This was my first trip with Travel Club of Accenture. Although I've been a member of the club from quite some time, this was their first mail to me. I decided to go the moment I got the mail since I wanted a trip to Coorg from the time I went for Kavya's marriage. That time we couldn't do much sight-seeing. I asked my colleague Remjith and he was ready too. Instantly mailed them back and got the seats booked.

 

The trip was to Tadiyandamol, the highest peak in Coorg district. Located 250 kms from Bangalore, Tadiyandamol is a favourite trek spot in Coorg, the Scotland of India. This is planned to be a 12 Km two way trek through exotic green slopes and valleys! Our guide for this trip is Ravi Shankar from the organization 'The Wild'.

 

Although we had a seating capacity of 22 in the bus, we were only 18 when the trip began. Other than me and Remjith, there were a couple of other mallus too which was a quite relieving feeling. We left Bangalore by 10:00 pm on 3^rd February. We reached base camp at 6:30 am, 4^th February. It was like a cottage but slightly different. It was run by a family and the food is provided by them from their home kitchen. The rent was economical and the facilities were pretty good. I think the name of the cottage was KING COTTAGES, I'm not sure though.

 

Post freshening up and having breakfast, we started for the trek at 9:00 am. We were told that lunch for all will be packed and made available on our way back. It was carried by foot by one of the workers at the cottage.

 

This was the toughest and longest trek I ever did. We walked for a total of 12 kms, 6 uphill and 6 downhill. The final 3 kms was pretty steep. We took around 3 hours for the uphill climb. While we were walking slowly out of exhaustion, one guy passed us although he was walking on a plain ground. He later told us that he is French guy and is quite experienced in trekking. He has climbed even bigger hills in Nepal and other countries. The most amazing fact was that he took only 1.5 hours for the trek. One hell of a guy.

 

The hill is not that beautiful at the top. Not on the way up too. It's worth only for the joy of trekking. Only trekkers entertained here, not sight-seers We reached back at base camp by around 4:00 p.m. There was a palace near back which we had the plan of visiting on our way back, but everyone was so tired that we dropped it. We later in the day had group activities like camp fire at the base camp followed by dinner. We also had the opportunity to talk to the resort owners and got to know about their culture and business.

 

They have a different culture of their own, as a matter of fact; they have a totally new language too. Their main business is coffee and paddy cultivation. They unlike other Hindus don't worship gods. They worship only their forefathers who are no longer alive. They are known by their family names like in Kerala and they are great Hockey lovers too. The last time they had a tournament there, 260 teams participated. They claimed that it's a record.

 

On 5^th Feb morning, we had an early breakfast and left for Coorg. We had a chance to visit some of Coorgs' famed travel locale, the Tibetan monastery. It's an awesome place where the Tibetan monks live. The buildings are huge and awesome. It had huge Buddha statues in golden colour and there were lots of beautiful paintings all around. It's worth a place to visit at least once. It was also nice to see a lot of Tibetan monks in their traditional costume. After that we had lunch and headed back by around 3 o'clock. We reached Bangalore back by around 9.30 pm. My friends were there in Forum watching Malayalam movie 'The Lion' in PVR cinemas there. So I joined them, had dinner and went back home safely.

 

It was a physically demanding trip. Even on the first day I developed pain in my legs which worsened as days passed. But overall it was a great trip. It was well organized, the trip mates were awesome and the food we had all the way was amazing. I was greatly worried about the trip even before I started it. On Friday, I got mail from my manager that I'll be moving to a new package from Monday which was much tougher compared to the existing one. Then my bike got a flat tire a few hours before we started the trip. In my haste to repair it, I lost my specs some where. I was thinking of what worse can happen next when I started the trip. But over all, it was very satisfying and I'm a happy guy now. Great trip, great weekend. Hats of to Travel Club, Accenture.