Our lodge is a beautiful one, away from the general array, it overlooks the courtyard if you can call one, the swings and the walking area, the pool was away, so no sight of any nymph and Eliot's morbid men who plunge to kill the hangover after a good drink in the trickle of a bugging rain which is so Matheran -specific!!Our room was the deluxe bedroom on top, we had to climb a flight of steep wooden stairs to get there, one step you miss and you land on your derrière which can be pretty painful and dangerous if you have water and monkeys around. Caution, caution!!
We met a bunch of monkeys near our door and shoo-ed them like shoo-shoo, go away boys and girls!! Small puddles of water everywhere, yayy, we have a room!!
The disaster only began, you wont believe all our bags got heavier by 3 kilos because of the rain water that seeped so happily!! either we were naive not to pack our clothes in plastic bags or we were dumb not to expect rain!! or both!!
So, the unpacking was an agonizing experience, all of us looked like drowned rats!!Everything in my bag was not spared save some unmentionables and my toiletries, the picture in the room is well, like this,
3 girls who switched all the fans on to dry their clothes from the bag and outside the bag, no electricity and no hot water, no country coal iron,no what more, :( :( :(
The room was damp-ish, were we imagining or the room was actually cold?? switched off the AC, tried to keep our trekking shoes in suspension so that the water runs down and the shoes get lighter, the exhaust of the AC was slightly helpful, thank god for small mercies!!
Took pains to hang/peg our clothes in every possible place, including the fridge door and TV, tried to get the dryer guy to dry our damp/wet clothes, he will come in the evening, :(
entered the bathroom, spacious slanting like the roof, I thought, but good when I just thought that was some private space, the monkeys broke my reverie and outside the commode window, touching the roof, I can see my lesser fortunate ancestors screeching!! I waited for them to disappear.
Ramya enjoyed some sleep in her unchanged train attire, Supi went shopping for some essentials, wore fresh wet clothes and asked us to be ready for breakfast at 11:30 am.
Looked presentable, went downstairs to check on the male Hakunas, the situation was even worse there, thick heavy jeans oozing with water and jackets and tees gone! How much can you squeeze water from already wet clothes to make them wearable, but body heat is also something, I reckon, ready for breakfast??
Breakfast was pleasant and we gulped quite a lot, travel plans announced and also the social bit.
Hakunas decided to travel/explore on our own.
Let me mention this before I forget, this is to do with Gowtham's new talent of remixes. He happened to hum a song from Dil Chahta Hai and the 2nd verse went wrong, he was trying to recover that badly but no luck for quite sometime, not to say that his efforts were not genuine and sincere :)
He happened to share umbrella space with me, when I found his notes going to rapper Akon's Lonely song!! That's blasphemy, of course now he knows the song by heart!!
We got plastic raincoats for 15 bucks and hats to act as rainguards, very Mexican in cut and taste!! We trekked for almost 2 hours. Echo point is breathtaking and also, an old bungalow full of moss and lichens before losing our way ,courtesy Luqman and coming to the lodge for lunch, lunch was forgettable, coz after that, I was very de-motivated to travel in a weather which was my usual fare in Shillong daily during the rainy season.So, Ramya and I decided to give the slip and acted very pricey, we managed also!!
We slept the entire afternoon and watched TV, can you beat that??!!! We had lot of similar tastes and views about so many things, bitched a little too much, at least I did!! and the near horrors of the trip!!
Sometime at 5:30-6 in the evening, Suparna came back, exhausted in the rain-walk and snoozed and Krishna came to give us company chatting.The dryer guy came, cajoled him to taking all our clothes and return them by 9pm that evening, he fleeced us bountifully, but musibat ke samay mein gadha ko bhi baap banao.Pardon the not fitting idiom!!
Lot of PYTs in the pool, our male Hakunas also had their voyeuristic moments :) when we find out something happened to Mallik, Gowtham and Ram, now what?? So Krishna fed them with brownies, stale or not stale, let's not get into the details ;)
Gowtham is also very accident prone, btw!! He and the rest used to tease me and my bag, potli baba ki bag, that bag had medicines and all the 1st aid he required for himself and also a couple of others, ahem ahem he offered help very gallantly. Seriously,they all looked all so duh! Somuda, Ramya and I went to the male bastion to check on the seriousness, Ram looked in some kind of stupor, not actually induced but the brownies did it!So, Ram, the photographer had himself locked out coz his roomies left for a walk and he was there, lying on a small diwan, absolutely knocked out by a brownie, zzzzzzzzzzz!
Mallik tried to look controlled but you can't hide for long, the brownie gave him a royal ache!!
Gowtham probably resigned to his fate that such things happen to him only, haha!!
Some newfound friend of Vardhman is also amongst us, I especially don't like the person concerned's awwwful presence, big pseudo-moofat he is!!So, before these guys assume it's a food poisoning case, I give my gyan on the presence of rum in the brownie preparation, the chap does not like me or my two cents, he makes the mistake of opening his mouth and saying something that is not very Kiran happy or worthy!! I was not in a barraging mood, so I spared him with a gentle but snide remark on his ignorance and his geographical limitations! He has never spoken to me after that :D, he did try to make amends at some other time, but a royal ignore is hard to miss and if it comes with an arrogant dismissal, it's worse!!
I get worked up pretty fast and after that to ward off unnecessary nuisance, we hit the dance floor and jigged a lot, Ramya and I danced and danced, Supi slept and slept!
Never saw the guys dance so much and yeah, the moves were scary!! ;)
Retired to sleep with a pledge to wake up early for a possible walk to Lake Charlotte. I refused giving my umby to some insignificant soul and my dried clothes came back, yay!!
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