Midnight Beach Trek to Mahab and Pondi

It was just another day at B school, when I noticed that Dec 24th was coming to an end in about 5 hours, and dec 25th was thankfully a holiday. My life was going through a steady patch of college studies,classes, snoozing in classes, cases, hurried lunches ...et al, that a normal B schooler would go through. Basically life had turned mundane, there ws no challenge left in conquering a case, and also putting salt into my wounds was the fact that I didnt win the cricket quiz at the IIM-K Blog quiz, and my advertisement didnt make it past round 2 at IIMC-Inatglio. Life was dull untill Arun, my former engineering friend, messaged me on Google Talk. We knew both our lives were bordering on the mundane, so avoided the traditional "how are you" question. I wanted the night to be lively,so just casually asked him for an outing along ECR. We had done a smilar outing in April, which was an all night beach trek on Mahabalipuram, and involved sleeping in one of the boats till 3 am, after which we boarded a high way bus and came back to Chennai. With the hope of recreating that rough but exciting trip, we set out this time around from thiruvanmiyur with another guy called Ankur(My batchmate at Great Lakes).....





We reached at 10 30, had dinner in a cozy shack, and set out on the beach for a walk, after which we felt that we should also look at some accomadation incase we felt sleepy at night. None of the hotels had any rooms. We trudged back to the beach, and suddenly we had 4 people in khaki uniforms stopping us, The police told us that this is ann unsafe area and asked us to get back to Chennai via some of the buses on ECR. I hate this moral policing, but given that this area supposedly has some shady elements, I guess thats why regular patrolling was going on.





We were suffering from the dew at night as it started getting cold, and with no place to sleep, we decided to catch a bus in any direction, as long as we could sleep for a couple of hours. A bus going to Velankani came at 1 30 am, and we decided to catch the bus and slept till about 3 30 am, when I got up fearing that we may be too far from Chennai, and decided toget down near an arbit tea shop. This was a few mtrs from the road to auroville. We had a some hot tea, in the morning, and decided to explore the beach through a rather arduous roue that was a mini forest infested with thorny bushes, the darkness was prety scary, but hey! we wanted adventure, and we got it... We used our mobiles and waded through the spider webs and the bushes and finally reached eternity... the Beach which was basking in the full moon.





As soon as we reached, we looked for a place to rest for a while, and after that, we walked on and on, and came back to the same spot to rest again at 5 am. It was a beautiful walk in the eerie hours of the night, and our conversations centred around our lives. We were feeling a little sleepy ande decided to close our eyes for a while, till the sun god showed his prescence. When we got up it was around 6, and we decided to end our trip, by playing in the water.After an hour of playing, we went back to the place where we got down, and settled for a breakfast at one of the makeshit road side hotels for some hot vada and idly, with a dash of watery sambhar.





As all good things come to an end, we got a bus at 8 15 and reached Chennai at 10 30, and I was abck to college at 11 am. Some crazy adventure, but still loved it...





Tips: If you want to do this:





1) Mahabs and Pondi, I hear are places with a lot of illegal sexual activities, so carry around your identity card/tag and speak properly to the police, and you will not be uneccesarily questioned





2) Chennai is a place with 2 much policing and most of the restaurants close at 11, hardly a pale shadow of goa, where 3 am on Baga Beach is like 7 pm, the whole beach is alive and kicking.





3) The wave at Pondi- Auro beach is a little strong, dont venture out into the sea... as the soil slips under your feet.





4) If you dont mind the rough nature of the trip and improper acco for the night, this night trip is still pretty enjoyable. I seem to like this mode of "quick and dirty" trips as such unplanned trips brings in a lot of interest which is so much interestig from a planned journey.





Some Pics from the trek







Ankur twiddling his thumbs, whether to drink tea or not at 3 am



Me and Arun, enjoying the hot tea at 3 30 am. See me with the college ID? Thats my kavacha Kunadalam...safety card in case I get into trouble.



This is where we got off at 3 15 am



When we slept. Ankur felt chill, so took of his under vests and used it as an extra line of covering against the chillness at 5 am. Also seen is Arun, who is cringing and trying to catch some sleep.



Arun in a state of sleeping beauty!



Titanic in the waves!

"It's starting to feel warm here, we should leave now!"

"You want to leave now? It's just getting better, from the chillness of 5 am"