TNIK India goes live in own domain!

TNIK India (The Name Is Karthikeyan India) has so far been at http://sites.google.com/site/thenameiskarthikeyan. Beginning Wednesday, 10th December 2008, TNIK India is hosted on its own domain tnik.in. Watch out for more fun and updates from TNIK India!!

Also this blog, which has so far been http://thenameiskarthikeyan.blogspot.com is hosted from http://blog.tnik.in.

Yelagiri Bike Trip and Trek

     As soon as I found my name in the confirmed participants list mail, I was totally excited! Wah! Karthikeyan goes trekking! On friday, 21st nov 2008, I left office early at around 8:30 PM so as to get up early the next day for joining the trek. After debating with myself if the alarm time should be 3:30 AM or 4:00 AM, I decided to go with 4:00 AM.

Polaama... venamaa...

4:00 AM should have been sufficient enough, had it not been raining so heavily. Ouch! My judgement failed! I hurriedly packed one extra set clothes, a pair of canvas shoes, brush, paste and a bed sheet. 

By the time I set out Guindy (from chromepet) with my bike, it was already 4:45, just 15 mins before the scheduled depature time from Guindy Le Meridien hotel. With the week long expectation and enthusiasm on, I kept riding to the place. I could reach the place only at 5:20 AM, far behind the schedule. I breathed a relief sigh only after finding Baskar and Krish Waiting there for the rest of the group. Soon joined Chaaru and . Finding me without cover from rain, Baskar offered his bike jacket to me. Thanks Baskar. Krish was fully and professionally packed with sleeping mat and other trekking goods in his back pack. I thought, "ennadaa idhu.. malai yera pack panna sonna vinvelikku pora maari pack panni irukkaan..?".  I later realised how wrong I was.

All along, it still kept raining. We waited for the other group from Tidel park, the other pickup point. They were stranded there in the rain. It was 7:00 AM or over by the time they reached Guindy. There I met the other heads of CTC, Vinodha, Vikki, and Amal to name a few. Oh oh... they were having bad news to convey. They doubted if we could make it to the trek safely due to the rains. My pictures of dreams and expectations with the trek appeared to blur. The other first timers too seemed to have the same feeling. Being a new comer, I was hesitant to maintain my stand to continuing with the trek. But still I managed to put some words to the heads with the support of other first timers. At around 8:00 AM, the group seemed to come up with a conclusion (don't know what) and started our vehicles towards porur. The rain didn't seem to make way. After crossing Poonamallee, the heads spoilt our dreams again by making a U turn and assembling us all in Poonamallee. Some of us (me, Baskar and few more) even secretly decided that we would still go with the trek, no matter what the heads and others decide. We took breakfast (packed chappathis) there. While still confusion was on, someone from bangalore group called one of the heads and encouraged to come forward for the trek because the weather was clear from their side. Adding to it, one of chennai trekkers was already at Yelagiri at 8:30 AM. This was sufficient to convince the heads to show a green signal to go trek.

Puyalaai purappadu!

All confusions disappeared and we started to Yelagiri at around 8:45 AM, close to 4 hours behind schedule! We CTC trekkers proved that we are mightier than the weather. We biked/carred to Yelagiri following the lead car and reached Yelagiri at around 3:30 PM. Ravi was all along with me through out the biking. It was so thrilling to ride uphill by bike through U bends and N bends and other tricky routes. Monkeys were there to cheer us in our journey!

And rest friends.. find out in the albums mentioned in the below link:

Kartrekeyan - Yelagiri Trekking Albums

A picture is worth 1000 words after all.