Cycling with HBC

The Hyderabad cycling club hosted the runners' club on march 22. We cycled around the north-west part of Hyderabad(map here).  We rode upto Osman Sagar lake and back to gachibowli stadium. The entire distance was just above 28 kms. We couldn't have asked for a better weather and yours truly was really pumped up and ready to do another 20 kms at the end of it. The road leading to osman sagar lake was picturesque that day. You can read about the ride from the Hyderabad Cycling club's blog here. It was primarily organised as cross-training exercise for the runners. It was great for us to not only cross train but with such an exhilarating crowd. 

       As someone who has commuted on bicycles for more than 10 years in my life, I was really excited about the trip. And thanks to Shay for picking an amazing route. It had all that one could ask for, uphill, cross country, sand and downhill where we were able to race down at 50-60 kph. After a lot of cycling in the campus, I did want to go to work in a bicycle. May be, I can do that sooner. 

Next one on twitter. Got to go now.  Just ride!!

The week that was

• Been on a 4-day trip to kerala. Had a much needed break. Will post the snaps and if possible the travelogue soon. 
• The recent Australia - South Africa series was breath-taking and might well be the start of a new epoch. It was one damn good series that I was ready to wake up each day at 5-5.30 am IST and never grizzled about the time zone difference. Smith was dazzling in general and what stood out was his tenacity to come and bat at No.11 on the last the day of the match (with broken hand and injured elbow), given the fact that SA had already wrapped the series. The next 8 months of test cricket I guess would be sufficient to know how the teams would be ranked for the coming 4-6 years.
• I have just about a month left for the Auroville marathon and do need atleast 100 kms under my belt before the D-day. Hopefully I can get some mileage.
• Read a great article by Marina Krakovsky on "The Effort Effect". The article postulates on the kind of misdset people have and how labelling is harmful. A must-read for everyone. 
• Saw Slumdog millionaire. The movie was gripping and riveting. AR was mesmerising. Congrats and hope the movie gets nominated for oscar. 

Au revoir!!

Weekend Drive!!

The Week of Diwali

Feels kind to weird to blog after such a long time. Bad time management skills and an overdose of socializing are the culprits. Hope, I'll find the time from now on to blog regularly.

Gone for a trip to Bhadrachalam and Vizag with the family junta.

Night 0: The night journey to Bhadrachalam was without much of a chaos which usually happens with me.

Day 1: Took a cottage in the banks of river Godavari in Bhadrachalam and the day went without much events. Went to the temple and had a good day's sleep.




Day 2: We had booked tickets for a day long boat ride in Godavari. After seeing the film Godavari, it has been one of my dreams to take this ride and had to coax people into it. The fact that I was even willing to get at four in the morning and push the family junta to get ready might help one to gauge the significance of the trip. We had to take a 60km trip at early morning five from Bhadrachalam to a place called Sri RamaGiri (Near Kunavaram) from where one can avail the cruiser services. The cruiser starts at 8 am in the morning and come back at around 4-5pm.


Greenery on either side of the river was amazing. The cruiser goes till a point called Papi Kondalu where the river races through a narrow gorge. It really was a sight to behold.



The ride was really good and I, for most part of the ride, was sitting/standing on the deck (at least for 6-8 hours) and still have a bit of tan on my face to remember that ride. Two days without me screwing up something is a bad omen. I sort of miscalculated the trip time and hence, we couldn't catch the train for Vizag and sort of totally screwed up the original plan. We had to stay at Bhadrachalam that night.

Day 3: Had to catch a bus to Vizag at 8 am and the travel time was supposed to be around 12-13 hours. But almost 80% of the entire trip was through the ghats and bus journey by itself was wonderful. The entire journey took some 16 hours because of some problem with the bus and the last 3-4 hours were the most frustrating part. We reached Vizag at around 11 pm and were done for the day.

Day 4: Again had to wake up at 5 in the morning to catch a passenger (yes!! not a typo) train called Kothavalasa-Kirandul express to go to Araku valley. This train journey is something that must not be missed by anyone who is visiting Araku. It has got some amazing scenaries on the way and the track passes through some 31 tunnels whose average length should be somewhere near 600-700 m.


The remaining time was spent on visiting a museum for the tribes and a waterfall sort of thing and me doing something weird.

The rest of the day was spent in the cottage savaging indian cuisines.

Day 5: One good take away from this trip for me was my sleeping habits. Waking up at 5.30/6 in the morning was really refreshing. FYI, I used to have my breakfast and lunch together. The next stop was at Borra caves. It is one of the largest stalagmite caves in India. The area of the cave spreads over 1 km square and one can find more info here or in wiki.


The next halt was at a place called Tyda. The place is nothing but a jungle with some amazing cottages built by aptdc.

The evening was spent watching the traditional dance performed by the local tribes.

Day 6: Went trekking to a near by waterfall. One had to go to Borra caves and hire a jeep to a place which is some 4-5 km away from the waterfall.


Btw, the name is Kadki waterfalls. After the jeep ride, one has to walk/climb for about 4 kms to reach to the fall. It is highly demanding and should be crossed off the checklist before a person reaches 40.







Day 7 : The journey back to vizag. Went to place called Kailashgiri in vizag very near the beach. It had more to offer for the kids(Nature's cruel way of reminding about aging). Got back to hyd that night. It was one of the more eventful trip that I have been on since the this one about 8 months ago. I had a tan on my face and people at work said I looked different after the trip. Heck!! Who cares? I had a great trip to remember.

Nainital

Had a great trip.
Night 0:
As usual, we started late and after a hectic 13 hour journey with some breath-taking views along, we reached Nainital at around noon the next day.
Day 1:


We headed for Snow View located atop the Sher-ka-danda Ridge by cable car.

Had a good view of snow bound Himalayas including Nanda Devi and Trisul and it really was wonderful to see snow covered mountain peaks while the temperature reaches as low as 3 degree Celsius.
The trip down was equally thrilling with cable car accelerating and us experiencing the force of gravity from altitudes of around 25oo m was thrilling. Had some fun there too.
Came to know of a small fall near by and on our way, encountered snow at lots of places. I really pity the driver who came with us and kudos to his patience for putting up with us that too after driving for more than 14 hours non-stop. On seeing snow, we changed our plans and started playing around.
At last, we headed for the falls and though we were traveling for the past 18 hours none of us were tired and we had a lots of fun in the falls. It was a too small a fall to take bath and hence we just played around and took some snaps.
We decided to call it a day and at around 7 pm reached our cottage and gave the driver the day off and we started roaming the city. One huge advantage for Nainital over other hill stations is that it is far less polluted and the large lake at the center of its town add to its charm by a huge extent.

Day 2 :
Well, we couldn't see all the things as we planned. We missed out on visiting Jim Corbett National Park as we ran out of petrol and found that the shops in the entire town are closed till noon because of Holi. We just had to wait for about 3 hours during which we saw a couple of kids playing around and were happy to join them.


Saw a steep hill near by and went for a trekking for around 2 hours and covered around 4-5 km distance and around 500-800 m altitude.

We then headed for someplace where there were geysers. Saw this fall and was stunned by its beauty. It was surrounded by mountains on all sides and the water was freezing and damn pure.Yeah, we changed our plans again and had a good bath there.

We then started our trip back with lots of good memoirs, great scenarios and large bouts of vomiting including yours truly.

On the whole the trip was awesome and we had lots of fun. Though nothing went as per plan and we did miss out on a lot of places. But that was how it was supposed to be, wasn't it?. It gave a much needed break for me. Its good to be back in the campus.