Anand Nataraj

Archive for the ‘Explore’ Category

It was very stressful and I went to Kumily along with my Madurai 3 weeks back. There we planned & decided to goto Alleppey, Alapuzzha & spend a day in House Boat. From then we were counting days the day. I travelled to Madurai last Thursday and reached Madurai. Then following are the events that happened;

• Reached Madurai refreshed & Took bath.
• Then went to Manoj’s juice shop and Laxman picked me up in 10 min.
• From there we went to a supermarket and made some purchase.
• From there went to Marverick GYM met friends & asked Sathish to get ready.
• Then went back to Manoj’s house and picked him form there.
• Manoj went to attend a small Shop-opening & Laxman and I went to Medical shop and brought some medicines.
• Then went to Toddy shop has toddy.
• Picked up Sathish & started to drive to Alleppey by 12 noon.

We took Theni, Cumbam, Kimily – Alleppey road which is a Ghat Road. As usual it was a pleasent Gods own Country and i’m thrilled to see houses which were big and small towns having good looking girls, posh houses, good roads etc.

As usual it was Laxman driving style which made me & sathish sick and we had to sleep to avoid side effects. After hectic 6 hours drive we reached Alleppey with the help of Google Maps which navigated us to the place.

Then we stayed in a hotel called Arcadia Regency. To be frank it was a good hotel in apprearance otherwise;

• It had a swimming pool which was small & poorly maintained.
• Rooms were very average with flickering lights.
• Toilets were average too.
• Service was also poor.

But we had a wonderful party & we all crashed to sleep without our conscious and i was the first to crash to bed. Then it was Laxman & I who got up early in the morning and then we went to buy fish for people who are Non-Veg and wanted to have Sea food. We first went to the beach and we were told catching was poor that day and the minimal amount of fish they caught had to sent to the market. We immediately went to the market and brought different verity of fish & crabs for Rs.5000/-.

Then we had a swim in the hotel swimming pool and we proceeded to board our House Boat and we were 3 hours late.

We sailed some 50 KM that day before we halted by 6 PM. Again it was great fun and we all were partying hard and last guys to crash were Laxman & I. Then i slept in the morning and got up a hour before we landed again.

Over all it was a great experience because we went with friends. But it has other challenges too like;

• Sathish went ill and he is hospitalized for last four days because of food poisoning.
• Rooban got hold of Malaria.
• This was not the right time to travel as it was too hot and not enjoyable. But tariff of house boat are at its low because it was off season.
• One great lesson too. We went there thought a friend and he arranged a boat for us and they charged us Rs.9000/- for house boat for a day. But when went enquired later the charge for the boat was Rs.6000/- only. So visit different House Boat  agents and take best call.

Other than that it was a great experience and here are some snaps of our House Boat;

Laxman & I (Me wearing CSK Jersey)

Way to the Room & Kitchen

Hall with Dinning Table & Television

Front View of House Boat. Rooban & Manoj in the terrace.

Yesterday was one fine day where in i was clueless on what to do. My sleeping hours have come down and got up by 10 AM. Since it was too hot outside i had no choice. So i was;

• I did self Oil Massage to bring down body heat…
• Then Learned how to do Pedicure from my sister…
• Finally was watching some Tamil dubbed english movie…

Then it was 3 PM and got a call from Kavi and he asked me to pick him. With no thinking i started and picked him from his office. As usual we had no clue on what to do. I started driving through ECR and after getting the toll we decided to goto Mahabalipuram have Dinner at Moon Rackers and then watch a movie at Mayajaal and return back.

In-between we had some delicious Tadgola to cool our body during a hot day.

While driving we came across a Banner Off Road ECR before Mahabalipuram. It is here we waited for an hour to get a chance to ride this Bike which lasted for 2 min. Then while returning my car got struck on the mud and we had to get the assistance from the people working on there to rescue us.

By this time we were drenched with sweat and we drove to Mahabs and we had good dinner at Moon Rackers and returned. We didn’t have any new movies to watch at Mayajaal and we came to city and gave a try at PVR cinemas and again no luck.

Then we went to Freeze Zone to have some Kulfis. The place was too crowded and it took us 20 min to get a Kulfi. We entered the place by 10.30 PM and came out by 11.15PM…

Then i dropped Kavi at his office and returned. Finally i ended the day with a Happy note.

We reached Yelagiri hills by 3.45 AM and we cornered the car on a busy street. Life here got started by 4 and lots of people & vehicle movement started to increase and nothing disturbed us. But an old man woke Kavi asking if we want any room or guide.

From then Kavi didn’t allow us to sleep from then on and this is how we slept.

En route to Yelagiri came across a Punjabi Dhaba and we immediately entered the place.

Wonderful ambiance but food was ordinary. Here are some snaps;

This is my first blog which I’m posting from my mobile BlackBerry Curve. I’m very thrilled as I can make live bloging while watching movies, traveling, partying.

Also I want keep a tab on web 3.0 and by this I can understand the requirements and systems and come with more products in future.

Some reservations / things I must explore is Options available in a WYSWYG editors and options to insert images.

Hence you can expect more blogs from me.

Yesterday I was hacking thru Wikipedia to post an article about RBS… What was thought to be challenging and confusing for last couple of years ended up very interesting and I learned the nuances of the system and wiki markup in 4 hours and  created an article for RBS (Don’t know if it will be there anymore as editors have recommended to delete it citing itz a new software)…

I started playing with Wikipedia by 10 PM yesterday and ended by around 2.30 AM today morning… Went home happily and had a nice sleep… Came to office in the morning and checked the article and was taken back seeing the recommendation to delete the article…

You can see a box with red vertical line, which says “It is proposed that this article be deleted”

If you are a Wikipedian or if know any Wikipedian please let me know how to save my hard work… Anyways I’m not giving it up easily I’ve replied to the editors as well as I’m digging into Wikipedia help to know more about their systems and rules…

Ok now I want to explain my key learning’s and how I fell for Wikipedia… After deciding to post an article in Wikipedia I started searching for “Create Article” link & was try “Upload File” under tools to upload my logo… I read lot of wikis and their Help and after enough struggle I found out that a person has to become an Autoconfirmed user to upload things else we have to apply by filling a request form which will be reviewed by editors and based on their judgment things will be approved or rejected… To become a Autoconfirmed user we must have edited/contributed atleast 10 articles…

I started editing articles and this is when I fell in love with Wikipedia and decided I must become a Wikipedian… Initially I added Cogzidel under companies in Madurai, Adambakkam, economy of Chennai, then I went to my area Porur to share information I know and finally I made some edit for my college GLIM…

By this time I finished editing 10 articles and became an Autoconfirmed user automatically and posted my article for RBS(also my first article)…

Before concluding let me share some of my pleasing moments…

This is my first Wiki markup code;

And these are my contribution to Wikipedia till now…