Colorado To Manglore

December 18th it was, after a late night packing and some settlements, I could catch only a few hours sleep before my travel. But the excitement of returning over shadowed the tiredness. I choose to drive till Denver and I enjoyed that last drive. On my way, I told my friend that I had forgotten something but failed to recall what it was. After a few minutes of silence and another few of farewell talks with our friends M, C & B, we (Mahesh & I) took off for the security check.

Our flight was at 1:40 PM and it was about an hour late. Just while boarding the flight, I remembered that I had left my diary underneath the bed. I was traveling now without my best friend, which gave me an uncomfortable feeling through out that flight until I got down at Chicago airport and called my friend to post it back at the earliest. Well that was a relief. :-)
Now at Chicago airport the air India ticketing queue was longer than anybody could have imagined. Our flight was at 7:00PM and we were at the ticketing counter at about 7:30 PM, it was obvious that the flight was delayed but it was only after reaching the gate we heard that the flight was to leave at 12:00AM. What a delay! So all I could do was sit and watch people around; talked to an Ahmedabad based NRI girl expressing her dissatisfaction with the delay and some vacation plans in India.

So finally we take off at midnight. A fun flight with some jokes between Mahesh and me, motherly service by Air India airhostess. We reached Frankfurt and had only half an hour wait after which the flight took off again. An Indore based co passenger was concerned about her connecting flight from Mumbai since the flight was over delayed. This girl was known to almost everyone in the flight as she had spent the whole evening at the airport looking for Mototrola cell charger by asking almost every passenger. We were in the last seat and every body who walked to the toilet shared a smile with this girl or talked to her for a while. To entertain us there was a girl whom I thought, looked like Kareena Kapoor but Mahesh disagreed. She kept changing her shirt several times through out the flight. A guy, almost drunk acted really weird at the pathway.

After that long journey we reached Mumbai finally at 6:00 AM on the 20th. Our connecting flight to Bangalore was at 9:50 AM. After a few hours of wait; some phone calls, we boarded the flight. Well, this flight was something like a passenger bus, we had to drop the folks at Ahmedabad and then fly to Bangalore. So finally we reached Bangalore at 2:30 PM, when we were supposed to be there at 5:00 AM. I reached home at 4:00 PM, met a couple of friends, and packed my bags. A friend of mine was kind enough to bring me my train tickets to Hubli.

I called a few friends to let them know that I was back and then reached the railway station. My train was at 9:15 PM and it was exactly on time, thank God, something is on time. I shared a few talk with the co-passengers and it felt good to see over enthusiastic people who agreed to help me wake up at dawn when the station arrived and provided me with more information than required. I loved the first feel of being in India, I love the people here and the friendliness they share, not just with a smile or with a sweet talk, but actually helping you out with determination.

I reached Hubli next morning and immediately boarded a bus to Gadag. The drive from Hubli to Gadag was amazing. The sun flower and Red chili fields make a perfect picture to view. I reached the lodge to find the entire family from my mother’s side to be there. I met my parents, sister, aunts, uncles and cousins. It was like a family re-union. My cousin was married to the Lodge owner’s only son, few days back and we were all here for her wedding reception. It was total fun. After breakfast we drove to the Veera Narayana temple, where Kumar Vyasa had written the Kannada version of Mahabharata.

We then stopped by the Sarswathi temple with some amazing rock art.

After a very big reception party, with about 21 different varieties of food from chats to roti’s to rice items to sweets to what not, we retired for the day. Next morning we left the place at about 9:00 AM, back to Mangalore in my sisters car. On the way I had some preplanned stops at following places that I had previously seen during my onward journey.

Red Chili Being Dried On The Fields

Want Some Red?

We Were Offered Some Bakri and Junka And Curries By This Villagers.

This is what makes rural India Beautiful. Its innocent, kind people who might be a generation behind us in life style but they are far more freindlier and far more human than the city people. Are we loosing this India?

Sunflower fields

Facing The Sun!

So after this nice journey and wonderful views of the western ghats, I reached Mangalore on the 22nd night. The rest of the vacation is soon to follow in next post. :-)