As promised..

as promised.. as promised to whom... as promised to myself..
i feel promises to oneself are the most important and ironically the hardest ones to keep.. they are not hard in terms of difficulty but just for the reason that one doesn't have to justify/pacify anybody if one breaks it.. the easiest person to convince about anything/everything is oneself and thats the reason for the mediocrity that creeps into one's life.. this is my take on promises.. :P

anyways.. i am back to as promised.. to talk about my travels..
1. Hogenakkal
We all were in our 4th semester of engg. and never been on a trip.. that was frustrating.. really really frustrating.. so lets go somewhere.. the next big question.. where???
People were talking about.. pondy.. ooty.. yercaud.. and I said o-g-e-na-k-a-l.. wat????????? is it the name of a tourist place?? is it a hill station?? how long does it take to reach there?? mainly how is it spelt(correctly).. nobody knew the answers including me.. and from where did i knew about it.. my dear bro.. it was one of his trips when he was doing his engg. in chennai.. all i knew about the place was that it was a small village not so popular but that was where ROJA movie was shot.. including 'chinna chinna aasha'.. that got everybody excited.. so lets explore the country side of TamilNadu..
So myself and nodgy(i guess) went to Koyambedu bus station to find out if there are any buses to reach the place.. thats where we came to know the exact name.. Hogenakkal.. we were informed that there are buses and one can get tickets on the spot and no need for any reservations.. one more information what we got was that the journey was overnight.. we had no idea how far the place was.. we thought it must be a 6-8 hrs journey.. god know why we thought that.. :P
The travellers..
1. Nodgy
2. Baingan
3. Muru
4. Genhoo
5. myself
6. i guess BBC was the sixth person.. i dont remember.. dammit.. thats sad and thats why this blog..
We reached Koyembedu friday evening to catch the lone bus which was leaving for Hogenakkal.. due to the usual language problem we couldn't figure out which bus was the right one and we had no idea that there was huge demand for that bus.. hmm.. so finally the bus arrived but were unable to reserve any seats in it because of the crowd.. so what shall we do next.. go back to the hostel.. we thought otherwise.. so the quest for a different bus/route/journey started and we finally figured a way out.. that is to reach Dharmapuri by morning a catch a bus to Hogenakkal from there.. so finally we got into a bus which goes to Dharmapuri and reached there by morning.. I remember having a good morning tea at the bus stand.. we were expecting that the journey from Dharmapuri to Hogenakkal would be just a couple of hours.. no clue why we thought too.. but when we finally reached Hogenakkal it was afternoon and thats when we realized how far the place it really was..

Hogenkkal was a small village.. as expected.. calm and serene.. as expected.. but some this was missing.. water and waterfalls.. but soon we figured out that one needs to go to the other end of the village to see waterfalls.. and slowly guides started stocking us promising us to show everything that Hogenakkal offered.. but as usual we choose not to do it in the usual fashion.. so lets trek and reach the other side of the village.. for which we had to cross a hill.. which didn't seem so big until we actually started to climb it.. but it was.. and it was the first trek of my life.. finally we reached the other end.. there wasn't much water but it was clear and neat... we played around in the water for sometime.. and then took a ride in a round boat.. don't remember what it is called.. but it was fun..

During this boat ride.. we saw a couple of children.. 5-8 yrs of age.. standing on the cliff which was surrounding the water from 2 sides.. and as soon as they saw the sight of us they started to jump off the cliff into the water.. the cliff was easily 25-30 feet.. initially it was scary and was actually thinking that they are doing it for fun.. but when the swam in the water and came to our boat asking for money.. it was shocking.. kids 5-8 yrs of age jumping of a cliff, nearly 30 feet high and begging for a rupee.. damn..

So after the boat ride and a couple of pics.. we were totally exhausted and went straight to the bus station to catch a bus to chennai.. I don't remember which route we took on return.. thats the way it usually is.. :-)

cheers.. so long..
ganesh