ONMS trip to Mekedattu..

Trin ! Trin ! The alarms goes off at 5:00 am ... T. G. I. F ! Ring ! Ring ! The cell/mobile starts ringing at 5:30 am - 6:30 am IST at at least 25 different houses.. Oh ! Oh ! do we have a priority issue that needs urgent R&D support ! Oh no !!!There goes our 'T.G.I.F'... it's going a full exhausting day of work and R&D support.

BUT wait !! NO NO ...That's not why the alarm went off ! That's not why the Cell/mobile started ringing ! Nope not at all !! Those are wake up calls..... We are off to a Trip to Sangama, trek to Mekedattu and a sign-off visit to Muthathi.

A detailed trip was planned by the organizers, where the 28-Seater would originate from Corporation, and make designated stops at Old Madras Rd, Airport Rd, Marathalli and Banashankari to pick up the folks and make for the planned trip on Nov-30-2007.

We start of the day with the chilly Bangalore morning (try getting up at 5:30 am IST !) and a slight delay in the shuttle schedule. Breakfast was planned to be loaded into the bus thus a few min(s) of lag (isn't that called the "I"ndian "S"tretchable "T"ime !). But this delay was a boon in disguise..as we realized that we did not have any Dance(yo ! yo !) song CDs in the shuttle. We did get a few movies too... Saawariya (oh no ! not again !!), OSO, Jab we met, Dhoom and Dhoom 2 and Dhamaal.

The ride (integrated with movie OSO, had a tough time figuring the Fast Forward button on the remote of the DVD player !) was a good one. Surely, Karnataka Tourism could spend a bit more from the budget to improve the road to Sangama. The narrow roads through the in-between cities did slow us down, not to mention the herds of cows, goats and sheep's being herded on the main road :0) En route, we even had a welcome speech in Kannada (with English translation)... it is a different thing that our English translator (one of us) had his own mind..and tweaked the Kannada speech !!

A quick stop en route had the team having a quick breakfast that we had packed up. Rumour has it that the so-called Vangi baath was from yesterday and the vegetables seen in the same were day-before yesterday (isn't Vangi baath supposed to have only Brinjal, but we did find a unique assortment of nutritious vegetables). What say ? Just kidding...

The road to Sangama was unique... we lost count of how many sharp turns (some of them blind turns) we made..kudos to the driver who could manoeuvre that 28-seater round such turns - Phew !

Finally, we reached Sangama at around 12:30 am IST. Weather was good and so was the surrounding (if you were to not look at the litter folks have left around !). The first thing for the 'papi-pet' was to mark out the Lunch spot ! We did ..at the heart of Samgama, we have the Tender Cocunut Restaurant, and we pre-ordered for Lunch.

Then the team started to cross the Sangama - the confluence of two rivers Arkavathi and Kaveri(Cauvery). The adventurous took off pants (!!) and started swimming across the river. The not so adventurous one's started to walk across the river holding hands and inching their way across the sand-bed of Sangama. The rest decided to take the dingy..and be rowed across the Sangama.

At the other end of the bank the choices available were either take the bus/jeep to Mekedattu or do the (~1.5 hr) trekking to Mekedattu. By either of the options we reached Mekedattu.

The sight was awesome.. the rock formation was superb. It is surely a rock climbing spot (hey ! no one told us that mekedaatu is good for rock-climbing, else we would have carried the gear).And not to forget the monkeys around. We did want to take a self-time photo shoot, but that to the monkey scare...no one wanted to keep the camera on a self-timer and take the risk of providing an east target for the ever-ready monkey squad !

After the view of nature's beauty and the photo shoot...we started the way back to Sangama. The Mekedattu to Sangama road is a virtual roller-coaster ride...but, recommendation is if you have enough stamina...trek back to Sangama. It is a good walk..down the slope and along the river bank !

This time for crossing a few more adventurous folks joined the walk across the river. The only two who decided to take the dingy ride across, well some of us made sure..we could spray some water on them when they reached the other end. Hey ! its a democratic country... everyone needs to get drenched with the Sangama water.

We were a tired lot (~3:00 noon IST). A 2 min(s) walk landed us at the Tender Coconut restaurant.A very good lunch was waiting. Under the Shadow clad slight breeze whiff, we had out lunch of chappati, Paneer Butter Masala and Aloo Gobi. Topped it up with Sweet lime soda... ahh ! C'est La viva!

Now we had two options...take a good rest (some could have dozed off !!) and then start or start immediately for the next location...Muthathi. We decided for the latter. En route, after multiple runs we finally finished off OSO. Muthathi was good (would be great during the rainy season). The water had receded and the natural roots of the huge trees were all around us (and off course the monkeys were everywhere). It would be a great place to cook, and have dinner at this place :o) The sunset had just taken place, and the last few rays of sunlight reflected the Muthathi basin.

After the photo shoots, walk down the river bank (some even found time to visit the temple), we decided to pack up..and kick-off the 100 KMs trip back to Bangalore city. The trip back was slow in the internal road... now the local population who had taken cattle stock for a walk were returning back and they walked the length-and-breadth of the road.

Snacks were passed around...and then we discovered that all the Snacks were disappearing in no time !! Where ! Finally, we found a place...where 'someone' was stockpiling the Snacks :-) we found at least 10 packets..hmmm....something was cooking there ;-)

What did we leave out ! It was already dark outside... nothing much to see. What did we leave out !Ahhh ! ha ! It's the time to disco ! Thus started the Dance Masti tune blasting off the shuttle speakers....and all were welcome (some had to be carried to the dance floor !!) to show off the 'moves' ! We learnt a few new moves...

We saw the 'towel-and-cigar-stub move', the 'open-bulb-and-open-tap' move, the 'soap-scrubbing' move and finally the 'boxing' move !!! So much talent and so less time ..... Then we had the singing program..where a few of the folks sang for the team.Kudos !

By that time we had entered the city limits, and started the Appreciation and Thankyou for joining notes (this is a hit !!) for the team.

Finally around, 10:00 pm we were back home. Thus came to a closure the 1-day Trip of Trip to Sangama, Mekedattu and Muthathi. Remembrance... that's what one will refer to many years from now, when One takes a Walk down the memory lane.