Collaboration

A few days back, we were required to attend a presentation by one of the company's top executives at the banquet hall of a hotel pretty close to office. We decided that the weather was perfect for a refreshing evening walk, especially since we were being provided with mouth-watering snacks at the hotel.

The snacks were great and the presentation, excellent (for a change!). We walk out only to see that it was pouring incessantly. We waited for 10 minutes for it to subside, but to no avail. Thats when Sripathi came up with a gem of an idea for collaboration.

Just find a stranger who has a car and hand him this proposition:

You have the car and we have the people - now, lets collaborate so you drive us to the office.

Road trip experiences

I know its a bit too late to write this, given its almost 3 weeks since the Coorg trip. Nonetheless, it was extremely enjoyable. Unwinding once in a while is something I'd recommend to everyone. Me? I've decided to take a week off every 4 months -- that makes it 3 weeks/year (see - I know my math :-) and preferably go somewhere atleast for part of the week.

It took some (18 months?) planning so the four of us -- Anitha, Madhu, Yogesh and I synchronized our time off from work. We then decided to drive down to Coorg. Given Madhu's Accent was new, and we couldn't do > 80kmph consistently (the engine was yet to run-in - it'd done just about 200kms), we decided to go by my car.

All in all, we did about 882kms in 4 days. The Bangalore-Mysore road is a breeze, except of course for some ubiquitous morons, who, for the love of their life don't understand the concept of a double road, where all vehicles on one side of the road drive in the same direction! These people typically are from villages surrounding the highway, who'd rather risk their life than take a mile or so detour to the next median. Whats more, these duds come to the right side of your road with headlights on. Oh, and there was another middle aged moron who, near Wonder-La, decided that he could conveniently take a U turn without even looking if there was any vehicle on the other side. Me and another car had to literally screech our brakes so as to avoid hitting this ****head. That he had about 7 people in his Santro is another matter. I said a silent prayer for their lives.

The road was good in parts between Mysore and Madikeri. There is good amount of work going on beyond Hunsur towards Kushalnagar. Give it about 6 months and the drive to Madikeri should be a more enjoyable experience.

NagarahoLe is worth a visit. Since we were put up in Madikeri, we took the Madikeri-Virajpet-Gonikoppal-Ponnampet-Gundya route. There is a small deviation just before Gundya towards NagarahoLe. I've seen some bad "highways" but very few can beat the Ponnampet-Gundya road. Its about 30kms of unadulterated torture to you, your passengers and of course, your car. Since I had to get the car serviced after getting back, I made it a point to get the wheel alignment redone.

Driving in the ghats of Coorg is an exciting experience. I hadn't driven in ghats all that much (except for one occasion when Simha and I drove from Manipal to Dharmasthala in sheeting rain). I must say, given the terrain and the ghats, drivers in Coorg are way more well behaved when in comes to "right of way" rules and sticking to their own side of the road. For someone who is used to driving in the insane Bangalore traffic, this was a welcome change.

All in all, it was 4 days very well spent. Pictures are at the usual place.

Update: Factual error in the above post - replace all references to Gundya with Kutta. Sorry Gundya ;-)