A Cruise 2 Ye (rcaud && lagiri)

If asked during the entire Korea stay , what i missed the most apart from home , then the first answer would be long bike rides. So had planned one such just soon after I landed here and getting enough breathing space and rejuvenate i.e. on 1 and 2 May, but due some drop outs had to put a stone on my heart and had to postpone it to 8 and 9 May :P.

In total we were 7 guys (manju, prasanna, nagesh, harish, shashi, lokesh and myself ) riding in 7 bikes (5 Pulsars, 1 avenger, 1 FZS). Even though it may look odd ,but the fact was no one was ready to ride pillion , no one wanted to to perceived as a pansy :P.

Day 1 (8 May 2010)

[SH-131]

The time was to meet at Silk Board Junction at 5.30 am, but we were ready to leave for the journey only by 6 am. The initial part of the journey was fairly good with the ride along the four lane Golden Quadrilateral highway. There are numerous toll-booths along the way but our bikes classified as 2-wheelers just whiz past them without paying any tolls, guess the promotors didnt foresee people riding bikes for long distances :P.... but which is rectified in NICE ring roads :(.

The first destination for the day was the Yelagiri hills, part of the non-continuous Eastern ghats. After Krishnagiri we moved until Bagalur and from here took the state highway towards Tirupatthur. The ride along this SH-131 was smooth and was a great change from riding monotonously along the National highway. After reaching Tirupatthur started scouting for a place to eat. And the best place to eat at this town will actually make you whince when entering the place... the place was "Lakshmi Camp"..... the entrance looked more like a tachted hut.. anyway the food was ok and we had some food our stomachs.

[Yelagiri Hills]

From this place we moved towards Yelagiri hills. One thing I noticed about the Tamil Nadu is that most of the roads will be in excellent condition but the towns will be dirty like hell, which more or less is the reverse of what we find in Karnataka. Moving towards Vaniyambadi the hills of Yelagiri start appearing to your right and some 30km down this road the right turn towards Yelagiri is marked my huge boards both in English and Tamil, even then prasanna who knows both the languages and was leading at that time just went past , dont know in whose thoughts was he lost???!! or do we ? :P

[Made For Each Other !!!!!!!!!!]

The view from the foot of the hills is really nice. And these hills rise majestically from the plains. Soon the hairpin bends started. There were 14 in all to reach the top. Harish who was pretty new to biking had a fall in one such hairpin bend, anyway not much damage was done either to him or the bike. We moved up. Yelagiri comprises of various number of villages. Soon after we reach the top we came across a tourist information centre where we got info about the place. Got trek info to Swamimalai Peak. There are 2 routes to this place, one continuing on the road adjacent to the info centre and the other via Mangalam village. While the former takes nearly 7 hours and the path is like any other normal trek routes the later takes about 1.5 hours and the path has stone steps which is a pain in the as.... sorry knees :P.....

[Enroute to SwamiMalai Temple]

But the trek route was pretty good, nothing spectacular but enough to satisfy one's dose of nature therapy. Since we started in the middle of the day it was very hot and the prespiration was constant. Earlier we had enquired about a falls known as Perumada falls and had got the info that it was completely dry...... now makes we wonder if all of us were made to stand at the mouth of this falls in our present condition will we be able to rejeneuvate the falls in the peak of summer :P.



By the end of pretty gruelling 1.5 hrs we reached the top. There was a temple and the poojari told us to keep the footwear there itself and explore the top. Now we misunderstood thinking that the top was pretty far and ventured in the wilderness without any shoes... barefoot trekking... probably the only time I will or do it in the future. Anyway after nearly 10 mins not finding the peak we returned back, only to realize the poojari had referred to the boulder just near the entrance of the temple :P.

[The Swamimalai Temple]

Spent some 15-20 mins lying in the shade on top of this boulder and then we prepared to return back. Reached back and drank all the liquid stuff one would get hand to ... maaza, pepsi, water etc. We moved back and on the way we found Hotel Yelagiri where we had an "ok" lunch. Since there is nothing at this place and we too had not expected more and had come just for the ride we decided it was time we moved towards Yercaud.

[The Rise Of Poseidon ?????!!!!!!!!!!]

Yercaud is nearly 160 kms from this place and we decided to explore the road via Utharangai- Hallur then the traditional route via the National Highway. After reaching Tirupatthur took the SH-18 highway towards Salem. This highway was in excellent condition for a 2 lane winding highway except for a few rough patches in between. Also it had raining a couple of hours earlier in this entire stretch substantially bringing down the temperature.



There are 2 routes to Yercaud. One from Salem and the other from a small town Kuppanur lying in between the Tirupatthur-Salem highway. One by one we all the 7 regrouped here at Kuppanur. While I had the idea of going up to Yercaud and check for the rooms and if not getting due to our bad luck then continue towards Salem, but most of the others were not that chilled out and wanted rooms to be confirmed in Yercaud before going there. Anyway after getting contact number of a agent from a local shop we came to know there were no rooms available in Yercaud. But still the lesser number of people were able to convince the majority of the others to go to Yercaud and try over there. If we had not done this part of the journey then we would have repented it including the non-believers :).

[Kuppanur - Yercaud Route]

Eventhough this route to Yercaud is completely deserted with us meeting very few vehicles meeting enroute it was a awesome experience, reminds me of riding up the Lakkidi Ghat in Waynad in complete darkness. Roads were good the entire journey , but at some places it is very narrow , so might be problematic for bigger vehicles. Anyway reached Yercaud after an awesome journey and started our hunt for hotel rooms. After struggling for a while we got rooms at Green Fort Inn at a price of 2.5k for the 7 guys including 2 bedrooms and 1 hall. In between we went to the pagoda point where we get a spectacular night view of the Salem City . At this point there was not a single soul in sight and also not even a single street lamp. Anyway the view from this point was simply spectacular.

[View Of Salem From Pagoda Point]

By this time due to all the chilled stuff i had during the day I had got cold and headache which was to last another 24 hrs. Had some games of UNO and were off to bed.


Day 2 (9 May 2010)

[Some Group Pics Of Man and Machine]

While some of the guys had planned a early morning plan to catch the sunrise , but everyone were too tired to get up that early in the morning. After a proper sleep we got up and ready to do some sight seeing of Yercaud. First stop was the lake and it was ok . Had breakfast at Hotel Shevaroy which was nothing special. From there moved towards the view points. The first on the list was the Ladies seat. Eventhough this offers a spectacular view of the below valley this place was pretty much polluted with plastics due to the indifferent tourists thronging to this place.

[Yercaud Lake]

[Ladies Seat View]

Also went further to the Gent's seat, another view-point. Got to know that this particular name was given for the equality of the sexes :P. At this view point one gets the oppurtunity to view the mist filled valleys below and also the ghat roads making their way through the hills. There is one more view point called the children's seat but no one was interested to go there.

Since there is nothing more for our interest and also the trek to Kiliyur falls was ruled out due to non-existence of water, we decided it was time we started our return journey back to bangalore. We checked out of our rooms at around 1 pm and started the return journey.

[Yercaud Ghat Roads]

The ghat roads towards Salem offers very good views and also the ride was pretty exciting, the only turn off was there was way too much traffic along this 20 hair-pin bend ghat roads, but eventhen the ride was pretty exciting. By the time we reached the base I noticed something leaking out of Prasannas engine. Taking the bike to a mechanic resulted in the news of leaking engine oil due to decreased viscosity of the oil. Anyway replacement of the same took around 45 mins and then we were on our way. Reached Salem and took a diversion directly to join the National Highway - 7. The ride after this was pretty much monotonous and ride of nearly 200kms to Bangalore.

[NH-7]

We had a lunch stop at a restaerent A2B some 50-60 kms before Krishnagiri. This is pretty much the only decent restaurent one would find along the highway.
Anyway reached bangalore and took the NICE ring -road to reach home at around 8 pm.

[Route Map]

Trip 'O' Meter -> 575 kms
Total Cost Per Head -> 1.4 k

Snaps Link

http://picasaweb.google.com/unithin/Yercaud_Yelagiri#

http://picasaweb.google.co.in/manjunathmb/Yelagiri_Yercad?authkey=Gv1sRgCPn_kMrir8W4Bw&fgl=true&pli=1#

Korean Diaries : Back To Namma Bengaluru

After a stint of nearly 8 weeks abroad in South Korea, it was finally time to return back to the homeland. The return journey was more or less eventless with a few eye candies thrown here and there. Just a week before my return journey , the cherry blossoms had started to appear. And these blossoms are quite famous with tourists visiting Korea during the spring season. These flower filled trees offer a spectacular sight.



My return date was scheduled on 17 th April and I was to board an afternoon flight to Hong- Kong, this being the first leg of the journey. Boarded a bus to airport from Suwon. The bus journey was eventless except at one point when a small truck grazed the bus. Both the drivers got into an argument initially and within seconds a partol police arrived to book a case and to be further continued in a court I guess :P. So this entire process ended within 10 mins . Imagine the same situation taking place in Bengaluru :P. Also the view of the view of the Incheon bridge running nearly 5-6 kms in the open sea connecting the Incheon airport to the mainland offers a breathtaking view. This I had failed to observe the previous time becoz of nightfall.



The first leg of the journey lasted for some 3.5 hrs and I clicked some pics from the aircraft window.


According to the iternary was supposed to wait nearly 5 hrs for the next connecting flight to Bangalore. But believe me, 5 hrs of time can be easily spent in this huge airport. Even walking from one end to the other takes a lot of time and me guessing the length of the airport to be a couple of kms :P.





The second leg of the journey lasted for nearly 7 hrs. This was a bit tiring and boring too. But the high points being when flying over the Bay of Bengal it being a moonless night, dark abyss as far as my eyes could see and stars illuminating the sky with such a concentration only one could imagine. Also when flying above the city of Chennai at around 38,000 ft we chanced upon a cloudless night. The view of Chennai at this height is simply spectacular….. simply whoa!!!!! The entire city illuminated like a jewel against the dark background.



Reached Bangalore at around 2 am. Had some cramp-ons in my checked-in luggage. So my luggage was singled out with a big “X” marks on it. The customs guy then caught hold of me bcoz of that. Some smooth talking from my side resulted in exiting from the airport without any fuss :P. The taxi guy asked whether I wanted ac????? I told no, since it was long time since the smelled my city of Bengaluru …….. Awesome to be back in India :)

Torture of Necessity

"Working out is addictive"......people often say this..... and I cannot make out whether they are serious or just joking. Ok, I agree that after the workout we feel very elated and fresh, having completed that days quota, but to say that workout as a separate entity is addictive seems like a poser to me. Consider this....... remember some pretty tough exams you might have attended while in ur school/college.....how relieved and satisfied would you be after that exams have gone well and completed.....so do you hear any person saying(atleast the sane ones !!!!! :P ) this "Exams are addictive".......even though the feeling after completing one and after workout are pretty much the same.

Working out means different things for different people. For me its more of a physical and mental torture that my body endures in order to keep fit......"Torture of Necessity". The torture my body tries to avoid at all costs.....:D ...

All my life I had been a little plump......even though I took part actively in sports in my school days playing soccer,cricket,kabaddi etc. When in high school I started cycling to school around 13km round distance. This was the period when I was at the peak of fitness(not considering the present state...which is much better :)). Sports and cycling are activities which people especially enjoy doing. The main reason for this nothing is repetitive. Even if you play soccer for nearly 3-4 hrs still you wont bored mentally or physically(atleast comparitively :)), unlike in the dedicated workouts in gyms.

This is how things go normally in a gym

Day 1: Full josh...u are trying to prove everyone around you(especially the chicks :) ) that you are able to so and so push ups,squats, pullups etc on the first day itself.
Day 2: Your body is not just giving signs but screaming at the top of its volume that it is in pain. Even then the motivation will be high.

Day 10: You started to get bored....U dont find any drastic difference in weight loss or the big muscles you thought you would be able to achieve with all those strenuous workouts. But still you drag yourself to that smelly goddamn gym.

Day 26: Result day..... Gym instructor says u have lost 1 kg weight..... and u think...WTF..... just 1 kg only after going through all the pain and suffering.

Day 30: You are confused whether you should continue for the gym membership for the next month or not.......

Some renew the membership........and nearly 90% leave it just after the first month......And that 90% includes me at some point....

So after the gym...... low in motivation people do nothing but idle around with no physical activity......eventually gaining weight..... So in the end you get more than what u bargained for.

So my advice from personal experience for the people who are not looking for huge biceps and just looking for slim and healthy body with not so much well defined cuts is "mix and match", do nothing repetitive......


Well in my case I usually get easily bored with the same form of exercise. So my motto is to experiment with different forms of exercises. Well initially started only with weights, but soon lost the fun in doing it. Then the idea of kick-boxing caught my attention, so went to a sports shop , got a punching bag and filled it with sand and saw-dust and started my kick-boxing regime. Well technically speaking I hadnt gone to any classes for the same, but I was born with my kung-fu punches and kicks :P. Initially I was doing this kick-boxing regime with my bare hands, but had to endure some injuries like peeled skin etc. So then got some leather gloves for protection. So learnt from my mistakes along the way. This went on for a couple of months, but started to get a bit boring. But now the option of weights again started to seem interesting :). So started it again and gave kick boxing a rest, so on it continued. Like that have added the regimes of running/jogging, cycling , aerobics(freestyle :P) to my regime. So on a particular day which-ever option seems interesting to me , I will just go and do it :). Even if on some blue moon day I get bored with all these, I just play loud music and start to dance like a maniac...... Graceful dancing??????....well faaaaar away from it :P..... The only thing matters is a means to burn calories and strengthen the muscles, and not just to beef them up which is primarily why maximum number of people hit the gyms.

Also the occasional weekend treks to some hills also works to our advantage. Its the trek to such hills which gives you the correct picture of our level of fitness. Because endurance of climbing on for nearly 5 hrs cant be easily achieved without some sort of cardio workouts. Who knows the next in my list might be hooplas and yoga, if i find a good enough video in the net :).

During my recent(presently ongoing :) )trip to korea all my so called different means of workout were left back home and I was left with no access to my menu of workouts. Hence decided to do jogging/running in the morning. Now running at sub-zero temperatures (around -6C to 4C) totally gives you a high. Imagine jogging with thermals, jacket, gloves and monkey caps in India. Well those were my add-on's when jogging in the freezing temperatures and I really loved it. But in that sub-zero temperature the major problem I found was warming up. No matter what you did the the body temperature was cold like hell and for the muscles to perform strenous activity like jogging for nearly 50 mins it has to be warmed up and skretched to achieve maximum efficiency. Also in one of the public parks they have installed an outdoor gym :P. So whenever i get the oppurtunity I go there do my weight related workouts, even though it doesnt satisfy the requirements of a hardcore gymmer, it pretty much satisfies my requirement :).

Anyway I remember a comment given by Akshay Kumar, the fitness guru of Bollywood saying "If you cant dedicate 1 hr everyday for your body then you are not fit to live on this planet " :P....... Well it might seem that this statement was a bit exaggerated and I dont agree with that extent, but eventhough giving some amount of dedicated time for the betterment of your body will help you only and no one else in the long run. Its OK if you take a day off workout if feeling lazy on a particular day, but try to maintain a weekly minimum workout threshold , after all it is not the torture one enjoys, but the "Torture of Neccessity".

Korean Diaries : Everland Amusement Park

Finally on the weekend of 4 April I found the required company and the weather favourable to go to  Everland amusement park. This was the weekend I was looking most forward too since Everland is considered one of the best theme parks in the world , coming next only to the Disneylands.

There were totally 3 adrenaline junkies ready to take on the spine chilling rides of this place. It was Sathwick, Sunil and myself. We all met near the Guesthouse at around 8.30 am and started moving towards the bus-stop to catch the bus to this place. There are number of buses plying between the Suwon Metro Station and Everland (10-5, 66, 66-1, 66-3, 66-4 and for all these routes everland is the last stop).As soon as we reached the stop a 66-4 arrived and we hopped into it. Dropped the 1000 Won/head cash into the cash machine and made ourselves comfortable since it was expected us to take nearly an hour to reach this place.

Reached the entrance of the everland fantasy park at around 10.15 am. There we booked the tickets , simultaneously producing the discount voucher of around 4K won for foriegners.(Discount voucher is in the everland website). Hence the total entry fee was 33K Won/head. When we entered the place it seemed like some magical place. A sort of fairy-land one would see in the movies. This is just enough to pull all the korean families with kids to visit this place. Also there was an ongoing Tulip flower festival at this place. So everywhere we found tulip flowers being planted. In fact this place hosts different festivals at different time of the year. Tulip festival in spring, Halloween during October and christmas during November/December and so on. At the entrance there are guide maps for the entire park. In the absence of these, you would be blind mice in the sewer tunnel system :P.

The highlight of the day would be the T-Express roller coaster , considered the best wooden roller coaster in the world and having the title of World's steepest wooden roller coaster with 77 degree drop, with the drop length being a shocking 150 feet. But to get warmed up before stepping into this monster we started with the Rolling X-train. This is also a roller coaster which has two 360 degree loops. We waited for nearly 20 mins to get our turn and finally it came. This ride was awesome with the 2 360 degree loops being the high points. Now we were more than warmed up :D.

Next we tried 'Lets Twist' where people are strapped on to their seats, taken up to nearly 100 ft and rotated around in very odd angles like a maniac. Also I tried 'Double rock spin' which is also similiar to the previous. Now sufficiently warmed up we decided it was time for us to move towards THE T-Express. In fact this was Sathwick's second outing to everland and this one was just becoz he had missed the T-Express the previous time. Took a cable car from the American attractions to the European attractions where the T-Express is. Enroute found the tracks of the T-Express giving a very intimidating picture to us.

Went to the entrance of the T-Express where the waiting time was nearly 60 minutes (on all rides they give the expected time which is very helpful ) and so waited in the queue. According to some statistics the revenue of Everland nearly doubled after the installation of this beast in 2008.

[T-Express]

Then finally after waiting for nearly 60 minutes in the queue we got the oppurtunity to get into the roller coaster. As soon as ride started, felt whoa... my heart started skipping a beat. Initially there is a nearly 200 ft feet climb in order to get the necessary potential energy. Now the dreaded 150 ft, 77 degree drop was coming into our view. Was nervous like anything. Then began the drop ..... EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK....... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH....Never had I shouted so hard in my life... Ofcouse it was becoz never in my life had I felt so scared.... I can still remember the exact vision I had during those few seconds.... dropping almost vertical... infact i was floating within my seats taking a g-force of 4.5g. After this initial drop the other up's and down's were not upto the previous drops stature, but it was equally thrilling. After a couple a minutes the roaller coaster came to halt. Felt awesome. This is the best theme park ride i had ever had :). If not for this typed blog, anyone would have noticed me still shaking with fear :D :D.

We roamed around the Four Season gardens, taking pics. Now there was an announcement going on that some parade was goingto begin. So decided to chill out and watch the parade. Out came the "Carnival Fantasy Parade". It had lots of artists dressed in fairies, kings, queens. Kids love this sort of parades and believe me there were a lot of them :). Also a majority of the artists were Europeans and they were real pretty :P. The parade lasted for nearly 15 minutes.

Moved towards 'Flume Ride' where a roller coaster splashes around into water. This was mildly thrilling. Like that we covered many more rides like 'Columbus', 'Hurricane' etc. By this time we had started to feel the hunger. We raided the nearest eatery which was Burger King. The other 2 guys were non-veg so they didnt have a problem and they got chiken burger. I had no choice but to go for french fries and some fried cheese, the only two veg items on the menu. Although I highly suspect whether the oil used for the same is derived from plant extracts or not , but this was the nearest to a veg meal I could get here.

After the so called snacks we decided to take things a little easy and started to roam around the place. We decided it was time we headed towards the Zootopia. Here there a variety of animals. Well to be frank to see such a large number of animals in cages I felt sad, even though their condition was better than Indian Zoo's, but still they are kept in so called "Golden Cages" and freedom is denied to both of them whether in India or South Korea.


Came across a ride called the amazon express where a raft takes people through an artificial river with amazon settings around the place. From here went to the so called safari. Here the waiting time was more than an hour and it literally drained all the energy we had left if at all any. Atlast boarded into a bus and entered the safari region. This safari had tigers,lions,white tigers, elepants, zebras, giraffes, camels, bears and one liger (cross between tiger and lion). But this seemed like an extension of the zoo itself with the animals all trained. The driver had some treats for the animals and the bears were trained to dance to get the treats. This was an insult in the name of a safari. Anyway these animals had better space to roam around than their lesser fortunate cousins in the zoo.

[Tiger Tiger, Burning Bright !!!!!!!]

When we came out of the safari it was dark and the we roamed around aimlessly. By this time another night parade had started called the "Moon Light Parade". Here all the artists and the props were clad in LED lights and it was a very pretty sight to watch. This lasted for another 10 mins. After this ended we went to the most commom ride in any themepark. i.e. the bumping cars. Had a nice time here bumping cars to one another.

[Moonlight Magic Video]

After bumping into one other we roamed around going to lesser known but interesting places like 4D theatre showing a korean animation movie, Spooky Fun House where we had to shoot targets in a sort of dungeon using a lazer light. I top scored in here when compared with the other 2 guys :D. By this time it was nearly 9 pm and time was for us to leave the place. We came out of the place nearly exhausted to catch a bus to go back to our place. In fact we had completed say only 70% of the entire park , but we went for all the rides we had planned to go to. Also there is one more waterpark adjacent to this place called the "Carribean Bay" and which inturn requires another day to explore. So a total of 2 days can be spent in this awesome themepark. :). Also this place has everything for a small kid, to a adrenaline junkie, to a middle aged person. People of all ages can enjoy in here .

[Group Pic]

Anyway reached the guesthouse at around 10.30 pm , had dinner and went to sleep, with the video of the 150 feet T-Express drop still playing in my head that too in HD quality :P.



Snaps Link->
http://picasaweb.google.com/unithin/Everland#