Folks, below is the commentary of my short visit to South Africa in Feb 2010. This was an official visit for 3 weeks and I got to explore the countryside only during weekends. Hence my trip details will be no means exhaustive. Still a couple of pointers and some photos to share with the readers of www.ghumakkar.com and an humble attempt to enrich this wonderful site.
Ready for a long drive
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Junagadh is an exciting town to explore for the tourists with an eye for architecture and a taste for history. It was an important city during the regimes of Mauryean and Gupta dynasties in 300 to 200 BC and early AD. Post-independence, it was again in prominence and tested the skills of ‘Iron-will’ Sardar Patel, when its eccentric nawab refused to merge his small state with India and insisted to be part of Pakistan. Pages after pages of Indian history books are filled with references to this town as it refused to fade out from the memories of both the time and the history.
Junagadh’s places of tourist interest are all in a fairly compact busy market area. It is fun to amble through its narrow streets that reveal their hidden pan-Indian treasure at every corner – the sight of the skyline broken by the domes, Disneylandish spiraling minarets, old Buddhist caves, Jain and Hindu temples, bold gothic archways, an old fort, the mansion of the nawab and many intricately carved wooden doors and windows. The rich cultural heritage of Junagadh is evident in its landmarks that have the political and religious influence of its various rulers.
However, I remember Junagadh more as a town of simple and honest people.
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Year 2004, It all started with one of those coffee chats somewhere right next to the Okhla vegetable market. Me and my two other colleagues Noel and Srinivas were working with you guessed it right, a *software development company* called Induslogic and we were discussing the media hype created over the upcoming cricket series between Pakistan and India and the madness that’s been happening around grabbing a Pakistan “Cricket” visa. Yes, there was this special 3 day Visa being issued by Pakistan Embassy. Thanks to a dormant Laalu ji and some other news makers like Mallika Sherawat’s vacation from their quest for attention, we discussed the cricket visa daily for a week. And then this one day, Noel suggested that we should give it a try. Since we were doing nothing important in life and just working on some software projects, we had nothing much to lose. My then Project Manager, Rakesh Gupta, wasn’t my best buddy then, so getting a couple of days off during a tough schedule was a big issue. I rang up Mr. Gupta in the evening and said that we are planning to go to Pakistan and needed a couple of days off. Surprisingly, he said yes and even better he got nostalgic about him missing the India Pakistan hockey(he preferred to call it Haaaki for reasons unknown to me) test match in Delhi . So, we were good to go. We only needed to do a few things in little time, we had the tickets booked on the web and there was a special train(Cricket Special) running for the series to Lahore(Wow!).
Chapter One(Pakistan Embassy, Chanakya Puri)
Fill the form, stand in a queue of 1000, submit it to a rude official(now when a guy from Delhi calls someone rude, he must be RUDE), come back and collect it later. Except for the waking up and reaching embassy at 6 part, which was a challenge, all you had to do was just stand in a long line for hours to submit the application. There were three options to travel from which we had to choose: Road, Rail and Air. Just to be on the safer side, I decided to have a plan B and checked with the official if we could cross Wagah by road. He just said, “Aapke mulk ki sarkaar agar aapko jaane de to chale jaiye”. 3 days later we got the Visa(my first visa stamp on the passport)
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After a lot of contemplation, I finally have posted this. This is not exactly qualify as a travel stuff, but nevertheless its on the travel map.
Bangalore is often referred to as the ‘Garden City’. One landmark that stands testimony to this title is “Lalbagh Botanical Garden“.
Established in the year 1760, this green cover situated in South Bangalore is spread across a sprawling 240 acres and is maintained by the horticultural department which also has a training center inside Lalbagh.
Information board at Lalbagh
