Editorial

From the Editor – The Perfect Accommodation

From the Editor – The Perfect Accommodation

By

At any given point in time, there are always at least a dozen options available to us and at least a hundred ways to evaluate an option. Making a choice isn’t easy in most of the scenarios. So when a traveler needs to plan a trip, the dilemmas are no less complex. One of the most risky things to plan is to find a suitable place to stay. The choice of the place can decide the success and failure of your trip. So it isn’t surprising that we often take days to decide upon a place.

Read More

Top 10 winter destinations – October 12 Newsletter

By

A biker is often engulfed by an insatiable thirst for exploration. Different terrains gives these bikers a high and they cannot be stopped until they decide to!
Our biker Rishi Raj has a set of entertaining and adventurous stories in his motorcycle diaries. Here is a snippet from once such tale:

“….I am sparing the readers with details on what I saw at and around Rohtang – surprisingly, I didn’t find this Pass any tougher than Bara-lacha la. If it were not for slush and traffic, it would’ve been a smooth sail. However, I must say, riding amidst the clouds atop the Pass was some experience I would never forget…

Motorcycle Diaries. Road to Ladakh…Riding Back Home…

Read More

From the Editor – There’s no stopping us…

By

Imagine living in a world where the knowledge that the earth is round and not flat is relatively new. And you are a traveller. Ideas are popping in your head and you are dying to try them. Logic tells you that you can sail around the world and not fall off the edge as people had earlier feared. You have the will but no money. What would you do? Find sponsors, of course. But sponsors need to be rich, powerful and you need to make them believe in your dreams. And rich and powerful in that world were also impulsive, often sentencing people to horrible deaths just for amusement. And if you prove to be a bad investment, you cannot even imagine what kind of terrors await you.

Read More
From the Editor – What if we had a year?

From the Editor – What if we had a year?

By

There are several stories that we love to share with everyone. I have some such stories as well. And one of them is of Jim (name changed), my friend from the UK. We were in the same batch. Five of us would often hang out between classes for lunch and a coffee. While the four of us were always buying full meals, Jim would first look into his wallet. If he found enough money in there, he would order a coke and a burger else would go without lunch. Sometimes he would allow us to buy meal for him. But he would always repay it some other day by buying a meal for us when he had money. No, he wasn’t poor.

Read More
From the Editor – Bollywood’s Musical Tribute to Travel

From the Editor – Bollywood’s Musical Tribute to Travel

By

Coming back to the music. Those were the days when patriotism rode high with the pride of a successful freedom struggle still fresh and a series of wars with the neighbouring countries. Aao bachchon tumhein dikhayein jhanki Hindustan ki was another travel song with generous sprinkling of patriotism or should I say the other way round. The song has impeccable rhyme and rhythm and the pace ensures that you cannot stop yourself from tapping your feet.

Read More
From the Editor – Some Essential Skills for Travelers

From the Editor – Some Essential Skills for Travelers

By

Travelers perhaps have more opportunities to run into adventures than anyone else, and are also more likely to find themselves in risky situations. But if they weren’t willing to take risks, they wouldn’t be travelers, right? We pride ourselves in taking charge of life and heading out into the unknown, ready to take any trouble that fall into our path by its horns. And the particular community of travelers who are likely to tread glaciers, or explore jungles on foot is constantly growing larger. And through all this, they take a lot for granted, in particular their own safety.

Read More
From the Editor – The Second Chance

From the Editor – The Second Chance

By

These are some of the proverbs we have practically grown up hearing and, unfortunately, all of us have been “bitten” at least once and, in most cases, multiple times in our lives. All of us experience minor failures every day without realizing their impact on our psychology. At times, these so-called minor failures have such a huge impact on our confidence that we can hardly gather courage for a second try. Every New Year Resolution that we are not able to fulfill leaves us with slightly less confidence in our ability to achieve goals. Each promise that we make to others but are not able to keep, not only impacts the trust others place in us, but also makes us lose faith in ourselves.

Read More

From the Editor – The Incredible Journey of a Phone

By

Last year in September, I was really happy. One of my most precious dreams was coming true. I was in a tour bus that was travelling through the misty, green highlands of Scotland. We were looking out at the mesmerising terrain of the Isle of Skye, the island where even today, no one locks their doors or cars at night. It was the third day of my 5-day trip. We had just visited a cemetary at the top of a hill and a general sense of calm had descended upon the occupants of the bus. Several dozed off as the sun made a brief appearance. It was the perfect time to call my parents. So I reached inside my pocket, the phone wasn’t there. I knew at that instant that it was lost. But I still kept searching inside my handbag, my rucksack, hoping to prove my intuition wrong. The search, however, yielded no results. In the bus full of strangers, I suddenly felt lonely as hell…

Read More
From the Editor – The Unexpected Second Editorial

From the Editor – The Unexpected Second Editorial

By

If you haven’t read the first Editorial published this morning, then I insist that you do so because this editorial won’t make any sense to you if you don’t. Here is the link.

And now for a revelation – following are the only lines from this morning’s Editorial that you should believe:

Read More

From the Editor – What Kept us Busy!

By

Anyways, you all know that the team at Ghumakkar is pretty busy preparing the stories and managing your content on Ghumakkar. But we do make some mistakes. After all, we are all human. However, we had beeen brainstorming for a really long time to see how we can minimise the mistakes and we were pretty convinced that if one of the top publishing house in India was running this site, our work would be cut down to the minimum and then we can concentrate on other things. We identified the publishing house that we would like to associate with and then approached them. It was a tough job, but our brilliant marketing team finally convinced the publishing house that it was a win-win situation. So the deal is that they manage the post-preparation and publishing part of the job and in exchange, they use some of the real estate on Ghumakkar to post their own content.

Read More

From the Editor – Arre, Bura na Maano Yaar

By

There is a lot of curiosity for the colors and they quite envy us for being able to play with colors and water and for a while go back to our childhoods. To cater to these curious foreign tourists, festivals such as Holy Cow Festival where foreign tousists can enjoy getting smeared with non-toxic Gulaal and bhang-flavoured lassis.

Read More

From the Editor – The Age of the Gadgets

By

All of these are very practical solutions to most of the issues faced by travellers. But what about the romance of travelling? Do we lose out on the adventure part of Ghumakkari if we carry such gadgets around? I guess yes to an extent. While a kindle may be practical, it can never replace the comfort of curling up with a book. And while plugging in earphones and listening to music privately will take care of boredome, can it ever replace the enriching discussions you can have with your fellow passengers?

Read More