One more water adventure

After the drifting experience in dead sea and scuba diving in red sea last year, it was again water time today. we went to do water rafting today. It was full day event where we had lot of fun. There were simple to comlex rapids where your boat flips and you just get carried away by the huge current of water.

It started with a nice drive in the morning from montreal. After bfast from Tim Hortons, we reached the place. As there was a slight delay, we sat down and started to play dumbc. Then we got briefing on what to do on the river. We were a group of 15, so we split into 2 boats. My boat had 8 people + guide. We got onto the boat with our life jackets. It was to prove a lot useful later during the day. He started off with basic stuff - paddling forward , backward , stopping , getting down while holding onto the rope. After the basics, we were off to a start on the river. It was a run of 8 kms with 3 rapids. Initially we got into water. I still was holding onto the rope of the boat while i was in water floating with the help of the life jacket. Then everybody hopped on again and we started to do rafting.

The weather was good , water was not too cold , the current was strong - very favorable conditions for a good day of rafting. We crossed through the initial small rapids with just the boat going up and down and lot of water gushing in and hitting us. It was nothing when compared to what was going to come next. The washing machine rapid - this was the 90 degree fall which causes your boat to flip and throw everybody out into gushing water. We navigated it fine and the boat did not flip. After that the guide asked us to flip back and then forward strong right into the washing machine against the flow of water. so we were climbing a mountain of water against the flow. Then the flip happened. The two people in front (Bix and Pratik) were thrown into gushing water when the boat started to flip. Chaitanya who was to my left also vanished. I got pushed to the other end and then boat flipped fully. I got down into water. My eyes closed , i had the paddle in hand and i was hit by two three things donno what they were. Then there was darkness for few seconds - i did not open my mouth or try to breathe - otherwise panice would have kicked in instantly. I was going down with the gush of water and then after few seconds due to the life jacket and me making my body straight up with head facing the sky , i seemed to reach up to the surface. After those dark few seconds, i saw sun light and the sky. Instantly i took some water into my mouth as i had to breathe then and then i hit a rock when i realised where i was and i was very close to the rocks on the right side. This is where we were to swim if we fell in the washing machine. I got up and helped myself out of water. I started to walk towards my guide and slowly more people from my boat started to be seen. Ravi and Harjot were no where to be seen. We saw Ravi far holding onto a rock happily. After a while he got on top it and sat there waiting to get picked up by a boat. All around him it was gushing water. Harjot got swept away even further and hit some rocks and got up and stood on the rocks. We picked him up later as well. Both of them got swept by the strong tide before the rope which is thrown into water for people to catch. It was a bit scary. After that we got into our boat - less people and less oars. Then we picked up Ravi and Harjot. It was a 'experience' for every one of us. Then we got out of water for lunch and then the second run started.

Now the water was gushing more and the initial rapids also got more bumpy. Pratik got kicked out into water in the Elizabeth rapid and he swam really nice with the life jacket on to the right side along the same direction as the strong current. Then we picked him back up and then proceeded for the washing machine. Some wanted to have the boat flipped others did not. But there was a huge wait as the boats had to go through the washing machine one at a time. Initially we were not aware of what we were getting into. Now we know and the waiting time increased the tension. We ventured in and did not get flipped. This time everybody held onto the rope. Then we tried to go through the rapid again without flipping. Then we did multiple drier flows around the same place. Then we got out of it and hit some low lying rocks and eventually went to a beach. There we halted for some time and then we started back to go to our final stopping point. People wanted to swim and float in water so some people got out and headed for the shore. There were only the guide , pratik and me paddling the boat. We had to stop and we were drifting away from the shore into the seven sisters rapids (which are meant for insane kayakers during low water only). So the guide caught and got everybody on the boat and we paddled hard to reach the shore. It was a nice team effort. Then we were brought back to base camp and we had a shower and a nice dinner.

After dinner, there was the video session for which everybody turned up to watch. The video session was fun. We saw all the boats go through the washing machine rapid. There was the team where the whole team got into water when the boat flipped except the guide - perfect execution. Then there was this guy who showed the finger to the camera and in few seconds he alone got flipped off the boat while crossing the washing machine rapid. It was funny. Then there were the kayaks whose flipping was interesting to watch. We saw how it all unfolded for my boat flip.

It was nice fun. I will be doing it again next summer. Hopefully i will know how to swim by next summer.

Status update

Again i have not been keeping my blog updated.

After a flawless successful deployment of my last 5 months work, i am going little bit relaxed on my work load at office.

Life is moving on in montreal. Caught up with some movies. Hancock - just a time pass movie. Watched Wall-E - really really liked the pixar movie. The Dark Knight kept me excited all the movie but i dont think it deserves to be the top # 1 movie on IMDB. Mongol ended up to be a love story while we were expecting a war movie. Got to learn more about Genghis khan's life . The scenery was good though. Latest is Singh is Kinng , a OK comedy with not much sense in story. Atleast my visit to Egypt got refreshed. Never would the pharoahs have thought in their wildest imagination that Katrina Kaif and ... will come and dance a bollywood number on their grave.

Learnt a lesson - Never watch IMAX experience movie from the first few rows. We ended up little late (around 7 pm) for the 7 pm show. So we got to sit right in front of the big imax screen. A bullet shot from one end of the screen travels faster than you can move your head and see where it went on the other side of the screen. Also your neck starts to pain. The sound feels gibberish. The point to be taken is to reach the theatre half hour before and take your seat for movies which are going to be houseful.

Also went and met Kannan Krishnan (a prof. in univ. of montreal) here in montreal today. I was supposed to meet him around 4 months earlier. but today just happened to be the day. I went to his place and had a nice long warm chat about a lot of things. I look forward to meeting him and his family again sometime.

Joined gym again and after two days of hectic workout, letting the body to relax. Let's see how long i continue to go to gym this time - a week , couple , a month , couple ??

Moving weekend

It was moving weekend last week. Lot of people in montreal move around July 1st. You will see lot of stuff being sold/bought on craigslist during this period.

We helped our friends move to their new house this weekend. It was tiring. There was two truck (17'' U haul) loads of furniture being moved and i also got my sofa to my home as well during the same time. Still my body is aching from the hardwork we did on saturday. I need to get some rest this week to be back to normal.

Jazz fest has started in montreal. Need to listen to some live jazz before it is over !

Life in montreal

It has been over 3 months since i moved to montreal. I can say i am kind of settled now. I have the basic amenities - a place to live and rest (rented an aparment) , a means of conveyance (bought a toyota echo car) , a means of survival (started to cook in the apartment). Need to get some other nice to have stuff.

Work kept me busy during the past three months. I am having more personal time during the last few weeks during which i finally moved out to my apartment and started to live out of my place. Till then my colleagues Ravi Vidhani and Prashant Paliwal took real good care of me in their house. I was lazying around with work and not getting any personal stuff done. (as usual)

The time to settle down is totally different from cyprus and montreal. In cyprus, we got a fully furnished apartment. All you needed to buy was a car and you are fully settled to lead a normal life in cyprus. It is different here. You need to shop around here and get all stuff needed to set up the house. It is fun but also time consuming.


Weather has changed in montreal. All snow is gone and summer is finally here. Once in a while we do have showers or thunder storms but that is needed to chill it. It can get really hot here like in india.

I have started to explore the place - very little. I had been to mount royal and saw the city during the night and day from the top. Other than that drove to kingston and toronto. It was nice to meet some old amdocs colleagues after some time.

I went with some of my new friends (new colleagues) to toronto and niagara during the victoria day long weekend. We went to wonderland in toronto - there were nice thrilling rides. We could cover only one section of the park. I guess we would need two more trips to complete the rides in wonderland. Then we went to marineland in niagara falls - the free fall ride was really nice. You could see niagara falls from the top. We did it three or four times as there was no real bheed. It was fun. I will be headed soon to the amusement park in montreal - getting myself a season pass.
We went to Ottawa to see the tulips. There were many and it was nice. Lots of colors.

Also it is good to see your pay check come in every two weeks. Month seems to be long now :-)

Coming to food, you get all indian stuff here in montreal. I ate drumsticks after a long time here in canada. You get more stuff than in cyprus. You get everything here just that you pay in dollars. You have lot of indian restaurants around. I now go often to Jolee restaurant which is a sri lankan tamil restaurant. I ate kothu roti there. Really liked it. Very nice dosas. The sambhar taste keeps varying.

We went to saravana bhavan in toronto and really enjoyed the food. It just tastes so good as always. Nothing comparable. Awesome as always.

You have many temples in montreal. Some have the gopuram as well - like proper temple structures in india. There is pooja , aarthi. The same calmness exists here as well. We occasionally go to the temple.

The city is a vibrant one. You should go to downtown to really feel the vibe.

What else.. as always i am clicking with my camera and piling up the images in my hard disk. I will upload them some time soon (hopefully).

I am back in Ravi and Prashant's place and we cooked a lot and for lot today evening and now i am being called upon multiple times to come and have the dinner. So signing off this post now.

That's mostly the updates from my end here in montreal. Sorry blog, I will try to be more regular.

Dream logging

I am getting all sorts of crazy dreams these days. Sometimes my friends during intermediate (+1,+2) and friends in cyprus are all in the same picture interacting with me which is not quite possible !!

My sleep generally breaks around 5:30 or 6:00 once and then i go back to sleep to wake up an hour or two later. When i wake up first, the dream is still quite clear in my mind. But when i finally wake up, most of the dream vanishes.

Like blogging why not start to keep a log of dreams ? But i would be giving a long break to note down the details of the dream still fresh in mind and then go back to sleep.

Any comments ?