Tirupati Temple

As we planned from London that when in south India it was a must to go and visit the Tirupati Temple which is the temple of Lord Venkateshwara based in the Andra Pradesh state.

Getting to know what was the most convenient way of getting to temple was a bit of a headache as everyone has there personal opinions and us guys who are not familiar to everything had decisions to make. A guy who we met at the England vs West Indies match gave a number to call, they are like a local directory and you tell them that you want to visit Tirupati on the 1100rs package which covers the journey there and back, lunch, 300rs VIP darshan and dinner. The number for anyone planning to go in th future is 00914426444444.

We got up at 4am as our minibus was going to leave at 5am, being a long journey and a long darshan wait we we're mentally prepared for everything. We met some really nice people from Kanpur, Hyderabad, Dehli and Chennai who joined us on this spiritual trip. On the way there the driver did get carried away with the a/c and it was damn cold! We visited a temple on the way to Tirumala which was very nice. Approximately 75kms from Tirumala our driver skip the signal of the crossing due to brakes not working and what better then police waiting on the side of the road. Brake failure and here was the last thing we expected to happen. Getting on a alternative vehicle we arrived at the temple with thousands of people queuing up for darshan.

There were 50rs tickets for normal queue, 300rs which was fast tracked and VIP which was for the people who come walking to the temple. We had the 300rs ticket. With thousands of devotees eagerly waiting, all coming from different states in India it was certainly an experience.

As we finally arrived for darshan, we were stunned to how amazing it was, all covered in gold and just a beautiful sight. With our tall figures we were able to get good darshan from Lord Venkateshwara. We were given 2 small ladoos for prashad but as we wanted to take some to London we had to buy a special ticket for another few not knowing what was going to happen next. We bought tickets for 6 each, as we went to the counter they gave us 6 hugeeee ladoos weighing 160g exact per ladoo,lolz!

We took some amazing pictures of the temple from outside, it was truly a amazing experience...






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Surprise fixture

With supposedly cool Kerala making me sweat away a few pounds, I was quite frightened coming to Chennai. But our surprise Chennai seemed cooler than Kerala. Maybe it was expectations of it being like a boiling pot or something, but it wasn't an distressing in terms of heat.
We settled into our hotel and headed to the stadium in hope of picking up our tickets for the Sunday match on that day, saving us a trip the following day and allowing us to do something else. We made way to the stadium, stopping for some fresh juice along the way. As we arrived at the stadium, the ticket office was closed. Not having planned anything for the day and as it was already past 5pm and not much of an idea of what the city has to offer at night we decided to stay and watch the India-West Indies match.
Security procedures for this game were nothing like we had seen at the India games. We were asked if we had any of the prohibited items, to which we obviously responded with a 'No' and were allowed to make way inside.
We settled in and watched a good game between England and West Indies and saw a brilliant Chennai crowd in action. It was amazing to see such passion for a match not including India. The fans seem more interested in dancing than the game and they seemed to be supporting both sides as everything was cheered and danced to.
Anticipation for the India game now was peaking, we could not wait for it.
We had to leave the match early as we'd heard, like all other cities in India, most places close by 11 and we wanted to get some food. Having heard about the legendary Hotel Sarvana Bhavan, we decided to make the first of many trips during our time in Chennai there.
We opted for the standard Masala Dosa, not wanting to risk eating something else in case we didn't enjoy it, and ended up ordering 2 each.

Kerala

With so much happening, blog posts are getting left behind.
Landing in Kochi we finally felt some serious heat. Everyone had been telling us Kerela would be much cooler, so we quite looking forward to it before heading to the Sauna that is Chennai.
The humidity was through the roof, to borrow a phrase from the legendary Ravi Shastri. Another thing which caught our eye and tickled us was how practically everybody was walking around in a lungi.
We had booked our hotel the night before and opted for a cheaper option as the following two days were to be spent on a houseboat. We booked a pre-paid taxi from the airport and took a 45 min drive our hotel. When we arrived our cab driver tried pulling a fast one on us and telling us it would be Rs. 30 extra; who we told to take a hike.
At first the hotel exceeded our expectations. Looked very clean and the staff were pretty helpful. We settled in, freshened up and went down to the hotel restaurant to grab some food. They seemed to be having a candle-lit dinner night; it was so dark we were unable to even read our menu and a the place was filled with dudes, it didn't exactly provide the atmosphere we were looking for while eating.
We headed off to a nearby hotel which looked to have a much better restaurant only to find the service was abysmal. We ordered our food, when it arrived one dish was missing; which they then decided to tell us was unavailable. Things got worse from there. We ordered another dish with naan. The naan arrived within 5 minutes but the dish was not to be seen for another 30 mins.
After a 2 hour meal, we decided to go for a walk in search of a juice bar. Walking down the dark streets, we encountered a fright - Giant cockroaches walking around all over the place. I've seen cockroaches before, but these were 4-5 times the size of any I'd ever seen before. Having had our fresh pineapple juice, we hurried back to our hotel in fear of getting attacked from one of these cockroaches. Settling in our room, we put our feet up where we were given another fright, there were 3 of these cockroaches in our room. Being the men we are, we jumped onto the bed and called room service, who were kind enough to change our room.
The following day we went in search of a houseboat. We arrived at the boat jetty and started bargaining the price of our stay. The original quoted price was Rs. 7000 per night, we were quite pleased with ourselves to get the price down to below Rs. 5000 per night and yet felt we were probably still getting ripped off.
Our mood quickly changed as the boat set off and made its way into the backwaters.
The sight is something so beautiful, something difficult to put into words. So instead of writing a 1000 words on it, just have a look at this pic.












The whole journey provide us with exquisite sites and having heard Kerala is known as God's own country, its not difficult to see why.
One of the things we wanted to get done while in Kerala was an ayurvedic massage. But being on a houseboat for 2 nights and flying out to Chennai when we got back, we thought it wouldn't be possible, but to our surprise the boat stopped at a place along the way which offered them.
We opted for the full body massage, not fully knowing what would be in store for us.
As I went into the massage room, the masseuse asked me to remove my clothes. I stripped down to my underwear, when he tied a string around my waist and tucked in a slim cloth to the front and then proceeded to tell me to remove my boxers; which made me slightly uncomfortable, but had to go along with it *eek*
The massage was an amazing experience; the holiday til then had been quite tiring and Kerala was to be a break from it all. Muscles were relaxed, mind was fresh and we were ready to enjoy more of the back waters and the cool breeze as we went along it.
The boat ported near some village for the night and then it got boring, with no entertainment on board apart from our phones which wouldn't receive a signal from inside our room and all other parts of the boat swarming with mosquitoes we weren't left with much else to do but fall asleep. At least that's what we thought. We had managed to get an hours kip before the power from the boats generator failed us and the A/C went; The next thing we knew, we were up, covered in sweat. This happened about 6 times through the night and the relaxation we had hoped for in Kerala was not to be.
The following morning we told the captain, this is unacceptable and we want to go back. As we arrived back on port, our agent (who we booked the boat through) arrived and was telling us we won't be getting a full refund for the one night we wouldn't be staying, but through some stubborn arguing we managed to get our refund and a small discount for the unpleasant night we had spent there.
We checked into a hotel for our final night in Alleppey and to our surprise it had a rooftop pool. As it was mid-afternoon we decided to head to the beach and we could take a dip in a pool later.
The heat in Kerala wasn't something we had experienced so far in India, so our stay at the beach was drastically reduced. As we returned to the hotel, we decided to cool off in the pool and luckily there was nobody else around, so it turned into a 2 hour session of bombing in the pool












Having spent the morning and early afternoon arguing for a refund and checking into a hotel, we didn't manage to have a meal, so when we went to get some food that evening we ended up ordering for 4 people. But the food at the hotel was divine and we actually managed to finish it all.
Kerala had its ups and downs. Even though we had some disappointing moments, I'd still recommend it to anyone visiting India. Some of the sights are out of this world, beauty you only see on postcards.

On our final night we had asked the hotel concierge to find out what times the trains would be going back to Ernakulam from where we could grab a taxi to the airport. As we arrived for breakfast in the morning we found the trains would be leaving too late for us to make it to Ernakulam on time. So we had to rush to the bus stand with our luggage trailing behind us. After a strenuous search for a bus heading to Ernakulam; as every bus that came was packed out and with us carrying plenty of luggage it was impossible to get on. Luckily we found a coach with a manic driver who, I think had a death wish as he raced to the the location driving on both sides of the road even with oncoming traffic.
As we made it to Ernakulam, we found our bus would be going towards the airport, but it would be waiting for at least 30 mins at Ernakulam before leaving and us racing against the clock to make our flight. We decided we'd have to catch an autorickshaw to the airport.
Having paid an extra Rs. 300 to get the autorickshaw we were left quite disappointed as we reached the airport, the bus we were originally on drove past us

Am I dreaming?

Since planning this trip, as much as we were looking forward to experiencing watching the world cup in India, there was one other thing we couldn't wait to see. Even though we were going to miss Nagpur, knowing we were going onto Kerala - 'Gods own country' next made it a lot easier.
We got dropped off to the airport and as we were having our luggage screened we noticed a unique blue, plastic case with something printed on it. On closer inspection, we realised the printed text read 'Board of Control for Cricket in India - Mahendra Singh Dhoni'
'OMG That's Dhoni's luggage' I said to Chigs before a failed attempt at sneaking a pic of it. 'Are the Indian players flying out today?'. 'Is Dhoni flying somewhere on his own?' - 'No he can't be going elsewhere in the middle of the tournament'. 'Is his luggage flying separately?' Were some of the thoughts going through our head.
We quickly scanned the flights flying out from Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Airport and there was no flight out to Chennai (location of India's next game). Not knowing whether he'd be there or not, we crossed our fingers and completed all necessary security checks.
As we were waiting to board the plane, two young kids along with a familiar face appear. The face belonged to Gary Kirsten, we quickly shot up out of our seats, pulled out the camera and asked him if we could have a quick snap, he happily obliged. As we were taking pics with him, others saw and within seconds there was a crowd around him. Gary was patient and happily took pictures with everyone who approached him. This made our hopes of being on the same flight as the Indian team increase, but the pessimist in me didn't allow the hopes to get too high. We decided to wait around till the last moment, just in case they do turn up after everyone else has boarded. We waited and waited til there was nobody else left and then had to go. As we were boarding the plane I asked the air hostess if MS Dhoni was on the flight and she answered in the affirmative. For some reason my doubts were not fully removed, maybe from my experience in India I've found Indians rarely say no to anything.
So we took our seats and noticed the front of the plane was empty. And then it happened, one by one they entered the plane. There was Munaf Patel, Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, Piyush Chawla, Yusuf Pathan, Ashish Nehra, Suresh Raina, Ravichandran Ashwin, Harbhajan Singh and Sreesanth. We later found out the other players were leaving on the following day. People started to get up to collect autographs and pictures, but were told to remain seated as we were about to lift off. We decided as soon as it was safe to walk down after lift off we'd head to the front; when that moment came, we went only to find out all bar Virat Kohli had gone to sleep, who was playing darts on his iPad. What a disappointment. They remained asleep through the whole flight which was just over an hour long. As were seated at the back of the plane, we got off from the back exit, while the players exited from the front exit. We got out just in time to see them all and take pictures, though security didn't allow us to get too close to them, but I was happy with the pics we got.
We had a 6 hour wait for our connecting flight to Kerala, enough time to tell everyone about what had just happened

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Yes time can really fly

Starting this journey our aim was to blog on a daily basis, but traveling and enjoying ourselves has usually left us sapped of energy to write about the day especially when it takes a good hour to type up on a mobile.
Now traveling from Cochin to Alapuzzha seems a good time to try and catch up on missed days.
Arriving to Nagpur from a arduous train journey, where keeping an eye out for luggage thieves doesn't allow for a peaceful sleep meant that day was going to be easy going.
We got to the apartment if our friend, freshened up and put our feet up. Being in Nagpur you see the vast difference between Nagpur and anywhere in Gujarat. It's a lot cleaner, you don't find dust flying everywhere. Being tired and with India-South Africa playing the next day we called it a night a bit early.
Kyazoonga have been quite pathetic through out the tournament and that wasn't to be the end of it. En route to the stadium I was checking my email and found an email from kyazoonga which I received the night before telling us the tickets were to be collected from the old VCA Stadium, something which had not been made clear to us earlier. Had I not checked my email we would never have been able to make it to the new stadium, back to the old and finally back to the new stadium in time for the match.
Arriving at the stadium we were expecting a long wait like Bangalore, but common sense prevailed somewhere along the way and all gates were open unlike the 1 at Chinnaswamy.
It was early afternoon and getting pretty hot, so we bought some drinks and went to park our behinds only to find out we had to finish our drinks before we entered!!
Booking our seats for this match, we went for some in the higher range expecting better views, but we ended up in the hospitality section and what a downer that was. The stand was full of rich tossers who couldn't give a shit about the cricket and were only there coz someone got them tickets to suck up to them or just to show their faces as it was the place to be. Continuous efforts to get the crowd chanting to boost our players failed. Never again. With tickets for the Semi-Finals in the hospitality section, I'm hoping someone will wanna switch with us.
A disappointing game which too many failures on India's part led me to believe choking is contagious.
Though another Sachin Tendulkar 100 provided some joy on an overall disappointmenting day.
In search of food after the match we headed to Hotel Centre Point and it seemed many others had done the same, as the restaurant was packed out.
Dinner was brilliant and mocktails were refreshing, even though the service was a bit slow.
Food in Nagpur was divine, the following night we ate at Raj Darbar which was just as scrumptious. So from my limited stay in Nagpur I conclude Nagpur has the best food

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Spin Dilemma

So Dhoni shocked everyone on Wednesday by persisting with Chawla against Netherlands after hits dismal performances through out the tournament. After his lackluster outing vs Ireland, nobody could justify Chawla's selection again in the tournament. Everyone was sure Chawla had bowled himself out of the tournament, but during the toss against Ireland, Dhoni stunned the world with Chawla's inclusion. What was even more baffling was the reason given for Chawla's inclusion.
Dhoni feels Chawla needed this game more than Ashwin as he is not as mentally strong. It will provide him an opportunity to rebuild his confidence. Now let's see how many things are wrong with this line of thinking.
Firstly the match is being played vs Netherlands, hardly a champion team vs spin, so even if Chawla had a half decent game, it wouldn't really mean much and how would he feel about bashing a minnow side?
Chawla has been playing cricket for many years now, he has also played for India many years back. If a player with this much experience is still mentally weak, he isn't cut out for international cricket. And since when do teams use world cup games allbeit against a minnow side as a confidence-gaining exercise.
Now Ashwin, who is the other spinner in the squad and the one most likely to take Chawla's spot, how is this fair on him, he's not being provided with a chance to get some match practice, so when he'll be quite under-prepared when he does play. Chances are he'll play against West Indies at his home ground in Chennai, but I feel he also needs to play against South Africa too. One game in his home conditions won't do him much good.
Another concern is our supposed wicket-taking, strike bowler Harbhajan Singh. It seems he can't buy a wicket these days and we're having to rely on part timers to take wickets for us. Dhoni believes its because teams look to play him out which makes it difficult to get wickets, which you would've thought if you hadn't watched him bowl, where we see how defensive he has become as a bowler. For me he's in the team to take wickets, not contain the batsmen and then hope he can build enough pressure for others to take wickets.
Someone needs to inform him taking wickets will automatically control the scoring rate.
Team India needs to re-assess their strategies because a decent side could play Bhaji out and smash the part timers instead of getting out to them


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Location:SH255,Nagpur,India

Rajkot to Nagpur

Having booked planes for most of our journey (9 internal flights) we felt we could save some money somewhere and travel via train from Rajkot to Nagpur; a 21 hour journey.
The tickets were booked in 2 Tier AC, supposedly the best you can get on the trains.
Departure time of the train was 10:45am, but we had found out earlier it had been delayed and would be arriving at 6:30pm, so we arrived at the station a tad earlier and sat about waiting.
When the train finally arrived at 7:20pm there was a mad rush to get on, like the train was about to leave in 10 seconds, but we were soon to find out, it was due to everyone getting their luggage on and under their seats.
As we got on with our luggage, finding a place to put it all became quite a challenge. We ended up stuffing it where we could, forced to keep a small suitcase near our feet. With parts of our luggage all over the place, keeping an eye on it becomes increasingly difficult. And with bags near our feet, getting any sleep on a bed designed for the average Indian (a lot shorter than the either of us) is another thing to worry about.
Everyone we spoke to advised us against taking the food provided on the train because its rubbish, so we were resorted to bringing along dry snacks such as crisps, biscuits, nuts, etc. As the last thing we wanna do is travel in India with hot food. But their were others who didn't mind that and I guess experience of traveling on this route before has taught them what they can bring and can't bring. From the moment we got on there were these ladies who pulled out their munch. Thepla's, yogurt, chevdo, sambharo, pickles, kajupak. Also along the journey at about 2 the train stops in a small town where the daughter of one of the lady lives, so she was on the phone ordering her lunch to be dropped off on the train for them.
Coming onto the staff on train, the attitude of the guy, even while talking to elderly people, no respect or manners, seeing that kind of behavior you'd be thinking if this guy spoke to me like that, a smack across the mouth would be in order.
The train reached Surat at 4am where a bunch of people got on, so if you managed to get an iota of sleep, you'd be woken up again by the ruckus caused
Looking back on thus trip, it may be half the price, but in my opinion definitely not worth the hassle.

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