Andaman islands, Dec 2012

Christmas 2011 has taught me that never spend a festival, important for the country you live in, alone coz all your friends go away to celebrate it with their family and you are left alone. So I decided to spend Christmas 2012 in India with my family and since I got the travelling gene from my parents I wanted to gift them a trip to Andaman islands. It was December 24, 2012 when we (Dad, Mom, Sis, Vishal and me) started our journey by train from Allahabad (my hometown) to Chennai, after almost 36 hours we reached Chennai Egmore on 25th afternoon, after checking-in and relaxing for sometime in Hotel Chennai gate (located just infront of the Egmore railway station) we went out to eat something, but that turned out to be a difficult task and after waiting for almost an hour we received our dosas. Gulping it down was comparatively quicker and we were ready to see Marina beach, worlds second longest beach of 13km, an auto took us to the beach.

Marina beach

We spent the evening there with waves becoming higher and higher as sun was setting, a sea beach is a romantic place and that was proved by my dad who bought gajra for my mom. After it was dark we started back through the market at the beach, had tea and later while walking back to the hotel we saw M.A. Chidambaram stadium and had banana pakodas, when we were near the hotel my mom was keen to know the market where she can buy Chennai silk, so my parents and sis went to the T market famous for shopping and Vishal n me were waiting for Shubhankar (a close friend of mine) who was supposed to meet us, soon he arrived and I went down to pick him up to our room. We spent some time chit-chatting, later he took us for dinner to a Bengali restaurant nearby where we had fish paturi, chicken and rice. Parents came back by 11.00pm to the room with some silk that mom bought for her.

Dad and Mom

 26th morning we had our flight to Port Blair at 10.30am that took 2 hrs to Port Blair, Shakti Singh the person responsible for the tour was present at the airport to receive us, he took us to the hotel (an rss ashram) that was located in a very peaceful area, we freshened up and went out for lunch in Anand restaurant followed by a fun bath in the waves of Bay of Bengal at Corbyn's Cove beach and later a watch of the light n sound show of the cellular jail depicting the struggles and tortures went through by the freedom fighters. We weren't hungry when we were returning so Vishal and me went out later in search of a restaurant to pack something for dinner, ending up into a small fast food corner we bought egg rolls, fish and chicken chops.

Corbyn's Cove beach

place where prisoners were hanged in Viper island

Ross island

Ross island

North bay

Next day was for the island trip by ferry, we covered Viper island where freedom fighters were hanged, Ross island, old capital of the island where British had administrative building and officer quarters. Now all are in dilapidated condition, the island is like a forest with some deer moving around without fear of humans and also the island is full of coconut trees. Later we went to the North Bay which is famous for water sports and coral life, we enjoyed a glass bottom boat to see coral and a family speed boat and the rest of the day in the water. We were back in Port Blair by 7.00pm and had dinner in Anand restaurant on the way back home. The day ended with playing cards with mom, sis and Vishal. 28th was allotted for local sightseeing tour that included the Anthropological museum showing the lifestyle of the tribes still living in Andaman and Nicobar islands, the Cellular Jail also known as Kala Pani the name is derived from the architecture of the prison, each room is like a cell 4.5m x 2.7m with only one ventilator keeping the prisoners from communicating with each other, there were 7 wings with 3 stories of such cells radiating out from a central watch tower, Fisheries museum, Chatham Saw Mill in the first half of the day followed by lunch and visit to Rubber plantation, spice garden and the quiet n beautiful Wandoor beach. We were at the beach in water playing with sand and water till the beautiful sunset, with that another wonderful day came to an end. We all loved the egg rolls we ate as dinner on the 1st night in the island so we had them again, played cards and slept.

Rubber plantation

Spice garden

Wandoor beach

Vishal, sis and me (left to right)

Next day we woke up early in the morning as we had to travel for long to see the Tribal Reserve Forest and then Baratang island. We drove through the forest with a hope to see something but it was just a nice drive through the nature ending up at the ferry port that took us to Baratang island where motor boats were ready to take us for a ride through the water to the Mangrove forest. We entered the forest, there was a wooden bridge over the marsh that took us deep inside the tropical rainforests, I love such kind of hikes in nature and I was already enjoying the day when I saw the huge limestone cave infront of me, this was the first time I saw mangrove forest and limestone caves, I was so excited to see the stalactites and stalagmites.

On the way to Tribal Forest Reserve

Temple on the way

Mangrove forest

Tropical Rainforest

Stalactite and Stalagmite

The long drive back, was tiring and everyone in the car slept, we reached Port Blair, had dinner and then called it a day as next day was going to be another long day to Havelock islands. 30th morning started early again and we were pretty excited to see the beautiful beaches of Havelock island until it came to our knowledge that the ferry from Port Blair to Havelock was full and no tickets were available.

Vishal swimming @Mundapahad beach

Maa with kulfi

Kulfi in water

Mundapahad beach

Everyone in the travel group was upset but Mr. Shakti Singh offered us to show some other place of the island. After breakfast he took us to Gandhi park, driving through Chidiyatapu to Mundapahad beach. It was really a beautiful beach with clear water and we couldn't resist to get wet. That day became important for me because I learnt floating from my teacher Vishal. In the next trip to any beach I have to learn swimming from him. Later dad bought kulfi for us and we four had it while sitting in the water. We wanted to stay long but we were running out of time for the next destination, Mount Harriet was another wonderful drive through nature on the mountains to see the panaromic view, a walk in the woods and also to see the scenery capturing North Bay from the mountain printed on Rs 20 note. After such a great trip we went back home had egg rolls in the dinner, went out for a walk as it was our last night in the beautiful island.

Wandoor

On the way to Baratang

We had our flight back to Chennai at around 1.30pm from Port Blair that landed around 3.30pm in Chennai. We hired a taxi from airport directly to Chennai central railway station to catch our train back to Allahabad. We spent the new years eve in the train while travelling with a hope that new year will bring many more such memorable trips for us.

Malta, Aug 2012

Malta is one of the world's smallest countries and one of the most densely populated one. It is an island just south of European mainland and north of African mainland. It is rich in human history starting from 7000 BC i.e. the neolithic period. It is also a very beautiful island that have been through a lot of struggles and have witnessed the rules of Romans, Arabs, Normans, Spanish, French and British. It has quite a few great beaches and the official languages are Maltese and English. This is what we knew about the island, we just didn't know that it was a party n fun place as well until we reached there in August 2012.

We were six friends all from Trieste Francesco, Elena, Marco, Mauro, Carmelo and me. We planned for the trip in Malta for eight days in the end of August. We flew from Treviso airport to Malta on 22nd Aug 2012 morning and reached there by the afternoon. We had booked a 3 bhk apartment for the week and the owner was supposed to pick us up from the airport but he was not there when we landed so we called him and took the suggested bus to reach at a meeting point, after waiting for 40 mins he came with a vehicle to take us to the apartment.

a walk in the evening

Sliema

After relaxing for some time we went out to a nearby shop to buy some beers, water, milk and cookies. The plan of the evening was to keep it calm so we went to a bar to have some beers and snacks, later after having a walk in the city centre we barged into a Sushi place, we ordered 2 sushi combo plates that contained sufficient amount of various kind of yummy sushi. With a stomach full of sushi we walked back home to sleep. Next day we went to the Paradise bay and spent the whole day in the clear water of the sea and relaxing on the beach while sun bathing.

Paradise bay

After having a shower in fresh water at the apartment we relaxed in the afternoon to go out in the evening to the party place of Malta, Paceville, it is an amazing place full of young crowd, loud music and bright lighting motivates you to party whole night. We got many coupons for 1 euro shots that we used that night. 24th Aug was another day full of sight-seeing, we went to Mdina the old capital of Malta, I was amazed to see the architecture of the city, all the main cities were fortified and had a ship port built especially keeping in mind that the sea is full of enemies as in past sea was the only route to reach this island.

Mdina

Mdina

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Indian Restaurant

The city had narrow alleys with high walled houses and small balconies giving a look of Arabian nights, telling us about the rule of Arabs on the island. Had lunch in an Indian restaurant followed by visiting Valetta, the capital of the country, to see more of the island's historical architectures, ending up having dinner there. 25th Aug, Saturday was for the Golden bay where a scene of "Troy" was shot, this was another fun day full of sea and sun bathing. In the evening we went out for dinner and I wanted to try Rabbit as I had heard that Rabbit was a traditional meal in Malta, it was delicious very soft and sweet meat. Later at night we went to Paceville to enjoy our Saturday night, we were out till late at night drinking and dancing. We took Sunday abit calmly and spend the day in the nearby area in St. George bay again in sea and under sun. On the way back we bought some easy-to-cook food for dinner and things for breakfast. Next day was spent on a ferry to see Gozo, Comino islands and Blue lagoon, though I enjoyed the scenery, the trip would have been more fun for me if I would have known swimming.

Golden bay

We

Blue Lagoon

Tuesday and Wednesday was spent in archaeological museum - to see the history of human civilization witnessed by the island since the neolithic period (new stone age era) i.e. around 6000 BC, even older than the pyramids in Egypt that dates back to around 3000 BC (bronze age era). I am always interested in seeing the lifestyle of old human civilizations on earth devoid of the modern technologies and luxuries we have today, ancestors always hold my respect because they started from scratch and gave a direction of development and building huge stone structures like megalithic/neolithic temples or pyramids without today's machines seem impossible for us.

St. John's co-cathedral

Mosta Dome

interior of Dome

I also saw the St. John's co-cathedral in Valetta that was built by Knights of Malta in 16th Century to save Christianity during the era of Arabian attack on south of Europe. It is a very beautiful and huge cathedral that has 9 chapels belonging to different knights from Europe like Germany, Italy, France, Spain, etc. The ceilings are covered with paintings and the carvings are golden in colour giving a rich and royal look to the cathedral. It also contains a painting by Caravaggio depicting 'The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist'. Also saw the Mosta dome or Rotunda of Mosta, the third largest unsupported dome in the world. The internal diameter is 37.2 metres and it contains a replica of the bomb that penetrated the dome but didn't blast during an afternoon air raid. In the evening we played a funny drinking game Mauro and Elena went to sleep but Marco, Carmelo, Francesco and me finished Beers, a bottle of red wine and a bottle of vodka while playing. That was really a fun night. Soon came 30th Aug when we had to leave for Trieste, the owner dropped us to the airport and we boarded our flight back home with some cherishable memories and a hope of having more such vacations.

Kerala, March 2012

It was March 2012, when I was flying back to India for some bureaucratic work for a month. Having enough time in hand in India means having time to travel for me. This time I was planning for Kerala as it is the most visited state also known as "God's own country" and I had never been. Everything was planned and booked I was travelling with Vishal.

20th March 2012 I landed in Delhi, took a taxi to CP where Vishal was already waiting for me. We went to the vfs office and finished the application procedure by afternoon after several rounds of print-outs and booking and also to-fro Shubham's place where we stayed for the night. After finishing my work we went to CP again to eat and spend some time but absence of Shubham and too much sun persuaded us in spending the rest of the afternoon at Shubham's place and wait for him to come back from work. After a calm evening we slept as next morning we had the train to Trivandrum. The Rajdhani exp. departed at 11.00am it was a 2A compartment to keep these 36hrs comfortable. After a long journey and enjoying the service we reached Trivandrum on 23rd 4.00am.

Padmanabhaswamy temple

@ Zoo

Sunset @ Kovalam beach

It was still dark when we went out of the railway station, we found a hotel where we relaxed and freshened up to be ready for sight-seeing. We searched for the KTDC office which was half a km of walk from the hotel, soon we came to know that there were no local sight-seeing tours operated that day but next day there was a trip to Kanyakumari and we booked it. Coming out of the office we met a taxi driver who offered us to show the city at reasonable rate, thus we hit it off. After having Uttapam and tea in breakfast we started our tour. Starting from the rich and known (after the news of having some treasure rooms) Padmanabhaswamy temple, where we had to undress and enter in dhoti. It has a big campus and why wouldnt it have afterall its a rich temple, only if the trust or govt can use that money for the people/country. Followed by the zoo full of variety of birds and animals. Sanghamugham beach and village was next stop, we liked it there, sea and beach is what I am always attracted to, I can spend quite some time at the beach enjoying the company or a book or just the sea. I am a fan of strength and for me sea is one of the strongest example existing on earth. Not to forget we had an awesome (sarcasm) lunch of chicken n anda biryani that Vishal loved, seriously after that I would never order a biryani in South India except Hyderabad. Later in the evening we went to the Kovalam beach, enjoyed a bath and a beautiful sunset, then we knew it was worth it. We came back by 6.00pm went to room to change and go out for a walk and dinner hunt. We had to choose the restaurant where strangers didn't have to share a table, I really didn't get why strangers need to share the table come on we were in the restaurant paying for the table and taxes and not sitting for any bhandara.

Thiruvalluvar statue

Vivekanand Memorial

View from the Rock memorial

Next day early we got ready for our trip to Kanyakumari, the mini-bus was supposed to leave by 7.30am and it did. After picking up all the tourists we left Trivandrum, on the way we saw Suchindram temple and Padmanabhapuram palace that was made up of woods, everything was of wood and all the carvings were beautiful. By 11.00am we were in Kanyakumari at the KTDC guest house we were supposed to meet back there. The guide we had with us gave us our tickets for the ferry from the mainland to the Vivekanand rock memorial. That is what I wanted to see, after some minutes of water splashes and turbulance we were on the Rock Memorial the southern most point of Indian mainland. We could see the mixing of Indian ocean with Bay of Bengal and Arabian sea, they have a colour difference which I never knew before. It was very windy at the top and had a nice view of the city and the ocean. After clicking some pictures and enjoying the wind and the view we came down to the ferry and back to the point we started. It was 2.00pm already. Then we had lunch in the guest house that was included in the price and head back towards Trivandrum. By 6.30pm we were in Trivandrum, went back to our room took a shower and then again went out for dinner and also to enquire about bus for Munnar for next day. We had dosa and booked bus tickets for Munnar for 6.00am next morning.

Tea Garden

Elephant ride

Echo point

Sunset and forest fire

Reaching Munnar was really tiring as the bus took almost 7 hrs and we reached there by 1.00pm. We were tired but that didn't effect our motivation to see the town. We were back on the roads by 3.00pm enjoying the Elephant ride, beautiful lush tea gardens, Echo point and Mattupetti dam. We were back by 7.00pm it was already dark and cold so we decided to have dinner and then walk back to the hotel. Lachha paratha and kerala chicken curry was what we ordered, the chicken was very yummy, we had heard complaints (especially from north-indians) about the food in Kerala being full of coconut milk and smelling and tasting of coconut but it was all wrong we loved the curry specially because of the coconut milk. That was the best dinner we had in that whole trip. Next morning we woke up early and got ready for more sight-seeing, this day we saw the spice garden, the Tata tea factory and Lakkam waterfall. It was 26th March and we were in a rush as we had the bus to go down to Kochi so we wrapped up the day in this and went back to the bus station to board the bus.

the Houseboat

Molluscs in lunch

Fishing

Chinese fishing net

We were in Kochi by 5.30pm and we directly went to the KTDC office where we booked the one day trip in back waters. After finding a out-of-the-budget hotel we relaxed and showered. Later in the evening we went for a walk to find that the location of the hotel was pretty good as the sea front was just few meters away. After having a walk we went to have dinner in a foodjoint  nearby. On the last day of our trip, the 27th we got up early again for the back water tour which I was looking forward to. We departed from the ktdc office by 8.00am while picking up other passengers on the way we drove to the outskirts of the city into the village and finally near the water, where a houseboat with a guide was ready to board us. We began our wonderful trip on back waters, this was the experience I came down to Kerala. We stopped in an island to see some typical village houses and to feel the life of the people living there, starting from how they fish using chinese fishing nets to how they climb up the coconut trees to how they burn the cashew nut cover to get the seed inside to how they make their own liquor. We also had a traditional lunch with yummy muscles cooked with coconut on the houseboat. While this trip I was remembering the scenes described in the book God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, she described the place very well because I had imagined the same scenery while reading the book. That was not all after having lunch we drove to the interiors of another island to see the narrow water streams flowing inside and how the people live and commute by boat in those interiors. At the moment I felt pity for them devoid of the modern lifestyle but on a second thought they are luckier than us of not having a modern lifestyle, they have calm, quiet and peaceful lives, ofcourse not disregarding their problems.

Among the fellow travellers there were many europeans travelling for months and 1 canadian girl travelling alone for 9 months, she must be really strong to travel alone half of the globe. Time passed away quickly and was time to return back, we were in the city by 6.00pm and we checked-out  to have dinner and catch our train back to Delhi. Thus a great trip came to an end.

Rajasthan, March 2011

After I finished my masters in Sweden I went back to India in for a break of 6 months to wait for the contract and documents of PhD position from Trieste, Italy. I have always been attracted to places rich in nature or history. I love to see places having traces or ruins of past civilizations. India is full of such places and Rajasthan is one of them. It was just before holi 'the festival of colours' that we (me and Vishal) decided to travel to Rajasthan and celebrate our colourful festival in the colourful state of India.

It was March 16th 2011, I took a bus from Allahabad to Lucknow as we had booked an overnight bus from  Lucknow to Jaipur. According to the plan I was supposed to be in Lucknow by 11.30am but the machine broke at the mid-way at Batohi so we waited for another bus and finally reached Lucknow at around 2.30pm. Vishal was there to receive me at the Alambagh bus station, we met and went for lunch in Tunday followed by a short visit to his place where we relaxed a bit and rushed back for our bus at 5.30pm to Jaipur. The bus left the Alambagh bus depot at around 5.30pm after a few kms we suffered a flat tire and then I knew the day wasn't for me.

We reached Jaipur early morning at 5.00am after looking for a hotel we found one named Hotel Vinner point, it was a budget hotel and was walking distance from the bus station so we checked-in and slept. After freshening up we went out to grab some breakfast and also to enquire about the tours offered by RTDC office at the bus station. We were on time and we bought 2 tickets for the city tour, we had enough time to grab a quick breakfast of  1 cup of tea with some spicy moong daal pakodas. In that city tour we saw the Central Museum, the Jantar Mantar, the City Palace, Amer fort, Jalmahal and Laxmi Narayan temple. It was very hot but a great tour in the historic city. The center of attraction of the day was Amer fort and Jantar Mantar. It is a huge fort with a nice view of the city, it gave me an idea of how rich and royal India was. It shows a blend of hindu and muslim architecture. JantarMantar observatory shows how rich India was in scientific knowledge. No wonder why India is developing rapidly in science and technology, it runs in the blood (or genes, so to say). It was 8.30 in the evening when we reached in our room after dinner and called it a day. Next day we had Rajasthani thali as our lunch that included daal bati churma, gatte ki sabji and rice later in the day we went to see Hawa Mahal on our own and roamed around in the pink city. We had a train to Udaipur at 11.30pm that night so we came back to the hotel relaxed and got ready for the journey. But after reaching the train station we came to know that the train was late and it kept on being delayed on n on n on until it was 4.00am. I was completely pissed of on indian railways and decided to not to take any intercity trains after that.

Kulfi @ Fateh Sagar Lake

Holi

We reached Udaipur at around 10am on 19th March, from the station we took an auto which took us to Hotel Vrindavan. It was again a budget hotel and easy to reach. We talked to the same auto driver for a city tour in the afternoon, so we freshened up, had lunch and got ready by 1pm to see another beautiful city. We saw Fateh Sagar lake, Maharanapratap monument, ruins of Motimahal, Saheliyo ki badi, the City Palace and  Jagdish temple. We loved the Fateh Sagar lake and Motimahal, spent some time sitting at the ruins and seeing the city and the lake and then a kulfi down near the lake. Since it was the day just before holi, the city was getting prepared for it. Late in the evening we went out for a walk and to have dinner, we saw holika burning in the residential area nearby the hotel. After returning back from the dinner we thought of going up on the terrace, the view from the terrace was amazing, the City Palace was lit-up with its reflection on Pichola lake. At that moment we decided to go to the Pichola lake, we went down and found an auto which took us to the lake. We sat there for almost an hour under the clear night sky with twinkling stars, the lake infront of us full of the reflection of light from the decorated City Palace and a calm soothing air. I bought a book of short stories of Jeffrey Archer to read the next day and Vishal planned to watch cricket world cup match as we didn't plan to play colours. Next morning was usual we went to the terrace to see the people starting to play colours. We didn't want to sit back instead went out to the Jagdish temple for a walk, while walking we saw many people playing colours, even many foreign tourists were enjoying the colours. So we decided to play as well, bought some dry colours and continued walking, many people threw colours on us and threw colours on them and finally reached the temple. The temple square was full of people playing colours, throwing colours on each other and greeting each other. This is what I love about festivals, to see how strangers, indifferent of the race, colour and nationality, interact with each other and share their happiness, serving the primary purpose of a festival of bringing peace to the society we live in. After playing colours we walked to the Pichola lake and sat there in the sun. I loved that day because it was a beautiful surprise as it was not planned. That evening we went to check out the buses to Mount Abu which was our next destination.

@ Arbuda devi

Exterior of Dilwara 

We had a bus next morning for Mount Abu that took around 3 hours. The view during the way was good, was better for Vishal as this was his 1st mountain tour. He was very excited looking around and showing me the scenes. We stayed in Mount Abu for 2 days, we reached on 21st afternoon. That evening we walked around the town and the Nakki lake. Next day we booked for the city tour offered by RTDC, we had a funny guide and bus full of people. That day we started our tour with Arbud dev temple followed by Dilwara temples, Arbuda devi temple, Honeymoon point finally arriving back to Nakki lake. All the points were great, rich in scenic beauty but Dilwara temples were outstanding, it carries an awesome interior that I never thought of, those detailed carvings on single piece of rock were unbelievable. Unfortunately camera was not allowed inside so couldn't capture those masterpieces. We had a gujrati thali in lunch and the same evening we had a bus for Ajmer that we boarded around 6 pm.

Ajmer Shareef

Another overnight bus journey ended at 4.30am, we freshened up at Ajmer railway station. Took an auto to the Ajmer bus station from where we took a bus to Pushkar. We spent the 1st half of the day in Pushkar in seeing the lake and the Brahma temple. By noon we were at Ajmer Shareef payed a visit there and returned back to the bus station to catch a bus to Jodhpur. That day was full of confusions because of the Gurjar movement the trains passing through Agra were getting cancelled and we were wondering if our train from Jodhpur to Lucknow got cancelled or not but anyhow after several phone calls and an hour under sun we discovered that everything was fine with our train so we headed to Jodhpur. At the bus station we booked an AC bus to Jodhpur but we both needed to pee and while doing that we missed our bus so we bought another pair of tickets of normal bus. Vishal's idea was to catch the AC bus in half way bus stop and we were lucky to get it as planned by Mr. Vishal. To celebrate that we bought ice-creams.

Mehrangarh Fort

After a day of adventure we reached Jodhpur by afternoon and found a economy hotel to spend the night. Late in the evening we went out for dinner, we walked through the main old market and the clock tower, we saw the Mehrangarh fort. We walked to see more of the city and found a small mall where we had dinner. While walking back home I was thinking of the great time we had and was upset that the trip was coming to an end but had hope of having many more such trips in future.

Next day, on 24th March, we boarded our train back to Lucknow. That was the day India was playing against Australia in World cup cricket series so everyone was pretty excited, we met 2 co-passengers from Denmark Anna and Naina who were travelling to Varanasi and had some problem in calling the hotel for booking coz they were not aware of the predecessor "2" that we put for calling landline numbers in U.P. We also met a family from Lucknow who were also going to Lucknow for vaccations. Finally we reached our destination at around 3.00am. Thus, a lovely trip came to an end leaving memories that we will cherish forever.