new hope :)

Indian Football team played really well , but final score does not say so . India Lost to Saudi Arabia 3 - 0 in AFC qualifier match played in Kolkota . That's not gud news to us. India Lost 'again'. But , whoever saw that match could feel the defnite improvement in Team India's performance.
India Lagged first half by 2 - 0 , but the impressive part was second half. Had Manjeet singh converted more than couple of chances he got into goal , we could have equalised with them . Couple of shots hit the woodwork . one by Baichung Bhutia and another by Sukumar. A regular football follower could have said those were some of the best shots on Goal , which missed by few inches and those who play football regularly would realise how difficult it would be to cover those few inches.
A bit of experience and luck could have got us home safely that day. At the end of the day India Lost , but gave us new hope of improved performance in the near future.
India will play couple of International matches in next 2-3 months, next being against Saudi Arabia on September 6 2006 . one more will be played in our very own Bangalore city on October 11 against Japan . Let's wish the Best for Team India for upcoming matches.

Dream or what !!!!!!

when i stepped out of the train , it was around 9:30 PM Local time . i cannot remember exact time as my wrist watch stopped working during my journey till here . the station was all deserted but for one or two people who were rushing outside and disappeared. i had to carry my heavy luggage outside 'myself'. no 'coolie' to be seen there.

strange !! you have to climb up to go out from there . all travel and hunger had made me tired. and it was very chilling but fresh out there. somehow i managed to climb some steps only to find out that i have to climb down again after walking a bit. even i managed to do that :) . hoping some one outside will help me find my destination , i walked out only to find the place deserted. couple of people waiting there , probably for Bus. i thought of catching a bus , but , i dunno where to get down. i realised what a big mistake i had made , forgot to note down my friend's number living there. but i did not have coins to make a call from station phone. luckily i still remember the street name where i had to go . thought of calling a taxi . but .... none to be seen !!! what next ????

still amongst all these i was happy to be there . it was all sort of dream . i used to pinch myself every few minutes for past few hours. oh my god! this is indeed real!!!! .

one more thing. i was not alone !!! . all through i was accompanied by Ram :) .he lit a cigerate ( i am sort of non smoker ;) ) and checked from couple of people standing there and gave me gud news that cab's frequently come there. cab???. finally after a wait of around 20 min a 'cab' was there . cab driver did not said anything , he helped us put the luggage in the car, he sat in his seat and we said we want to go to 'lapwing close'. more than 10 hour long journey from 'Bangalore' to 'Bristol' ended there. traveling in the cab watching the clean and beautiful roads out there, i was wondering is this dream or what !!!!!

Target reached!!!!

Plan was to get up by 4 AM and start. but , started with bad news. No WATER. by the time water started to come and we start our rest of the journey , we had delay of around 2 hours already . i was the last one to leave after being blasted by Nitin :D . next stop @ police check post where we had to buy 'ticket' to continue rest of the trekking which was very near from that place. next few minutes of trek was comparitively easier . cool breeze all around and with that kinda climate around u never will get tired. we decided to have breakfast , dry 'avalakki'. ( yummy , one of the best ever breakfast so far ).
we saw a huge peak to climb . assuming at the end we will find our destination , 'peak of kumaraparvatha', we started with great enthu. by now both manjus started exhausting . they were deciding a pont from where they want to get back to bhatra mane . we ecountered a small mantap there . that was the place where both manjus decided no more furthur will they walk . we were 8 now. we got information from people climbing down that peak is still very far. just a thought flashed in our mind whether we should continue or go back . we decided to continue. there was no jungle/forest we encountered since morning. all we saw was few green/dry grasses all around. standing at the edge of one of the cliffs we had a photo session . from there we saw a peak . we decided that's the 'one' . by the time we reached there everyone was completely exhausted, but all were happy to reach there . but that was only for a moment . vinnyk said thatz not the peak . from there we were seeing one more peak seemed miles away from us. none had the courage to say let's continue while being completely exhausted. some how we were not ready to go back from here. we decided to continue and not stop till we reach the 'kp's' peak.

we had to walk through dense jungle again , some time the path was just next to cliff , one wrong step then 'bye bye'. at one place in the jungle , we stopped had some refreshment ( glucose powder and some juice vinnyk had got). once the forest ended , we had to climb a rock which was inclined . after that we were seeing the peak . five minutes later we were at the peak . on top 'kumaraparvatha'. Highest peak in karanataka ( correct me if i am wrong ). guess what we were getting full signal there . call dear ones ;) from there. once again snap session on the top. there was a small temple made of stones and there is a belief that of u build a peak of stones

now we realised that we were hungry and started climbing down. nothing much happened while climbing down till bhatra mane exept we were extremely tired and found manjus missing ( we assumed they had reached bhatra mane ) . after a nice lunch and a nice sleep for few minutes under shades of coconut tree ;) , we were all set to return from there . Thanked 'bhatru' and started climbing down again , same route and less number of breaks we were at the foot of the hill in next 2 hours. measure my weight . reduced by 1.5 KG .

Had a nice bath @ the hotel and headed for temple . after having 'darshan' of 'lord subramanya ', we went to a hotel near by , had dinner. Buns. everyone was talking about that , a speical dish from mangalore . so we bought some freshly made buns to eat during our journey back to bangalore. ( of course no one ate it in bus , that was breakfast, lunch and evening snax for me, raghumama, kummi and Nitin ). Now we were heading to vinnyk's house from where we were to board bus for Bangalore. after a small night trek ;) ( from vinnyk's house to road ) , we boarded the bus which would take us to Bangalore .

Finally the dream vinnyk made us weave had come true. we came back from there with one more dream , climb the mountain again . this time from Madakeri side and get down from Kukke end. which is scheduled to come true somewhere around december 2006.