A lazy day pulled all of us out of our beds very late.
Another rainy day in Madikeri. Our cook Raju treated us with the most delicious
cuisine of Madikeri, akki kadbu with Coco nut
chatni. I loaded my plate with akki kadboos as much as it could hold and with
so much ease each of the kadboo slide down my food pipe. Hats off to the cook
who offered us such awesome breakfast.
Talking of whom I should not forget
sharing this information which Suma gave us after we returned from our trip.
Suma writes,
I wish to share wit u ppl one information that i got to know when i was just having a casual conversation with "Govind Raju" urf Raju - the cook,
who treated our taste buds with all delicious foods, amoung which "Akki kadbu" is one which i liked the most.
Well, Raju is basically serving as a president of NACO branch in Kodagu district - an organization that provides leadership to HIV/AIDS control program
in India.
During weekdays he involves himself in this organizational work and spends his weekends serving here( in home stay ) as a part time cook.
The money that he and his wife earns from this part time work is being donated to the organization - where in, its being used to pay the educational fees of kids
in this organization.
He returned on friday night attending a meeting in Mumbai and was there in Ganga Homestay by sat morning to serve us with his food and care as well..
I still was very curious to know about the way he made himself into this organization, but then i somehow found tat - it might be too personal so dint dare
to ask him any more and the conversation about NACO ended up and we started with our breakfast.
One good thing i gotta know and made me feel happy about was - ppl in that small place are also so concerned about their responsibilities towords the society.
Nice ppl ah..:)
Regards
Suma S
What a worth of his life. I feel very ashamed of myself
for all the damn reasons I give myself for not doing anything other than
office, eating, sleeping & shit. At the end everything I am doing is just shit.
The bus drove towards Bhagamandala to reach TalaKaveri.
It was raining all the more this day. Few of them who were ready to get
drenched got down the bus and visited the temple. Rest of us enjoyed photo
shoot near an abandoned temple. And when the rain gave a break, we reached a
roadside shop for hot bhajjis. The orders finally missed our count and suhas
had to take help of his smart phone to keep the numbers. If I try to recollect
we had hogged 30+ bhajjis, 15 chilly bhajji, 30+ pakodas, 3 avalakki, one
serving of tea, 2 buttermilk.
We started towards Dubare forest elephant camp for
Rafting. On our way we stopped near a shop to buy Honey. Madikeri is famous for
its spices, honey, home made chocolates and the list is actually very big. We
shopped for honey, chocolates and coffee powder.
Bus journey was filled with
noise and dancing all the way. It was around 4PM when we reached Rafting spot. 18
of us, 6 each in 3 rafts with our guides. Most of us were rafting for third
time so we dint spend time for rules and quickly took positions on the raft.
Our guide, Giri was a localite. He was fun to be with. I don’t remember a
single moment that he shut his mouth. He spoke all south Indian language ofcourse
koncham koncham(Little). And I met someone after a very long time with whom I
could speak in my broken coorgi. He plucked Jamun fruit(Neeralle hannu) for us,
taking the raft close to the bank where these trees were plenty. We saw mango
trees on our way, as expected he played pranks on us and made us sip in those really
soar mangoes. We dived into the water and spent some time floating and
swimming. I was too lazy to row the raft hard and just rowed superficially on the water surface. Dani & Adi did a great job. The rapids were good, surfing only showed how heavy Adi was... hee hee. The best part was the non-stop bug-bug of Giri. Our raft was the last one to complete rafting.