Thursday, April 29, 2010

Rendezvous @ PUCON-1

I was getting too much exhausted by long tedious software implementation working hours at office in Chile. Day by day our office timings kept increasing and so as my frustration. I wanted a break badly. That’s how idea of visiting PUCON, awesome tourist place located in Southern Chile got highlighted in my ‘Ghanchakkar’ mind.

Even after making so much of advertisement and efforts of luring my colleagues to join my trip of Pucon; nobody agreed to come with me. Going all alone on a tour of 3 days in Spanish speaking country where you are totally stranger was not at all a comfortable idea. Above all hardly could I communicate a single sentence in Spanish. But my irresistible ‘Ghanchakkar’ mind was pushing hard to go ahead and accomplish the tour alone.


Next sequences of events are narrated as follows:

Scene: 1[Telephonic conversation with my parents—Wednesday night]


Me: “Mummy I managed to get one day leave from my work so I have finalized a trip to southern Chile this week end.

Mom: “Great. I was telling you that don’t work like donkey there. Find out at least sometime for yourself. Explore the countryside and roam around. I am happy that at last you have executed my words. Go beta have fun.”

Me: “Thank you ma.”

Mom: “How about your food? Have you enquired whether vegetarian food is available there? Who all are coming with you? How far that place is from Santiago?.........” [Long list of motherly questions kept on flowing from other side of phone… for next 5 minutes…]

Me: [Intruding my mother’s questions session] “Ma please stop all these questions… I have planned everything. I am going to stay at one of the youth hostels in Pucon. There kitchen facility is also there, if I will not get vegetarian food outside I will make vegetarian noodles and will have it. I have bought many of it.”

Mom: That’s good. But you have not answered my question. Who else is joining you on the trip?

Me: There is little catch here ma, actually I am going alone. Nobody has time or interest from my team to come with me. Above all our boss is not ready to give leave to all team members at the same time as work will get hampered. But I have planned everything. I will take bus ticket from nearby station. I will do youth hostel booking online for my stay there. So all arrangements are well in place and I will not have any trouble even though I will be alone. You just don’t worry.

Mom: [Speaking to my father] Look your daughter has gone fully mad. This Ghanchakkar wants to go all alone to a place which is around 800 km away from Santiago. How is she going to manage it? She has never gone to that place ever in life, not knowing local language as well. You better strictly stop her right away.

Papa: “What I have heard from your mother is true? If yes than all plans you need to cancel right away.

Me: ”Not fare at all. This is not fare at all. You both were teasing me that after coming here I have seen only my hotel room and office. Tell mom when once we went to market and saw one young foreign lady roaming around, how nicely she told me that she is proud of youngsters like this girl who has the courage to explore unknown land and ability to go beyond horizon on their own, I want my daughter to inculcate these abilities… now what happened…. why you and mom are stopping me.. ”

[Bingoooo…right words at right time… and it worked.]

Papa: When are you going and coming back from your trip? And when will you send us photos? Can’t you extend your stay beyond 3 days? As this place seems to be far away; make sure you visit all the important tourist attractions there, don’t miss any. But yes send me itinerary and your hotel address of Pucon as well. Don’t go for any trekking adventure else ligament injury of your knee will get worst.

Me: “That’s like my father papa….I will email you my itinerary…”

[That night I kept on dreaming about my trip. Now I had only 2 days in my hand before departure. ]


Scene: 2[At office—Thursday morning]

Mani: What are you doing Hetal?

Me: I am booking my hotel stay in Pucon. In lunch time will go to book bus tickets as well for Pucon.

Mani: Ohh… so you have finalized you trip is it? Are you going alone?

Me: Yes...I will start on Friday night from Santiago and I will reach Pucon on Saturday morning. I will check in to youth hostel same day. Then for 3 days will roam around Pucon leisurely. I will start return journey on Monday night will join all of you in office on Tuesday.

Mani: Great plan. I wish I could have joined you. But go ahead have fun and take care.

Me: Thanks Mani.

Scene:3[At hotel room—Friday evening around 7.30 pm]

[I was packing my bag and having last look at itinerary suddenly phone rang it was Mani on Phone.]

Mani: Hey Hetal what time is your bus?

Me: It is at 11.30 pm. I will prepare dinner and quickly rush to bus station. How is your health Mani? [Mani was suffering from severe headache since morning that day and had to go to doctor for the same.]

Mani: Oh... I am extremely alright. Doctor gave good therapy so I am absolutely ok now. Where you bought your bus tickets from? Till what time those ticket counters are open any idea?

Me: Well I booked it from Universidad De Chile Metro Station. But I have to board the bus from Terminal Alameda located at Metro station Universidad de Santiago. No idea on till what time the bus ticket booking counters will remain open. What happened but?

Mani: No nothing happened. I was thinking that if we can get ticket for me as well then I want to join you on tour.

Me: [Screaming at top of my voice out of sheer happiness] what??????????????? You are coming with me? I can’t believe it. Now whatever will happen we both will go by hooks or crooks. I am so happy. Frankly speaking even though I was showing off that I will go alone and I will manage but I was also so nervous from inside about this trip. You have exactly 30 minutes to pack your bag. We will go early to bus station to grab your ticket. I know being a week end it will be difficult to get last minute ticket but we will surely take chance. Hurry up girl….

Mani: I have already done packing. We can start within next 15 minutes. You don’t prepare dinner, I have already made for you come to my room and have it here itself.

Scene: 4 [At hotel room—Friday evening around 9.30 pm in the Metro]

Me: Mani I think our metro station has come, we will get down here and will enquire from where we can board the bus for Pucon. We can get tickets from boarding point as well.

[Station comes, Metro’s doors open, and I am about to get out from train.]

Mani: Hetal stop wait for me. One of the flaps of my bag is stuck in the seat here… it is not coming out.

Me: Come fast train is about to depart we need to get down at this station itself. If we will miss this than getting down at next station and coming back to this station will eat away 30 minutes, which surely we can’t afford. Wait I will come there and will help you.

[We both started pulling bag out of the metro’s seat but it was badly stuck. Our efforts went in vain. Our struggle with bag was a means of free entertainment for fellow passengers in train. Bipper of metro’s door closure started to ring…we had exactly 5 seconds to get out...]

Mani: Ahhh here are the scissors; leave the flap in metro only if it does not want to come with us to Pucon. I will cut it right now. Nobody can stop us to escape…

[She cut the flap and we rushed … literally jumped out of the metro at last moment of door closure.]

Scene: 5 [At overcrowded Alameda bus station, Santiago—Friday evening around 9.40 pm]

Me: Who says that India is only crowded place? Look at this bus station; it is just similar to Mumbai’s local train station during pick hours. There is no place to stand also here Mani. At every ticket window such a long queue how we would manage our tickets?

Mani come this side I can see tour bus Pucon counter there and queue is also bit smaller as compared to other counters. 

[Rushing towards the counter…. To the clerk] I have got one ticket to Pucon for 11.30 pm bus. I want one more ticket in the same bus can you please check availability?


[After 10 minutes of pause….]

Ticket booking Clerk1: @@@@#####%%%%%%%% [All in Spanish.]

Me: This guy does not know single word of English Mani. Decoding his Spanish answer would take longer time. It is useless to talk to him. Why government here can’t make Basic English knowledge mandatory for all citizens?

Mani: Right now we don’t have time to discuss this stupid proposition of yours for Chile government. Come we will go to next counter and try our luck there.

[She rushed to next counter snatching my bus ticket from my hand. The bus stand was so overcrowded; I couldn’t find Mani anywhere nearby. Now another pain started along with ticket we need to search each other as well in that crowd. After 10 minutes of running here and there I could locate her.. Sigh of relief on face of both of us]

Me: Where were you? Ok no time for that question now we have got only last one hour. Hurry up could you get any information on ticket?

Mani: I enquired at other counter all the buses to Pucon for today are fully booked. No chance of getting ticket. Are you carrying your passport with you now? Flight rate for Argentina looks cheaper shall we drop idea of Pucon and head towards Argentina? What do you say? They are telling no need of visa and all, we can get on arrival visa after reaching there.

[Now this was a real ‘Ghanchakkar’ mind of Mani showing its presence.]

Me: Ok I don’t mind going anywhere in the earth apart from our office and hotel for next 3 days if Pucon tickets are not available for you.

[Meanwhile we heard one English voice passing by. From this person we got information that apart from Alameda Terminal there is another bus stand called ‘Terminal Los Héroes’ as well for buses going towards Southern side of Chile. It is at only 15 minutes walking distance. We decided to try our luck to get ticket for Pucon there. We started to run towards Los Héroes Bus stand thinking that if we will get two tickets for Pucon from there then we will come back to Alameda Terminal and cancel my single ticket.]

Scene: 5 [At Los Héroes Bus station—Friday evening around 10.40 pm]



Mani: [To ticket counter clerk] Two Tickets for Pucon please.

[Clerk didn’t understand. Now it was our time to exhibit our so called working knowledge of Spanish without single grammatical correctness. I took out my ticket to Pucon and showed it at counter.]

Me: Otro ticket.. Dos… Dos..Dos… [Other ticket…2...2]

Ticket counter clerk2: Senorita… @@@@#####???????

[Looking at our strange looks towards each other, a fellow tourist standing next to us in the queue came to rescue us. He knew English and told us that booking clerk is telling us to go to directly platform no. 10. One of the tour operators’ are planning to put extra bus at 11.45pm for Pucon looking at rush. If we were lucky then we may get ticket in that bus.]

Mani: Otro ticket... dos… dos...dos… Pucon…

Bus conductor: Si Senorita….@@@@####??????

[He kept on speaking something but along with that he gave us two tickets as well. Our joy was out of the world. At last we conquered the Chilean crowd and got the ticket to Pucon around 11.15 pm. Bus was destined to depart at 11.45 pm.]

Me: Mani I can’t still believe that we have the tickets with us. We have still 30 minutes with us. How about rushing back to the Alameda Terminal and canceling my spare ticket?

Mani: Ok let’s run again. Come this side; we have to take left to reach to that station.

Me: No Mani we have to go straight. I think you forgot the way to that station.

Mani: Ok than run fast…not much time left.

[After running for 3-4 minutes]

Mani: I sense that we were running in wrong direction… actually both of us have lost the way to Alameda Terminal.

Me: [I am still running though…] No no Mani we are in correct direction only….

I kept on running towards unknown direction carrying in one hand a bag full of food items and in other the water bottle. Mani had no option but to chase me.

Suddenly the plastic bag in which I was carrying biscuits, chips and other food items got tarred. Whatever Mani had stuffed inside it at last moment all went down on the road. Now it was compulsory for us to collect all the things as without those food items our stay at Pucon was going to be miserable. So we withdrew idea of cancelling my spare ticket and happily returned to our Bus Platform.

Although I lost around 70000 Chile pesos by not cancelling that spare ticket, but sheer joy of our triumph on all the hurdles of getting Ticket to Pucon never allowed me to repent for it. May be destiny never wanted us to withdraw our plan. Two crazy girls started their journey towards Pucon finally with lots of excitement. More on our Pucon trip… in subsequent posts…
Thursday, April 22, 2010

The Journey into Yourself....

Recently I read one book- ‘The Power of Now’ by Eckhart Tolle. I found this book absolutely self transforming.I would like to share here two paragraphs from this book which is written on topic ‘The Journey into yourself’. Hope readers will like it.

When you are on a journey, it is certainly helpful to know where you are going or at least the general direction in which you are moving, but don’t forget: the only thing that is ultimately real about your journey is the step that you are taking at this moment. That's all there ever is.

 
Your life’s journey has an outer purpose and an inner purpose. The outer purpose is to arrive at your goal or destination, to accomplish what you set out to do, to achieve this or that, which, of course, implies future. But if our destination, or the steps you are going to take in the future, take up so much of your attention that they become more important to you than the step you are taking now, then you completely miss the journey’s inner purpose, which has nothing to do with where you are going or what you are doing, but everything to do with how. It has nothing to do with future but everything to do with the quality of your consciousness at this moment. The outer purpose belongs to horizontal dimension of space and time; the inner purpose concerns a deepening of your Being in the vertical dimension of the timeless Now.

Your outer journey may contain a million steps; your inner journey only has one: the step you are taking right now. As you become more deeply aware of this one step, you realize that it already contains within itself all the other steps as well as the destination. This one step then becomes transformed into an expression of perfection, an act of great beauty and quality. It will have taken you into Being, and the light of Being will shine through it. This is both the purpose and the fulfilment of your inner journey, the journey into yourself.
--From the book ‘The Power of Now’ Author: Eckhart Tolle.
Monday, April 12, 2010

Sat Samundar Par ... [Bienvenidos a Chile--Part -3]

First outing in Chile…. How can I forget that? After enormous rounds of requests when we were not able to get our leaves sanctioned from our boss, we were forced to plan only one day tour to Vina del Mar and Valparaiso on Sunday. But sheer joy of escape from the hotel room and tedious long work schedules of office kept us excitement alive for this trip.


I started the bus journey early morning from Santiago to Vina del Mar along with my two colleagues. Amongst 3 of us me and Mani, we both were too much happy and eager for this trip. As it was the first time we were going outside the Santiago city where we used to live in Chile. In our extra ordinary excitement of capturing all moments of that trip to cherish it lifelong we started clicking photos right from bus stand.



Within first 30 minutes itself we clicked so many photos that the battery of our camera got discharged. It was still 2 hours to go before we reach actual place to be visited!!!! Thanks to our ghanchakkargiri; we were left with only one digital camera to use which belonged to 3rd member of our gang Arun.


 

Yes..Yes.. above photo was the last shot taken from the camera which was in our charge :).
We reached Vina del Mar around 10 am. To our surprise when we got down from the bus we saw so many tourist guides lined up to offer their services. We chose one English voice from them to consult for our tour. That guide’s name was Carina. Our sole criteria to chose her as our tour guide was based up on only one thing i.e. her English speaking ability!!!!



I will share here few places and moments of the trip which are very dear to me …



Quinta Vergara: Vina del Mar's founding family, the Vergara family, used to live at the Quinta Vergara. They built their house there and the whole estate was their garden. The Quinta (Estate) itself has many Chilean trees and flowers, and it's worth the visit. The house itself is now houses the museum of fine arts, initially based on the families fine collection of art, with some interesting paintings from this century.







When we went inside this building, we were stunned by one thing i.e. footwear which was given to us. All tourists had to wear them on their shoes compulsorily in order to get inside. It was measure taken by authorities to protect all fine arts and paintings kept inside the museum from external dust!!!!



The Flower Clock of Vina del Mar: This flower clock reminded me of India. As our very own Lal bag in Bangalore has similar kind of flower clock.







The La Sebastiana Museum: One of the houses where the famous Nobel Prize winner Chilean writer and poet Pablo Neruda used as his residence.



We had captured following stunning view of Pacific Ocean from window of Study room where this great poet used to write.







“I feel the tiredness of Santiago, I want to find a house to live and write in peace at Valparaíso. Certain conditions must be given. It may not be too high or too low. It must be solitary, but not in excess. I wish neighbors were invisible. I wish I did not see or hear them. Original but not uncomfortable. Very light, but firm. Neither too big nor too small, far from everything. But close to the stores. As well, it has to be very inexpensive. Do you think I can find a house like that in Valparaíso?” Letter from Neruda to his poet friend Sara Vial. [Source: http://www.welcomechile.com/valparaiso/pablo-neruda-house-museum.html]



I came across above beautiful expectation of a house from Pablo Neruda in net. After visiting The La Sebastiana house in Valparaiso, I cannot believe myself how real they were, and how lucky Pablo Neruda was to find such an excellent dwelling for himself.



The following shot we took from this house’s garden. Both generations facing each other… and may be thinking inside how wonderful it is to be at other side!!!








Funicular: Chileans are proud of Valparaiso's designation in 2003 by UNESCO as one of the "World Heritage Sites". Certainly the Funiculars were notable features that contributed to that selection. Funicular lifts, or "Ascensores" were built to move pedestrians between the lower town and many of the hills. Most were built between 1886 and 1916.






The basic principle of funicular operation is that two cars are permanently attached to each other by a cable, which runs through a pulley at the top of the incline. Counterbalancing of the two cars, with one ascending and one descending the slope minimizes the energy needed to lift the ascending car. Winching is normally done by an electric drive working on the pulley. Sheave wheels guide the cable to and from the drive mechanism and the incline cars.



The First Ever TV interview: After enjoying our ride in one of the Funicular, we were coming outside the Funicular station. We saw a group of people were doing a movie shooting. With curiosity we 3 also joined to crowd to watch the shooting.



We came to know from crowd that it was team from Costa Rica country’s TV channel. They were shooting there for one of their travel show. Suddenly director of the show came near me and started asking me something in Spanish. As usual I could not understand a single word :). I waived our tour guide Carina for translation so that I can communicate with him.



Director wanted to confirm from us whether we were Indians. When we said yes… next request from him …he wanted all 3 of us to give an interview in his TV show about our experience as an Indian tourist in Valparaiso, Chile. We were stunned. For those 2 minutes we felt like TV star… receiving entire crowd’s attention, facing camera and answering questions of the host… Ahhh It was indeed a Ghanchakkar’s Showtime….



The Pacific Ocean [Cochoa Beach]: After visiting few other places finally we spent our evening at this beautiful beach. It was indeed ‘Sat Samundar Par’ [Beyond Seven Oceans] feeling for me.



The water of Pacific Ocean was beneath my feet. It was like dream come true for me. I never ever wanted to go back to Santiago and get drenched into a workaholic place once again. But some things are never ever in our hand to control so we 3 with delightful memories had to start our journey back to Santiago in the Evening.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Astonishing Birthday [Bienvenidos a Chile--Part -2]

Just one week passed by in Chile... I was still struggling to get settled in new office environment, new colleagues, new city and new country.

I was really upset on one thing, and that was my birthday which was only after 7 days of my arrival in Chile. I was lost in world of Spanish and Tamil speaking unknown people there so obviously no one is going to wish me on that day personally. This very fact was making me more nervous.

Finally that gloomy birthday day arrived. I got up and with very sad mood spoke to my family on phone and took their blessings. The entire day at work went like a usual day, with lots of work, work and only work. Nothing was special, no one wished me as no one knew that it was my birthday that day.

I reached my hotel room after marathon 13 hours work schedule in office. I was not at all in a mood to prepare dinner. Again I called up my father and gathered his sympathy for being alone in the most remote corner of the world on my birthday. My father’s lovable wishes were not enough to cheer me up. I decided to sleep empty stomach. I switched off my room’s light and called it a day.

After around 15 minutes suddenly the door bell rang. As I hardly knew anyone there, nobody used to visit me in my room except housekeeping department ladies from hotel. I was more surprised they used to come during afternoon time and it was around 11 pm then. I opened the door but no one was there. I was really amused who would have rang the bell this much late in night.

Now it was time for phone to ring….. Ahhh it was a local call. I was even more surprised…. Who will be calling me at this time that too from Chile? It was my next door neighbor Mani on the call who was my colleague too. She asked me to go to her room as she wanted some help from me. I entered her room, without single hint of the great surprise which she had already arranged for me inside.

I couldn’t believe on my eyes what I was looking at. Mani who was my just colleague. We would have hardly spoken to each other except work related matter.  That person inspite of coming late from office at 10.30 pm, prepared a nice dinner and decorated cake for my birthday!!!! That gesture of hers really made me so emotional.

Hetal: "I do not have words Mani, you have simply stunned me. How come you knew that it’s my birthday today?"

Mani: "I saw your passport so I knew. I know it feels really bad when we are all alone on our birthday. I really wanted to celebrate your birthday grand way but due to work I got late from office. I couldn’t bring good birthday cake and prepare nice dinner for you. But we will still manage the show with this pan cake, one balloon and Dosa. So come dear let’s celebrate its still 11.15 pm and we have 45 min more before end of the day. "
 
We started our celebration. I cut the cake, enjoyed the Dosa made by Mani followed by funnier Ghanchakkar clicks of photos. We cracked jokes, laughed like mad people. I tried to watch and understand couple of Tamil movie scenes on laptop with help of Mani. Suddenly that evening converted into one of funniest day I had ever spent in my life when I laughed that much.
 
Sometimes unknown persons touch our lives in such a special manner that they leave a permanent print on our memory lane. She just transformed my sad mood and brought me back to my original Ghanchakkar mood. Mani was really an angel to me who just came and flipped the most gloomy birthday of my life to one of the most astonishing birthday.