My experience of the Sancharam 2012

Night 1:

I stepped out of the car, and dashed to the queues which were formed in the lobby of Devagiri CMI Public School. I had come a little late, but luckily hadn't missed it. I joined my friends, and talked a little, excitedly. We were told to keep quiet, and somehow managed, in spite of the anticipation.
Anand sir, as usual, told us a few things to keep in mind.
“For one, It's going to be very cold there, Be sure to have warm clothing.”
“You have asked for big buses, so we've given you big luxury buses.”
“You asked to be seated separately, so that has been done too.”
“You asked me not to come, so I am also not coming.”
The last sentence made us all burst into laughter. We were excited, and ready to go. Except for the few who rushed off to the washrooms at the last moment.
We boarded the bus, marveling at its facilities and size. Many of us went straight to the back, waving goodbye to the adults outside-The parents, a few members of the staff like Ms. Sheela who'd come to see us off, and of course, our principal-Father John, thanks to whom we were able to enjoy ourselves so freely without any restraints.
“Bye Amma!”
“Bye Mom! Bye Dad!”
Abruptly, I was asked, “Hey Amita, what's your mom's name?” But before I could answer, I heard her shout, “Bye Amita's mom!”
The loudest cheer was the "BYE SHEELA MAA'AAM!" which everyone screamed out at full volume. Sheela ma'am turned around and quickly walked away at this.
The bus slowly, but loudly, rolled out of the school, with the sound system already kicking in. The celebration had started, and I feared that my motion sickness might as well. I sat down calmly, as the lights went off and the lasers went on. The music was loud, and the party didn't stop, that is, until around 11 or 12 in the night, when we were shown the horror movie, “Nightmare On Elm Street”. Though, as I'm not a very big fan of horror, I sealed off the world with my music player, and lazily gazed outside. Some people hadn't been able to come, and they were missing this. I closed my eyes, ignoring the screams, and Shilpa diving down onto my lap in fear every now and then. I sighed, and gently stroked her head. A similar thing had happened when I got a tight hug while watching 'The Edge' in the home theatre, but I didn't mind as much.
The movie ended, and everyone was discussing the scenes in it. I took out my earphones, and placed my music player back into my bag. It was 1:00 AM, and far past my bedtime. Before I knew it, I was asleep. But not for long, as the half-asleep, subconscious chatter from behind woke me up. I joined in, since the bus had stopped somewhere (for a reason I do not yet know). And in that half-asleep, uninhibited state, we talked about the strangest of things, like Barney the Dinosaur, celebrities, movies and so on. Such a half-asleep state has always been a time when I am the most free and thoughtless, and as I discovered, I'm not the only one. A few hours later, I gazed outside lazily, and saw frogs hopping around on the road. We were going up a mountain, and abruptly turned into what seemed like a parking.
“We're there?”
“But the boys' bus went on. They missed!”
No, we'd missed. We had to turn around and go a few metres further.
“Guuys, is it cold outside?”
“Touch the glass.”
It seemed cold to me, if not to some other girls. We walked through the cold atmosphere, waited a minute at the reception, and went to our rooms. The first time, we had 23 or so girls assigned to one room. We changed room once, to 15 or so girls, and the turns in the bathroom began. Some needed to change clothes, brush their teeth etc. I spotted an electric kettle, some sugar, or rather, sugar-free and teabags on a plate in the room.
“Who wants black tea?”
I got an answer, and brewed some.
After a while, when we had not much to do, we turned on the television in the room, and surfed the channels a little, till we landed on a movie. “Fired up” What struck me, was how easy it seemed to get a girlfriend, when there are so many sources stating on complex ways to reach the same result.


Day 1:

Lini ma'am came into our room, and we were off again, to breakfast.
Half-asleep, weary, a large group of dark-circled zombies climbed through hills surrounded by tea plantations. Finally getting some shuteye in the bus after a nearly sleepless night, some weren't happy about being awoken to stop at at Eravikulam National park. It was nearing noon, and the sun was beating on our heads. We boarded rattling buses, to take us up the mountain. We stopped, and started the walk. I was thirsty and a little tired, but we went on, washing our faces in springwater from a pipe, and seeing a sort of shrine on the way.
In a few minutes, we had reached the limit, beyond which we weren't allowed to go. We saw a tahr, and several signposts with slogans. What surprised us was when it lazily trotted towards the fence between us, and walked along it into a bush.


Next, we were off for lunch, somewhere after Mattupetti dam, in the open air. What I disliked about this wasn't that we had to wait long for it, but that we had to dispose of the plates in the open. After learning not do so from my formal education, it was disheartening to see the teachers themselves doing it without a second thought.
Our next destination was 'Echo point', where, more than sightseeing, we bought souvenirs, like, Rajasthani pens, keychains, printing blocks and so on.
From there, we were off to the hotel to get fresh. But I ended up vomiting on the way, from motion sickness, and couldn't even eat dinner properly. I freshed up a little back at the hotel, and danced a little at the campfire, before having to sit down and rest.

Day 2:

That night saw a well-needed rest, till five AM or so, when we started packing up, and I ate my parcel, in my mind, thanking the angel (Anagha) who'd gotten it for me. We were in better spirits than the night before. And were all ready to go to the houseboats after breakfast.
I remember sitting next to Ms. Anniamma for the bus journey to the houseboats.
We stopped off at a tea shop for the common morning 'chaya', and then set off. The music was started, and we went through Kochi, a land of development, and little patches of grass here and there. There were huge buildings like Emmanuel Silks and a line of popular car showrooms. I was amazed at it all, and my jaw dropped. So this was the 'Kochi' I'd heard so much about. It truly was something!
Soon, we started seeing water, and knew we were there. We walked, from the bus parking, to the houseboats, and walked into one, by stepping on planks. We climbed to the top deck, and had breakfast while the boat set off. We sat or stood here and there, many on the seat at the very front. The water hyachinth covered a lot of the river, and all we could see were villages, and greenery.
But Alas! Soon we were back, and had to go again.

At around 11, we reached a jewish synagogue, (Name). The way there was lined with souvenir shops, which we were supposed to hurry through, though some bought things like pens or a skirt.
Our next stop was St. Francis Church, Kochi, where Vasco Da Gama was first buried. It awed us to think that the church's interiors were over a century old! Next, we found ourselves walking along the Kochi beach to see the Chinese fishing nets, ships and boilers used in ships.

We stopped off at a hotel 'Sagar' on the way, for lunch (The time was 4:00 PM). We had lunch, and waited for a while, in the hotel, and in the bus. We begged Fr. Johnny to let us go straight to Oberon mall instead of visiting Marine Drive on the way. He obliged, and we were off. We were instructed to go in groups, hide our wallets and money, and so on. I formed a group with Nazreen, Niranjana, Anjana and Michalle. We went to the clothes section first, and were shocked at the high prices. We fled to the Bookstore. We bought a few books, for ourselves, and younger siblings. Then, we went around, to the bumper cars, Intel Store, arcade and then to the foodcourt. We ordered a few items, like a milkshake, doughnut, French fries and chicken popcorn, and even a pizza. We started at a normal pace...until Chaithanya burst in and told us that we had only five minutes left. We ate like the cookie monster in Sesame street, tearing the doughnut into parts, getting a brain-freeze from going too fast on the milkshake. We went down the escalators, and out. Some people like Avani and Parvathi were missing, so we had to wait a while before crossing the road and walking to the bus. We hadn't gotten the pizza in time to eat it from the foodcourt, and had brought it packed to eat in the bus. It was good, needless to say. And our spirits were up again. We were happy about the tour, and how it had turned out. Yes. It was almost over. All that awaited us were a dinner at Hotel Runs (Coincidentally the same place we had gone to on the way back, the year before) and a horror movie “The Last Exorcism”.
Anniamma ma'am and I were sitting on the first seat on the left, a triangular vacant seat in front of us. I took a picture of both of us sitting together, as many of us had been doing with our close friends. My legs were cramped up in the little legroom we had, so I put them onto the triangular seat in front. Anniamma ma'am followed suit.
Like the previous movie, I put my earphones in my ears, and listened to music while the movie rolled. I couldn't sleep, and just closed my eyes till it ended. There was far less screaming for this movie, and it was peaceful in the bus. Many of us drifted off to sleep, and before I knew it, we were turning left at the Thondayad Bypass. We were predicted to reach school at 4:00 AM, but it was just around 1:30-2:00. We reached the school gates, and woke everyone up. With our luggage, we went to the Kindergarten building, and to the beds there to sleep for a while. Our tour was over, and we were nothing short of exhausted of energy, and brimming with newly-made memories.