Munnar and Thekkady the final Part

I know this blog has been a long time coming. As usual as normal and silly human being’s the excuse is lack of time. No, Actually its laziness. But as the old saying goes, ‘finish FULLY, what you began’ encourages and inspires me to write this blog. Also the fact that I promised to write as a series and not completing it is ‘Total Out Integrity’. If you were thinking, Integrity – All bullshit, trust me, Integrity is the soul of our life. Integrity is simple – ‘saying you would do something and doing it in the said time’. Easy isn’t it ?, but takes a hell a lot of effort to stick to everything you say. Being in Integrity alters your life and you would read the same in my next log on the effect of not being in Integrity.

So let me recollect the last leg of my road trip. We woke up early and head towards munnar from our resort, a twenty odd KMS drive to the hill station where we had to meet up our Chennai family friends. An incident on the way took some time of the drive and the serenity surrounding us. I had a minor accident on the way and in the steep winding ghats, I would say it is a possibility that things like this might happen. Probably it was my error of judgement on a curve or the other vehicle did not hear my honking. Whatever, it led to a negotiation situation on who was right and wrong and in a situation where the other vehicle had more a dozen boys and me with Rekha, I was the weak link. We negotiated on the amount I had to pay and headed to munnar.

We started of to a dam and ended up going to a speed boating centre. I was really scared at the method in which the boats were being driven, really mad stuff. Probably the wilder the group or more the noise, the more the rash the driver was. Anyway’s we waited for an hour for our turn and the ride was awesome. I had to shrug of my fear of water and the rashness of the driver. It truly was an exhilarating experience.

By now the accident was a thing of the distant past. Life just has a way to level things out – isn’t it.

We then went to have the famous Munnar Masala Chai – what a taste, I had two at a go. Then we drove to what would have been a wildlife sanctuary, but decided halfway to return, as the roads were acute and really bad and we were a few hours away from dusk and we had to return to the resort as well. On the way back we visited another dam, finished the basic duties and snapped a few photographs to help your memory re-capitulate them in the future and of course say – those days were great. (Actually hope that does not happen, as I love to live everyday as the best there is, though the memories will linger, am sure 20 years later life would be the best and I would not be left dwelling on the past).Also we had a great laugh with the english spelling's used -- brilliant Hinglish or total Desi style.

We shopped for few things in Munnar and returned to the resort. Chatted up, played cards, had dinner and hit the sack. The next day woke up had breakfast and decided to hit Trivandrum in one go – close to 500 Kms. Our first destination was Madurai, a 140 Km drive through the Ghats – the roads were fabulous and kudos to the Tamilnadu government for fantastic roads they have created. I had no strain driving through the Ghats, where as the drive from thekkady to Munnar was horrendous, the same I mentioned in my last post. Had proper Madurai sappadu – Madurai is the hub for great Tamil food and we headed towards Tirunelveli. Of course we did not stop to buy any halwa but refuelled the car and called nature and headed towards Nagercoil and through to Trivandrum. We reached safe, close to midnight and made some quick dinner and hit the bed. I was nearly exhausted, driving a straight 500 KMS. I have to mention this again, thanks to the Tamilnadu government, the roads from Madurai to Nagercoil were fabulous, 4 lane throughout and you would not feel the strain of making the distance, as you just need to push the pedal down. At times I was clocking a 140 KMPH on my poor alto, which withstood the journey. I thank my car, God, Time and my Wife for making this trip a memorable one.

Adios to Munnar and Thekkady.