Property prices in Cochin have been exorbitant and although thanks to the recession there has been a momentary relief its bound to boom once again. Its going to be next to impossible to own a house of your own or invest in property anymore. Owning a house or property within or close to city limits will be nothing but a dream for the coming generation.

Over the ten years Iv been running Kachavadom.com I have noticed so many people who are trying to fulfill that dream. But always the road block seems to be the pricing. If the pricing is right then quality and proximity of the property are a big let down. Moreover plots of smaller sizes fulfilling the criteria of the right price and proximity are hard to come by.

However at the same time I have come across so many good properties for very reasonable price per cent. However these are of larger extent and are out of bounds for a person who wants only a slice of it. But what if we could get like minded people and organize a collective buy so that you can own a slice at a reasonable price and fulfill your much cherished dream. This has been on my mind for so long and now we are ready with the first project of the kind for the visitors of Kachavadom.com.

The property for your future dream home if you want it is in a very idyllic residential area close to Thiruvankulam after Tripunithura. There are so many more reasons why you would want to make this your new home. The area has everything to make it take off like Kakkanad a few years ago. It is a more lush and green area compared to the dry terrain of Kakkanad. Also unlike other parts like Cochin and Kakkanad which have seen a saturation in development there is so much scope in this area. This makes value appreciation much higher than property in Kakkanad or other area in and around Cochin. Ie. If you invest in 3 Lakhs per cent for 10 Cents it would at the most appreciate by a lakh making your investment close to 40 lakhs. ie slightly over 33% returns on investment whereas there is every likelihood of 100% returns or more with investments in the proposed property. Moreover you can almost buy double the land area for the same investment.

The two acre property comprising of 16 plots from 8-10 cents is far from the city’s hustle and bustle with mangroves and rubber estates all around. Almost all the drinking mineral water supplied to Cochin is from the surrounding areas. The property will be handed over with a gated compund wall for the two acres and boundary wall foundations for individual 16 plots. Approximately 25% of total land area is kept aside for common area as well as 6 metre wide roads. The roads which being wider than normal public roads provide safe recreational space for the dwelling familes for their leaisure as well as for personal cars to safely ply on. I know for people familiar with the area it sounds very far out from the city the closest town is Tripunithura or Kolenchery and Cochin in fact will take a 14 Kms drive to get you to Ernakulam South. But the good news is that the new Mathura Highway that has already been aligned is about 4 Kms away and will get you to Nettoor before Lakeshore Hospital. This and the underlying reasons makes this startegically located property priceless and is the reason we opted for the property.

1) Nettoor where you exit the highway is part of Maradu and is the area where future grand shopping malls like Forum, Nucleus etc are setting shop. Also two five start hotels The Le Meridien and The Crowne Plaza and the Whyte Fort are close by. You can hit Thevara and then the W.Island and Fort Cochin which opens up more options for Hotels and the family weekends together. Access to all this is though 80-90% highway commute.

2) Nettoor houses the largest wholesale vegetable market that caters to the whole of Cochin which easily beats any super market in town.

3) The proposed Shobha city as announced last month is commencing its work and is on the way to Nettoor. Its larger in area than the much talked about Smart City project.

4) Every car maker has its showrooms in this area.

5) Global Public School is 1-2 Kms away from your house. Your children can walk to school. Choice School is 8Kms away. The closest town Tripunithura has many public schools.

6) Infopark is now being extended to Puthencruz as per announcements last week which is 6-8 Kms from the property.

7) With the new Infopark highway entering infopark is easy without entering Kakkanad. Kakkanad too is accessible easily via airport seaport road.

Proposed Smart City too is close at the most 8 to 10Kms.

9) Apart from Lakeshore Hospital , Kolenchery Medical College is close by.

10) You can avoid traffic congestion from city traffic and enter Muvatupuzha (Thodupuzha & Kolenchery), Alwaye (via Kakkanad), Kottayam etc directly saving time and fuel. As all exit roads and destinations are via haghways or bypasses.

I think with the above reasons and the down to earth pricing of 1.65 lakhs it is definitely something you should be looking at.

I’m just trying to teach my cousin to blog

I am in the process of launching a community website. It’s requires different sections including a forum. The best way of handling it was to use different instances of Wordpress for each section. This way I could use separate themed templates for each install. Although each section especially the forum would have its own unique set of visitors some of them tend to be shared across the other sections. It really wouldn’t appeal to visitors to login or register to each section separately to each section of the site. So ideally the user profile has to roam across all sections of the site using a single registration or login from any section.

A quick search on Google revealed that its possible. Most of the posts I researched were helpful put could only partially solve the problem. The first post Setting up a common login across multiple wordpress installations claimed to solve the issue only helped me in allowing the different sections to use the same login as the main site. The reason it probably  worked for the writer was that the other steps too were incorporated earlier but not for the specific purpose of a common login which he did not consider. The second post Multiblog single login in WP 2.6 gave an idea as to how it could be accomplished but in 2.6. However it is the final post Múltiples (WordPress + bbPress + MediaWiki) en uno that actually helped me and covered all the steps but this is in Spanish and I had to use Babelfish to understand what he was sharing. So the pupose of this post is to provide an english version of the last post or probably a summation of all three as I feel this is something that could come in very useful to other wordpress blog users who would want to do something similar.

I am not a hardcore Wordpress user and this personal blog is the only one I have formally worked on till now. So I am a novice to the whole thing. I’m telling you this to let you know that its not a big deal to get it all working when the people and posts above have enlightened you on how to go about it.

Although my actual url is different I am testing temporarily using my site kochidaily.com. And for the purpose of explanation we will be using this website. The first step is to install the multiple Wordpress blogs. I have now set up two blogs one accessible at www.kochidaily.com and the other at www.kochidaily.com/jobs . Both the blogs use a single database. However at the time of install I have set the prefix of the table for the main database as cd_ and the jobs database as jobs_. After this I ended up with two blogs with independent logins.

The next step is for www.kochidaily.com/jobs to use the same login as the main site www.kochidaily.com. This was accomplished by editing two files in the second blog ie is the jobs. First I edited wp-config.php after the line /* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */
with

define(’CUSTOM_USER_TABLE’, ‘cd_users’);
define(’CUSTOM_USER_META_TABLE’, ‘cd_usermeta’);

After this I opened capabilities.php in wp-includes and modified the section after Setup capability object properties to

function _init_caps() {
global $wpdb;
// $this->cap_key = $wpdb->prefix . ‘capabilities’; /* original code */
$this->cap_key = ‘cd_capabilities’; /*modified code */
$this->caps = &$this->{$this->cap_key};
if ( ! is_array( $this->caps ) )
$this->caps = array();
$this->get_role_caps();
}

After this I was able to log in to both blogs using the logins from the main site but had to login and logout individually.

Now I have to share logins across both sites this is achieved by making the cookie information across sites is the same. In the wp-config file I navigated to the section specifying Authentication Unique Keys. I generate unique keys by using the URL https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/ as specified in that section. I replace the authentication keys for all wp-config files with the same lines so that they remain the same for each blog. My final lines for wp-config placed under authentication keys is as follows.

define (’COOKIE_DOMAIN’, ‘.kochidaily.com’);
define(’COOKIEPATH’, ‘/’);
define(’AUTH_KEY’, ‘j7z/~e9,G3=WY*plq^2b9_E1qgf-N< dxJD>)]+J5-[v’);

define(’SECURE_AUTH_KEY’, ‘unt&N4$hw;qmt3VEY*_=(7-3N)*9[~v4–Y#s*k&fqsR7va*h}WHyQAwf{=+;?C-’);

define(’LOGGED_IN_KEY’, ‘B%K&JbF?_=Ft6N`WvZ+&*SbW::x8AhNL5_Gs$/(oAsLY1,D1JlaF#a$/DRNfy[qV’);

define(’NONCE_KEY’,  ‘KFOYq&kB[D?2J~ ;W:zSbn#$hDm{_6<p|T^/}1d4^%N HC7m3jc[-|(38~ |P+lh’);

$baseurl = ‘http://www.kochidaily.com’;
$cookiehash = md5($baseurl);
define(’COOKIEHASH’, $cookiehash);
define (’AUTH_SALT’,'AUTH_SALT’.COOKIEHASH);
define (’LOGGED_IN_SALT’, ‘LOGGED_IN_SALT’.COOKIEHASH);
define (’AUTH_COOKIE’, ‘AUTH_COOKIE’.COOKIEHASH);
define (’SECURE_AUTH_COOKIE’, ‘SECURE_AUTH_COOKIE’.COOKIEHASH); // If you use connection SSL
define (’LOGGED_IN_COOKIE’,'LOGGED_IN_COOKIE’.COOKIEHASH);
define (’TEST_COOKIE’, ‘TEST_COOKIE’.COOKIEHASH);

As you can see there are other cookie values than what you see by default. This too needs to be shared so I appended it below the shared Authentication keys in order for the logins to be shared. I have used an md5 of $baseurl which is set to the site name you can modify it to any phrase of your choice. Well thats it I fired my browser cleared all cookies previously set (for testing) I logged into the main site and then shifted to the jobs site and voila! I was logged in there too!

A few months back something I did or probably the upgrade to Firefox 3.0 caused my navigation buttons to stop working. Also when I open tabs only the last updated URL is displayed in the URL box and it doesn’t change according to the current tab. Also saving bookmarks didn’t seem to work. Its quite a nagging issue when you cant stop, refresh or go back.  With bookmarks not working I couldn’t keep track of a lot of online resources I was stumbling upon daily.  I tried out various options to fix the issue. Nothing seemed to work. Finally today I stumbled upon the following steps which I tied out hopelessly to find out that it in fact worked. However as I couldn’t bookmark the site I cant guide you there. However these are the instructions that I followed.

1. step
Close all firefox windows (kill all ffox processes).

2. step
Rename mozilla hidden directory.
> mv ~/.mozilla ~/.mozilla.bak

3. step
Start firefox. (It’ll be starting with virgin state.)
> firefox

After step 3 everything returned to normal. But as the following three steps were also there I followed through and found that it returned to my former state ie without navigation. So I redid steps 1 to 3 and left it at that. The remaining steps 4-6 are to restore your orginal settings however it didnt help me out. You can either try 1-3 and leave it at that or proceed through the remaining 4-6.

4. step
Close firefox.

5. step
Delete genarated settings directory.
rm -r ~/.mozilla

6. step
Move back original settings dir.
> mv ~/.mozilla.bak ~/.mozilla

It was July of 2008 and a week or so after our holiday to Dharmshala and Manali, we were just unwinding after all the excitement of the past weeks. And just when we thought we had all the excitement for the year came the confirming news catapulting us into the lifelong excitement of parenthood. The following months were spent in anxious moments with the both of us absolutely clueless on how we would handle parenthood the first time. Thankfully the wait that seemed to be for ever finally came to a  close on the 23rd of February, when Suman gave birth to our son I S A I A H at 0905 hrs at Medical Trust Hospital, Mundakkayyam.

Click here to view his snapshots

I got my FPR two weeks ago through Ebay.com. Almost thought my Rs 1300/- ebay bargain wouldn’t turn up when it arrived. As I hadn’t fitted a universal FPR earlier nor seen one and the same being true for my mechanic we took some time figuring it out and finally had it fitted. On the initial fitment it worked fine on idle and set the pressure at 42psi there was a small leak from the FPR so I had to dismantle it and refit it. But then it started pulsing or the pressure wouldn’t hold steady at 42. I dismantled it and fitted it again and things seemd to work fine. We took it for a spin the car seemed to rev smoother and seemed to have a very linear throttle response.

Finally I drove it back home and while flooring it the car just sputtered to a stop and the accelerator wouldn’t work. I shut off the engine and opened the bay to find that one of the fuel pipes from the fuel rail to the regulator had busted. There was fuel sprayed all over and I thanked myself I dont smoke. Thankfully no smokers came near the car either or else I would have had a fried car. Anyway I just cut short the busted fuel hose and again took it back home and again the same thing happened. But this time a pucture had occured in the middle of the hose. I realized that it was a mistake to use a normal fuel hose from the fuel rail to the FPR I had borrowed one from the Maruti. It was not takine the pressure. On closer observation I realised that the OE fule pipe from the pump to the regulator is a very thick one compared to the return so my summation is that I need to get a thicker fuel pipe that can handle the pressure. I am now trying to source the original fuel pipe as its hard to come by. Else I will have to use a industrial grade one.

But my 2 cents its a helluva dangerous thing for fuel to leak so if you are buying an FPR get a branded one like OBX and FSE and sleep easy. Mine works fine but Im busing myself a Ceasefire just n case.

So I’m back to running stock and since I have my hands full for the moment will have to see when I can get back to finishing off what I started tll then adios.

Please read…no money required…. ……just a few moments of yours and wide publicity to help parents get their daughter back…

Please spare some time to read through it. The person initiated this (mentioned below) via email had a friend in the army. The friend  met a guy named Mr. Ravi Shankar on the train when he was returning from chennai on 26th of December, 2008. He was having a regular chat with him regarding the Army and its rules and regulations and how the forces are admired in our country. This is what was narrated

“He then told me about a shocking tragedy that his family went through and hence I write this mail to you seeking your help. He told me that he was posted in CAR-NICOBAR in the year 2004 as a seargent in the INDIAN AIR-FORCE.. On 26th of december that year his family fell victim to the Unfortunate Tsunami that struck out eastern coast.He along with his wife and two children(photo below) were washed in the deadly waters.Reaching out his wife managed to cling onto A tree but his small son(picture insight on the left)had swollowed too much water and passed away in her arms. Ravi also in desperation to swim lost grip of his daughter’s(APURVA) hand. She was washed away and was never to be found again,until one day they came to know of her being sighted at a relief camp. On contacting the authorities they came to know that this little girl
Was abducted from the relief camp and was missing again. Since then Mr. Ravi shankar has been travelling to chennai every year with a hope to see his daughter. He has been publishing  MISSING coloums in major daily’s in chennai,and he showed me how heavily these newspapers had a charged him for a those ad’s. One of the major newspapers charged him a whooping amount of 12000 rupees for a 4 X 4 cm ad(that too on the fourth page). Please donot consider this mail a regular chain mail and do care to forward this to your near and dear ones. He requested me to do something to reach out to people who use e-media(internet etc.).I myself have posted her picture on my blog and i request people who own there personal blog pages to post this girl’s picture there as it could be of significant help. In case any news of any nature is found regarding her (APURVA) please drop in a mail at the below mentioned mail id’s or the following address.

1. James mathew( 123.mathew@gmail. com )
2. Amit kumar ( amitkumarmajor@ hotmail.com )
3. khem chandra pan ( khemchandrapan@ yahoo.com )
Or contact:
Mr. RAVI SHANKAR
SMQ – 17/2
AF VAYUSENABAD
TUGLAKABAD
NEW DELHI-110062

Phone no - 09868763263

This is APURVA’s picture taken in year 2004 with her younger brother.”

The orginal email was initiated by

Wg Cdr(Retd) Pratap Deshpande
G 304 Purva Fairmont
Sector 2
HSR Layout
Bangalore 560 102
Tele +91 80 2572 5674
Mbl +91 90080 31364

Before I start I must confess thatthe DOHC head conversion for the 4G15 SOHC that’s been done on my Mitsubishi Lancer is nothing much to rave about. It’s not much of a mod besides the Turbo’s and the remapped ECU’s.

Basically what the modification does is improve your power output from 87 bhp to 103 bhp. Also owing to the twin cam it delivers power in a more efficient aggressive manner. This is something that I have gotten used to loving since my Palio S10. The head conversion is not going to drastically transform your car with mind blowing results. But is a start or a base to achieving the same with satisfying results in the LONG RUN.

The first modification that your Lancer needs and which mine desperately needs at this point is better fuel flow which is a big negative for this car world over. It’s because of the factory pump settings to achieve mileage for this car plays foul. The best way to overcome this is to fix a fuel pressure regulator and set it to 3.3 bar and provided you can gauge your throttle well shouldn’t see your mileage drift south. My car at although perkier at this point is gasping for fuel and so unless I fix one I am not going to see much gain from my DOHC conversion. I should have one in two weeks. However for anyone with this car I recommend the best mod before intake, exhaust etc would be to go for a FPR.

The reason for choosing the Lancer was because this is one car that can be modified with satisfying results and the amount of after market modifications are probably the best. Brake, shock body upgrades this car has it all. So this is a long term project and will take some time. One thing I like is this project can well be within my budget. Till date I have spent just over 3 lakhs for my car including cost of car which was what I wanted. Future upgrades like Bilsteins will hike it a bit more but with all modifications I am looking at a sub 4 lakh car.

Now to start off I was initially planning on hooking a Mivec probably a 4G92. Its been done a lot in India. However while researching I stumbled upon the RPW website which recommended the DOHC upgrade. This was quite appealing as this would mean a legal car as I don’t have to change engines and get it endorsed (Something that’s not possible at least in Kerala). Moreover spares also post minimal problems if I continued the 4G15 route. So the plans were hatched. You can get a DOHC conversion from RPW for $1200 (AUD I think) minus shipping. But when I finally decided they were in short supply. I found out that these originated from Japan so I tracked a supplier in Japan who scraps cars. I then sent him the relevant pictorial sections like timing, head, exhaust etc from the 4G15 workshop manual and asked him to dismantle the same from an existing car. He would then send me pictures of dismantled sections so I could choose what I wanted and what I did not. It took almost 3 weeks to get all the parts organized. As I had myself not seen this engine it was more difficult as I had to compare my Lancer to the pictures on the manual. I also had to make sure I didn’t ship more than I wanted to bring down shipping costs. The pictures below are the parts that were procured. I have circled out some common parts in white which need not be shipped. Everything else needs to be shipped. The timing tensioner and springs are also the same but have not been circled out. The water pipe the lower timing covers in picture 1, the front engine mount bracket (looks similar to existing one but this is where the idler pulley is mounted) and lower timing covers in picture 2 are parts that should not be left out.

The cost for the same is approx $500(dismantling + cost of parts). The package weighs 50Kgs. Japan post will ship for Rs 22000/- however people warned me that there is no tracking once it entered India. So I had a close friend use his account with DHL to get it to me and cost me another 27K for shipping it would cost Rs40000 if you don’t have a DHL account.

Customs held up the package in Delhi saying it’s restricted/ value is wrong so I had to send them a proof of value, a Chartered engineers certificate etc. It took a week to clear. Let me tell you shipping and customs is a pain and I would not do this again so unless you have some way of handling this, it’s very risky.

The head and parts are a direct bolt on and I supervised the installation of the head and timing belts etc with my mechanic who is a good at what he does. But still I had to point out the timing and mounting procedures from the manual and everything went like clockwork. The only three modifications are

1)There is no air temperature sensor port in the intake manifold of the DOHC so this had to be shifted to the air intake hose. All other connections are direct fit.
2)The exhaust on the Indian Lancer is a 4-1 the DOHC comes with a 4-2-1. So I had to make a 2-1 converter between the primary and the secondary temporarily till I fix headers. But I feel the initial Lancer petrol had a 4-2-2 as I managed to find a packing for the same for a Lancer at a spare parts store.
3)Some of the water hoses need to be modified (read shortened or turned) to fit.

Well everything is fine except my Lancer is gasping for fuel as its not getting enough pressure. So will have to fix the FPR and let you know. Here are the pictures of the engine bay after the install.

Im running Shell Helix , Iridium’s ( came with the head probably the previous owner was like minded!). I have also installed a Green Cotton Storm (more on that later). Engine is much smoother than the SOHC. The engine spec’s state that the power should be 110ps/80.91 KW @ 6000 RPM and torque should be 14Kgm/137.29 Nm @ 3000 RPM Hope this helps someone.

Before you think its some fancy form of greeting let me tell you its something I have my hands tied up with right now. I know Bill has a lot of money but then I still really don’t fancy the idea of continuing to steal from the world’s richest man! I have been trying and weighing the options of buying all legal software for my use. But I knew I couldn’t pull it off on the long shot I would have to compromise somewhere with Windows.

I was planning on using ReactOS. ReactOS in case you haven’t heard  is a new open source OS based on the XP and 2000 Kernel something like Linux being the offshoot of Unix. If it happens you can run all your windows software using it.  And if its going to take off the way Linux does you better check it out at the ReactOS website.

However its taking a lot of time to materialize and the beta too is a long way off. Thats too long a time to keep stealing from Bill though he is totally unawares. Thats when I started thinking of Linux and happened to stumble on Ubuntu. And it seemed to have quite a fan following. Anyway last week I scrapped Windows and shifted to Ubuntu. This being my first stint with Linux I did over a dozen installs  and finally I got it to work the way I want  it wireless, bluetooth, gprs et all . And now after a week I really have started liking this OS. It takes a lot of getting used too and reminds me of days when even the earlier windows too had problems with Plug and Play devices. But Iv really taken a liking to tinkering around with it. Will be some time before I use it like Windows but for now it has me floored! And by reading this if you are encouraged to do so please understand I always like tinkering around with cars, bikes, computers , pro audio equipment etc. So if you happen to wear the same shoes I do jump in else help Bill out he needs the money!

After I went to Boracay I always planned on writing about it but kept putting it off. Didn’t want the same to happen to the wonderful time we had in Dharamshala and Manali. I should have written when the memory of the trip to Boracay was still fresh as very few even know that the place exists. But its been two years now and nothing ever came out of it. Will probably do  that someday after I can recollect the details. It still would be worth writing as I never saw  a single Indian in Boracay while I was there and chances of the island being retained as we saw it is highly unlikely. The 10km long and 1Km wide island is getting over populated with tourists and resorts and would probably loose its charm in another 2 years according to an article I read. Ironically the same seems to be the fate of Triun and Illaka in Dharamshala where we just went. The HP government is planning to build a road to make Triun and Illaka more accessible to tourists. Currently its only accessible to trekkers by foot across the narrow rocky winding path. If they do that we are going to loose that place for good. Dharamshala was quite a surprise actually. To me it was just a stop over and an alternate to the tiring journey from Delhi to Manali.

Dharamshala houses the Tibetan government in exile along with the Dalai Lama’s residence. Thats being the main attraction of the place. Most Indians go there primarily to experience some Tibetan culture and food. As in every part of India it has more than its share of temples and making that the second reason for people to go there. I expected the place to be something like Munnar. My Club Mahindra membership entitles me to 7 days holiday every year. So I thought I might as well give in  to Suman’s wish to visit Manali. Also I hope to visit all the Mahindra resorts before my membership expires. So my second reasoning was that since I was already making the trip I might as well visit the Dharamshala resort too.

We flew into Delhi at 10:30 on the daily 7:30 AM flight from Cochin. This gave us enough time to shop a bit in Delhi before we took the 10:30PM train out to arrive in Pathankot. The club sent a car to fetch us to Dharamshala. Which reminds me to warn you to always have the hotel pick you up esp if you are with family even if it costs you extra. It is more reassuring to know that the hotel knows of your whereabouts. Reason I say this is because on our last trip we ended up in Philippines in the wee hours and had to catch a cab. Every guy there looked like a thug. Till we reached the hotel we were clueless whether the guy was actually taking us there or elsewhere. Just thought Id let you know.

We were to spent two days in Dharamshala. On arrival at the resort we were totally clueless as to why we were even there. The resort faced a public road with a petrol pump. Kootickal my wife’s place near Mundakkayam in Kottayam district is far better than the Dharamshala I saw. On arrival I quickly dismissed the entire holiday package on offer ie. the pilgrimage tours, treks etc. We really didn’t know what we would do the next two days. We were planning on trekking in Manali so when they offered a trek we never took it seriously. But they insisted that we would have a life time experience if we went on the trek. They added that what I would see in Triund and Illaka would surpass anything I see in Manali. According to the manager a malayalee Manali would just be an enlarged version of Ooty and Kodai but with snow. They requested us to view some pictures on their computer of what we would see. The moment I saw the pictures I was hooked. I couldn’t believe you could actually see something so scenic in India. I made a wager with them that if I could shoot the very same pictures on my camera I was ready to do it. And with it I committed myself and unsuspecting Suman to a 22-30 Km trek over two days. The trek to Triund is 9Kms we went 1 Km by road and the rest we trekked. Triund to Illaka is another 7Kms everywhere I searched on google they downplayed it as 5Kms. Anyhow its roughly 24Kms.

We carried nothing with us except for my camera,water and an umbrella each. Two guides carried our tent, sleeping bags, food and a stove. The trial was a steep climb from 4780 ft we would climb to 9325ft in 9Kms to reach Triund. It was a rocky trail throughout. At times each step would be more than on a stairway.  A couple of wolf like harmless stray dogs joined us all the way to Triund. What unfolded was too beautiful to describe. I wished camera’s had 360 degree capture. I still feel the photographs don’t do justice to the place. It is impossible to capture that beauty except with your own eyes. It was a green carpet of wild grass with the trees rising over it. Adding to it there were rocks strewn all over the place dotting the entire landscape as if it was thrown up by a volcanic eruption or something. One hour on the trek and we had to use our Umbrella’s as it started drizzling and getting a bit misty. Making the entire landscape even more green and intoxicatingly beautiful. Most times the path was narrow enough for just one or at the most two people. We met mostly foreigners as this was never on the Indian’s iternary. Amongst a packed resort we were the only two and the very few ever who opted for the trek. Sadly we Indian’s are missing out on the best that the land has. There were two petti kada’s stocked up on over priced junk food and Marlboro’s primarily for the foreign tourists. The only means of getting the goods there was by foot or by donkeys. After 5 Kms or more Suman was fit enough to tear me with her bare hands. But by 2:30PM we reached Triund. Triund was spectacular by itself. Apart from two or 3 small shabby buildings one of them being an excuse for a government guest house it was a huge green pasture on top of a mountain overlooking the entire path we had come up. Rocks were strewn all over the green. Again one of indescribable beauty with the entire Dharamshala on one side in a 180 degree view and on the backdrop you have greener mountains at close range and glacier covered mountains at a distance.

Lunch was boiled maggi noodles and veggies. After lunch and a short nap we went about setting up our tent on the edge of the cliff with a 4500 ft drop. At 7 45 PM the place was as lit up as 5:30 or 6:PM here in Cochin. The dozens of tourists who we met on the trail had vanished into various parts of the mountain leaving myself, Suman our guides and the caretakers the sole inhabitants on top of the Triund. It started to pour a little more than a drizzle and with it came bursts of thunder. We had Chappathi’s and dal for dinner. We had to turn in early to start off to Illaka the next day morning. The tent was just enough for Suman and me. With the weather our giudes wanted to know whether we still wanted to sleep in the tent or in the cabin. But Suman of all people wanted the tent. We ended up sleeping in the tent that was weather proof. We were not used to sleeping bags so it was a broken sleep with all the thunder and drizzling outside.  Also there were the horses I forgot to mention galloping every now and then throughout the night. The dogs went crazy too. But then we slept till 5AM the next day oblivious also to the two bears that we spotted on the adjacent mountain the next day.

The next day we got up but had to put off our plans to leave at 6 as it was raining and we could leave only by 8 am. Then we started of to Illaka hoping to reach the glacier point there. If the trek to Triun was spectacular the journey to Illaka was a double portion. The rocky path wound up over green valleys like Iv never seen before. I had almost drained out my camera batteries by then so I planned to shoot only on the return trip as I didn’t want to risk not shooting the glaciers. But to my misfortune I missed those great shots as it was very misty on the return trip and the photos I have of Illaka still don’t do justice to the place. Anyway on top of Illaka there is just one more petti kada. We had been trekking for over two hours by then only to find that the glaciers had receded further which meant another hours trek to reach there. Since our journey back of 12 to 15Kms downhill lay before us we decided we were not upto it. So we started our trek downhill and we reached back by about 6PM so that day we had trekked for over 8 hours. If you have the same impression like I did about an easy trek down. Let me tell you if its going to be a steep climb downwards for that long expect to be as dead as we were by the time we got there. Next we headed to Manali by car. Manali was different and quite entertaining. The whole trip was because Suman wanted us  to do all that she can before we got tied down with kids. So we did everything we possibly could. Skiing, para gliding, tobogganing, and even white water rafting on a grade 3 rapid. Out of all the adventure sports  white water rafting was the best thing we did in Manali. If you do head to Dharamshala do check out at least the Triun. I’m winding up for now. I Plan to write up on Manali too but in case I don’t let me tell you I enjoyed the trek to Triund and Illaka more than  anything else we did those eleven days. It was out of the world!