A ride aboard the Golden Chariot – Karnataka’s luxury tourist train and answer to the famous Palace on Wheels. It was the opportunity of a lifetime, really.
For those of you, who still haven’t heard of this special train, here’s some background: The train goes on a 8 day journey covering Bangalore, Mysore, Srirangapatna, Kabini, Belur-Halebid, Sravanabelagola, Hampi, Badami, Aihole, Pattadakal, Goa and then back to Bangalore. Tickets are priced at $350/per head/per night that makes the entire week approx $2450 (or Rs 1 lakh)/head, comparable to the pricing of the Palace on wheels. It’s mainly geared at showcasing Karnataka to overseas visitors and giving them an experience of the culture, history and heritage of the state over the 8 days and 7 nights.
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I’ve written about this before, but if there’s one thing I haven’t mastered yet - it’s cycling.
And before you go about fixing an expression of disbelief on your face, let me tell you that it’s been a lack of opportunity that’s brought about this misfortune.
Firstly, in the hills where I was brought up people didn’t cycle (I think my good friend Aqua will second me on this one!). Because going up and down those slopes might do wonders to your fitness, but obviously the bicycle was not our idea of transport. We just… walked.
One year, a friendly neighbour Prabal decided to take it upon himself to teach me. He even got a disclaimer signed from my dad saying that if anything happened to his precious daughter, he wasn’t to blame. My dad sportingly signed it. Inspite of his best efforts (I did manage to climb on top of this gigantic cycle) but never managed to stay long enough to get it going.
I tried to pedal and stay in a straight line, and told myself I wouldn’t fall but obviously my body didn’t believe me. So Prabal did what any 18 year old sane and smart boy would do - he quit :)
I was back to square one. We finally moved from the hills to the plains and I realised that cycles were a much favoured way of travelling and everyone did it rather effortlessly. I was a little too old now and embarassed to admit that I couldn’t manouvre one of those things to save my life. It was just easier using public transport! So that was that.
Many years later, I now find myself unable to use this particular mode of transport. Just when people are getting into serious cycling and doing cool things like going on bike rides and even long trips, I feel I can at least try once more!
I’m older now, but thankfully, I don’t get embarassed as easily anymore so I’m relaunching my efforts.
Mastering the file art of balancing on a bicycle!
In the good news, I’ve made slow progress - which means I can now get on one (which is short enough so my legs touch the ground!) and travel in a straight line. However, I can’t yet turn or slow down and gracefully get off the cycle. I come to a complete halt - screeching brakes and all and topple sideways (sometimes taking it with me) - which is obviously not a pretty sight.
But my efforts will continue. In the even more good news, I have been promised a bicycle on my birthday. At this grand old age. As you can imagine, I am thrilled to bits! :)
Related links
Rohan on Radio City
Bangalore Pedals
Bangalore Bikers
A reader, Smitha, in my last post reminds me that I’m not posting frequently and I think I owe my visitors loads of apologies for that! It’s been an incredibly exciting and busy January / February with some interesting projects on the horizon so it’s been taking up a lot of my time and focus. But as she points out, I need to get back to more frequent blogging, and I’m definitely going to try now.
In the bad news, they’ve taken away access to pretty much everything useful including email and flickr during work hours. I guess we need to prepare ourselves for no Internet soon and the paranoia (especially in a large company) is understandable. Since mail a service that is taken for granted these days, you realise it’s absence only when it’s taken away. As a company, it’s justified to do it because of all the problems - bandwidth issues, people spending too much time, security etc. And it’s a service they provide us for free, so I guess they have an equal right to take it away too. But it’s just so very inconvenient and annoying when you need actually wait till you get home after the whole day just to go and check your mail.
Anyway, I guess we just learn to live without now and the only option is to get home and catch up on mail.
On another note, as Valentine’s Day is approaching but here’s something I put together for rediff.com. And besides, it’s always a good excuse to take another trip in case you’re looking for one!
Top spots for romance
Enjoy!