Konark Sun temple & Jagannanath temple at Puri - 2 Nov, 2009

I made it to the Konark express with time to spare, and as usual with a guy traveling alone; I had the side upper berth. The guy further down asked to see my book (it was Enneagram by Richard Ruso and Hudson), a book I had been trying to read for the last 2 months. Turns out he was a recent law Graduate from SIBM who was traveling home to Cuttack. Surprisingly, I struck up a chat with Sanjog, which carried on till past midnight, from the time the train started at 9:30 from Vizag.

The young chap seemed quite wise for his age, he had a clear notion on almost everything (though I’m sure he’d argue vehemently on this point), ranging from his personal life, his job, studies, future, the environment, whatnot! Strange, I’m a full blooded introvert, all my MBTIs have affirmed that fact, and I ended up in this long conversation, on a train, with a complete stranger. To be fair, though, I was the one doing most of the listening, as he explained to me his aspirations for anthropology. I was quite taken in by the effort he was putting in to get to a good institute, a few articles published in the newspaper, had assisted in tribal projects in Orissa, was in touch with people in different institutes he wanted to get to, even gone to meet a dean of one German institute in Bombay! And the young lad was quite passionate about the culture in Orissa, the natural beauty that was being deteriorated, lack of proper representation of the state people in the political environment, et al. He even pointed out a couple of hills in the darkness of the night as the train entered Orissa.

My entire 3 day itinerary was changed by him as he even volunteered to show me around the next day. I would’ve gotten down at Khurda junction at 3:50 am, looking for something to get to Konark (he informed me that most buses do pass through Bhubaneshwar only, so I better get down there itself). At Bhubaneshwar he dropped me off at the bus stand, even went to the effort of getting me into the right bus for Puri, which I’d have been unable to locate in the early morning and with the language handicap.

I bid him goodbye for the day here, promising to meet him the next day, as the bus started off on the 60 km road to Puri. I could make out the white lotuses at 5 in the morning, as the Oriya folk dvd blared off in the bus. Not that I don’t appreciate music, but I can’t bloody well bear this after a train ride, this early in the morning. At around 6:30 the bus dropped me off at the Puri bus stand. The autos are their usual self, 40 bucks for 4 km to the beach road, where I had to dish out 700 bucks for a room, one of the cheaper ones I could find. A lot of hotels on this road, which runs parallel to the Puri beach.

After a bath and breakfast, I headed out to the bus stand. Surprisingly, there are no bus services to Konark as I found out, the ones that go are the small tourist tempos. The auto chaps ask for a fortune for the 36 km travel here. So I asked around till I got to the end of the road, opposite from the main bus stand where most of the tempos are; they should really put some signs or something here, the small shops on the road hide away the tempos from the road. About 1 tempo in 30 minutes, and the conductors are the king. They make you wait 15 minutes before letting you into the carrier, or even give a ticket. I jostled in, the place was absolutely crammed, with no place to sit now. The bus was up to 350% seating capacity, no kidding, I was almost standing on my toes here, and covered the 36 km in a leisurely 1 hour.
Now I had high hopes from the temple, but even in this late morning heat, it was thronging with visitors, a lot of Bengalis and a few foreigners thrown in.

The 400 meter long street from the main road to the temple gates is laced with small shops, most of them selling cloth bags, lampshades, and the rock and wood replicas of the temple. The colors and the vibrancy here remind one of Delhi’s Janpath market. The temple is huge, I’ll give it that, you can quite easily fathom the magnitude of effort that’d have gone in the construction.

At the front of the temple you get to see the ubiquitous lions guarding the gates, and a small pillared structure before one enters the main temple.

I visited each of the 24 wheels on the walls of the main structure, 12 on each of the 2 sides, completing the chariot which was supposedly made to travel to the gods’ abode. It’s a pity that I couldn’t capture 12 in one snapshot, the wide angle is not enough here, so you can get the horses and a few of the wheels.

 Each of the 12 wheels is intricately carved out, and there are a lot of different designs that you can keep on admiring for a long time.

The temple interior is blocked away, which I later came to know was to support the structure after excavation. So I proceeded on up the flight of stairs to the first level of the temple where you can see 3 big statues at the sides and the back of the temple, resembling Buddha, not sure what it was.

The garden surrounding the main temple has a couple of other structures as well, some with little crocodile and other strange carvings.

The carvings on the walls of the temple are quite good, some in pretty good condition still, but there seems to be some big renovation work going on one side of the temple, which spoils the view.

 And if you thought that you had to go to Khajuraho to see naughty carvings, well you were wrong, these were here in plenty. Even on the spokes of the wheels, you could see that the poor stone carvers had only one thing on their minds, jeez!

But at some places, you have to feel for the condition of the temple, where the carvings had to be cut down in order to repair the entire structure, thus rendering it a bit weird.
I finally took a long walk on the border wall of the temple compound, and beneath the trees you can still see some of the remains of the pillars of the temple, which seem to have been discarded now, and took a snap of the entire temple one last time.

The bus, ahem, tempo back was as uncomfortable as it was at the onward journey, and I wasn’t able to see much of the Konark beach that the road was running parallel to. I’m a guy with average Indian height, but it was weird, I seemed to be the only person having trouble standing upright, with my head stuck to the roof of the tempo. Nevertheless I made it back to Puri in one piece and after catching some cricket action on the television and a sumptuous meal, I headed out for the Jagannanath temple at 6:30 pm.

I was told by the hotel staff that since it was a full moon, there’d be a lot of visitors. No kidding, the rickshaw chap had to stop 200 meters before the temple entrance on the main road. Seems that the police had set up barricades and had stopped traffic for a stretch on the main road itself due to the pujas. Well, I got to the temple, deposited my camera, phone and shoes outside, pity no photos inside. I seemed to have come at the lull time, for by the time I got out an hour later, around 7:45, the line at the entrance had gotten huge, almost 150 people waiting and a lot more on the streets. Inside the temple you go up the wet steps and there are a lot of people, the pandas (the pujaris here) who cajole you for some pujas. I passed all and proceeded to the temple compound, there are a lot of different deities here, and I cannot for the life in me remember even a couple. The structures here might not be as flattering as at a few other places, you are simply left in awe of the devotion that the people have, waiting for a glimpse of the almighty’s idol, prostrating at the steps, mumbling prayers all the way, just sitting in the compound gazing forth.

I really did want to see the main deity, but there seemed to be a mad rush of people wanting to do the same, with the cops trying to keep some order. I decided to give it a miss instead of waiting an hour to take a glimpse of the deity, not at all religious am I? but I did take with me the Prasad offered here, called ‘Abhada’, they give you some sweet rice, some daals, some vegetables in mud handis, and quite a lot of people I watched it eat right there. Normally, I don’t take the Prasad at temples, but Sanjog had told me to try it, as I wouldn’t find it anywhere else, so I paid 20 bucks and took the smallest of the ones, there were big handis worth a lot more, but I just wanted a taste. Not bad at all on the tongue, and I finished it off in a couple of minutes, the sweet flavor mixed well with the salty pulse and other stuff.

With the evening waning off, I proceeded to take a couple of snaps of the temple from the road, and headed back to my hotel bed for some well earned rest.

Ahhh…..the good life

So I heard something good the other day – 2 of my very good friends who had been under voluntary unemployment for quite a few months now just re-entered the labor workforce. One of them got into a franchise business, and the other joined a recruitment agency, neat right?

I visited the office of the former in Delhi, and ‘I was surprised’ would be an understatement. During the course of a couple hours only I witnessed the electricians getting numerous strict instructions, Reliance broadband people being shown on where the cables would enter the office walls, the poor cease-fire guy getting a shunting for putting up the cease-fire a few mm off, the HDFC bank account opening chap made to run to conclude the process, and a guy from LG interviewed for supervising the office. And all of this interspersed with numerous calls to god knows who all! This was all quite a pleasant site.

The other got into a placement agency in Calcutta (haven’t quite gotten used to Kolkata, or even Mumbai), and now, after months of talking to consultants regarding his placement, would be interviewing other chaps on the prospective market. And this from a fellow who had been quite down everytime I had spoken to him over the last year or so, so naturally, this was also a welcome incident.

And the third thing, back to visit dear old Delhi, what can I say, it has its charms –
1. The first one is mom’s cooking, without a doubt THE best in the world (just like everyone reckons their respective mom to be world’s greatest chef). Case in point – Makke di roti, te sarson da saag, complete with onion and jaggery on the side, deeeelicious.
2. The Connaught place and Kamala nagar markets, always crowded any time of the day, any day. The numerous small shops in the bylanes of kamala nagar, full with the college going kids, and the small eating joints mixed with the apparel shops, everything’s here.
3. The traffic snarls, and the oh so missed SMOG on Delhi roads. I read in the paper the other day that nearly a 1000 new vehicles are added to the metro roads daily, so obviously there is traffic. Even the metro I traveled in non peak hours was full to the hilt, wow.
4. The small vegetable carts at the side of the roads near my home and the harassment by the association of the street peddlers to give them money for the place occupied. I got to witness one of these incidents in front of me as I had gone to buy some groceries, some things never do change I guess. Well, the slums also are there still, right where I left them.
5. And the company of brainy minds such as this one here.

So, life at the moment is good.

Yarada Beach - 1 Nov, 2009

Was quite tired so I woke up at 11:30 to start off for Yarada beach. The RTC bus complex in the city is about 3-3.5 km from the train station and that’s where I headed. The auto quoted 300 bucks for the 30 km or so journey, which I laughed off (I later got to know its steep hill in the middle and very few buses plying on the route, so the quote was a bit justified). Since all the directions at the bus stand were in Telugu, I had to do the unthinkable as a guy, ask for directions. I sincerely apologize to fellow menfolk for this gravest of sins, but it was unavoidable. The traffic cop knew nothing, the people at the hotel knew nothing, finally the chap at the small, hidden enquiry center at the RTC complex helped me out.

So up I went on to the # 400 bus to a place called Scindia, next to the Naval base;7 bucks and 30 minutes and I’m there. Here another bus conductor told me to take the # 16, apparently the only bus plying to Yarada village. There are a few shared autos, but the ones I asked did not want to go to Yarada, and the non sharing ones asked 200! I waited for almost 50 minutes for that elusive red and white striped, 2 ton beast, and I finally sighted the rare creature at somewhere around 2 pm. (make sure you plan right, the #16 only comes once every 1.5-2 hours, I checked this with the conductors and the route timings pasted inside the bus, so if you don’t have your own conveyance, be sure to check these timings).

In scrambled all the people, who appeared out of thin air. Villagers with their daily wares, and a guy carrying a bi, dead hen, a smelly one to boot. I jostled and got inside, my days in the Delhi 100 # had prepared me for this. The only difference was that the latter one had a lot of good looking, nice smelling college kids, while this one, well, let’s say soap is an unheard of name here. The bus took 40 minutes to get to Yarada, most of it going up a steep hill, and then down on the other side. The road was so narrow that the bus had to back to the relatively wider bends once to let another vehicle from the opposite direction pass. The bus grunted as the driver kept it thankfully on the road, what with the overflowing capacity. At the top of the hill, there are a few apartments for defense personnel, and a small AP tourism resort, called ‘Dolphin’s cove’. The board here said 1.5 km to Dolphin’s nose, and timing for public 3-5 pm, strange! If you want to go to the nose, the bus drops you here as it carries on downhill to Yarada village. The bus stops at a couple of places at the village, doesn’t really matter, as the village road runs parallel to the beach, 10 meters away. There’s no sign of a bus stop, just a corner tea shop that signifies the bus stand here.

Whether it was the 3 pm sun or the distance from the city, there was absolutely noone at the beach. There were 3-4 villagers fishing at the beach, but that’s it. the beach was much cleaner than the usual commercial ones you get to see, with a large green patch that’s sometimes there on the beaches. The hills on the western side, and behind the village present quite a view, with the sun just above them right now.

I took off my shoes and started my walk on the beach. It’s quite relaxing, when the sand is not that hot, and there’s a little breeze, with nobody around t bother you. The beach further on curves to the left, with the hills right next to it. The sea next to the shore is filled with small rocks jutting out, and here is where I sat down and relaxed.

Amazing feeling, sitting on those rocks, with the waves lashing past you, getting a little drenched is fine that way. It’s a perfect place to sit and while away the time, you can recline either on these rocks or on the sand, and watch the green-blue water go back and forth. The small hill offers some shade as well, where you can lie down on the sand and forget everything. Further ahead you can see the Dolphin’s nose jutting out into the sea, with the lighthouse also visible.

I wanted to walk all the way to the cliffs next to it, but though better, as it would’ve taken some time and I didn’t want to lose my bus back. So I sat there close to the coconut trees lining a part of the beach, watching the waves come and go before I headed back at 5:30.

 On the way back, I did the idyllic activity that I do at most beaches, look for seashells, which were there in lots of colors at this beach. Had a tea at the bus stand as I waited for the bus to take me back to Vizag. It had gotten a little chilly too towards the evening, and the village folk were all staring at the lone guy in the shorts standing at the bus stand! The dolphin’s nose had to be given a miss, but the beach was one of the most peaceful places I had been to so far, and another tiring day came to its close with some sandwiches and on to the station at 8:30 to catch the train to Bhubaneshwar.

Borra caves & Ketaki Falls - 30 Oct, 2009

I had my tickets booked for the only train to Borra in the day, the 6:50 am one to Borraguhallu from the Vizag station. I was at the station at 6:20 and the train was there already. Good thing I had reserved my ticket in the sleeper section for 99 bucks 3 days back, as the unreserved section was as usual very crowded. The sleeper was filled up with people carrying on further to stations beyond Borra, while most of the people visiting Borra were in the coaches specially reserved for AP tourism tours. After the first hour of travel, we finally arrived at the hills. The view is completely on the right side, the left side has heavy forest cover right next to the train on a gradient, which doesn’t allow you to see much. The scenery is quite something in the bright sunlight, with the hills, the train passing through all the tunnels (a few of them exceeding 500 meters in length), and at times the single track passing over drops of more than 9-10 floors. As usual I spent most of the time at the gate, with my head out, the only way I know how to travel on a train!

Contraryo to what I’d read, the train took only 2 hours 45 minutes to the Borraguhallu station, I stood there at 9:45 am. Ignoring the jeep touts, there are a lot of jeeps standing outside the small station, I set out on foot. I took a wrong turn at the small settlement there and realized 20 minutes of hike on the roads later that I was en route to Araku valley, so had to turn back and head the other way. The Borra caves are about a km or 2 from the train station, so if you can’t handle a little hike on the slopes in the sun, you better take the jeeps. The ticket costs 30 bucks, and another 100 for a digicam. I was tempted to take a ticket for a reel camera, which was just 20 rupees, as I was quite sure that just like everywhere else they won’t bother to check here at the gates as well. As I’d thought, they didn’t bother to check my camera, but I had honestly paid a 100 bucks already!

At the entrance of the caves itself, you can realize how mammoth the structure would be, the mouth opening in front of you to give you a peek at the few illuminated areas providing a nice shadow dance on the walls. Beware of the rowdy monkeys here, who have their courage imbibed from Hanuman himself, and aren’t scared to lunge at any edible you have out (I witnessed a couple of food grabs by the tailed creatures here). The stalactites and stalagmites formed in the cave really present quite a view at some points. There are a few things that the guides point out, one referring to a rock formation to as, I swear this to be true, a ‘dinosaur’, some other as lion, some even as a Hindu god. The path here is lighted for the majority of the way, with railings on the sides so that the public doesn’t wander off into the deeper portions of the cave. The path towards the left goes to the bottom of the cave (at least till where its allowed), and you even have to bend down in order to pass under a huge boulder leaning onto the path.

The limestone formations next to the path present some sight. The lights at some point reflect orange and green hues which do make for a good snap, if you have a decent camera. In the middle of the cave, there is also a small temple; well its more like a rock formation in the shape of a shivling which is now prayed at a lot. It even has its own Pandit sitting there full time reciting prayers. The authorities have created a flight of artificial steps leading up to this place, I was hanging on to the railings all the time I was walking on this path (imagine being afraid of height inside a cave!). Near the mouth of the cave, there is a big hole in the ceiling, through which you can see a lot of trees, now that’s a site you wouldn’t want to miss, gazing out from the darkness into the trees some 100 or so feet up.

I rested for a bit inside the cave, watching the masses pass by and enjoy posing next to the walls, and then pushed off. My train back was at 4:40 pm, and it was just 1:00 pm right now. Fortunately I got a jeep driver who had space for 1 more person, and he was taking the rest to Ketaki falls nearby. I made sure that we’d be back in time to catch the train, and then joined the group of 10 already in the jeep. (You can haggle a bit with the jeep driver, I paid 70 bucks, though in 75, you can get a round trip from the train station to the caves, Ketaki falls and back) The 7-8 km drive took around 30 minutes due to the rocky slopes, the road is definitely suitable only for a 4 wheel drive, not for big vehicles though. I did see an auto on the way, but trust me, that ride would not be easy on the rear. There was a group of 8 kids coming from Vizag, and I befriended them on the journey. When the driver finally stopped, I could see no sign of the falls in the vicinity, turns out there was a hike of 3-4 km involved, as there was no motorable road to the falls from this point on. So we passed the rail tracks, and huffed and puffed the narrow, hilly route to the falls. I though I was the only one who was having trouble with the hike, but it turns out, all the people I met on the way were catching their breath resting on the roadside. I met a couple of people descending the slope midway to the falls, we looked at each other, no words exchanged, and everyone broke into a laugh at the way we were sweating and panting like dogs, each one empathetic to the plight of the other!

Finally we arrived at the falls, and it was beautiful, a small waterfall, not much water, but deep enough to reach almost your chest at a couple of places. The people were enjoying a lot, since most of them were young kids, shouting out and jumping into the water, posing for snaps. I limited myself to just a few sprinkles on my head as I stood under the falls for a couple of seconds, and my tee and jeans got drenched. The water here was quite cold and pretty soon people were shivering. Thankfully, the route back had plenty of warm sunshine to dry my clothes off. The surrounding forest cover is not that thick, but enough to warrant no un-guided forays. On the way back you can see a few tribals selling pure honey, and a little kid selling amla. I bought a few and shared the bitter fruit with my new formed friends from Vizag. We also posed for a few snaps on the rail tracks on the way back to the jeep, ready for the bumpy ride back.

Lunchtime, and we stopped over at one of the small shops, bypassing the more lavish ones. I sat down to eat on the banana leaf with everyone else, the daal and rice, and the vegetables seemed to be one of the best meals I had eaten, after the tiresome trek. Though I was the only one eating with a spoon, I enjoyed as one of them only, but still unable to match their 2nd and 3rd helpings of rice. I washed it all down with a small glass of butter milk as well, full up to the brim now. The supple meal cost me 40 bucks, a bit pricey maybe because of the tourism effect. With the sun now a light orange in the sky we got back to the station at 4:15 itself, where I said goodbye to my friends as they were staying back in Araku valley. Waiting at the station, I got into a conversation with another outsider there, Mohammed Asif, a chap who had come down from Hyderabad. He was also waiting for the train, and since it was more than an hour late, we sat in the nice evening sunlight and chatted away. The married fellow who’d been working in Kuwait for the last 5-6 years was here without his wife and kids, the former being down with fever. Talked a lot about his life outside the country, his engineering days, his family members near Vizag, and random stuff. When the train finally arrived, it was as usual full to the brim, but I had a first class ticket ( I had reserved it beforehand for 180 bucks so as not to get stuck here out of nowhere, where the trains were rare to come by).

The tunnels in the night, the dark outlines of the hills, the trees that you could still make out in the darkness of the night now, everything, well spent from the doors of the coach, where else?

Till death do us part?

I don't know if you've heard of this concept/fad before, but i just read about it in the newspaper the other day - 'divorce party'. Yup, the celebration of the end to the union of two beings in holy matrimony, brilliant right?
I came across this when i was reading an article about the model Jordan aka Katie price, who some time back broke up with husband and singer Peter Andre. Fine, i admit, i was initially lured by the photo of Miss Price that was posted next to the article (If you're a guy, don't ask me who she is), but i got really interested in the 'divorce party' bit. Now, should it be grander than the wedding celebrations, should it be better than your ex's divorce party, should you invite your ex-in-laws to the bash, so many decisions to be made. Hence, this came as no surprise then - a website offering specialised service to this effect - http://www.divorcepartyplanner.com/.
And even better when you have your own special divorce cake, check this out - http://smaknews.com/Entertain-Me/31-awesome-cakes-to-celebrate-your-divorce/
I had read that weddings are a multi billion Dollar industry, surely, divorces could catch up to that (who knows, with the legal fees and psychiatry sessions involved, it might've even surpassed the former).
Now, this is a brilliant concept, i should be looking more into this, but maybe after i stop ogling at Miss Price's photo!

A dog's life

Well, this post is dedicated to a family member of mine - Brandy.
Merely a year and a half old, he already stands up to my waist, and can also tower me at full height. He has been the darling of all the family ever since he arrived, and listens only to my dad.
Poor chap feels quite hot in the Delhi summers and only the AC comes to his repreive, he's more of a winter person! Always with the tongue hanging out, and the slobber flying every which way, whenever he decides to shake his head, which he gleefully does every other minute.
Though he is quite well mannered, but people who he doesn't know have to keep their distance just in case. All my clothes are now completely covered with his Black, brown and white hair, which keep on flying throughout the house even after all the brushing and brooming.
Well, what more can i say,he lives completely like a dog, guess that's probably 'cos he is one after all, but i still love him dearly.

Vizag day 1 - Oct 29, 2009

Caught the Howrah mail from Chennai central at 11:30 in the night, weird time, I know, but this was the only train I could get at the small notice of 3 days. Spent most of the time lying on the upper berth, the back almost gave way at the end of it all. It had started raining in Chennai when I left and I was praying that Vizag skies be clear. Luckily, it was bright with the sun out in full gear when I landed at the Vizag station at 1 in the afternoon the next day. Its sometimes easier to move around and get a hotel room if you’re traveling alone (though not that easy to get a single room, most hotels have a double bed only that they let out). I ignored the first few auto chaps that came rushing to me and came out of the station complex and got the auto from there; call me paranoid, but I have this feeling that the ones outside might not steal your socks off, perhaps just your shirt. Anyways, this chap proceeded to bring out the rate cards of 4-5 hotels that he kept (seriously, rate cards), after I told him where I wanted to go and what my budget was, I’m sure he’d be on a commission basis with all those hotels, which is not a bad thing to do.
I settled for an economy pick that cost me 430 a day and about 2.5 km from the train station. The location that everyone knew was the 'Big bazaar' next to it, which seemed like a big attraction for all. The problem is with the food though, these hotels don’t usually have an in-house restaurant, and explaining the room service what you need is a big effort in itself. So when I asked for a veg sandwich, which I took 2 minutes to clearly explain to the waiter, he still got me a veg patty, with some really strange stuffing, and instead of coffee, there was tea. And don’t even get me started on what I went thru to explain dal makhani. I eventually decided to eat out anywhere I could after the first meal in the hotel (which I had to take in as I was really tired from the overnight train journey). Since I had drastically cut down on my staple diet of chips and pastries, I had to mostly live on fruits and juices in these trips.

After a good rest, I decided to venture out, getting to the RTC complex about a km off. The autowallahs here charge a bomb as the main road has a flyover being constructed and buses divert off to another road. I asked around and ended up at the Submarine museum next to the shoreline. The submarine was used in the 1970s and beyond and has been converted to a museum for visitors now. The ticket costs 25 and another 25 bucks for photography. It’s a good experience getting to see the interiors of a real submarine, and the personnel there also provide a guided tour free of cost. You get to see the torpedo hatches once you enter from the front, and the intricate mechanisms made my head boggle. Couldn’t help but wonder how they’d know which wire from all those was the one responsible for the malfunction of the lights in the loo. You can see the sailor bunks and the escape hatches as well, the seaman’s diving suit and all the other stuff that I couldn’t understand. The guides here are nice enough to answer your queries. The museum takes about 20 minutes to go through it completely, not a very big submarine, probably 70-80 meters long. Once outside, you can roam at the Rama Krishna beach next to the museum, but since it was still quite sunny, I headed off to Kailasagiri hill.

The auto keeps on the beach road the entire distance from the submarine to the hill, both right next to the shore, and he charges about 30-40 bucks for the 20 minute ride. Now the hill has 3 ways to approach the top, you can either take the road if you have your own vehicle or the bus, you can walk up from the base of the ropeway, or you can take the ropeway. I decided to take the ropeway, which costs you 30 bucks either way. Seemed like most people were either taking their own vehicle or the bus, as the little cabin I was sitting in was only half full. The ride up takes just 2 minutes, and provides you quite a view of the sea shore and the city as you ascend. Seems like vizag shore has its own queen’s necklace like Bombay, which later in the night looked even better. Once on top of the hill, you can either take a toy train ride, which runs on a circular track, or simply walk around.

I was a bit disappointed, as this was like a picnic spot now, children’s playground, small shops selling food, clothes, handicrafts, and the usual litter that most of us spill wherever we picnic. I walked on the train track to the bus stand and parking lot where you can look down to the other side of the shore and far off into some other hills as well. The best way to enjoy here is to walk next to the track, and you can get to the numerous view points from there itself. Some of them are connected by small paths engulfed by a nice green cover, where a few couples try to find privacy. I sat at one of these points for some time, just gazing out and enjoying the gentle breeze coming from the sea, far away from the chatter of all the people. Here the sky was also dotted with a big group of birds, simply flying around overhead in the evening sun, ready to call it a day. In the middle of the hilltop is a white Siva parvati statue some 20 odd feet tall, where people were coming to pay their respects; I passed this place while I proceeded to go the ‘city view point’ on the other side. Here for 5 bucks they lift you up to the 3rd floor of the building there from where you can see the beautiful city and the shoreline as it transforms into the small lighted dots as the evening wears on. The car dots move on slowly from up here, while some people still seemed to be in Diwali mood and bursting fireworks in the distance. This was the place I spent most of my time at, as the public almost stops coming here once it gets dark; but that is exactly when you can appreciate the allure of the city. You can even walk around in the few rocky paths that the hill has (which are not lighted very well, but are a bit desolate if one wants to get away from the noise). The ropeway closes somewhere at 8 pm I believe, so do not be too late otherwise you might have to walk down in the dark; I came down at around 7, while the sunset came pretty early at around 6:15 itself.

Since I had a long day ahead with a lot of train travel involved, I decided to get to bed early at 10 after some dubious edibles (!) again, looking forward to visiting the caves.