Road trip to Vellore !!!

We headed to Vellore on November 8, 2015. This time it was Dhana, Praveen & Aji in Aji's car and Karuna, Gs & Sudha in GS car. Our plan is to visit Golden temple & Vellore fort.

We started around 9.30 in the morning. Not all of us kottified in the morning & also due to nature's call, we had to park our cars to some highway restaurant. Theriyama biriyani shop la we parked and sema smell of biriyani. But still we controlled ourselves and muruku+adhirasam from GS & dhana along with tea. We then drove towards Golden temple, Vellore.

We reached Golden temple around 1.30 and there is nothing much to say about the temple as there isn't any ancient significant quotient about this temple. Also Praveen was explaining us whatever he knew about the temple.

After we came out of the temple, all of us were very hungry and so we were driving towards some biriyani point. After a long eagle search, we found one small restaurant and had mutton & chicken biriyani.

Our next plan is Vellore fort.

Inside the fort, almost all the ancient buildings have been procured & converted as Government offices. We had a walk around the ground inside the fort.

We then headed to the fort wall and we spent some good time there. Though we din have much places to visit at Vellore, the day was good as we have been on an outing after a long time.

As it usually goes, it is a Massgang outing & obviously it would be fun.

Wayanad Trip Experience !!!

     Our journey started at June 19, 2015 by Kozhikode express. My wife came along with me to Central railway station for send-off. This time its just we 6, me(Karuna), Gopi, Aji, GS, Praveen & Sandeep travelling to the beautiful Wayanad. This is the first trip with just the boys of Massgang going for an outing. That night travel was awesome as Gopi was sharing his Kuwait work experiences as well as his lifestyle changes.
     Next day morning we reached around 8 am at Kozhikode railway station. Then we were taken in cab to Wayanad. Our today's schedule was supposed to cover BanaSura Sagar Dam which is actually the second largest dam in Asia and largest dam in India.

On Arriving at the Hotel :
     We were welcomed at the Hotel lobby with a Welcome drink. We had 3 DSLRs this time. We took some pics at the lobby and went to the rooms to refresh. Our first plan is to go to the dam but after we saw the natural pond(man made pond but rain is responsible for filling it), we couldnt move a bit without playing in the pond. We played for some one to two  hours and took bath & started to the dam.

Travel to BanaSura Sagar Dam :
     This is said to be the second largest dam in Asia and though the dam was not of much fun to us, the walk to the dam is a memorable experience. Heavy winds, lots of photographs, sudden drizzles & usual boys fun made this walk a unforgettable one. Any point of time we 6 are questioned about this walk, we would be able to tel about it. This covered most of our day and we travelled back to our rooms.

2nd Day Travel: 
First day we din cover much of the places. Our second day's plan is to visit Wildlife sanctuary, edakkal caves and any other destination if we still have time for the train.

Travel to Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary:
     This is one of the unforgettable experience I should say. The trip should actually be an 90min ride in the jeep. But it lasted only for half hour for us. That is because of the surprising event that happened the tenth minute we rode on the jeep. We saw a gumbal of elephants on our way and this jeep driver, he threatened the hell out of us. He said we cannot proceed further and in addition if the elephant comes chasing us, each one's life is in their own hands. Waaah !!! Sandeep moonji paakanume..  Thrilling moments.. He reversed the jeep towards the elephants so that if they start chasing, we can accelerate immediately and drive away from them. We then returned back to the entrance after some gud pics and headed towards edakkal caves. We bought some oil and honey from the shops outside the sanctuary.


Travel to Edakkal Caves:
A steep path towards the cave and it was a good travel indeed. We had a concern for missing a trek but this particular cave walk satisfied that. Took some good number of pics here. We asked a guide there for any other places to visit before we head to the railway station and pookot lake was one place which he suggested.

Travel to Pookot Lake:
This is another place where we got completely drenched in rain. Boating wasn't allowed by the time we went. We just had a walk as the area surrounding the lake was a long track. There was one mokka aquarium which we went. Following that, we went for the walk around the lake and suddenly it rained heavily and we gave all our DSLRs and mobiles to aji as he was wearing that 20Rs rain coat which we bought at Edakkal caves. But only that cover saved our properties worth 2.5Lakhs. All of us except superhero aji got completely drenched and we headed to the car.

We then travelled to the railway station before which we bought sweets & savouries for our family and colleagues.

Boys trip is always fun.

Road Trip to Pondichery

Assume this trip experience to have written on Feb, 2010.

MassGang was basically craving for a weekend getaway to Pondicherryyyyy. Most of us didn't have that basic knowledge even to browse through and locate places in & around pondichery. Even if we had known to browse enough by that time, it must of no use as there is nothing interesting much to visit at Pondichery :) 

We went in two cars and the gang comprised of Aji, Aruna, Gopi, GS, Meena, Sandeep, Sylu, Praveen, Karuna and Dhana. All of us were hungry and we had a good restaurant at the entrance of the tourist spot. We ordered a lot of stuffs. As per Murphy's laws, the most you are hungry, the late comes the dishes & the same happened to us even. It came close to an hour late and most of our hunger vanished. We still din want to miss the fun as it is always with massgangsters and pushed every bit & pieces into our craving stomach that we could see on the plate. We later had a quarrel with the server as we left him no tips for bringing everything late.

It’s hard to miss the sign – “Boat House – Chunnambar” – accompanied by a pedal boat that has long been out of use. Once we park, buy tickets and get our bags checked, we take a 30-minute ride on a motorboat to what looks like a deserted beach. When you turn the bend, the view takes our breath away(buildappuu buildappuu). 

Having all this in mind, we headed out to Chunnambar or Paradise Beach which is 7 km past Pondicherry, along the Cuddalore Main Road. Located at a point where the Chunnambar River backwaters meet the Bay of Bengal, it has something for everyone. If you’re the kind who likes splashing around in the waves, the sea here is not very rough. We don't remember the entry fee but we were all accommodated in the same diesel-boat with few other people.

If you’re at the beach just to relax, you can sit at one of the sand bars and let the water wash over you. It’s a lovely feeling, especially when the tide is rolling in and the occasional swill of cold water hits you(copied).

We were dropped at the island and there were lots of thatched roof shelters provide respite from the sun and a place to keep your bags. None of us consume alcohol but that place looked to be a place where only people who drink alcohol can come and enjoy.

Me, Gopi and Aji played in the beach waters getting rid of most of our clothes, as pre-planned. Actually, once we land on Paradise Beach, we can stay till the last boat leaves at 6.30 p.m. We then returned back home, the usual 4 hour journey from Pondichery.

Chunnambar makes a surprisingly brilliant addition to a weekend itinerary & with MassGang, it is always a fun filled journey.

Road trip to Tiruvanamalai

We had planned to visit Tiruvanamalai temple & Sathanur dam on Aug 8,2015. This has been a plan for more than two months and for one or the other reasons we kept on postponing. Atlast we(Karuna, Aji, Dhana, GS, Sudha) planned to travel irrespect of whatsoever comes in between. But on 8th early morning when I saw the whatsapp messages, I came to know that Sudha is dropping and me & aji were discussing whether should we still continue the trip. We then pinged in the group but GS told to carry on with the plan. Though we told some other places, people were having only tiruvanamalai in mind as it would only consume long hours among the plans we had.

We started from Chennai around 8.15 am on August 8 and after crossing the bypass towards Gingee, the roads were very worst. On the way at some place, we stopped for breakfast. To our shock, after four of us had an average breakfast of idly, vada & dosa, the bill was only 68 on a whole. In chennai, it would be the cost for a single person's breakfast. We again started our journey.

We reached tiruvanamalai temple around 12.20 and they told that I should be wearing a dhoti to be allowed inside as I was wearing a three-fourths. Gs suggested to visit Sathanur dam as they will not be allowing us to see Lord Shiva's statue inside as it is their closing time. We then headed to Sathanur dam, which is around 32 kms from temple.

It was some 40minutes journey and we reached the dam. There was a crocodile bank near the dam and we first visited the bank. There was even a swimming pool but we weren't ready to go to the pool as we actually din't have that initially in our plan and it might consume time. We then saw the crocodile bank and the entry was just 0.50 paise/person. The crocodiles weren't that interesting compared with the ones we saw at ECR crocodile bank. It was very hot by the time we started walking towards the dam. We all  were kinda exhausted and sat for a while in a stone bench. We had a timepass chat for sometime and then started to the upper portion of the dam. The dam was indeed huge but not much water content in it. A person was selling those 5 rupees kuchi icecreams while brought our childhood memories. We all had two icecreams and headed to the car. We were all hungry and we saw a woman selling fried fishes for 20 each. We bought two and it was indeed delicious. In chennai the cost of it would surely be 60 rupees or even more than that. We thought of eating on the way but we din't. Me and Dhana went to a textile shop to buy a dhoti for wearing before entering the temple while GS and aji went to fuel the car.

We reached the temple around 4.30 and aji was making it late as he had some office works to be done on his laptop. After waiting for sometime, we went into the temple. My intention was to see how Chola had built all these amazing temple structures and the marvellous architecture of the temple & indeed that was awesome. We saw almost all the temple carvings, pillars and beautiful structures. We then bought some eatables from the shop inside temple and returned back to travel home. We had tea outside the temple and also Goli soda :)

We planned of having dinner when we near chennai and also we planned to travel in the Arani-Arcot road though it would be approximately 40 kms more than the Gingee route because of the worst road experience we had morning. We had a easy ride and stopped at Salem RR Biryani at Maduravoyal around 9pm. It was pretty soon we reached as the traffic was less. We had biriyani and reached home around 10 pm.

Though the journey din't cover much places, we younger bloods, are content with this saturday's outing.