Cyprus by the road

I just scribble.So ignore the tense / tone mismatches ..

Movie name : Cyprus by the road
Shooting Dates: 24-Dec-2005 till 25-Dec-2005
Location: Cyprus
Direction: Ambika
Producer(s): All of the cast
Cast: Milan /banarsi babu, Prashant aka prof , Ambika the guru , Prakash alias cp / me (no heroins all heroes)
Chauffeur(s): Ambika , Prof and Milan. I am not licensed to be a chauffer. So i just gave navigational and finance management (not to be confused with financial) and logistics support.
Transportation: Toyota Levin

Outline :- Travelling entire cyprus by road.
The notorious 3 excluding me (ofcourse i am not notorious) planned the trip to go around entire cyprus by the road by the border. I knew they were planning something .. so just waited for the weekend to come.

Script (which changed as we went) :- The screenplay was very roughly planned .. not much was planned !! The plan was to start on 24th afternoon from Limassol .. go to agia napa via larnaka and spend the night there .. disco / pubs .. get up early on christmas morning and go towards the Northern cyprus (under turkish control).. go to famagusta .. watch some castles .. then move on to the cyprus tip .. return back .. then go to kyrenia during the day .. see the harbour .. then spend the night in nicosia .. again discos/pubs / casinos .. then next day go to paphos and return back to limassol .. it was a 2.5 day tour around the border of cyprus .. (check the cyprus map below - the red trail is what we actually travelled marked by arrows).

Actually the name should be changed to Cyprus by the road (Part - 1) from the eyes of the only driven .. I was 100% driven .. rest drove as well .. We did not complete the entire route. donno when the part-2 is going to be.
Day - 1
The trip got off to a little late start. we left at 3:40 PM from my house. we had packed stuff like blankets (the temperatures were going to be low all the way -2 to 2 to 4 degrees centigrade) , some food for the night , water , etc.. we went via larnaca to Agia Napa. Agia Napa is a very famous tourist destination in cyprus. It was five and it was already dark. Cyprus gets dark very early in winters. The wind was chill. We expected some activity there as it was christmas eve but the streets were deserted and 95% of the shops were closed ... we roamed around the place twice in search of signs of any activity but in vain. We had coffee in a cafe .. we thought that we were the first (boni in telugu) and the last customers as well .. we were not disappointed and thought that the discos will open late in night .. thought raat abhi jawan bhi nahi huyi .. and we went to Cape George (the tip from agia napa) .. it was dark and nothing visible .. then we thought that in the meanwhile we will find a hotel apartment to stay for the night..we went around the downtown may be ~25 times (Gold China restaurant was our landmark) .. the hunt did not seem to end .. we checked a few places and they were either not open or did not have a open place. Then finally we landed at Senator and found that rooms were available. We still continued for some other options and finally retired back to Senator. Ambika negotiated and got us a christmas present .. a discount on the room rent ... we eventually had a place to stay for the night .. went in .. heated the sabji .. bought pita(lebanese bread like chapathi) on the way before and had a nice dinner.
then again checked that the discos were still not open .. There was a greek light music at one place and there was a private party going on somewhere . There was one other place called Black and White which was supposed to open at 1:30 in the night .. thought we will check it then went back to room .. i caught some sleep after chatting for a while .. milan, prof and ambika continued .. then at 1:30 we went to check the Black and White .. nothing else was open .. were disappointed and exchanged "Merry Christmas" greetings with people and came back and decided on plan of action. Desicion: Leave at 9:30 AM .. then had few hours of sleep.

Day-2
The sun was bright but the wind chill.. The chat went on while milan sorted out his pressure problems .. we had a nice breakfast .. bread toast with butter and hot chai .. this is the advantage of taking a hotel apartment instead of a hotel ..You can prepare things you wish to have.
We moved on. we crossed the border .. (read about cyprus if you want to know why a border exists with in the same island country) we entered north cyprus .. nature is still not customized like the southern cyprus .. it is still untouched .. i liked it very much.

then we started to go towards famagusta .. Till now ambika was in the driving seat .. now milan took over .. we tried for a christmas present from teh officer but in vain when milan got a speeding ticket .. it was completely unexpected ..
we reached famagusta (a major city of cyprus and has a University as well) and saw some old buildings. saw live cannon balls .. there were some old churches .. one of which was converted to a mosque. The people are more friendly and helpful even though they have trouble understanding english.

prof took over after some time and we were headed now for the tip and reached the tip .. the tip has two flags on a rock .. one of northern cyprus and the other turkey. (photos at the tip - 1: prof,milan and ambika 2: cp and milan)















Milan was in the driving seat and got us swiftly away from the tip. At 5 pm, it was dark and we were near bogazi. There is some mismatch between names in turkish and english maps .. so we could not trace which road we were exactly .. but we headed for Nicosia (the capital - the city is divided in half between north and south cyprus) .. we reached nicosia .. it was very cold .. we already had dropped the plan of Kyrenia .. now we were already thinking of winding up .. The city is more like the south side .. more traffic and also more modern ..

we started to feel hungry as we did not have lunch but some snacks picked up from supermarket .. forgot to add .. even though the currencies are different in north (turkish lira) and south (cyprus pounds) .. we just spent in pounds. Everybody accepted and even had change .. that was easy for us..

we looked out for traditional mezze food .. but could not quite find it .. we went in a restaurant and returned .
finally we ended up in a semi-continental kind of restaurant .. had some nice food - tavuku dishes (chicken in turkish) .. it was crispy and nice .. now we went around in search of a casino .. entered it .. checked the things and came out .. did not play .. none of us was really interested .. then we thought ok now it is time to head back home ..

so we started off and i dozed off .. had nice 2 hour sleep .. we crossed the border - two posts and finally was home by 12:30 AM .. and then Good Night .

everybody woke up next day afternoon ..

Summary : we went around .. had a nice time .. went to tip of cyprus (that was a great feeling) ..

oh forgot to add ,
Release Date: The Movie has been shelved for now after first shoot !!
Distance we travelled : Close to 750 kms.