08 Aug

Sunset

Zanzibar: How to explore Stone Town on foot

By

Also known as Zanzibar mix, it’s an Indian inspired Zanzibari Tanzanian bowl of curry soup with lots of toppings. It’s packed with diverse flavors and textures. The ‘Mix’ is a bowl of smooth and tangy soup cooked with lemon and mango, with pieces of mashed potatoes, onions slices, peanuts and crispy bhajias immersed in it. It’s topped with a spoon of coconut chutney, a dash of red-hot chutney and a scoop of deep fried potato shavings sprinkled on top.

Read More

Travel reminiscences from the 1970s …

By

अब के बिछड़े तो शायद कभी ख़्वाबों में मिलें,
जिस तरह सूखे हुए फूल, क़िताबों में मिले

While recently listening to the above gazal of Ahmad Faraz,by Mehdi Hassan,the line ”jis tarah sukhe hue phuul kitabon mein milen” jogged my memory about the old faded travel photographs of years gone by lying, for decades, in the trunk in the basement.

Read More

Lavish yet affordable trip to Matheran, near Mumbai

By

• Girls should consider wearing something very appropriate as the crowd consist of good as well as cheap public.
• As a couple you should consider not carrying much luggage as there is no one to look after it.
• Please be careful of the broken bottle glasses all over the place.
• Please be prepared with the right type of footwear since the place is slippery.
• The water currents are very mild and the fall is amongst the safest fall in the state.
While leaving for top we again got a share cab for us with the same fare. We trekked from Dasturi to our hotel this time. Yeah! Now I am planning to add trekker in my resume..lol. The rest of the day we spent inside our cozy hotel.

Read More
Baralacha-la pass at an altitude of 4890 meters

To Leh by road : Journey from Chandigarh – Srinagar – Kargil

By

Had a lunch/prayer break at world’s second coldest inhabited place Drass (after Siberia). Winters in Drass are cold with average lows around −22 °C and as low as −45 °C at the peak of winter. The lowest temperature was recorded around −60 °C during 2005. We were told by some locals that everybody in mountain keeps at least 4 to 6 months food stock for emergencies.

Read More

The road less travelled – Kolkata to Kaluk

By

At about 1 p.m. Tara took his first halt at Teesta Valley. Very near to this place is the point of White Water River Rafting on Teesta. The area is dotted with a few small eateries run by the local villagers. Tara took us to one named Tashi Restaurant. All the eateries here, as this one, are very basic. I am a bit apprehensive about eating at small joints as the hygiene factor is low, but had no other alternative here. However, the good food coupled with the beautiful Teesta flowing beside the eatery made me set all thoughts aside for a few moments. Had it been some other place, such a beautiful locale would surely have been commercialized and turned into a Mc Donald’s or KFC with the wealth again going to the rich hands.

Our car moved on towards Jorethang. Tara was true. The stretch from Malli to Jorethang was in really poor condition. Although it was for wider and better roads in coming days, the ride was extremely stressful for us. Clouds of dust engulfed us at short intervals. We are much more impatient than our counterparts residing at higher altitudes.

Read More

शिव खोडी – SHIV KHODI

By

भोले बाबा के दर्शन करके, नीचे रन्सू में आकर के भोजन करके तृप्त हुए और जम्मू की और चल दिए. बारिश और आंधी तूफ़ान बहुत तेज था. पहाड़ के एक मोड पर हमारी बस कि टक्कर एक ट्रेक्टर ट्राली से हो गयी. वह टक्कर लगते ही पलट गयी. बस पीछे की  और खिसकने लगी. पीछे सैकड़ों फीट गहरी खाई थी.

Read More

My love-letter to Prague!

By

The boat restaurant at night that floated on the water with Jazz musicians performing live, with candles on the table-tops and lights on the bank of River Vltava shimmering on the water, bits of chicken and sips of Czech white wine entering the elementary canal calming and soothing my senses…what else were I born to do on this Earth?

Read More

The best of KASOL and TOSH in winters

By

Hill top of tosh was completely covered with snow, we took some pics and then we started looking for hotels to stay, there were many hotels like: pink floyd, hill top, blue diamond. We checked facilities and rates in each and finally we choose blue diamond to stay. There we got a big room with 5 beds which was sufficient for 6 people, we were all wet, as it was raining when we were trekking to hill top of tosh, so we decided to play in snow and then change. We locked our room and went down to play in snow, we were literally freezing in that temperature, and it was around -2 degree celcius at that time.

Read More

लेह – लद्दाख

By

आये इस सुचना के साथ कि सुरक्षा कारणों से आम जन के लिए नुब्रा वैली कुछ दिनों के लिए बंद है अत:खार्दुन्गला से वापस आना होगा।

ऊपर जाकर या रास्ते में कुछ भी नही मिलता भोजन के लिए तो पहले लंच किया और फिर थोड़ी हताशा के साथ चल पड़े विश्व की सबसे ऊँचे सड़क मार्ग पर जो की 18380 फुट (5602मी) की ऊंचाई पर स्थित है,बेहद संकरी उबड़ खाबड़ रोड जो लेह से 40 किमी दूर है, भूरे निर्जन वनस्पति शून्य इस मार्ग पर चार पहिया वाहन कम और दो पहिया ज्यादा होते है,मोटरसाइकिल और साइकिल चालको की ये प्रिय सड़क है और हमें अपनी गाडी इनसे बचते हुए चलानी थी,लेह से किराये पे मिलते है ये वाहन।

Read More

दिल्ली से लेह-लद्दाख – सन्नाटे का सौन्दर्य

By

इस सब जगहों का वर्णन शब्दों में संभव नही है,ये आप इस यात्रा के दौरान अनुभव करके ही जान सकते है।विमान से 4 दिन में लद्दाख भ्रमण आपको जगह देख लेने का संतोष तो दे सकता है किन्तु वास्तविक खूबसूरती का आनंद लेना हो तो सड़क मार्ग से ही जाईये।

केलोंग से धीरे धीरे सरचु पहुचे रास्ते पर और दिन काफी बचा था तो सोचा रात्रि विश्राम पांग में करेंगे,आगे विभिन्न रंग के पहाड़ हरे ,नीले ,पीले,भूरे ,लाल सभी रंगों में रंगे, अवर्णनीय सुन्दरता चारो और बिखरी पड़ी है और देखने वाले गिने चुने यात्री बस।

Read More

Phnom Penh in Cambodia TO Can Tho in Vietnam by bus

By

We called up our hotel in Phnom Penh as well as Can Tho, but no luck. Everyone shared the bus routes but all of them were going to Can Tho, via Saigon. It seemed so lame and dumb to do that. When everything fails, Internet comes as a savior so we started scavenging sites like TripAdvisor, Lonely Planet and what not. To our luck, we found one hard-to-believe post saying that

Read More

Kasauli Chalein !!!!

By

We ended our first day at the Gilbert’s Trail and headed towards our hotel. Though our hotel was a little away from the main town, but it had lovely location and views. We spent some quality time walking on the pathway leading to the main road, we did countless round of walking but none of us felt anything called tiredness, and at the passageway we made some moments which will be cherished throughout our lives.

Read More