I had earlier written a review of the Malabar Beach Front resort and Spa in Nileshwar for your reading. There is no justice to saying how good an experience is without showing a small video of the same. So in this post I present to you a video of the Resort facilities so you may experience it before deciding to go there.
I had also written yet another article on what can go wrong in planning journeys specific to going to this resort. You may wish to read that article here as well.
(image credit : www.indiarailinfo.com)
The man inside the house is dressed only in a dhoti and is sitting facing his bare back to the busy main road either oblivious to the surroundings or perhaps ingrained in the fact that life has to continue despite the contraints that the world outside has to offer. He is either watching TV or just medidating in the midst of all the hustle and bustle barely a few feet away from the floor where he sits on. His palatial house of yesteryears perhaps offers the solace to him that the outer world can’t.
The pavements are decorated with navaratri dolls and vegetable and fruit vendors lined up for many a kilometer that the eye can see. With not even an inch left on the road, the traffic is everywhere. A loud sustained honk generated when you press the squeezy green ball shaped invention is umistakable as it announces that a vehicle perhaps 100,000 times larger than the horn is arriving at breakneck speed at rubbing distance from you. The driver seems least bothered whether there are humans walking on the road, or other vehicles either merging from the alleyways or from the opposite side. Frankly its upto one’s destiny to heed that honk and move away. Else the bark of pure unadulterated tamil is worse than its bite in Chennai.
There are both fast and slow paced worlds coexisting here. The traffic is maddeningly fast. Someone exits the main road to join a by lane, while someone appears suddenly and merges into the main road. Another guy does the unpredictable act of darting from the opposite lane aiming his squeaky two wheeler straight into one empty parking slot on your side. Driving straight on your face that is without any feeling of an error. He got that most coveted parking for the next half an hour that no one managed to notice.
As I approach an intersection there is a large corner plot which has been demolished. The compound wall now has large structures standing tall made of thatched coconut leaves. Every now and then I can notice the moon playing hide and seek as I walk by this large empty land. Its only a matter of time before a swanky new commercial complex or some apartment comes up here. As I near the corner, I am only able to notice very bright rays of a couple of sharp yellow bulbs and can smell something large which will unmistakably squash me if I dont pause.
A large vehicle followed by a few pesky two wheelers dart from one by lane to another putting to a complete halt every vehicle on the main road (the bus included). This precision system works without a signal or a cop and its merely based on an understanding of the teams working at right angles to each other. The traffic is self managed. Almost twenty five years ago, when I came shopping here, a series of petromax lights on vegetable stall quadricycles welcomed be in the cacophony shouting at top pitch – thakkali, urulaikazhungu, keerai, vengaayam.
There was no way you could get along without buying any one of that after a heightened marketing pitch. The very same fruit and vegetable stalls still dot the busy main road even today – petromaxes replaced with swanky chinese CFL lamps running on solar charge – minus the marketing. The old charm still remains but no one calls you to buy unless you stop by anymore.
Along the corner is a temple with people stopping by paying a visit to the diety, wishing that their lives become better than what it is while vendors are busy selling puja items to help the cause. Somewhere along two guys dressed in lungies are sitting besides lots of unsold navaratri dolls lamenting on low sales this year and how people are losing the traditional touch. Opposite the temple is a small but clear board in tamil that reads white font on blue background – “Saloon” – hair in chennai will quadruple the amount of sweat your body can generate, so you do need someone who can “take care” of that for good.
As I walk along, I notice a rather burly man, about three times my size (just to let you know my wife feels I am a pot bellied ‘fother’ to my kids already). He wears a neat full sleeved shirt rolled to 3/4th of the arms. His veshti can give an inferiority complex to Mamooty in the “salute Ramrajkku salute” ad. The folds of his veshti expose his rather large thighs, knees and strong hairy legs ending in a sandal. His gaze is fixed on me, and his large eyeballs look threatening and menacing. As I walk forward, I realize he is looking at something behind me. Some distance further the street gets dark due to lack of shops for a brief period.
This is place where dimly lit locked up houses are present, and I notice two friends are chatting up sitting on the pavement. One of them explains his injured fingers to another while showing the bandage. They share a laugh or two as I walk past. As I go further, a share auto screeches to a halt in front of me blocking my path and a man in a hurry jumps right onto my face from the auto. The share auto revolution has now managed to make the normal auto drivers by storm and they think again and they now “put meter” which is equivalent to the 8th wonder of the world.
Strong smells of agarbathi, degree kaapi fill the air as I walk further past. At a corner of Brindavan street, a huge shop screams of Krishna Sweets with the traditional mysorepa kept all over the place. I continue walking past in search of a certain Jockey showroom when I notice how dark the street has gotten suddenly. There are vehicles constantly whizzing past you reminding you to take care of your mortal remains assuming they have scared the rest of the shit within you while brushing past. “Anney, Seenu anney” screams a guy across the street from his garage. I continue to be amazed how some people live their daily life in a garage in an atmosphere dominated by sweat. Seenu anney does not respond and I walk on.
A bunch of auto drivers are loudly discussing something and it seems like anytime they would break into a fight. Whether they would hurt someone is anyone’s guess but most probably not. A woman screams something from an apartment on top to someone on the road at a time when mobile phones are the thing of the day even to talk from one room to another within the same house.
A bit further I notice a rather neat and well built small apartment on my left with huge entry gates and some builders name glorified on it. I fail to notice on my right something dark, black and almost non existent to the naked eye unless noticed carefully. Its nothing short of about fifty years old and the moss and algae all over without any light around makes it an apartment in complete contrast to the one I just otherwise noticed. Not to forget to mention two big multi utility vehicles squeezed into an already small lane.
Finally I reach a junction from where one cannot miss noticing the all encompassing Pothi’s store glittering away in lights that could perhaps light up a locality of frustrated voters in some other village outside the city. I find the Jockey store finally and quickly get into the comfort of the airconditioned lifestyle inside the shop. As my sweat from walking during the evening dries up almost instantaneously a rather confused store attender wonders which undergarment to show me.
He looks at me like I have come from Mars. He gives me a stare like I am not going to make a successful purchase and the whole atmosphere is now beginning to turn a futile shopping experience. When I ask for something that he does not have he says – “two shops later there is Fashionberg, you must check there you will surely get it”. I sign out of the store and stand in disbelief two shops later. “Fashionberg” is a 10×10 store with 100 customers already standing inside and I am sure the Germans would be feeling the heat seeing someone use their naming style for a shop this small.
I decide to walk away almost instantaneously and walk past the Venkateshwara Boli stall. I must say that all Boli stalls have something to do with the name Venkat (venkateshwara, venkataramana) to be successful. A father asks his young daughter – “Bonda saapadrayaa?” as he points to the shelf full of Bondas lined up. As I ask the store owner whether he accepts card and get a negative reply some others are jostling behind me uncontrollably with their urge to eat that “soodanna bajji rendu” just ordered before me. As I walk further past back to my home I notice a few more stalls ahead after a dark patch. A whizzing two wheeler driven by a lady and her young daughter on pillion abruptly stop at the dark side of the street.
After witnessing what seemed as a never ending chaos of overflowing traffic I assumed that there is a traffic jam ahead only to understand later that the woman stopped just behind a huge DUSTBIN which has been intentionally left at the middle of the busy street. When I was just feeling good for the woman who stopped on time avoiding crashing into the dustbin I was dumbfounded when she picked up a cover full of garbage, threw it into the dustbin in “rajini style” and vanished from the place all in one go. I was left imagining what kind of person would come all the way with her daughter in tow on a two wheeler to a designated dustbin to just throw some trash?
Finally as I walk past the last stretch towards my home I notice a clothes showroom which is brightly lit with a board saying – ‘all credit and debit cards accepted with no service charge’ prominently displayed in front of the shop. In today’s world its a matter of being customer oriented and service oriented. In a world where shark eats shark, you need to woo people to stay in business. And its so much more the case in an area like west mambalam where the crowd is humongous, the hunger has to be fed at the earliest and a missed opportunity means that you would be out of business on a sustained failure.
I cannot help noticing the temporary shed blocking 50% of a street as I reach my home. It seems the lady who owns this shed has single handedly fought with everyone in the locality who tried evicting her saying the government alloted her the land years ago and she will see how anyone will try getting her to vacate her hut. She speaks of political contact at government circles who she will go to if people disturb her existence.
Welcome to west mambalam, Chennai.
The Destiny Farmstay is about 25-30 kms away from Ooty main bus stand. The car parking in Destiny is about 2km away from the actual farmstay, and the road beyond that does not permit normal sedans or hatchbacks to get to the actual farmstay as its very slushy, extremely bumpy and risky in terms of damage to the vehicles. The directions provided by the resort is fairly accurate, but towards the end you may have to keep your ears and eyes open for signboards, turns, identification points and the likes.
An army truck belonging to the Little Earth group who run destiny farmstay, took us from the car parking into the resort. The ride can be very bumpy and little kids can feel rattled and extremely afraid as did my little one. So take care of this part. The reception at the resort was neat and kept well attended and the staff there were very courteous in welcoming the people to the stay. A welcome drink was also made available on arrival since it would mostly be beyond noon when people reach there. As other formalities were being completed, the lunch menu was also being taken for order from different guests so that lunch could be made available on time.
A point to note here about the lunch or dinner is that they are limited in timings and one has to be within the time frame of cafeteria being open to source the required dishes. Room service is available at a cost but not always. So its best you return to the cafeteria at specified times in order to avoid missing out on the food. And you guessed it right that there is nothing near the resort where you can otherwise go for food and so you are by yourself. Another thing I felt about the food was that it was quite expensive (even beyond bangalore standards) which is not a good thing. This is always a demand supply factor resorts capitilize on and I am okay with that if the resort were to be otherwise highly rated. Though TripAdvisor rates this resort high, one must understand the fact that there are actually very few new, other resorts, around this place. So naturally everyone who goes here would tend to recommend only this one. Additionally they do not add too much spice into the food, so its kind of kid friendly too which is a plus.
The rooms themselves are nestled neatly along a row overlooking a valley created by more than few mountain slopes. This is the valley where sloped farming is done. When we went to the resort rains were lashing ooty, and towards the evening the atmosphere was damp and the skies opened up a bit. The sunset was a surreal experience. The rooms were large with two single beds put back to back. So that meant some ample room for four of us (two kids). The toilets were large and neat, however not always did we get hot water. You can compare that to my review of the eagle eye holidays in chikmagalur where I did have hot water 24 hours of the day. So if they can do it, why not Destiny?
The room was supposedly a deluxe room, but the only deluxe part about it was the front verandah area overlooking the valley. Other than that the sofa inside the room was not well maintained and the springs had worn out. It was more uncomfortable to sit on it than anything the other way round. The rooms also had no tube lights or no fans and had a coffee maker in case you needed a quick one.
The farming itself consisted of many different type of flowers, cabbages, carrots and the likes being cultivated there. In addition to this they had a horse stable with atleast 3-4 horses who would take you for a ride at a specified time in the mornings with supervision on a high ground area. In addition to this were a large amount of cows, and some sheep. There were also rabbits and ducks which were near the pond down the valley. There were hundred odd steps that led to the valley below which is a good exercise if you take your kids down and back, assuming you are carrying them.
In addition to this, there is a disco room that’s operational at night, and there is a bonfire every night which in my opinion is absolutely necessary. Its advisable to carry a set of diapers, all essentials for kids, and atleast three pairs of footwear for kids. Some woolens and raincoats and atleast one or two umbrellas are a must.
Please be advised that there are NO medical facilities anywhere nearby atleast for a good 20+ kilometers, so you have to take all medical supplies that you might need. Remember that your car is parked a good 2-3 km away from the resort from where the nearest hospital is another 20km away, so this could be risky if you need urgent medical attention. From what I spoke with hotel staff, I am not sure that they are addressing this need.
Its also mostly likely that the cafeteria or reception would remain out of reach beyond some earthly hours. There is also a well stocked library to spend some time in. One of the major reasons I went to this place was that they had advertised some activities for the kids such as nature painting and so on, but the person conducting these was away on holiday himself, so one promise never met. Luckily since I carried a whole lot of sketch pens myself, I was able to get some paper and let my son try his artwork there.
I stayed at Destiny Farmstay for only one night, but I feel its an experience where kids learn about farming, and look and feel domestic animals once in a way. To summarize Destiny is aiming to be unique in what it offers, but the expensive food and no medical help nearby might make it go out of your list for a holiday. If you still want to give it a try, the location is beautiful and would relax a tired soul.
The cost for a deluxe room towards end of March was 5,500 + and the three time meal cost came to almost 1,700 +, add a fuel of almost 3,000 + from bangalore upto the resort and we are looking at around 10,000 for a day’s worth of holiday.
Tags: agriculture, animals, avalanchi, bandipur, bangalore, bengaluru, bidadi, blog, bonfire, car park, channapatna, cows, desitny, disco, distance, domestic, earth, emerald dam, farm, farmstay, food, gudalur, gundelpet, hair pin bend, horse, hospital, hotel, karnataka, kengeri, library, little, maddur, mandya, map, medical, mountain, mudumalai, music, mysore, nanjanagudu, ooty, parking, pig, pool, rabbit, rain, ramanagaram, resort, review, rooms, route, sheep, srirangapatna, stable, tamilnadu, theppakaadu, tripadvisor, weather
I recently made a trip to Kanyakumari. I had an initial set of tickets which had everyone on a waiting list. I was hoping that would clear when I realized that it wouldn’t. I had booked from Bangalore city to Vaanchi Maniyachi junction. According to wikipedia, Vaanchinathan Iyer shot dead the collector of Tirunelveli, a britisher named Ashe on a train that came into this station exactly at 10:38am.
According to wikipedia, Vaanchi shot himself in the toilet after killing Ashe with a letter on him that read as below:
The mlechas of England having captured our country, tread over the sanathana dharma of the Hindus and destroy them. Every Indian is trying to drive out the English and get swarajyam and restore sanathana dharma. Our Raman, Sivaji, Krishnan, Guru Govindan, Arjuna ruled our land protecting all dharmas and in this land they are making arrangements to crown George V, a mlecha, and one who eats the flesh of cows. Three thousand Madrasees have taken a vow to kill George V as soon as he lands in our country. In order to make others know our intention, I who am the least in the company, have done this deed this day. This is what everyone in Hindustan should consider it as his duty.
sd/- R. Vanchi Aiyar, Shencottah.
While my whole Iyer fraternity back home was advising me against getting down at Vanchi Maniyacchi due to lack of connecting trains/buses to Kanyakumari and that they put a scare into my brain that its a non descript village, I was rather euphoric that Iyers too had contributed ousting the British and really wanted to see this place atleast for this historic reason 🙂 However after speaking with some real close friends from the region, I was strictly advised to get down at Satur, or Kovilpatti and take a connecting bus to Kanyakumari unless I wanted to re-enact the pre-1947 long walks to nowhere in search of freedom (read: to catch a bus from Maniyachi to Kanyakumari).
So practicality prevailed and we decided to get down at Kovilpatti. There still seemed to be one hitch left to solve – that of the waiting list ticket status. So knowing that the Tatkal procedures had been eased out lately, me and KK naturally sat down to work to get ourselves tatkal tickes to ensure that the journey part would be done in peace. Indians are always a bit disorganized when it comes to last minute activities and the Tatkal was no different. Of the six tickets we booked four with valid document numbers but one of them with dummy document numbers since the said persons were traveling with us. Having confirmed tickets now I still did not cancel the waiting list ones for those two people who I had entered dummy document numbers for. After that started a bit of mental hell as to whether they would be allowed by the TTE or asked to get down from the train and this uncertainity lasted a long time until the last minute.
I being a very organized guy, did all that was possible to try to resolve this document number error, and was promptly told by customer service that I would have to forfeit my ticket if the TTE would not agree to the error. I even tried to get in touch with people in railways who could reach the TTE but to no avail. Finally as the night of the journey approached, I learnt that the waiting list ticket that I had also was now RAC. So I now had atleast one legit ticket and decided to take the chance to travel. We arrived early at Bangalore city station to rectify this error but learnt that the TTE would also board only at 9:20 when the train departs from here to tuticorin. When the TTE finally came to our seats, we showed the tickets and six our ID cards in all possible jumbled ways. We also told him two of us did not have our ID cards, but he was okay with that and let us travel in peace.
Act-1, Scene-2: Kovilpatti to Bengaluru, Sunday evening: All our tickets were confirmed onto the S-11 coach and the same train was supposed to halt at Kovilpatti for a minute and nothing more. Heeding the practical advises from the fellow beings of the society, we decided to give Vaanchi a miss even for history’s sake and returned to Kovilpatti to board for return. After a lot of photography in and around the platform with a cool evening sunset, the train finally arrived onto the Kovilpatti platform a full 20 minutes late. By now the mind was calm and wanted to just board the train, find our confirmed seats and sleep in peace upto Namma Bengaluru. Here is where hell decided to unleash its own fury as a last minute surprise for us. As the train stopped, all the people at Kovilpatti rushed toward the entrances of the compartments. As we tried to get in quickly I realized that I was not making much headway through the door even after half a minute.
This is when a bit more of depth of the situation dawned on me. At the door were atleast 25-30 people organized into stacks of lines fitting into a tight package much as you would know about the Krack jack biscuits inside their packaging. I had a very heavy luggage which I pushed and tugged in every manner I could. Just as I was about to get into the walkway of the comparment, an old grandma lashed out at me and others boarding, screaming hoarse that her daughter following her was pregnant and it would be a crime for us not to respect pregnant ladies getting down by giving way. And there was only ONE freaking way. The way out! Who can argue against Vibhuti weilding furious grandmom’s having pregnant daughters? I had already had enough arguing against my own grandmom all my life. So even for a moment, this was needless. I promptly walked and pushed everyone out of the compartment and got down myself only to be blessed by the granny that if I was lucky enough again, I can successfully board the same freaking compartment.
Exercise repeated, I was in the walkway again. Only to find 200 more people dotted all along the walkway. Everyone of us believed – yes – BELIEVED – we boarded the wrong train by mistake. Yet we jostled our way in to reach our famed confirmed seats only to find the last six challengers of the trophy, the unreserved class sitting on our prized possession – confirmed seats. Asking them to get up and out only meant they went lower by status. From the lower birth to the floor. Same place. Nothing else changed. Having been scared out of our wits, we threw our luggages on the top berths and sat down sweating with a feeling of achievement, the same what you get when you pass complicated exams within predefined time frames. After having a tough time being concerned about the TTE with our tatkal tickets, we were sure of one thing – IF EVER A TTE managed to get into S11 coach this day – he would have his name engraved on the nearest station for being skinned alive. Not quite the Vaanchinathan types you see.
There was one issue with so many unreserved guys sitting all along reserved compartments. All of us. After having sat for 3-5 hours on that train, everyone wanted to take a leak. At the nearest toilet. Whichever direction – IF THEY COULD REACH IT ! The challenges dont seem to stop do they? Given that no one could board the train or no one could get down from the train, it was then a challenge even to get ourselves some water to drink and food to eat. At Viruthunagar, we managed to buy so many things including cakes, water, chocolates and whatever else was left off the cart that was going about on the platform. Drinking and eating all of that meant only one thing – we were also in the queue of people wanting to take a leak. Only question was how? And then the train suddenly stopped. Screeching of the brakes, and halting few metres away. Someone in our compartment were pissed off (literally) and had pulled the chain. The officials came to inspect what had happened and they could not even get in, leave alone listen to what we were saying. And then a few of us managed to go upto the toilets without causing a stampede of sorts of the people lying beneath us. Meanwhile an RPF guard in an unreserved compartment next to ours literally kicked a guy who flew and fell to the next track as the train started moving slowly. Dazed he asked his family to get down as well and a set of people and the guy on the track quietly slid away into the darkness knowing pretty well that they could not board an overflowing compartment.
Reaching the toilet was only one part of the adventure. The toilets were locked. We waited patiently with our bladders full for few mintues yet no sign of anyone opening up. Its only after sometime we figured out that some smart asses had locked themselves inside the toilets permanently upto Bangalore. There went our hopes of answering nature’s call as well. This is seriously when I lost my cool and the train again stopped suddenly 😉
Routine check, routine assurance, routine resets and train started moving. The only time the TTE came to the coach, he was hassled so much that he begged our pardon and said – “I’m the TTE only for coaches S6,7,8,9 and not s11 and that he came only due to respect he had on us” – He says even the poor unreserved people deserve some respect. Sure why not? Of course in India we have to be tolerant. Even to the extent we let people sit below our feet in whatever space we can afford to give them. Actually what the TTE really meant is that (and he actually said it to me) – if I forcibly pull a female’s hand and ask her to get down from the train, then it will become a communal riot! But seriously Indian Railways, for the face of modernization you have put up in a short span of time, how about adding more coaches to an already lengthy train, or how about introducing more trains along the route? Won’t you people think of such things?
There was no better thing than the feeling of euphoria of having pulled the chain, a long time childhood fetish come true. You know you get to understand the physics involved in getting the train to stop. After rebuking the authorities multiple times, the crowd was slowly flushed out between Virtuthunagar, Madurai, and Dindigul. As we neared Dindigul station we could see a group of 20 people clinging onto another ten people who were inturn clinging onto the door of the unreserved compartment. I mean if this isn’t craziness then what the heck is? Even after that when we got down at Carmeleram in Bengaluru, few people stepped on the people sleeping near the door and the babies started crying at daybreak. A man becomes wise only with experience and this was no exception.
The wise need to note down these points stemming out of experience:
On the part of Indian Railways, just after a recent purported sabotage indicent happened in which a bogie was completely charred with the passengers before they could wake and up and react in the middle of night, my experience just goes to show how these types of incidents are repeatedly going to happen time and again and how in the midst of 500 passengers within a compartment there could be one terrorist who could spell disaster within a short time. Unless this country and its government learn to value human life they will not be serious about any such possible damages. Neither would they provide more trains or alternate arrangements to make life better. However when it comes to claims, they would make many which are focussed towards customer friendliness. For now my open challenge to them is to try taking a leak in S11 coach at Kovilpatti on a Sunday on the Tuticorin express !!
Tags: bangalore, kovilpatti, mej, vanchi maniyachi, tuticorin express, tatkal, unreserved, toilets, people, crowd, rpf, police, sabotage, incidents, TTE, ticket collector, chain, pull, network, indian, railways, express, booking, tickets, online, irctc, food, madurai, dindigul, viruthunagar, negotiation, documents, proof, id, carmelaram, bengaluru, blog, karnataka, tamilnadu, kanyakumari, nagercoil, tirunelveli, train, network, s11, rac, confirmed, waiting list, pnr, long, coaches, platform, food, catering, vaanchinathan, aiyar, iyer, freedom fighter, ashe, british
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