Interesting and funny events occur during all the trips, no matter ,the nature of trip. Our honeymoon trip also did not fail on the account. The beginning was true to the Indian standards , train to Madurai arriving casually late by 2 hours, making us stand on the platform at 11 o clock , only to look amazingly at so many people who had caught their sleeps on the platforms. The travel was good as it was second AC, in which we were travelling . We had no chance to meet strangers ( co passengers ) with strange actions,as it was late night and most were in their slumber. I too tried to sleep o the upper birth, envying all those sleeping blissfully on a rocker. I was also afraid of going beyond Madurai, if at all I slept well . I never got more than a few winks and was totally alert from six in the morning , only for the train to reach our destination by 7.30. There we had the driver arranged by the resort, ready to pick us.
It was a nice Indica with a good driver, conversant in Tamil. I kept asking about the places I wanted to know, without distracting him from his primary job. we had our breakfast at a hotel on the highway. We kept passing the highway , looking at nothing but hills on either side. My wife was good at sleeping in a moving car , so she had no trouble, as the car seat made a good bed and i made a good human pillow. She was well till we negotiated the first few of the 17 hair pin bends we had to encounter, after which she started retching as i she had a germ laden roadside chicken biryani. Then she felt a little OK after we got down and took a breath of fresh air. we proceeded uphill to the resort thinking her ordeal was over. No sooner than we got down , my wife puked everything she had for breakfast, before rushing towards the restroom. Luckily for us and also the resort she vomited close to the lawn rather than the middle of the lobby( if that had happened , we would have been unforgettable guest in the most unpleasant way.
We got a nice room , changed and we thought we will try some local food. We got down from our room to find only a few shops and a north Indian Jain restaurant and a mixed menu Malayali hotel ( I mean including beef). Then we heard that there was a Saravana Bhavan in the town. We had even decided to go there; then we came to know that we had to travel 20 kms on a jeep on the hill roads taking one hour to get there. So we thought we would try out the vegetarian Jain hotel. We went in as we had no options
There was one north Indian family loading themselves all wheatish things. There was no one else other than them and a thin bespectacled guy serving them. The surprise was that there was no cashier . My surprise was gone later , when it became clear that the thin guy was doubling ,rather tripling as the waiter, server and cashier / manager. Further surprise was that the guy was not willing to take orders fro us till he finished billing the north Indian family. I wanted the most rapidly available item on their menu, but he was in no hurry , serving me only a good 30 minutes after we entered the place. I gobbled whatever was on my plate and my wife nibbled whatever was on hers and pushed the rest to me. And for the night we bought whatever was needed so the my wife would churn out a simple and nice meal.
And the biggest escape came to the front only the next day when we went for sightseeing. We had to have our lunch in the small town square before going the other way for further sightseeing. we were taken to the Saravana Bhavan , which was nothing more than the namesake of the famous , overcharging hotel chain HSB. And my goodness, the crowd there was maddening than at the real HSB. The driver had to use his local influence to get us in to the hotel for a meal;without which we would have had to stand in the queue for at least good part of an hour. The food was eatable and not complainable( which is always the case when you are hungry and have missed home food for a couple of days - but retrospectively , not a place where you would pay and eat ).We were just thanking our stars that we didn't venture out to eat at this place the day before and for escaping the ordeal.
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