Cheap thrills

(Telephone conversation)
What time dude, Today 9.00 clock night at majestic,
But Suddenly, I have a toastmaster meeting up to 8.30, if it finished on time.
Any ways Where- Kemangundi
Any idea what is the plan?
No Gr8
Cheap thrills trip, OK I will be there.
Who else are coming, Good good, so totally 7

It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters in the end.

Cheap thrills: Group of explorer we created and in which we are having some ground rules
GR1- Thou salt should plan everything in advance except details like where to go, how to reach, and especially what is the plan. Because we believe planning to get a certain answers of these questions actually destroys the real essence of the journey.
The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.

GR2- Thou salt need to use cheapest and quickest mode of transportation (better walk, but do you think it complies with both requirements); to rely on local food (so Banana became favorite among cheapthrillians) and accommodation with locals.

GR3- Cheapthrillians should start and finish their journey with Cheap Thrills Anthem that really drives us towards destination. Of course I can’t share that, I know grammarian will not tolerate that much censored stuff.

So finally we all started to reach 9 at majestic as some body told us, buses for Kemangundi are up to 9.30. Now it was race against the time in the Bangalore traffic (that is the only part of the journey which we all hate most), and surprisingly we all gathered at 9 in majestic, and found that last bus was at 8.30 and now No bus till morning 7.00 O clock.
And as always happens we got BISCUIT: Biscuit! Slang or lingo we use, if things don’t happen as we have planned then we say, got Biscuit and otherwise got Cake.

No go back once decided so started the brake journey and visited at least bus stands of lot of places.
But in life why most of the people stop if some thing doesn’t happen the way they have planned.

During our journey one guy told us there is only one lodge in kemangundi and that too is full; better try accommodation in kalhatgiri village, happened to some 15-20 KM from Kemangundi. So we all got down at kalhatgiri some where close to 2PM next day.

Kalhatgiri:
we walked close to 2-3 KM until we felt some civilization around, that too a lonely shop and some houses around. Had food, what ever was available and bought one whole bunch of banana as a future plan.
Some locals agreed to give us accommodation on Rs300 per head. Suddenly I don’t know who, Discussion of night tracking started as one local told there is a way through mountains to reach Kemengundi and he will charge 200 per person. We all mulled over the propositions200X7= 1400, 300X7=2100 and any way we have to go to kemangundi in the morning.

Night tracking:
As night tracking was not in the plan so none happened to carry torch and we asked villagers to help. Some how they arranged three torches for us. One with the guide, 2nd with me and 3rd with Aditya basu, Poor guy first time came for the cheapthrill’s trip; I wonder he ever walked more than 1KM, rich fellow I guess.

And we started at 9.00 O clock night. Though it was a full moon day but our path was completely dark because of dense forest cover.
We are walking in an aunt line, first and last person were holding torch and we devised method of signaling each other in case of any problem, I was leading and basu was the last.
We were frequently having counting, I always start with full josh 1 and that keeps on dying back wards and lastly we hear, weary sound of Basu 7.

Track was narrow and quite scary, we almost crawled at lot of sloppiest places and cacophonous sound of water fall was adding more fear.
We were guiding each other like: dude right side is a deep pit, in front there is a broken tree, on the path there is a sudden abyss, need to hold the tree to cross, and passing the message backward.

We all were sure in case of daylight, long back we could have decided to go back; in the dark we were not able to estimate the scariness of the path. We were concentrating only on what was ahead and deepness of the valley was an unknown fact.
But in life why don’t we only see just what is ahead like Arjuna when he was aiming bird’s eye,
Why do we look around and decide to step back.

At 2.00 O’clock we came out of the dense forest cover. We can feel the plain area at the hill top and moon shining next to it was making a wonderful sight.
Never estimated it will be that cold at the top, chilling air was impregnating our bones. We were desperately searching shelter.
In moonlight we can sense some shadowy structure at distance, we reached there we discovered it was the sort of cave made by dense trees. We ignited fire and took rest there though our guide was insisting to see the water fall.

I got up early and again to my surprise I saw a thin stream of water going at the end of tree cover, so our morning problem solved even other wise we could have managed. J

I came out of the tree cover and sun was rising up slowly and reflection of its rays from the droplets on the grass due to morning dues, was creating some inexplicable aura, I thought to get the glimpse of this sight I am ready to take any amount of difficulty.

We went to visit water fall where we intended to come at night. After reaching there we realized some one would surely be missing if we would have come here at night.
It was sudden end of the broad Mountain plain and region was quite slippery too. Later my fiend Melvi told one of his friend died at the same spot.
Thanking god we started our journey towards Kemengundi, the scene was perfect for Lord of the rings shooting.

Down ward journey was not horrible as kemangundi also happened to be at another hill top.
After 2 hrs of tracking we saw lines of the road and small town at far distance.
What a relief. Our destination!!!!!!!!!
But in journey of life how many of us want to reach final destination? Though it is unavoidable
As soon as we touched the road, we all lied down on it. We saw one group of ppl approaching us as they saw us descending from the mountain. They inquired us from where we are coming and then they asked How it was-We all said in unison-------- Fantastic Over to toastmaster