I had booked a family room asking for an extra bed. The room that we entered into was a normal sized one with just about free space to put in the extra mattress. The pillows on the bed were slightly larger than a folder hand towel. The room was very poorly lit and had only 2 wall lamps which were powered by 15W bulbs I think. There was a dressing table with mirror hidden in one corner of the room where there was no light. There was an AC which seemed to respond to the various buttons pressed on the remote with a nice click sound, but always responded with its standard setting that had it pumping mildly cool air into the room!
Anyways, it was time for us to freshen up and my dad decided to use the bathroom first. He came out after 15 minutes or so and informed us that we don’t get cold water in the taps! I mean, usually the hot water availability in a hotel is subject to timing, so I was surprised to hear him say something like this. I checked whether he was referring to the normal water pipe giving out warm water (like it does at Chennai due to the heat) and he clarified that all the taps in the bathroom were giving out scalding hot water direct from the geyser/water-heater. I went ahead and checked the taps and found his claims to be true. We rang up the housekeeping staff who then came up to inspect the situation. He then said that he’d switch off something somewhere and that would ensure that we get the correct type of water from the taps. Thankfully he did what he promised and so things were normal.
While my mother was using the bathroom, I decided to step out of the hotel and buy the toothbrush that I so badly needed. On the way back, I checked with a tourist car operator next to my hotel about the costs involved in hiring a car up for my Madikeri trip. He gave me a quote with various options like – just a drop and then a pickup at the day I wanted to return and retaining the car throughout the 3 days. I simply noted down the numbers and returned to my room.
My friends then called me to inform that they were all on the way and would be in the hotel in another 20 minutes or so. It was then my turn to use the bathroom and after getting ready, I went down to the lobby to meet my friends. Mahendran and Raji were there in the restaurant to have their breakfast and Uthra decided to use this interval to do some sari shopping for her landlord!
Finally all of us took off around 10.45 AM I think (not sure about the exact hour since it is now 2 weeks since I went there). The driver of the Sumo that was hired by us, suggested us to first go to Chamundi Hills. Since there were mutual introductions required between Uthra’s family and mine, the journey towards Chamundi Hills started off on that note itself. Surprisingly there wasn’t much of the “oho, neenga avaalloda ivaalla” or “neenga ingayaa vaelai paaninaell? Ungallukku innaara theriyumo?” etc.
Uthra’s daughter Shruthi was one non-stop giggling machine. Ask her what her name was and the first response would be a 10 second giggle and then if you were lucky, you would get to hear her say her name. Ask her a question immediately after she answers one and you are likely to be confronted with a giggle that would be louder and last some 5 seconds longer. By the end of the trip I was really amazed about her capacity to giggle so much.
We reached Chamundi Hills around noon and were immediately confronted with a large crowd. We got into a deliberation over whether we should actually proceed with the darshan or simply move to our next stop – the Mysore Palace.
No comments:
Post a Comment