IPL Mela, choosing a team.

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The IPL circus has started. I'm not a big fan of cricket, the only way I can watch a match is if I put money on it and root a team. Since this is not a India VS others, I need to decide on a team to support in IPL. So this is how I decide to award my allegiance to a team.

Rather than recklessly pick any team, I think the following is a good set of reasons.
Points are based on team name, team jersey and colors (a girl's gotta look good wearing it, specially since it will be very costly, being Reebok), souvenirs , glam Q, da playah's (world cup T20 made me fan of a few cricketers), M.A.L , Mascot, Anthem, Logo(read 'maal') package.

If I go for a match, I should get complete entertainment.

Bangalore Royal Challengers : IPL is a complete brand and advertising game not so much a sport, so using Royal Challenge as the name should be alright, but the blatant brand whoring, left me annoyed. Thankfully Mallya doesn't own VIP Frenchie otherwise, the name would have been Bangalore Frenchie. The plus point is Vijay Mallya, he has a lot of cash to give fulltu entertainment to the crowd as was obvious from the first game.

Name: the big O. Jersey : 3. Souvenir: 0 (it'll probably be the RC music CD). Glam Q: 3. Da Playah's: 1 (Praveen kumar and Zaheer khan). M.A.L : ZEROH (walking advt for RC)

Score : 7/ 30

Chennai Super Kings : Oye Dhoni!! Need I say more. But whats with the name, what were they thinking? "Hey, lets add a Super to the Kings, to give it that extra punch!" Their website says "The addition of the word Super gives the name a young and contemporary feel, which is in keeping with the game format."

Name: 1. Jersey : 3. Souvenir: 0. Glam Q: 3. Da Playah's: 5 (Dhoni and 1 point for Joginder). M.A.L : 1

Score : 13/30

Deccan Chargers : Hmm.. the name is good. They do have the best (and functioning) IPL team website so far.

Name: 3. Jersey : 2. Souvenir: 0. Glam Q: 0. Da Playah's: 1 (RP Singh and Rohit Sharma). M.A.L : 4

Score : 10/30

Delhi Daredevils : Like the name! I guess its the devils which does it for me. And also that DD would be the double D's! hee.. Like the logo, only one with some cricket affiliation to it. Red and Black is good jersey color. Mascot is a horny ball! hee.. It's a ball with horns.

Name: 3. Jersey : 4. Souvenir: 0. Glam Q: 0. Da Playah's: 1 (Sehwag). M.A.L : 4

Score : 12/30

Kings XI Punjab : Nice name. You would think, what's the difference between Super Kings and Kings. Its the extra XI, "Kings Eleven" just has a better sound. The only team owned by a girl!! That adds major points for the team. Website takes forever to load but is not too bad. I love the punjabi spirit that is going for them. A shout out to my punjabi roots. And, they have lassi glasses as souvenir's! Haa.. haa..
Jersey colors are Red and White.. naa.. no good. Super Kings and Kings XI have the same logo, whats with that?

Name: 4. Jersey : 3. Souvenir: 5. Glam Q: 3. Da Playah's: 5 (Yuvi, Sreesanth, Irfan). M.A.L : 5

Score : 25/30

Kolkata Knight Riders : With a silly grin i've got to say yummy Shahrukh!! The jersey's are 'Oh So' cool. Black with the right bit of gold for the glitter. Looks perfect on a pair of jeans. And looove the golden helmets. Really disappointed with the mascot, very tame stuffed toy tigger like. Same for the name, it's too 80's with complete Hasselhoff flavor.

Name: 3. Jersey : 5. Souvenir: 0 (everthing on the web site is coming soon, so will be the points). Glam Q: 5(I would give them 10, just for Shahrukh, but am being fair here). Da Playah's: 4 (Ishant, Ponting). M.A.L : 3

Score : 20/30

Mumbai Indians : I'm sure they could have come up with a better name, a better logo even.. and better colors. I don't find anything attractive about the team. No, Sachin doesn't do it either. Somehow every match I see him play, he's out in the first ball. But a very big plus, its my home team. Imagine the fun supporting your home team in a stadium full of fellow mumbaikars. For this reason and this reason only, its under contention. It does have a good web site.

Name: 2. Jersey : 2. Souvenir: 0. Glam Q: 3. Da Playah's: 3 (Bhaji, Uthapa). M.A.L : 1

Score : 11/30

Rajasthan Royals : This is just a sad sad team. Their mascot is Moochu Singh.. hee.. imagine the cool moustachioed men being called Moochu. Anyways, plus point.. their logo, has a cool tattoo look. Colors are lame, blue and gold, none of the Rajasthani color to them.


Name: 3. Jersey : 2. Souvenir: 0. Glam Q: 2. Da Playah's: 0. M.A.L : 2

Score : 9/30

And this is how they eventually stand..

Bangalore Royal Challengers : 7
Rajasthan Royals : 9
Deccan Chargers : 10
Mumbai Indians : 11
Delhi Daredevils : 12
Chennai Super Kings : 13
Kolkata Knight Riders : 20
Kings XI Punjab : 25

Ergo, I will be rooting for Kings XI Punjab.. pass the lassi.

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Road Trip Deux - Shrivardhan (Konkan)

Ever since we got back from our Rajasthan trip we've been aching to hit the road again and we'd been thinking about heading to the Konkan area for a while now. This is not the season but there was a long weekend and we figured what the hell! However, being the lazy, last minute folks that we are - we waited till the last minute to get reservations and figured that ALL of Mumbai had taken up residence in the Konkan for the weekend.

Starting with Alibag, we worked our way down to Murud-Janjira and then down to Kashid and then finally we found a place in Shrivardhan - by chance - but hey we weren't complaining! Shrivardhan is about 6 hours away from Mumbai - the route to take is to head down towards Pune, take the Panvel exit, then take the Panvel by-pass and point towards Goa(Panaji) - there's a fork in the road for Alibag which you skip and head left towards Panaji - after which your next marker is a town called "Goregaon" - after which you travel over the hills to lovely Shrivardhan. The road is awful and it takes a long time to get there, even though the distance is just 50KM.

We discovered on our way back that we could have taken a fork from a town called "Mangaon" that had a MUCH better road to Shrivardhan, well at least a big part of it.

Shrivardhan is a sleep little town, even on a big weekend, there weren't THAT many tourists in sight - we visited during Holi, which sees a big local festival in town , so there was a buzz - we also found out that the local fisher folk take those days OFF - so NO FRESH FISH! :((( Big disappointment on the food front.



We stayed at a place called "Niwant Sagar", which literally translates to "Tranquil Sea" or "Peaceful Sea" - and really, this place we pulled out of a hat from an internet search was simply phenomenal - they have a minor online presence - here - and the photos don't even tell you half the tale.

Amazing place. The photographs don't show it, but they have separate rooms, amenities are basic - but clean. The location is amazing and its very very peaceful - a great place to go if you want to get away from it all. Reservations recommended - their policy is to give off the entire place to one group - they can house only 10 people in their rooms, although if more people went and didn't mind putting out in the ample covered courtyard - its a good option. Food was average. Beach was lovely, huge - and not super crowded. Highly recommended in Shrivardhan, where most of the other places are run of the mill hotels - this is something different. Definitely on the re-visit list.

Unfortunately, we were only able to get bookings for one night at Niwant Sagar, and had to move off to another place called Shiv Shanti Holiday Inn - newly done up and run of the mill hotel - rooms were clean - the management was all over the place - its been a while since I saw such inept management - but OK - we had a place to crash.

The Shrivardhan beach is loooooong, clean and yes, it has black sand. One can go a good distance into the water, and the beach is not at all rocky - very nice. Again, even on a long weekend, the beach did not appear super crowded. Shrivardhan is not very tourist friendly, the locals that we ended up interacting with behaved as if we were not welcome in their town - we had dinner at a place recommended in a guide book (Sagar Darshan), was very ordinary (perhaps due to the lack of Fish), it was run out of someone's home and we could hear the lady of the house essentially telling the servers to wrap us up soon - like I said - locals were not that warm.

The majority of the places to eat are of this form - run out of some locals home - food was pretty basic - we had some really nice fresh Kokam the next day when we were leaving - not made from syrup. We made a trip to Harihareshwar which is very close from Shrivardhan - avoid it if you are not into religious locales - really tourist central and quite boring.

On the way back we decided to take the route up the coast to get to Mumbai - we turned off the main highway and headed into the interiors, we had a strange experience where at a village called "Shimga" - there were about 50/60 local kids / teenagers and some adults who essentially blocked the road, we hadn't seen too many passenger cars - so I guess its not the road oft taken - but still - so they blocked our way and some guy was demanding 10/- per head to pass - we argued with him - but the crowd was turning hostile and clearly it was a "mugging" of sorts - beyond a point we decided it wasn't worth the Rs. 50/- to get into a fight in the middle of nowhere - knowing that the villagers would totally band behind the locals - terrible experience in our own country - so be aware if you are driving from Murud to join the highway or going to Murud from the Shrivardhan highway. Very disappointing really.

Anyhow - we managed to reach Murud, everyone was decidedly in low spirits due to the freak experience at the village and hungry! Murud was nice, small town - we had some good fish FINALLY - at "Patil Khanaval" - which is famous in the guide books - again, nice food - but I've had better in Mumbai. Murud has some nice resorts, we saw the "Golden Swan Resort" which seemed very nice.

Our way back threaded through some nice little towns, Kashid was lovely, I'm told "Prakruti Resort" in Kashid is a must-go resort - jotting that down for a follow up trip - Kashid has been completely bought up by private investors - so you cant even see the beach front till much later.

The landscape gets more urban near Alibag, at which point we joined the main highway up to Mumbai - road back was mostly uneventful - was a good quick break away from Mumbai - we would definitely like to return to Niwant Sagar and Murud for prolonged breaks - Murud is nicer - closer to Mumbai - quicker to the beach! :)

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Mumbai - Day 7 - Fin

Rajasthan Road Trip - Day 1.
Udaipur, Rajasthan : City of Lakes, Venice of the East - Day 2.
Jodhpur, Rajasthan : Blue City - Day 3.
Jaisalmer, Rajasthan : Sand Castles - Day 4.
Jaisalmer, Rajasthan : Sufferi - Day 5.
Kumbalgarh, Rajasthan : Much Ado - Day 6.

Rejuvenated after a well deserved full night's sleep and at the thought of finally heading home after a long trip - we left Kumbalgarh early at 7.30 AM - KM : 18342 and ready to crank it back to Mumbai.

We felt the same as we had when we were heading to Udaipur, we knew that we *should* stop somewhere to make the journey comfortable - but wanted to get to our end point really bad - on our way up we wanted to hit Udaipur in a hurry and now we wanted to be home really bad - so there.


We knew that we'd be able to make good time in the day and we were only dreading the section after Surat which had construction on it and ridiculous lines to boot. Here is what our line back looked like,this time we decided to track all that toll money!

Kumbalgarh: 7.30 AM
Udaipur: 9.30 AM
...Toll (Udaipur) : Rs. 35
...Toll (Ratanpur) : Rs. 20
Shamlaji: 11 AM
Himmatnagar : 11.30 AM
...Toll (HimmatNagar) : Rs. 25
...Lunch - 11.40 AM
...Resumed : 12.15 PM
...Toll: Rs. 30
...Toll: Rs. 10
...Toll: Rs. 10
Ahmedabad: 1.15 PM
...Toll Expressway: 64
Baroda: 2.10 PM
Bharuch: 4 PM
...Toll: Rs. 14
Surat: 5.30 PM
...Toll: Rs. 25

Traffic as expected was BACKED UP to hell and high water, we decided to stop being nice and totally break the rules - no option! :( All the passenger cars had started to use the oncoming lane to get past the major jam around Kadodara - where humans were manning stupid makeshift lights and had caused a huge backup - sure enough we shaved off an easy 2 hours atleast from our drive time - we went in the oncoming as much as possible and re-joined when the jam was almost clear.

...Toll: Rs. 30

This was the portion where we entered Dadra / Nagar Haveli, yes, the land of the unyielding driver - for whatever reason, it rained like hell - at one point we felt like there was a conspiracy to stop us from reaching home - but seriously heavy rains - zero to no visibility - most cars pulled off the road - but I decided to keep driving - I could hold my line and I could navigate at a slower speed - this really pulled our progress down - but I figured I was confident so why the hell not. Turned out that it was a hour long session of the end of the world and on the other side everything was completely dry!

...Toll: Rs. 25
...Toll: Rs. 30

We're now in the outskirts of Mumbai, we're almost home!

Mumbai: 10.30 PM
Mileage End: 19188

Summary
We were on the road for about 8 days, we realized that was our threshold for a road trip! :) We travelled (19188 - 16336) = 2852 KM and we spent about Rs. 30K for the trip. Road Trip Check. Rajasthan, almost checked! Roads were lovely, Rajasthan was well worth the effort. Road trip paused till the next appropriate destination!

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