Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Trip to Jog, Murudeshwar, Kollur and Sringeri

I am yet to recover fully from the effects of the trip, both physically and mentally. Physically it was challenging and it is not a trip to forget so soon. It was not a well planned trip but it turned out to be a great one with every piece falling into place at the last minute. The trip started with the journey to Jog falls, through the orphaned roads of Karnataka. Any road that is outside bangalore is neglected and looks like government rarely notices those roads. Anyway after few hours of bumpy ride, we reached Sagar where we spent sometime to clean ourselves and finish breakfast, before we headed for the most gruesome part of the trip. We reached Jog falls and then started the journey down to the abyss of the waterfalls. The cataract falling from around 900 ft height is the highest waterfall in India, and the journey to the bottom of the fall s through the half constructed steps tested the physical fitness. The view from the bottom of the Jog falls is worth taking and view and the  cool breeze is all too great to ignore and the pain is worth taking. Climbing back to the top required arduous efforts.

After that we went to Murudeshwar, a silent sea shore with a huge siva statue. Rest of the evening went in mini football. If you are in doubt what was mini in that, everything was mini right from the team, playground to the ball. Yep, we played football with a tennis ball in a small area with four members per team. But it turned out to be an interesting game. After few months, it was good be involved in some fat burning activity.

Next day we went to two temples kollur and shringeri. While kollur potrayed kerala architecture and look, in shringeri it was fully Hoysala (borrowed from Prabhu's IP). Sringeri temple is  located on the banks of River Tunga. This river deservers special mention because on the shores you will find huge school of fishes of size which i had never seen till now.  After that started the most difficult phase of the the trip, sitting in van for several hours and being rocked like a baby because of the narrow turns on the way to chickmagalur. Putting all together it is an wonderful trip to remember.

Before i fall asleep without switching my laptop, here are the links for the photos

http://picasaweb.google.com/kpraveen85/JogFallsShimoga
http://picasaweb.google.com/kpraveen85/Murudeshwar
http://picasaweb.google.com/kpraveen85/SringeriKollurAgumbe

For my share stay in touch with http://picasaweb.google.com/sens2003 It would take a little more time before i upload the photos. Before last half of the left eye closes, i am signing off now.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Dhaam Dhoom

Definitely did not want to turn this into a cine blog with posts only about movies, but movies seem to be the only matter of interest which is worth sharing in the uneventful life :( So here goes yet another post about recently released tamil movie.

Recently watched the movie "Dhaam Dhoom" along with two of my friends in theater that was almost empty except for 60 wavering heads. I was there since it was Jeeva's last film, and his previous two films had turned me into an ardent fan of Jeeva. The film was ok,  but you may notice few lapses in logic initially, something which i would not have expected in a Jeeva film. The film is about an Indian doctor who foolishly or unfortunately gets caught in a murder case in Russia, and runs to save his life from criminals and from police. As usual our hero escapes showers of bullets with small jumps. In this film you could also see Ravi defying laws of physics, and floating in air without effort. That is ok, Tamil Cinema never respected Newton's gravity.  Songs are the best part of the movie, and Jeeva's dexterity is visible in the locations selected for the songs. Kangana is good, Lakshmi Rai is better.  A bit of suspense is maintained but it should not be difficult to guess the villain. Though it did not satisfy my expectations, it is good and can be watched once.