I am back!!!Wow…and it feels good to be back :) Diwali breezed past before I could know As usual I did not have the time to book my tickets home so had to hitch a ride to and from Coimbatore :) And it’s been a really long time since I had sat in the front seat on a long drive on the highway And boy what a drive it was Looks like the did-not-get-a-ticket folks like me were all over B’lore because when we drove out of the city early Friday morning…we had a fleet of at least 30 to 40 b’lore cars for company…(did I forget to mention a few bikers as well?) (forget diwali…let’s go take POK!) First stop; Reliance petrol a few kilometers off Hosur. Caruku petrol, enakku dosai and en akka husband (he was the one who was driving all the way home to show his wife his new car; and I gratefully accepted the free lift!) settled for Pongal. Now the canteen was no less chaotic than the road; because the entire fleet was hungry for breakfast and decided to ‘dock’ at that exact same place. In minutes the small A1 canteen was swarming with hungry Bangaloreans who had by now bypassed the supervisor and servers and were grabbing their pongals, idlis and wadas directly from the kitchen counter!...These IT people I say! :D We pinned our hopes on the hapless supervisor who was still trying to get to his boys in the kitchen for the order. 15 minutes, 20 minutes… Still no sight of the pongal and dosai…so me asked ‘what happened to our order?’ ‘Madam…no plates!’ Just then we saw the proactive Bangalorean crowd had now began stalking the ‘dish washer’ and were grabbing the freshly cleaned plates as well (!!!) Finally the poor supervisor managed to bring us our dishes…By far he was the most scared little person in that whole place…even his subordinates were hell bent on ragging him. Anyway, we got our breakfast…chomped it down…no time for coffee…hit the road followed by the entire ‘convoy’. And then began the ultimate race until we hit Krishnagiri…excellent road, the cars ripped past each other…good loud music….Aaah heaven And then we reached the place from where the folks to Chennai departed the party and took the absolutely superb highway to Chennai while we poor Coimbatoreans queued up on the beat up single lane ‘highway’. The race was over…but there was a lot more to come About half an hour before we hit the ghats there was an accident a few metres ahead…didn’t someone tell them the race was long over?! What else do you expect; traffic jam…bumper to bumper Aarrgghhh!...and then someone said ‘Eureka…I found a road!’ Now this was a small road leading into the villages by the highway. The entire convoy followed the lead of the unidentified driver into the road; much to the amusement of the local villagers… Hell, it’s not everyday that you see 30 cars flying past that road! Best part was none of us was sure where this road lead to…it was the correct direction alright; but will we ever be back to the highway? If you ask me, To hell with the highway, this small adventure was far more beautiful complete with fields, ponds full of lilies and of course the small element of suspense ;) Some 21 kilometres later we hit the highway…actually there wasn’t any road; only a mound we had to climb to get back on the road… And it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the long line of trucks wouldn’t let us cross over to the otherside… But one brave bangalorean ‘uncle’ alighted from his car and stood in front of a truck with his arms outstretched ‘Thou shall not pass!’ Now that was indeed brave considering the fact that the truck driver was game enough to run him over than wait for the entire fleet to pass!!! But then courage and humanity won and we were allowed to get onto the other side. An indica in the fleet struggled but with some help from the inmates of the car and the cries of impatience from the truck driver, it made it. The traffic was better as we had avoided the worst of it, but was still slow moving as we entered the miserable little town of Kaveri pattinam (don’t remember the name but let’s stick to this). Now KP was a cursed little place…. Small town, smaller roads, a rickety bridge…and full of buses who took the liberty of stopping right in the middle of the road to let their passengers alight; which was just about everyone on board! There was a bus station but it was almost empty…hell when you can stop on the road, who wants to go into the bus station?! So another horrible jam! This time as the vehicles queued up patiently in the slow moving traffic, a fiat uno decided to take a different route. Bangaloreans!...they’ll never learn :D This gentleman drove over the muddy slushy mound by the side of the road in an attempt to beat the traffic…and of course he had a couple of followers. What a shame, because the traffic began to move as soon as he left the convoy and after all that adventure, he had to join from the exact same spot on the queue from where he and his shishyas had left…sad! Now by this time we had enough of this party, so we took a detour towards Mettur thereby avoiding the Salem and our happy bangaloreans…no surprise, some followed us in there too, but what the heck… I took a small nap … My brother in law picked a tucsan to race with until we reached bhavani…. And just when my bro-i-l said ‘You know, I guess I’ve started to miss my bangalorean friends’…surprise…there they were on the national highway when we joined them past bhavani! Another neck –n- neck race till we hit coimbatore only to be met by a huge convoy on the outskirts of the city (Seriously….we should have gone to POK!) By the time our vehicle crawled into the premises of our house…it was 9 hours since we left bangalore…and all I could think of was food…sleep! But when I did enter the house; ‘ goo goo…agoooo…akhooo..bhrruuu…inglaeee’ Awwww….I can’t turn away from that 45 cm of pink bundle of joy, oozing cuteness called my niece now, can I??… Hope you all had a goo goo…oops gala time this Diwali…now ..back to work!
  18 Comments:Welcome back! Nice long post... you didnt forget a single thing about your trip didya? :) Highway rides are always fun. :)
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grrrrr.....KK........enga ponalum enaku munadi vandudreenga.enaku oru thadava chance venum pulesseeesshhh.... :)
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Heyyy welcome back ! Gosh, you make me miss India already !! Hmm....
By seri ba Gils...neshtu time :)
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Welcome back..Good that you didn't compare your ride with the one that you might have had in the UK..
By kadasila nachchu nu mudichutta...
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KK;
By chennai waste ooora..yaarangay...satai pudichu pota sattathuila ullara podungaya
By xhuafdmq...ithenna kanraavi spellingnu kekareengala...unga blogla vantha word chk...enna koduma sat ithu..erkanavay en spellinglam ekkuthappa poguthu..ithu vera
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erkanave ulla thaan irukom...oru masama enga poirunthomam? :D
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Chennai'ya pathi thappa pesineengalame Gils sonnaar.... :)
By athaana...nalaa soneenga KK....onrai rendrainu ellathiyum fractionla solikitu namma oora pathi kevalama solitanga..
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ada da vandutaangaya chennai kootam :P
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chennai tamizhuku enna kurachal...ennama kannu....soakkakeeriya...kammnu kunthikana englishkaranuku kooda puriyum :D ...onra rendrainu ethaiyum muzhasa sollama fractionla solrathuku ithu evlovo better....oor perlam ukkada thukadanu....kadichi kadichi tamizh pesina adhu thaan original tamizha....yaarangay overa sound udra sat ootukuoru auto with sagala saamaan udungapa.....
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aaha....adhaan indha chennai kaarangala namba mudiyadhunu solradhu...solradellam sollitu ippadi oru balti...idhu chennai vasingalala thaan mudiyum. and aama...chennai tamizhku pudhu ilakaname podalam....avalo sutham....orru....aaha, adhu tamila vida sutham...adhukum mela oor makkal....tcha tcha...unmaya sollunga...all chennai vasis varushathuku ethana time kulipeenga...andha oorla thaan thanni aadiku oru morai ammavasaiku oru morai thaana varum :P
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kovaila thanni kudipeenga..inga kudikarathuku munnadi adipapnga..huh...meaning marutho...naan solla vanthathu..pump... :D
By makkalay unga oor bhakthiyai yaam mechinoam...nenga unga native land mela evlo patru kondu ulleergal enru ariya yaam nadathiya thiruvilayaadlgalil ithuvum onru...amaidhi thirumbattum..chennai anyway vaazhum...pona porathu..kovaiyum vaazhum :D
By Thoda! :O
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