Don’t worry, I will also celebrate the new year. But for the year that was ending, we had lot’s of things to celebrate about. Samiran and 1 packed our bags to started off for Payyanur, Kerala.

Our destination: INS Zamorin
Our contact : Lt. Ritesh Kumar Parida

Well, as every Bangalorean knows well, friday evening is the worst time to travel to Majestic(Bangalore’s Bus Terminus) or the Airport. It always seems like Bangalore is being evacuated. What I had heard from Samiran, was today, there were around 1200 buses scheduled to take people out of Bangalore.

We had a bus ticket, and it was a private one. We had made sure that we didn’t get the back seat, since we knew that the road to Payyanur was full of pot-holes, so big, that they could have been called wells. But, when we entered the bus, and started searching for our seat number, we realized that it was going to be the worst bus journey ever. Backseat, and 6 people jammed up. There was a couple among the six. To make matters worse, the girl was fat, and so was Samiran. The girl took up more than 1/6th of the space, but since she was with her boyfriend, we couldn’t have done anything. We were heading towards Kerala, and had no plans of being admitted into a government hospital, and miss the Christmas and the New Year celebrations.

We managed to sleep in a posture that was not even close to sitting. But it was fun, and we laughed all the way. Samiran’s head hit the roof twice, and mine, once. We had a train to catch next morning from Mangalore at 9:00 am. And this bus was supposed to reach there at 6:00 am. But, due to the mass movement of the public, it was late by 3 hours. We thought we missed the train. But thanks to Indian Railways, the train was late by an hour and we reached Payyanur in another 1:30 hours.

To reach Payyanur, it took us almost 12 hours, which was way beyond our calculations. Well, here comes the best part. Kunal, who made up his last minute plans, decided to celebrate with us and Lt. Ritesh. I guess, I wouldn’t do justice to him, if I were to describe anything about his trip. I would be stealing away his content for one more blog, now that the competition is neck to neck. And of-course, we will get to hear “Right from the Horse’s Mouth” :)….  To make it short, he reached Payyanur after a 48 hour journey from Gurgaon, via Mumbai, Goa, Mangalore etc.

When we finally reached Payyanur, we were welcomed by Lt. Ritesh Kumar Parida, in a black sorts, shoes, and a t-shirt. At the sight of him, Samiran and I couldn’t control our laughter. He hadn’t changed a bit.

There is more to mention about this trip. To be continued….