day 1: after months of planning, we were finally ready to kickstart the much awaited trip to nelliyampathy forest. college hours down, the only thing left was to receive the guests at our humble abode 207. to make a long story short, the presence of nosy locals forced us to move our base of operations to hotel highway garden(a familiar place for most of us). maybe not the start we were hoping for, but it was fun nevertheless....shuttling between the 3 different rooms that we took for the night, repeatedly banging on the door of a particular room whose 2 residents just refused to grant entry,sreeja the ultimate producer of quality laughing gas(mainly for herself),group dinner and exclusively for 4 of us....tickets to mexico. amid the chaos, the camera did the talking as well. only the lord knows when exactly we hit the bed.
day 2: the tempo arrives. guys take their baths and get ready. women on the other hand...well, they did a lot more than just that, obviously.
the ride to nelliyampathy was long, but never boring...thats a word you dont come across in our dictionary. the music and the presence of loudmouth suthin just added to the lively atmosphere. but lets cut to the core of this story.
the tempo's final destination was the beginning of the journey for us. we teamed up with the tour organisers and made pairs within ourselves.and we did something else that seems so f***ing laughable to me at this point....apply anti-leech cream on ourselves.
and thus, the trekking began. jazim and doctor irene leading the bunch, followed by myself and monisha, then rohin and doctor susan(the docs were given high priority,but ultimately they turned out to be useless),suthin and the dwarf merin with zubin and jency completing the line-up. sreeja.....erm.....guess no "buddy" could satisfy her, so she varied her positions constantly.
during the start, we might have followed a path, but after a while the guides led us straight into the freaking jungle, where we werent following any bloody path but just cutting and slicing through branches and bushes! well...this is trekking...and it was fun ;) we climbed hills, got washed down by rain, spotted a deer, walked and walked and walked....for apparently a total of 10 km. it was an achievement by the end of it.....we had entered the jungle and come out of it unscathed...................................or so we hoped.
during the early preparations for this trip, we thought that the greatest fear that we might encounter in the forest could be a tiger or some similar beast. but we had tossed aside what we'd considered to be a minor threat, but turned out to be the greatest : leeches.
oh yes ladies and gentlemen, leeches. those bloody GoodKnight anti leech creams were to leeches as a safety pin to a hungry lion. the bloodsuckers bit and tore at every one of us. they penetrated through our shoes AND our socks. they climbed up our legs and sucked on happily. i was unfortunate enough have 2 of them settle between my toes!! they grew from the size of a grain of rice to a small rock. apparently, leeches release some substance that prevents the host from feeling its presence! moreover, they also release an anti-coagulant that prevents clotting of blood....which explained why our bleeding persisted throughout the day! and i thought mosquitos were the worst creations by god.....
but how can u define a worthy experience without a few obstacles?? and experience it was nonetheless, to come out of the jungle not-so-unscathed but with each of us writhing, trying to get rid of the little monsters(except for the fisherwoman, she deserves a medal for having warded off every leech attack....or perhaps they found no satisfactory amount of blood in her to suck away). feeling exhilarated, that phase of the trip ended with a ride to our accommodation.
after another walk(mercifully not INTO any forest) and a sight of the "booth bungalow", the night partying began. maybe the bonfire wasnt so big, but it was grand enough to gather around and make a toast to ourselves, and definitely big enough to heat a chicken ;) getting wasted was our next priority!! but the night wasnt over, not without THE night safari!!! allrite....i dont have any right to boast here, having slept off an hour into the safari, but it was a "wooohooooo" experience all the same.
after our return, i recall falling flat on the bed....and nothing more ;) ;)
day 3: woke up to discussions about the previous day...the hot topic was about one particularly wasted lady. my hats off to her for being such a great source of entertainment! the fun that was shared during that time just cant be typed down or told, but gotta be experienced with your own physical presence right there ;)
the guides had thankfully decided that we've had enough leech bites to last a lifetime, so they led us through relatively less leech-infected areas and onto the top of a HIGH mountain. and oh boy, it was beautiful. it was the perfect way to end our last trekking session...on the top of the world with the varying breeze against us accompanied by the breathtaking view.....the camera was out to do the talking again at this point ;) we had our own share of talking and endless laughter there....the feeling was bliss!
and thus, we returned, packed and got ready for the trip back home. it was a tiring weekend but thats the only negative aspect i can honestly point out. nelliyampathy offered itself to us and we exploited it to enjoy the hell out! but the icing on the cake was once again...the little things : suthin's loud ass humour, jazim's tendency to bring the group 2gether for his crazy snaps, irene's dumb jokes, jency's stern stare, susan's care and sweetness, rohin's "wazzzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa", merin's constant reminder that "big things come in small packages", monisha's thurst for getting high and those freaking blue fingernails, zubin's never ending showing off and rolling up of sleeves and last but never least....the life of the party: sreeja and her gales of laughter that just never shuts up.
welcome to our life.
yours
vysh
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