This was not a trek, But a simple enjoyable trip.
Since it was not a trek, we didn't follow any plans or guidelines to carry forward. The initial spark came from Yaseen, which ignited the spirit in the photographers who were interested to travel till pondy to visit the Photo exhibition of Rajib Ghose on his Himalayan expedition. We didnt have a fixed itinerary for this trip, We started the planning on Friday eveving and executed on Saturday.
Since i was joining CTC on their trip after a very long gap after Ombattu Gudda, It was totally a new crowd for me. A few were known by mails and chats and not by face.
Viki picked me up from Guindy and we reached Tidel park at 6. Samyak and Yaseen joined us after 15 minutes, and then Kaushik and then Rithwik.
We parked our extra bikes in the parking lot and 4 got into Rithwik's car and 2 in Samyaks bike, So 6 CTC-ians started our trip from Tidel park at 6.30+ am. It was then we realised that the exhibition is opened only at 4pm to 7 pm. The next halt was at Mahabalipuram, It was a little cloudy and the lighting was so cool. I believe we were one among the first entrants into the Mahabalipuram shore temple. It was then high time that we took all our weapons and were ready for the planned battle. In no time, each one went in different directions to click and which showed our diversity in photography. Each one had a different taste to click and this showed our "Unity in Diversity" as a CTC-ian.
After many clicks, we headed towards the restaurant where we filled our bowels till the brim. After which we had some rest at the premises of the near by temple pond. After some time we went to the butter rock temple. We saw a young girl posing as if she was holding the butter rock without rolling. But our instincts showed us something that was very near to us. It was none other than the Green vine snake. It was so camouflaged that we couldn't identify it when seen through the camera. When we saw the snake, the entire crew took turns to fire many rounds.
On our way, we were invited by a CTC member and we visited the house of Tarannum and Tabassum where we were served with ginger lime juice by their mother. After which we moved towards the ruined fort suggested by Viki. It was really hot by that time of the day, but came across some cool views from top of the fort.
Then we moved towards Pondicherry to look at Rajib's exhibit. On looking at the invitation of the Photography exhibition, We made a wrong decision that we should spend only 10 minutes inside to look at all the photos and rust out to go for the Crocodile Night Safari. We were lucky to have Rajib in that place to tell us his experience of his 30+ days trek in Himalayas and his experience in his landscape photography sessions in Himalayas. It was a great learning experience to me as well as the others. We saw all the splendid photos and stepped out of the exhibition to realise that we spend around 2 hours inside and also wanted to go for another round to look at his photos, but time was not sufficient for us as we need to return to Chennai the same day itself. With all the experience shared by Rajib, we felt like that we were actually in Himalayas with him during those clicks. When we stepped out of the exhibition hall, we were literally tired due to the virtual travel to Himalayas through Rajib photos. and Rajib was very much excited to have members from a trekking club who travelled all the way from Chennai to Pondy to visit his exhibition.
We headed towards chennai and settled our expenses the same day itself before the split up of the group. For the money that was spend ( 300 Rs each ) the cost efficiency factor was more than 500%. Yet another rememberable trip along with CTC.
