Bent Rim, Broken Bumper and Sad Roads.

Just back from my native place. Wondering about the experience of driving 400 kms in 12 (!!!!!!!!!!!!) hours. Heard that the NH via Sakaleshpur is not drivable, and decided to go via Mysore. Till Mysore the road is like a sweet dream, then its 'ok' till Kushal Nagar. From here its bad, sorry! worst!!!.

Only thing I do not understand is why the roads of our neighboring state are good, despite of receiving same or more amount of rain every year. The moment you cross the Kerala- Karnataka border at 'Saradka', a small sleepy village, the roads are nothing but good ( at least when compared to the roads of Karnataka). I can understand, its difficult to maintain roads in ghat section, but why cant they keep plain stretch like one between Puttur and Sullia clean and pothole free. Everyday thousands of vehicles travel by that road and now that’s the only major road connecting Mangalore to Bangalore after closure of Sakaleshpur Ghat.

The title is nothing but the summary of this trip. Hope this experience will not repeat.

End of Another Week

Last weekend I had been to ISKON temple. When compared to old, small, silent, cold temples of Dakshina Kannada (DK) this temple is too posh and does not evocate the 'bhakthi' in me. But the efforts they are putting in providing quality mid day meals for school children in rural areas by 'Akshaya Patra' should be appriciated.
There are a lot of small unknown temples in the south of DK. I had been to a lot of temples there, but have not taken a pic or documented. Thinking of doing that now onwards.

I wanted to ride to 'Skandagiri' last weekend, but the rains ruined that idea. But when I was sitting at home, I got an idea of updating my travel bolg with details of my old travels. Will be doing that soon.

My new COMPUTER

Yesterday I bought a new CPU ( AMD Athlon 64 X 2 - 2.1 GHz, ASUS M2X MB, 2GB RAM, DVD RW and 200GB HDD ) . In terms of speed, its ahead of light years than our old P2 320 MHz, 256 MB RAM, 6GB HDD .
Now editing photos, uploading music to ipod, watching movies etc are done at a faster pace than earlier.
Wanted to take the dust off my camera, but due to arrival of this baby, I was very busy.

ಭಾರತೀಪುರ

ತುಂಬಾ ದಿನಗಳಿಂದ ಅನಂತಮೂರ್ತಿಯವರ ಈ 'ಭಾರತೀಪುರ'ಕಾದಂಬರಿ ಓದಿ ಓದಿ ಮರುಳಾಗಿ ಕೋನೇಗೂ ಮುಗಿಸಿ ತುಂಬಾ ಸಂತೊಷಪಟ್ಟೆ. ಇದಕ್ಕಿಂತ ಅವರ ಹಳೇ ಪುಸ್ತಕಗಳೇ (ಸಂಸ್ಕಾರ, ಅವಸ್ಥೆ ..) ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿದ್ದವು ಅನ್ನಿಸುತ್ತಿದೆ . ಇನ್ನೊಂದು ಸಾರಿ ಅವರು ಬರೆದ ಪುಸ್ತಕ ತಗೊಳ್ಳುವ ಮುಂಚೆ ಸರಿಯಾಗಿ ಆಲೋಚನೆ ಮಾಡಬೇಕು. ಏನೇ ಅಂದ್ರೂ ಪೂ. ಚಂ. ತೇ, ಯಸ್ ಯಲ್ ಭೈರಪ್ಪ ಅವರ ಬರಹಗಳು ನಿಜವಾಗಿಯೂ ಒಂದು ತೂಕ ಜಾಸ್ತಿ.

Test Drive, Meeting and Flat Wheel

This weekend was a mixture of all these things .

Saturday I test drove Aveo UV-A and my perception of ' American Car' , which I had with GM completely changed. Its super silent inside and ride quality remembers of Palio. Engine is responsive, rear legroom is good, instrument panel and dashboard is well designed. Anyways I am least bothered with these things as I am not the one who is buying this :). I badly wanted to test drive this car and that’s it !.

Also I bought a scratch guard for my SLR's LCD screen. Though I had to pay my hard (???!!!!) earned 400 Rs on this 2 square inch transparent plastic piece, felt good after seeing that it perfectly fits the screen. Finally got rid of the duplicate 'LCD protector’.

Sunday I met my 'primary school to pg' classmates and measured the length of brigade road and the height of Garuda in addition to endless chat about the school / college days. Finally it was 10 PM and it was time to go home.

After all these 'feel good' factors, I had my first flat tyre. I thought that I am too good at riding on a flat tyre, and had to replace the tube at 10.30 PM, which made me to squeeze 300 more rupees.

Thats all and the weekend is over.