Riverside Experience

A Riverside experience

Marriage is an institution. Marriage fulfills your life and helps you grow spiritually and socially.

- AJ

Well to begin the story, I got married few months ago, and had lost touch with most of my friends post wedding ( and you know the reason ). I missed them as always and was wanting to meet them. When umpteen attempts to meet / contact me failed,  curses followed !! I had to escape this curse and wrath, so was waiting for a chance.

One of these curses was invoked by Kiran, ( for whom this trip was planned ) a bitter one !! With 18 years of friendship and growing, we have never been on a trip.
One fine day in May 2016, he demanded a weekend trip where we could just swim, relax and spend time to the fullest, without stressing out. So I started searching for a good resort.

I was little apprehensive in the beginning to say yes for this tour since I have to leave my wife behind and have to go for an outing without her for the first time,  which I didn't wanted to.. !!

But what's the fun in college life without bunking classes ! Hence said yes ..!! ;)

Uff, tough decision taken, now all set for the trip. Wife agreed as well since this was just a day trip :)
Meanwhile, I had almost finalised on a resort closeby Bangalore for the tour. He wanted a resort for swimming, and I gave him a resort surrounded by water instead !!

Jaladhama, A riverside resort, Talakadu

The resort is 120 kms from Bangalore, situated at the banks of river Cauvery. I had been to Talakadu, Shivanasamudra and BR hills on 22nd May, Sunday with my wife and her cousins. I was really not interested to come towards Talakadu again in just a week difference. Somehow agreed finally with this guy.( Talakadu twice in just 15 days )

The dates were decided as 4th and 5th June. I had booked the resort on 17th May itself by making full payment, they charge Rs 4500 per head per night, total cost of the trip = Rs 9000 inclusive of food and games.

Day 1 :

As you all know, I am always an early starter, I wanted to leave early by 5 am. But Kiran isn't, he wanted to leave by 9 am !! I insisted to leave by 6:30 am atleast, for which he obliged finally. Check in time was actually 12 pm, but I changed their schedule itself and asked them to change check in time to 9:30 am, they were hesitant first, but agreed later. Early start is always better.

I left home by 6:15 am and we left his house by 6:45 am, zoomed through Kanakapura road to stop at Kanakapura for breakfast at 7:30 am ( 45 mins, impressive !! )

I love Kanakapura road ( NH 209 ) and is my regular route towards Mysore, Ooty, Coimbatore etc. Since I am regular to this route, I have made it a habit to stop at the Legendary Vasu hotel, Kanakapura for breakfast. Their Masala Dosa and Idli Vada's are mind blowing and world famous in Kanakapura !! I wanted him to taste the food here, hence stopped for breakfast. He literally loved the food and of course I loved it too as always.

8 am it was , we jumped into our car, and started towards the resort. Kanakapura - Malavalli is one of that peaceful stretch which you will love driving, stop by to take photographs. He wanted a piece of driving too, I replied "while return only" and moved on. He has never come with me for a drive since I only learnt driving last year and he did not believe I could drive, hence he acted as a critic, he didn't trust my driving yet !! :)

We reached the resort at 9:30 am sharp. Parking is on the mainland at Mudukutore. It has a private parking lot which fits at least 20 cars and TTs, free and safe ( concrete compound ). We boarded their Jetty which took us to the resort the other side.

Let's look at the parking area and  entrance to the reception.

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To our surprise, the rooms were not ready yet and had to wait for sometime for the set up. While Kiran waited at the reception, I took some snaps of the surroundings.

The time was 9:55 am, when one of the staff members called us in and said "Room ready ide sir". We were taken in a Buggy, a short ride which took us into the interiors of the resort. We were excited already but were surprised to see not many visitors. Let me tell you this resort is famous for bulk bookings ( office, family, friends ). Hence always book in advance if you plan to visit here.

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Then we remembered the receptionist saying "There would be 200 members coming in the afternoon around 2 pm, hence play as much games as possible since you may not get to play later". We felt threatened, and ran towards our room which was comfy and neat. We took 30 minutes to relax, and started off towards TT room. To let you all know , Kiran had represented various district level championships in TT under 17 category, although he lost touch now. I play TT at my office daily,  hence I had touch. I was very confident with my TT skills.

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To my surprise, I lost 22 matches at a stretch !! ( with a close and tough fight though ) He realised that he still had the skills to play, and he got his form back. He was happy that I gave him a chance to explore his TT skills again after almost 12-15 years. He was contented at the end and seemed very happy. We played till 12 pm to our hearts content.

We went towards the Cricket ground and wanted to play, I asked him to bat. Suddenly a group of people pitched in and wanted to play with us :) We were glad, started playing ( 2 overs match ) wonderful time spent. They played well too, considering their age ( all were above 45 ). Never knew Kiran could bat so well, since I have never seen him play cricket till now!! Later we got to know that they were big shots of Karnataka Badminton Association. I bowled most of the overs and took wickets as well, felt satisfied. We explored a bit of badminton later and moved towards the room to freshen up since we very tired.

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Time was 1:30 pm, went on to have a sumptuous buffet lunch riverside ( both Veg and Non Veg provided ). Lunch area :

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Post lunch, the main intention for this trip came to our mind ...Swimming !!! We went to the pool to see no one ! And thought let's come back at 4 since there is no one ;) to our surprise it was completely occupied by 4 pm :( and we couldn't swim. Dejected, we kept roaming around the resort, wasting time until 5:30. Some snaps of the park for kids :

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5:30 pm was tea time, tea with biscuits and snacks, garam garam Pakoda but with a difference. We had this snacks in the middle of the river Cauvery, a river cruise. Was a wonderful event in itself , with dark clouds and gushing wind, was about to rain as well. The cruise lasted for just 30 minutes and was worth remembering, although the cruise was supposed to be for an hour, it was interrupted due to wind and the weather conditions. You can make out the weather change suddenly from the below pictures :

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Every story has a romantic angle to it. Remember I had told you 200 members would be checking in at 2? Out of the gang , 2 girls cought our eyes, let's name them, Black and Pink. Black was taller whereas Pink was shorter than her.
Let me speak only about Black since Kiran would be interested. She was tall, smart to look at and Kiran was interested in her. He used to hide and watch her from the window, whereas she used to have a glance towards our room to see if he is around. The story would have continued if we have prolonged our stay...!!

Marriage unites two souls, and cannot be separated. But here we were separated for 24 hours..! Communication was a problem since Vodafone signals were very weak, Airtel signals went on and off but BSNL was strong as always. She tried calling me many times, couldn't reach, and viceversa. I did manage to call her once or twice from Kiran's ( Airtel), and she was relieved to hear my voice :)
The time was 7 pm, we saw people on the dance floor waiting for rain dance and a DJ was playing their favourite songs. We didn't dance though, played Carrom for sometime and went for an early dinner at 8:30 pm.

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Dinner was again a buffet, serving both veg and non veg. We were one of the firsts, so we ate peacefully and went back to the room. Since we were tired, he wanted to drink, with some push, two beer bottles, 2 sprite, peanut butter masala was delivered to the room. He drank Beer whereas I drank Sprite, recollected the memories for the day, and went to bed by 11 pm.

Day 2 :

We got up by 7am the next morning, got ready, and went towards the reception area by 8:30 am. Breakfast starts from 8:30 to 10:30 am, and was served on a floating restaurant, on the river Cauvery. Idli, Dosa, Shavige bath, Vada, coffee, tea to the offings. Post breakfast, we checked out from the resort by 10 am.

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Kiran wanted to drive now, he was happy that he is driving a car after a longtime. Initially he wasn't really into my car, gradually started loving it. Guys often speak about driving, cars or bikes. Hence conversation started about driving, comparisons. He drove halfway till Kanakapura. From there, I took over. He was really surprise to see my driving skills and finally agreed 'you are a better driver'.

Enroute we stopped near Malavalli for some photo-sessions since he wanted them for his profile photos, and we reached home by 1:30 pm.

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