A Stroll in the valley...

“Vacation is what you take when you can't take what you've been taking any longer.”

How true can this quote be. Especially when you spend 12hours in front of the computer at work, 6hours in front of the computer at home and the balance few hours dreaming about solving the production issues in the main server computer. Argh..It is compute-err I got to say. Add to it when you get a question like "Will you be home by 5?" and you respond "System time or run time?" you know it’s the high time to take a break.

I am blessed, lucky, fortunate[that’s the end of my attempted-GRE vocabs] to get a bunch of people who were equally if not more bugged with work. So a motley group of guys and girls numbering 13[yeah I know the last supper but in this bunch all were Judas] decided to take a weekend off to a place which is uncorrupt by overt commercialization and artificial fauna n flora.

The spot was avalanche, some 30kms from the hustle bustle of Ooty[Ooty is a perfect example of my rant about commercialization].My previous visit to avalanche was 3years back and those adventurous memories made me all pumped up.

We booked tickets in a special train to coimbatore and the train was indeed special with a delay of one hour to the destination. Other than the grudge that we didn’t get all the 13 tickets in a single coach the train journey was incident free. Infact it was surprising because most of the folks who follow indian flexible time n were expected to miss the train arrived on spot during the departure.

A saying goes - God can't be present everywhere and that’s why he created bars..err..friends and we had a truly god sent friend at coimbatore. This noble person[whom 99% of us met for the first time] was present in the coimbatore railway station with the 14seater cab he had arranged for our trip to avalanche and most importantly with 2 bottles of Smirnoff and packed breakfast as he thought we may get delayed if we halt for breakfast or to buy sarakku. A heartfelt thanks to him.

We gobbled down the idlis, pongal, sambhar and chutney as the cab was on the move and reclined on our seats half asleep. The journey from coimbatore to ooty is 2.5 hours and from ooty to avalanche its another 1 hour. Thanks to our innumerable tea and pee breaks we reached avalanche with a delay of more than an hour.By the time we reached the parking lot of the resort which we had booked it was 1 in the noon.

I presume the resort guys had planned fun right from the word go or probably it was our cranky group which turned even the most mundane things into fun filled adventures. I am speaking about the 3 km long army truck ride from the parking lot to the resort's reception. It was jungle pathway with no evenly laid road even for a centimeter. Bump...jump..bang that was our situation inside..more like the fruits being beaten in a mixer. But we being the innovative ones decided to start a game, the participant shud stand up from his/her seat without holding anything for support, the one who stands for the highest count is the winner. Interestingly the fattest of the lot won it by a huge margin.

Once we reached the resort,the next few minutes the only expression on the face of 13 people was "jaw dropping", be it the beautiful valley which started from the room or the tastefully decorated rooms[they had a wild west theme] or be the yummy lunch everything about the place was simply awesome. As we had arrived pretty late that day,we spent it by going for horse riding, playing a violent game of foosball[kids ran back into their cottages hearing our over excited screams during the game],munching down the home made cakes and last but not the least emptying the 2 bottles of Smirnoff till the last drop. The adventures of the drunken travellers can be written as a separate novel. Imagine going to the topmost point of the valley and doing march-past[with perfect commands and movements, everyone remembered their NCC days] at 12.30 in night in the freezing cold, I say only a man in a happy high can do it.

The next day morning we were back on our feet by 6.30AM and all set to conquer the wilderness, after a small fishing session and visit to the farm[the produce of which is used for preparing the yummy food]we got ready for a long trek.Or rather a hike into the forests covering two hills. The trek started pretty normally...a few slopes and few uphills.As we went deep in the terrain got tougher and then came the best part....the skies opened up,drenching us totally and all were wet till the bone. The terrain was getting more uphill and the rain was making it slippery, after lot of huffing and puffing by some fitness freaks[read as yours truly] we managed to proceed. We reached a clearing, and from there we could get a glimpse of the beautiful avalanche river spreading her tributary in a grandiose manner. We were spell bound, such sights reminds me of the famous hawkings quote "We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star", we feel so minuscule in front of the nature's vastness but imagine the number of petty fights and conflict we have..hmmm..after a few seconds we realized we were carrying cams, then the photo sessions began.

The hike back to the cottage took another 45 minutes, it was easier than the onward journey with a pretty flat terrain. Back to the cottage we jumped into the lunch, for a change I dumped all my diet controls and was emptying the food bowls, the poor waiters could not do anything but keep serving more.

The return from paradise started with the truck ride[and ofcoz the who stands still game, this time I improved vastly and was the runner up]to our cab. The next 3.5hours drive to coimbatore was made interesting with group singing sessions [the driver too joined in] and a particular joke about a ducky love affair. The dinner was in a very average restaurant but then only the average ones provide quick service.

The train had already arrived and for those who thought the fun was over here..nop it didn't, the next day being the birthday for one of our gang's mainstays, we had decided to make it special. A cake was set up inside the train and with proper plotting and scripting we made sure the cake and b'day celebrations were a total surprise to the b'day boy. The cake cutting was followed by a creamy facial and a b’day bumps session right on the main platform of coimbatore railway station. The expression of others in the station is still etched in my memory, imagine a guy being lifted by 10people and being given bums in a rather busy railway station...finally getting tired of giving bumps we all retired to the berths. It was a different story that the b'day boy was given a Vaseline n Colgate facials in the morning...and we claim to be in the wrong side of twenties.

The next day all of us were back in our seats by 10.30 AM, looking into the compute-errs and prizing the memories of a fun filled trip. A special thanks to my friend without whom I would not have been able to make it in time to work and wud have got a guaranteed screwing from my boss.

They say - If you come home as happy as you leave, you have had a good vacation, but the fact is all of us came home happier than when we left so it was a blast of a vacation indeed.