Chasing Ghosts & Running Trails - A Travelouge

To Infinity & beyond

I know its a bit late to brag about my latest adventure but in my defense, I was super busy making up for those days wandering the lost land of ghosts or sweating and struggling in the trails in the City of Dawn. You know, I still have to make money for the next item in the pipeline. 

As always this adventure to began with an idea of doing something that the mediocre men find absurd, a true athlete finds trivial while myself feels fun. Auroville at Pondicherry hosts an annual marathon with the one twist - There are no roads, you run through unpaved tracks, trails under the foliage, avoiding rocks and get roasted under the unforgiving Tamilian sun if you don't twist your ankle in between. Fun right? One downside of this event is that they do not give you a medal and being a trophy hunter, that put me off initially. Out of the blue Simham, came up with this brilliant idea, 'Why don't we drive to Pondi, via Dhanushkodi?' 

The Pamban Bridge

As expected there were no counter questions or discussions and we ('Poland' Praveen, 'Simham' Vijayaraj, Sujit 'The Kid' and myself) pulled into the check post in Poland's Safari (Cliche-led called as the Beast) past Rameshwram by around 3.30PM on 12  Feb. There is a new road constructed from the check post to the Dhanushkodi ruins but as some dumb politrickian had not yet found time to come and inaugurate, the road remains closed to public. The friendly folks around there have made a livelihood by transporting the tourist/pilgrims to the ruins in rusty old vans and jeeps since long. We negotiated with the dude there and he told he would take 15 of us in his van for 150 per head. The HR skills in us rose to the occasion and within minutes we had 15 people lined to board the bus. 

Rusty vans that ply the salt marsh

'I will not go without 18 people.'

'But you told you need 15 only'

'No. 18 people or no go. Else I want 2500RS'.

'How far is this ruins from here?'

'Far, 5 Km up and 5Km down. 10Km total, very far.'

This moron wants to squeeze in 18 people into his rusty 14 people carrier and now he insulted the ego of four would be marathon runners with a 'very far 10Kms'. 

Quickly setting up our Garmins and Strava apps (without which we are incapable of doing anything that involves sweating) we stared off in a chill pace. We will take 45 minutes up, 15 minutes at the ruins and 45 minutes back so by around 6PM we can be at the hotel carbloading for the marathon. So I thought.

Ruins of Dhanushkodu

We hardly broke a sweat reaching the ruins and was wondering why all these people pay so much money to these idiots when they could walk easily till here. This part of the walk is mostly unremarkable though the landscape is a unique one. Sea on both sides, fresh tarmac under the feet, turtle rescue shelters, wild horses (i kid you not) and remains of old buildings dotting the sandy expanse. The town of Dhanushkodi offered no surprises as we were all familiar about the place through blogs, movies and friends who already been there. It was like a paradise of cliche's. Ruined railway station, ruined school, ruined post office, ruined church, ruined land and ruined people throwing their trash all over the place. We clicked a few memoirs and while having a lemon soda, I fought off a hawker trying to rob me with his 'floating stone' from Ramsetu. 

Dhanushkodu cliche !'

Were is the lands end?'

'We are there'

'But there is land on all sides, this is not the end  of land. it must be a bit far.'

I consulted the hawker. ' A little more Saar'

'Okey its pointless(pun intended) not to see the end point of the land. Lets walk till there.'

From here on, it was a hike through sand, more sand and even more sand. And being the arrogant scum we were, we didn't think it will be smart to buy a bottle of drinking water. The landscape changed into a thin strip of sand boarded by the calm waters of Bay of Bengal and the screaming sea of Indian ocean. We found turtle tracks from the sea where the mummy comes to lay her eggs, we found trash thrown back by the sea which we threw into it, we found thousands of shells, conch, seaweeds, a lone communication tower, we even found a broken idol of some long lost deity by the beach. 

Sujit trying to find signs of civilization

Among all  one thing was the most pleasurable and most scary. We didn't encounter another living soul since we left the ruins. The thin strip of land got thinner by minutes but so did the sun starting to sink in the vast ocean to our right.

         

           'There. I see it. The end of land'

Now we began a race against the darkness that creeps in to reach the Lands end. We clicked a few pics and pissed while Simham got a 'Welcome to SriLanka' message in this mobile service provider. The first time anyone is getting a mobile signal since starting from the check point. By now the sun was gone and the illumination was provided by a million stars banded together in the heaven in form of the Milky-way and a small slice of Moon. It would have been an idea romantic walk - By the beach with your sweetheart in the moon light next to your honeymoon cottage. But no; here my company was three sweaty guys far from the nearest habitation in a ribbon of land that could easily be swallowed by a good wave. The return hike was a quick one, no pauses, no breathers and no photographs. Even in that hectic stride, I could not but look around in awe at the rugged but breathtakingly serine beauty of this lost beach. 

By 8.30PM, we sagged back to Poland's Safari and drove off to find the nearest watering hole. A quick dinner, a swish of beer and a soft bed curtained the day.

The second day of the trip was unremarkable except for the lesson that I learned not to jump into a canal bed however dry it may look. We saw salt fields on both sides of the road and was intrigued to have a closer look and when we stopped for a break, I ran off to find one. The choice was either to walk around to get closer or simply cross the parched dry canal and I jumped into the latter. 'Thugggsss..." I was knee deep into black mud that clinked to my feet like tar and I could not pull myself free due to the suction it caused. I was literately planted on that canal. It took me a few minutes to pull myself out of that mess and even more time washing off the black slush in one of the flooded salt field. Great experience, but one is enough for a lifetime.

We reached Pondi by dusk, met the rest of the TRAc's, fooled around in the pool, had beer, ate food, had more beer and ate even more food and slept. The next day we went to Auroville and ran the damn half marathon. That makes it two half marathons in two days and still all of us managed to improve our timings with myself finishing in 2.35 from the 2.50 last time. Simham as usual was the best clocking a sub-2 at 1.50 and soon had to suffer the consequence of treating us at a CCD. 




We returned to the pool, checked out of the hotel (Ananda Inn, awesome place) and bid farewell to our running buddies and began the long drive home by 1PM. 

Biriyani, chicken65, omelettes, junk food, CCD  in between chatting about everything from gravitational waves to exotic places to books to politics to eye candies to meaning of life to TRAc's to TBC, we reached Trivandrum by 11.30PM to conclude what was one of the most intense, insane adventure so far. As I got down from the car, the same question that was in my mind was shouted at me from the car.

'What's Next?'

Pro-Tip - Want to go for an epic road trip? Install Splitwise app (Thanks Poland); its super awesome and helps you splits the bills you pay equally or otherwise. And do have a Android for the purpose, Windows phone sucks (Ask the Kid). 

Pro-Tip2 - Always drive in a Safari, its super awesome in comfort and in scaring the oncoming traffic. Plus always let the driving crazy guys do the driving so that you can chill out in the back.

Pro-Tip3 - You need more than an evening to see Pondi, my only regret is that we couldn't spare a day more to enjoy this incredible town and the spirits it offer.

Pssss.... All the images in the blog are either mine or shamelessly stolen by me from my co-travelers.

The TRAc's clan at Auroville

The Hike

What the road-trip offers