10 Oct

Macau – Not just the Casino place

By Upanshu Singhal

So, back to Macau trip, we reached the Macau Ferry terminal around 7:30, it is Visa on arrival and good part is that no Visa fees, had immigration formalities, Amit had a little issue at the immigration counter due to some glitch done by immigration officer, but it got sorted out soon. We inquired about the taxi for Venetian hotel and found that Venetian and other major hotels provides free shuttle service from Ferry terminal to there hotel, we came out and waited few minutes for Venetian shuttle. Venetian hotel is on Cotai Strip which is on the other side of the main business centre of Macau, it took us about 45 minutes to reach Venetian. As it was night, all the casinos, down town, bridge all were glowing with beautiful lights, our face were also glowing with lots of excitement, I don’t know what excitement, whether it was reminding Vegas memories or Gambling or what?? We found MGM, Galaxy, Hard Rock and few more hotels on the way, Galaxy is huge and looks like a palace of some King. After reaching Venetian, it took us about 15 minutes to find the check-in counter as this is also a very huge hotel, check-in was quick and we were allocated adjacent rooms on 10th floor.

Next day we planned for Macau trip, we booked a guided bus tour “Macao Discovery Tour” from the hotel itself through “Cotai Travel”, tickets were like HKD 400 each person and it was a 4 hour tour. We had lunch in the Desi restaurant “Golden Peacock”, food was very good, I told restaurant manager that this food is even better then few North Indian restaurants in Bangalore, and he kind of a offended and said sarcastically that “Sir, even better then many restaurants in Delhi”, I was not convinced though. Well, after lunch, we headed towards the lobby to catch the tour guide. After few minutes of wait, our guide arrived, explained few things and took out a flag and asked us to follow her and watch out for the flag wherever we go, this will help all to stay together. Then I noticed several flags with different colours in the lobby itself and all the sights we visited as well.

Muddumalai and Bandipur Wildlife Sanctuary – Night Safari

By Upanshu Singhal

Since we have visited Bandipur National Park, Karnataka, my daughter has named everyone on the animals, e.g. Myself “Dinasour”, my daughter Navya “Baby Dianasour”,…

Pahalgam, the real beauty of Kashmir

By Sumit Chowdhury

Next morning, had early break fast and went out to look for ponies as we shall explore Pahelgam on horseback. After some bargaining with the local pony owners we decided to visit Baisaran, Dabian, Kashmir valley & Pahelgam valley.We hired 3 ponies, one each for us and started off at a gentle pace. The pony attendants walked beside us guiding the animals. These places are some of the most beautiful locales in Pahelgam but can be explored only on horseback. So aged people and those who are not capable to ride ponies will be deprived from such scenic places. we moved on through the hilly trails and reached Pahelgam valley, a point from where the city can be viewed. Then we moved across streams, hilly terrain, boulders and reached a vast grassland called Baisaran or mini Switzerland.

The lush green grasslands, lined with pine trees and mountains beyond, were a treat for the eyes.After running around for some time we mounted on our ponies again and started moving down the slope of the mountains through the pine forest. By this time we had learnt to control the ponies with the reins. My son particularly was very excited. It was really an amazing experience. Next we arrived at Dabian.

Bone Church of Kutna Hora

By priyavratb

The guide there gave us a leaflet and the (short) story behind the church goes like this
“The tradition in this town was that whenever any influential person of the city died his bones were used to be donated to the church and buried under it. Around 18th Century the city was hit by plague and a large number of population died. The supply of the bones was too much to handle for the church, so they dig up a large area under the church and dumped all the bones there. Still many were left, one of the rich of the city hired some workers and used these bones to create what you see in the pics ”
The center of the church has a grand Chandelier, all of bones. The special thing about this chandelier is that you will find each bone that exists in human body as a part of it. You will be amazed to see the beautiful patterns created with human bones and the number of humans “consumed” to create this one structure.

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

By AUROJIT

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.

Roopkund Trek

By Ajeet

The trek starts from Wan. Wan—10kms—Bedni Bugyal—10—-Baguabasa—-7—Roopkund. The motor route follows the Rishikesh Badrinath highway NH58 till Karanprayag, after which you take the road for Gwaldom. From Tharali, the road to be taken is towards Debal- Lohajung. From Debal, ditch your vehicle and take a local cab, since the road requires a vehicle with good clearance from ground. If you are insane like us and did manage to drive till Lohajung with a lot of pre-inspection of the road and post inspection of your vehicle after crossing the muddy truck track hurdles, do drop it now and take a cab for 500 rupees for 12 kms to Wan where clearance only matters if skills are to match. At one point during the last stretch, the cab really got stuck in mud at a turn which had a steep fall on the driver’s side, tyres deep in 2 feet high slush and the Jeep was swerving unpredictably for us, thankfully the driver knew how much mud wrestling was good for his jeep. To add spice to the events there was a herd of wild boars crossing the road 10 yards in front of us. At Wan we met this interesting guy called Herasingh Bugyali , who introduced himself as an all-rounder. His all rounder definition comprised of being a shop-owner but also being able to lift heavy backpacks and doing roopkund and back in a day. That’s pretty much true about everybody there. So we got two such all rounders or porters and started the trek the next morning at 9, one hour behind fellow Noida trekkers from an IC chip design company. We caught them resting and sharing a cigarette within half a km of the trek. They reached Bedni Bugyal at 10 pm that day, while we had caught lunch at Bedni at 2 pm (such benchmarking always impresses me). If you are carrying your own backpacks don’t imagine to do this one in 5 hours as the climb is attrocious-level-7. Attrocious-level-9 is the final Baguabasa to Roopkund stretch. You might think is this a travelogue or what, a deter-ogue, but trekking here is not easy. Oh and I haven’t told you why not to go to Roopkund between June to September( inclusive). Coz it rains and there’s nothing to see except fog and clouds and all that Trishul jazz, thoughts of views of Nandaghunti and Trishul will tease you. See what I mean.

The Southern Sojourn – Rameswaram

By Ram Dhall

It takes around an hour to take bath in all the 22 wells. The modus operandi is simple. There is a person standing by the side of the well ready to pour water on you with a small bucket. Some of the pilgrims make a small donation at each of the wells. We preferred to have holy water sprinkled over us and move to the next well.Despite the fact that thousands of pilgrims are visiting the temple every day and having a bath at these theerthams, it is believed that the tanks around the temple have a perennial source of water.

Having finished the ritual of purifying ourselves at the holy wells, we once again passed through the magnificent corridors, passed by the Nandi and reached the exit gate. I do not know if my sins were washed away, but one thing is certain that the experience of visiting the temple will remain etched in my memory all through my life.

It was around 6.30 in the evening. Still in a trance, I reached the hotel room, ordered a steaming hot cup of tea and thereafter met Rajah, the cabbie whom we had hired for taking us to Kaniyakumari, the southernmost tip of the country, where Swami Vivekanana meditated before proceeding for America and which is the confluence of two great seas – Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea and the great Indian Ocean, about which I would write in my forthcoming post.

Getting lost in Sambhar Lake

By Nandan Jha

On the way back, we drove the entire distance over lake only. Trying to absorb more of that dry-dusty frame. We also learned that ‘Jodha Akbar’ was shot here and apparently they created the entire war set here. Another movie, this time of junior Bacchan was shot in the main town. We dropped the Sambhar Salts gentleman back after thanking him for all his help and started back.

As we were driving back, I was thinking that how long the lake would remain like that. Probably 50 years down the line, this story would look like a legend. May be the area would get habituated, the land would be reclaimed to build SEZs and factories or may be the new Jaipur Airport. Who can imagine a 230 sq KM dry lake which is open for driving. You tell that to your grandkid and he would laugh it off. Go and look at it before it vanishes.

Biking across Thailand – Bridge over the river kwai

By Shrinidhi Hande

After our brief encounter with wild cats concluded, we headed to River Kwai bridge. River Kwai bridge was constructed under Japanese command during world war 2, to enable Japanese troops to cross across Thailand to Burma and eventually India. Thousands of PoW (Prisoners of wars) were deployed for construction work, without adequate food, rest or medical care. This resulted in deaths in thousands and being alive for one more day was a luxury at that time. Our generation isn’t really exposed to such life and death hardships and all we complain about is traffic, high fuel prices and slow internet. But life back then was very different. A visit to the museum and war memorial will remind us of harsh realities of life in the times of war. River Kwai bridge stands as a testimony to the fact that thousands had to die to satisfy greed of few emperors. The movie by its name, which was pictured in Srilanka has made this bridge immortal.

My trip to Garh Mukteshwar

By Shubham

Finally, we had arrived at Unchagaon. We stopped in front of a stable. For a moment I thought this was where we were going to stay. Thankfully they took us to neat and clean rooms. The rooms were quite big. We stayed in room no 16. My roomies were some boys from my section. In that room the bathroom door was of frosted glass. You could see through the door! The bed was so high they could have given us a ladder to climb it. In the night we would go to the girls room and scare them. We would knock, make scary sounds and then run away. We’d keep our lights off so that the teacher wouldn’t discover us.Two or three times teacher would come and check if we had slept. When they would come, then we would run and get into our beds, swith off the lights and pretend to be asleep. Sometimes we’d fall in the process.

In Unchagaon, there was a big garden in which there were lots of lounge chairs. Sitting on them was real fun. I wish I had one of these in our balcony back home. There was small shed in which there were balls, bats, rackets etc. We were very careful with the equipment, because if we broke anything we’d have to pay for it. Sehej is going to pay for a bat. There were two terraces. From one we could see a beautiful lake. On the other side we could see a village.

Baha’i House of Worship – The Lotus Temple

By Ram Dhall

The figure of “9 “ seems to have some significant meaning as we could see the temple surrounded by nine pools and there were nine archways into the temple. Another interesting thing is that a simple nine-pointed star is generally used by the Baha’is as a symbol of their faith. At the Information center, we were told that “nine” is chosen because it is the highest single-digit number and in many countries symbolises comprehensiveness, oneness and unity.

The most astounding thing is that this beautiful edifice has no pillars or beams. The petals are made of white concrete and are covered by marble (the same quality of marble as used in the Parthenon, mined in Greece, cut and polished in Italy and 10,000 pieces were brought to the site and assembled as a jig saw puzzle).

The volunteers at the entrance tell the visitors to maintain absolute silence in the temple, though every one is free to meditate or pray as per one’s religious practices.

झीलों का शहर और बारिश की रिमझिम (उदयपुर में दो दिन)

By MUNESH MISHRA

सिटी पैलेस का भ्रमण पूर्ण करने के पश्चात अगले आकर्षण गुलाब बाग़ जाने के लिए सिटी पैलेस से बाहर निकलते ही ऑटो तैयार खड़े थे, उनमे से ही एक ऑटो पर सवार होकर गुलाब बैग कि सैर पर चल पड़े. गुलाब बाग़ का नाम सुनने में तो केवल बाग़ का ही परिदृश्य आँखों में घूमता है, पर इस बाग़ में पर्यटको विशेषकर बच्चों को लुभाने के लिए जन्तुशाला (zoo), टॉय ट्रैन कि सवारी, झूले, जलपान आदि कई अन्य मनोरंजक सुविधाएं भी उपलब्ध हैं. बच्चों के लिए तो गुलाब बाग़ कि सैर बहुत ही आनंददायक लग रही थी. इस समय बारिश भी रुक गयी थी. लेकिन झूले अभी भी गीले थे और उनके आस-पास पानी भरा होने के कारण बच्चे झूलों का पूरा मज़ा नहीं ले सके. इस कमी को टॉय ट्रैन कि सवारी ने पूरा कर दिया. ट्रैन में बैठे-बैठे ही पूरे बाग़ के भ्रमण के साथ ही जन्तुशाला (zoo) देखते हुए बच्चे-बड़े सभी रोमांचित हो उठे.
गुलाब बाग़ कि सैर के बाद हमारा अगला पड़ाव दूध तलाई नामक स्थान था. दूध तलाई उदयपुर का एक बहुत ही सुन्दर आकर्षण है. दूध तलाई नाम का एक छोटा सा ताल लेक पिछोला से सटा हुआ है. इसके आस पास का दृश्य बहुत ही सुहाना और मन को मोह लेने वाला है. यहाँ के मुख्य आकर्षणों में पैदल बोट, मोटर बोट, कैमल राइड, सनसेट पॉइंट, करनी माता मंदिर, रोपवे ट्राली आदि हैं. यहाँ चारों और मनोरंजन, रोमांच और प्राकृतिक सौंदर्य फैला हुआ है. दिन भर के सैर-सपाटे के बाद दूध तलाई कि ये शाम बहुत ही आरामदायक लग रही थी.

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