. But we could not trace other two cars. We reached velachery by 6.30pm.

I was having camera and have taken few snaps during trip. Unfortunately I left my camera in Lakshmi's car dashboard. I have received it after a week only. I did not know that Lakshmi had a bad story behind someone forgetting camera in his car earlier when he was in South Africa.

Well, It took almost 3 weeks for me to find time to think about something blogging here about the trip, and it took almost 5 hours the scrap here. Anyways it brought me a nice sweet memory recall and i had a chance to explain about the complete trip to mera zindaki.