a Travelogue

Sateesh and the knae
It was around 4 in the evening. The six of us were standing in the bus stand at Honovar (pronounced one-hour) ,a small town some 30km from the Konkan coast, waiting for a bus to Sagara that might or might not arrive,with each one of us making his own calculations regarding the best way to reach Shimoga on time so that we don't miss the train back to Bangalore - when two guys approached us.
One of them vaguely resembled one of my friend's landlord, whose name was Sateesh. Hence this guy's name was also Sateesh. The other guy looked like a 'knae' - as they say in Parassala dialect - so he was a knae.
Anyway, Sateesh and the knae offered us an interesting proposition. It seemed Sateesh was in a hurry to reach Shimoga and couldn't afford to wait for the bus. His brother, the knae, was thinking of taking him in his taxi, an omni van. In order to reduce his expenses,he was willing to take us along, if we paid two hundred moneys per head.
Now 200 bucks is not that unreasonable, considering the fact that the bus ticket from Honovar to Shimoga would cost one around 140 rupees. But even then, time was still on our side. If the 4-15 bus to Sagara did arrive as it is supposed to arrive,or, even if it was an hour late, we still might make it to shimoga before 10.Hence we started bargaining with him, just like we do in commercial street, just for the entertainment. But he wouldn't come down from 200 to 110. So we left it at that, and as the knae started talking to more people regarding his offer, we thought we had seen the last of him.

But at 4-45, the bus had still not arrived. So things were getting a bit tight, timewise.Shimoga was 220km away,Bangalore another 61/2 hours from there and some in the group were getting tensed, thinking about the prospect of missing the train. The KSRTC information desk was more of an ignorance desk. There was even some talk of the Sagara bus having broken down, and that there would be no service on the day.
So it was our turn to talk to Sateesh and the knae, not for the entertainment, but seriously this time. After 5 minutes of negotiation, it was settled that the knae would drop us till Sagara, and we would pay 100Rs per head for the same. From Sagara, we were told, buses to Shimoga were very frequent.

Now that it was settled, we set out with the knae and Sateesh, in their blue omni. The journey back to Shimoga had started.

On the winding narrow stretch of road through the western ghats in Uttara Kannada we would (hopefully) reach to where it had begun- Shimoga bus stand.

The plan

Actually the plan was Goa.

Goa , Goa Goa.

After a sleepy valentine's weekend, the next weekend was an extended one. 3 holidays. I had to go somewhere, someplace. The plan was to go to Goa. Unfortunately there was no tickets available to or from Goa. So the plan had to be ditched, or rather, postponed.

Now one of my colleague's husband's friend , it seems, had gone to a place called Kodachadri. It is a great place to trek, I was told.

So Kodachadri was the destination.

5 of my friends from college were game for the journey. After some googling, I booked tickets to and from a place called Shimoga. Thus the start time and return time for our journey was fixed. It was something like what you do in linear programming. We had to maximize our adventure, enjoyment and entertainment subject to these two constraints. Nothing else in our journey would be fixed.

Our broad plan was something like this - Saturday early morning we would be reaching Shimoga. From there, we would take a bus to a place called Kollur. From here, Koddachadri was very near. Sunday we would visit Jog falls, and return by the 10 o'clock train from Shimoga.

Obviously we would be following this plan as rigidly as we used to follow college timings!.
Actually in my opinion, when you are travelling, especially with friends, the real fun is not after you reach the destination, but the lack of a clear destination itself,and the instantaneous decisions that take you to another new place.Hence, at each junction we reach, we would be open to yet another answer to the question, next is what?.