The class trip

Last year, I went to a national ‘Industrial visit’ with my classmates. The reason for me to highlight industrial visit is because we never visited any industries. That’s what we all do, don’t we? Initially, the only reason for my friend and me to be excited about the IV was the trip to wonder la in Bangalore. Little did we expect for it to be one hell of a trip. It’s hard to explain the whole trip in detail, nevertheless, here’s a glimpse of what happened.

Day 0: I get the whole feel of travelling while packing my bags. I had a hard time contemplating what clothes to take whereas it was easy throwing all the snacks I had into my mini snacks bag. It was just tossing and turning in bed for me that night because of the jitters.

Day 1: Unfortunately, I had two hours of class that morning. It was hard to sit through those two dreadful hours. It was a rush after that. I did some last minute packing and was ready to leave. My friends in the hostel were as excited as me. They came to drop me off near the bus and gave a dramatic sendoff. We went by bus to the railway station. I was worried how to fritter away time for 8 hours but there was a lot to do. We listened to songs, played games like dumb charades, anthakshari, and cards and kept on hogging. Once we reached Coimbatore, we took the bus we had booked to Wayanad. We all hoped to sleep on our way there. The night was still young.

Day 1 and 3/4: The bus broke down at around 2 a.m. in the morning in a sharp road bend. I was unaware of all this till 2:30 a.m.! Everyone tried to sleep but it was really uncomfortable.

Day 2: At 6 a.m., two vans came to take us to our destination. After a lot of stomach upsetting situations on the way, we finally reached the hotel. We were welcomed with late breakfast. After getting refreshed and comfortable with our new rooms and roommates, we had lunch and were out to explore Wayanad. They took us to Karalad Lake. Songs were played and we danced like crazy maniacs in the bus. A few unveiled their adventurous side by trying out zip lining. The rest of us took photos and boomerangs. It was drizzling, so we retreated back to the hotel. After dinner, we all were ready for the gossip session in our rooms. It was the first time we got to stay with our day scholar friends, so we stayed up till 2 talking about anything and everything.

Day 3: We all woke up early and got onto the bus, super hungry. They didn’t give us breakfast because people might puke. A few of us gobbled a slice of cake as we were starving. Our first stop was Chembra peak. A few jeeps were there to take us to the start of the trekking point. We were warned to watch out for leeches and stay together. Everyone walked super slow and stopped in many places to take photos. Four of us started climbing fast and didn’t bother waiting for others. It was exciting as we screamed ‘Girl power’ for motivating ourselves. We reached the top and saw a beautiful heart shaped lake. We waited until the rest of our class joined us. Then, we took photos with our friends and also took a video of us dancing to ‘Jimmiki kammal’. The climb down was scary as it was slippery. We all reached down and it was slightly drizzling. We washed our shoes and were ready to go to our next destination, Sochipaara falls. We had lunch there and stayed in the bus after that whilst the boys went to the falls. We came back to the hotel and we freshened up to go for the DJ night. Well, it was just a disco ball in the dining hall. Nevertheless, we showed off our dancing skills. Dinner wasn’t ready, so we decided to sit together as a class and play. The girls had to imitate the boys and they had to guess who we were imitating and vice versa. It was worth waiting for the food because it was yummy.

Day 4: People from my room always got scolded whether we came early or late. We bid adieu to Kerala and went to Coorg in Karnataka. We went water rafting. It was a whole new experience. We were asked to jump off the raft in the safe zone. It was fun floating; the life jacket was a lifesaver even though I knew how to swim. After the short swimming session, we got on to the raft and started rowing. Within the next 5 minutes, we hit a rock, our lifeguard was hurt, and we all drifted in different directions. Some of us held on to the raft and tried swimming to the sides to catch hold of some tree. We all caught on to the branches of the trees and waited for help to arrive. Once we were saved from there, we took a group photo and called ourselves the survivors. This was just the start of a beautiful day. We went to our resort and got ready to have lunch. We rushed to a Buddha temple before its closing hours and were awestruck by the architecture. We had a little time on the streets of Coorg. Later that night, we went to a place where they had campfire and DJ. We never got bored of dancing to the songs they played and we felt like we were in a disco party with the flashing lights. We were drained by the time it was 10pm. We had enough energy only to eat, talk and sleep.

Day 5: We were told to use the fun facilities provided by the resort but we preferred sleeping in till it was time to drag our asses out of bed to have breakfast. Our class went to Mandalpatti for jeep trekking. Imagine standing inside clouds and it starts drizzling. Well, that’s how it was. After that, we had lunch and were off to Mysore. The fountain show in Mysore garden was beautifully programmed. It was our last night, so we decided to play some game. It was a lame game but it was fun laughing and just enjoying those last few hours together. A cake was cut and we all gave our feedback about how the tour was wonderfully planned by two of our classmates.

Day 6: Yaaaaay! The day my friend and I waited forever since they planned the tour. On our way to wonder la, we danced, sang songs, and spammed our WhatsApp group. After we reached, time just flew. One minute we were in dry rides, then we were in the water slides and it was already time to leave. We left for Bangalore railway station. Everyone went shopping. My friend and I stayed back in the station and had food from there. We loved the food and wished we could eat at roadside shops lot more often. Our friends came back and we boarded the train for our journey back to Chennai.

The next day, we reached early in the morning and the bus picked us up from the railway station. When we dispersed from the bus, we realized that things will never be like the IV ever again.