A memorable trip

This blog is about the trip we recently had to a place called Singarayakonda in A.P district in South India. It was basically a 1 day trip. The plan was to attend a wedding of our friend and return back to Chennai the next day morning. We started our journey in a gleeful way. We boarded the train (Pinakini Express) which heads up to the place we wanted to be. It was basically a 4 hour journey. We booked our tickets in an AC Chair car compartment and got ourselves settled in our seats. The compartment was comfier than other chair cars which I have traveled. See some snaps below.
Me and Bose

Aravind and Gnanakumar

Bose upset since I took his snack


We all reached the Singarayakonda station by 6:30 PM. We had a cab waiting for us in the railway station. The cab took us to a place where we could go and refresh ourselves. We all got dressed up and were ready to go to the wedding hall. The same cab took us to the wedding reception. The place of the wedding reception was a typical countryside and it was very crowded. Most of the people seemed to be very rustic. There was music and dance choir who were singing some Telugu (South Indian Language) songs blatantly. One of the member in the choir announced that the next song would be from Chiru’s (Andhra Superstar) movie. But a group of people opposed it. The reason was simple and obvious, the actor belongs to a different caste. I was very much astonished to witness the caste system in India. We could also see that the dinner was being served. I was bit hesitant to have it because it was served by a group of slobs. But somehow I managed to have a quick little grub which would cease my hunger.

Cheering the choir


Found a place to sit atlast


Now the climax of the story begins. We were told that the wedding would start only by 12:45 AM. Yes only in this part of the world weddings are conducted in early mornings. We had to catch our train back to Chennai by 5:30 AM. We thought that we will go back to the room where we could have a good nap. To reach the room the only option was to use the cab which dropped us here. We tried to spot the cab driver and looks like he absconded from the venue. The place was very remote god forsaken land and we did not even find a vehicle which would take us to the room. We thought we could stroll to the room. But the place was very dark and we were not able to see the road clearly. The road was very lonesome and we were afraid if some thugs could nab us for money. So we decided to head back to the place of wedding reception. By gods grace the groom of the wedding made a way for us to get hold of another cab which would drop us only at the railway station but not the room. Luckily we had our bags in our hands and we agreed for the deal and reached the railway station. By that time it was 1 AM morning. Most of us were dozy by hat time and we managed to find a platform in the railway station where we could doze. It was damn cold and the wind was blowing heavily which ripped through our body. To add more salt to the wound we were carked by the freaky mosquitoes. Some of the guys like Aravind and Gnanakumar were very much prepared for the trip. They had all the necessary bed spreads to protect them from mosquitoes and cold wind.

See the images below.
Aravinda

Not dossers. This is Aravinda and Bose.


The mosquitoes and rattling noise made by other trains made us fretting the whole night. This also made us to have only an intermittent sleep. Time passed by and we woke up before the dawn and we were frantic to hear that the train to Chennai was delayed by 1 hr. Finally time passed and we got the train and reached home by 10 AM.

After this incident any wedding invite to remote places like this makes me think twice :).. It was worth a trip to enjoy and remember througout my life.