2nd Innings - Student Again !!

I am all excited to be student again after a gap 5 years. Its a nice break from the Indian IT industry after 5 years of hard work. I will be student for the next two years as i will be doing MS at Aalto University, Finland. 

 Life is a continuos learning process, but being as student and learning is lots of fun. So am looking forward for enjoying my student golden life again at Finland. Journey to Finland was not so fast. It was with lots of waiting , as the application period began in the month of jan and it went on till getting my student visa in the month of august. Now am all set to start my Finland Expedition. First things which come in your mind when you hear Finland is obviously Nokia and also other things such as cold and santa claus. Finland is the home for Santa and has very hard winters with temperature as low as -30 c so dont be shocked to see me as Eskimo leaving in igloos after 2 years. 

Helsinki and Finland is known for its Design, It is also one of the safest and costliest cities in the world.
More info on Helsinki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helsinki
More Info on Aalto University -  http://www.aalto.fi/en/

Sakleshpur to Kukke Subramanya - GreenRoute Trek

The famous railway track between sakleshpur and kukke subramanya road along the western ghats is popularly known as Greenroute. This route is even considered as trekkers paradise. The route is approximately 50 km. This track has more than 65 tunnels and bridges varying from 900 meters to 100 meters. This is also one of the most beautiful route with full of greenery, mountains, landscapes and flowing rivers. The birds singing sounds, leaves fluttering, cool breeze increase the awesomeness of the paradise route.

We decided to go on to this trek during monsoon, Generally its not advisable to trek in western ghats during monsoons because of heavy rains and leeches. Initially there was huge opposition for this among ourselves, finally we decided to go.

Its time to pack the bags and move on to the trek. We carried sleeping bags, food and other important things which is necessary for this trek.Some details on the stuff we carried:

Trek Gear: Trekking shoes/Walking shoes, sleeping bags, Torch, Whistles, Umbrellas, Jackets etc..

Food stuff: Loads of Chapathis packed ( around 150), Fruits, Rice, utensils for coo

king, Diesel, Knives, Glucose etc...

We could not book the bus tickets in advance as we planned it very late, and also it was holiday season. But luckily we got a bus from Bangalore bus station (Friday 10:30 PM) with enough empty seats. The conductor gets a rightful hang of what we guys were upto and even before we tel him where to go, he tells us that he would make arrangements to stop there ( the source of the trek starts 9 kms away from the bus stop). We were all excited and the journey started. We reached the place (Donigal station) by around 4: 30 in the morning of Saturday.

We waited for the sunrise as we prepared ourselves for the trek. It was around 5 30 in the morning and it was time for us to begin the trek. The trek is mainly along the sleepers between the rails and initially sounded very comfortable and all of us were really confident of finishing our target of 20 kms to a station called Yedakumari.But later is when we realized that there were stones all around the sleepers which made our trek a hell with all sorts of pain around the legs.

The tunnels very bit scary as there was enough light inside, initially we had a fear of what happens if a train comes while we are in tunnel. But as the trek progressed we realized that there is enough space in sides of the track to stand. Walking on bridges was smooth as it had plates in between. Indian railways opened this track after gauge conversions recently because of this all the bridges are completed, this made the trek relatively easier. We halted at Yedakumari station, prepared our dinner and had a nice sleep. The next day we started out trek to reach our destination. Saturday weather was cloudy so did not feel the strain so much, but on Sunday it was the bit sunny which made our journey a bit difficult. At last we reached the Kukke subramanya , to catch back bus to Bangalore, Hard to end a such wonderful journey in the nature.

For more information visit -

http://www.bcmtouring.com/forum/travelogues-south-india-f63/green-route-trek-t12131/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Route

Holi - The Festival of Colors

Holi - Festival of colors always brings lots of excitement and fun to our life its because we play with colors this day. It a very popular festival celebrated all over the world by Indians. The holi celebrations even attracts foreign tourists to India. Holi is celebrated in different ways and traditions. Celebratiosn differ from south to north India.Celebration ranges from 1 to 16 days. Usually its a 3 day celebration in south India. During Holi there will be so many rituals observed like Holika Dahan,Dulhendi,Lots of innovative games and many more.For more info wiki is always there :)


I celebrate Holi with my friends and family every year.. The celebrations in college is one of the unforgetable moments of life. Its really hard to indentify the faces after coloring ourselves with so many different colors.
This year i celebrated with my friends at office and also with my room mates at home. It was fun coloring each other.. I never had bhang during the holi celebrations am waiting to have this and play with colors .... May be next year i will...

waynad @ Gods Own Land

Finally am back from Korea and enjoying in India after 15 long months.. Than came this lovely long weekend which made us to plan a trip.. This time it was to Gods Own Country - Kerela which is one of the good tourist destination in the world. Kerela has a wide variety for tourists ranging from beaches to backwaters. Lush green hill stations... cool water falls..... tea estates... wildlife... and more.

Its been almost 3 years since i went with my college mates for a trip. Goa trip was my last big trip with kuduboyz that was way back in 2003. This time its to waynad. The trip was absolute fun and the glitches made it funnier and unforgettable, along with me mallik, srinivas, siddesh, vidyanand, lohith, hemanth , vinay(mandya), pradeep and harish were there to this trip.


We started our trip from Bangalore in 2 cars.. Srinivas aka kaspa Santro and Mallik Prakash aka papus Ascent , reached mysore there we noticed some problem with tyres of papus car, searched for a wheel alignment center, alignment was proper and the problem was becasue of one odd tyre and this got punctured at the same time papu decided to change the tyre this solved our purpose also. Then we begin our journey from mysore to waynad via Bandipur and gundalpet. The road and greenary and climate was perfect for our journey. We could sight some elephants and deer near bandipur.
After a this wonderful drive we reached waynad around 3. The first spot we visited was this Edakal Caves which is quite famous as there is a good old kannada movie with this name.
Through out the journey it was fun and harish aka hamali ,kaspa ,lohith aka khatri(with ghajini hair cut) and pradeep aka kencha did not miss to take the snaps for their portfolio.. lols.. nice talking to all.. teasing with old memories....
As we went up to Edakal caves it started to drizzle and mountain covered with the mist, which was a beautiful sight of nature ever you can have.....


That night we spent playing cards - (POT) which is a very nice way to pass the time, Next day we started to a Padinjarathara dam - the picturesque scenary of this dam is very attractice and to two water falls kanthapara falls and meenmutty falls.

Kanthapara falls is a small water fall which can be easliy reached also. Its again a good scenic location, Meenmutty falls the largest and most spectacular waterfall in Wayanad. A unique feature is that water drops about 300 metres over three stages. For reaching this falls we have to trek, its 2 km jungle trek off the main Ooty road. The trek is difficult when it rains as it becomes very slippery and u always have to fall so we did :)


The third and the last day we went to Chembra peak which is a private trea estate. At 2100 mts above mean sea level, Chembra is the highest peak in Wayanad and is ideal for trekking. Climbing this peak is a challenging mountaineering endeavour and would take a full dayThe scenic beauty of Wayanad, which is visible from the top of Chembra, is very exhilerating. The surrounding areas offer exceptional photo oppurtunities. We had a nice time in a stream of water here. This is where we got the kisses from leeches also. The last spot we went was Banasura dam to end the trip.
After having a good lunch at Sultan Bathery we started back to bangalore where we had a second glitch, again with the same papus car. This time it was not with tyre but with the clutch box. The car stopped moving completely in between gundalpet and waynad.The car stopped in the no mobile signal region which made it difficult to reach the people who were in srinivas's car. Hemanth managed to inform this by getting a little signal to his mobile. We found a mechanic and got car towed from their to gundulpet which got fixed next day.
It was scary moment to mallik and others who were in that car as the car stopped in the forest region where elephants move.

At last i would say Wayanad is a paradise. See it once and its green lush nature will remain in your memories forever.

Skiiing at Jisan Forest Resort

Its December.... Its winter.. It started snowing.. So the wait is over.. Its the time for skiing again.... ^0^

Skiing is the good thing to do on snow in the cold chilling winter of Korea. There are a lots of skiing resorts and this winter we found a new ski resort to enjoy;thats Jisan Forest Resort. This ski park is very close to Suwon and easily reachable by the bus as there is free shuttle bus service from Suwon to Jisan Ski park. Only thing we have to do is reserve the bus a week before. Bus starts from the Yongton - HomePlus. The journey is less than 45 mins to reach Jisan Ski Resort.

As always this event started at planning. Sangam planned this and booked the bus for the resort. Initially it was planned for 10-12 people but we ended up with much more than what we expected. Finally we were more than 25 which is a too good number to enjoy in snow.

We all reached the venue and rented the ski gear from the shops which are out side the ski resort. Everyone got ready with their ski gears and ready to burn the ice with skiing. This Ski resort has more than 8 slopes and 2 lifts which is helpul for the levels of skiing.

As we enter the snow we started skiing but not with the legs ,we skied well sleeping and sitting than standing ^-^ it was much better for me compared to the last time, since i could cover small distance by skiing.


All of us had a nice time skiing on the resort, i mean falling and rolling on the snow was very good ;) harresh, Saajan and Bipin learned the tricks faster and did good skiing at the end.
At last the funy,enjoyful and action packed day came to end and we are back to our appartments. Tomorrow again same office and same weekly routine starts till the next weekend.
I wish to skii every winter.. But Not always in korea ^-^ .


Dont Miss to see these superb skiing videos before u sign out from this blog.