Umm, uhum, uhuhum, hmm.. okie fingers are flexible now, starts typing.
Cast :
3rd October, 2024…
I suddenly got a message in the group chat saying. “ lets plan a trip for october end.” It had been only 2 months since I last met them in August, when I went to Hyderabad, and I really didn’t want to see their faces again.
But couldn’t help it. The options we had were Goa, Gokarna, Rameshwaram, Kanyakumari, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Kodaikanal, Coorg, Kunnur. Considering our budget, we couldn’t go where we wanted to because it costed us 2 kidneys each. If its just one, we could have managed, but sadly, it needed 2.
There was a poll from Pravalika on the night of October 3rd asking for trip confirmation. Pravalika answered “yes” first, because wheelsfrogo doesn’t give her enough work, so she is always free. I had to answer to support her and so did Gayathri.
Varsha opened the poll in the group chat on October 18th for final vote and answered yes to the trip. Typical varsha’s behaviour.
Now we have another poll setup,
How to go:
As expected, I and varsha opted for “freely explore”, and Pravs opted for a package, Gayathri was neutral. And this is where we were still doubting her participation in the trip.
After attending frequent google meets from October 18th to october 26th, to plan for this trip, we hadn’t booked anything other than Hyderabad to Bangalore Bus tickets. Claps for our team work. 👏👏
Then on 26th october, we had a whole day google meet dedicated to book stays and travel within our budget. After planning everything, our big sister, Narala pravalika, sent a scuba diving video in the group chat. Being a scuba enthusiast, I obviously couldn’t oversee it and insisted that we go for scuba diving.
We started contacting scuba diving agencies, and bang💥, now they were asking for our livers since it was peak season. Varsha was about to drop out because of the budget, but we still booked it by giving some advance without asking varsha.
October 30: 10:34 A.M..
As expected, there was a message from varsha saying, she was having fever, cold, and cough, and her parents were asking her to drop from the trip. The one who cares too much, Miss. Pravalika, panicked and called me, obviously i didn’t answer the call. Then Gayathri called me, and I had to pick up because it’s tatkal timings.
Having expertise in tatkal booking for others, I was trusted by my folks (excluding Varsha, because she never cared😂) to book tickets from Bangalore to Honnavar on 31st october. With my magic hands and excellent typing speed, I booked 4 tickets (‘coz that’s the tatkal limit, not my fault). Not flexing 😉, but i want to express my heartful gratitude to my PG Wi-Fi, which never works properly but helped at critical times.
Finally they started from Hyderabad to Bangalore, and my brain stopped functioning for a fraction of a second. For sure, this could be a life time achievement for Gayathri.
The ninja technique that made Varsha recover soon is 1 Dolo+ 2 Citrigen tablets for every 4 hours.
Caution : Don’t try this at home; performed under expert supervision.
Damn, they are actually coming.🙀
They reached Bangalore the next morning, and I still hadn’t packed my stuff. Can’t expect much from a lazy ass like me. By the way, I wanted to do an honorable mention: Pragna Katragadda, thanks a lot, bro for offering your flat to these 3 dorks.❤️
It was time to plan for lunch, and I told them I would cook and bring the food, but they were not ready to risk it at all. They wanted to visit Meghana for lunch 😒. If I had gone that day, half of Meghana’s revenue would have come from me for October! Literally, they know me there. I don’t know why all my Telugu friends always suggest Meghana, but really, can’t expect much from Bangalore. (No offense). Ironically, we still ordered from Meghana, so the revenue thing might be true.
Extremely sorry for spoiling your bedsheet, Pragna. We tried to fix it in everyway possible. 🙇♀️
️Ps: No deep meanings 🤞, it’s the Meghana’s chicken gravy that spilled over.
4:30 P.M, Evening, Ritz Avenue….
We started to Hoodi Metro with 2 trolleys (Pravalika, Gayathri), 1 luggage bag (Varsha), and 5 laptop bags. Awh, I forgot to mention, let me introduce you to the 5th laptop bag’s owner, Pravalika’s sister 💕. Hiding her name and picture because of copyright issues.
We had to take the metro from Hoodi to KSR. Idk why my friends have trust issues with me. I’ve been in Bangalore for a year, but they didn’t trust me when I said it was the Challaghatta line we had to take. The worst part was Pravalika tried to ask the security about the platform.
@Pravalika, Why would you do something like that?
Somehow we boarded the train, and we were short of one berth, but how come, Indian Railways is short of millions of berths! That train was no less than an unreserved train. We had to give up our own seats to people out of empathy. It was hell crowded. The TC himself was helpless because of the Indian population.
We tried to play cards on top of people’s heads, even though none of us knew the right rules. We ordered dominos pizza, and Domino’s Scammed us. Fortunately, we didn’t pay beforehand. Atleast sleeping with empty stomachs is much better than coming back from Gokarna on barefoot.
Okay, the next morning, I opened my eyes, and the top notch scenery I saw was Varsha working on her laptop, like she is Coolcom CEO.
Fret not, We also have another one who works like CEO, meet Adepu Gayathri, Sarees CEO.
Anyway, other than this scene, we saw some amazing views during the train journey. Can’t insert them here; I might need more time to edit the video. The amount of boj I had taken on my kandhe, in this trip is IMMENSE I would say.
Okay, we reached Honnavar railway station, and it was the most remote railway station I‘ve ever visited in my entire life. There were only booked auto’s.
The first time, where we regretted choosing “explore” option. We waited for 30 mins to get our auto after seeking help from our booked stay. As usual, pravalika mood swings, shifted from panic to anger.
Regret count : 1
Eventually, the auto driver arrived, and we started our journey to VIAN Homestay, which was located on a loopline. On the way, we had several thoughts in our minds: Where is he taking us? Will something happen to us? Are we going to come out safely?
We tried our best to play cool. Regret count : 2
Thankfully, it was a family who welcomed us at the stay, so it’s not that frightening anymore tbh.
We went to Honnavar Backwaters that morning, It was cool, but it would have been cooler if we had gone in the evening, the sun was freaking hot. All my group did was click photos. Thankfully I was not the photographer, Gayathri took over the task.🤗
We started to Murudeshwar, had meals in a restaurant which was ultimate trash.
Empty stomach count: 2
Its scuba diving time finally, but one of us had to drop due to health issues, and they kept our group last, f*ck them. We only got 30 secs videos where everyone else got 1.5 mins. Actually we 4 also had health issues, Two can’t see properly underwater with more than -3 eye sight, one has migraine and sinus, one has memory problem, very high changes of her forgetting to breath underwater, one had already done scuba diving, suffering from superiority complex. But still, we risked it all as a team.
Rare times, where we align!
As ours was the last group, We did snorkeling for 2 hours and scuba diving for 30 mins. Me and Gayathri, enjoyed swimming while Varsha and Pravalika were exhausted surviving. For the people who don’t know what actually snorkeling is, they will leave you in the water with not a very good life jacket on, you just have to fight for your life to be on surface of water for hours.
Finally, we finished scuba diving and started heading to Murudeshwar Temple. It was already 7:45 PM when we reached the temple, and the closing time was 8:00 PM. The queue was stretching all the way to the entrance, so unfortunately, we couldn’t go for Darshan. We had dinner, and it rained heavily that night. We had to go back to honnavar for stay. God really didn’t help us much bro, good thing was atleast we made it back safely.
Special shoutout to my new friend, DevaRubiny, whom I met in Scuba Diving(sometimes, my selectively extroverted a*s can’t hold in), she came for a solo trip. Thanks for joining us for dinner! 💓
Suggestion for fellow peeps: If you’re planning a full trip to Gokarna, I recommend booking a stay near Murudeshwar, not Honnavar. We had trouble finding late-night buses.😪
Regret Count:3
It was freaking dark when the bus dropped us off, and our auto driver didn’t show up on time. Our morning thoughts flashed before our eyes again.
Let me share a top tip for exploring in trips, for a successful trip, you need that one person who speaks Hindi well and is a pro at bargaining. Uhm, in this group its me. Honestly, I dont know if i had ever helped my company save that much money which i helped my friends to save in this trip.
We took an auto from Honnavar to Gokarna, and on the way, we needed to book Tatkal tickets for our return journey on Day 3. Me, My friend, Gayathri, Gayathri’s roommate tried for tickets. Hahah, we had no luck, and our bad luck is that we booked tickets from Bangalore to Gokarna mistakenly. Hats off to our planning🫡. The amount of struggle we faced while selling those tickets in Instagram, Whatsapp and Telegram is really not that of a level, sales people selling their company’s products. In the end, we couldn’t sell those tickets.
Now comes the real struggle, Our auto driver couldn’t find our stay location. There were three roads, and as expected, we took two wrong turns before finally finding the right one. It took us 30 minutes to reach Kudle Beach. The frustrating part? We could only enter Kudle Beach by a long set of stairs.
The steps literally shouted : Welcome Bitch, sorry “Welcome to the Beach!” Regret count :4
We were exhausted carrying all the luggage to the way down, we saw the beach, went to the stay, we slept. In the evening, we planned for a beach trek from Kudle beach to OM beach.
My extraordinary genius friends decided to trek on the curved, sloping roads rather than the forest trail, thinking it would be safer. What else could I expect from them?
We went to OM beach to see the sunset, the time we reached there, seemed like the sun already said bye to the sea. Then we also said bye to the sea and went back to our stay.
We had some good food at the beach side restaurants, we forgot to book our bus tickets and got busy bitching about our companies until late night on the beach shore.
Gayathri woke up early and checked for bus tickets, boom💥‼️ There were no tickets left.
Since they didn’t have return tickets to Hyderabad, and I had initially planned to stay 1 more day in Gokarna, I suggested we all stay in Gokarna for 1 more day.
We extended the same stay, and my pals executed planned “sick leaves”😂.
We abandoned the plan to visit Yana Caves and Vibuthi Falls because I don’t have a license, and none of the others could ride a scooter properly. But God gave us another chance to explore, so we didn’t want to waste it. We booked a cab instead.
On the way to yana, I met my old friend who never fails to fail me at the most crucial moments in my life. It’s a mutual friend of Varsha too🫂.My f*cking painful Cycle ;)
We did a tiring trek for nearly 15 mins to reach Yana. The Yana caves is okayish from outside, but sun at upside is trying to make us ash and send us directly to the Vibuthi falls. The Kumta Caves is a good one, worth visiting, with so many small waterfalls on the trekking way.
The one who had memory issues never proved us wrong, she left her phone in a shop while buying magnets and it was lunch time. Surprises us till date how Varsha lived successfully for 22 years. Love you da!
There is nothing to eat near Yana, so we started to Vibuthi falls with empty stomach, and Vibuthi also had a 15 mins slopy trek.
Empty stomach count : 3, Current mood: Hangry
To be honest, if we hadn’t gone to Vibuthi, the trip was not worth it if scuba diving is excluded. Literally watching Vibuthi falls, our stomachs are filled with Joy. The above statement is not entirely true, but its okay to compromise your opinions once a while for exaggeration.
We went back to Kudle and finally saw sun saying bye to the sea. It was a normal view, but experiencing it at a new place made it feel special.
It was our last day, and it felt a little nostalgic. Late-night talks with my 3 gals brought back B.Tech memories. The beach restaurants are the best, damn satisfied with the food. We still had some time, so we visited Gokarna Main beach, did some quick window shopping, and then my friends left for their bus around 4 PM.
My bus was at 9:30 PM, so I stayed at the Gokarna Main beach. Tbh the time I spent at Gokarna beach was the best part of the trip, Just kidding. It gave me time to reflect on myself while watching the sunset, I read my all time go to book “Delivering Happiness”. I did some shopping down the streets also tried few Gokarna sea food specials.
I tried to spend some time alone and understand what’s actually happening in my life, and the truth is I still couldn’t figure out. Maybe, time says it all, no need to stress about it. It’s been a year since we started working, and each of us four has been acting strong all the way, and this break was much needed to let go out all the frustration. The phone calls still help in venting out emotions, but it doesn’t match the aura of genuine in-person talks.
Okay now time to give some gyan:
Even I didn’t believe I would go on a long trip with this gals group, but we made it happen, even we messed it up at times, I would say its still an enjoyable one. Girls trips are actually fun, every girl out there who think having a guy friend in the group would help a lot, trust me it doesn’t make much difference. In a country like India, you really can’t be safe all the time, and not sure when you will get raped. Even with the utmost precautions, we can’t escape from fate at sometimes. So let the worries go, learn to live with periods and live life to the fullest.
When life makes it too difficult to pretend strong, I highly recommend everyone take a friends’ trip once in a while — of course, within your budget and without selling your kidneys.
Thanks for reading until here. Now go back to reality and work your as*of.