A week in pondicherry

Last weekend marked my most memorable visit to pondicherry. If you are expecting a post about my Rendezvous with French woman, you would be disappointed. Its about a spicy night with bed bugs. Yup as I had not booked bus tickets in advance I had to settle for ride in Semi Deluxe bus of Pondicherry transport corporation. My hands are swollen with bites. I had assumed bed bugs are rare and are in verge of extinction. But they are very much alive and were crawling all over the seats. If I post an image of my swollen hand, it'll will gross you out and can be used as a good prop for an horror movie. So please think twice before you alight a Pondicherry Govt Bus. Well while coming back I had booked tickets in KSRTC Volvo and must say KSRTC rocks.

Apart from my routine official work I used to take an evening stroll at the beach along Gorbert avenue and while coming back to my room I used to take different route across French colony and was enjoying the place while walking back. The French colony is in contrast with rest of pondicherry, very neat with nice buildings along the roads. The most striking part was the simplicity in architecture yet very attractive. As I say often, simple things in life are very beautiful.

And did I say, I can speak French fairly well but that doesn't help me at all because the only thing I can say in it is, "Qu'a fait l'u dit?" (What did you say?) which just makes the other person repeat whatever he/she had said before. And yes can someone help me out with " Can I ask you out on a date this weekend ". Now if you're talking about French, that is a funny language. From what I came to know, it is common knowledge that the French attach a lot of importance to matters of sex and this is best reflected in the fact that in their language, every object has a gender. I wanted to find out how they had gone about the gender allocation. Then I assume my computer is female as it takes in things(Information) and my cell phone charger to be male for obvious reasons that need not be explained. While you think about it, bye and have a nice day.

Turahalli

At first, I didn't want to write this. But unfortunately for you, I changed my mind and now, here you are, stuck with poor old me. Ok, let's get started, shall we? Perhaps you are familiar with the phrase, liking a place and enjoying a place. Liking a place is natural thing that happens when we visit a place which is relatively good to our experiences. But enjoying a place is something which is rarely experienced by lucky few.

Thou the concept enjoyment is relative, here is my idea about enjoying a place. This does not mean that the place has to be really good with the best sylvan setting you can imagine of.

You act like a kid who has got his first bicycle. Your friends don't mind and they join you. You feel like climbing a tree and your friends join you. You want to laugh loudly and you literally roll on the floor laughing. You feel like jumping, your friends throw you in the air and catch you. U do not mind a friendly quarrel jumping on each other, not caring about people around you. U pose for the camera with the weirdest possible face you can think of and enjoy every bit of it All in all you are yourself enjoying every bit of what you are. No false traits to impress others. Well this is how it was when I visited Turahalli few weeks back. Turahalli is an isolated hillock area located south of Bangalore, off Kanakapura road. This place is a unique assemblage of rocks and dry deciduous forest with lot of eucalyptus trees and other wild shrubs and trees. Also there is a nice little forest attached to it and is an ideal weekend gateway

Lemme brief some important facts about Turahalli.

1.It is a very nice place for birding in Bangalore (8KM from Banashankari temple). Great Horned Owl is frequently spotted in this area. It also serves an ideal place for star gazers if they plan to spend the night. 2.Initially u need to climb a small hill and descend to the forest and again climb a hill to reach one more temple. There are altogether two temples. Climb is very easy and any one can climb it. 3. There are various boulders spread across the hill and a very nice place to try basics of rock climbing 4. The forest amidst is an ideal place to pitch a tent and spend a night there. 5. There is nice kiln beside turahalli and upon request you can earn a nice little trip around the kiln. A very good place to try profile photography and at the same time a interesting tour to most of us as Bangloreans rarely get to see bricks being baked.

Here is a neat little map to get to turahalli. Alternately the best thing is to reach Utarahalli bus stop and ask direction from localities. As there is plenty of information about the place I’ve not included any description about it here. I’ve left the details for you to go out and explore the hills and forest. Go with an open mind and have fun.