07 Jul

Self-drive in Central Europe/ Alps – II (Itinerary & Car rental)

By

The rule says that Schengen Visa should be sought from the country which you visit for the main business. Rule of thumb is, the country where you plan to stay for maximum period of time should be the one to issue you the Schengen. Maximum number of days rule, however, may not hold good in some cases, e.g. if you intent to spend max time in the country which is not of your main business.

In our case, we approached Czech Embassy for the visa, since we were to spend maximum period (about 6 days) there.

Schengen Visa regime has also altered the procedure for entry into EU zone. For instance, since we took a FINNAIR flight, we changed flight at Helsinki. Now, after landing at Helsinki Airport, we shifted into ‘EU Zone’ part of the terminal. So, it was here in Helsinki that we underwent immigration/custom checks. Thereafter, once in EU part, all flights within EU were like domestic flights, despite flying from one country to the next.

Read More

Self-drive in Central Europe/ Alps – I (Intro)

By

In the course of our travel, we stayed in a variety of accommodations, including pensions, home-stays , tent (tipi, as it is called locally, located in the midst of Slovak wilderness where Sharmi heard scratching noise on the outside in the middle of night) and an apartment, which was vacated by the occupant for our stay. In many places, we had kitchens to ourselves.

Read More

Kareri Lake ~ a poetic trail

By

Gaddis are basically a nomadic tribe who mainly lead a pastoral life depending on their cattle for their livelihood and wander in the high altitude alpine meadows for green and protein rich grass for their cattle and the nectar like pure water. These gaddis seem to be the happiest souls in the world without any worry cheering and living life happily in the lap of mother nature enjoying her eternal and purest beauty to the fullest. You envy at their life for a moment and then wish if you were born a gaddi, maybe in your next life…:)

Read More

Road journeys – Daman to Mumbai-Shirdi-Nasik

By

After relishing the home made graceful dinner, after so long, we started our onward journey to Shirdi at 9 pm, a 250 km drive was supposed to take 5-6 hrs. Kavita on the front seat, immaculately navigated through the zig-zags and soon through the Ghodbander road we were on the Eastern expressway to Nasik. I was told that Mumbaikars often travel on this route on weekends for Shirdi and Nasik at this hour so no issues driving till late night there. On the contrary, I didn’t find much private vehicles and was little uncomfortable regarding the route to Shirdi from Igatpuri which is a single and bumpy 100 km drive. Engulfed with apprehensions of adversities, with three ladies on board, I was a bit skeptic to whether go Shirdi or halt at Nasik which is relatively safer because of the HW throughout. Kavita on the other hand was confident and relaxed about the safety issues. In a state of topsy-turvy, I stopped at a large food joint (not many on this route) at Igatpuri for a stretch, fags & refreshment to ladies. I was pleased to see a few private vehicles parked there, on enquiring most of them revealed of their return journey to Mumbai and suburbs. One Innova driver was however, going Shirdi with ladies on board and assured about a safe journey except that the road from Ghoti to Shirdi is single and mostly dusty and bumpy.

He was on first instance very impressed about knowing us from Delhi. He had once tried luck in Delhi and stayed in Laxmi Nagar for one year was fallen for the city as usual but luck pushed him back because of his mother’s ill health and since then staying in a slum in Khar near Bandra. While chatting, he was extremely happy recalling the names of the Delhi-NCR localities, praising proudly, every thing about his lavish life style way back in 2002-03 during his stay in Delhi.

Read More

Disneyland # 3 – Hongkong Disneyland

By

After swimming, evening walk, pictures, ladies dressed in nice costumes, we took a shuttle from our hotel to Disney hotel for the dinner. Disney hotel is built on Disney theme and it is beautiful, from outside and inside as well. Dinner was in “Enchanted Garden” Restaurant, it’s a very up-scale restaurant with a huge variety of food items in the buffet. It’s a multi-cuisine buffet, Asian, Italian, continental, European and on top of that Indian food – “aur kya chahiye desi ko”. Huge variety of Meat items, variety of sea food, poultry, must say that it’s a fiesta for meat lovers, vegetarians can also find lots of variety but not comparable to non-vegetarian items, Indian food too had Lamb, Chicken and Dal, but it was well prepared. During the dinner, all Disney Characters were visiting each and every table, kids as well as adults were super excited meeting Mickey, Mini, Goofy, Pluto and having photographed with them. We enjoyed a lot there for about 2 hours, good food, nice ambiance and on top of that Dinner with Mickey, Mini and others and came back to our hotel with unforgettable memories.

Read More

ECUADOR in South America – Volcanos and Bull Fights

By

Santiago de Guayaquil, largest and most populous city of Ecuador is on the banks of the river called “Guayas”. It’s about 155 Miles away from Quito. The best part I liked about Guayaquil airport is that there is a Wi fi connection and its FREE. Most of the airports in the world charge for wi fi (McCarran in Vegas is also free). The worst part for me , being a smoker, was that we could not smoke at the airport. They have not catered for smoking at all unless you have money you want to just blow up.

Read More

The Water Symphony

By

Omkareshwar , one the 12 revered Shiv temples ( Jyoteerling) is actually on an island called Mandhata in Narmada. On the south bank you will find the Mamaleshwar also among the 12. The town is similar to all temple towns all over India, full of small lanes packed with Pooja shops and hotels, a free passage to all living animals including humans, devotees and pestering priests and in addition there were flocks of flies as the monsoon special. Omkareshwar is a modern looking temple from the outside however we know the place is ancient and there are ornate pillars inside the temples which give a glimpse of the old temple. Everything inside the temple is to ensure that you should not feel peaceful. The ceramic tiles, the water abhishek mechanism where water goes in a tube and then gets poured on the shivlinga, the overbearing crowd of priests offering a menu card of abhishek in various types and costs. The only time you find solace is when you come out and look at the serene Narmada. That is the real ‘Darshan’ for me.

Mamaleshwar on the other bank is visible from this side with its ornate high shikhar and a red flag fluttering to show the location amongst the crowd of several other small temples and houses. All built in red sandstone, Mamaleshwar has that special quality of providing a devotional experience to the visitor. The temple is typical Nagar style with up-swinging Shikhar. There are many small and medium temple structures in the clean premise. The elaborate door frames and beautiful sculptures on the outer walls of temples are worth a watch. In the premise, we also find several pieces of temple structure strewn away. A lone ‘amalak’ the round top of the shikhar, some carvings and ‘chandrasheela’ – an ornate step to get into the Garbhagriha are all there stashed away, silently suffering the passage of time.

Read More

Chhotta Chandratal – A journey through the clouds

By

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
and Eternity in an hour…”
– William Blake

After a month of planning and constantly living in fear of my leave getting cancelled, the trip finally happened. A destination which I had already unsuccessfully planned twice was finally happening.

The Destination – Chhotta Chandratal

Chhotta Chandratal (the small Moon Lake) or Base of Deo Tibba peak is a high altitude lake (approx. 14500 ft) in Kullu-Manali region of Himachal Pradesh. It is usually confused with the much bigger Chandratal lake in the Lahaul-Spiti region which for most part now has a motorable road.

Read More
Monsoon Goa

Monsoon Goa

By

Upon reaching the hotel, we realized that it would be a disaster to stay at kenilworth and pay money to ruin our holidays so we demanded the hotel to arrange for a room in similar property in Goa. Unfortunately, the weekend being a long weekend, Goa was completely sold out (or atleast, none of the 5 star deluxe hotels/resorts seem to be willing to offer rooms to us)
To add to the grief, while we were on the lookout in the cab, it didn’t stop raining. I wondered if I loved the rain or not ?

Read More

त्र्यंबकम गौतमीतटे …….त्र्यंबकेश्वर से शिर्डी.

By

भीमाशंकर प्रवास तथा वहां के रात्री विश्राम की खट्टी मीठी यादें मन में संजोए अब हम अपने अगले गंतव्य त्र्यंबकेश्वर की यात्रा प्रारंभ करने…

Read More

Day trip to Mount St. Helens, Washington (USA)

By

I’ve always had a fascination for volcanoes. The sheer power exuded by nature in it’s form kept me awed and humbled whenever I watched volcanoes erupting on TV channels. Living in Seattle provided a wonderful opportunity to explore the volcanic mountains of the Pacific North West (like Mount Rainier, Mount Baker, and Mount St. Helens). The most interesting amongst these is Mount St. Helens that last erupted in 1980 (5.1 on Richter scale), scooping off the head of the mountain in the process and making it “the deadliest and most economically destructive volcanic event in the history of the United States.”As quoted in the wikipedia, “The volcano is located in the Cascade Range and is part of the Cascade Volcanic Arc, a segment of the Pacific Ring of Fire that includes over 160 active volcanoes. This volcano is well known for its ash explosions and pyroclastic flows.”

You can visit either the north face of the Helens or the South face (you can’t do both in a day). I have been told that the north face has the best view of the crater (and is closer to Seattle as well). The southern face has interesting points like Ape Caves, but I am yet to visit it.

Read More