Panchgani

I try to leave town during the year end. Its this weird idea I have developed that if I do that, then I have a great action packed year. Fortunately its been true for the past 3 years. So I shall continue with the tradition.

The 2008 year end was an interesting one. That was the last time the 3 Stooges went out together. It was one of those rare occasions when I was taking the initiative while the other 2 were cribbing and being major pain! Usually it was always the other way round. Nicholas would plan something, Sameer would agree and I would crib and crib till they forced me to join them. It was crazy. I kept trying to organize the trip, but we were just not able to decide on the days that would be convenient for all of us. We each had our limitations. I wanted to get back on the 31st so that I could spend the New Year with my family. Sameer had his issues and Nicholas had his.

Anyways somehow we managed and it was decided that Nickso and myself would leave for panchgani on the 29th of December night and Sameer would join us on the 30th. We would then be returning on the 31st. We had also thought of going to Mahabaleshwar but then that got cancelled for reasons mentioned below.

We reached at a really odd hour the next morning (it was more like night) at Panchgani. We were sleepy and it was cold! We hunted for a place and somehow managed to get a hotel. We had made plans to see some place at sunrise but once we hit the bed, nothing else mattered. When we got up, we realized that we couldn't survive there for a single hour. The place was "YUCK!" and there were bed bugs. So we decided that we needed to find some other good place. I am not sure why but we had actually budgeted our trip. Anyways we hunted around for another hotel and then we chanced upon Mount View Hotel. It was just awesome! An old house with a fantastic view. Just the perfect place for 3 friends to catch up on life.

We walked around Panchgani enjoying the weather and the sights and sound. Reminded us of our trip to Sikkim. Sameer joined us in the afternoon and we ended up eating the "Laal Dabba Chinese", remembering our college day chinese dinners. :D We then went to a place called Table Top, which is basically a huge flat area on the top of the Panchgani hill.
Obviously we took one of the usually not take routes and ended trekking up to the place. Really nice place to get a panaromic view of the surrounding hills, lakes and the city.

By the time we came down, it was almost dark. We roamed around in the town for a while and then headed back to the hotel. Played a lot of Table Tennis, arranged for a camp-fire that we hand planned for the night and then headed out for dinner. Came back after dinner and made ourselves a cozy little fire and then we started chatting. No idea how long we chatted but it covered a lot of areas.

Just like our days in the fourth year of Engineering when we would go for dinner to Bahadur Sheikh naka and then walk down to a nearby bridge and then spend an hour talking about everything under the sun. The warm fire in the cold night really felt very good.

The next morning we went around investigating the surrounding areas and ended up modeling quite a bit :) Pretty impressed with the outcome. Well the problem that came up was that we wanted to get back but Nicholas kept insisting that he wanted to stay. He wanted us to stay back too. The reasons became apparent later on that year but we each had our prior commitments. But we were both glad that he had a very interesting New Year that night :). So in our own ways we all got what we wanted.

I guess that's how things are. Its all alright at the end :)