Tanflora -- Our own Keukenhof around Bangalore

Got an invite to visit a Rose farm from one of our running group member. Though this trip was long due it was like now or never as the season for roses almost comes to end with HOT Indian summer. From Bangalore we need to go via Sarjapur, Bagalur in Housr District of TamilNadu. Google name is Amuthugondapalli. Due to exam time many people could not come but it was still a sizable group of 30. 

Myself and Aarush joined another dad & son in car-pool to drive down there. Both the boys of same age became better and bitter friends quickly. The road was a long one for us as we have to travel on ORR to Sarjapur Junction and pass Decathlon and Sarjapur village till we reached Baglur Village. From there we took a right turn next to Police station and drive for 7+ KM to reach a place with a sign for Tenaflora. We were the first one to reach and as soon as Aarush and Abhinav got out of the car started to run and explore the vast open space. 

Soon we were joined with our hostess and other group members. She briefed us on a quick background the farm and how it works and we stared the guided tour. Roses are pretty but they needs lots of care and best resources to grow. The green houses are computer controlled to ensure the right level of temperature and humidity is maintained. The water that needs to be filtered and ensured right level of pH and EC maintained. If you are wondering what is this EC it is Electrical Conductivity of water may be we studied somewhere long time ago. There were those huge cold storage where unsorted and sorted roses are kept once they are picked form the green-house. The whole process is very tedious and labor intensive just like tea. Like tea garden ladies work with their delicate hands for sorting and ensuring right set of roses are packed together. The global standard is of 20 rose stems in one. We completed the post plucking production from un-sorted roses to a final packing and ready to be shipped in those big card-board box.

After that we had a stupendous lunch spread before us. The outside temperature was very hot but after a rest we walked towards green house. It was really hot out there. Inside greenhouse it was a great relief and it reminded us Shilshila. Growing up in India in 70/80s you it is kind of marked in your memory with permanent marker. Here we saw how they take care of each buds right from when they are in the size of peanuts. 

The best was kept for the last each of us were given a rose bouquet of different colors. Hope these pictures tell you the story better than me.

A Weekend - supposed to be perfect

Aarush reminded me it's  Friday,  at breakfast table and that he should have the I-Pad with charger for the Weekend; somehow he remembers when it is Friday very well for his age. Well the weekend was supposed to be a just another weekend on the calendar with no specific plan. There were some weekend work/changes/releases at office but not a major ones. Nowadays my running group is doing long runs on Saturday instead of Sunday. And I thought to myself if I start sharp at 5 I should be able to  finish by 7:15  and back home before 7:30 so that I can take care of Aarush.

On Friday I headed to bed early put the alarm for 4:15 and I left home for GKVK at 4:30. It was bit spooky to reach there and be alone in the dark. The only street light was working was around gate of NCBS. So did few short rounds of quick jogging on the road luckily there were no stray dogs. As I was finishing up my warm up exercises one by one my running group members started to show up. Without much time at hand I started running alone in the dark. I was thinking the faster ones will cross me any time after 15-20 minutes and then the others will follow. But saw my running buddies almost when I completed first loop and was at 9.8+ KM mark. I joined them back and to complete the remaining part without a break as I was carrying a small water bottle. Soon the second loop almost started to get complete and finished 20K in 1:50. 

At 20KM mark reached back to car and had little water break and then started the last 3KM. Now the real challenge was supposed to be faster by 1 minute for the last 3 KMs. I did OK and finished them within target shared by coach. It was 7:12 and with that headed back home. By the time I reached home Pamela already left for work and our maid and cook were busy working. Aarush was still asleep. Complete the workout with some stretching exercise; it was a real achievement to run 20+3KM within the plan.

After that had a quite morning, Aarush woke up, we completed shower, breakfast &  homework. He played little bit of games on Ipad while I uploaded my running details in GARMIN. Around 11ish dropped Aarush to Abacus class this was his 3rd session, something to keep him away from TV and IPAD on the weekends. 

Picked Aarush and Pamela around 1PM, after lunch had a nice nap and whith my best try Aarush did not slept. But he was ready for some rounds of roller blades within our apartment complex. It was kind of boring so called even friends with a hope if they are free;  will catch up with them.

After 9:30 in the night there was some glitch at work so spent some time on that issue ; was thinking to join Nike Run Club with Pamela on Sunday Morning. 

Sunday morning the alarm went off on correct time but two of us were lazy to go out - a perfect Sunday morning finished Breakfast late then completed household chores. Had lunch on time followed by a nap. I really felt good after a long time that got a restful weekend. 

The following day being Holi – festival of colors. There was some celebration within our complex ; Pamela and Aarush stayed there while I came home to prepare dinner.

After 30 minutes or so Aarush came back home and said he is not going to have dinner and going for sleep. Got little irritated with this as how he can skip his dinner and go to sleep; called Pamela and spoke about the same. So after 3 min (precise time from phone call log) I went inside and asked Aarush to change his dress and I washed his hand and face. While pat drying his hand my almost perfect weekend came to an abrupt halt and left me jolted on seeing Aarush left  hand was completely broken and it was twisted. 

I ran got some first aid to support  his hand and called Pamela again informing her to return immediately. And we rushed to ER of hospital next door. 

Everyone at hospital was shocked that how this 6 year old was not crying or howling and showing a brave expressionless face. They called the on-call orthopedic and by the time completed his first round of X-ray.

The only sound that came from him was when they applied traction to straighten his hand. Again another round of x-ray to confirm whether the setting was OK and finally we came home. 

Well today is only Tuesday and tomorrow evening we need to visit hospital again for another round of x-ray to confirm all is OK before they put a complete hard cast on his hand for 6 weeks. 

Today, I feel bad not for his broken hand but for hiding this incident because of the fear of being scolded . Looks like I failed completely and still trying to find an answer what triggered him to behave like that as on the same evening I have spent a good time on the play ground with him before leaving for home to prepare his favorite dinner. 

the x

Pinkathon

 Pinakthon is a initiative to encourage todays women of India to participate in active life style. Being  little active myself I know it is very difficult for modern urban Indian women to follow the same. There are many logistical issues staring from family, in-laws, sons, daughters, job and what not.

But the biggest block I think is they themselves as to take initiative of starting an active lifestyle and being committed to it which is not an easy commitment . Though I am not expecting them to run Full-Marathon in sub 3 hours but even if they can do atleast 30 minutes of speed walk or other cardiac activities on daily basis that would be great.

So this year, Pamela & Pixy signed up for the 5K events. Picture courtesy to Flashbulbzz.

Planning a summer escape - 2014

View Driving directions to Chandigarh, Chandigarh, India in a larger map

Looking for travel advice!!! Ticket booked from Bangalore to Chandigarh round trip. We flyout  on Sunday(13th April) and stay that night at Chandigarh and next day would like to start  for Himachal Pradesh. And return after almost 2 weeks, on Friday to Chandigarh and take next Morning flight to Bangalore on Saturday (26th April).

Goa ... beach and x-mas

In 2013 we had very little family vacation time. I personally travelled here and there for single nights few times due to running and other personal work. The worst was to spend a week in Calcutta just after Durga Pooja and not able to accomplish anything there. So when December vacation time was only few days away I booked for Goa for 4 nights without much thinking. Personally felt quite happy with the booking as got a decent price for Goa just before X-mas.

We left Bangalore on Saturday morning at around 04:30 morning; the road condition was great and for the first time I was maintaining 100/110 KPMH. The road widening on NH4 between Chitradurga and Neelmangla was completed and now we have 3 lanes on each side. We stopped at Kamat before Haveri and soon reached Hubli around 10ish. From there we left the toll road but the road condition did not deteriorate at all. Thanks to Supreme Courts’ verdict on Illegal mining : ) there was no over-sized dumper carrying Iron ores. We reached Karwar by 12 and did not felt like stopping  for lunch that time. On entering Goa border we had to pay whooping 250 INR as entrance fees which was little surprising for us as never had to pay such fees with Private self-driven car in India.

We reached our hotel Colva kinara around 14:00, so first we had lunch and then checked in later. While checking-in got a shock of life time. There was mention of “Mandatory Gala Dinner on 24th Dec 2012(X-Mas Eve)” but the price of the same was never mentioned while booking and personally did not open the hotel coupon to read the fine prints. Now Hotel guys were asking rs.3000 per person for the same so in total 7500 for our family of 2 and half . Called up MakeMyTrip and told them they should have made this clear prior booking as it was too extravagant amount being asked by the hotel but looks like there was no option other than paying. It was a bad start .

Visited family and friends twice on the northern side in the evening ; it was OK drive but quite long. 

The 4 nights stay at the hotel was event-less but the hotel was not a great for the money we spent. These 4 days we really not did do much other than drinking, eating, walking to beach, take a swim at sea and repeat the same.  As got robbed on the day one due to that great dinner thought of extending the stay and even out the damage. Checked for a property in Agonda beach (further south close to Karwar) and decided to go there. The plan was if they provide us with decent room we stay or else we go back. The property was right on the beach and it was beach hut called Dersy's beach hut with minimum bare amenities. For example there was no running hot water but all we were looking for was beach, sand and tranquility.

The next 3 days were more or less similar we had breakfast at ‘On the way’ German bakery, lunch somewhere and dinner at “La Dolice Vita”. Both the place were excellent in terms of quality of food and price. Last day, we went  to Palolem beach at "Cozy nook huts" right on the beach and enjoyed our lunch there.We really liked them. Afternoon were pretty hot even in December- mostly left with no option other then power nap. Two evenings I did barefoot running along the beach in the evening. But ended up getting body ache and eventually fever. 

The drive back on Saturday was hard on me being sick and Aarush too was down with fever. We skipped lunch as didn't feel like eating that afternoon. I had to take a power nap (after lots of request from Pamela) for 40 minutes. But the sad part is no CCD(cafe coffee day) around or decent break area along this NH4 while returning. There is one CCD only near Tumkur and that too on the other side for which I was not at all keen to take 2 U-turns on the Highway. Thinking back, the drive back west when the sun is in-front of you its not at all easy to drive and ended up with severe headache accompanied with fever.

So after a wonderful week of vacation, I was completely down with Viral fever for almost a week and had to visit a Doctor and take antibiotic medication to recover. So going to Goa in the peak of season may not be a great idea as hotel price is just sky rocket at that time. 

PHP iptcembed Gallery3 to Flickr

A journey of sharing photo only got me into having a website of my own. When digital camera came out with decent mega pixel was an early adapter of the same. But soon realized sharing Pictures on email was not an option and  hosted pictures  on Tripod. Oh! they used to give 10MB of free hosting :) now Flicker gives one 1TB free. So long  story small after the managing own gallyery app writen initally with csv and php , later mysql and php and lastly Gallery for almost 10 years. found gallery development is kind of not that active it used to be. So thought of moving into Flickr which was big no in-between as they had restriction on free accounts. But now those restriction gone managing 7000+ picture and importing them with proper details remained a BIG challenage. At last came up with iptcembed  where all the details where written into  JPEG file itself and imported those image as set to Flickr.And all your details, tag, captions are set properly.

Here is how I did it

1. Copy Gallery's items table to temp table so we do not mess with live data
2. Add a new column to the temp table

ALTER TABLE `Yours_G3_items-new` ADD `album_name` TEXT NOT NULL

3. Find out the parent album id of each items and add that data in the new column.

UPDATE Yours_G3_items-new,Yours_G3_items  SET Yours_G3_items-new.album_name = Yours_G3_items.title WHERE Yours_G3_items-new.parent_id = Yours_G3_items.id

4. Export the new table with "|" as separator and "" as enclosed.

Now the PHP script

<?
//File to be opened
$file="/tmp/csv.txt";
$gallery_album_base = ..../gallery3/var/albums";
$new_gallery_album_base = <new location>/albums" ;
//
$handle = fopen($file, 'r') or die ("Fail to open input file \n\r") ;
$ln= 0 ;
// Some Functions Start
function csv_explode($delim='|', $str, $enclose='"', $preserve=false){
$resArr = array();
$n = 0;
$expEncArr = explode($enclose, $str);
foreach($expEncArr as $EncItem){
if($n++%2){
array_push($resArr, array_pop($resArr) . ($preserve?$enclose:'') . $EncItem.($preserve?$enclose:''));
}else{
$expDelArr = explode($delim, $EncItem);
array_push($resArr, array_pop($resArr) . array_shift($expDelArr));
$resArr = array_merge($resArr, $expDelArr);
}
}
return $resArr;
}

// iptc_make_tag() function by Thies C. Arntzen
function iptc_make_tag($rec, $data, $value)
{
$length = strlen($value);
$retval = chr(0x1C) . chr($rec) . chr($data);
if($length < 0x8000)
{
$retval .= chr($length >> 8) . chr($length & 0xFF);
}
else
{
$retval .= chr(0x80) .
chr(0x04) .
chr(($length >> 24) & 0xFF) .
chr(($length >> 16) & 0xFF) .
chr(($length >> 8) & 0xFF) .
chr($length & 0xFF);
}
return $retval . $value;
}
// Some Functions End
while ($line = fgets ($handle)){
$line = str_ireplace("\x0D", "", $line);
$line = urldecode ($line);
++$ln;
print ("just line : $ln \n");
if ($line===FALSE) print ("FALSE\n");
else {
//print ("I am $ln \n");
//print ($line) ;
$variables = csv_explode ("|", $line);
//print_r ($variables);
//26(album or photo) 25(title), 13(image_path), 4(details),33(album_name/tag)

if ( $variables[26] == photo ){
//Path new and old path
$old_path = $gallery_album_base . '/' . $variables[13];
$image_name_new = $new_gallery_album_base . '/' . $variables[13];
$path_parts = pathinfo ($image_name_new);
if (!file_exists($path_parts['dirname'])) {
print ("makeing directory {$path_parts['dirname']} \n") ;
mkdir ($path_parts['dirname'], 0777,true);
}

// Set the IPTC tags
$iptc = array(
'2#120' => "$variables[4]",
'2#105' => "$variables[25]",
'2#005' => "$variables[25]",
'2#015' => "$variables[33]",
'2#116' => 'Copyright, www santm com'
);
// Convert the IPTC tags into binary code
$data = '';
foreach($iptc as $tag => $string)
{
$tag = substr($tag, 2);
$data .= iptc_make_tag(2, $tag, $string);
}
// Embed the IPTC data
$content = iptcembed($data, $old_path);
// Write the new image data out to the file.
$fp = fopen($image_name_new, "wb");
fwrite($fp, $content);
fclose($fp);
print ("working on $image_name_new \n");
//$size = getimagesize($image_name_new, $info);
//if(isset($info['APP13']))
//{
// $iptc = iptcparse($info['APP13']);
// var_dump($iptc);
//}
} //end of if photo loop
} // end of else loop
} // end of while loop
# Close the File.
fclose($handle);
?>

I Wish there was API where I could import the image from my old hosting company to Flickr directly instead of uploading them via their PC up-loader.

More here on major phpfunction

http://www.php.net/function.iptcembed
http://www.php.net/function.pathinfo
http://php.net/manual/fr/function.explode.php

Moving away from self hosting

Well after all these years of self hosting and WordPress I am kind of let go the Self-hosting. Moved pamela.santm.com to Tumblr and all the pictures from Gallery3 to Flickr. 

Still need to move www.santm.com somewhere and aarush.santm,com pictures to somewhere, most likely it will be Flickr again. hope to complete the all these before 2013 finishes.

Kurseong

The first-daywe got little suspicious with the transport rates being quoted by Kanchan View Hotel Manager. We reported that back to Calcutta the tour operator Mr. D. Ghosh. But once you are away from home and you have limited option to negotiate a bargain. The Hotel person by now have charged us 2500 for the first day covering only Tagore Smritivan , monastery and forest bungalow. For the second day we paid 2500 to cover 5/6 places but the distance was more. By now we have checked few blogs and travel sites thanks to borrowed usb modem and quite certain that we are being robed :( The charge for travelling to Burniok to Kurseong was a whopping 4500. Somehow by now we kind of lost faith on that travel agent :( of Calcutta. 

Only good part we got a new Mahindra Xylo and started travelling back to Jorethang on the same road and took a turn there towards Kurseong The road was really bad as we entered West Bengal luckily we were in a SUV. The road was narrow, long and without any major village to stop or rest over for few minutes.

We called the guest house in Kurseong to get a direction and he explained the same to our driver. On the way weather also changed its mood and it became very dark and started to rain as we approached Kurseong. Ghum (highest point on Toy train line ) was completely submerged in cloud. We could hardly see anything beyond few meters. Once we reached Kurseong we were lost with direction and had to come back to towards Darjeeling again to reach our home-stay. The home-stay is on a hill top near St. Mary. We approached it via such a narrow lane that there was no chance for our SUV to go to the end and had to drag our luggage ourselves. It was not a pleasant way to approach a new place & moreover there was no help from the home-stay and it was raining. By the time we got into our room it was almost 2:30 PM and it was really cold. Although the house had wooden floor but it was really cold and we felt little unprepared for this weather in the middle of summer. We had some hot Maggi and sandwiches as snack or late lunch. My mother decided for a rest while we decided to explore the market of Kurseong. So we walked back to the highway (Darjeeling -Siliguri NH 55) and got a shared jeep (taxi) which took us to the market.

The market we explored about travel option of our own this time. We fixed one taxi for next day's sightseeing and also inquired about rate for going to Darjeeling and Siliguri. With that our suspicion became reality ? that we were cheated by our travel agent.

We walked around the market area and it started to rain. We left the market area behind and tried our luck in stopping a taxi to drop us back. But that turned out negative and we continued and reached “Kurseong Tourist Lodge”. Stopped there for a break we ordered coffee and French fries for Aarush. Must admit after a long time had a good coffee in the kingdom of tea :). The sky got little cleared and we started walking back again on NH 55 to reach our home-stay. Walking along the Highway and toy train had its share of fun. Aarush did an excellent walk of 3 KM walk with uphill. Dinner was a simple-one egg-curry with rice and we headed to bed as it was really a long day for us.

Next day, the weather was not better compared to first day. After breakfast we started with our sightseeing. The first stop was Dow Hill Girls School. The place was not open to public that day and due to rain and cloud we could hardly see anything. This school is 130+ years old started in 1879. From there we went to Dow Hill (Deer Park) which is little further on the same road. It seems there is a big plan to make a zoo/entertainment park with rope-way in couple of years. Knowing it is West Bengal I have personal doubt that it will ever be made.

From there we went to Makaibari Tea Estate, normally on a regular day you can visit the factory and have a guided tour of tea leave processing. But being Sunday factory was closed and we just bought some tea. En route we passed Castleton Tea estate which is one of the most expensive Darjeeling tea. While heading back we stopped for few minutes to explore Cochrane Place and taking pictures around tea garden as Sun suddenly came out between the cloud. This resort/hotel is really cool and worth checking out if you are looking for better stay with excellent view.

After this we came to TV tower which is also known as Eagle Crag. It is a high point and provides panoramic view of the valley down . The sky was not very clear but it was better than the initial morning and we could see the road going to Siliguri and the great flat land near from there. The river Torsa;’s white mark was very faint.

The driver suggested some options which really did not appealed us but then he suggest Goethals Memorial School. For that we drove past our home-stay. This time we got lucky and guard let us in the school yard. This school is the boy’s convent started in 1907. There are many distinguished alumni’s who represented India from Olympics to Corporate leadership. It was a real nice feeling to explore this school from outside, reminded us of the Montfort School of Yercaud,TN.

The driver dropped us back to the same place where we had snacks previous day evening. The place was packed with tourist but luckily we managed a table and had some hot meal there. We went back to our home-stay with a local Taxi.

Now like weather our camera also made a big drama, one of the plastic pins of memory card got broken and it refused to work. We explored St Mary’s Hill in the evening. It was a nice stroll from home-stay. We crossed Eastern Forest Rangers' College (another British Legacy) on our way. It is a scenic natural area covered with lush green forests all around and the way leading to The Grotto. A statue of Mariam (Mother of Isa) is placed inside a open cave. There were only one or two worshipers when we were there to lit candles.

Well that is also end of Kurseong, settled the bill & booked a Taxi for next day morning to take us early in the morning to train station to get a ride on famous Toy train to Darjeeling

Mysore Half Marathon 2013

This was Mysore Celebration Run 2013 ; well there was BIG celebration at Pacemakers running group. Coach was brand ambassador of the run, we had a promo run in Bangalore for the same. Few runners from group also got featured in Life is Calling's web site.

Initially I was against this run as I rescheduled my Mother's return flight from Bangalore to Siliguri on the same Sunday :(. But big thanks to Maa and Pamela as they supported to run me this event. Initial plan was Pamela to drop Maa at airport, but at the end Maa said she would go via Taxi of her own. I traveled in car with fellow runners post lunch on Saturday and with small coffee break reached Mysore around 18:30. We had a simple South-Indian rice meal - a well carb-loading with rice. The hotel we stayed was 100 meters from the start/finish line.

On the race day we did not had to wake up that early compared to weekends run as run was starting at 06:30. Prepared myself for a hot day with a very light sleeve-less , ca and sun-glass. Was double minded about the tee as it felt little chilled as we walked out of the hotel. But as soon as did warm-up felt great about the choice of attire.

Initial plan I had in my mind was to stick with one lady runner from our group and try to finish as best I could. We started together but around 2KM mark there was little down hill and I continued my pace which I was comfortable once I go ahead from her. I continued my own pace and most time did not checked my garmin at all. I knew I was running faster than normal weekend runs but there was no discomfort. Around the lake where we took "U" turn could see all the the elites were coming back and a majority of them were from our group. Around 17 and 18 KM I wish the finish line was nearer as mind always plays devil game at the end.

The last 500 Meters there were Pacemakers waiting to cheers and pace the last part. I tired my best to push myself and get get a 1:50 finish. Well a minute shorter I would have beat my own record from 2003. But the length of the race is not 21.1 so if I really need to finish 1:50 next time I need to save 2/3 minutes overall and a target of around 1:45 would be dream come true.

Special thank to Flashbulbzz for the capturing these wonder pictures.

West Sikkim - Hee Bermiok

We initially planned to visit Bhutan during summer vacation of ’13. Somehow during the planning phase we found it was overshooting our budget. And moreover, was advised against it during late April & Early May as there is a high chances of rain during that time. So we had no plan and no places to visit while we are going to be in Siliguri for 10/12 days.

We called one travel agent in Calcutta from train and told him about our requirement and he said he would be able to put an itinerary of 6 nights ( 2nights Sikkim, 2 Kursuang and 2 in Darjeeling). We had no clue on the suggested itinerary as we were too preoccupied with our trip to Gaya.

Day-1

The d-day before of our trip cab driver called and informed us he is coming down to pick us. He suggested it would be a good idea to start from Siliguri as early as possible. We started around 7 from home to Bermiok (West Sikkim) via Sevoke road. The road along Assam riffles was just magnificent straight road without any potholes(a miracle in India) and trees lined on the both side. Soon we were climbing the twisted roads and crossed Coronation Bridge over the Teesta river ( few days later the bridge become news when “An Indian Guinness World Record holder who attempted to cross a river suspended from a zip wire attached to his ponytail has died during the stunt”. We continued on the Siliguri-Gantogk(NH31A) road and took a turn at Melli for Jorethang and continued on Melli-NayaBazar Road. After Jorthang the road became more steeper and narrow you really need to know how to manage those hills and steep incline and hairpin bends with zero visibility. Only relief was there were not many cars on the road. We reached Bermiok after passing by Nayabazar, Rinchenpong, Kaluk. The road was more or less well maintained but many places would be quick target of rains and land-slide is common which would cause major havoc for commuters.

The Hotel( Kanchan Hotel) was pre-booked and we were the only one to stay there. Surprisingly, the last visitor to this place was two months back. The rooms were nothing great but as they are on the hill you could see Kanchenjunga Range from your room. Suddenly, we realized we are feeling cold as this place is 5650 ft above MSL. But the caretaker gave us the first surprise mentioning we need to spend 2500 on Taxi for sight seeing. It was a shock but we did not have a choice. In the meantime, the sky was getting cloudy which is very common post noon in hills. We had a simple Bengali lunch Dal, some veggies and fish.

Post lunch we started with Tagore Smriti , a nice park dedicated to Rabindranath Tagore. Personally, doubt did Tagore ever visited this part of Sikkim as there is no solid proof for the same but the local tour guides thinks he did. From there we went to Rinchenpong monastery. There were small monks inside the monastery for their afternoon classes so we did not went in. This is a very old monastery built in 1717 with wood. The driver/guide told us there is another monastery ( Resum Monastery) if we are willing to walk up-hill. We wanted to explore so continued it was long walk up-hill with many steps. My mother stopped climbing in the middle and we three continued. It was a price-less walk reminding Master-card Advertisement as it was complete silence and the soundings are too green and pristine. Once we reached the top there was not much to see honestly. There is a old monastery which seems now part of dispute between different sect or family and there are few families staying as caretaker. Photograph of the monastery was not allowed so we took some pictures outside and headed back.

Now we headed towards to the British “Dak-Bunglow”( Now Government Guest House) , we crossed Poison lake on the way. The story of poison lake goes like this “when the British attacked Sikim(1860). They reached up to Rinchenpong when Lepchas (the original inhabitants of Sikkim) poisoned the water of the pond, the only source of water in Rinchenpong. In the process killing almost half of the British troops and forcing them to retreat.”

Well it became dark by 4:30 PM and we headed back to hotel and enjoyed hot tea with pakodas. Sitting at the rooftop restaurant we enjoyed clear sky and innumerable number of stars glittering on the sky, the lights of Pelling and Gayzing was illuminating like diamonds. Cold was getting unbearable so after an early dinner we retreated to the room quickly.

Day-2

Wow! what a sun-rise with rain washed blue sky we got a clear view of Kanchenjunga Range. It was simply magnificent. We clicked many shots and special thanks to Pamela for being up so early. Post breakfast we left for other local destinations. We started with Chayataal a picnic spot. This a Government resort on a remote hill top. The road is really bad there was no tar and with previous night rain it was really muddy. We found it bit strange and could not understand why government of Sikkim is allowing guest house/hotel/Govt- Bunglow like mushrooms. If it continues for another couple of years this remote part will become like Uttarakhand tsunami one day.The USP for this western Sikkim is remoteness, being closer to nature with plenty of trees if that is gone it will be a real shame.

From Chayataal as headed down we stopped at Rock Garden; another park/picnic spot. It is located next to a stream and it was walking up and down taking pictures. The place is really nice to enjoy yourself with nature and not being bothered as there was no other tourist around.

Now we traversed the hills towards Pelling(Major town of West Sikkim) and crossed the beautiful valley of Dentam, stopped at Cheese Factory and bought some cheese for ourselves,. We took the road going towards Uttarey and visited the famous suspension bridge ‘Sinshore bridge.’ From Sinshore Bridge we took an U-turn came down to Dentum and drove towards Changey falls. Now we are on the complete opposite hill range and could see the road that we came in the morning. The Changey falls was OK but as we were end of summer there was not much water but good enough.

On the way back to Dantum we asked the driver to stop Kalej Khola, this is near Dantum Bridge. We went to the stream to soak our feet the water was cold but it was really relaxing. We were hungry and headed back to our hotel for lunch. Post lunch we went for a stroll on the same road for couple of kilometers.

Indian Babus(Govt Official)

Today went to the local BBMP (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike) office to get my property Tax receipt which I paid in June there. Was told to go other one as this office is being closed. God only knows why Government build office first and operate there for few years and move to another one. On going to next office

 The guy told without looking at me "Come Monday"

Me -  "Sir Monday is Off due to Ganesha Festival"

Him -  swallows  his words and says "OK come Tuesday"

Me -  "Sir I need it today"

Him - Now he looks up and says "come afternoon"

Me -"Sir it is already afternoon as it is 12:20 PM"

Him - "OK get the bank statement" to prove the money is credited as you paid by Cheque"

Me - little annoyed  -"It is three months and I am telling you it is debited from my account"

Him - takes the acknowledgement slip and goes to a room and comes back  in 5 seconds.

Me - Goes to the same room after 30 Sec; ask the lady with computer for the receipt.

She hands me over the print outs.(surprise surprise so this is the time it really takes 1 minutes max) 

Me  asked for Official Seal

She points back to the first guy

Me  come back with the printouts he signs and puts the round seal.

Thanked him very politely. And got out of there.

The whole thing took only 10/15 minutes a max and my good luck that my work was done. Best part he spoke in Kanada and I kept on replying in English.  Whatever we do as Indian with watching MTV and eating McDonald a visit to Government Office still  remains nightmare which I postpone and procrastinate for ever. As those Officer or a Clark does not change their attitude.