Let's go for a vacation - Saru and Vamsee's Travels

Vamsee's list of Must-See Places in the World - Valley of Temples, Agrigento, Italy

2011-07-23T18:06:00.016+05:30

There are many reasons why people travel - to see new sights, to experience different cultures, to take a break from work, to taste different cuisines, to write / photograph and sometimes just for the heck of it. Whatever be the reason for my travel, I always find myself looking for that one experience, that one view or that one place that totally takes my breath away. That one place that is so incredibly beautiful that it leaves you speechless. That one unforgettable experience that is so extraordinary that you can't stop talking about it or that one fabulous view that is etched in your brain forever. That one "WOW, THIS IS AMAZING" is why I am addicted to travel. I am not saying that this place should be one of the best sights in the world, just that you should really love it at that time. A trip without such moments is always incomplete for me. I guess this is true in everyday life too. You don't have to win a lottery or get a promotion every day, but it makes your day when something exciting happens - a great meeting, a nice movie, a good book, tasty meal, fun with the family - anything that breaks the routine and makes you smile.

On our trip to Italy last summer, I had plenty of such nice moments. Having done the Rome/Florence/Venice tours in a previous trip, a group of friends decided to go off the beaten track to Sicily. Sicily, the small island in Southern Italy packs quite a punch. Stunning seascapes, volcanic islands, tall mountains and historic sites from Greek and Roman periods - all nicely wound into one compact island. This post is about Agrigento, a city in the southern coast of Sicily. It is the home of the famous Valle dei Templi - Valley of Temples. A world heritage site, this place boasts of some of the most well preserved Greek ruins.

We reached Agrigento after a long drive from Mt. Etna. We stayed at Villa Diana, a beautiful farmhouse. Our room was giant with a huge balcony overlooking their olive farm. I loved the sunny yellow color Italian colors in the room so much so that I decided I would have similar tiles if I ever build my own home. The picture on the side is from their website. Dario, the host was a sweet man who directed us to Restaurant Kokalos where we had one of the best meals in Sicily. I ordered a pizza made of mozzarella di bufala and it was divine. Mozzarella di bufala is a speciality of Southern Italy and is considered to be of higher quality than cow mozzarella. Purists swear that once you have Buffalo mozarella, you can never go back to cow cheese. I am no connoisseur and all I can tell is that Buffalo or cow, every order of cheese we had in Italy smelt and tasted amazing. Breakfast next morning included a tasting of farm fresh olive oil. Toast a piece of bread add some warm olive oil and salt and pepper. If the olive oil is of good quality, this simple dish can be yummy!

Ruins are not my thing. I love historic sites, but ruins are a bit too much or to be more precise, they are too less. I need a full intact structure to appreciate. Don't give me a piece of pottery and ask me to marvel at a civilization that produced them. My imagination is just not that good. For that reason, I have never wanted to go to Athens to see the Acropolis. Coliseum was nice , but I did not spend more than an hour in it. I spent even less time at the Palatine hill and the Roman Forum. Given that, I was a little worried if I would be bored at the Greek ruins. But I am constantly amazed at how travel changes my views and interests. Years ago, I used to think birding was boring. 'Nature is not my thing anymore.....I declared one year'. Earlier in the trip, I told friends that I am not big on sculptures, but I was blown away by what I saw at the Galleria Borghese in Rome. This time too, I was pleasantly surprised by how I felt.

The archaeological site of Valle dei Templi contains the remains of seven temples from the 5th century BC. I walked around while the audio guide narrated the violent history of Agrigento. The city changed hands from Greeks to Romans to Arabs to Normans. Every invasion would destroy the city but it managed to re-built itself multiple times over the centuries. Proximity to North Africa made it an important city for trade. Agrigento went through its most prosperous period in the 5th century when the temples were commissioned. The site is located on the hill with views of the Mediterranean sea to one side and city to the other side. The temples were built in the Doric style of Greek architecture and all faced east so that god's statues could be illuminated by the rays of the rising sun. First few temples were burnt down during wars and were in ruins, but the most impressive site was the temple of Concordia. It was the best preserved temple in the valley and WHAT a sight it was!!.

A classic Greek structure with tall symmetrical columns, it withstood the vicissitudes of man and nature. This was truly a 'wow' moment. I could not help but wonder about the technology in 5th century BC that allowed them to build such amazing structures. How did they transport such heavy material, how did they place these stones on top of each other and most important of all - how they build them so strong to last thousands and thousands of years. We spent several hours in the complex and the entire time, I was in awe of the monuments.

If you look carefully, you will notice that the pillars are narrower at the top to make the structure taller. There are many more optical illusion tricks that the architects used to ensure that the visitor sees a straight image even when he is at a distance.

Practical Information

Best time to visit : April-Oct. Summer is the best time although it can get very hot in July and August.

How to get there: There are a lot of cheap flights within Europe these days. Flight time is about 2 hours from Rome to Palermo or Catania. You will need to rent a car or take public transportation to get there. Sicily has a much better bus network than a rail network.

Getting Around: Renting a car is the easiest way.

Lodging:

If you have a car like we did, stay at Villa Diana, a beautiful farmhouse. Ristorante Kokalos has wonderful Sicilian food with a backdrop of the illuminated valley of temples.

Vamsee's list of Must-See Places in the World - Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks, Utah, USA

2011-02-07T16:22:00.017+05:30

It was 1996 and my very first road trip in the US. With a few friends who were studying in Arizona State University, we planned a road trip. Pheonix - Grand Canyon - Sedona - Bryce Canyon - Las Vegas - Pheonix. Lots of energy, lots of driving (sometimes on the wrong side of the road), and very little money. We stayed up some nights (It is a punishable offence to sleep at night in Vegas) and drove all night sometimes to save on hotel money. One such evening, we drove by Bryce Canyon National Park. I was too tired and sleepy to get out of the car, but my friend dragged me out " You have to see this view. It is one of the most beautiful sights in the US", he said. It was sunset time and light was very poor. We parked the car and literally ran to the view point to see it before the sun went down. I remember standing there in awe!!! The view was like an amphitheater of hoodoos or limestone spires, arches and domes of varying shapes and sizes in colors that possibly covered the entire spectrum from pink to orange to red. The setting sun accentuated the orange hues, adding a very dramatic effect to the grand spectacle. Five minutes later, it was all dark and we had to pinch ourselves to make sure we were not hallucinating. None of us had cameras those days!!

Many years later (gosh...this is making me sound like a grandmother!) we were planning a trip for the Memorial Day long weekend (May 2004) and looking for places to drive from Vegas. Zion and Bryce Canyon National Park were the obvious choices. Two hundred million years of raging storms, changing weather patterns and erosion carved these monolithic sandstone monuments. The parks boast of deep orange canyons, mesas, stone formations, limestone spires and many more natural wonders.

Zion Canyon National Park - This is maybe the only canyon park in Utah that has so much greenery. Virgin River flows through the park cutting through gigantic rocks. One of the best hikes in the park is called "The Narrows" where you actually walk on the Virgin river bed. Saru and I walked a mile on it, but turned back because we were not dressed for hiking in waist deep water. Some streches of the hike are so harrow that you have to squeeze between 1000 ft towering peaks!!.Our friends did the entire hike and said it was one of their best experiences.

Bryce Canyon National Park - As fate would have it, we reached Bryce Canyon National Park just when sun was setting. I did not remember the viewpoint I so loved from my trip in 1996, so we drove through the entire length of the road. I would run out, see the point, come back shaking my head until we reached "Sunset Point". One look and I recognized the place immediately. It was more stunning than what I remembered. The next day, we decided to hike to the bottom of the canyon. It was a small 2 mile hike, but quite steep going down and coming back up. I am not exaggerating when I say that almost every minute, one of us (we were 4 friends) would say "WOW". At the end of the trail we were sick of saying 'wow' - that is how 'WOW' it was. I don't know if it is the orange of the canyon that makes the sky look so blue, but I have not seen such blue skies anywhere in the US. The blazing afternoon sun made the orange look brighter and the cloudless sky as blue as it can be. Without doubt this hike is one of my Top 5 hikes.

Side trips on the way

Pink Sands State Park

Cedar Breaks National Monument

Practical Information

Best time to visit : April-July, Sept-Oct. Winter has a completely different look with snow on the canyons. It can get quite cold in winter and very hot in peak summer.

How to get there: There are a lot of cheap flights from the Continental US to Las Vegas. Flight time is about 2 hours from California. Zion is about 3-4 hours drive from there. Bryce is another 2 hours from Zion.

Getting Around: Renting a car is the only way to get around in most US states.

Lodging: Both Zion and Bryce have lots of hotels and lodges close to the park entrance.

Vamsee's list of Must-See Places in the World - Austrian Alps

2011-01-10T13:58:00.019+05:30

I ran out of peanut butter this morning, so was looking in the refrigerator for some jam when I saw a small bottle in the back of the side rack. It was 'Elder Flower' jam that I bought in Austria. Intensely fragrant, it took me back to last summer when Saru and I were on a road trip in the Austrian Alps. We rented a car in Venice and drove through the Dolomites and Alps to Salzburg. This was one of the most beautiful roads I have ever been on and is a MUST-SEE.

Here is a tip when you are on a road trip in the Alps. DO NOT pre-plan your trip. Go where the road takes you, stop where you feel like and THAT is the most fun part. Practically speaking, you will not cover the distance you planned because the road is SO scenic. You will want to stop every few minutes to take pictures, do side hikes and in my case, take an afternoon nap. There is nothing like napping with a view. When we were hiking in the Valley of Flowers, I made the guide look around for 15 minutes to find me a spot to eat and nap with a view. The guide rolled his eyes in disbelief at my silly request, but it is great to wake up to an awesome view.

The only thing to remember is to get to a tourist office before 5:00 PM. Tell them your needs and price range and they will find you a place to stay in minutes. That is exactly how we found Alpenrose, a bed & breakfast in Iselsberg, a town that I did not even know existed. In a small community of 20-30 homes and with some grand views of the mountains, it was nice beautiful room for 50E per night.

Breakfast was a spread of artisan breads and farm fresh cheese and a menu of jams.

"What Jam is this?" I asked the German lady. It was pink in color and I knew the smell, but could not quite place it with any jam I ever had. It was ROSE PETAL jam!! The next one, had a light-honey color with a very intense flowery fragrance. When I asked the lady about that, she stared at the wall, scratched her head and walked away to the next room before coming back with aGerman-English dictionary and pointing out "Elder Flower". It was yum. There was one more mystery jam which tasted weird and felt a little grainy on the tongue. That one, the land lady struggled to explain. Finally, she walked into the garden and came back with a piece of Christmas tree leaf and said - "THIS". She had made jam with Christmas Tree leaves - Can you believe it!!! She went on to give the recipe in broken English and some very violent gestures - Add lots of sugar and small pieces of the leaves and stir and stir and stir until your arms falls off:):)

The drive from Iselsberg to Heigenblut was beautiful with green rolling hills, wild flowers and small communities, each with its own little church. After visiting Italy where they compete with one another to build large churches, these were small structures with pointy roofs.

The Großglockner High Alpine Road

This toll road that runs about 50 kilometers is one of the most scenic highways in Austria. With 35 hairpin bends and a 2500m gain in altitude, this road has panoramic views of the highest peak in Austria, The Großglockner (3798m). We were there in June, but it had snowed a few days back leaving beautiful vistas of snow peaked mountains. As is the case in mountains, clouds would come and go, so it was hard to get good pictures with blue skies.

I tried taking some videos, but it was very windy, so the videos are a little shaky. But here they are anyway.

Practical Information

Best time to visit : The Großglockner high alpine road is only open in summer from May to November. August can get very hot and crowded because of school holidays

How to get there: There are a lot of cheap flights in Europe these days. We took a Flight to Venice and drove from there. Salzburg is another big city close to the road

Getting Around: Renting a car is the only way to get around the mountains. There are coach tours from Salzburg, but these have fixed stops and might not be that much fun

Lodging: There are no big hotels in the regions, just pensions and B&B's.

Vamsee's List of Must-See Places in the World - Big Island, Hawaii, USA

2011-01-05T19:24:00.011+05:30

A very happy new year to all my readers. This New Year, I have decided to start a new series on my blog titled "Vamsee's List of Must-See Places in the World". Over the last decade I had the good fortune of seeing some of the most beautiful places in the World and I would like to share images and stories from those trips. This will be a bi-weekly series with more photos and less text.

Hawaii, Big Island, USA

I screamed as hard as I could. My head was underwater and I knew there was no point screaming, but I did. How could I not? This giant 10ft creature was coming directly at me with its mouth wide open. Saru, who was right next to me, heard me, popped his head out of the water and burst out laughing. "No need to worry. You are not its food" he said.
"It is easy for you to say that, it didn't come at you" I said. He laughed again as we went back under water. This time, he held my hand to reassure that we were safe. We were in the company of many night divers and snorkelers who were all there to see some of the most spectacular sea creatures - Manta Rays. The tour operators take you in a boat in the evening to Keauhou Bay near the Kona airport and setup while you watch a glorious sunset (sunsets in Hawaii are always mind blowing!!). When night falls, divers go down to the sea bed and switch on their powerful torches. Light attracts plankton (tiny brine shrimp) and Manta Rays come to feed on them.
Saru and I got into body suits (water is quite cool) and jumped into the water. One glance into the underwater world and we were astounded!! There were a million....no...zillion little fishes/sea creatures floating in the water. Snorkeling in the night is very different. You can't tell the colors of the fish, but just the numbers blow you away. Loud gasps from people around us announced the arrival of the chief guest - the gigantic Manta Ray and it was not alone. A troupe of 14 rays showed up for the party and boy what a spectacle it was!! These rays can be as large as 6-14 feet across and weigh as much as 5000 pounds, but seem as light as a batman's cape. The Manta rays come swooping by with their mouth wide open scooping up thousands of little shrimp. For more than an hour, we watched the feeding frenzy of these fascinating creatures. Their dinner time was grand theatre for us and I have to give full five stars to their performance. Manta means blanket and they did look like black and white blankets swishing and swooping around the area with great elegance and aplomb. Their acrobatics can put Cirque du Soleil to shame. We were the last to get out of the water and I remember shaking with excitement. This experience rates as one of the top 10 adventures I had in my life. Watch this video I found on youtube . It is heavily edited and not as exciting as the dive itself, but gives a good look at the rays. Watch out for the snorkeler at the surface and how close the rays get to her. I could have easily been her.

If I had to rate one place as my most favorite in the entire, it will have to be the Hawaii Islands. Over the years we made three trips to the islands and loved it every single time and why not. These islands have EVERYTHING in one place - Rain forests, snow peaked mountains, stunning beaches, lava fields, active volcano and some of the most beautiful coral reefs. Added to all this, they have many charming hotels, Bed & Breakfasts and excellent food. For some reason, Big Island has a ton of Thai restaurants and we just loved them. Don't forget to sample "Donkey Balls". They are delicious!!.

Top 5 Experiences in the Big Island:

Manta Ray Night Dive
Hike to see an active volcano in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park
Kayak in the Kealakekua Bay and snorkel at Captain Cook
Watch a sunset
Go to a Lu'au for a grand dinner and Hula dance performances

You can read detailed travelogues about this trip in my old posts (Hawaii - Got Balls? , Hot Lava from a Live Volcano) Here are some pictures from our trips. Please note that these pictures were taken in 2003, 2005 and 2008 when we had a normal camera.

Ocean Vistas to die for!!

Turtles at Punalu'u Black Sand Beach

Past Volcanic Activity

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park - Hike to see the lava flow into the Ocean

Waterfalls in Hilo

Hula Dancers at a Lua'u

Every sunset is a postcard picture

Practical Information

Best time to visit : Any time of the year. It is crowded and expensive during all major holidays and school breaks.

How to get there: There are a lot of cheap flights from the Continental US to all Hawaiian Islands. Flight time is about 6 hours from California.

Getting Around: Renting a car is the only way to get around the island. 4-wheel drive is necessary only if you plan to go off-road.

Lodging: Big hotels have good deals, but I love bed & breakfasts in Hawaii. Of all the places we stayed, Areca Palms in the Captain Cook area is my favorite.The hostess makes ginormous breakfasts.

Coming up next:

Alaska - The land of the midnight Sun
Monument Valley, Utah, USA
Rome, Italy
Lassen Volcanic National Park, California, USA
Munnar, Kerala, India

The Truth About Valley of Flowers - Part II

2010-12-23T17:18:00.013+05:30

“You are going to the Valley of Flowers? Utna Khaas nahi hai (It is not that great)", said the gentleman who was headed to Hemkund Sahib.

“It is beautiful, but not that great” said the person who was already headed back from the hike at 10:00 AM . The same sentiments were expressed by a couple more people on their way back. There was one Indian lady and an American who said that the place was spectacular, but everybody else seemed to be disappointed. Read on to find out and see for yourself.
Continued from Part 1 (Click here tor read Part 1)

The Sarovar Tent camps do not have electricity. The only thing you can do after the light goes down is to star gaze. I know nothing about astronomy, but it is fun to see the night sky in the mountains. The sky was lit up with millions of tiny stars. “It is like somebody threw glitter in the sky” said our guide Bachchan and he was so right. We slept early and woke up early the next day. After a delicious breakfast of aloo parathas and chai, we set off for the hike.
It was another uphill path, and our feet began to complain immediately. Valley of Flowers was only 6 km from our camp, so there was no hurry. We walked slowly and in a few minutes came to the village of Ghangria. It was a small, dirty and noisy place. If you can afford the tents, don’t bother staying in the village. The entire place smelled of fried oil and bad food. You could struggle and hike up to 10,000 ft, but god forbid you have to live without Chole Batura and Jalebi. Once we cleared the village, the scenery opened up to towering mountains on 3 sides. At the fork in the road, we came across a number of pilgrims going to Hemkund sahib, but very few going to VOF. We probably came across 20-30 people on the entire hike!! As we passed through a wooded forest, Bachchan pointed out the Bhoj Vriksha. It is said that Ved Vyas wrote the Mahabharata on bhoj patra. This part of the country is full of stories from the Mahabharatha and I will write about it in part 3. As we walked on, Bachchan plucked sweet and sour jungle raspberries for us. The path of the hike crossed from one side of the Pushpapati river to the other. The roar of the white water rushing downstream was constant during the entire hike. I cannot tell you how soothing it is to walk beside the roaring river.

The valley is hidden behind huge, towering peaks, so you have to wait until the last kilometer before getting a peak at the view. The suspense prods you to walk on the uphill terrain just to get a glimpse of this land that caught the imagination of so many naturalists and botanists. Just before the valley opened up, the clouds cleared giving us an amazing view of the snow peaked mountains. I don’t know why I have this fascination for snow-peaked mountains, but I do. I have seen snow many times, in fact I used to curse it when I had to walk on it to school, but there is something alluring about white snow peaked mountains against a green valley. The camera kept clicking by itself and I am glad it did because in 10 minutes, clouds covered up the view.

Soon, the path flattened out and flowers began to show up. It was one of the most beautiful hikes I have ever done – glacier fed river on one side, snow-peaked mountains all around and a valley full of flowers. The predominant species that was blooming at that time was this white flower. They were EVERYWHERE. There were patches of yellow and pink flowers in places, but white was quite dominating. We found a small patch without flowers (I am serious…they are everywhere!!) and had our packed lunch. Bacchhan went to the stream and brought us back cold river water to drink. Pure, tasty Himalayan water!! The weariness of the last few days caught up with me, so I decided to take a nap while Gaay and Bacchhan went for a walk. We spent many hours breathing in the fresh air and just taking in the splendid scenery. For me, the hard hike was totally worth it. I loved the place, so I was quite shocked at people’s disappointment.

I think the problem with VOF is its name – Valley of Flowers. People go there expecting not just flowers, but millions and zillions of flowers. The written material boasts of over 300+ varieties of alpine flowers. It does not matter that different flowers bloom in different weeks/months – people want them all to bloom at the same time and preferably in neat rows carpeting the area in pink, yellow and blue colors. Then they can wear a see-through chiffon sari and run around singing Bollywood songs.
Almost everybody I met there was obsessed with seeing the “blue poppy” (even the ones who had no idea such a flower existed). Guides took a lot of effort to find one and when they did, it was a major achievement – “OMG, we saw THE blue poppy!!” Never mind that the flower was a tiny 5-10 cm thing, half torn, hidden on the side of the path under some boulders. Victory is declared and the purpose of the trip is fulfilled. The problem with Valley of Flowers is not the place, but the false marketing. They advertise it as if it is a human controlled botanical park where you are guaranteed to see various flowers. Go there with the expectation that you will see what nature decides to show you and I guarantee that you will come back happy.

Now that you have seen my pictures and videos– what you think? Great? Good? Good but not great??

Prague, Walking Tours

2010-12-17T16:33:00.007+05:30

The first time I had heard of Prague was many years ago. I had just announced in my office that I was getting married. My team took me out to lunch and the topic of honeymoon came up. The president of our company, a very sweet man said " YOU MUST GO TO PRAGUE" That is where all the young people are headed these days, he said. At the time, I had never been to Europe and frankly never heard of Prague, so I asked him more about it. He said " Prague is beautiful. It has museums, art galleries, churches, coffee shops, river-front restaurants.....everything. PRAGUE IS THE NEW PARIS!!"

It was only much later that I visited Prague. We flew in from Amsterdam on one of those cheap flights that have flooded the European market these days. One word of caution - When the flight landed and we entered the terminal, they had sniffing dogs sniff our luggage just to make sure you don't bring in the happy pills from NL:) Read my account of the trip to Prague here.

Dan Perciun from GPSmyCity.com develops self-guided city walking tour applications for Iphones. They have over 2,000 walking tours - spanning over 180 cities worldwide. He has offered to give away free city walk applications to my blog readers for participating in the quiz on Prague. The readers who correctly answer to most of its questions, will win three free city walk iPhone application developed by GPSmyCity.com.

1. Prague's oldest, most well known and famous bridge was named in the honor of a king.
Can you guess who?
A. Charles IV
B. Louis IV
C. Rudolf IV

2. Capital of the Czech Republic, Prague, is also the capital of a province and former
kingdom. Which of these is it?
A. Moravia
B. Silesia
C. Bohemia

3. Holding a lot of the world's records, the Czechs are considered to:
A. Eat most sausage per capita than anywhere else
B. Drink more beer per capita than anywhere else
C. Have most castles per capita than anywhere else

4. Can you guess how many of the Czechs have completed at least secondary education?
A. 85%
B. 90%
C. 95%

5. The Czech language belongs to the Slavonic family of languages. Which language is of
another origin?
A. Polish
B. Bulgarian
C. Albanian

6. On which river is Prague situated?
A. Danube
B. Elbe
C. Vltava

7. Which word, with an apparent English origin, traces its beginnings in the Czech language?
A. Sword
B. Robot
C. Sugar

8. What personality from the following row is not a famous Czech?
A. Gregor Johann Mendel
B. Franz Kafka
C. Gottfried Leibniz

9. Prague is famous for having presented to the world one of these incredible dances. Which one?
A. The Polka
B. The Walz
C. The Foxtrot

10. Tourists visiting Prague, are definitely going to be impressed by this wall constatntly
covered with grafitti and lyrics in honour of world famous artists. Can you take a guess
who that might be?
A. John Lennon
B. Jim Morrison
C. Elvis Presley

Answer the questions for fun or to get free walking tour applications.

U.S Virgin Islands - St. John

2010-12-01T17:47:00.014+05:30

" I am sorry. You flight is closed for boarding"

I could not believe my ears. This is a scenario I had NEVER faced in my life. I am a very planned person and always show up for flights well ahead of time. We started for the airport many hours ahead, but took a long lunch where we lost track of time. Before we knew it, we were zooming to the airport, but could not make it. The flight to paradise had to wait another day!!

Virgin Islands was never on my list of places simply because we lived in California. If we wanted to go to beautiful Islands, Hawaii was a 6 hour flight away. Caribbean Islands were just too far. Luckily for me, I had a conference in Florida and a bunch of us over-worked colleagues decided to take a quick 3 day trip to the US Virgin Islands. American Airlines has cheap flights to St. Thomas. A ferry ride brings you from St. Thomas to St.John When people rate best beaches in the World, Caribbean islands always show up and for good reason. The white sand beaches with turquoise waters are a sight for the sore eye. If you want instant relaxation, all you have to do is stare at this picture below. Countless shades of blue waters surrounded by green rain forests make for breathtaking vistas.

We went to St. John which has the Virgin Islands National Park. We stayed at Maho Bay Camps, an award winning eco-tourist resort. They built the camps in 1976 when eco-tourism was not as fashionable as it is now. The tent cottages stand on stilts in the high forests and are connected through elevated wooden walkways to preserve the ground cover. They use wind and solar energy and harvest rain water. Camps were very basic but were perfect for us because we used it only for sleeping. Rest of the time we were sitting in the water, standing in the water, swimming in the water, floating in the water, drinking in the water......you get the idea:)

Snorkeling is my most favourite water sport. Floating on the water while watching the underwater world go about its business is simply fascinating. Trunk Bay and Water Lemon Cay are the popular spots and we went to both the places. Water Lemon Cay was a good 1 mile hike from our camps. Weather was hot and humid and I was very uncomfortable. To me, that is the biggest drawback of the Caribbean Islands. Hawaii has no humidity, so if I ever have to choose, Hawaii will win hands down. I wore a ridiculous looking life vest ( 'Be Safe and have fun" is what Saru said before I left) and jumped into the water. The little cay with sandy beaches has incredibly beautiful marine life. The water was crystal clear and had lots of beautiful sponges and corals - elk and brain corals being the highlight. Hundreds of types of multi-coloured fish reside in the reefs there. Parrotfish, Angelfish, goatfish and butterflyfish were most common. As we were floating in the water, there was a point when the famous Caribbean clear water became sandy. The culprit, we realized was a hungry EAGLE RAY!! It was my first sighting of this species and I was thrilled. Just when I thought the day could not get any better, we saw a huge turtle!! Back in the camp, it was cool among the trees, but the only way to remain comfortable with the humidity was to be in the water!! Instead of hanging out near our camp, we took our stuff and literally sat in the shallow water for hours and hours until our hands and feet wilted like an old granny's. The next day, we kayaked to another snorkel spot and spent an afternoon there. We then rented a car for a few hours and drove around the tiny island to get an idea of how the rest of the place looked.

After soaking in the sun and the sand for 2 days back, we headed back to the airport where I heard the second bombshell in the trip. " I am sorry, I don't see your reservation"!! I pulled out my printouts and gave it to the lady who looked at it and said " This reservation was for yesterday"!! I paid a $100 penalty to change the ticket. Just when I was thinking that this could not get any worse, the guard asked me " Passport Please". I had no idea that we needed a passport to visit the Virgin Islands!! They never checked on my way there. " Why do I need a passport. I am still in the US. I never took my passport to Hawaii, I said. " Hawaii is a state, USVI is a US territory" He replied while showing me to a special room. I gave them all my information and sat there for the longest 1/2 hour of my life. The guard came back and said that my information checked out and I was free to board the flight.
" Next time bring your passport"!! He said.
Given all the trouble getting in and out of here, I told myself I would never go back. But these pictures are tempting me to change my mind. Maybe......some day in the distant future!!

This is my World today. For more stories around the world, please click here.

Club Mahindra Bloggers Trip - Sikkim

2010-11-17T22:06:00.011+05:30

When I first started writing trip reports, I would endlessly pain my friends to leave comments. They were irritated by my constant messages and I was irritated that they would not comment. Then in 2008, I started this blog and slowly and steadily built a small base of readers. Most of the readers were strangers who had come to my blog in search of a good travel story. After some months of communication, some of these people even became good friends. I would chat with them regularly and connected on social networking sites. I even went to the extent of traveling with a fellow blogger who I had known only through his blog. It was a great success which made me believe that it was easier to make friends with common interests. I started meeting fellow bloggers whenever I happened to be in their city. Up until this trip, I had met Lakshmi Sharath, Arun Bhat, Arun Nair and Neelima Vallangi. With each of them, conversation was effortless and it felt like we already knew each other. It has been over 2 years since I moved back and the only friends I made are those that I met through travel forums, group trips and blogs!!

When Club Mahindra offered to take me on a trip to their resort in Sikkim, I jumped at it, not because it was Sikkim, but it was with 8 other travel bloggers. The fun started in the flight itself. There were 5 of us and we pretended to own the aircraft. During the 3 hr flight to Calcutta, we had loud arguments/discussions about everything from exercise to investments to altitude sickness. Calcutta airport was a serious dump!! How does a city that claims to be the most intellectual and philosophical city tolerate that stink is beyond me. We felt bad even eating a sandwich from a Coffee day. Bagdogra airport was much nicer. The drive to Gangtok was along the Teesta river and it was beautiful, but very windy. The combination of windy roads, heavy traffic and diesel smell did a number on me and I was seriously nauseous. Multiple stops and five long hours later, we reached Gangtok.

Back at the resort, we ordered some drinks and set out to get to know each other. It was a motley group of nine. We could not be more different than the other. One was a compulsive chatterbox while one was a quiet listener, one loved eating while one loved cooking, one took pictures of everything in sight while another took pictures of herself at every sight. One wore very trendy clothes while another wore her husband's jeans. One was a meticulously planned traveler and another was a spontaneous I-will-figure-out-as-I-go person. The group was a mixture of travelers of all ages and ailments. However different we all were, we shared a common passion (borderline obsession) for travel. I felt completely at home with these serial-travelers. Everybody was coming from a trip and/or going to another trip after Sikkim. Some traveled for work while some quit work to travel and yet others chose travel as their work. These obsessive compulsive travelers/foodies seem to have found an answer to the work-life balance equation (less work...more life). It was refreshing to talk to people who never let work come in the way of life. Life is not just about earning a living....it is about living!!

Moving on - Gangtok itself was not very impressive. Having passed through another hill station recently (Nainital), I will go out on a limb and say that all popular hill stations in India are avoidable. They are noisy, polluted and the man made structures block out mountain vistas. Trick is to find a small village just outside these hill stations and stay there. Club Mahindra's Royal Demazong was six kilometers outside Gangtok towards the hills. A tiny dirt road lead to the most impressive location in that region. Set in the middle of the majestic Chola range, almost halfway to the clouds (scroll down to see those pictures) was a beautiful heritage structure. Our rooms were very tastefully decorated and spacious. The best part was the balcony which offered uninterrupted views of the mountains all round. On a relaxed holiday, I could imagine myself sipping my morning coffee in the balcony listening to the songs of the birds.

Our first stop the next day was the Bulbulay Himalayan Zoo. While I no longer enjoy zoo's, this one was different in that animals were kept in large open/semi-open/closed enclosures. I was also excited about the prospect of seeing snow leopards, Himalayan civet cats and the star attraction - the Red Panda Bear. A beautiful walk through the woods took us to the first attraction - Black Bear or Bhalu. A bear rolling on the ground and wrestling with a piece of wood was misconstrued as two bears making out which led to a lot of innuendos and jokes. The Leopards, handsome as they are, posed for photographs.

The drive to the Lingdum monastery was just beautiful. Light green rice fields interspersed with dark mountains was a sight to behold. Many a time, I made the driver stop on narrow roads just to get a quick shot of these landscapes.

This was my first monastery in the east and I was impressed. It was a very non-touristy place and we found ourselves to be one in less than 20 tourists at the site. The architecture of the monastery is like other Buddhist structures in Nepal, Bhutan and North East India. With rising levels and pagodas, it looked very grand and majestic.

Loud temple music and the ringing of the gong made me walk into the inner sanctum where the evening prayer was going on. Monks were chanting scriptures while tapping their music cymbals. Outside in the courtyard, a big group of monks were practicing a prayer dance. The older monks were unfazed by our presence, but the younger ones would look at us from time to time and blush. I wonder how kids as young as these decide to become monks.

However exhausting the days were, we used to stay up till late in the night and have very interesting discussions. Men were bored by the relationship conversations, but took part in the singing session with gusto. I doubt if anybody on our floor slept that night. Looking back at the trip, I think my most favorite memories were not of the places, but the people. Some of them will remain good friends and travel buddies for years to come.

Coming up - Sikkim 2, Drive to Nathula Pass and Tsmongo Lake

Camping at Death Valley

2010-10-03T16:02:00.029+05:30

This is a guest post written by my friend Vidya. She wrote this in 2005 after we came back from a trip to Death Valley National Park. This funny account of our camping trip brings a smile to my face every single time I read it. Our friends loved it and we encouraged Vidya to write more. This post hopes to serve as a giant kick in the butt and get her back to writing

One fine bright and sunny day, my husband and I decided that it was time to take yet another vacation before getting frustrated all over again with work. Destination Death Valley National Park was our first spot. Vam and Pengo took care of all reservations while Saru and me spent time at work happily browsing all sites we could find on Death Valley and Channel Islands. I for one, could hardly concentrate on anything else for the last week and a half .

There was one tiny teensy snag to this excitement however. Well you see, our friend Vam had this brilliant idea that we should all camp-yes camp, in Death Valley for one night, her reasoning being that all hotels in a 100 mile radius were booked or sold out (which I do not believe for one second – she and my husband are peas in the same pod when it comes to camping – my hubby being even worse – his idea of camping does not even include sleeping bags and enclosed restrooms – I rest my case here) – well, anyways, Vam bet each one of us a $100 bucks if we could find one vacant hotel, and seeing as she was so confident, we had nothing else to do but go where she took us. The night before the trip, I made a call to them with the sole purpose of trying to allay my fears with respect to the camp…you see I have been bred in the city all my life and the most I have been close with nature would be a school picnic to Powai lake for 3 hours. And this was hard-core camping complete with tents, sleeping bags, freezing-extreme temperatures, not to mention, wild animals like foxes, coyotes, snakes and all kinds and varieties of bugs and insects (the last few of which Pengo was most eagerly looking forward to and the only reason he agreed to the trip in the first place). So I had high reservations about anything to do with camping – the mentality of people who want to deliberately lie on jagged stones in the peril of being eaten up alive by a bear, stung by a scorpion, poisoned by a snake or worse get drenched in the rain when all you are trying to do is get one night’s sound sleep - is well beyond my realm of comprehension, - and thankfully there was one sane person in the group, Saru - who happened to agree with me.

When I expressed my doubts about this camping idea to Vam and Pengo, firstly everyone beat it down saying that I have led a sheltered and protected life till now in Bombay - and that even though it was called a jungle – it was but merely a concrete one – my husband put in his 2-bits saying my idea of adventure was to travel from West-Mulund to East Mulund – which I thought was a totally uncalled for comment.

The drive

Vam then proposed that we should take the ‘scenic’ route instead of the staid old freeway. Now, what I didn’t know in my naiveté then and what I have now learnt through bitter experience now, is that when Vam says ‘scenic’ what she really means - is a gut-wrenching, heart-stopping thrill ride through deep trenches, narrow gorges, mountains on the brink of mudslides which could bury you under any second, valleys and so on and so forth…Basically we got our money’s worth of amusement park thrills and chills sans the long queues.

My way of dealing with the situation was to mumble prayers under my breath and mutter a string of predictions of the exact manner in which we were going to meet our end and other fore-sayings of doom throughout. By the time we were close to our destination, both Saru and I were slightly sick and had turned a delicate shade of green in color – Saru don’t deny it – I have a picture to prove it.

Wildflowers at Antelope Valley State Park

Death Valley

After a short detour to see wild flowers, we decided to drive non-stop to Death Valley, in the hope of putting up our tent before the sun went down. I use the term non-stop very loosely here; Me, Vam and Saru made Pengo stop at the sight of every lake, flower or hillside that caught our attention and had our fill of oohs and aahs. By the time we were done with our random loiterings and umpteen photo stops, it was well past daylight and we had not even reached the outskirts of Death Valley. The road to DV was pretty much the similar thrill ride I mentioned earlier with the elevation and grading losing 100 feet for every mile or so. And I kept up my steady monologue of doomsday uttering's and dark prophecies about how we were soon going to go crashing down the hill. By this time we had given up all hopes of ever putting up tent in daylight and were resigned to using the car headlights once again as Vam, Saru and Pengo fondly reminisced about the umpteen times they have camped and never once have they reached their goal of setting up a tent under natural light before the sun went down.

The Episode of the Tent

We finally reached our campsite at around 9pm. Masters in the art of camping the Vam and Pengo are, the tent was up and about in almost no time – Saru also seemed to be very useful with the manual labor, while I simply hovered around being of no use to anyone - but I did get second by second in- action shots of the masterpiece being created. That should count for something.

Well satisfied with our handiwork, we gazed fondly at it one last time and proceeded to head to the 49-ers Café for a well-earned dinner.

Just as we were close to finishing our dessert, (I ordered an amaretto liqueur coffee for the first time in my life and to say the least, was disgusted with it), we heard loud downpour outside and saw that it had started raining heavily. It suddenly dawned on us that even though we had finished pitching our tent, we didn’t know if we had secured it enough to withstand such a heavy deluge.

Just as suddenly as it had started, the showers came to an abrupt end, and we hurriedly paid our bills and left to see the state of our tent. Sure enough, there it was, wet and soaked in the rain, lying in complete shambles on the ground and with it went the product of an hour’s worth of sweat and toil. It must be registered on record that our morale definitely spiked sharply downward at this point, as we were all so tired after our long eventful day, and all we wanted to do was hit the sack as quickly as possible.
But kudos once again to Vam and Pengo, who did not let us give up, and quickly chalked out a POA to salvage what we could of the tent. We grabbed a couple of beach towels and wiped out all traces of water from the outside of the tent. Luckily the inside was still nice and dry due to the rain-shield that we had had the foresight to put over the tent. We pitched the tent again, this time, making it stronger by securing it with heavy rocks. We then brought out the sleeping bags and comforters and laid them neatly inside, and wrapped up our pillows that had become a bit soggy, in blankets and voila – everything was perfect again.

Only after this were we able to see the humor in the situation and had a gala time joking about it till we finally fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion and all the excitement of the day. This officially marks the end of the chapter in my life where I had my first camping experience, and for the record, despite all that I’d heard and thought about it, despite all the misgivings I had, I definitely had a great time and – I know I’m laying myself on the line here with Vam and Pengo – and would be open to considering another camping trip – in the distant future!

Sand Dunes

We stopped our car at the dirt track on the side of the road and walked the rest of the way to the sand dunes, and when we did catch the first glimpse of them – man what an awe-inspiring sight it was. Just imagine – Mounds and mounds of pure clear sand heaped high shining with a pearl-like luminescence towering against the backdrop of the soaring Grapevine Mountains surrounding the valley. Saru practically went into raptures of blissful ecstasy trying to get as many shots of this bounty of nature as possible.

The initial few miles of the dunes were covered with footprints but we trekked a bit further into the interiors and here the dunes were even more pristine, untrammelled with and untouched by human steps. Here we were even more amazed by the innumerable soft patterns engraved by the winds on the dune, ranging from simple lines to a myriad of stripes and shapes.

Completely mesmerized and lost in the bliss for a long time we sat in silence enthralled taking in the beauty

Devil’s Golf Course

After this we drove further southward to hit the spot that intrigued us the most just by the sound of its name – Devil’s Golf Course. Doesn’t it sound jazzy? Well, whatever we expected, it definitely couldn’t match up to what we actually saw.

More than 2000 years ago, this part of Death Valley was a deep lake. When the climate warmed, the lake dried up and the minerals became increasingly concentrated. Eventually, only a briny soup remained, forming salty pools. Salts began to crystallize, coating the muddy lake-bed with a three to five feet thick crust of salt. Over the years, the silty salt at Devil's Golf Course grows into fantastic, intricately detailed pinnacles.

That concludes the chemistry class for those who really understood it. Me- even though I still haven’t really grasped the finer points (or the not so fine ones, for that matter) – I’m still struck by the actually imagery of it. To think that the knarled terrain of 1 foot hard mounds jutting out from the lake, actually is ordinary kitchen salt! Now that sounds utterly implausible and far-fetched, doesn’t it! The salt crystals seemed so delicate in their formation. We gingerly stepped on it thinking it’s apt to crumple at any minute but much to our surprise, they were rock solid and more than held up the weight of 2 humans. To top off my excitement, I even could hear the musical pings of the tiny salt crystals bursting apart in the heat and was thoroughly thrilled.

Since the day was so beautiful and the waters calm, we could even see the reflection of the Panamint Mountains flashing in and out from between the salt mounds in the gleaming waters – the whole thing was incredible.

BADWATER

The low, salty pool at Badwater, just beside the main park road is apparently the best known and most visited place in Death Valley. I really don’t know why. After all of the amazing sights that we had enjoyed at Death Valley so far, I guess our expectations were set a bit high, and so seeing Badwater was like splashing ice cold water on your face - a complete anti-climax. Badwater.....was well!!! BAD WATER!!

The water here really bad – the toxins in it would kill you if you drank enough of it. Legend has it that one of the early surveyors at Death Valley saw that even his mule wouldn't drink from the pool, even though the place was sweltering hot and they were dying of thirst. He noted the place as "badwater" on his map and the smart marketing folks in the US spun it as a tourist spot. At 282 ft below sea level, Badwater is the lowest spot on land in the Western Hemisphere, and also one of the hottest. But all it really consisted of was a smelly pond and a wooden sign that says you are 280 feet below sea level.

Between all of these magnificent geological sights, one other thing worth mentioning, is that desert though it may be, this time around, the unusually unstinting rainfall that it received, sparked off an extraordinary and bountiful growth of wildflowers all over the place. The contrast is especially striking when you juxtapose it with the dry scorching temperature of the place and the barren landscape you’d expect of a desert.

The next day we went to Channel Island off the California Coast, but that is another trip report.

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Lavender Fields of Provence

Lavender Fields of Provence, France

2010-09-26T19:29:00.031+05:30

Saru: "Enough!! I cannot take this anymore!"

There are many ways to torture the husband and I discovered a very unique way when we were holidaying in the South of France.

We were driving around the Luberon region and the foothills of Mount Ventoux in Provence. It was late June and the country side was full of lavender, wheat and sunflower fields. Purple lines of lavender interspersed with golden wheat stalks in the foreground of a hilltop village...this is exactly how I imagined Provence to be and there it was!! Purple and violet contours extend out as far as the eye can see.

"Put some lavender stalks on the car floor. Every time you step in and out of the car, the air will be filled with fragrance" said the guidebook. I took the advice.... a little too seriously. I would stamp on the lavender, take in the heady scent and as soon as the perfume faded, I would stamp on the stalks again. In the beginning, Saru was amused. "It takes very little to keep my wife happy" he told himself and snickered while I would take deep yogic breaths every few minutes. But when the car started to smell like a like a lavender factory, he lost it!

I LOVE lavender!! At home, I have lavender scented candles, lavender home freshener, lavender oil, lavender lotion, body wash.....you get the picture!! When our trip to France got postponed to the end of June, I jumped at the chance to add Provence to the itinerary knowing fully well that it was peak time for Lavender. For 4 days, we drove around the country side stopping at every lavender farm, buying lavender products. One evening, we even went to a restaurant "Les Lavandes" and had lavender flavored ice cream at which point Saru screamed:

"Enough!! I cannot take this anymore! I need to get back into civilization soon!!

Our base was a small village called Monieux in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in Southeastern France. We stayed in a bed & breakfast run very lovingly by Isabelle - Chez Isabelle . A lonely lady in her forties, she rented out 4 rooms. She barely spoke English, but that did not stop her from chatting with us. A little bit of English, a little bit of French and a lot of animated gestures later...we understood each other. She had a huge spread of homemade bread and jams and cappuccino for breakfast every morning.

On the first morning, we woke up early and went for a drive. A fat lady was just opening her bakery, so I ran inside and got us a couple of croissants. They were whole wheat croissants (!!!) and let me tell you something – when you are putting a slab of butter on every fold (see this picture of croissant dough) you are screwed anyway. What is the point of using whole wheat? The croissants were not so good, but the views from the hill were just fantastic. The ground was covered in thick morning mist while the sun was just rising. We spent an hour clicking pictures and just breathing in that cold crisp morning air.

Morning Mist and Lavender fields at Monieux

Saru went back to sleep while I chatted with Isabelle. I had a mini-breakfast with her and a second one with Saru.

"Un Cappuccino, deux Cappuccino, Très Cappuccino ....no problem" She said while talking me into trying Lavender honey with bread.

"I love summer. Weather is nice, rooms are full and I am busy. Winter is bad. When the mistral (cold winds) rolls in, it is so cold, I cannot leave home. For days, I do not see anybody!"

“But my daughter comes home for the holidays and we go skiing” Her eyes lit up while she spoke lovingly about the daughter that was studying in Paris.

I don’t know if I can ever live in such an isolated place, but I love to vacation in these small towns. Saru LOVES big cities and the energy in them. I like them too, but my idea of a vacation is to take it slow. The peace and tranquility of the countryside offers just the kind of holiday I want. For 4 days, we drove around some of the most beautiful villages in Provence. There was no long list of attractions – we drove aimlessly. Lunch in one village, snacks in one and dinner in yet another village. In between these villages were long stretches of lavender farms, wheat fields and wineries. After 4 days, I was completely rested and Saru was totally restless. He needed to move to an urban scene....see some wide roads, tall buildings, crowds, noise, pollution (OK....now I am just being mean here!!). More than anything, I think he was sick of being in places whose names he could not pronounce. Languages are not his forte and he will not even try to pronounce the names right. In the entire trip, I could not get him to say 'Bonjour' to anybody. He will say a very enthusiastic "good morning" or a very spirited 'hello', but never 'Bonjour'. On our trips we visited many cities and he butchered pretty much every name - Gordes, Roussillon, Montbrun-les-bains, Bonnieux, Monieux....and his personal favourite – L’Isle-Sur-la-Sorgue. For the life of him, Saru could not remember that name. On our way to the town, he kept repeating the name again and again. It was like riding the car with an idiot savant (remember Rain Man where Dustin Hoffman keeps repeating things...).

In comparison, Nice and Monaco were easy to pronounce. Nice...was well... Nice and Monaco according to Saru, was a salt biscuit. Nice and Monaco deserve its own post, so I am not going to mention the topless women at the beaches there.

Here are some more pictures of the famous lavender fields. The difference in colors is because of the difference in plant species. True Lavender is the variety that is pure and used in the perfume industry. It grows only in higher altitudes (>1800 ft). Lavandin, a hybrid variety has darker colors and grows at lower elevations. We got a detailed Lavender trail from Fodors Provence forum (thanks Stu Dudley) and followed it to get to these picturesque locations. Mornings were cool in Summer, but afternoons were HOT!! Every afternoon, we would pick a nice shady tree, open the doors of the car and take a nice nap. A couple of evenings we lucked out with sudden thunder storms and then the place cooled down. I don't know if I will ever go back to Provence in the middle of Summer, but it was worth braving the sun for these views.

Traveling in Provence is a treat to all senses. Beautiful vistas of mountains, plateaux, an occasional chateau and precariously placed hilltop villages. In a follow-up post, I will write about the villages we visited, food we ate etc.

Follow-up Post : Beautiful Villages in Provence -Les Plus Beaux Villages de France

Click on the link to read about our Paris trip - Paris- How Dan Brown screwed up my trip!

Cabbages and Condoms - More Thai food in Bangkok

2010-08-10T21:46:00.035+05:30

WHAT???

That was exactly the reaction I got when I told people that I was going out for dinner at "Cabbages and Condoms" Most people thought the phone connection was bad or they heard me wrong!! Saru's reaction was the best of all - "Does condom mean something else in Thai? Sometimes I wonder if he is as smart as they say he is!

Most people were shocked at the name and it made for some interesting discussion o n my Facebook status. I confess that was the only reason I went there. When you travel as much as I do, at some point you get tired of seeing normal things however beautiful they are! I mean, how much can you gush about beautiful sculptures and golden pagodas and keep the listener/reader interested. The shelf life of normal travel tales is short. Every year, Saru and I would go on one big trip every year and come back with lots of pictures and stories. None of the trips garnered as much interest as the one where Saru's laptop and visa documents got stolen by a taxi driver in Seville . Our friends K and BS (OMG.....how did I never realize that his initials are BS? I cannot believe I missed out a golden opportunity such as this!!) were with us in Spain. BS regaled friends with this story for months. With every repetition, the thieves became more elusive and we became smarter as we turned the tables on them and got back our stuff in 2 days. BS wrote a 3-part mini-series on how we maintained a vigilance at the airport, made friends with taxi drivers, even met the taxi association president and got him to get our stuff back. It was an instant hit! I will re-post his story on my blog one of these days.

Anyway, my point is that it is fun to mix it up and go to crazy places once in a while. When we went to Czech Republic, we were tired of seeing ornate churches, so we took a day trip to see a church that was decorated entirely with skulls and bones - made for a great story!

So, I was in Bangkok for work and free for dinners. The French restaurant I blogged about was great, but I was itching to try local Thai food. When I googled for cool restaurants, I came across this name. It intrigued me, so I went, albeit cautiously. The restaurant was established by the former Thai Health Minister, Viravaidya to promote birth control and AIDS awareness. His aim was to make condoms as common as cabbages, hence the name.

Contrary to what I was expecting, the restaurant had a very romantic feel. The hanging lanterns, and tropical trees decorated with lights makes it look like Christmas in Condomville. When you walk into the restaurant, you are immediately greeted at the door by Santa Condom and his family:) I wonder how many hundreds of condoms it took to make these figures.

I ordered food and took a walk around the restaurant. There was a safe-unsafe sex wheel of fortune that you could spin to test your luck, a chart of jokes and lots of condom art to entertain the guests. I don't know about spreading birth control message, but this restaurant was doing roaring business. It was full of foreign tourists. You don't go to a restaurant named 'Cabbages and Condoms' for its food and not surprisingly, there were very few locals there.

Food was not bad....I actually did not have a bad meal in Thailand till now. Soup was nice and spicy while the raw papaya salad and cashew chicken were yummy.

After dinner, if you are looking for a mint, you will be disappointed. The check comes with 2 complimentary condoms and a coupon for a free vasectomy at the next door clinic:):)

Tigers of Ranthambore

2010-07-11T21:36:00.020+05:30

It has been ages since I blogged and it is not for lack of interesting travel stories. I have been traveling almost every month since the start of this year - Bangkok, Pench National Park, Mughal Gardens, Nameri and Kaziranga National Parks and a nice long trip to Italy and Austria. I have many unfinished travelogues and am tempted to publish small posts because it is much easier, but then I remember that my goal is not to preserve the blog, but to preserve my memories. I was home alone and didn't have anything better to do, so I forced myself to write and this is the result of that!

Tigers of Ranthambore

I have a problem. I don't know what to do about it. It is not very confusing. It is a simple straightforward statement that should be taken at face value. But, everywhere I go, people react in 2 ways - they either ignore what I say and carry on with their business or accuse me of lying.

"I don't believe you. You are lying" said S staring at me. He thought I was being fashionable....trying to be 'different' that the other travelers.

"Everybody wants to see a Tiger and so do you!"

S was responding to my statement "I am OK with not seeing a Tiger!".

Before you all jump to conclusions and start accusing me of lying, let me explain my statement. Seeing a tiger is THE most exciting and thrilling part of going to a National park in India. I had the good fortune of seeing one in Corbett and 6 in Bandipur (adding 4 little cubs). In Corbett the tiger was too far in the river, but in Bandipur, it was less than 10 ft away and I was shivering with excitement long after it ran away into the woods. We talked about it for days and months and every single time we recalled the sighting, it was just as thrilling.

What I meant by the above statement was that I would love to see a tiger, but if I did not, it didn't spoil my trip. I am not obsessed with seeing a tiger like some people are. I go to forests to unwind from city life, to see deep blue skies, stars in the night, to smell the woods and the wild flowers and to see wild life in their natural habitat. There is nothing more fun than waking up before the sun, having a steaming cup of chai and getting into a safari jeep brimming with anticipation. Optimism is at its peak. Maybe it is the darkness that makes you think it is OK to dream or the sheer unpredictability of nature that makes you say silly things like " I want to see a Tiger-chasing-a-Leopard-chasing-a-deer" (only one person can be THAT silly and I am married to him!). There is always the rest of the day to be practical, but when you are entering a forest, you are full of hope and optimism. The possibilities are endless and we know that from experience (We saw a pack of 26 wolfs chase a Leopard and its cub in Bandipur).

Saru and I usually get into our military mode once we enter the forest - " You take the left side and I will look on the right". Soon we are looking intently for any movement in between the trees or irregularities in colours that might be birds or animals. Ours ears perk up to listen for calls. We are excited!! The hunt is on!! The guide stops the jeep and exclaims " There is a fresh pugmark" It must have gone this way to the water hole". Soon, they become detectives following clues and coming up with theories on where it might be headed .

"Tigers don't like getting their feet wet, so in the mornings when the dew is still on the grass, they take the road. So, we always look for pugmarks in the morning " explains the guide. We focus all our attention on the road and drive slowly. Soon, we hear Sambhar deer's alarm calls which means that it is almost certain a tiger is on the prowl. The excitement builds up!!

We drive in the direction of the alarm call, stop at a few points and try to figure out the direction of the call. A couple of other jeeps stop by and the guides exchange notes. We stand up on our seats and scan the area using our binoculars.

Sometimes we get lucky and see the tiger and sometimes we don't! The fun part is in the hunt.....in the chase and putting together clues. There is nothing more exciting than looking through a binoculars and seeing a glimpse of a spotted animal and screaming "Guys.....I see a TIGER!". It might turn out to be a spotted deer, but the rush you feel when you spot something exciting is just amazing!. The fun part is trying to find the needle in the haystack, not to drive to the needle and say 'VOILA'.

In Ranthambore National Park, guides have been spoilt by foreign tourists who pay hefty tips for spotting tigers. We went on 4 safaris and 3 guides were obsessed with finding the tiger. Their plan was to scan the entire region quickly to see if the tigers were out. They drove so fast that we were covered in a thick layer of dust by the end of the rise. We could not stand in the jeep because of the speed. They were not interested in stopping for birds or other animals.

"If you stop so much to see birds, you will miss the Tiger!" They warned. We could care less, but we were sharing the jeep with a couple and their 2 teenage sons. They were Indians visiting from Australia. The mom told us quite frankly that she was not interested in forests, but she came here because "her son wanted to see a tiger". Between her time shopping and touring Jaipur and Udaipur, she booked them 1 safari ride (Who books 1 safari??) so that her son can "see the tiger". On the way we zipped past herds of deer, peacocks, nilgai, wild boars and birds. They were seeing some of these animals for the first time, but were not interested - all they wanted, was to see the tiger! After a dusty ride, we came out of the park not seeing ANYTHING because they didn't want to miss the tiger.

The obsession with seeing tigers was all pervasive in Ranthambore. It was the first question that was asked as soon as we got back to the resort. "Any luck, Sir?", "Did you see anything Sir?" An over anxious waiter even asked "Did you get lucky today?" which flustered Saru a little bit.

For the afternoon safari, we had 3 other people, a cute Chinese couple from Australia and an American lady from California. We told them about our morning experience and they all agreed that we would go slow, but the guide and driver had other plans. I had to tell them very sternly to slow down and they did, cribbing all the way ( Don't you want to see the Tiger? How will we cover the zone if we drive so slow?).

At one point, we came to a screeching halt because they spotted fresh pugmarks on the road.

"The tiger crossed this road!! We would have seen it if we were driving faster!!" The guide was mad at me!! He didn't speak a word for the next 15 minutes and stopped the jeep there! The American and the Chinese were amused that he was 'punishing' us for slowing him. A little later he drove around fast and just when we he was giving up, we saw 20-30 jeeps parked in an area. Drove up to see a tiger in the buses. Whew!! The tiger took some time and slowly came down to drink water from the stream. After having its fill, she wanted to cross the road and tried to, but was too spooked by the dozens of vehicles around and the squeals of joy from the spectators. This was one of our closest and longest sightings - almost 10 minutes (as against the 10 seconds in Bandipur). We had enough time to get tons of pictures and videos.

Scary Tiger Face

Tiger giving the finger:)

It was time to get out of the park, so we raced back and what do you see - the tiger we missed seeing earlier. It was right there scratching its head against a tree. So double the joy for the day!! This is my all time favorite picture. It looks so surreal. Don't you think?

But all in all, Safari's at Ranthambore were the worst and I would hesitate to go back. Corbett was the least tiger-centric followed by Kaziranga, Bandipur and Pench National Parks.

Here is a video of the tiger

Compliments of the Chef - Food in Bangkok

2010-02-02T19:15:00.038+05:30

At an International conference this last month, I ran into two Indian guys. It was lunch time and there was a buffet. They were angry at the lack of vegetarian choices when I pointed out a special vegetarian buffet on the side. The two guys rushed towards it and helped themselves to bland fried rice and sautéed vegetables. One guy pointed towards ‘vegetable lasagna’ and asked what it was to which the other guy replied “That’s also a curry, you can mix it with rice”.

I was about to shake my head and judge them when I remembered what a giant loser and pain in the ass I was many years back. On my first day at college, I shocked my friends when I told them that “I never had a samosa in my life”. My friend Appu, immediately set to task. During the first few trials, I would carefully dissect the samosa, removing all the potato curry and sliding it over to Appu’s plate while eating the shell with pride. Curry puff got a similar treatment. I would chew along the perimeter, careful not to touch any bit of the curry and triumphantly declare that I was getting better. 4 years of college and many trials later, I learnt to love samosas and curry puffs, but I was still a very picky eater. When I first moved to the US, I used to eat only at Indian restaurants. A good part of my courtship with Saru was spent on him trying to make me eat a bagel and cream cheese.

As I sat to have dinner at an award winning French restaurant, I realized that I had come a long way from my picky self. I do not profess to be a foodie, I am still conservative in my food choices, but I am definitely getting bolder and expanding my horizons with every new trip. Of the nine meals I had in Bangkok (Good grief..I am counting my time in number of meals instead of days!!), 8 of them were Thai, so one night, I decided to eat French food. The Reflexions is a modern French cuisine set in the very opulent Plaza Athénée hotel. The menu was dominated by meat and seafood. Nothing in the appetizer/soup section looked that great and I wanted to save space for dessert, so I ordered a main course of fish and settled down taking pictures of the place and pretending to be deeply engrossed in a restaurant guide of Bangkok.

The bread basket arrived soon enough. The wafting aromas of the warm bread made me realize how hungry I was, so I took a quick picture and dug in. Not surprisingly it was great. A few minutes later, the waitress came to my table

"Compliments of the Chef Ma'm" She said while placing a beautifully decorated mini-appetizer -"Quail egg mousse with red pepper salad"

"Quail egg mousse?" I asked, just to be sure. The old Vam would have politely sent back the dish, but the new Vam decided to give it a try. "I will spit it back in the plate if I don't like it". I told myself and took a tiny Lilliputian bite and it was not as gross as I thought. I ate the rest of it while complimenting myself on the achievement.

"Compliments of the Chef Ma'm" The waitress came back again with a large bowl of soup. -"Lobster Bisque with Truffle emulsion and cream topping"

Lobster? This time, the question was for myself. I never had lobster in my life, but I heard people rave about it. In the spirit of my new found courage, I decided to give it a try. I took one sip and almost kicked myself in the foot for never trying lobster. The soup was without doubt one of the best soups I EVER had. I was expecting a fishy soup, but this had a very intense earthy flavor. I finished the entire bowl and wiped it clean with bread!

I was just getting ready for my main course, when I saw the waitress bring another dish towards my table. "Another complimentary dish? This is insane!!" I told myself. This one had some ice-sculptures on the plate and a small open tin can. The lid on the can read "Caviar"!!!!!

"Compliments of the Chef Ma'm".

CAVIAR?? Are you kidding me?? There was just no freaking way I was going to eat tiny little fish eggs!! uh uh...No way!! Forget it! Haute cuisine to Hell!! I am sorry, but THIS is where I draw the line.

Smiling at my vigorously shaking head, the waitress said " This is watermelon caviar topped with passion fruit seeds ". Whew!!! I heaved a sigh of relief and happily accepted it and went on to photograph it. Lighting was poor and I took so long trying to photograph it without flash that the sculptures started melting!! Taking the cue, I tasted the caviar. It was quite delicious, but a LOT of work to eat water melon, I have to say!

Then came the dish I actually ordered "Roasted Dover Sole with wild mushrooms duxelles, roasted baby artichokes and truffle emulsion". The Sole was tasty, but nowhere in comparison to the awesome lobster bisque. Saru looked at this picture and said " Jeez, what did you do to tick off the chef??? He spit all around your fish!". Only my husband can come up with something so disgustingly imaginative!! It was light cream!!

Chef Thibault walked up to my table. " I hope you enjoyed the food. The main course was going to take a while, so I sent you the soup and stuff". I thanked him profusely and asked him how he made the soup. Remove the claws and cook the lobster head in the broth until it reduces to a soup consistency. I think I was happier not knowing how it was made!

Then began the long process of selecting the dessert. The chef described everything on the menu (in that utterly cool French accent, complete with sound effects and hand gesticulations to explain texture). I was so taken by the performance that I ordered "Degustation or Tasting Menu" . It included small portions of pineapple ravioli, raspberry tartlet, vanilla lime sorbet, caramelized Vanilla mille-feuille and my favorite Moelleux au chocolat.

>I liked the warm pineapple ravioli. The tartlet was just OK and the sorbet horrible. I have never liked sorbets. I think they are weird food masquerading as desserts and should be banished from this section. This one was lime sorbet and would have been great as a mouthwash flavor... if you ask me!!! The big surprise item was the mille-feuille. It was a small pastry with thin, delicate, buttery layers of puff pastry filled with soft, luscious vanilla cream (cream, not ice-cream). The pastry layers and the vanilla cream melt, the minute they touch your tongue. "Food Porn is what this is", Saru said when I described it to him.

I saved the best for the last- the warm chocolate lava cake! The key to a good lava cake is good chocolate. You know you are eating bad chocolate when it tastes like Bournvita (I challenge you to try Domino's Rs.25 chocolate lave cake and a Bournvita shake and tell me if they taste different). Based on what I have tasted over the years, you do not want to skimp on the budget when buying Chocolate. More expensive is almost always more tasty. Needless to say, the lava cake at this upscale restaurant was beyond fantastic. I loved it so much that I did something very uncharacteristic of me - I ate slowly savoring every bite. When I called Saru later that night to describe the experience, he did not believe me. He knows that I am not dainty when there are fruits or desserts next to me. I am the type of girl that eats grapes, 2 at a time (one on each cheek), so that when I bite into it, the taste explodes in the entire mouth at the same time.

The very first bite of the lava cake was so amazingly fantastic that I did not want the sensation to end. Warm spongy cake with soft, smooth, velvety chocolate... almost induces a state of ecstasy!! The cake and the sorbet were the only items left on the plate and as I was staring at them, I came up with a brilliant plan!! I ate a small spoonful of the lemon sorbet. It was so horribly yucky that it completely erased the taste of chocolate cake and cleansed my palette. I sipped some water and then went back to the lava cake and took a bite. Voila! It was a repeat of my out of the world first-bite experience. I went back and forth between the awful sorbet and the awesome cake and had the first bite experience for the entire cake! I am so thankful that the restaurant was almost empty that night, otherwise, people would have stared at the crazy Indian lady whose facial expressions kept alternating between an "ewwww gross" to "OMG...this is heaven" multiple times in the 15 minutes it took me to finish dessert.

"The perfect animation of that would be Homer Simpson alternating between "ewwww..." and "ummm..." said the husband before jumping into character making weird sounds and distorted facial expressions!

What was your recent food experience? Leave a comment!

Addicted to Travel : 2009 in pictures

2010-01-10T15:00:00.015+05:30

Writing this post is like shooting myself in the foot! There is already a perception among friends and family that I travel too much and here I am laying it all out in the open. "Where are you going next?" was the most asked question of 2009 and pretty much every time I WAS going somewhere. While this post might be an open invitation to taunt me about my hyper-active travel schedule, It might also give me a chance to redeem myself.

2009 was a wonderful year for us. This was our first full year in India after moving back from California in May 2008. If you do something as big as an inter-continental move, you also want to take that opportunity to change a few things in your life. After working non-stop for 10 years, I decided to take it easy. I became an independent consultant which is really a euphemism for jobless. Other than an odd project here and there, I was not getting much work because of the recession. I took full advantage of this and happily settled into a routine of traveling, blogging about it, traveling some more and blogging some more and did I mention "Traveling". I joined groups, became friends with fellow travel bloggers and much to Saru's dismay, started planning trips with them. "You are welcome to join us" I offered graciously to which he replied "Freaks...all of you are freaks" (totally uncalled for!)

I was so happy doing this routine that I said "No" to a perfectly good job offer. "I don't feel like working full-time" I said and then went on to declare " I am going to do whatever makes me happy this year!". Saru didn't flinch because he is used to my grand statements - "This is going to be the Summer of my life" I said one year and went on to work my ass off. The year I declared that "I don't care about money and I am going to spend as much as I want" was the year I saved the most!

Sure enough, a week later I started worrying about my career and took up a half-time job. The other half, I said should be open for consulting work(in other words jobless). To my utter joy and delight, the job required me to travel a good bit! Work trips are usually not fun, but I would make it a point to stay an extra day and see the sights. International cuisine is something I miss in Navi Mumbai (unless you count Mumbai High that serves Indian, Chinese, Thai, Italian AND Mexican all under one roof), So I would research and eat at really good restaurants. After some hesitation, even Saru started enjoying my trips. I would come back home from a trip full of juicy stories and follow him all around the house like a happy puppy talking about it. Soon, he started boasting to his friends "My wife understands what is important in life. She has figured out what makes her happy and is following it. I am proud of her". He would make his friends read my blog, and more importantly pain them to leave comments. Every comment on his photographs would increase his enthusiasm for the hobby. He joined me in as many trips as he could, and the rest, he enjoyed (or was forced to) by hearing about it a zillion times.

So folks, here is a list of all my trips in 2009. Pay attention to the words "work trip" which means that I "HAD" to go and did not have a choice. For all of you that give me grief about it, I will have you know that I did not leave Saru and go to all these trips. I HAD to go for work( Gosh....I just love this excuse....it sounds so legitimate). The two non-work trips I did without him were Corbett and VOF. He could not make it to Corbett because of work and didn't come to the Himalayan hike because....I am quoting his highness here "Hiking is pointless!"
January
January took me to Singapore for a work trip. Walking around the waterfront area and the Jurong Bird Park were a highlight. I had fantastic Italian and Thai food, not to mention the famous Singaporean Roti-Prata.

February
I made my first trip to Calcutta for work. Thanks to Shantanu's blog, I found out what and where to eat. Lucknow Biryani and Kababs were delicious and so was the Thai food in Oberoi.

March
Another work trip, this time to Bangkok. The temples and the grand palace were magnificent. The Royal Thai massage and foot massages were just what the doctor ordered at the end of a long day.

Corbett National Park was just fantastic. My friend Tara says that you know you love a place when you want to go back there again and again. This is one place I would love to visit multiple times.

April
Saru joined me in Delhi for his first visit to our Capital and was totally impressed. Delhi is my favourite city to visit in India. I feel a rush of emotion seeing India Gate and all other monuments I grew up seeing on TV.

May
Saru was sick and tired of hearing me talk about safaris after Corbett. He wanted his own safari experience, So we went to Bandipur NP. We traveled with fellow bloggers T&S and had a fantastic trip. A tiger, tigress with 4 cubs, leopard with a cub and 22 wild dogs were the highlight of our trip.

June
This was our big 10th anniversary month. After debating endlessly and researching locations in every continent, we finally settled on familiar grounds-France and it didn't disappoint! Driving around the country side, stopping at lavender farms, perched villages, sea side was my kind of a slow vacation.

July
Mangoes and Monsoons are what I love about Indian Summers. Waterfalls and green hills everywhere.

August
This was my very first multi-day hike to the Valley of Flowers. The Himalayas were absolutely breathtaking! I plan to do another hike this year.

September
Saru and I went to Maharashtra's Valley of Flowers with Adesh and Mandar. Acres of pink, blue, white and purple flowers sat pretty on the plateau.

October
We celebrated Diwali in the wild with a birding trip to Dandeli. A spooky and adventurous night walk was the highlight of the trip

November
A work trip took me to Indonesia. I took a sunrise trip to see Mt.Bromo, an active volcano in the area. Balinese massages and fantastic food were the highlights of an otherwise boring work trip.

December

December was like a grand finale to the year. I spent most of the month travelling. I went hopping from Delhi to Agra to Fatehpur Sikri to Jaipur to Ranthambore NP to Udaipur. Saru took this surreal picture in Ranthambore. We have a ton of close-ups, but this picture is my favourite of the lot.

Plans for 2010
2010 is shaping up to be a very busy work year. The half time consulting slot which was really an excuse to goof off in 2009 is suddenly getting active with a lot of work. Work hard...party hard will be my mantra in 2010.
January is shaping up to be a busy travel month. I leave for Bangkok next week and then we are going to Pench National Park for the Republic day long weekend. I signed up for Nature India's birding trip to the North East in March. Other than that, my year is wide open. There are talks of visiting the US for work, making a road trip from Manali to Leh and a girls-only trip to Europe. Let's see what pans out.

Where are you going in 2010? Leave a comment or a link to your recent blog post about this.

Taj Mahal - Love it or Hate it?

2009-12-30T15:18:00.012+05:30

I AM AN INDIAN !!" I said in an impatient tone.

"Do you have any proof" asked the man behind the counter.

I fished out my driver's license and showed it to him. He stared at the license and back at me for a good 30 seconds before conceding that it was indeed me and that I was Indian. To avoid any such confusions, I had worn a salwar that day and spoke in Hindi, but almost everywhere people questioned my nationality. I understand that the ticket collectors are trying to fish out Indian looking foreigners, but there were 5 other instances that week when people asked me where I was from. It is ironic that people always recognized me as an Indian in the US, but I am having to prove it in my own country!

Shaking my head, I paid the Rs.20 fee to enter the Taj Mahal. My American colleague, Ken had to pay Rs 750, almost 40 times more than me!! "Aaah, the advantages of being a citizen" he said to me.

"We will take the eastern entrance which is for foreigners" said our guide. I almost jumped to declare that I was not a foreigner, before he added "It has the least amount of crowd".

The entrance to the Taj Mahal is quite stunning. I love this red sandstone structure with marble decorations.

It is always a little tricky when you go to places that are famous. Expectations are enormous and you feel compelled to like it just because millions of others have liked it before you. I had read conflicting reports on the Taj Mahal. One set extols the beauty while the other laments the poor maintenance and degradation of the monument. I decided to keep expectations very low. In fact, I was quite convinced that I won't be impressed. I almost skipped Agra because of that, but my friend Jayanti said "It is the Taj. You HAVE to see it at least once".

The drive from Delhi to Agra took more than 4 hours with the customary stop at McDonald's for a coffee break where we had an interesting encounter with the waiter.

"Coffee Please"

"You want black coffee?" asked the waiter.

"No, I want coffee with milk " said Ken

"OK, You want a cappuccino?" asked the waiter

"No, I want regular coffee with milk" said Ken

"So, you want a cappuccino?" asked the waiter.

I just love the circular arguments that go nowhere. Ken burst out laughing and took the cappuccino.

After a lunch break at the hotel, we reached the Taj Mahal in the afternoon. Personal vehicles are not allowed within a 2 km radius of the entrance. People are transported in battery operated buses, which I thought was a nice way to get rid of parking and pollution problems. Also, in the last few years, the government had a number of polluting industries move outside a 21 km radius of the monument. These measures seem to have worked. There was no visible pollution in the area.

I walked in and took in the full view of the Taj Mahal. My jaw dropped and I heard myself saying "WOW....Is this for real"? Standing there, in the middle of green gardens and surrounded by red sandstone structures, the pure white structure looked surreal. For somebody who was not expecting to be impressed, I was clearly in awe of this unique structure. It did not feel real! We walked all around the compound looking at side structures, but my eyes kept going back to the Taj to make sure it was still there.

Friends had told me that in spite of the hype, the first time you see the Taj, it takes your breath away. They were not exaggerating!

"That's a LOT of marble", said Ken. Indeed it was. Thousands of tons of marble was brought all the way from Makrana in Rajasthan. In those days, it is said to have cost 5 million.

I walked around, taking the customary pictures with the reflection in the pool. Our guide explained that cypress trees signify immortality according to Persian philosophy. The elaborately laid out tombs and gardens are supposed to be their interpretations of paradise.

There were thousands of visitors, but I never felt crowded. Walking around the gardens, I felt like there was enough space for everybody to enjoy the monument. A security guard walked past me and I said hello.

"You from which country?" he asked. Here we go again!! I spoke to him in Hindi and he was surprised "आप India से हो? वैसे तो लगते नहीं हो!" and then he added "आप बहुत लम्बे हो"!!

I asked him about the bullet proof jacket he was wearing. He said "Mumbai (26/11) के बाद, compulsory बना दिया! 40 kgs है और पुरा दिन पेहेन्ना है " When I joked about his old fashioned gun, he got a little upset " नहीं madam, yeh AK-47 hai. एक दम powerful gun है ". He posed for a photo and went his way. I walked to the mosque on the side of the Taj. Another beautiful structure.

Behind the Taj, the Yamuna river had very little water. India is in the business of building dams all over the place, so dry river beds are a very common sight these days.

The entire time I was in the compound, I was in awe of the monument. Even when we were heading out, I would turn back every other minute to have yet another look at it.

As much as I loved the Taj Mahal, I was shocked at how poor Agra was. The few streets that we drove on were narrow, dirty and crowded. It looked like there was not much to see, other than Agra Fort and Akbar's tomb. Agra fort was nice, but I was more impressed with Akbar's tomb. I will post pictures in upcoming blog posts. Dinner at Peshawari (ITC Hotel) was great. Chicken Kasturi Kabab and Fish Kabab were great, but their slow-cooked, creamy Dal Bukhara was the best I ever had. The Rasmalai was so good that I could have licked off the bowl clean!!

In the last few years of traveling, I have realized that there are no absolutes in traveling. You might find a place stunning, but others might not and vice-versa. Experiences vary depending on the weather, crowd, company, expectations and attitude. What was your impression of the Taj? Leave a comment and let me know.

This post is part of the Show your World meme. For more stories from the rest of the world, click the image.

Valley of Flowers - A Hike in the Himalayas

2009-11-08T15:14:00.010+05:30

A song kept playing in my head. I don’t think I heard it on the radio that day. In fact, I don’t remember hearing the song in ages. I recited the lyrics to my friend Gayatri (Gaay) and asked her if she heard it before. Not surprisingly, she did not. I myself heard it only twice or thrice in my life. I didn’t know which movie it was from or who played the lead role. It was one of those songs I remembered watching on Wednesday night Chitrahaar many many years back. The song was very appropriate for my surroundings and I kept humming it as we walked on the trail. A few minutes later, Gaay stopped and screamed “Vam, look at this. Isn’t this the song you were talking about?” What a weird coincidence! The smart people at Garhwal Tourism department made a marketing poster of the national park using that very song! Why write a poem when there is a Bollywood song! There it was, on a nice yellow board (which I neglected to photograph), the lyrics of the song. Here is a video of the song I found on youtube.

Yeh Kaun Chitrakar hai
Yeh Kaun Chitrakar hai

Haree haree Vasundhara pe nila nila yeh gagan
Ke jis pe badalo ke palakee uda raha pawan
Dishaye dekho rangbharee, chamak rahee umang bharee
Yeh kis ne phul phul pe kiya singar hai
Yeh kaun chitrakar hai

Tapaswiyo see hain atal yeh parawato kee chotiya
Yeh sarpa see ghoomeradar, gheradar ghatiya
Dhwaja se yeh khade huye hain wariaksh dewadar ke
Galiche yeh gulab ke, bagiche yeh bahar ke
Yeh kis kavee kee kalpana kaa chamatkar hai
Yeh kaun chitrakar hai

We were in the small picturesque village of Gobindghat, the starting point for the hike to the famous Valley of Flowers National Park. This being the month of August, the entire area was dressed in a layer of green. The valley was surrounded by towering peaks that seemed to be reaching out to the sky. The Alaknanda River was roaring past us drowning all other sounds. It was truly a sight to behold and there is no better way to describe it than the song above.

“Valley of Flowers is a very moderate hike. You can do it easily, don’t worry about it”, said Bala of Great Indian Outdoors. Now, moderate hikes in the US are those that can be completed by kids and their grandparents. So, we did not hesitate to bring Gaay’s 60 year old mom. Our justification was “Well…she takes a long walk on the beach every day, so she should be able to do the hike”. In hindsight that was a very foolish argument, but in our eagerness to make our first trip to the Himalayas, we lost objectivity.
One look at the trail and we knew that aunty would not be able to do it. We put her on a mule and within minutes, she disappeared from sight. We hired porters for our luggage and set off on the hike. With our REI hiking poles and backpacks, Gaay and I looked every bit the intrepid trekker that we were not. Actually Gaay had done a few hikes before, but this was my first multi-day hike.
The first two kilometers were almost entirely uphill, but Gaay and I did not flinch. There was a bounce in our steps and a smile on our faces. It was a beautiful morning - partly cloudy with a pleasant breeze. We walked on, ignoring the guys that were trying to convince us to get mules too. There was no tree cover, so it was good that we started hiking before the sun was up. It was not easy, but we were determined to walk. I asked our guide, Bachchan Rana if the entire hike was going to be this hard. He pointed his hand in one direction and said “See the mountain there; See the clouds behind that mountain. Our campsite is beyond those clouds. Yes, the hike is uphill all the way”.
That did not deter us. “He is exaggerating” I told Gaay. We moved on with the kind of foolish optimism that you can only have when you start something new. An hour later, I figured we must have walked 5 kilometers, at least it felt that way. I turned to our guide and asked him the mileage. He raised an eyebrow and in a semi-heckling tone replied “Oh…this was nothing. I don’t think we even walked 2 kilometers”. We had another 12 kilometers to go! It took us ½ hour to walk a kilometer, so another 6 hours to go! Walking 14 km on a flat surface is really not a big deal, but the elevation was what was causing us to slow down. Also, a big part of the hike was boulder hopping. It was a dirt path and the recent rains had dislodged the pebbles and rocks. Our hiking pole was really useful here.

A couple of hours later, we reached the first village on the way. “Hot Chai, Maggie Noodles. Come have some parantha and chole” screamed the vendors. They even had a working phone there, so I quickly called Saru and checked in with him. After sufficiently exaggerating the toughness of my hike , I hung up and moved on. Based on what I read from previous reports, I expected a very dirty trail, but it was clean. Bachchan told us that Garhwal tourism department was taking extra measures to keep places clean. Gaay and I walked on while discussing a variety of topics ranging from US foreign policy to Bollywood gossip and time flew by. It was getting warm and my feet were beginning to hurt. Gaay was my cheerleader and kept my tempo up. She would walk a little ahead of me and make cheerful announcements – Shade ahead….great view…flat patch etc. She was a great hiking partner. We were also cheered on by other hikers on the trail. Some would pass on toffees, some would go around offering a spoon of Glucon-D and some would just say kind words to encourage us “You have come so far, the rest is very easy, It's almost over etc”. We knew that was not true, but were still touched by the kindness of these strangers. Coming from Mumbai where nobody gives a shit about anybody, this was a pleasant surprise. Most of these people were headed towards Hemkund Sahib, a popular pilgrimage site for Sikhs. One such person, Harpal Singh Sidhu became a constant companion on the trail. In his late forties, this was Harpalji's third time on this trek. He was a tall overweight man walking with the help of a sturdy bamboo stick. “See this; it is the best quality stick you can find. I had this specially made for the hike. If you need to find out how good a bamboo is, look at the rings - the farther they are, the stronger it is. You don’t get walking sticks like this outside of Punjab” he said.
When he found out that my hiking pole was from the US, he quipped “ आपकी America से मजबूत मेरी Amritsar की लकड़ी है”.

The hike became harder as we went up and I was getting tired. I was stopping every few minutes to catch my breath.
"छोटे छोटे कदम, सर नीचे और बस खयालों में डूब जाओं" said Harpalji. That was really good advice and it helped me move along easier.
"वोह Pehelwan ji को देखिये, आप से तीन गुना मोठे है, पर शिकयत किये बिना चलते है। पता है कयू ?
I was hungry, pouring sweat, my heart beat was at a dangerous high and this man wanted to have conversation! Gaay and I were a little embarrassed that he was calling his friend a "pehelwan", but we later found on that he was indeed a pehelwan - a state level weight lifting champion.
Harpalji continued his monologue "वाहे गुरु का नाम लेते है और बस पैर अपने आप चलने लगते है। आप कौन से भगवन को मानते है? This was really not the time or place to tell him that I was an atheist, so I was struggling to answer the question when he carried on
"Andhra Pradesh से हो, तो शायद Tirupathi के Balaji को मानते हो। आप उनका नाम ले लीजिये और काम आसान हो जाएगा".

In this trip, we came across a lot of people, young, old, thin, fat and even a few handicapped people. Most of them were very religious and kept chanting "Wahe Guru" the entire 14 kilometers. Faith is one thing we have in abundance in India. I really wish there was some way to harness that positive energy to change our society. How is it that people are able to stand in queue for hours together in a temple, but cannot stand in line for a second in a super market? How can we manage to keep the temple clean, but trash the road towards it? How can these people respect God, but not nature? 90% of people that go to Hemkund sahib do not bother to visit the Valley of Flowers which is just around the corner.
In fact, some people told me very frankly " वहा कुच भी नहीं है" Sigh! Check out this video I took of a group of pilgrims.

The first few kilometers don’t offer great views, but as we went higher, the trail went adjacent to the beautiful Pushpavati River. White water gushing down the mountain is a sight to behold. When we stopped for lunch after 10 kilometers, we picked a shack right next to the water. Balancing ourselves gingerly on a rock, we lowered our feet into the stream and immediately pulled out. It was ice cold! We sat on the rock, dipping our feet in and out, while the cook prepared our meal. There is nothing that relieves tired feet more than a cold or hot compress and the river was doing its job splendidly.

We still had 3 kilometers to go when we took our 1 hour break for lunch and let me tell you something - Don't EVER take a long break when you are on a hike. Once the legs get used to sitting down, they will not want to go back to the torture of walking. Mine protested heavily, but we moved on. "We are almost there" said Harpalji. Every step felt hard and the damn trail was still going uphill. I was groaning with every step. Gaay was in a much better shape than me, so she was doing fine. Harpalji kept convincing me that the end was just around the corner. At one point I lost it and screamed at him "You are lying to me". He laughed and said "मरनेवाला को थोड़ी केहते है कि तुम मरने वाले हो? The last 3 km took us at least 2 hours with breaks every 5 minutes, but we finally came up to an opening from where we saw our tents. Gaay went ahead of me to order hot chai and pakodas. That is one cool thing about hiking in India - you are never too far from chai or pakodas. Harpalji had another km to walk to the village of Ghangria where he was staying for free at the Gurudwara. He invited us to visit Amristsar "मेरे बीवी के भैया के पतनी के साले Golden Temple मे काम करते हैं. आपका VIP दरशन हो जयेगा" He didn't leave it at that. After I came back home to Mumbai, he called to check and see if I reached home safely. Like I said before, I was touched by this man's kindness.

It was 4 PM by the time we reached our tents. A hot shower later, I settled down on a wicker chair and refused to stand up for the rest of the evening. As the sun was setting down, we had a beautiful view of the mountains ahead.

To be continued - The Truth about Valley of Flowers

Here is a preview of what is to come in the next episode of the travelogue - a little bit of snow peaked mountains, a little bit of flowers and wonderful scenery all around!

A Spooky Nightwalk in the Jungle - Dandeli Adventure

2009-10-27T20:42:00.014+05:30

We had been out birding all day and were finishing up dinner when Adesh asked "Who wants to go out for a night walk". Within minutes, everybody disappeared into their tents, and came back with their torch lights and binoculars. It was 10:30 PM when 13 crazy birders set out to explore the jungle in hopes of seeing nocturnal beings. Apart from owls and nightjars, the Dandeli forests were reported to have flying squirrels, jungle cats and even the elusive Black Panther which was last sighted in 2005. With the kind of optimism you can only have at the beginning of a trip, we set out into the darkness of the night powered by small pen torches and cigarette torches (I swear I am not kidding, Nikhil had a torch that looked like a cigarette). Adesh and Mandar (A&M) however, had these industry strength torches that could light up all the way to Mars (they are rechargeable). It was 2 days after Diwali, so it was a dark moonless night. The few stars that were scattered in the night sky did nothing to increase the light. We walked on the tar road away from the camp site. At first, it looked like one enormous black canvas out there, but once our eyes adjusted to the low light, we began to distinguish different features. (A&M) would occasionally flash their powerful torches to scan for owls and nightjars. This continued for the first 15 minutes. Seeing nothing, Adesh asked us to follow him into a jungle trail. "OMG, Is he crazy?" I said to myself, but obediently followed him. It got darker as we went away from the road. About 100 yards later, we stopped near a water tank.
"Switch off your lights and be very silent" ordered Adesh. The jungle comes alive in the night. Countless species of birds, mammals and insects are at work and you slowly begin to be aware of different sounds. The deafening trill of crickets, the croaks of frogs and the monotonous simmer of insects make for a very eerie orchestra. The hallucinatory sounds were all pervasive and with no images to associate with the sounds, it was spooky as hell. Adesh decided to check for frogmouths in the area. He used his cellphone and played the call of a Ceylon Frogmouth.

(from wikipedia)
The frogmouths are a group of tropical nocturnal birds related to the nightjars. This species is found only in the Western Ghats in southwest India and Sri Lanka. The Sri Lanka Frogmouth is about 23 cm long. It is large-headed, and has a large flattened hooked bill and huge frog-like gape. It is best located at night by its song, which is a loud descending cackly and frog-like series of Klock-klock-klock-klock-klock calls. This is the call of the male and it is often answered by the female whose call is low long harsh Krrshhhh.
To see some stunning pictures of the frogmouth, check out my friend Thomas's blog here.

The call of the female is very shrill, almost like the cry of some wild animal hunted by a predator. It kind of sends a shiver down your spine when you hear it for the first time. Adesh played the call and we waited hopefully. There was no reply. We waited for a looong minute and then played it again. Seconds ticked by and our ears picked up every little sound. Insects were buzzing incessantly. A couple of frogs surfaced to the top of the water tank to check out the suspense drama. Still nothing! We decided to play the call for one last time. Check out the sounds of the jungle in this video.

Krrshhhh Klock-klock-klock-klock-klock

For the first few seconds we heard nothing and then there it was - a very clear call from a male frogmouth. Thirteen heads instantly turned towards the direction of the call, peering through the darkness, searching for signs of movement among the trees. We saw nothing. A few seconds later, we heard another frogmouth from the opposite direction.
"WOW", said folks said in hushed tones. A&M switched on the torches and started scanning the trees. We all whipped out our binoculars and tried to follow the powerful beam of lights, but saw nothing. Nocturnal birds are masters at camouflage. The frogmouth with its brown plumage can be mistaken for a tree branch! After some time, we gave up and decided to get back to the road. We were hearing more calls, so we walked on, occasionally switching on our torches and scanning the tree canopies. At some point Adesh thought that we heard at least 10 frogmouths. As if to join the musical melange, an Oriental Scops Owl started hooting. We all got excited about the owl. Adesh imitated the owl and it responded back! We started walking towards the direction of the owl-call. When we were close enough, they flashed their powerful torches hoping to see a pair of sparkling eyes. Nothing again! It was almost midnight and we were exhausted when Sharada said "I would love to sleep on the road and gaze at the stars". Can you imagine how it would be to lie down on a road in the forest surrounded by all these hallucinatory sounds? Well....it was awesome!
A tree cricket was calling out loudly and Adesh led us towards it. He asked us to cup our ears forward and notice how the sound amplifies. As we reached closer, I thought my ear drums would burst any second when Adesh shone his torch to a little hole. Alarmed at being discovered, the cricket shut up immediately. It was enough excitement for one night, so we went back to the camp. It didn't matter than we didn't see any birds, the journey itself was thrilling!
The following night, we set off again, a little earlier at 9:30 PM. The night was not as dark as the previous one, but still scary. The moment we stepped out, we struck gold! While scanning the trees outside the camp, A&M found a flying squirrel. It was a giant grey squirrel with an enormous bushy tail. These are known to fly/glide from one tree to another in the night foraging for food. We went to the water tank and tried our luck again, but heard nothing, so we went back to the road. There we heard the unmistakable call of the frogmouth. We switched on our torches and scanned every tree in the area, but they were still elusive. At one point, the calls were really close, so we got off the road under a tree canopy. Adesh imitated the call and the bird answered back immediately. Torches and binoculars were out searching for it yet again. Nothing! Sigh!
We were about to give up and lie down on the road again, but Adesh would not give up "Salle ko dhoondh Nikalunga" he said with determination, so we trudged along. A little ahead, calls were coming from the left hand side of the road. We stood there and waited until we heard the call again. The second we heard the call, A & M shone their torches on one tree branch at the exact same time and VOILA! There they were!! One male and one female frogmouth sitting pretty on a tree branch in full view, right on top of our heads. Binoculars went up, cameras started clicking and it was celebration time! The male bird flew off, but the female struck around for at least a minute enthralling us. What a night!! Even if we had not seen the birds, it was still a great adventure, but seeing them was like icing on the cake. Check of this really bad video of the sighting. The quality of the video will make 'The Blair Witch Project' seem like a masterpiece:)

Our 4 day bird watching trip to Dandeli with Nature India Tours was great. We had a combination of slow times where we saw very few birds and fun times where we had non-stop action. The slow times were never long enough to bore us and the fun times were always long enough to keep us excited. The mixed hunting party near the timber depot offered non-stop action while the open pit mine which was truly an amphitheater where birds modeled one by one showing off their beautiful feathers. It was great fun one evening when we saw 2 dozen Malabar pied horn bills dining on berries and shrieking in delight . My favorite sightings were the blue bearded bee eater and white bellied woodpecker. This post is already getting long, so I will just write about one instance that stuck in my mind.
We were near a water body looking at birds through a spotting scope when somebody saw a raptor in the sky. Mandar looked at it through his binoculars and immediately started screaming "Roufous Bellied Eagle.....Roufous Bellied Eagle...come everybody". He ran like mad and started clicking pictures and once done, observed the bird through the binoculars till it disappeared from sight. He came back with a wide-grin and could not stop smiling for the next half hour. That evening, he went to a store, bought sweets and distributed them to everybody.
If you have even half of his enthusiasm for your job, you should consider yourself truly blessed.

Diwali at the camp

Purple Sun Bird, Green Bee Eater

Hornbills

Small Minivet, White Bellied Woodpecker,

Photographing birds was really hard on this trip because they were never at eye level, so I followed Uma and Mohan and took pictures of these dragonflies. Aren't they beautiful?

Carpets of Flowers - Kaas Plateau

2009-10-08T22:36:00.006+05:30

Pogostemon decanensis, Thunbergia fragrans, Neanotis lancifolia, Utricularia reticulatum, Senecio bombayensis, Pimpenella tomentosa.

If that sounds like Greek and Latin to you, then you are bang on. When Adesh would scream “Come here, I found a carpet of Pogostemon Decanensis”, we would look at him as if he was speaking gobbledegook. He would then add “Come come, I found a very pretty flower”. That worked much better and we would surround him to see the flowers. The practice of using Latin for scientific names was started in early seventeenth century oddly enough by a Swedish naturalist, Carl Linnaeus. Carl developed a binomial system where two Latin or Latinized words were used to describe a plant or a flower. I guess it was a great idea to use one language to name all living organisms throughout the world…but did it have to be LATIN?

French and Italian might have been OK, but LATIN was just not my cup of tea. I tried hard…I listened carefully, repeated after Adesh multiple times, tried to find out the root of the words…. I even tried mnemonics, but seriously, what kind of mnemonic can you possibly have for Neracanthes spherostachys or Paracaryopsis coelestina. Common sense did not help in any way. Pimpenella Tomemtosa did not have a pimple or look like a tomato, Thunbergia fragrans had no fragrance and Asparagus racemosus looked nothing like the asparagus you put on a grill (with loads of extra virgin olive oil….yum). As if this was not hard enough, they had similar sounding names for completely different looking flowers. Neanotis is a small pink flower, Leanotis is orange and Cyanotis is this blue color flower below. And to make things worse, wild varieties of impatiens, cosmos and begonias were nothing like what I had in my garden. I actually argued with Adesh that a wild cosmos was a Zinnia only to be proved wrong!

Cyanotis tuberosa

So, any associations you see here to Latin names are thanks to the husband. The husband, who has no aptitude for languages, who is so pathetic that he will say “Bon Giorno” to a French guy and “Bonjour” to an Italian and completely miss their puzzled looks, took up the challenge. He learnt the names by heart, took notes, cross-referenced them with photograph numbers and marked off his checklist. Apparently there is a new word in the dictionary to represent a nerd +geek = neek!
Saru and I went with Adesh & Mandar’s Nature India Tours to Kaas Plateau for a short 3 day trip. After a long 5 hour drive, we arrived into the town of Satara and checked into the hotel. After a quick lunch, we left for the hills. We started looking at wildflowers on the ghats while saving Kaas plateau for the next day. On the tour, we had Dr.Rajendra Shinde, a highly respected Plant Taxonomist from St.Xavier's College as a resource person along with Adesh and Mandar.

The Western Ghats are just beautiful in the monsoons and here in Satara, there was the added attraction of wild flowers. Slopes were full of sonkis and smithias and bunches of balsam flowers. Adesh and Dr.Shinde would comb the place (literally) and tell us the names and characteristics of every flower we saw. In the beginning it was an overload of information. “Do I really need to know the Latin name of EVERY flower”, I thought to myself, but after three days, we were fascinated by some cool things we learnt. Like for example, this flower below, Ceropagia Oculata has tiny hairs that trap flies. When flies are attracted into the flower by the scent, they are trapped and prevented from escaping until the hairs wither by which time; pollen is attached to the fly’s body. Procreation seems to be the goal of every living organism!

Ceropagia Oculata

This insectivorous plant here (somebody identify the name please) secretes a mucous like substance that traps tiny flies.

A flower from the sweet pea family, Vigna Vixilleta, uses a hugging mechanism to leave pollen. When a bee sits on it, its weight causes the stamen to extend out, hug the bee and leave pollen on it for propagation. Watch Adesh demonstrate the process in the video below.

Vigna Vixellata from Vamsee Modugula on Vimeo.

The next morning, we set off at 6:30AM. “We are going straight to the Plateau with no stops” said Adesh, but quickly added “I have to stop for a minute to show some species to the other bus”. A minute can never be a minute with a bus full of photographers. We stepped out to capture the mountain scenery which was nothing short of spectacular. Mist was just lifting off the valley and the soft morning light made the mountain greens even more soothing.

At our first stop, we had a quick breakfast of poha and upma and sheera and checked out the wild flowers in the area. That's when we chanced upon my most favorite Latin name for a flower -Gloriosa Superba! The botanist who discovered this flower was so captivated by its beauty that he said to himself "What a gloriously superb flower" and promptly gave its name. OK, I made up that, but the point of the matter is that the flower is Gloriosa Superba, not just for its looks, but for its uses as well. Sap from the leaf is used to cure pimples , rootstalks are used for snake and scorpion bites and roots are used to cure baldness (Rakesh Roshan, are you listening?) Dr. Shinde also explained that tribal women use the roots of this plant for abortions or to induce labor pains. Because of the widespread cutting of this plant for medicinal and religious uses, it has now become an endangered species.

As we drove closer to the plateau, we started seeing carpets of flowers. Mickey mouse flowers seem to be an apt nick name for these yellow color Smithias.

Once we reached the main plateau, everybody was floored! And by that I don't just mean that we were impressed with what we saw, we literally took to the floor. You see, the wildflowers here are not like the tall stalks of mustard fields where Bollywood actors run around and sing songs. These plants are maybe half a feet high, so to get good pictures, we had to literally lie down on the floor. At any point of time, there were at least 5-6 of us lying down taking photographs. It was wet, muddy and the rocks were hard, but nothing stopped our photographers. The view from that angle was fantastic. A sea of flowers extended out till the eye could see. Colors faded in and out creating a beautiful collage.
Nature puts on this spectacular show in Kaas Plateau every year after the monsoons. From August to October, this bare plateau transforms itself into a riot of colors. The ground is covered in carpets of yellow, pink, blue, purple, violet and white flowers. What was surprising was that these plants grew on less than an inch of soil. The plateau was full of hard rock with a thin layer of soil. It is unbelievable how these flowers bloomed on this thin soil with no fertilizers, no timed watering and with nobody sowing seeds! It is just not fair that I had to work so hard in my garden to grow a handful of flowers and here were acres and acres of free-for-all flower fields! Nature has a mind of its own!

At the end of the trip, Adesh said "You might wonder, why we need to learn about all these flowers, but appreciating every aspect of Nature including birds, plants and flowers has made my life wonderful".I for one, completely agree with that. A year ago, I knew nothing and here I am rattling off Latin names:)

Leave a comment. It motivates me to keep writing.

Paris - How Dan Brown screwed up my trip

2009-08-12T23:16:00.003+05:30

It was just a few minutes to midnight and we were walking along La Seine in the historic center of Paris. On the right side was the beautifully lit Louvre. Looming ahead of us was the Cathedral of Notre Dame casting its beautiful reflection in the river. Far away at a distance, the twinkling lights show had started and the iconic Eiffel Tower was sparkling in brilliant light. The restaurants and coffee shops of the left bank were buzzing with activity even at this late hour.

We heard loud noises from Pont des Arts and as we hurried to it, we saw the pedestrian bridge filled with people. They were sitting in groups and drinking wine and beer and dancing and singing. All of a sudden we hear a commotion. A guy starts to take off his clothes and everybody rushes to one side of the bridge. We rush just in time to see the young man jump into the river.

Louvre in the Night

“Is that a bare butt? Oh My GOD – Is that guy naked” I ask Saru in an incredulous tone.
“Yup…he is! We saw so many naked statues and paintings today – It is only fair that we see one in flesh and blood. We are in Paris baby!
Another guy follows suit and the crowd erupts in cheers and claps. This goes on for a while before the folks walked back to their groups and continued their drunken revelry.
I love the energy of the city. It never stops having fun. NY City is maybe the only other city that has this kind of energy. One of the restaurants we went to, is open from 5:30 AM to 3:30 AM on weekdays and 24 hours on weekends! We had to wait for 15 minutes to get a table at 11:30 PM!

Saru and I went to France in the last week of June for 10 days. This was our second trip to Paris, so you won’t see me gushing about the Louvre or mentioning the tonnage of Eiffel Tower or raving about the stain glass windows of Notre Dame. The bucket list was checked off in 1999, places sufficiently wowed and the awesomeness captured in a camera, so there was no pressure to visit every single attraction. Given that, I did not have a long list of things to do. I did however have a long list of things to eat (how can you not?). Think of the delicious buttery, flaky, crispy croissants and the soft, delicate, decadent, molten chocolate cake floating in a sauce of Crème Anglaise.

Our Paris trip started with a sandwich. YES, a SANDWICH and not just any sandwich, it was a Tomate et Mozzarella sandwich on pain olive (Olive Bread). We were hurrying to the airport train station when I was drawn to a cool looking cafe. “I am not hungry, you go ahead and buy yourself something” said Saru. Walking towards the train terminal, balancing the bag on one hand, my sandwich on the other while lamenting the fact that the tiny bottle of water cost me 3.5E, I took one bite of the sandwich and came to a sudden halt. I screamed - HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, THIS SANDWICH IS FANTASTIC! I ran along to catch up with Saru while yelling “this sandwich is amazing”!!
Saru “Vam….we are in a public place….lower your voice”.
I don’t like cold sandwiches, but this one was so tasty that I stopped talking to Saru and was intently eating my sandwich while making sounds that I would rather not describe on a public forum. Saru waited for a few minutes, lost patience and asked “Are you going to share it with me or not?”
“Absolutely not! You said you were not hungry”
“I am not, but I want to taste the sandwich. Eat whatever you want and leave me the rest”
I kept eating my sandwich while Saru was watching with a disgusted look. Half over…..three quarters over… eighty percent over and he saw no signs of me stopping. Saru lost it and pulled it from me. “That’s enough!! It is my turn now”. I would have fought for it, but the train came and we boarded it. “Oh Man!! This is awesome!” said Saru turning away as I was trying to grab the last piece.

Pantheon – “To the great men, from the grateful homeland”

For our first morning in Paris, we decided to visit the Pantheon, an understated monument which we missed in our first trip. I had zero expectations, and maybe that is why I liked it so much. Initially built as a place of worship, it was converted into a memorial for illustrious Frenchmen during the French Revolution. Many great men including Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, and Mirabeau were buried in the crypt.

As was the case of most churches built in those times, the interior was shaped in the form of a cross (+). This massive structure was decorated with Greek columns and domes while the walls were adorned with beautiful frescoes and paintings. There were very few people inside, so it was very peaceful. I just sat there gazing at the dome and the frescoes wondering about the numerous times the church was converted to a mausoleum and back. You could see an amalgamation of religious, political and scientific values from different periods in time. On some walls were frescoes depicting the life of St.Genevieve, on some were paintings of allegories of values (justice, glory etc) and then there was the Focault's Pendulum.
While I was listening to the audio guide, Saru-the-geek put all his attention into understanding the inner workings of the Pendulum. The theory is that the pendulum oscillates in the same plane the entire time, while the earth below it is rotating showing the change in times on the clock on the floor, thus proving rotation of earth. Saru was puzzled because the clock on the floor only showed 270 instead of 360 degrees. He searched around until he found an English speaking volunteer who explained that the pendulum only oscillates to the extent of the latitude of the location. At North and South poles, the pendulum would complete a full 360 degree circle in a day. Mystery solved and he was ready to leave.

We then went into the crypt and Saru got crazy-excited looking at the names of scientists . He started reeling off names and scientific theories and formula in spite of my “what the hell are you talking about” look. He kept going “Ohhhh…Paul Langevin of Langevin Dynamics ; Marcelin Berthelot, the inventer of modern chemistry; Pierre Curie's Nuclear Physics....." What a geek!!
My time to show off came a little later when we stopped in front of the tomb of Alexander Dumas. “You never heard of ‘Count of Montecristo’ I asked him in a heckling tone. He threatened to explain the intricate details of ‘stochastic differential equations’ in Langevin Dynamics, so I backed off. I did however manage to tell him the story of Dumas's famous novel.

I loved the Pantheon! It was a beautiful monument. We thought of spending an hour, but ended up spending 3 hours, including 45 minutes climbing to the top of the domes to get a view of Paris. Saru will not let me put big size images ofwhat he terms as ‘bad pictures’, but here is a snapshot.

Musee Du Louvre – How Dan Brown screwed up my trip

We visited the Louvre for the first time,10 years back and LOVED it. We spent an entire day in the museum and could not get enough of it. Every other museum I saw after that paled in comparison. To me, Louvre was the best museum in the world followed by the Vatican Museum. SO….I went with great expectations. I knew it would be crowded, but the mob I saw there was totally unexpected. Thanks to Dan Brown’s ‘Da Vinci Code’, it has become fashionable for EVERYBODY to go to the Louvre. I have never seen so many people with translated versions of the same book. Most of the tourists were in line to see same three exhibits – Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo and Winged Victory. The smart thing to have done was to avoid that wing, but the husband was one among the mob who came with bookmarks in the novel. He said “Nothing doing…I want to see these three exhibits. I want to beat Art Buchwald’s record of 5min 56secs to see the big three” Sigh!

An hour and half later, I was sweating and in line with thousands of other people. You just cannot appreciate art this way. It also didn't help my cause that I forgot to rent an audio guide, so had to climb 3 floors twice to go back and get it. By then, I was tired, hordes of tourists were pushing me around and it was just not a great experience. There were a few good moments like when we saw this “Size matters” statue below. Saru, unlike me, had lots of fun. He would snicker and giggle at the nudity in the paintings and pass silly comments. Once done, we went outside, put our feet in the fountain water and relaxed while pondering over the fact that we loved the Pantheon which most tourists would miss, but hated the more popular Louvre.

Then we went on to Jardin des Tuileries, found a shady tree and took a nap. Taking a nap in the evening became a daily thing for us during this trip. It was unusually hot and the sun would not set until 10:30 PM. A power nap, as Saru calls it is very good to relax and regain energy...plus it was really cool and pleasant to sit in the shade of trees.

Palais De Tuileries (Home to a zillion kissing couples...wait for the next post)

Rue Cler

For dinner, we went to Rue Cler. It is a typical Parisian street lined with restaurants, cafes, boulangeries, patisseries and creperies. I took one look at the neighborhood and knew why I loved Europe. The streets were full of people walking leisurely and enjoying the evening. Sounds of lively conversation, laughter and clinkling of cutlery filled the air.
Saru declared “I have a bad stomach, so I want to eat something very light….maybe like a sandwich”. I was in PARIS and I wanted to eat a nice meal with wine and dessert and the dude wanted to eat a sandwich! WHO eats a sandwich for dinner?? Apparently nobody because we walked the entire length of the street looking for a restaurant that served a sandwich and a proper meal , but did not find any. We were both getting hungry when I saw a Creperie! Voila! It was light enough to meet his needs and cool enough to meet mine. In my utterly ridiculous French (with an Indian English accent), I ordered:
“Un Crepe avec Fromage et Champignons, S’il vous Plait”
The guy at the stall smiled and said in perfect English “A Crepe with cheese and mushrooms. Please have a seat”. Saru heaved a sigh of relief and ordered his dish in English. Fresh cheese makes such a huge difference to the taste of the dish. My crepe was smooth and soft and aromatic as hell! The combination of soft crepe, fresh mozzarella (with a hint of sourness ) and rubbery mushrooms created an explosion of tastes in my mouth. It was my BEST crepe to date.

For dessert, I ordered a crepe with strawberry confiture. I sipped the last of my Beaujolais watching the cook pour the batter and deftly spread it around into a perfect circle. Once the crepe was done, he poured a giant spoon of the most aromatic butter I ever smelt. For a few seconds, my crepe was bathing in a pool of butter before it soaked it up like a sponge. He waited until it became brown and crispy, spread a generous amount of strawberry confiture, folded it, sprinkled powdered sugar and served it hot. The aroma of butter made my mouth water to indecent proportions, so I took a quick bite. As the French say - Excellente!! C’est tres bien!
I don’t remember what Saru was having, except that it was not great and he kept reaching into my dish and I kept pulling the plate towards myself (As if It is not enough that I am sharing my life with him…now I have to share my dessert too??)
Our stomachs thoroughly satisfied, we made our way to the hotel just when the clock struck midnight.

P.S In case you are wondering about the butter, Saru and I have a philosophy when we travel - No worries on weight and wallet!

What is your travel philosophy? Leave a comment and let me know.

Monsoon Magic in Mumbai

2009-08-04T15:12:00.004+05:30

It has been almost a month since we came back from our 10 day trip to France, but I am going through a patch of 'writer's block', so bear with me while I publish those travelogues.

Meanwhile, enjoy these pictures from the Monsoons in Mumbai. We have been driving to the hills every weekend this last month and I can never get tired of the lush green scenery.

A hut with a view

Water drainage Pipe

Train Tracks of the Matheran Toy Train

Lush green hillsides on the way to Matheran

Waterfalls....they are everywhere this season!

It doesn't get more green than this?

On the way to Matheran.....Life goes on!

This post is part of the Show your World meme. For more stories from the rest of the world, click the image.

In Luv in Krumlov

2009-06-27T23:32:00.012+05:30

I know...I Know. It is a cheesy title and I am going pink with embarrassment as I type this, but there is absolutely no other way to describe our time in this wonderful medieval city. There are romantic towns and then there are ROMANTIC towns. With its stunning castle casting beautiful shadows in the Vltava river while it snakes around the town in a perfect "S" shape, it is no wonder that this town falls in the second category. The enchanting little town is full of delightful little shops and restaurants, art galleries, narrow cobble stone streets, pedestrian bridges and most of all - wonderful people. The town is a splendid example of life in the slow lane. There is no rush to do anything....actually there is not much to do here. As Rick Steves would say " There are no 5-star attractions,but the town itself is a 5 star attraction". All I remember doing here is walking hand in hand, people watching and having long luxurious meals by the Vltava river.

We took the 11:00 AM bus from Prague. It was a beautiful drive through the Czech countryside. Spring was at its best and we passed through acres and acres of yellow mustard flowers. The video coach bus was showing a Czech movie with English subtitles. As I dosed in and out of sleep, one thing I noticed was that the leading lady Dubrakova was in the SAME dress for the entire length of the movie...even after she accidentally falls in a ditch! Czech cinema must not have the budgets of Bollywood. As I mentioned in previous reports, I did not make any reservations for the last 6 days of our 13 day trip. We showed up at the tourist office with no reservations. Only problem was that they didn't have any rooms in the old town, so we stayed up the hill in a small pension. Pension Vishaharad was a clean and simple bed & breakfast in a residential area. It was a 1/2 mile walk to the city center, which was actually nice because we had great views of the town from up there. We originally booked the room for one night, but an hour after we walked into the town, we were bowled over by the beauty of the place and decided to stay another night. We walked over to the city center and had a late lunch/snack of pizza and chocolate crepes (I can give up lunch, but can NEVER give up dessert when I am on vacation).

We walked around the town, did some window shopping and just when the light was going down, settled at a vegetarian restaurant called Laibon that was highly recommended in the guide book. We had a long 3 hour dinner. Our table was outdoor, right beside the river. While waiting for the food to come, I actually went down and cooled my feet in the water- oh what fun it is to put tired feet in cold running water!!. - A lone duck was trying to swim upstream, but the current was too much, so it flew up. A few minutes later we saw the same duck float downstream without putting up a fight! We had a huge basket of pakodas (that's right...it was international food) and chips and salsa and guacamole for appetizers and a huge bowl of vegetarian chili for main course. We took our time and ate very slowly watching the sun set behind the castle. As it became darker, the castle lights came on and transformed the place into magic land. We did not have our tripod, so took this night shot with a point-and-shoot Canon while balancing it on a stack of coins (told you...we had a lot of free time). Dessert was chocolate cake and homemade ice cream. We took the other two night shots on the way back to the pension.

We spent the morning walking around the town, visiting churches and heritage buildings. We had a brunch in a bistro - nothing special. We walked around for a little bit and went to another restaurant for dessert -

ice cream folded in a warm chocolate crepe floating in mild blueberry sauce and drizzled with powdered sugar...ummm.
Vam: There is not much to do here, but I love it. Should we stay another night or move on?
Saru: I love it too.What is the hurry?
Vam: Yeah...Let's stay here and savor the place. You know, I don't understand how people can do day trips to this place. 3-4 hrs is just not enough to get a feel for this place. It is just not enough to slow down and appreciate the beauty of the town and the culture here.
Saru: uh-huh
Vam: You know....I also don't understand how people go on whirlwind Europe tours - 7 countries in 10 days etc. What can they see that way? They will just be shuttling between airports and train stations. You need to make the leap from being a tourist to a traveler and get a feel for life in foreign countries - their food, their history, and their way of life. That way, you might take back something with you and make your life better.
Saru: Vam.....It seems to have slipped your mind that we are doing 4 countries in 13 days....So, are we tourists or travelers?
Vam (counting): Belgium, Netherlands, Czech Republic and Austria. OMG....that is true. I completely lost track. Shit!! I am a freaking tourist!! What the hell was I thinking? Oh Man!! I am one of them? Really...you think I am one of them?
Saru(laughing): No, you are not one of them. You are a giant snob! Forget the philosophy and have fun.

I don't know if I am a tourist or a traveler, but I certainly took inspiration from their laid back lifestyle and changed mine after we moved back to India. Simple things give me more joy now than they ever did in my life before and for that I am really glad I went to Cesky Krumlov.

In the afternoon, we went up the castle. While it is an imposing and handsome building from outside, it was not all that great inside. The only impressive room was the Rennaisance room with paintings that had a three dimensional look. The best part of the castle tour was to be able to climb the steps and get to the clock tower. Views from up there and the castle gardens were excellent.

We had another long and excellent dinner that night in an Italian restaurant. I had an interesting Czech dessert – ovocne knedliking (don't even bother pronouncing it)- fruit dumpling sprinkled with curd cheese (cheese tasted liked khoa from a new mother-cow’s milk). On the way to the pension, we took this picture.Next morning we left for Hallstatt, Austria which was another beautiful place.

To read more about our trip browse these links:

Birds in Breeding Plumage

2009-06-15T21:50:00.010+05:30

This is Part 3 of our trip to Bandipur National Park. You can read Parts 1 and 2 here:

In Part 3, I am actually writing about the first day of our trip. Those who have read the other two reports or at least the title of the first report will know that we were traveling with T & S, our blog friends who we had never met before. On our way to Bandipur National Park, we planned to stop at Ranganthittu Bird Sanctuary, which is a famous breeding ground for egrets, spoonbills, open bill storks, painted storks, river turns and many other birds . Our plan was to start at 5:00 AM and reach the sanctuary by 6:30-7:00 AM.

Thomas: 5:00 AM means 5:00 AM , 5:00 AM does not mean you wake up at 5:00 AM. 5:00AM means you are outside the door and ready to leave at 5:00 AM
Vam: I GET IT!! I will be at the door at 5:00 AM. Don't worry, I am not a morning person, but I wake up when it is necessary.
Thomas: Do you want me to give you a wake-up call? You know what...I will give you a wake up call at 4:00 AM just in case.
Vam: Relax Thomas....I will wake up.

This was our first time meeting Thomas and Shilpy and I did not want to start off on the wrong foot, so I set up two phone alarms 5 minutes apart and kept waking up every hour to check the time. Finally I fell asleep at 2:00 AM and woke up when the alarm rang. I showered and got ready and woke up Saru. It was already 4:30 AM and I still didn't get the wake up call from Thomas. I called him, just to reassure him that we were indeed going to be ready by 5:00 AM. The phone rang a few times before it was answered by a very sleepy voice.

Thomas: Hello
Vamsee: Hi Thomas...It is Vamsee. Don't worry we are almost ready!
Thomas: Oh Shit...Oh Shit...What time is it?
Vamsee: 4:30
Thomas: Oh Man....I was very restless last night and I woke up at 2:00 AM and could not go back to sleep.
Vamsee (with a very wide smile): Did YOU oversleep?

It was a little after 6:00 AM by the time we started. We were meeting for the first time, but the ice was broken with the hilarity of the situation and I was thoroughly enjoying the upper hand.

Vamsee: Thomas....When we said 5:00 AM, we meant leaving at 5:00 AM, not waking up at 5:00 AM.
Thomas: Oh God....You are going to write about this on her blog...Aren't you?. It was not my mistake. S takes one hour to pack and get ready.
S: Don't bring me in to this. You didn't wake up.
We had fun teasing each other and before we knew it, we were chatting like old friends. It was a nice drive along green fields. Gulmohar trees were in full bloom and were really beautiful. We took this picture much later in the trip.

We stopped at Barrista for some coffee and breakfast and were delayed a little bit more, so it was about 9:00 AM by the time we reached the bird sanctuary. The sun was high in the sky, not the best time for photography, but since we were there, we decided to take the boat ride anyway.The place was full of water birds- egrets, storks, pelicans etc. Since we were on a boat, we had the chance to take some really good closeup shots.

Cattle Egrets in Breeding Plumage

Egrets are so common, we normally don't give them a second look. During breeding season, they develop orange-brown feathers on their back, breast, crown and bill and their irises become red for a short period before mating. Here is the bird in many poses.

Intermediate Egrets in Breeding Plumage

As the name suggests, these egrets are intermediate in size, between The Great Egret and the Little or Cattle Egrets. They are mostly white in color with a thick yellow bill but breeding birds have a black bill with a green gape skin. This one kept taunting us with various poses, but finally opened up its feather for a decent (not great) picture. The sunlight was too harsh and the white color is overexposed, but this is the best we could get.

Painted Storks

(from Wikipedia)The adult is a large bird, mainly white with black flight feathers. The head is red, and the long downcurved bill is yellow. The tail and legs are pink, and there is dark barring on the breast.

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