I remember last year that I was quite frustrated when I had to miss the first edition of the Sunfeast 10k run. It was I think on May 19th; I was traveling that weekend and so could not make it. I had planned it to be my initiation into regular long distance running. It was not to be, and I ultimately initiated my self into long distance running through last year’s bangalore ultra half  marathon.

However, this year I enrolled well in advance, and made sure I was around when the day came. I had also planned to train well enough in order to lock in a respectable run timing. I was aspiring to make it a sub 60 min run which by standards would have been an improvement over the ultra last year. Though the training started off well, I could not keep the momentum going. Lot of pressure at work and shifting into our new house in the month before the run took it toll. My practice sessions were quite erratic, so much so that I could manage only a few 5k+ runs before the actual run; and most of those practice runs were indoors on the treadmill.

Now as I clearly know, road running is quite a different ball game compared to tread mill running. And it showed on the 31st. Even though I was mentally quite prepared, in the end I did not manage to run the entire 10k non-stop. I struggled quite a bit between 4th and 6th km; especially during the uphill on the 6th km. Also, I was constantly hitting my Max Heart Rate (MHR),  forcing me to slow down quite often. I ended the run with a timing of approx 1 hour and 12 mins (72 mins) as against my target of 60 mins (at least).

I have quite mixed feelings about the run event experience though. Last years ultra was a core core running event (minimum frills); also the setting for the run was great…nice green surroundings..no traffic around you….you ran with a decent crowd but you had your own private space to run. … I felt too crowded out in the Sunfeast 10k.  Obviously with about 8000 people running, I shouldn’t have expected any better; but at times you just had to slow down because there were too many people around you – a virtual running traffic jam.:) This especially happened on the stretch from Manipal Centre to Ulsoor Road junction.

The experience was also not so great as I was there all by myself – no Sriram and no supporters (read Pranitha and Shamala)!

Well anyways, it was a decent enough experience, and if I ask myself, will I do it again – the answer is yes! But an important learning – this year I decided to forego the Timing Chip cause I didnt think it was that important as I had my ways to time myself. What I didnt know was that participants with no timing chip were given second preference (the two sets of participant were kept in different enclosures like some stupid caste system!!)…what this resulted in was that I was already behind some 1000 people  when I started my run. . .

Well, the resolution from now on is to go for a run every weekend through the RFL apart from my during the week training…i have foregone quite a few feet on the street (FOTS) event…lets see if I catch one this weekend

So I am pretty sure that all of us get this anonymous forwards which will tell you to beware of something . . . I generally discard these forwards without a second look. But this one that I got today morning sounded extremely disturbing and something into which people can get conned easily if true . . . hence would like to share this….

“BEWARE GUYS…..If you have a car…..!!!!!! AND BE SAFE AS ALWAYS.!!!

Just last weekend on Friday night we parked in a public parking area. As we drove away I noticed a sticker on the rear window of the car. When I took it off after I got home, it was a receipt for gas. Luckily my friend told me not to stop as it could be someone waiting for me to get out of the car. Then we received this email yesterday:

‘WARNING FROM POLICE – BEWARE OF PAPER ON THE BACK WINDOW OF YOUR VEHICLE–NEW WAY TO DO CARJACKINGS (NOT A JOKE)‘ Heads up everyone! Please, keep this circulating. .. You walk across the parking lot, unlock your car and get inside. You start the engine and shift into Reverse. When you look into the rear-view mirror to back out of your parking space, you notice a piece of paper stuck to the middle of the rear window. So, you shift into Park, unlock your doors, and jump out of your car to remove that paper (or whatever it is) that is obstructing your view. When you reach the back of your car; that is when the carjackers appear out of nowhere, jump into your car and take off. They practically mow you down as they speed off in your car. And guess what, ladies? I bet your purse is still in the car. So now the carjacker has your car, your home address, your money, and your keys. Your home and your whole identity are now compromised!

BEWARE OF THIS NEW SCHEME THAT IS NOW BEING USED. If you see a piece of paper stuck to your back window, just drive away. Remove the paper later. And be thankful that you read this e-mail. I hope you will forward this to friends and family, especially to women. A purse contains all kinds of personal information and identification documents, and you certainly do NOT want this to fall into the wrong hands. Please keep this going

This might happen to you, to your friends colleagues and any one you know = take care!!!

So I bounced this off with a few of my friends and apparently there were reports of something like this in the newspapers a few days back.  There are no two pov’s here – this is downright disgusting

However, better safe than sorry . . . so just spread the word around if you want to . . .

Yesterday morning around 7:15 am I saw a truck all trashed up on the (Outer) Ring Road, around 200 meters ahead of the Agara junction (if you are coming from Silk Board)…

The truck was all banged up, taking along a tree and an electric pole with it….and looking at the mangled remains, it did not seem anyone would have survived either . . .

Well, the real objective is not go over the gory details – its been (more than) 24 hrs since this might have happened, and yet the twisted up truck, the uprooted tree and the uprooted pole, still lie at the same place… the glass strewn all over the road . . . and no one has bothered to come down yet and remove the remains …

How much time does it take to remove the remains ?? Are the municipality (BBMP etc etc) folks so indifferent to the kind of chaos its been causing since yesterday morning? I have been lucky to escape the chaos since I cross this point at non-peak traffic hours, but I am pretty sure (given my myriad experiences) it must be causing unending jams at peak traffic hours!

And we expect the government to save us from bomb blasts! they don’t even seem bothered to spare us this little misery . . .

I am a big fan of oriental food – chinese, thai, vietnamese – but am constrained to vegetarian oriental food. Often when I visit oriental restaurants, I am faced with this problem of too much meat floating around (When I don’t have that much choice, I still eat in these places). Hence, I am always delighted when you do find a place such as Luo Han, which serves oriental (Chinese, Thai etc) vegetarian food.

Location

27th Main, HSR Layout, Opposite Food days. For people coming from the Koramangala side, get to the Agara junction and keep going straight. Take the first right available after you have crossed the junction fully. This will take you into the 27th Main. Keep going straight, till you hit Food Days and then take a right. You should find Luo Han right there. For people coming from the other side, i.e. ORR, take the left  before hitting agara junction

Ambience and Service

Now this is not the place if you are looking for some high-flying oriental place with a glittering ambience and lightining fast service. The place is neat and clean with the typical oriental decor. There is enough space available inside the restaurant and the hosts are very amiable and friendly folks. Service sometimes falters when the crowd builds up. When we started going to this place, hardly anyone used to come except on weekends; those times we faced no problems with the promptness in service; however now the crowds are building up even on weekdays, with the place being mostly full on weekends; Good for Luo Han cause  I personally think the place deserves it .

So, if you come to this place, have some time on hand and be patient to savor the good food they serve.

Culinary Delights

Which brings me to the food! I have no complaints here. The food is excellent in taste, always well prepared and there is abundant variety. The soups are great (all of them are nice; my recent favorite is some Thai Lemon Soup (thin)); the starters are varied with the standard Momos being my favorite. The main course and side dishes are also abundant in variety, ranging from midly spicy to hot stuff. Ofcourse Phad Thai remains my out and out favorite here; the other combination which is very delightful is the Luo Han Stir Fried Delight ( its basically full of vegetables in a light sauce ) with Steamed rice ; very tasty and light on the stomach too. Most of the other dishes are very nice – the various noodles, the varied rices and different side dishes – do try out the sides dishes with tofu and potato . . . awesome in taste

Price

Extremely affordable

Verdict

Even thinking of those dishes I just mentioned above makes my mouth water. Definitely a place worth checking out. We are regulars out there. But then as I suggested, not the place if you are looking for a swanky joint. But do drop by if you are looking for a simple, easy going place with some excellent food!

Nay, its not about music, if that’s what brought you to this post! But two equally bad jams in a row has sent my head into a tizzy! I need to vent it out!

On second thoughts..it might be about jamming eh!? maybe a bunch of folks came up together with a new tune while struck in a traffic jam….and there you go….we have jamming! hahahahah…..the state of mind I am in makes even this sound funny!

The worst part of these jams is that you are never able to find out why the jam was in the first place! I read somewhere yesterday that people have gotten used to this s***t,  but I’ll say that people have resigned to the fact that the traffic in Bangalore is not gonna improve one wee bit, hence you might as well come up with devious tricks to be the first to reach the finish line! Go on wrong side, crush others on the u-turns, honk you to death and blind you yellow!

In all this madness, at least one heartening thing I could see – today the traffic policeman were strategically placed not to allow vehicle ride on the wrong side of the road to avoid the jam….and we still have these MORONS with total disregard for the system who did just that…talk about culture! at least the constable was noting down their numbers! God only knows if that will be actioned! Why cant these constables be empowered to confiscate the vehicles then and there?

I hope atleast the ride back home will be a little better …..

I have been in Bangalore for now close to 2.5 years and my wife’s been here 25!, yet we hadn’t heard of this place until a couple of months back, courtesy our friends – Sriram and Pranitha.

After getting back to Bangalore from our Himalayan trek, they recommended this as a place to savor the delights the southern civilization had to offer:). Though at that time we chose to visit Nagarjuna’s in Jayanagar, come this Independence day, we decided to have a showdown with Krishna Cafe.

Location

Koramangala 5th Block, Next to GK Vale, on top of Kairali..

Ambience and Service

The place is neat, clean and hygenic and the service has been very very prompt and good on all days that we have been there. Even when the place is exceptionally crowded (which it is on most days), I have found the service to be very prompt!

The Food -  “Core” offering of this place

“Smack you lips” delights! Awesome awesome food! Infact, it is the best south indian restaurant we have been to in bangalore…we have been to a lot of darshans and sagars and to Vidhyarthi Bhavan  in Basavanagudi (supposedly the best dosa place in bangalore) … but man this place is special!

The idlis are hot and so soft; the paper roast is huge and crispy to the core. The accompaniments, three of them – coconut chutney, tomato/onion chutney and sambhar – are fresh and exquisite in taste! The sambhar is perfect in taste – pretty much the one I grew up on . He has all other good stuff like Kanchipuram idlis, Rava idli, and the list goes on….the coffee is delicious as would be expected after all the amazing delights he serves.

The other great thing we liked about this place is that Krishna Cafe has a different menu every evening featuring select south indian delicacies. e.g. on Sunday evenings he serves Idiappams (or Sevai as I know it and one of my utmost favorites) with Cocunut Milk or Morkuzhambu! Yummy!

The standard stuff deliciously made- idlis, dosas and vadas -  coupled with other special south indian delicacies makes this joint a veritable foodie delight! We went to this place first on Aug 15 and since then have already been there 10+ times:)

Anyone who has not been there, is missing out big time!

Rafting is one adventure sport that we had heard a lot of and were keen to experience the thrill that goes with it. When we came to know that there was a Level 2 rapid at Bheemeshwari, we did not waste any time in arranging a trip to the rocky, crocodile infested Cauvery waters. Shamala, Me, Pranitha, Sriram, Garima, Priyank, Prashant and Manasi ventured on this trip.

All About Rafting

I found this interesting post while searching for reviews of rafting in Bheemeshwari, which very nicely explains what whitewater rafting is all about…

Whitewater is formed in a rapid, when a river’s gradient drops enough to form a bubbly, or aerated and unstable current; the frothy water appears white. Rapids or the entire river are graded according to an International grading system in six categories, from I to VI, I being the easiest and the safest and VI being the toughest and most dangerous, almost suicidal. Raft is a specially crafted boat like equipment which floats on the water. As rafters you are supposed to sit on the periphery of the raft with a paddle each in your hand. It has multiple channels which are designed in a modular way and builds redundancy in case of any part of raft going bad. A rafting instructor is with you who gives you commands to paddle forward or backward or not to paddle according to where you are in the river, where and how big the rapid is and of course how confident you are in handling yourself in case the raft topples.

Reaching Bheemeshwari

Bheemeshwari Fishing Camp, at Jungle Lodges Resort, is around 100 kms away from Bangalore. It roughly takes about 2.5 hours to reach. The route is fairly simple with decent directions on the way. Basically, you proceed towards Kanakpura from Bangalore. The next named place on the route was Muthathi (which is around 6 kms from Bheemeshwari). Around 30 kms pass through lush green reserve forest area; the drive was extremely pleasant, what with the weather turning really friendly; the lush greenery with some really good road conditions made the drive a veritable treat.

Hospitality at Jungle Lodges

This was one element which left a lot to be desired. We had booked through an agency called, “Care India” (http://www.careindia.in/wwr_rafting.html). However, no one from this organization was present at Jungle Lodges to host us. The staff at Jungle Lodges was also very unfriendly. We reached at 9 am, hoping to start the rafting by 10. However, when we inquired, we got a curt reply that one batch had already gone rafting and that we would need to wait for them to come back…nothing about how long it would take. There’s nothing to drink or snack inside Jungle Lodges..not even a simple cup of tea. Everything was only for “Guests”…people staying overnite…..this particular aspect was very irritating.

We loitered around for some checking out the river and doing general timepass. Finally, we started getting ready around 10:45 types. So be prepared for such delays…

Waiting for Rafting

Into the Cauvery

Thankfully, our guides were very unlike the Jungle Lodges staff. Extremely friendly, sometimes at their wittiest best, the guides made all of us at ease immediately. There were 18 of us in this batch, and we split in three rafts.

About 60% of the time we were passing through calm waters. While passing through the calm stretches, our guide encouraged us to jump into the water. “Buoyed” by the life jackets, most of us in the raft took two – three dips…

There were three or four stretches of rapids, the culmination coming at the end when we passed through what is called the “hole”. The water really dips here and its becomes very turbulent and choppy – a real white-water rafting experience.

We “rafted” about 7-8 kms. At the other end, jeeps were waiting for us to haul us back to the camp. I enjoyed the jeep ride too, the “cool wind rushing through my hair”:)

After Rafting

Lunch and Back

We were back at the camp by 1 pm; lunch was served late by around 2 pm…ideally it should have ready by the time we got back to camp. Another aberration! Lunch over, we wound up our stuff and started back.  The drive back was equally good; a cool breeze blowing amidst some nice sunshine. We hit Bangalore by around 4:45, and were home by 5 pm.

My final two cents….

Bheemeshwari is a very nice get away from Bangalore; the drive is awesome and the roads are pretty decent; the rafting is a nice experience; the guides are very nice guys; its not dangerous at all (i had this doubt); though the adrenalin seekers might be a little disappointed…all in all a Sunday spent very well!