If you seem to stumble upon this post, please do read my previous posts..

• The Long Way Home – Prelude

The Story continues…

20/8/2008

Chapter 1 [Cochin]

It was 1.30 a.m. in the morning. I was waiting for a call from syauqi when I suddenly fell asleep. Thank goodness syauqi called and that had waked me up. It was already 2.30. I took a short bath and was all ready. That morning we took an auto to the udupi railway station. It was there where we met Su Yin, if i’m not mistaken his name, (from batch 20) and his group. They missed their 1 o’clock train and had to take the next train which was ours. To make things worse, they only manage to get their bags on the last train but neither of them made it on that train. The rest of the story you guys have to ask them themselves.

So our train arrived around 4.10 in the morning, and the next thing i knew, we were on our way to Ernakulum, cochin. Sleepers was always as I have expected. Being travelling to north of india, i’ve been accustomed to the cabin. Of all the tiers, i very much like the upper tier. So up up and away. And away was I drifting into slumberland..

In the train we met with some locals. One was them was aunty (forget her name, but it started with an s). Aunty is a retiree who was once an extension officer in the rural development department (i think). She said that she is sent to remote areas and has the obligation of minding the welfare of people who were below poverty. She was on her way home from her daughter’s house in Goa. She was heading to Trivandrum. They had a birthday party for her grandchildren. The kid was turning 3. Aunty was a very nice lady ( just like a typical Malaysian nenek lah).

There was nothing much to do in the train other than sleep. During the morning coming to afternoon, we had a game of Uno. A boy name Avsheet joined us. He was on his way to cochin with his family. A smart kid should i say. He’s a local Indian residing in the Emirates with his parents. Maybe he was on his holidays and came back to india. Didn’t talk that much with him.

3:00 o’clock. We arrived in Ernakulum. The station was nice and clean too. The first thing we did was went to an Auto pay station and got 2 Auto to head to Maple regency. The fare was quite cheap. Maybe because its not that far. On arrival, we checked in into our rooms and had a short nap.

6:00 o’clock. We had our dinner, and started to wander around the city of Ernakulum. There wasn’t much to explore actually, All we did that night was went to some shopping mall and wandered around seamlessly. The shopping malls were boring too (i never really like shopping malls actually)….

That night i slept early. There was nothing to do.

Bersambung…

Exams over…

It’s been a long time since i wrote any post,

So now mari kita bersantai dengan cerita..

After a long absence from home, my heart grew fond of it. It’s been a year since I’ve smelt the fragrance of my blue little room . They say absence makes the heart grow fonder… and indeed it does. And since after months of struggling with UNIS exam it would be such a wise decision to get back home as quickly as possible.

But that decision was not made.

Months before the holidays, me myself and syauqi had been planning to visit the south. And of course that would be Kerala. And so it did. Syauqi with his skills of planning and implementing ideas, and me with my skill of nodding, disagreeing and criticising (hohoho, maaflah syauqi eh, trip kali nih aku malas banyak).

The original idea of the trip was basically mine and his. So now we need some friends to join us. At first it was a big crowd. Mainly of girls of batch 21, zilal, Huda, prasana, naufa, izzah, fatin and 2 from batch 20, fiqah and dewi. There were rumours that it would be, at that time of year, the monsoon in India and there will be heavy downpour, landslides and everything that rain could bring that would be an obstacle towards the journey. Most of the team members were in doubt, so as you would have guess most of them withdrew. Who was left was only Syauqi, myself, fiqah and Dewi. So we proceed with the plan.

Here onwards I present you the story of my journey from Manipal back to Malaysia with a twist that had been planned all along. The twist of which brought me back to nature, to the far southern of India, Kerala and of series of unexpected events.

This is the story of my long way home…

Bersambung…