SK & Archana's wedding gave us an opportunity for this wonderful Kerala trip. It was yet another Spartan wedding & it was on Thursday so we planned well ahead to club that along with Kerala trip.
When Banuchandar a.k.a Banu send the initial mail about the trip 12 of us confirmed for the trip. But as anticipated at the last minute 4 of them (2 families) couldn't make the trip and which left with me alone going with family, also our tour agent informed that he can't make the trip in the pre-committed amount with just 8 people. There pitched our expert Banu with an excellent idea of bringing his parents & Babu's Mom which made the count to 11 and make the trip possible. Booking the ticket with all these changes alone can be written as a separate post... :-)
We had nice time at the grand wedding on 9th Dec & started to Satur railway station, from where we will be traveling to Ernakulam by Gurvayur express(6127). Here Babu is been selected unanimously as the treasurer for the whole trip. The train arrived on time & we started our journey.
Since all of us got adjacent seats in the train it become very comfortable for us & we started playing dumb charades with Tamil movie names. The game became very funny when Banu appa & Babu amma started suggesting old movie names. Funniest moment was when Banu was acting & Santu was trying to find the name, as usual Santu was very slow and Banu is getting irritated by Santu's totally irrelevant guesses.. :-D
Our treasurer planned early & got dinner for all of us at Tirunelveli Junction. Since the train will reach Ernakulam by 4AM we planned to sleep early. We all were sleeping & suddenly felt that the train was not moving, it was around 12.30 midnight and when I woke up Banu appa told that the train was at Nagercoil station & it's been canceled further because of some landslide on the track due to heavy rains. Then we woke up Banu & we were thinking about further action.
After half an hour the fan & lights in the train were powered off so we were forced to move out of the train. Everybody was worried about Thanmayi since she is the only kid in our gang. So we thought of go to the bus stand and decide whether to travel further or stay in some hotel. When we came out of the railway station, railways have arranged for few buses to take the stranded passengers to the bus station. But we couldn't get into it because of heavy rush.
That's when Babu & Santu fixed a Tata Sumo to take us to bus station. Suddenly it started raining and we all rushed inside the Sumo. 11 people and all our luggage's were packed inside the sumo & Thanmayi is the one who got a comfortable place even in that packed vehicle & she was smiling to everybody. :-)
When we reached the bus station, the rain has subsidized & we decided to travel to Trivandaram by bus and from there we planned to take some train to Ernakulam. When everybody was concentrating on Kerala Transport buses, we managed to get seats in TNSTC bus. That was really a comfortable journey in the situation which we were in. Thanmayi got a whole seat to sleep on..
During that journey we were looking for some train details & Airtel GPRS helped us in finding the list of trains and timings. And we planned to take Jan Satabdi from Trivandaram to Ernakulam since that's the fastest train. That's when Banu told that he couldn't reach the tour agent since last evening, his mobile was switched forever. We started looking for various reasons & solution for them. If the agent might be absconded, might be sick, might lost his mobile, etc.. So we started preparing action plan for each of the scenarios.
If at all he got absconded or sick we can't do anything & we decided to make our own plan and go ahead with some outings in & around Ernakulam/Cochin. If he lost his mobile and have none of our contacts that he should be there in Ernakulam station waiting for us. So we decided that Prasanna a.k.a Malai who was traveling in different route towards Ernakulam might reach early & can find the agent.
We reached Trivandaram by 2.45AM, when we enquired about the train details at the station we got a good news that Guruvayur Express(6128) which was going to Chennai Egmore was been canceled too and that will leave from Trivandaram at 4.30AM and we can travel in that train using the same ticket in same seats. That gave us a some relief. In that train apart from us, there were only some 20-30 people in the whole train since it was an unplanned trip. So we all slept nicely for few hours. Since it's an unplanned trip the train was given less priority & held at many of the signals & finally we reached Ernakulam by 10.15AM
In the mean time Prasanna reached Ernakulam before 6AM & managed find the tour agent after going around the railway station couple of times. So that gave us complete relief that he is there to guide us. Agent himself had some bad experiences; he lost his mobile, the van which he had fixed for our trip stated that they can't come so he struggled to find another comfortable van for us.
Once we reached Ernakulam we had a nice breakfast at one of the restaurant in railway station with hot Jeera water. That re-energized all of us & our tour guide made some changes in our itinerary because of the train delay so the second day's plan is been swapped with first day's plan. So we started our journey to a hotel at Muvatupuzha. That's when the entertainment team is formed and it comprises of Athi & RP they should organize some games and keep the people entertained. Cochin traffic played it's part in our journey & we reached the hotel around 1PM.
Our guide gave us 15 minutes to get ready to go to Athirappilly falls (Punnagai Mannan falls). Since Thanmayi was very tired with all this unplanned delay in travel we planned to stay back in hotel. We feed Thanmayi with rasam satham & made her sleep around 3.45PM. All other friends returned around 8PM & they had bought dinner on the way. We all had dinner together. They just have visited the falls & haven't entered it since they went little late after the closure time. But it seems they had wonderful time both during the journey and at the falls.
