Beijing Subway vs. Mumbai Trains

During my recent trip to Beijing, China; I got to make good use of the extensively laid out Subway trains of the capital city. It was an experience unto itself, when I climbed one of the older lines and was instantaneously reminisced of the Mumbai trains...

The crowd in China is to be seen when you try and get onto the subway during the office hour rush (morning 9-10 and evening 6-8). It looks like a tin packed with sardines. You are not required to hold on to anything except what you brought on board with you, holding you up and pushing you either side is taken care of. It is a good reminder that China is still in competition with India on the population :-)

Anyways! that said, it really was a great experience, and very convenient too. We could visit maximum number of places due to the availability of the same subway nearby and stay on to enjoy the surroundings, without thinking of how we get back to our place of blissful sleep. I am mentioning some of the places and associated stations below:

Line 5: Tiantan Dongmen - for the Hong Qiao Market (good place to go for electronic goods and toys)
Line 1: Yong`anli - For the Silk Market (good place to shop for leather good - handbags, shoes, jackets. Also, good place for souvenirs and small trinkets. You need to be careful and bargain well... mostly bring down the price to 10% of the quoted price. More of this is given on a different blog).
Line 8: Olympic Green - For the Nest and Aquarium (Olympic Stadium and a good nice BIG ground to jog in the mornings)
Line 13: Wudaokou - Good eating joints around this place. Student community and you can find many IT companies also around. You can ask for references here, as people speak and understand english. I liked the Japanese restaurant and the disco/bar alongside it :-)
Line 4: Beijing Zoo - good to visit and see the Panda
Line 4: Beigongmen - For the Summer Palace. This place is good to see over (take the 50 Yuan ticket and a guide to go over the place). Serene and green, with the minimal of traffic noise and a lake to sit by :-)
Line 1: Tian`anmen East/West - For the Forbidden City and and the Tian'anmen square. Forbidden City is Ok, but would prefer going to the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace.
Line 5: Ciqikou - Temple of Heaven. Similar to Forbidden City and would recommend it over the other (60 Yuan vs. 30 Yuan) :-)

Journey to Beijing!

It began with work transitioning from the China office to the newly opened center in Bangalore. People started talking about getting the Visa's done and arranging for flight tickets. Our's being more of a startup, all travel arrangements have been outsourced to AMEX. They did a proficient job of getting the Visa and the tickets (although at a good premium :-) ), and off we were to the land of Dragons... I landed in Beijing with little expectations of what I got to see.

The first was the Airport terminus. It was HUGE!! We had to catch a mini train to reach our baggage handling area and that was not the end of it. I heard that there are 3 monsters of similar size, which make up the terminus. China has done a tremendous job of Infrastructure planning and execution. They have built a city based on modern and old values, which is by far the best and seemingly biggest I have seem so far in the so-called "developing nations" category.

Out of the airport, you do not find any touts or people trying to mishandle you. There is order there. You have a elevator, which takes you either to the Taxi stand (marked all the way in English), or the Subway (the underground metropolitian railway line). Here also, you will find a lot of interesting infrastructure. The Airport line is a bit expensive (25 Yuan, compared with 2 Yuan for anywhere in the city), but it delivers you to a destination on the main lines of the Subway. From here, if you have prepared yourself well and know where to go, you catch the appropriate line (much like the london underground) and reach your destination. I decided to take the taxi, as I had not done the above. :-)

The roads are - smooth and spacious. (although most would not agree on the spacious part, if they arrive on Saturday/Sunday) They have a 8-10 lane infrasturcture of roadways running from the airport to the city (with a additional service lane and an emergency lane). The population is courteous enough and do not bother with you on the Subway or otherwise (not a single beggar to be seen). The main hurdle being communication and trying to make the people understand you. First rule I learnt: Talk with a lot of hand gestures and communicate in a syllable by syllable manner, not in mouthfuls, as we usually do.

The air in Beijing is clean and you will find mostly cars (high end ones) or motor powered bicycles. Around our Hotel, it was more of the student crowd which we faced. The hotel was located (on-campus) near the Beijing Aviation University (which was a misnomer, as they taught more than just aviation). Maybe due to the excellent public network (of taxi's, buses and Subway combined), there did not exist a diverse vehicular traffic. Although that scenario changes, when all try to take their cars out in the weekend, when there is no restrictions imposed on the vehicle numbers out on the street (got to know that there is a restriction each weekday on what last digit vehicle can ply the roads, but it is lifted on weekends).

Mangalore Trip

This was supposed to be one of those more planned trip, where we headed out with the much married couple... :-)
The plan was to go out to Mangalore, stay there and eat a lot of fish, while the veggie with us have their fill of the ocean and the beach. Ultimately it came to a showdown between JP and me and JP's unlogical thinking won the day and we headed out to check out the Jog Falls (without any water flow). The trip was very eventful, with Pranav at the wheels and trying to curse his way out of the ever increasing traffic hat was piling on to the ever narrowing roads :-)
Reached the Jog falls and went around monkeying there with the various viewing spots they have created (although they have shut off the way which leads to the base of the falls for now).

Trip to Bandipur Forest Reserve and BR HIlls

It started off as an unplanned activity, with JP deciding to check out his prowess on the car over hill roads and me being what I am agreeing to the adventure in it. We had decided to use the tents for camping out and taken the pick-axes along for safety purposes... :-)
Slept over at JP's place after packing the camping gear, woke up early at 4 in the morning and called up Fateh (who also wanted to tag along). Had to ring him a dozen times before he finally responded and we managed to wean him away from the slumber he was into.
Loaded ourselves into the car along with all the equipment and started off on the journey. The plan was to hit the hills by the early morning and reach someplace near Kemmenagundi or Chikmangalur by the afternoon. But plans changed midway and we headed towards the BR Hill range. Had a lot of fun along the way with stoppages and running around to get ourselves into the holiday mood; before we finally stopped at the Cafe Day for breakfast. Filled up gas in one of the modern filling stations of Mangalore Natural Gas and then decided to move on towards the BR Hills area. We had hit the hills...!!
It was a really wonderful trip through the hills, we frolicked around quite a lot before we finally reached the summit of the BR Hills area. Here, there was a hilltop temple and we went for a short trek onto the same. The trek turned out to be a real pleasure, as that area is where the states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka meet and the hills on which we were trekking are no-mans land area sorts... :-)
Came back and went for lunch to one of the local dhaba's. It was real good with a British English speaking person, who served us the food and that too on the banana leaf with proper vegetables and eating with hands. He then sat with us and spoke about the places to visit and stay there. We finally decided to make it to the Bandipur Forest Reserve and sleep near that place, as JP also wanted to show us the wild animals which he had seen some dozen years earlier ... :-D
Had a good time searching for a hotel to stay in and finally landed up with a single room with an extra bed. The place was quite good and we enjoyed a lot at the same, the night was pleasant and we survived through it without any more incidents, except when JP woke up at night and wanted to take us through the forest to check out the "wild beasts" who would be roaming the place at that time. He managed to convince us of the same and we went on a night safari at 1 in the night ;-D

We then proceed the next night to Ooty and went again on a hike behind the top most peak there, along with a spurt of buying chocolates for all near and dear ones. ;-)

Trekking through Antargange

We had a team outing to Antargange!!
This is a desolate place with an overgrown clump of rocks making a big ridge in a dry area! :-)

The trek was good with a lot of stops for my aging body. But finally reached a plateau which had some shade. A lot of incidents in between made me realize that I need to get back into shape and that is when finally agreed to go on the health checkup sponsored by the company ... (alas, they also finally confirmed that age related health problems are catching up :-) )

So then it came that we would have to rappel down a big crest of a rock to reach the base of that. This was exciting. I did good in that and thanks to my many years of army camp outs managed to rappel down that 2 feet of rock side :-D

Of Lost Baggage!!

So it finally comes to a point where I culminated my US trips with a lost baggage counter. It so happened that I had gone on a vacation to my family members in Nashville and was supposed to catch a flight from there back to SFO. In between on the same day we had this batchmates meet coming, so decided to go for that too :). The final result was that when I reached Singapore for the next lap of my vacations, I was without my baggage :D. The only luggage which came through was the hand baggage with the laptop and a few necessities which I thought I might be needing.
The situation at the Changi Airport was such that it delayed me in getting to the baggage counter; I had forgotten to get the tickets updated and they did not allow me through with the Visa [:(]. After a lot of hue and cry and also getting a mail from the travel desk, I reached for baggage which was not visible [if you get down, you have to clear the customs and immigration at Changi, before getting to the baggage claim].
I then had a great time in Singapore, trying to locate my size of clothes [+under clothes], which surprisingly were not visible in the departments, as most cater for girls clothes only [:P]. And when I did manage to find some, they were real expensive :( [not the girls variety, I assure :)]. Well! Had to purchase a few and try to look smart [yep, i know, i know, i am as is, but...]. Roaming around Singapore was real fun. Great city to shop and also to see the places. Specially for a 2-3 days tour. The Gardens and the Zoo are good and well maintained and Clean ... [more on this later, I hope my baggage is not totally lost :(]

So, finally the result comes to this: I have a few people fuming on the lost baggage, as I had borrowed it from them and a few crying as to why they asked me to get their stuff. While I try and get over the fact that I might have some very dear possessions and gifts which are missing :(

Cauvery Fishing Camp - Bheemeshwari

काउवेर्य ट्रेकिंग ट्रिप
Originally uploaded by gagneet.

We were to start on this Team trip (sponsored by the Company) early in the morning, when we would be getting a pickup near our house. Most of the crowd was arriving at the office complex and the rest would have to be picked up on the way to the trekking spot. Got a bit late due to the late arrivals at the office complex. Finally, we started off around an hour and a half late. The journey was good, with our former boss showing up in full regila of a mumbai bhai and acting in the same manner :)
Had a big session of antakshri on the way and enjoyed it throughly too. The journey was a typical bus road journey with the roads in fairly good condition till we finally began to approach the hills and then started the upward drive (on the way also went ahead and bought a bat and ball to play cricket with). We reached the camp around 11; after starting around 7:40 from near my place in JP Nagar. It was a journey of around 115 kms in total (one way). On reaching we were given the welcome drinks and then we got on to our journey/trek up the hillside. It was the first time I realised that I was not in form for such a thing :(
The trek uphill really stretched me to the limit and by the time I was on the top, my legs seemed to be shaking - weakness!! It seems like I have not been having any nutritious diet, but a diet where my palate is only satisfied. I need to improve on that. Climbing the lookout point, I actually felt my legs quiver under me. Then Rafi and JP came up and we decided to continue downhill and try to reach the river bank. We had almost made it till the end, when we finally decided to go back as the others would be waiting. The journey back was really a bad one, with me huffing and puffing all the way up. It finally ended with us drinking all the water in JP's bag and reaching the lookout point again. Had a quick photo session there, before heading back downhill, back to the fishing camp.
Lunch had been served there and it tasted really yummy after all that tiring stretch up and down hill. After that we had a long session of lazying around on the Web. This was a mesh of ropes tied to the ropes and one could jump up and down these to simulate a feeling of lightness which really was soothing... :)
After a lot of monkey sessions, we went on a gondola ride into the river. (the picture taken is of there only). The journey back was uneventful. And then we went for drinks at LoR. But, that being crowded, landed in Filling Station for a quick beer and vodka session. :D