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Six months on the road

Having covered over 25 destinations for Road Less Travelled, the METROPLUS team shares its experiences... some funny, some scary and some plain wacky

WE'VE BEEN travelling the length and breadth of Tamil Nadu and the fringes of Andhra Pradesh, riding on rickety buses, walking through the wilderness, taking trains to nowhere and fish carts to even further while attempting to tread where no tourist has so much as torn open a potato crisp bag before.

It's been quite a haul for the Metro Team and as we reach the six-month milestone on this road less travelled, we've decided to give you a peek into the world of city slicking reporters switching their Tropicanas and filter coffees for watery tea and idlis as hard as marble.

It all started with a seemingly innocuous meeting the boss called in mid-November. "We're launching a Saturday Metro — and it's going to have a travel column." Okay, we thought, with our minds more on the boss' well-stocked bookshelf than on what a travel column would involve. "Cool, no problem," we nodded. "That's good," says the boss. "Shalini, you're going to Pichavaram the day after tomorrow."

WHAT is Pichavaram? was the geographically-challenged Shalini's first thought. A map appeared from those bookshelves and a green dot down the coast was pointed out to her. "It's fabulous — mangroves... snakes... crocs... no electricity... a run-down hut for accommodation... it'll be wacky," said the boss, with a faintly amused look. Like Moses before the burning bush, Shalini reeled out the most ridiculous of excuses from "My stuffed turtle will miss me if I go away" and "My Tamil is so badly accented that no one will understand me."

For a change, Prince decided to be a gentleman and chivalrously passed the RLT buck — "You girls carry on. Ladies first, you know." He insists that he was "just giving you girls a chance to travel" but we know better. The only one raring to go where angels feared to tread was Prassana, who was revving up her bike's engine, even before she knew which direction Pulicat, her first destination, lay.

Pichavaram and Pulicat conquered, we hoodwinked Prince into believing that there was nothing scarier than potholes on the unfrequented road to Javadhi Hills. Packed off with a knapsack full of misinformation, Prince returned with a shiny new "lose weight now, ask me how" strategy. It wasn't just the trudging through bush and bramble that had melted five kg of his frame — the sight of grimy hole-in-the-wall eateries that have never considered asking their waiters to wash their hands, made staying hungry for two days the more appetising option.

Food was never an issue if you were travelling with the Metro's chocoholic — Shalini carried more chocolate and juice than roadmaps and insect repellent. When the electricity went out at the Mundanthurai Forest Bungalow, Prassana was yelling for batteries to slot into the torch, Shalini passed her two fingers of chocolate as she had thrown out the batteries in favour of Kit Kats.

After a couple of starvation trips, we settled in and devoured everything from "gopi manjurian" to medicinal plants to stay travel-healthy. Prassana, however, insists that Shalini's onion omelette-and-tea breakfast was the worst meal she was subjected to. "Worse than eating at a shack with flies on every glass and one spoon for all purposes," she winces. Eating with greasy spoons became so common that our stomachs refused to digest food cooked in hygienic star kitchens — and back in the city, food reviews became a bit of a disaster, since we could no longer appreciate finer foods. Shonali has stayed off the road less travelled so that the Metro doesn't completely lose its good taste.

We started as reluctant adventurers but turned into such enthusiastic travellers that regular Metro work took a backseat, as we spent more time hopefully peering into unwieldy maps and slyly surfing the Net looking for unlikely destinations. The long-suffering boss finally chased us out to seek city stories with dire threats of shortening our coffee breaks. When the going got tough, Soma Basu bailed us out with stories from afar. Her accounts of way-out locales such as Sittanavasal, Meghamalai, Karaikudi and Sirumalai added a touch of exotica to the column.

Though we constantly complained about bad roads and worse drivers, we sometimes wished for the reliable but creaky buses with missing seats as travel conditions could get rather primitive.

Prince got the rawest deal of all as he pedalled his way down miles of sandy spits in Point Calimere looking forward to a date with exotic birds. Sadly, they stood him up. He swayed dangerously on the back of a fishcart on his way to Arambakkam, worrying more about the state of his immaculately ironed khakis than scribbling down impressions for the column.

Land's End-venturer Prassana shared the back of a tempo with half-rotting fish as she made her way to the ghost town of Dhanushkodi. Sangeeth's fitness was pushed to the limits when he was sent off to climb the 1,000-odd steps at Gingee fort. However, Top Slip spooked Sangeeth completely as he discovered peepholes in the wooden walls of his room that made him feel like a particularly virulent virus under a microscope.

Daring to be different, Prince decided to explore Amirdi at night with just his out-of-range cell phone as a torch. Strange snorts, grunts and squeals soon drove him back to the relative safety of his room in the forest bungalow. Prassana and Shalini showed great courage when they came face to face with leopards and bears in the Mundanthurai forest.

However, once back in their forest bungalow their bravery shrank to the size of an ant when they heard the clicking of a slimy-looking lizard.Travelling down South, especially as girls, has its advantages, as Prassana and Shalini found out. Most people trip over themselves to help you around, but it could work to your disadvantage when the occasional creeps decide you're an easy target. Prince says on these roads less travelled you can expect to meet well-meaning folks, who volunteer unwanted information and entertain you with insipid jokes that miss the punch line by a mile. "Curl up (as well as you can in the cramped seats) and pretend to fall asleep," is his advice.

So far, it's been a path that's put us on smelly boats, clanking taxis and whining bikes, but it's one road we don't intend straying from.

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