Of planes and hills

I had reminded my friend, N again to recharge the camera and get it the next day. He seemed to have forgotten and so did I until it was too late to go back. We were headed to 'explore' some interesting places on the mountroad towards Tambaram. I had one place in mind....

Earlier, around two months back, I had gone on a long run from adyar to the top of st. thomas mount and back. From the top of the mount, I could see a lot of hills adjoining the mount road that looked tempting enough to be scaled at a later date...
We were scheduled to leave at 4:30 am and since I had gone to bed at 2:30 am, it was upto N to wake me up. It turned out that N had gotten up late himself at 5:30am, and I was having a horrible dream when he banged my door hard. It was surprisingly not too cold for comfort and I was ready in a jiffy to hit the road. We kept a good pace from the main gate until Guindy, where the traffic, which seemed too heavy for an early saturday morning, kept our speed in check. But once we crossed the kathipara junction, the traffic evened out, allowing us to pedal at a steady speed of around 30kmph. We slowed down as we approached the Trisulam station adjacent to the airport and wondered if it was worth climbing the hill adjoining the station. We discarded the idea and continued our ride towards tambaram, but the roads seemed to get worser and worser as we approached the pallavaram bus station. After some debating, we turned back and cycled on the wrong side of the road till we came across a level crossing beyond which was a path to the hill. Now, the hill which we were scaling was behind the one which we saw initially and definitely taller. The path soon became rugged, filled with loose stones and we had to stop riding and walk along with the cycles all the way to the top.

The view we got while traversing the long winding path around the hill was something which we hadn't expected and something which made this trip really worthwhile - Now I really wished that we had gotten the camera. There were three hills in the vicinity - the smaller one to the left, a steeper but smaller one diagonally across and another smaller one just infront of the hill we were on. And it being december, there was a dense fog that enveloped the houses below and beyond these houses was a vast open land, dotted ocassionaly with trees.To complete the picture was the sun, a crimson orange, rising in its glory in the distance over the large expanse of the ocean, at the far end. This was a scene straight from the Lord of the Rings(LOTR) and we just stood on the path transfixed and amazed at this picteresque scenery. Since this curve was winding along the hill, we also got a good view of the airport and it was a great moment to see a plane takeoff on the runway.

On top of the hill was a microwave repeater station(wonder what that means) and also
a small monument or a dome. We weren't allowed to go near the station, from where we could have gotten a better view of the LOTR setting. After having had our fill of visual treats, we headed back. On the way back, we passed a couple of runners running up the hill and they were doing a good job despite the steep grade of the path. The ride back was more or less uneventful, except that I had a punctured tyre when I hit the gate and somehow managed to get back by riding the cycle slowly. The rava dosas at the mess felt tastier than usual - wonder why.