Realization dawned on me today that its been real long since I blogged; despite many stuff to write about. After my last blog on Women’s day, March went off with a visit to Cochin followed by birthday celebration of our ‘lensman’, which is half complete ;) April began on a similar note; treat for sunder’s onsite trip & devi’s birthday.
Overall, April by far has been the best month for us (just forget about the weather factor). Felt as if about half of the month we were on holidays; first was a long week end, especially for Chennai IBMers – one advantage of elections!
So, making the most of it, I planned the long-pending trip to Bangalore to visit my cousin. More eventful than the trip was the drive from my house to Koyambedu bus terminal for my onward journey. Wow, its still afresh in mind – just a night before the election, 12th april, I started from my place 1.5 hr before the bus schedule. For a travel time of 0.75 hr max, it took me just 1.5 hr to reach the terminal! The fun was not driving inch by inch but 10 mts away from the terminal, with 2 laptops in my shoulder bag and another travel bag, I had to make my way walking / running along with minute-to-minute phone calls!
All including me had decided that mostly I will be making my way back home! Miraculously I caught my bus that was just about to make its way! Wow, was it a relief or a sigh of triumph? I can’t explain it in words! Compared to this thrill, my visit to Bangalore felt very mundane J but for my spendthrift ventures out there – nope, don’t even ask me how much!?! And time spent with a little darling ‘Hruthi’:)
Just a week’s time for me to get over this, I was already neck-deep into planning for our next office team trip to Theni/Kumuli/Meghamalai during the ‘Good Friday’ long wk end. More than the trip, the planning was a life-time experience! My cousin & aunt make fun of me till date for the same ‘the time you have spent discussing the travel plan, you could have visited Theni by Walk’ :) what more do I say about it?
Guess we were indebted to our train dept! We ended up spending for thatkal, open tickets, and a fine for open tickets –LOL! nevertheless ‘it was worth it’(need to feel good about it na :)
Thanks to Maheswaran for arranging the local travel & allowing us to stay @ his place. A very welcoming family who treated us to a great breakfast!
From there, our first place of visit was Kumuli – where we had pld to stay overnight. Being a ‘dry day’, it was a task to look out for making the day ‘wet’ ;) after much struggle we managed too - adding to the fun was the sudden rain! The night went off chatting & singing…
Next day, we had an uneventful trip to Thekady – because neither the boating nor trekking worked out with our timing! But we enjoyed walking down there and treating ourselves to ice creams.
No one cribbed much about it because of the promise of a visit to Meghamalai, which truly is a MUST-VISIT PLACE – truly raw & blissful – thankfully so because it is still not rapped by us humans! Driving to this place, we couldn’t see a thing as we were covered by MIST all over! Finding a place to stay (because this was a sudden plan) and food to eat was a challenge… because all you have there are a few Home Stays and no hotels/resorts! Tx to maheswaran we got a decent place to stay (free of cost, ahem) where we enjoyed with our usual singing & chatting session.
Next day drive up towards a famous spot called ‘thoovanam’ was nice. Its another place to watch but when the dam is filled with water – that’s when the water would fall with such a force that it sprinkles back water on us like a fountain (therefore the name ‘thoovanam’).
Driving back, on our way we visited ‘suruli falls’ and the famous ‘grapes garden’ – its fun to see hanging grapes all around… but probably June is the best season to visit Theni and places around!
After a relaxing bath @ the Falls, we had most fun changing our dress in a room made of bedspread within our bus!
All set for our return journey by Bus – worth mentioning was the comfortable seats of Joy Travels – on the way, we were treated to heavy rains & a Dud-film ‘Kavalan’! Chennai welcomed us with a hot day but believe me compared to Kerala, Theni etc, Chennai’s heat is bearable at least so far. There goes April and now looking forward to an eventful May next. May the FUN continue:)