Treks transform us every time in its own way!

Trekking is always a rich experience, when embraced with open arms it has the power to transform us physically, mentally & emotionally.

Gearing up!

When we planned our first mother-daughter duo trek to Chopta-Tungnath-Chandrshila trek, I was certain that I needed to be double prepared to have my 10 year old daughter climb a Himalyan trek, though a beginner friendly trek. We started preparing ourselves for the trek 20 days before with a 30 minutes daily fitness routine comprising of fast walk, jog, cycling and climbing stairs.

Whenever anyone enquire us about vacation plan, my response would be "We are planning to go on a trek, hope it goes well", Meera would ask "Why are you not replying as we are going on a trek and always say planning to go". Smilingly I would reply, "It's always a plan, making it happen is in Bhagavan's grace." Though we prepare physically, the mental & emotional preparation is much more needed for a trek to happen successfully. This trek made us understand the real meaning behind these statements.

Two weeks before the trek had tense war situation of Operation Sindoor by India, so we were not sure if we could go ahead with our trek. By God's grace, it became normal and got informed by the Trekking organization "Trek The Himalayas" that the Trek is on as per the plan. It's a 3 days trek, we reached Dehradun airport, went to Rishikesh after a 45 minutes taxi drive and stayed in Swami Dayananda Saraswati Ashram.

On the first day morning, TTH trek team picked us from Rishikesh and took to Baniyakund. It was a slight descent hill drive of approximately 6 hours. We stayed on a Swiss cottage tent and went on a stroll to nearby meadow. Meera enjoyed the weather, new place and excited about the trek. There were totally 10 trekkers of which 8 were ladies. Our trek leader briefed us about the trek and asked us to get ready for the trek by 1 AM the following day. You read it right - early morning 1 AM, which will let us see sunrise from the summit among snowclad Himalayan mountains. Both of us ate dinner, packed backpacks and slept early at 8pm. We woke up at 1 AM got ready and reached the base camp. Trek team gave us some cooked black Chenna dhal which would give us energy during the trek. Meera liked it and ate a full bowl.

Twist on the trek!
Geared with head torches, hand gloves & jackets to cope up with below 10 degrees, we started our trek at 2 AM from Chopta village offering our prayers by ringing bells on the Tungnath arch on the entrance. It was quite dark, cold and silent without even birds chirping sound. While I was the last one on the group to climb, Meera joined others before me. After 20 minutes, I could see Meera slowing down a little and a bit uneasy. She started complaining of stomach pain and sat on a stone. With initial symptoms I could understand it to be gastric problems and gave Digene tablet to chew. We both walked together accompanied with the trek leader. Within another 15 minutes, she again sat down with stomach ache. We gave her something to drink, comforted her and started the climb again. 

Can we make it?

After an hour, she had tears in her eyes because of stomach ache and just sat on a rock. While I soothed her, trek leader gave her medicine. We were halfway through the 5km trek. It was quite dark and cold perhaps 5 degrees. I prayed to Bhagavan Shiva from the bottom of my heart to give strength to Meera to climb up and reach Tungnath, for we cannot rest here in an open freezing dark mountain place. We can neither go down nor stay there as it would worse Meera's health. The only option is to keep going and reach Tungnath which has some dhabas (hotels) to rest. 

Grace of Bhagavan Shankara

While I asked her to chant "Jai Sriram" and motivated her that she can climb up overcoming this challenge, I chanted "Jaya Jaya Shankara, Hara Hara Shankara" deeply with a bhava that He alone brought us here & He alone can take us to reach Tungnath. By taking breaks every 20 minutes, with silent prayers going inside, we reached Tungnath around 5.30 AM. The dhabas were open then and we both sat inside a dhaba just 100 metres away from the temple. While rest of the team went to Chandrashila summit which was another 1 km climb from Tungnath, Meera slept on my lap inside the dhaba. Cool breeze made me shiver a little and I realized from a visiting customer that the temperature was  -1 degrees. 

Birds chirping sound, snowclad mountains amidst beautiful ochre sunlight, warmth of the hot piping tea made two hours go in a jiffy. Around 7.30 AM Meera woke up and after she went motion she felt a bit relieved of gastric problems. Tungnath temple got opened at 6AM and I cajoled Meera to walk 100 meters more to have Tungnath darshan. She agreed and extended beyond her pains to climb up to the temple. She could not remove her shoes and walk as it was freezing -1 degrees, she had darshan from outside, while I went inside temple and offered my deep pranams to Tungnath Mahadev for blessing us to reach his abode in Tungnath - the highest Shiva temple in Kedar range and prayed for everyone's welfare.

Thrilling solo horse ride

On our way back, Meera ate few spoons of Khadi Chaval (buttermilk & rice) and agreed to hop on a horse back on her way back downhill. Thankfully our local guide accompanied the horse and Meera as the horse climbed down very fast. While the horse ride took 40 minutes to reach the entrance bell, I took 3 hours downhill and eager to see Meera. She was feeling better and waiting for my arrival.

When asked about her experience she chuckled and replied, "It's the early morning trek that I could complete even with stomach ache & the solo horse ride on the hills that made this trekking special!" For me, the trek certainly developed endurance to handle emergency health situations with poise and developed a deep and strong bhakti bhava towards Bhagavan by connecting through prayers.

It is these situations that makes trekking a rich experience that transform us in physical, mental & emotional aspects. This first Mother-Daughter duo trek certainly will be etched in our memory forever. Meera also understood the meaning of my response,

 "We plan to go on a trek and Bhagavan's grace makes it happen".

Here is a short video on our trek and Rishikesh ashram stay made by Meera 

Ganga Arti - 

@Pujya Swami Dayanand Saraswari ashram, Rishikesh

Ganga Arti @Swami Narayan ashram, Rishikesh

Ganga Maa flowing mellifluously

Om Tat Sat

Pleasant Visit to Mango Village, Palakkad - Flam of India

After a hectic and tiresome work, my husband Sriram wanted to spend leisure time during our 12th wedding anniversary. He specifically wanted the place not to be a tourist spot or with lot of attractions but a place where we can enjoy nature as it is. He identified Mango Village home stay in Palakkad through his friend and booked for 2 days.

As the trip was planned in short notice we travelled to Pollachi by bus and then took a cab to Mango Village. By its name, the place indeed is full of acres of mango trees, though devoid of mangoes as its not the season.
On our anniversary day, we got refreshed and had typical breakfast and went to a natural pond attached to the resort. All four of us had life jacket and enjoyed swimming in 20feet deep water(!).

The pond had a wondeful view of western ghats mountain surrounding it. Small streaks of waterfalls were seen at many palces on the mountains. It looked as though we were in Flam - a place in Norway, which was surrounded by mountains with waterfalls & Fjords. Flam is also called as a village with a scenic environment just like Mango Village.

                                                                                          

Later we relished the taste of typical Kerala
lunch and had a good sleep under the tree on hammock. The home stay hosts were very friendly and made us comfortable. Later in the evening, children enjoyed playing in the open park & lawn along with home-stay owner kids and a new friend from Thrissur called Advika. Meera liked playing with her and fond of calling her as Advika Akka.

Around 6pm, we thought of visiting a temple closeby as it was our anniversary day and came to know most of the temple would close by 7p,. Luckily , by God's grace we were blessed to have darshan of Lord Ayyappan.

That night dinner was special as we had it on the open lawn, enjoying moonlight & cold breeze. The minute we completed our dinner, it started drizzling. After a leisure day we had a good sleep.

Second day we planned to go to nearby Seetharkund falls where Goddess Seetha had taken bath. Path to that lake seemed a small hiking on the mountain and

Sriram had been careful in choosing a safe place to take bath, as the water was flowing at high speed. Spent an hour enjoying the waters and wondering the nature around.
After having breakfast had a good time reflecting on Tamil movie songs with Advika's father Anil and mother Preethi. It was a relishing chit-chat spanning on spiritual, philosophy, music etc. On
the other hand, Kids had a good time playing around. 

That day evening we went to a paddy field and stream nearby. Kids had good time playing with water again. While returning Sriram and myself went on zip liner above the pond. There were also some challenging adventurous rope walkers which Sriram wanted to do. He mustered courage and went on to do that.

However, as children wanted to do swimming along with Advika, I accompanied them to the swimming pool. Later when I saw the video of Sriram crossing the rope walkers in eveing dim light, I was surprised. Very happy to see him taking up challenging rope walking.


 Advika and family extended their stay for one more night, as Advika wanted to spend time with Barathraam and Meera. It's some nice to see children gelling with each other within short span of time. Had a wonderful stay in Mango Village - home away from home!

Third day we bid adieu to the hosts and Advika's parents and started to visit Isha Yoga center in Coimbatore. We were blessed to see Dhyana Linga and Adhi Yogi. I could feel the vibrations and peace while doing meditation under Dhyana Linga, seeking Lord's blessings to always think, speak, do good deeds along with good people and community.

With Lord's blesssings had a memorable Anniversary trip.

Learning is always a pleasure - this time car driving

Few years back, I was not interested and also reluctant to drive a car myself. As with every other thing in our lives, there was a change in my attitude towards car driving. Recently, I thought I have to learn car driving for very many reasons like to be capable of driving car during emergency situations, to be a good grandma cruising around the city with grandchildren in car (well, futuristic thinking that in future, car driving becomes indispensable like two wheeler now).
Okay, jokes behind, I thought it is high time to learn a new skill especially car driving which needs confidence and courage to maneouvre in a city like Chennai. So I decided to join car driving school during my maternity break. Thanks to my mother in law who encouraged me to learn and told she did not get those opportunities then.
So finally with a month's time frame I took car driving lessons and also got driver's license. The test for license was easy - just we need to start the car, pace it down slowly to pause and start again without stopping it. I thought how can they determine driver's capability with this simple test. Indeed it is a simple test, however, after cruising around the Chennai city, I could completely understand how the test is evaluating us if we are ready to really drive in the congested roads of Chennai.

So now that I have my driver's license am I courageous enough to start driving on my own? No, obviously not and that is because of the sheer traffic and the unpredictable circumstances that are happening on the road. Without confidence on us that we could handle these unpredictable circumstances (for example, while driving on a side a bike or a person from another side appears all of a sudden and goes in the wrong direction), I strongly recommend not to drive car. Nevertheless, confidence comes from practice, but practicing alone in this case is risky. So having a good car driver as my husband, I had to look up to him to guide me in driving.

I used to hear from some doctors, that they may not be able to do surgery for their own family members because of emotional attachment. Also, I have heard that astrologers would not prefer looking into his children's horoscope because emotional bonding may conceal foreseeing the negative things that are going to happen. On the same lines, I can say, having my husband as a guide to car driving comes with a coin having two sides. He knows your strength, weakness and can guide you appropriately. However, with personal attachment, he may want to prevent accidents, damage to car etc and therefore may not give you leeway to attempt car driving on own.
My husband though guided me well in handling many situations, his sudden out pour during my small mistakes made me more tensed and gets my brain blanked out. One such was in a signal that even after many attempts I could not start our car and get it moving (now remembering the simple test during driver's license!), his repeated high tone instructions made my brain blank and we had to swap seats. I became embarrassed and resolved to learn driving well and drive confidently.

Without time & focus, learning a new thing and especially mastering it may not be possible. So I decided to take 20 days off from my work (before I would join new company) and  learn car driving to the level I can drive it on my own. Found a good driving instructor who can guide and teach me in our own car. His first few words are "When I am driving, I should not damage others/properties even though they are wrong. However, I should also be assertive and display confidence." So with that thought instilled in my mind and the instructor's able guidance get me going. Within few days, I got confidence on myself and could also predict which places are prone to violation of rules. Therefore one fine day, when my instructor could not come for the class, I thought its time for me to venture out. I did take the route which I was familiar with, and could drive back home safely, albeit the car did stop at some places. But I gathered courage now on how to handle it. The moment, I reached safely, I called to my husband and asked "Do you know what I just did?", to my pleasant surprise he replied, "You drove on your own, right?". Thanks to the instructor.

After this training and venturing out on my own, my husband provided his consent to start doing the driving on my own and these days I drive to work and other places. More than my learning of car driving, I would like to share the most important highlight of what I liked during my driving, which is

Being on car, I stop and stop others to give way

         * The thanks sign shown by an auto driver with many school children on his auto, when I    slowed down my car and gave him the way to cross
         * A smiley thanks displayed by a husband who was waiting to cross the road with his wife        having injured and stitched legs, when I stopped on the main road and gave them the time to cross.
         * I think I have the power now to stop not only my car, but also the vehicles behind me, to give  time and way for others. :)

As always, it is indeed a pleasant journey and experience while you attempt to do some new learning. Have to think what I would like to learn next from my long list of "To Learn"

PS: Btw, I had to say that the 20 days off I took from joining new job, gave me an opportunity to join another big company. God's grace always showers best.

Munich Travelogue - The joy of finding your way

This is the first time I am traveling to a country alone, for an international workshop and conference. I got a chance to present my paper in the international workshop in Munich, Germany. I was not sure of how much value would it be to attend this workshop, but I wanted to experience how international workshops and conferences are! Also, my husband Sriram motivated me to attend it and give a try. So I decided to fly alone and try couchsurfing for both reasons of cost savings & new experience that I can try when I am alone! A short travelogue about my first solo trip.

About couch surfing
Johanne from Denmark living in Munich hosted me at a short notice. My loads of thanks to her for trusting me, because I just registered to couch surfing community few hours before sending a request to her.I later came to know that people hosts only those who have good references or reviews. So I was fortunate to get my first quick request accepted. Her room was very close to city centre and she was very friendly. She briefed me about sights and gave a city map & public transport map which helped me not getting lost (or actually finding way back after being lost). I realized that I could not mingle well with her lifestyle, because I don't drink beer & don't smoke! Neither I could give her company nor I enjoyed being in a bar for long hours. Nevertheless I enjoyed talking to her. My first couch surfing experience is truly memorable.

About Munich
Wooho!!! Munich is such a lively city. When I landed late night, sub-urban & underground trains were packed with people and most of the people were friendly and approachable. Almost all the people I asked for help could talk in English. The city's public transport with sub-urban, metro, tram and bus is planned so well, that one could easily & quickly travel around.There are quite good number of churches & museums as with other European cities.

River Isar is a good one to pay some nature time and enjoy its flow. Europe's largest inland garden is located in Munich and is called English garden. It hosted landmarks named Chinese towers & Japanese tea house - strange isn't it? Munich hosts a favorite landmark sight for car lovers - the BMW welt & museum. I got to know that BMW expands to Bavarian Motor Works as its base is from Bavaria region whose capital is Munich.  I personally don't have an interest towards cars, but paid a visit for my son and husband. He had been asking some curious questions and thought would get it cleared there :-)

BMW employee explaining why racing cars have rudders in back & front!

One of his questions was "Why racing cars have a plate in the back above the back door?". I thought initially that its just a design for style. But the BMW employee explained that it is for a purpose-  that the speed of racing car could make it fly above road and these plates (called rudders) make the car push down and keep it running on the road! Lot to learn from kids questions!
 
Olympia park & stadium is close by to BMW museum and may be okay to visit as well. I did not find anything new there though. If you like museums visits then keep it on Sundays for many of them offered 1€ entry charge. I got two full days to roam around. On one day covered most places in city center by walk and opted other day to explore distant places by underground train. I initially dreamed of visiting Alps (Bavarian Alps) and Austrian country side which are near to Munich. but kept them for our next family trip.

Traveling alone

I have to say that I did enjoy traveling alone - walked for hours, getting lost, took some risks, survived eating fruits & bread and experienced solitude. Route maps remained my best company throughout the trip. Whenever I reached a place by guessing a route without asking anyone, I patted myself as a good map reader. Indeed map reading is a joy and wonderful experience. But I truly missed the company of my loving husband & son. It would have been an entirely different itinerary & trip, if they would have accompanied me. This time when I am alone, I took advantage of the ample time to reflect more about the trip experience - things I saw, I learned, I liked, I didn't like, my dreams & aspirations and spent time on penning them down as well (yes, including this blog post). And did some sketches.

And never to forget, about my actual purpose of visit - the workshop & conference, which is the next section.

Workshop/Conference
Sadly, the workshop was not professional as I expected. In fact, I have to say that it was organized poorly. Someone reading till this, would leave a smirk smile, when I say paid myself for a trip to an international workshop with 5 participants - yes, I am not wrong, it had only 5 people! To be honest, I was disappointed initially, but cheered myself that I should not be a victim of a poorly organized workshop, but have to take advantage of it. Saying so, I participated actively in other participant's projects which were similar to mine & gained some important points to be applied further in my work. Worth mentioning learning points that are reinforced are,

• Choose to address one problem at a time
• Prototype & test it. A smaller sample of user base is perfectly okay
• Determine what kind of analysis will be done on user testing & how results will be interpreted. Employ user testing methods accordingly.
• Every single thing in the world is evolving; nothing is perfect & every effort of yours is worth a try!
• You can always work on your interests, as a hobby. But if you want to make it as a living, you need to know how you sell your interest. 

With these interesting experiences & learning's, my trip to Munich is ever memorable. Its good to have a solitude trip alone once in a while to get to understand & talk to yourselves! Know thyself better!

Our Visit To Tallinn

It was a wonderful trip to Tallinn during the Easter long weekend. It was planned by us in a short notice, however things fall in place by God's blessings. The entire trip was enjoyable as they were sunny days and so a great salutations to Lord Surya (Sun God).
We started on April 22nd morning from Tampere and by the time we reach the harbour of Linda Line it was around 10.30 AM. Our ferry is at 12 and it started drizzling which slowly turned to rain showers. I was praying Lord Surya to bless our trip with sunny days and yes, he answered it. The rains were only during our ferry travel and by the time we reach Tallinn it was sunny. Barathraam enjoyed the ferry travel. We took a taxi to our guest house which was cheaper when compared to Tallinn. We stayed at Valge Villa and the hosts are very cordial. The rooms were good with small, well-equipped kitchen except for the kreeech sound from the wooden floors.
We refreshed ourselves and set out to have a look at the city. Tallinn has good public transport by buses, trolley bus (running on electric lines) and trams and also has good frequency even during easter weekend. It is cheaper to take one/two or 3 days tickets rather than single travel tickets. We got it at R-Kiosks. We took trolley bus 3 and get down at Vabaduse Valjak. We visited the Old town, the famous Toompea Castle and the Russian church (we found it good to visit church on Good Friday). Its worthy to mention that those streets and the place is a mixture of ancient heritage with a modern outlook. To my surprise we saw some Indian restaurants too in the middle of the Freedom Square. Need to say, that there is a large crowd of people at Tallinn in every corner we saw, seams like a real tourist destination. Tourist books speak about a place called Katharina Kaik as a famous passage and we paid a visit there.. (Wonder whats it?? Namma oor santhu (The narrow street in our places!) ). I read that Rottermann square is a place for cheap shopping and we went there. But to my disappointment I found eveything to be as costly as in Finland. It may be because Estonia has adopted Euro as its currency from 1st Jan, 2011. We then got the trolley bus and reached our guest house.

The next morning, as we woke up the sun shined brightly and we got ready to visit Tallinn Zoo. I was hoping that Barathraam will enjoy it as he has started recognizing animals and birds. We took the trolley bus connection 3 from our Tedre bus stop to Vabaduse Valjak  and then got to the other side and took trolley bus number 6 and got down at Zoo. We were happy to see many children entering along with us.  The Zoo was really nice with many different collections of birds, tiget, lion, fishes, elephant, deer and also strange species like Kangaroos, Polar Bear etc. It did has a vast open space for a variety of sheeps and goats. Barathraam got tired in the mid and slept while we covered most of the species and thought of giving some rest to our legs.
Whenever I visit Zoo, I get a guilty feeling on our human approach towards animals. Though we give enough space for the animals to roam, it cannot be matched to the space given to it by Nature. I really felt bad on seeing a big Polar bear walking exactly on the same path again and again within a fenced area. If a living being is constrained within walls it will surely lose its originality.


Then we thought of getting some details about the museums in the tourist information centre and visited Viru Keskus, the shopping centre in the town center. We decided to pay visit to the science museums for family and kids. It had few exhibits on science principles, the 4D movie and some journey in black. We did not visit 4D movie and the journey in black. But otherwise, there was not much to see in the museum when compared to science museums in India. I personally felt that the entrance fee is a bit costlier for the exhibits in the museum. We then returned back to our cage.

Next day, we planned to visit the open air museum ROCCA AL MARE which had many special events for the Easter on that day. From the map we found it to be just opposite side of Zoo and got down in the same stop as we did the day before. But we could not locate the place easily and after we enquiries we came to know that it is in a road parallel to the zoo and we had to walk 20 minutes to that place from Zoo stop. When you plan to visit that place, see the correct route from the map. We were surprised to see the number of cars and people entering the museum and thought it should be a special day there. As we stepped in, we were welcomed by trade fairs from rural communities. All products starting from soaps, chocolates, breads and toys to clothes and crafts. We were surprised to observe Barathraam not willing to come away from a shop selling wooden cars and wanted to have it. This was the first time he demanded something to be bought for him and I am sure it will continue from now. We then saw traditional village houses which had rooms for cattles and livestock. I was amazed to see a room with a bed and a cradle, almost similar to "thottil" (cradle in Tamil). The picture of it is here. It reminded me that different cultures have similar traditions during the course of time. There was another example for it in the museum. It was the water juice coming from the birch tree. A passer-by mentioned that during Spring, the birch tree absorbs water from the ground and pumps to the whole part of the tree and by having a hole in the stem will let some water juice coming out. We all could taste that, which ofcourse is full of health benefits (like our palm water taken from palm tree.)

We ate food prepared by us and then saw some village games played during Spring in Estonian culture. I also got planted two plants with the help of the village girls there. It was a nice Spring festival and we could enjoy the Estonian traditional way in a true sense. In the evening we met our friend Venki and his friend. We all went to the Kadriorg lake, but we could not visit the palace as it was closed already. We took Barathraam to the park there and he enjoyed playing there a lot and did not want to come out of it. Somehow we persuaded him to take him away from there.

Next and the last day, we went to the botanical garden. We took bus no 34A (also 38) from Viru Keskus and got down at Kloostrimetsa. The botanical garden was big and hosted many plant varieties. Rock garden welcomed us and I could see people planting flower plants. We went to the "Green House" which was very big. We could see most of the flower varieties, plants, trees and cactus family. It was a real bliss to be there, for its a long time since I saw such a green place.. (Yes, we were in Finland watching snow all these days!!)
I am surprised to see coconut, palm and banana tree there. They had some groups from the schools and an instructor explained all of the trees and their collections. We talked to the instructor and could see that the instructor is part of ISKCON and she bid adieu to us saying "Hare Krishna". Barathraam enjoyed seeing the plants and also having his hand in the soil. Below are some photos from the "Green House".

Banana tree

A cactus family (Mother, Father and their younger ones).

This plant is named "Krishnae" and is found in India, Himalayas!

Doesn't this plant look like having two eyes, two long ears and a big mouth?

This is how they give sunlight to the plants during winter. They have artificial sunlight and air circulation conducive for the plants growth.

Flowers planted outside

And, Here is our little Barathraam enjoying the Nature.

On the whole, it was a leisure trip enjoyable with the blessings of God.

If you want any details about visiting Tallinn, I can give my two cents.