Travel Diary

Tweet Among my many travels to the various parts of India was an unforgettable trip to the Southern most tip of India, a place called Kanyakumari. This is the place where the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal meet, called Cape Comorin. The name Kanyakumari comes from the local deity, a goddess Kanya Kumari (the Virgin). Kanyakumari is an important pilgrim center of Tamil Nadu. Many people come to visit the Kanyakumari temple that overlooks the shoreline and is dedicated to goddess Parvati as Devi Kanya, the Virgin Goddess who did penance to obtain the hand of Lord Shiva.  Kanyakumari If you plan to visit Kanyakumari, then prepare to stay there till sunset, so that you don’t miss the famous and spectacular sunrises and sunsets, especially on full moon day, which is the best in the month of April. This is the time when the sun and moon are face to face at the same horizon. Kanyakumari is a beautiful place with the beach having colorful sand...

Tweet Last weekend, being a long holiday weekend (13th to 16th August), we decided to make a short leisure trip to Bangalore City for three days. It had been raining incessantly in Mumbai for the last whole month making it impossible to move out much or do anything else. Getting bored of being stuck to the house caused us to think of taking a short break away from home for a while and the closest place that we could get relatively cheap air tickets at such short notice was for Bangalore City via Kingfisher, for which I am a Club Member. So without further ado, we booked our flights and then did come research online on the hotels where we could have a comfortable stay.That's when I came upon Sheraton Hotel Bangalore. The Sheraton Hotel is part of the Starwood hotels and resorts worldwide and to my surprise, I discovered that they are have a partnership with the Kingfisher, my preferred airlines, wherein you can get extra Kingfisher miles for just staying in this hotel. This spurr...

Tweet After a very refreshing stay at Kalpa for one day, we proceeded to the next destination of our road trip - Sarahan. We started early in the morning so that we could reach Sarahan well before lunch. The distance from Kalpa to Sarahan is about 160Km and driving down the Kalpa mountain was faster than the time it took us to come up. The road after the Karcham bridge was better and so we managed to reach Sarahan well in time. Sarahan - Popularly known as the " Valley of Flowers ", lies in the foothills of the Himalayas, in the Sutlej Valley at an altitude of 2165m amidst scenic beauty of breathtaking greenery, waving snow peaked mountains, apple orchards and decked with flowers. Sarahan was the old capital of Rampur Bushair one of the biggest princely states in Shimla hills, located on the Kinnaur-Shimla border in Himachal Pradesh. Sarahan is filled with flowering Pine trees, stately oaks, deodar trees and higher still, encircling the Bashal peak, are trees of s...

Tweet After seeing Chitkul and the Sangla valley we decided to head to Kalpa straightaway, which is just about 69Km from Sangla. We reached back in Sangla town about 11:00 am in the morning and decided to have brunch, since we had had no breakfast in the morning and we knew we wouldn't find anything on the way back. So, we entered one of the many Nepalese restaurants there and had hot Alu Paranthas. We also decided to try some of their local dish called "Momo" which seemed to be very popular and available in all the eating joints there. We had a plate of hot mutton "momos" packed for later and set off for our next destination- Kalpa. The road to Kalpa from Sangla is very bad because of the Hydroelectric Project that is underway and lots of landslides added to it as well. It was a slow drive for about 2 hrs touching Karcham and taking the opposite road to Kalpa. From there onwards we again started following the Sutlej river and climbing mountains towards...

Tweet The trip to Himachal Pradesh started from Chandigarh by car. The route taken was via Shimla - Kufri - Narkanda - Sangla and Chitkul - Kalpa - Sarahan and back to Shimla and Chandigarh. It was the most exhilarating experience of my life. The whole route was amidst scenic beauty of the majestic mountain ranges of Kinnaur District of Himachal Pradesh. We drove along the Sutlej River for most part till a place called Karcham where the Sutlej river conjoins with the Baspa river. We then followed the Baspa river to Sangla. Sangla is a town based in the valley along the Baspa river in the lap of the Himalayan mountain ranges. About 28Km from the Sangla Valley is located the highest and the last Indian village in the Indo-Tibetan Border called Chitkul. It is also the last point you can travel to without a permit. This beautiful village is surrounded by the Himalayan mountain ranges on all sides and is covered totally in snow during the winters. We saw that the top of mountain ...

Tweet This byte is a continuation of my road trip from Narkanda, which you can read here . After a relaxing night at Narkanda, we set off early the next day for Sangla, which is in Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh. It is about 170Km from Narkanda via Rampur. This stretch of the road was very good till Rampur and so we made good progress as even traffic is very less this side of Hiimachal Pradesh. We saw plenty of apple orchards all along the mountains on this route, although most of the trees were now bare of fruits as they had finished harvesting at this time of the year. Apple Orchards of Himachal Pradesh This part of Himachal Pradesh has not yet been bombarded with modern facilities and hotels and so we got to see the original beauty of the place along with their culture and their simple way of life. For, Himachali folk are very simple down to earth people and also very polite, warm and helpful in general. Our petrol tank was now nearing the "half" ...

Tweet Narkanda is a beautiful town situated in the hills of Shimla district in Himachal Pradesh. We started our road trip from Chandigarh and headed to Shimla, which takes about three and a half hours by car. Narkanda is at a distance of about 64 kms from Shimla by road and lies at an altitude of about 2,470 mts and is also reputed to be India's oldest Ski-Resort. The drive through the winding roads of the hills was exhilarating and enjoyable till we reached Shimla. From there onwards the road deteriorated all the way to Kufri. It was the most horrible stretch of road, giving us quite a few bumps and to make matters worse the traffic got very congested at this point, slowing down our progress considerably. In spite of all these delays we still managed to reach our destination well before sunset. We hadn't bothered to book any room in advance, and so went to the circuit house to try our luck there. We were very fortunate to get a room at the last moment. After dumping our bagg...

Tweet There are many popular hill stations in India that are really cool places to visit in the summer. Ranging from North India to South India and East to West, each region has their own picturesque hill station to choose from. Kashmir has some of the most beautiful hill stations in the world like Srinagar, Gulmarg and Sonmarg. I have been to quite a few of these hill stations in the North and South of India; namely :- Shimla, Kasuali, Dalhousie, Mussoorie, Munnar, Kodaikanal, Ooty, and Mahabaleshwar. Each place has its own unique features and beauty that cannot be compared to any other. And due to their high altitude by virtue of their being located in the top of the mountain ranges stretched all across the Indian terrain, they offer cooler temperatures and so are really pleasant to visit in the summer. The British cleverly recognized this feature of the hill stations and were quick to establish them as their summer capitals during their Raj in India.   Himachal Prad...

Tweet The summer vacations were looming ahead, in the month of may, with the prospect of a whole month of heat and nothing much to do. We had already been to all the nearby places, where one could drive for a holiday, places like Mahabaleshwar, Ganapatiphule, Alibaug, Lonavala, Khandala and even Shirdi. So, where could we go next? A friend suggested that we try out the Sula Vineyards at Nashik . That sounded pretty interesting since it seemed quite nearby promising a good enjoyable drive and also offering something new that we had never seen before, namely a vineyard. We checked out their website and found out that they have a resort called " Beyond " at the vineyards where one could book rooms or even a three bedroom luxury villa for a comfortable stay. Well, not wasting much time, we went ahead and booked a deluxe room for ourself for two days and two nights. The package included all three meals and coupons for the tour to the Sula Vineya...