Tag: Subrahmanya

Jannaram and Kadem!

December 16, 2023 / / 1 Comment

GBee’s school had given the students 15 day Dussera holidays and we didn’t plan any travels, because of it being an important Hindu festival. We stayed back home and spent 10 days doing nothing much, except what we do in our daily lives.

Just 3 days before the end of the Dussera school break was coming to an end, we decided that we were extremely disappointed about not visiting any new place. That was when Mr.Bee zeroed in on Jannaram! (We had other destinations in our mind too. But both were more than 6hr drives from Hyderabad and 3 days is very little time for such sort of vacation.)

Mr.Bee brought out our car bed, inflated it, prepped it for our travel and I was incharge of packing the luggage. (I forgot to pack Mr.Bee’s evening shorts and he had to buy it at Jannaram, turns out it was the best mistake I ever made. Mr.Bee bought 3 new shorts and they were way better in quality than those he bought at Hyderabad!)

Day 1:

Aadi Yogi in our car, with beautiful flowers of Paarijatham!

We started by 7 a.m, (we woke at 5:30!) carried the kids into the car, even though they were sleepy and cocooned them in their blankets. But the kids were wide awake, it seems, our kiddos like us, love travelling. They were hyper to say it mildly!

We stopped at Minerva, Siddipet for breakfast. I ordered pesarattu, GBee his usual dosa and Mr.Bee ordered the breakfast special which saved our lives and mostly, energy. The breakfast special consists of an idli, a puri, a dosa and upma. This is the best choice when you have no idea what your kids might eat.

GBee’s dosa never arrived though! Mr.Bee scolded the waiter thrice and at last, the waiter packed a dosa for us, even though we said we were going to dine-in! We didn’t leave him any tip because we were vexed with the attitude. Imagine having to eat breakfast when your kids dosa hadn’t arrived. You don’t feel like eating by yourself.

At Karimnagar, Mr.Bee bought greenest of the green mandarins (Kamala pandu in Telugu) and surprisingly, they were yummy. Fresh fruits in towns and villages are generally of top quality.

We reached Haritha Resort, Jannaram by 1:45 p.m., gave the boys hot water baths, since they didn’t have one in the morning. We rushed to the in-house restaurant for two bowls of fried rice. The hunger we had, made the food taste heavenly. Even my picky eaters ate in silence!

At 3:30 p.m, we were ready for our Jungle Safari! (Always dress warmly and wear caps, sweaters if you are going for a safari. It gets cold in the forest.) A private safari for 4 is for 3500 bucks, a duration of 2 hours. We saw deers, eagle, wild boars(Adavi pandhi in Telugu), baboons (Kondamuchu in Telugu) and Cheetal deers.

The Three heads!

By the time we returned to our rooms it was 5:30 p.m, with dark sky and cold climate.It was only 21’C yet, it reminded me of Ooty!

We had our dinner in the room, phulkas, dal tadka and curd rice. (Our staple menu at any hotel stay)

Day 2:

After having our breakfast at the Udipi Hotel, Jannaram, we started for Kadem, a nearby town. We didn’t like the Udipi hotel, but that was the only mediocre one in Jannaram! We ate idli and vada. We drove 25km, to reach Kadem and the boys entertained themselves by watching the hundreds of monkeys which sat on both sides of the road, checking out the vehicular traffic. While the kiddos were half expecting to see elephants, like we did near the Bandipur forest reserve, I was reminded of my childhood vacation in a similar town of Wyra, where my paternal grandmother used to work. The most unexpected things remind us of deep rooted memories!

Anyway, we reached the Kadem Head Regulator to ride boat, but the boats were not taking tourists or anyone that day. I fail to remember the reason. We then went to the Kadem Dam, to look at it closely, mostly for my sake, trying to re-live my days as Design Engineer inspecting the site! But the dam was still not safe to drive on, deadly, in fact, if you have hyper kids, who think with their legs! (No parapet walls, even the stones which were placed on the sides were not of the required height.)

We decided to check out the Kadem Haritha resort, which is way better compared to the one in Jannaram, solely on basis of the play area for kids and food in the in-house restaurant. Kadem Haritha Resorts has the beautiful dam as background.  We had our lunch and returned to our room at Jannaram.

The beautiful Sunset

The funny thing is that, the vegetarian cook at Jannaram resort was on leave that day, so we had to travel 25km again, to have our dinner at Kadem Haritha, again! (we drove through the forest reserve at night and it was only 8 p.m. but looked like it was midnight. Even the town dwellers were surprised to see vehicles moving about after 8p.m.)

The dinner at Kadem Haritha was a bust, because, the waiter forgot to bring our rotis. We waited a whole half an hour, before we demanded him what happened. He had them made, but placed them on another table and forgot all about it. He was busy feeding his own 5 year old child!  After realizing his mistake, he gave us Rs.20 off on our bill!

We returned to our room, after travelling through the tiger reserve. (Rs.50 toll for late night travels. We should pay as well as risk facing the tiger too! Injustice!

We reached our room and slept soundly, making our room completely dark, since it was the night of Lunar eclipse.

Day 3:

Breakfast at the lone bearable hotel, Udipi, of idli and vada, again! We took a detour to Dharmapuri and reached Hyderabad by 6:30 p.m.

Our short and sweet trip had come to an end!

P.S:

  1. We didn’t see any tigers in the forest reserve during our jungle safari, because most of the roads inside the forest were flooded during the rainy season. The tour guide told us, it will take atleast 3 years to completely mend it! He suggested us to visit Kadem. Thanks man!
  2. The play area at Kadem Resort is huge. I played on the swing for 20 minutes or so, till KBee discovered that I was enjoying! I love swings.
  3. At Dharmapuri, GBee bought a toy trumpet and on our way home, we felt our ear wax melt!
  4. When we stopped at the Mayura Veg restaurant and the food was good. The cricket world cup had already started and on that particular day India was playing against England. We selected a booth in the restaurant, which was near the big screen!
  5. The Aadi Yogi that adorns our car is from Subrahmanya, Karnataka! We are hopeful, that someday, we will visit this original at Coimbatore.
  6. The incharge at Jannaram resort took immense liking to KBee and wanted to keep KBee for himself! The surprise was KBee, being a 2.5 yr old trying some stunts and surprising us all! (I don’t know where he picked it up!)
  7. I have a tiny cartoon regarding this trip, which I will post later, because, this post is already long. Till the next post, cheerio!

Of the Ocean and the Beach!

October 31, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Day 10:

All the four of us are lazy souls, so we wake up late, at every possible chance we get! We don’t have exams to prepare for or have a flight to catch, so yes, waking up at leisure is not that bad. (Warning; Don’t try this at home! If you get beatings from your parents for waking up late, it is not my fault!)

As we were lazing on the beds, watching Insta reels and FB posts, the caretaker assigned for us at the resort came up to our door, begging us to come have our breakfast! It was hardly 8 A.M. (Either he had other stuff to do or is a punctual guy!)

That’s when I took the matters into my hands, woke up both the kiddos, gave them baths. All of us were ready by approximately 8:40 A.M.

Our caretaker brought us 4 thalis filled with neer dosa, onion poha and slices of ice cold watermelon, along with yellow coloured kesar. I don’t know if people in Mangalore ate sweet for breakfast, but I hardly eat sweet 10 times throughout the year. I prefer sinful chocolates and sinful is not a brand name!

Anyway, breakfast was a bust. What is this Neer Dosa? I couldn’t eat it, even if my life depended on it. It was bland and soft to touch. I like dosa which is crunchy and crispy and nothing could change my prejudice against neer dosa, not even the chutney or the sambar. (I had to wash it down my throat with huge sips of water or neer, maybe that’s why it is called Neer Dosa!)

neither crispy nor crunchy – no second chances! – pic source: Google

The breakfast menu sucked big time, mostly because I am also not a fan of poha, but if it were batata poha, the breakfast would have been in my tummy in a jiffy, thanks to the potato, but onion poha was a no-no. (It seems, the caretaker is not a specialist when it came to making breakfast!) Interestingly, this caretaker guy thought that both my kids, who are less than 7 years old combined, would eat as much as us, adults. Their plates were exactly plated like ours, in adult portions! Such wastage of food, that too, the food which none of us like!

After our not-so-satisfactory breakfast, we rushed to the beach, applying 2mm thick sunscreen and continued playing till black spots began appearing before our eyes. (Playing under the scorching Sun can do that to your eyes!)

Three to Tango!

We returned to the resort, showered under the shower head and got into the pool.  We continued our fun in the swimming pool for more than half an hour, before returning to the room, taking baths again and changing into fresh dry clothes. It is hard to make the kiddos come out of the pool. Their favourite pass time is playing with water and they love swimming pool, more than anything.

The Ocean meets the sky in the background while the foreground has a cutesy pool.

For lunch, we had Veg Fried Rice, Paneer Sabzi and a foot long glass filled upto brim with masala buttermilk.

After an hour or two, we returned to the beach, with the plastic tools bought in Subrahmanya, to make the sand castles. I would make a sand castle and the baby KBee would have a hearty laugh after stamping and razing the buckets of sand, every single time. He would laugh out loud and once he is in his fits of laughter, he ends up with hiccups. So ya, its interesting watching him laugh between hiccups! (I know who he takes after!)

We also fought each other in the sand, took some pictures and again had brief fun at the swimming pool before calling it a day.

Baby with an Umbrella as a shield – KBee after a sand fight!

I took loads of pictures of Sunset and one Mr.X, an uncle of a close friend advised us that it is not a good omen to take pictures of ourselves with the setting Sun. So, there goes our beach photo session in vain! (We decided not to show them to others, lest they pass any such comments!)

Morning to noon – empty beach

Another click from my cellphone….

Coconut trees on a beach have a charm of their own.

We ate paper thin pulkas, dal tadka and had fresh watermelon juice to finish off the dinner. Both the kids are extremely picky, so the only juice they like having is that of watermelon and I too order watermelon juice if mosambi is unavailable.

With a completely satisfied stomach, we ended our day, with the background music of the rising tides of the ocean waves. Another day of leisure comes to an end.

P.S:

  1. Sorry folks if I offended anyone about the neer dosa, but honesty is the best policy and I follow it everyday of my life.  Andddd, people do have varied tastes and thank God for that!
  2. Even if Mangalore is a beach city, we didn’t feel the humidity at all, maybe because we dressed appropriately for the beach. Food for thought!
  3. The caretaker looked like a pukka South Indian, but turns out, he is from Assam and had relocated to Mangalore during the pandemic! That maybe the reason why his South dishes failed to impress us, whereas, pulkas and rotis were fabulous! I still can’t understand, how anyone can make a paper thin pulka! I am not giving neer dosa another chance though. It is completely opposite of everything I like, it is a no-go!
  4. Visiting a beach on weekday, from morning to noon is the best thing one can do. No human traffic, which means, we can have the beach to ourselves. Beach at Mangalore felt like a private beach for a whole day!
  5. Like I mentioned in previous post, never miss the masala buttermilk in any city or town of Karnataka. It is the best.
  6. Sometimes, when Mr.Bee and I drive to far off locations, with mountains and hills, we remember Charlotte and miss those beautiful mountains, we would frequently visit, every month! I miss you GrandFather Mountain, Gatlinburg and Mt.Soma! I miss you too, Pigeon Forge and Chimney Rock!

Cheerio, till the next post.

Subrahmanya, here we come!

August 11, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Day 7:

We woke up early. KBee  and GBee looked active and happy. One night of peace can do that to anyone. Both had fun playing in and around the cottage, while Mr.Bee began searching for his shoe!

Yes, you read it right. One of Mr.Bee’s shoe was missing, but we found it soon, at the bottom-most step.

The kids running up and down the steps

Like Sherlock Holmes, Mr.Bee looked around, found footprints and decided that they were made by a deer. (At first, I wanted to believe they were made by a Cheetah or Tiger. That would have made a very compelling story for my travelogue!)

A deer must have taken the shoe, God knows for what and left it after dragging it for a while and ran away!

After the brief sleuthing, I gave both the kiddos a bath, had a bath myself and waited for Mr.Bee to return. Our car battery had died and he had to call in a mechanic.

By 8:30 a.m., I was already so hungry and I didn’t know how my kids were still playing without hunger pangs stopping them!

We went into the dining area of the resort and sat at a table. The two other tables were also filled up by families of 4. Interestingly, all the families had two sons each! (Not a single girl child in the whole resort. So sad!)

We found Telugu people from Hyderabad at the resort in Sultan Battery! When we went to Delhi, the next room neighbours were Telugus. We went to Taj Mahal, Agra, heard pukka local Telugu from fellow travellers. (East, West ,North, South, you can meet Telugu people everywhere!)

We had idiyappam with matar masala curry, rice rawa khichdi, bread with steamed banana (yummy), freshly cut ripe mango and warm Pathimugam water which is pink in colour and only available in Kerala.

Who needs jam when you can steam ripe bananas?

After our hearty breakfast, we had a quick photo session, before checking out of the resort.

One of the Art installations at the Resort

Mr.Bee bought coffee powder at Sultan Battery, because that is what Wayanad is famous for. We also bought some yellow banana chips (which are GBee’s favourite) and jack fruit chips. Since our stay at the Thejas Resort was not in our original plan, we didn’t extend our stay. We were already 1 day behind our tour schedule! (We had called the hotel in Subrahmanya to postpone our dates by one day.)

The drive from Sultan Battery to Subrahmanya is a pleasant one.

Clean and Green roads – C/o Sultan Battery

The villages near Sultan Battery made us sit up and take notice of them. Every little village was clean and well kept. I could hardly find a chocolate wrapper on the road! Everything was spic and span. Both sides of the road was lined with greenery, with beautiful red hibiscus plants near almost every home. As we drove through the roads, we saw medium sized jack fruits weight training the trees! (May be the huge harvest of jack fruits is the reason, Kerala started making jack fruit chips.)

We found similar jack fruit trees in Karnataka as well…

Jack Fruit tree – zoom in to see the fruits clearly

While we drove through forest in Kerala and entered the Karnataka State Border, it began to rain heavily. We had to have the hazard lights blinking and wait on the road, because we were unable to see anything at all.

Beautiful Forest Roads

We met a monkey on the way. Just as the monkey was nearing my side of the car, Mr.Bee opened the window (he thought I would enjoy chatting up with the tiny wild dude!) and I thought for a minute that the monkey would jump in! Luckily, I closed the window before anything untoward happened. (I felt as if I was escaping a dinosaur, closing a window at the last minute!)

Scared of the monkey, but can’t resist taking a photo!

The roads leading to Subrahmanya from Sultan Battery were ghat roads and by the time we reached Subrahmanya, I was sick of ghat roads! At some places on the road, it felt like the road suddenly came to an end, because, it would suddenly slope downwards!  (reminded me of Carowinds!)

Let me include the 5th member of our trip, our Metallic Grey Itachi

We finally reached SR residency, KBee and GBee stopped by the reception to admire the fishes in the aquarium! KBee began yelling at the fish, trying to make them look at him. Obviously fish don’t turn and look at anyone, not even a 2 year old boy, even if the kid is shouting at the top of his lungs for their attention!

A new kind of notice board (comes with a typo!)

We reached the room, made ourselves presentable by taking hot showers and started for the temple, to visit Kukke Subrahmanya.

Thankfully, it was a working day and that too, schools had already re-opened after the summer vacation. So the temple had hardly any crowd. We had a good darshan of the God and returned to the hotel.

We had dinner at the in house restaurant at the ground floor. We ate masala papad, roti with dal tadka and palak paneer and to satiate our thirst, we had  watermelon juice.

With that, we returned to our hotel room, to end the day!

P.S:

  1. One lady sitting beside us during dinner looked so much like the actress who played Sai Pallavi’s sister in Fida. Mr.Bee and I took our time observing her and turns out, she is a doppelganger (a dupe, in short)!
  2. Incidentally, I met the director Shekar Kammula, director of Fida during my days of working as a Design Engineer. We shook hands, but I was tongue tied. I couldn’t tell him how much I loved his movie, Godavari! (He came there with his kids, who were in ‘tantrum’ mode)
  3. The doppelganger first ordered masala papad. That made me order it. After seeing us eat masala papad, another couple ordered it! Before the closing time, every table at the restaurant had masala papad either in their mouths, hands or on the table! It was yummy too.

Till the next post, cheerio friends.

Ooty, got his Goatee!

August 1, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Foreword!

Thanks to the recent incessant rains in Hyderabad, the internet in our area was down for 5 days. Once the internet was up and running, schools declared holidays due to rains. Since the kids were home, I hardly had free time on hand. That dear friends is the reason I couldn’t complete the post on time.

****

When I look back and think about our visit and stay at Ooty, I can’t help but feel bad for Mr.Bee. Can you imagine someone pulling at the hair on your chin? Painful, right? That’s how it felt looking at Mr.Bee trying to drive peacefully in Ooty!

Ooty, got his goatee! Goatee is Mr.Bee’s signature style. Many thanks to him, for never going through the ‘No-Shave November’ phase. I am sorry to all the bearded dudes out there, I am not a fan of beard and that is me being nice about it!

Day 6:

We woke up at 7 a.m. Our plan for the day was to check out of the hotel and go to Subramanya, in Karnataka.

But thanks to the hectic schedule of visiting Parks and what not, KBee was under the weather! He was down with fever. Two year olds have little stamina. Crocin came handy in this situation. (We took a medical kit with us.)

Mr.Bee and I, both wondered if we had to extend our stay in Ooty for a day, to give the much needed rest for KBee or start to Subramanya, hoping for the best!

We decided on going to Subramanya and sticking to our initial itinerary. The cold weather and rains had gotten to KBee, at-last! (Weather in Subrahmanya was more to our interest.) But since it started drizzling again, we waited it out and by the time we had our breakfast, it was well past 9:30 a.m.

Our host in La Montana wanted us to shoot a brief video and we spent another 30 minutes there. After loading the car with all our suitcases and stuff, it was 11:00 a.m.

Once we were on the road, the respected Traffic Police of Ooty didn’t let Mr.Bee drive in peace. They made us go about in circles on the roads. That is their way of controlling traffic, sending people into any road they find empty!

We were still in Ooty by the time it was 12:00 p.m! What sort of technique the traffic personnel use to divert people, I don’t know, but it frustrated us to no end. Mr. Bee was pissed off from driving in the same roads again and again, going in circles.

After wasting an hour, we came out of Ooty town, to the outskirts. While Mr.Bee went out to buy the pocket friendly fridge magnets, I and the kids sat inside the car, me thinking about my hunger pangs! (It was nearly lunch time and we were hardly out of Ooty!)

Anyway, I love to decorate the fridge and the Godrej almarah with funky magnets of every place we ever visit. Hence fridge magnets seemed the best choice of souvenirs.

After the brief halt to shop, we sadly bid goodbye to Ooty, bye bye Ooty! (I had fun at Ooty and at the end of every vacation I become sad!) and were en route Subrahmanya, Karnataka.

Once again, we were not allowed to take the route from Ooty, to Mysore. We were diverted again. (The roads and traffic is highly dependent on the climate, forest and animals about. This is a personal opinion. So, it is like a lottery!)

Our already late start was delayed yet again by the horses crossing the road!

Horses on roads – A rare sight indeed!

We took brief halt at the most beautiful scenery, the Picnic Lake. We took loads of photos, before getting back into our car to continue our journey. (I remember buying similar framed sceneries to give away as gifts. I liked one such frame so much, I gifted it to my mom on her birthday, when I was in primary school! Who even gifts their mom a scenery? Lol! Those were the days!)

Scenery to die for!

And more…

Lake view!

We had a hurried lunch at Gudalur, Tamil Nadu. The food was passable, but the buffet was ready to be served and we hardly had time on our hands. It was already 2:30 p.m. by the time our hands reached our mouths, to feed ourselves the lunch! (If I were to eat such food everyday, I would surely become waif thin!) I bought some fruits too, before starting our long drive to Subrahmanya. But, God had different plans for us, He changed our itinerary!

Gudalur Road – Pic Courtesy – Google

We took a wrong turn near Gudalur and instead of going towards Karnataka, we ended up going into Kerala. Imagine our surprise when I began seeing name boards in Malayalam! The roads were picturesque, scenic, beautiful as well as calming! (It felt like dejavu, a dream moment. Such simple village roads had a deep effect on me.) I began rewinding my brain to all the South Indian movies that I have seen, which must have been shot in similar locations!

We had a silent drive through Kerala. It was mesmerizing to observe each and everything, that I forgot to talk and my chatter box of a mouth was shut, for once!

Mr.Bee and I were worried that we wouldn’t be reaching Subrahmanya before 9 p.m.! We debated among ourselves about the best course of action. We are not comfortable with night driving, that too near forests and with kids, one who had a slight fever and another who ended up vomiting his lunch, thanks to the Ghat roads and Mr.Bee’s fast and furious driving! (Thankfully, Mr.Bee has hair on his head, he is not a taklu like Vin Diesel and the Rock!)

We took the advice of Mr.Bee’s colleague, R. He told us to halt for the night at Sultan Battery, since it is the biggest town in Wayanad, Kerala, instead of driving further. It was hardly half past four in the afternoon, but we decided to stop at Sultan Battery and give the much needed rest for the kiddos.

Clean town – Sultan Battery

We checked into the Thejas resort. (I selected the resort, as it was my younger son’s name!) Turns out, this was the best decision we ever made in our entire trip! The resort took us close to nature and left a lasting impression on us. While Mr.Bee was busy with the check-in procedures and the likes, GBee and I were busy clicking photos. KBee was fast asleep, though.

Sunset @ Sultan Battery – View from the resort

Our cottage looked like this….

Cottages are the way to go!

I didn’t leave out the flowers in the resort…

Violet Beauty, might be a Lily!

We ordered food from Zomato to our room. They only serve breakfast at the resort. It was the simplest and the tastiest dinner of our trip. Ghee rice with tomato curry! (Since both the kids were under the weather, that was what we selected as our dinner.)

We slept, with me admiring my room and the surroundings and Mr.Bee enjoying the IPL finals in his cell! (No t.v. in the cottages!)

P.S:

  1. We gave KBee another dose of crocin at night and he was already showing improvement. GBee had motion sickness, so nothing to worry about.
  2. The crickets, the peacocks and the birds in Thejas resort made sure that I wouldn’t forget the experience soon. They kept reminding us that we were indeed in Kerala! There were mosquitoes as fat as houseflies. Once the mosquito repellent was switched on, the mosquitoes were not a problem anymore.
  3. Since there was no T.V. in the room. GBee and KBee entertained themselves with the iPad Mini and had their dinners.
  4. Do you know about the 36 Hair Pin Bends road in Ooty? It is said to be a dangerous and difficult road to drive. We didn’t drive in this route, we have our children to thank for! We thought it was better if we didn’t go in this route. Check out this video.

Till the next post. Cheerio!

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