Weekend outing- 12/17

This weekend my cousin was here..We planned for some movie, and some roaming in chennai. Thought shall watch mission impossible - "Ghost protocol". We got the tickets in AGS theatre. It was a pretty decent theater. As I always mess up with things, during interval crushed the coke can, and almost half the can content got spilt in my dress. Fortunately i was wearing dark clothes that day. After the movie, went to sky walk.
I don't like to spend time in that mall, as its always crowded and not so clean as well. But since that's very near to my home, went there. I wanted to buy a wallet for me, just stepped into Westside. Unlike my cousin, i don't buy clothes very often in these high fundoo shops. But as like any girl, whenever i see printed kurtas, will get tempted to take a look at those. I picked one, my cousin chose other. I said i will pick the one which I chose. He said he will pay for the other one. I dint want to trouble him, so i picked both. When we were about to leave, he chose a shirt for me. It was a very simple one, but it looked trendy. Mrp was just 999 :). I liked, but still i said its costly and am not taking. First question as like any conservative parents, my mom would ask "whats there for 1000".
My cousin convinced me hard, "it cost you around 3rs per day, why dont you get it"..His logic sounded simple to me. Then i said i will pick one kurta and one shirt. He again started, "ok i shall pay for one". Finally i took all the three. In some one hour time, 2500rs vanished. But I liked all the three, though I was bit hesitant I dint mind..
From there we went to landmark. My cousin is a book lover.It was hard to pull him out from there. I was very tired, i sat in one corner. I happened to see sivagamin sapadam. Thought will buy that book for my mom. Called her up but she said she had already read it, in the same call I told her not to yell at me as I did some too much of shopping today, also it was an unplanned shopping. She dint tell me anything (I know, my mom is always sweet..But when i reached home first question after looking at the shirt was- whats there in it for 1000rs, and it looks old :))..Never mind :)
Then we planned to finish our dinner outside. Went to rajdhani hotel. First time i had my dinner there. They serve very good gujarati food. Rotis are so good and yummy. The servers communicate to each other in some signs, which they could only understand..It was a pretty good weekend. Had a much needed break

Topslip-trek

As i logged into the office, was happy to see trek invite to tengumaragada(two day trek),in the month of oct'2011. I immediately called my friend remya (who is my sole companion for trek, at least now :)) and asked her if we could register for this. Yes was her immediate response. I called my home, spoke to my sister to get permission from my dad. She responded me with a
yes in next 10mins. I registered immediately for the trek. Informed my other friend in Bangalore, so that they could join, but by then when they registered, registration got closed. But the trek plan changed from tengumaragada to topslip, owing to some permission issues from
forest officials. A week before the trek, we did some shopping for the trek- got a good pair of shoes, t-shirts, cargoes etc. Oct-15,16 were the planned dates for the trek. Oct-14 we had to catch a night train from Chennai central to Coimbatore. As planned i started a bit early from my office, picked my friend on the way home and we reached my home. Finished our dinner at our place, and reached central. In the trekkers list, we were the first to reach the station. We were roaming here and there for sometime, and later called kaushik (one of the organizer). He was on his way, and asked us to wait there for around 10mins. We were just sitting in the travellers desk and were talking all odd stories, pulling each other's leg and was making fun of each other as the way we do it always. Kaushik again called us, and asked us to come near saravana bhavan in central. They was one big gang with backpacks. We assumed it must be from ctc, and approached them They were having a name list, and was taking attendance of all participants. By then priya..sorry priya madam ,(she is manager in TCS..big boss you see...:)) joined us. Marking our attendance, we started walking towards the train and settled in our seats.

There were some self intro, many people knew each other already as they were regular trekkers. But for me and remya, everyone was stranger there, as it was just our second trek. But we got ourselvers comfortable in few hours. Sujai (the other organiser), explained to us the plan for next two days. I think it would be a group of around 20-22 people, of which there were around 8-9 girls. Most of them were from IT and some were students, and there were 3 +12 kids, who were talking non-stop all the two days, making fun of people. I got a thought, (12th ke ipdiya...). They were making fun of everybody by calling all members of the trek as aunty and uncle. As i am narrating this almost 2 months after the trek, i forgot the names of the places
and the forest. Once we reached coimbatore, just refreshed ourselves and had break fast.
From there headed to a elephant sanctuary, where they showed us elephant feeding. Took some snaps there. From there we started our first trek. It was roughly for 6kms.

The terrain was not very slippery, and it was manageable one. We could spot deers, elephants, some wild birds, monkeys. After the first trek, we were extremely hungry, had our lunch at topslip forest canteen. We had split ourselves into two groups initially. By then we returned for lunch, other group also finished their trekking. But that was a leach prone zone, and not much of animals was also spotted. They were cribbing that only leaches were there and nothing else. But our experience was good, the view was scenic and the walk was pleasant. After the lunch the gropu1 would trek to the leach prone zone and group2 would trek to the place where we went pre-lunch. Many of us in our group took a call, not to go for the second trek. Instead few of us were sitting there and chit-chatting. Myself, remya, sujai and other +12 guy started off for a long walk along the hill side and were enjoying the scenic view. This was for day1.We had to drive for around 2hrs to reach forest cottage, all were dead tired, and I dozed off early.
Dint take part in the dumb-c's which went on till 2AM. Morning i woke up with the sound of water stream that was flowing just opposite to the dormitory were we stayed. The pool was crystal clear, and nothing can resist to make one jump into it. Enjoyed in the pool for around 1hour, then got ourselves ready for the second day trek. This was was also realtively easier one, and we reached a hill top, and a beautiful water falls welcomed us. Spent sometime there and reached our dormitory.

Packed our bags, and on the way to station we visited a dam. Had dinner in some road side shop. That shop owner was pleased to have around 20+ customers at a time. They weren’t prepared for a big crowd. At a time the guy would bring 2 or 3 dosas, all would shout "anna inga kudunga..inga kudunga"..he finally went mad, thinking who is to be served first. Finally finished our dinner and reached Coimbatore railway station. We were all tired that nobody was minding to sit in the platform itselfs. All passengers were gazing at us, "why are they sitting as though like some refugees"..
Got into the train, had good sleep. Morning reached home sweet home..