A trip worth forgetting- (Trivandrum to Kodaikanal)

The Plan was to have a blast for the weekend and enjoy the scenic beauty of Kodaikanal after several hectic weeks at work. But what it turned out was a comedy of errors with nothing funny about it. All the plans went in the drain together with the water from the heavy downpour and we were left with nothing but a cycling journey to remember. Here are a few excerpts of how not to plan for an outing:

We were scheduled to leave at 9.30 pm on Friday (17th October 2008), but the bus arrived at our hotels at 11.15 taking its own time. It was as if we were the one who were being paid for riding on his Palace on Wheels. 

If coming late wasn't enough, the bus was also not the one we had booked for! We had asked for a semi-sleeper bus, but were provided with a normal travelling bus with no options of even adjusting the seats. And to add up to the situation even the driver was not that skilled with every vehicle on the road overtaking us (he in-fact was so poor in his driving skills that he used to stop the bus, pull it in the reverse and then made a left turn).

The tragedies were just beginning and it was not long before i started questioning myself as to why did I say yes for the trip in the first place. We slept through the entire night just to find out in the morning that our driver had forgotten his sense of direction in trivandrum itself. It took another hour for us to be back on track, but the damage had already started. We were already short on time and his foolishness was eating away even those precious hours. Adding insult to the injury (or rather the other way round) was the pain in my arm caused by sleeping on the window seat of the bus.

We reached Kodaikanal at 1 pm the next day (Saturday 18th October 2008) and checked in our hotels. All the travelling had taken its toll on the poor creature (called bus) and the coolant from its engine started leaking. It took some time for it to get repaired.

By the time we took a little rest and were ready to go for our adventures we were greeted by the showers from the heaven and all our plans of a wonderful day were now looking like a distant dream.

We took our lunch and boarded the bus for reaching our first stop "the boating point". The moment we reached the first point, there was a discussion whether to skip this point and go ahead at the next one or not. But the discussion was brought to a halt with many of the colleagues already out and enjoying themselves. There was a huge queue for boating and so we decided to go for cycling instead. It was years since we had placed our foot on peddle and believe me it was great fun. It was a half hour ride and at the end of it we were all exhausted as all of us were lazy bones with no one working out on  a regular basis. 

As we all gathered at the bus and were going ahead for the second stop of our journey, the rain-god's thought of paying us another visit. This time around it wasn't a meagre shower but heavy downpour. And our beloved Bus was too fragile to withstand this kind of weather. It broke down with its viper and headlights refusing to work under such conditions. We were all but stranded and had nothing to do.

A debate raged as to what shall be done with some asking for going back immediately to Trivandrum (including me)and saving at least a Sunday while others opting to stay back for the night and leave the next day morning.We finally decided on going back to our hotels and leaving the next day morning.

Again at the hotel people started debating whether to visit the remaining places in the morning and then leave or to start the journey to trivandrum at the earliest. This time though we were in no mood to relent and it was agreed upon that we would be going back to Trivandrum.

Once again we were on the roads and were driving towards Trivandrum, but this time it was day and everyone of us were sweating and cursing those who decided against leaving at night. We reached our destination at around 10 pm (Sunday 19th October 2008) and were totally exhausted by the travelling for such a long time.

The only positives of the entire trip were the food at the Vasantham Hotel where we stopped during our return journey. The hotel served only South Indian Lunch on a banana leaf and the quality of the food was just fabulous. We also greatly enjoyed singing along all the songs that were being played in the bus and playing several games during the road-trip.

Overall the outing was a total disaster and as my friend had stated "We spent Rs. 1100 just to go all the way to Kodaikanal and do cycling for half an hour."