Wounds on Goan Glory

With the British newpapers publishing stories of Fiona Mackowen's NOT-SO-GOOD background, doubts are sure to creep in Police's mind in India. There may be truth in her allegations of involvement of police and politicians yet they are largely based on nothing. There are loopholes but the Fiona part must also be investigated.

Goa has been a great and safe tourist spot since long. But a few incidents which took place in recent years seem to suggest otherwise. Criminal incidents occur everywhere in the world. Goa is no exception.British teen Scarlett Keeling's murder was supposed to be just another case of crime against foreign tourists in Goa. But the issue has grown much bigger and seems to threaten Goan glory. After following the news carefully over the last weekend, I have observed that this is not just another simple case. People seem to trying to use it to their advantage. Media is divided in britain over the issue. There are many loopholes. There exist more than one view to the whole issue.

With the British newpapers publishing stories of Fiona Mackowen's NOT-SO-GOOD background, doubts are sure to creep in Police's mind in India. There may be truth in her allegations of involvement of police and politicians yet they are largely based on nothing. There are loopholes but the Fiona part must also be investigated. She plans to settle in a state where her daughter got murdered and where the administrations is faulty! That is worth noticing.

Is she trying to take advantage of her daughter's killing and wants to secure a good future for her family exploiting Goa government by blowing the issue out of proportion? Is she trying to get media sympathy and publicity ? Is she trying to defame Goa ? Is it a foreign set-up for some bigger cause ?

These questions are not right now very easy to answer. Let's wait and see how it turns out. I hope justice is delivered and all those involved are punished. Goa government must step up the security to foreigners in order to prevent such incidents from recurring. It can try to educate people to behave properly with tourists by making them aware of consequences. All this said, case must be thoroughly investigated and Fiona's intentions and allegations must be verified.

(Image Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/15/wgoa115.xml)

A trip to Hogenakkal Falls

Quick Details

Category - Travel
Place - Hogenakkal Falls
Distance from Bangalore - 190 kms
Time required one way - 3 Hrs
Things to carry - Drinking water, cap, fast food is available at the place still i'll prefer to carry it along
What to see - Hogenakkal fallls
I liked - Lovely ride on NH-7 with amazing surroundings, taking a shower under falls while sitting in coracle, playing in calm running shallow water close to small beach nearby.
Total Expense- 600-1000 Rs per head (It was 650 Rs/head for us.)

Bangalore has got good hang out places around. We have visited Nandi Hills, Meekadatu etc earlier. This week the gang planned a trip to Hogenakkal Falls. Most of us, for belonging to north India, could not even pronounce the name of the place and so didn't even have much information about the place just except a little details available from internet.

We booked a qualis and nine of us started quite early in the morning. We left at 6 AM from Bangalore for no particular reason. We weren't even sure of the distance but assumed it to be around 150 kms. Journey to the place was really good. Most part of it was set on beautiful National Highway No 7. Colorful flowers on the dividers and amazing natural scenarios around the highway made the journey outstanding. We reached there by 9 AM. We looked for a place to eat found a small shop offering Dosas nearby. It was the best Dosa (Plain dosa) I ever had in south India. Most of us were really satisfied with that breakfast. Then we went for sightseeing. There were so many boat-riders who encircled us and requested to take a ride to waterfall in their boat. The fare they quoted was very high as per the expectations - 110 rs a head for a round trip to fall and nearby places and double the amount if we stayed there for a while. After some bargaining we settled for 400 Rs a boat (which could carry maximum 6 people). We made an offer to pay extra amount if we wished to stay there.

Ride in the peculiar boat called coracle or puttu was special. It was a round boat which could carry maximum of six passengers. It needed some extra skill to push that boat through the waters in a particular direction. The boat-owner took us close to a smaller fall and made us feel the water. We all were wet and there was quite a lot water in the boat too. But it was a great experience. Then he took us to a small beach close by. After seeing the place we decided to stay for a while in exchange of extra money and enjoy in running water. We played in the running water for almost an hour. It was really fun being in that clean cold water with the group.

We set to depart at 2.30 pm. As we had not taken our lunch, we decided to stop roadside on NH-7. We prepared sandwiches and had cold drinks. Then we went atop a small hill close by. View from the top of it was breathtaking. We enjoyed ourselves throughout the trip and reached to the outskirts of Bangalore around 7 pm. And then it started to rain !! Traffic became really slow and crippled badly. We could barely move our car for an hour. After wasting 2 hours to traffic we could finally reach home at 10 pm. In all, it proved to be an exciting trip- full of fun.

BMTC Buses without Conductors

I am a daily traveler. This post is with regards to bus number 171. I have seen many of these running without conductors daily between Koramangala signal and Adugodi. But I do believe that there exist many other such buses and they complete their route in similar fashion everyday. Anyone more enlightened is welcome to put forth the reasons behind such practice.

Nowhere on the earth (its part which I have visited :D) I have seen buses running without conductors and with driver taking care of their jobs ! BMTC runs several such buses in Bangalore. I am not aware of the reason. Don't they have enough number of conductors ? or are they trying to train bus drivers in multitasking ? Whatever be the reason but the situation is definitely alarming.

I have seen a few drivers in such buses tend to drive while distributing tickets among passengers. They lose their focus on driving while doing that. This is a very very dangerous practice which must be stopped right away as it can lead to serious accidents. Among other problems, these buses stop too much at each bus stop because drivers take enough time to distribute tickets. BMTC also loses lot of revenue because many passengers deceive them easily by quickly going past the driver seat when they get on board. I hope BMTC is thinking to resolve this problem either by recruiting more people to do the job or by taking such buses off roads.

Traveling by Air: A First timer's experience

I have fantasized it for long enough - traveling by air back to my home. Finally the day came on 20th february when i boarded DN-606 from Bangalore HAL airport to fly to Jaipur. I had booked my tickets some fifteen days back, thanks to a very attractive facility provided by Air Deccan to get the tickets booked through post offices. Indira Nagar post office system was out of order so I had to book it through the Koramangala Post Office and what a mess that person created !! He clicked 'print' before the page had loaded. And as was expected nothing came out of the printer.
Oh did i mention- the post office had been using a 1942 model ( the man himself told me) dot matrix printer for printing the flight tickets ! Well ! somehow I got the tickets when a wiser man refreshed and clicked print after the page had loaded. It had to pay more than i had anticipated. Coming back to the main day, flight DN-606 was scheduled to depart at 10.15 hrs. i arrived at the airport by 7.30 and checked with the Deccan counter about the status of the flight. flight was on schedule but check-in was going to start only by 8.15. Right at the starting time I checked in and got a window seat (5A). I also wanted to experience the baggage handling so i gave my only baggage as a check-in luggage. Everything went smooth, from check-in to security check to boarding. It was a good new A320 aircraft and cabin crew was nice and helping. Flight got delayed by half an hour in mumbai so we landed in Jaipur little later than expected. Jaipur airport seemed to be much smaller and baggages were on conveyor instantly ! My cousin had come to receive me.
Well ! The main thing i wanted to post is about the return journey via DN-605 from Jaipur to Bangalore. Even this flight was good enough. Flight landed almost on time and Deccan exceeded my expectation. But after arriving at Bangalore airport, i moved to an empty conveyor to receive my baggage. But Deccan announced that baggages were available at another conveyor which had already been supplying baggages for a Kingfisher flight ! There was a lot of rush and confusion. i received my bag after waiting for almost half an hour. No Body cross checked my baggage with my boarding pass !! It effectively meant that anybody could have got away with any baggage of their liking.
But apart from that one issue my travel was quite comfortable and I enjoyed it.

Rise of H-X International Inc

This idea was crawling in my mind for long. It came into being two days back. I have created a blog http://www.bitshugx.blogspot.com for all hug-xs. I hope everybody contributes to it. It can be a good platform for all of us to stay connected and keep in touch. A kind of group chat. I urge all H-Xs to be active and participate in this online bakar. :)

Missing a BUS !

I saw 'Jab We Met' and thought how could one be so dumb that it missed a train for some stupid reason. I came to know it the hard way ! wo days back, I left for home to attend cousin's marriage with my friend. I had to take a bus from chirawa(15kms from Pilani). I knew that bus arrived at chirawa at 8.45 AM. We were on schedule and reached chirawa by 8.30 AM. As the fate would have it, Bus was on time. We boarded the bus. And as it left for its next destination, I suddenly exclaimed to Prabhat(my friend) that i left my bag on the bus stand. I remembered the exact location where i put it. I rushed to the conductor and urged him to stop the bus for two extra minutes at the next stand(which was a minute later-within chirawa.). Again as i would not like it, the conductor was the most rude i had ever seen. He told straight,"For a second. Not more than that."

And all my hopes of making it back to the same bus with my left over bag diminished. We got off at the next stand, took an auto and hoped that some miracle happened and we caught the bus. Miracles don't happen when you need them the most. And this is how I missed a bus !! For as stupid a reason as to forget to take a bag. There could be a few reasons why it happened:

1. I was too careless

2. five minutes earlier, i put the bag on a bench and went to the nearby shop to buy 'uncle chips'. I DID NOT PUT THEM IN MY BAG. They were in my hand !

3. Just a few seconds earlier to the arrival of our bus another bus arrived and i hurried to get its details. In the meantime our bus arrived and in haste I committed this mistake !

Well ! I think it was the reason no 2 which was the culprit. Human psychology is all about thoughts. I had a bag in my hand before i went to take the chips(and put the bag on a bench). Later i had chips in my hand. Probably i felt no difference. So when in hurry, i didn't think i was lacking something ! That's my logic (seems absurd, doesn't it ?). What do you say ?

PS: Yeah ! After the incident, I scrapped the idea of attending the marriage and returned to Pilani by next bus because there was no other bus for at least two hours. And by then it would have been too late !