.......And We Ran For Our Lives

It was clearly not a great beginning for the new year......We spent the night in the Train.....When we reached Mysore, the restaurant we always go to, served terrible food. Our Destination , Chikmaglur. looked really far away, coz the road never seemed to end. It was about 3 in the noon, when we reached the foothills of what was supposed to be our destination and called the Resort manager of "Giri Siri Homestay". He gave us some directions and also informed us that further from that point only BSNL has network. WOW!!!! Anyways there was no turning back and we started driving uphill , till we finally reached a point , where the resort manager was supposed to meet us. After waiting for some time, somebody appeared and asked us to follow him, and so did we across the dusty , rugged roads, to finally reach something that looked more like any other house. As we were driving in, I could see through the window of the house , some bottles, like those in a tea stall, lined up ; and I crossed my fingers, as my gut told me, there's no professional cook here. And I was right, the cook was none other than the lady of the house, and damn terrible she was. It being the New year day, Biriyani was lined up for us , which was nothing but boiled rice mixed with chicken curry. Did I mention that it smelled like a dead animal. You Bet!!!!

During the Lunch(at 4 o'clock, yes it took us 5 hours to reach the place, and its not even Chikmaglur, its actually 62 km away from Chikmaglur), Uncle told us that, after lunch he would take us to see Tea-Gardens, in his Jeep( which is actually a pick up Truck, and you have to stand in the rear, yes you heard me, stand in the rear of a pick up truck driving uphill, through, boulder-y roads. Even Our driver didn't want to go after he saw the ride). I swear, as he said so, in my mind flashed an image of me running across tea gardens in slow motion with my husband behind me, like it was an 80's movie( la la la lala, la la la lala, la la la lala, la la la lala, laaa laaa laaa la laaaa......). So we politely declined the offer and decided to take rest. I didn't tell you about the room , did I???? It was a compact, outhouse kind of a thing, with two 4*5 cots , "transparent curtains, and barely any room to walk. And mind you, there's no wall between the bathroom and the bedroom, it just a partition( I need not be any more clear here).

We were all bonkers when , in the evening ,  Mrs aunty served us tea, which will make you wish, "I'd rather have black tea". And she narrated to us what was the agenda for the guests. Quoting Mrs Aunty" Tomorrow we will take you to sunset point , and we will take you to waterfalls, where you can WEAR A LIFE JACKET AND PLAY IN THE WATER" . With the agenda in our hand, I, my husband and our driver summoned a meeting, and after breaking our heads on how we, ended up here, we decided to flee the place, first thing in the morning, I wondered, if we would be able to find a place to stay,as it was new year time, but my husband was ready to take the risk, coz this place was intolerable. We even asked them if there was any forest safari to which Mr Uncle said " Oh , no no no no, there are animals in the forest". Clearly he had no tie ups with the local forest departments and was obviously growing old. So we went to him and told him, that this is not what we are looking for, and that we are really here for the forest, hence we would like to check out the next morning (we had actually booked the place for 2 days-our bad!!!!). Mrs Aunty's face changed immediately, she muttered some stuff to our driver and disappeared. All we had from her was the dinner ie uncleaned boiled chicken, needless to mention the smell, We had a bad stomach for the next few days, I couldn't even swallow down half a dosa, the next morning. You will not get such terrible food even in the filthiest dhaba, in the most remote location of India. I can bet on that. Well , the man of the house was polite enough to serve us dinner and help us checkout the next morning, with no reduction in courtesy.

Insects sang us a good night .We woke up early the next morning, and ran for our lives......

PS : Uncle's "Jeep" ride costs you 1500 extra.