skip to main |
skip to sidebar
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"
Last weekend was one that brought back memories of college days. I spent the weekend with Prasanna and Arun(who studied in SREC, eee). My memories with arun date back to college days when he was my college mate Ganesh's room mate. We just decided in the 11th hour to meet up on ECR. Prasanna and I spent some time, next to the Maayajal beach, and waited at Mayaajal till 7 30, for a few friends to arrive. Kishore had to make a urgent trip out of station, Arry gave one of the most confusing reasons for not coming, and LAN was busy with work at Satyam. Arun did not have a vehicle in hand, so I asked him to come to the ECR road, in his cognizant bus. He hitch hiked 2 bikes to reach us at 7 30 pm. We decided on a round of Go Karting and guess who won.....ME .... I bet Arun at the last curve to emerge the winner. Prasanna was 2 laps behind us when the 5 minute time interval got over. We were not particular about a movie at Mayaajal and decided that 1 bike cannot accomadate 3 people and we decided to leave the bike at Mayaajal and take a bus to Mahabalipuram. We got a bus to Kovalam, where we spent 90 minutes revising our crazy college life, waiting for a connecting bus to Mahabalipuram. We finally got a bus to Mahabalipuram at 10, and thats exactly when dear LAN call us that his work is over, but I persuade him to return home, as it would be difficult for us to now, head back to mayaajal and then proceed on 2 bikes. We reach Mahabalipuram at 10 40 pm, and found the place pretty desolate with just a couple of hotels open. We werent sure of our plan for the night, so we didnt book any room for the night.Each of us were game to just keep walking on the beach till eternity(sun rise :-0 ). After a rather expensive dinner at a shack restaurant, we proceeded along the bylanes of Mahabalipuram and reached the beach. Just as we were a few metres away from the beach, an ambassodor stopped in front of us and out emerged a 40 something foreigner. From what we could see, she seemed drunk and was limping. She requested me for help, as she wanted to go to some beach party that was happening a little further away.
She held on to me, partially swaying on my shoulders while her hands were around my arms. She was a British lady, on the umpteenth visit to India and seemed to have taken a liking for the Indian beaches. Those 10 minutes across the beach, under the moonlight, seemed like eternity. We dropped at her at the beach party, which was a wild beach campfire. There were 10 other ladies in various avatars of skimpiness and under heavy alcohol. Supporting them were 6 local guys, who supplied them all the liquor and took care of them.
We bid goodbye to them and set out to a secluded spot on the beach and settled next to a boat. Then from 12 am to 3 30 followed a huge discussion about various topics under the sun( errrr….the moon now). Arun managed to catch some sleep, while Prasanna and I were awake throughout. Mosquitos invaded our privacy and when I had enough of it, I decided to take a dip in the ocean against the dark background of the awe inspiring sea and the night sky.
Once Arun got up, we decided that we should take the earliest bus back to Chennai and at 4 am, we took the bus from Mahabalipuram to Koyambedu. Before we did that we were also subjected to some routine questioning by the police, as to what we were doing at this unearthly hour. A few seconds into questioning the guy realized we were tee totallers and had no amorous flings.
We had to walk a couple of kilometers to find buses plying on ECR and once we boarded the bus, every seat was occupied to its maximum capacity as men were lying flat on the seats, fast asleep. Prasanna and I got down at Mayajaal, while Arun went all the way to Adayar to catch a bus to Alwarpet.
Since it was pretty dark and to avoid paying a bribe to active traffic police personnel, we decided to spend our time, next to a tea shop, lying flat on the cemented floor till day break(6 am) and then decided to take the bike and driveback home. We took 2 breaks in that 30 kilmetre journey as lack of sleep, was showing, and I was starting to fall asleep. The 2 breaks helped me recharge my batteries and just a few metres from reaching home, I was thoroughly drenched in the showers that followed that morning.
It was one heck of a rough trip, and I expect to do more of these time permitting.
Right now, the next adventure rough trip would be a Chennai-Goa-Chennai 1000 bucks journey for a week. Mode of transport- unreserved rail journey. Lifts through bikes and lorries. Would know in a week, how taxing my B school life would be for the next one year, so that I can plan accordingly. 
