Day 2 we hoped should go well.Our plan was to visit Abby Falls, Harangi Dam, Nisargadhama Wild life Park and Tibetan Monastery. We had decided the previous night to leave the room by 8am.
Paddy was watching movie until 5 in the morning and his "Apna Haath Jaganaath" was used thrice that night(atleast he claims to have, while mallu dolphin said it was not possible and our dilli friend says with a break of two hours it is possible ). well the masters know it better...The rest of us did not argue...Then at about 8 in the morning we moved to Abby falls...the walk frm the quolis to the falls through some plantation was very good...it was really a sight worth seeing.The falls from the river Madikeri was great and so was the hanging bridge there...however the place was so full of plastics...we just discussed how we spoil a lot of places (me included) Such pristine water until the water fell to the ground.Then it was dirty...May be we should do something about this.promote something called ecotourism perhaps...
Then a stupid guy came there to collect Rs15 for parking our car there...We did shell out and cursing him moved to the next place...On the way we stopped at a small hotel called "jeeths Hotel and started to order some food. I found something palatable, dosa. Karan being the adventurer he is, wanted onion pakoda and he liked it so much that he ordered three plates of it.Others went in for Bread Omelette (the hotelier who doubled as the waiter told hesitatingly that he had it and would prepare it). I finished my dosa and had a litl bit of pakoda while the rest waited for their bread omelette. Well the wait finally got over and bang came three plates of??? well bombay toast. that was okay to our guys and they had it. Even that was only ok. Well by the second round the chef (glorifying the cook there) mastered himself on preparing bombay toast...Shetty even remarked that from now on he would hae this as his today's special item. You never really know. Then we had to shell out Rs20 for each plate of this item...coz he was making it for the first time, he did not know the costing.
Very satisfied with the decent food(heaven compared to the last days dinner),we moved to Harangi dam. It was a long climb from the entrance to the dam...Well the climb was worth it...The water level was really only about 30% of the dam capacity and all of us discussed about how beautiful a sight it would be to see the sluize gates open. The dude from rajastan recalled his experience of watching the dam across chambal river open its sluize gates...Then the roomies, the cross country drunkard from kerala and Mittu, went down to the other side of the dam going to the water. They did not see that the steps stopped at the middle. Then they came up. PCP in shakila style and Karan in his very corporate style formals.
Then we walked back to the jeep and the Devta of the group recalled how fast the momeys in his hometown of Haldwani got over...He badly wanted to taste those as he was sure he would get it near the Tibetan Monastery, our next halt... but before that it was "Dharbooz" time again and this time the whole group went mad... It was great...We finished a full fruit...
We were awestruck by the distant view of the Tibetan Monastery in Kushalnagar, Coorg. It is an amazing architectural marvel. The inside prayer hall is truly one of the memorable places...Gold plated statues of Lord Buddha, and two other Gods revered by the Buddhists...The writing below the statues claimed that the statue of Buddha alone was 60 ft tall while the other two were a shade smaller at 58 ft. Really an architectural marvel. So were the dragons that were on the pillars and the paintings depicting the life of important moments of Buddhism...The place was so quiet and peaceful. All of us were discussing wherefrom the funds for all this have come and also how is it possible to come to a third country and establish such a big and beautiful place. This golden temple also houses a large tibetan population. This is supposedly the second largest Tibetan Settlement in India.
After the tibetan monastery we decided to go for our food. We decided we would go to a hotel called "East End Hotel" which came up in the last night's list but was not considered as it was a little far from the place we were and the driver had gone elsewhere and we had to walk.
Reaching that place we thought yet again some Gatiya Khana. It was in a old kinda place...Well when we stepped in and saw some good food we thought ok finally some good food. And i enjoyed that meal. Gupta had a pint and it was really chill. The the two mallus also had some drinks and food and after a good meal we decided to move to the hotel and leave for Manipal... Well all of us were so happy with the food today...And that made the day overall a very good one...
Then we vacated the room at around 4.15pm and on our way back slept most of the way through. The drive was scary once we were on the plains. The driver (he had amazing control no doubt) was going at such speeds and overtaking so scarily...To take away all that we started to sing and crack some "do kaudi ka jokes" like the Shetty is a ullat pallat guy for Hewlett Packard guy and what not???
The last moments the driver was all the more skillful. Mobile in aone hand and the steering wheel on the other and still overtaking other cars at 80 to 100 Kph speeds. We were just sitting on the edge of our seats literally...We reached at 8.50 pm to the hostel and thanked our stars for that...
Overall a very good trip...memorable one...To say it in short, Karan's words suit it bestKya Baat Kar Raha Hai.
