vivekkhare.org

*—-Kochi——*
Started from bangalore and reached Kochi by Air. Went for half day sight seeing at Kochi and it was full waste.
Dutch Palace has very less artifacts in it, in fact you can find more artifacts including pillars, doors, ceilings, paintings, furniture and tons of ancient stuff in the shops around dutch palace.
Jewish synagogue is closed between 2-3 and unfortunately we landed there at sharp 2 so had to drop the idea of waiting for it.
Jewish Lane is full of kashmiri shops, dont know why as they are not even remotely related.
Went to Fort Kochi and enjoyed watching chinese fishing net and freshly caught fish. You will get tons of shops that offer fresh catch and cooking of the same. There are some shops around for cheap garment shopping in case you are interested. Bargain is the key.Started for Munnar around 3.30pm and reached Tea Valley Resort around 8pm. There are hardly any good restaurants once you start climbing up the mountain so you may want to have early dinner or something when you start from Kochi or get something packed. A Tablet of Evomin may save you from throwing up.

*—Munnar—*
Tea Valley property is scenic however services and rooms are pathetic. We stayed in the best cottage that they had to offer and we figured out that despite of 3 early reminders about checking in, we had to deal with a non-working fan regulator, broken side table, dampness in the room. Resort also has very limited timing for its restaurant. Breakfast is served only from 7.30am to 9.30am and Dinner from 7 to 9 pm which leaves you with very less opportunity to relax and wake up late or return late from sight seeing.
Staff at resort is amazingly unaware as to which is their best cottage and which is the worst. Pls dont depend on their opinion about the same, they know nothing. If you have decided to stay there in any case discarding my opinion completely, go for Room/Cottage # 408 or 406 that are on roof top and offer better view to the valley, they are also close to the terrace where you may have bon fire (Ask the staff to organize it as they wont do it on their own). There is no swimming pool at the resort so dont get disappointed if you expected one.
We found that variety of menu, price and services were much better at Abad Copper Castle that is just before Tea Valley. Copper Castle also offers a live singer who is not that bad and is worth money.
If you cant start as early as 6am for Eravikulam National Park, forget about it since the queue will be huge and it may take you 1 hour or more to get the ticket only. Also if you have not visited Top station in the park there is nothing else to see much.
Tea Museum of Tatas is a great place and you can see each step of tea processing very closely in the live production environment. They run a documentary movie of duration 30 mins to brief about history of Madupetty/Munnar Tea Plantations.

Madupetty Dam is awesome, it is scenic, calm and lake is beautiful. I recommend not to miss it.
There is an echo point close to Madupetty Dam and we found a friendly photographer named “Pandi” who gave us a nice photograph of ours and whistled so loud that you could hear the echo of it multiple times. Unfortunately, normally we dont have a throat to shout that loud so you may depend on him or other photographers like him.
While you are going towards Madupetty or returning, you will see lot of tea factories and some of them have their own outlet just outside the factory, you will get authentic and fresh tea at very reasonable rate there.
Your driver may take you to a restaurant called T&U, I bet you will die laughing afterwards about your decision to go there for lunch/dinner. Food is exorbitantly expensive, Anything that you order will take at least, AT least, AT LEAST, at LEAST 30 MINUTES (Hope it is clear to you why am i emphasizing on it so much) and note that this is least time they need for anything–Taking order, serving, clearing, producing bill, taking payment everything takes 30 mins each.
Looks like they have only 4 waiters who take order and then rush inside the kitchen, buy grocery from market, come back to kitchen, cook it for you and then come to serve you. During our lunch hour(s) we found 5 out of 6 families shouting for the delay in everything.
Looks like drivers have a deal setup with the restaurant for free lunch/dinner or something that is why most drivers will take you there by default.

Evening 5pm to 6pm you MUST watch Kathakalli and 6pm to 7pm Kalarippayattu show at Punarjani (http://www.punarjanimunnar.org/). Pls note that you should book the tickets for it the day you reach munnar to get the best & confirmed seats. If you havent watched these 2 shows, your visit to munnar is 50% waste.
Dont take corner seats for any show since the view will not be good at all. Take the front row centre seats, if not front row take at least closest to the centre that will give you the best view.

Kathakalli show will amaze you with the perfection the artists by moving their face muscles to dance on demand to express various emotions. One word for the show “SUPERB”
Kalarippayatu is the most ancient martial art and you will be surprized about agility, speed, precision of the fighters. Unni, Lalu, Baby punarjani are the best fighters among others. They are very very friendly. After the show you can pickup sword, shield, spears and dagger etc. and get a photograph with them.
They love talking to you and are very humble.
It is a clear DONT MISS the event thing.

*—Kumarakom—-*
Started early from Munnar since had to cover the tea muesum that we could not cover earlier. There are 3 waterfalls on your way back from Munnar to Kumarakom and if you did not cover them while going up the mountain, this is the best time to see them while returning.
2 of them are far and scenic while 1 small waterfall may be climbed up and get good photographs.

Context

Random Writing

*————-Dark World————-*

Chapter 1: The Questions

I woke up with headache and found myself in a place that i never thought of seeing- a holding cell in a police station perhaps. It was slightly blue light all over the room and the room looked like a cargo container than a room. No Window, a single iron door tightly closed and absolutely nothing in the room. I pressed hard against my brain to remember who i was and what was i doing there but my memory looked like a blur picture and despite of trying very hard i could not remember anything clearly. Few random things came to my mind and few unheard names floated before my eyes but if you ask me to say what those were I wont be able to.

I heard some footsteps outside the door and then somebody opened the door. a very young girl aged about 8-9 years in a white frock entered the room and behind her a middle aged man with strong jaws and muscles dressed like a senior army officer entered along with 4 soldiers duly armed and pointing their guns towards me. Somehow it did not scare me but confused, who is this girl, who is the colonel or whatever and why his 4 soldiers pointing their guns to me, what have I done, who are they? I wanted to ask all of it but felt like my body froze. I looked at the girl again and a name blinked to me “Chun-Yit”, I somehow thought that this name belonged to a boy but i was surprized to find that it belonged to a girl. Nobody told me that it did but my mind somehow knew it. I focused at the girl once again & she nodded as she knew what I was thinking. I dont think that i had seen this girl ever before but somehow i knew her, what is wrong with me, why am i thinking this strange way.The colonel gave a sarcastic smile and said something to his soldiers in a very low voice and they surrounded me and without saying a world pushed me with their gun towards the door. I slowly walked towards the door and the girl and colonel moved backwards and went outside the chamber. Outside this chamber there was another one similar to this with few weapon crates and shelves with ammo on them. As I moved ahead i saw a door on my immediate left which was closed, there was no other exit other than the closed door. One soldier was behind me almost stepping out from the first chamber into the next one and 3 others were behind him, Something happened in my body all of a sudden, it shook and with a lightening speed my body moved to seize the gun of the solider behind me and to all my surprize it seized it successfully and shot the solider. Somebody shouted and a burst of gun fire opened though nothing hit me, my hands moved like a machine and i shot all 3 soldiers within no time. 2 Things came to my mind – one that I had shot all of them in the head in a single shot and second that though my back was towards the colonel and the girl but i was not worried or scared that they could harm me. I turned and I saw the girl and colonel disappearing before the closing door in the next chamber. For a minute i thought i was playing the video game of DOOM since everything looked that way but there was something very strange. Third thing i noticed was that the whole world was mute, i did not hear any voice/sound at all. When I focused, i realized that even the earlier shout and burst of gun fire also i heard in my mind, my ears did not register these sounds. What has happened to me, i thought once again. Looks this question is going to be repeated many times.

I moved to the first chamber and picked up 2 pistols, a shotgun and an automatic small assault rifle from the dead soldiers, i opened the utility belt from a dead soldier and put the pistols in the holster. I picked the least blood wet jacket from the dead body of a soldier and put on me and hung the shot gun and rifle on my back. Like a machine i came to the next chamber, picked up a backpack and started packing ammo magazines & granades in it. Found a water bottle that i packed on the side pocket of the bag, hung the bag on my back, relocated the guns properly to keep them handy and then piled the weapon crates near the exit. I climbed over them and hid myself and started waiting.

The door opened and same colonel that i had seen earlier peeped inside the chamber, i could see 5 or more soldiers behind him ready to shoot. My hands moved and they all dropped dead in seconds. I moved out of the door and found it was a long corridor with the door on the other side, I stepped outside the other door and found myself in a big field with lots of army trucks, jeeps and tanks. Many of them were burning. It was night and dark all around. I noticed some soldiers running here and there at distance. There was a chaos everywhere and nobody cared about anybody. I turned to the right side of the ground which was going to bit higher ground and started walking.

Where am I?

It looked like it was about to break dawn as I walked towards the town from that army camp kind of field with burnt vehicles and fire everywhere, the sun light started showing from the other side and the tall buildings of the town started becoming visible. It was weird that no living creature was visible anywhere only tall and lonely buildings. It appeared to me that i am in a town that is abandoned by its people though difficult to believe since the buildings looks well maintained and seemed that few hours back they were populated. I walked forward and a thought not related to any of this came to my mind “I am married and have a family! Where is my family? They took it? Who? Where? Why? When? Why not me?”. It frustrated that there were more questions than answers in fact no answers pissed me off more. There was a very different feeling inside me, an unexplainable phenomenon. It felt like that i knew my body well but my confidence, my personality was not matching my body. It looked like I knew that I was not such a confident person in my life but I was living another life or something. Somewhere my heart was telling me that I was an average or perhaps a below average man in life but the confidence, skills and fearlessness I was having did not match my own experience. Am I reborn? Am I living in dream? Am I dead as no particular feeling was waving through my heart/brain, Has somebody replaced my soul with somebody else but if that was the case I would not have felt the difference. I was able to differentiate between my 2 levels but not able to relate it with anything. This worried me more than anything. I stopped walking and looked around, I had come almost mid of the town with highrisers on both side of the wide road. I was standing next to a hospital building. I hesitated for the first time after waking up and then moved inside the hospital. Inside it looked like everyone left the hospital in a rush. There was furniture scattered, files on the floor, blood spots, clothes, medicines but no human being. Somebody please tell me what has happened? Where is everyone? I checked every single room in the hospital but absolutely nobody was there. I went up on the higher floors and checked every single corner, under the beds, in the shelves but nobody was to be found. The loneliness attacked me sharply. I went to the roof top of the hospital and looked closely at the city to find any movement and to no surprize there was nothing that could catch my eye. I made a note mentally to get a binocular for better observation. I slowly came out of the hospital.

Cheat Vs. Genuine ways to reach higher level in gemcraft chapter 0

I have searched net for weeks & found that none of the cheat work with gemcraft (not even cheat engine). But I was able to reach Level 53 without much hassle. Here are few tips that helped me:

1. Look at the level first & see if you need not build towers, go back & use skill points that you might have used for reducing cost of building towers to some other skill. Same stands for traps as well

2. Beat the same level multiple times to get amulets (E.g. play Level one 20 times in Normal, Endurance, Heroic mode etc. & then 20 times more and then 20 times again) to get amulets & points to get to the next levels & then use the skill points to better position yourself

3. Once you have gone higher level with better skill points, come back & play first few levels to get more Mana/Points to increase your overall score to get higher faster. You may destroy buildings, not create extra towers/traps, get more mana (2000, 4000, 6000) to get higher score than previous to increase your overall score.

4. Level 11 is good & easy for activating shrines, building multiple towers & still beat monsters

5. Drop bombs on the left side bar where wave numbers are displayed to summon monsters, it gives you more mana.

6. Dont assume that lower levels are always easy, for example Level 18 is more difficult than many higher levels.

7. When you get stuck at Level 44 or so, look at using skill points for “Radiance Skill”, it increases range of your gems for firing & gives dramatic results.

8. You may play level 1 again & again to create more traps/towers/gems to get the amulets related to these to increase your score.

9. At the first arcane level, the best tip i have is to create the towers in the top row near the entry point & then empty towers at the very bottom near your Wizard tower so that when worms have crossed your top towers, you may reuse the same gems at the bottom row.

10. Using slow gem & poison gem in sequence gives awesome results.

11. Placing poison tower at the very entry point may prove very very useful at many levels.

Took off on 31st july (friday) and clubbed 1st august 09 to make a 2 days 1 night tour to chikamagalur and few close by places. People tried to scare me off of the rainy season, the flood but we kept it off aside and decided to give it a try. Before starting from bangalore, did some research about the nearby places and things to see and now i can say it was a good research (not the best one though).

We started friday 31st july morning around 8.30 and went via neelmangala bypass and had a break at cafe coffee day before kunigal. This cafe coffee day is built well and washrooms are amazingly cleaned. We were lucky to find that there was a Tamil movie getting shot at this place, movie is named Paiyya and Karthik & Tamannah are the main leads. I popped my handy cam and captured the shoot for 10 minutes where Tamannah is driving a black/dark blue mitsubishi lancer to the petrol pump with karthik sitting next to her. this shot was taken in 3 takes. While I was capturing this over my handycam, director linguswamy saw me doing it and argued to not shoot it being his business and leaking the video may ruin the film. I am surprized as to how a 10 minutes capturing of a single scene can ruin the movie, the guy must have been crazy of thinking of shooting at a public place and not expecting of people catching it. Anyways, once we were done at the CCD and coming out, we found that tamannah had completed her shoot and sat close to CCD door, I approcahed her requesting to have a snap with my family and she agreed, you can check those snaps at my orkut page.

From CCD with good memories we headed to Shravanbelagola, reached around 11.45am. You have to climb up bare foot so deposit your foot wear at the right side of the big gate of the temple (at the base itself) for INR 1 per pair of footwear. The office of the Shravanbelagola trust is on left side of the gate & you MUST check that for valuable information. Few key things to keep in mind at Shravanbelagola:

1. There are around 700 steps oddly designed – they are not equally sized and going higher they become more difficult.

2. From the base, you can see only 40% of the stairs so dont get shocked when you reach a turn on stairs to find out there are more and more stairs

3. If you have old ages people and/or kids you may avail a children carrying facility (INR 50) or Palaki service (INR 200) by getting a voucher from the office at the base. Please beware that many agents will approach you quickly enough to misguide you asking very very high price but you can get these facilities at the above mentioned rate without any hassles.

4. I recommend that you save money for donation (dont donate it at various places at template/statue etc.) but use it when you come back (see the details below)

Trust me it was really tiring climbing these many stairs but the view from top is worth it, you can see the town, the far off hills, farms and clouds. Had it not been cloudy, it could have been very very difficult.

After reaching the top, we saw the main temple, statue of Gomateshwar, read the story on the board, clicked lots of snaps, completed Parikrama and came down. Climbing up took 45 – 50 minutes while coming down took only 15 mins. When we came down, an agent near the gate told that there is a charitable trust that runs free food for all for which we got the voucher from office and walked in the lane adjacent to the office (3 mins walk) to reach a place where lot of trust funded students stay, study and serve the food, the food was jaini style (pure vegetarian, without onion or garlic) but tasty, hygienic and place was very very clean. People serving food were also very courteous. We had chapati, chana masala, curd rice, some green vegetable, rasam and rice. The food is absolutely free but if you wish to donate something to the charitable trust, it is your wish.

From shravanbelagola, we started for belur where Channakeshava temple is there. It is a beautiful temple & was built by king Vishnuvardhana in commemoration of his victory over the Cholas at Talakad in 1117 CE. Legend has it that it took 103 years to complete and Vishnuvardhana’s grandson Veera Ballala II completed the task. The temple will take you to the old days of human masterpiece in the days when no big machinery, no project planning tools, no computers were there but only human workship used to create wonders. The carvings in the rocks are out of the world kind. Inside the temple it is very dark, so you got to have very good camera to capture things. You may pay INR 10 for getting the search/focus light on for few minutes to capture the beauty inside the temple. you may check our snaps here.

From belur we went to Devigiri Coffee estate via chikamgalur town. Please be careful to negotiate with them well (since it is not per room/cottage charge rather per person) but it is worth staying in a coffee estate for – Staying amidst the nature, bon fire, tour of coffee plantation, jungle safari. Please ensure with them that they have 24×7 FULL power (most of the coffee estates run on solar energy and the cottage in the mid of the estate might not have the 24×7 solar energy to run), check for TV, mosquito net on windows, window doors  & tons of blankets (Temperature may come down to 12 degree celcius) and dont forget to ask for mosquito repellent.

We spent our night at a very cold cottage in devigiri (but worth it) as it was raining heavily in the night. But we were lucky that there was no rain during day time.

Next day morning we had a choice to either go to Mulayangiri route or to Kemmanagundi route (trust me you cant cover both in a single day being totally opposite directions). During my research, I found that road to kemannagundi was horrible and 20 kms of the road itself will take more than 2 hours to ride. But the hebbe falls (just 10 kms from kemannagundi) is a good place to see (though the road from kemanngundi to hebbe is more horrible and only a jeep can take you there which is available for INR 140 per person). We opted for Mulayangiri route since there are many things to see on that route. E.g. Sethala Math, Mulayangiri peak (Highest in karnataka – about 1900 mtrs from sea level), Hummanna Water Fall, Baba budangiri dargah/Gurudattatreya Peeth, manikyadhara water fall.

We started from Devigiri around 9.30am and came back to Kaimara village from where we took a right turn towards mulayangiri route, after around 3 kms we reached a junction point and took left to Sethala math road, the road is curvey and steep and full of beautiful view points, if you are not getting out of your vehicle to capture snaps, you are missing the fun. Sethala Math is a small temple (there is a small cave opposite it) and you may trek 3 kms to reach mulayangiri peak or can take the road to the peak to ride if you dont want to trek. This road will take you through many dangerous turns and curves and edges of the valley and you will literally walk through the clouds, you can see clouds running around you and making you wet with the small rain drops filled inside them. After reaching the last driving point near peak, we took 400 steps to reach the peak. Steps are easy and small but at this height you may get lesser oxygen. We climbed up and found that clouds were disabling us to see anything beyond 6 feet. We clicked some wonder snaps there and came down to drive back towards Baba budan giri.

We came back to the junction point 3 kms from Sethala math and took left to catch the road to Baba budangiri. Baba budan is known to bring first coffee beans to india, he smuggled it in his waste belt from middle east and was the first one to start coffee plantation in india. The road to baba budangiri will also give you amazing natural viewpoints, I could not control myself and captured tons of snaps of valley, mountain range, clouds, serpantine roads & dangerous curves. In between we reached a place where the natural water flow has been turned into artificial water fall (small one) named as hummanna water fall. you may climb above the fast water flow and stand on the bridge to enjoy the cold water running. We saw a beautil red crab enjoying the same with us and thank god Parv did not try to shake hand with it (usually he runs for a shake hand with anybody)

The frustration haunted us when on reaching baba budangiri dargah, we were told that the cave had land sliding and is closed for past 5 months and will be closed for another 4-5 months time till it is repaired. We moved to Manikyadhara Water fall which is natural water fall falling from 50 ft. The custom is to leave your clothes in which you took bath in this water fall at the water fall itself, even there is a penalty of INR 50 if you dont leave your bathed clothes there. We found this conditioned weird and unlawful. Anyways !!! you can get some good bhajji/Pakoras at this place & come back down

We had a break at chikamagalur town for a late lunch (around 3.45pm) and reached home at bangalore at 9.40pm. Road from kunigal to neelmangala at present is getting constructed so be careful while you drive there.

Overall journey was too good and full of life time memories, specially walking in the clouds at mulayangiri. Dont miss the fun, go there !!!

I visited Bannerghatta National Park with my family on 13th June 09. I had some relatives from my native therefore decided to hire a cab, we left our home (Near Hebbal) at 8.45am and reached Bannerghatta National Park by 09:30am. We were lucky to have no crowd at all or perhaps the deserving ones to come so early, we got the tickets within 3 minutes. In week ends & holidays Park charges are different than other days. Here is the table:

Week Days                        Week End/Holidays

Adult                                              100                                            135

Kid [5 to 12 years]                          35                                              35

Senior Citizen                                 80                                              80

Fort Still camera you got to pay INR 20 & for Video camera INR 110. Once we got the ticket, we went straight to the bus queue, the bus operator told that he will start when there are 30 people (Small buses carry 30 while large buses carry 50 people). Better would be that you jump to the front seats or to a window seat to have a better view. Grand safari took us to 4 parts of the Park [Dear Park, Bear Park, Lion Park & Tiger Park]. Going early morning also gives you the advantage of watching animals in open and not in cage since early morning the sun is not that bright and shiny. We got perfect view of many dears, bears (few sat in the middle of the road posing for cameras), white tigers, lions, cubs, cheetah etc. and it was wonderful trip of 40-50 minutes.  Kids with us enjoyed thoroughly. On the way back to Park from safari, there is a Butterfly park (Charges are separate there) that we skipped since my kid: Parv was not keen to see butterflies after watching tigers and lions.

There are lot of shops outside Zoo where bus drops you after safari, you may try sugar cane juice, coconut etc. and again enter into the zoo (with the same tickets) & watch snakes, birds, aquarium & other animals inside zoo. There is an elephant ride also.

Dont forget to carry your camera (& put it on image stablization mode as the road on safari is rough), better you wrap the wrist grip to your wrist to avoid dropping the camera.

Carry your sun glasses & hat for protection from scortching sun. Go light (perhaps with multipocket shorts or 3/4th)

: Vivek

For a long time I wanted to look back at my life and everything that I experienced but as you know it is not that easy and a working life does not give enough opportunity often to do so. Yet determined to relook, reflect and share with you, here I am with my first blog.

As the time passes, you will see me putting all the random thoughts so that perhaps someday it will become a good book to read.

I am not a frequent and experienced writer therefore your ideas are welcome to help me improve. Keep writing back to me at vivek@vivekkhare.org