Visit to God's Own Country : Kerala (9Feb08 - 16thFeb08)

A cold January Night in Delhi
Our first anniversary (9th Feb) was coming and we wanted it to be special. But how, was the question... While we were still juggling with the options, I came up with this ... Lets go to Kerala.. And then, there were no more discussions... Kerala it had to be.

The next few days I was busy with some frantic net surfing searching for travel agents, hotel booking sites, airline ticketing sites, blogs of people who had visited the place. Initially we had decided to plan the complete trip ourselves rather than getting a fixed itinerary trip from an agent. The first step was to get airline tickets booked. We got JetLite tickets for 9th morning to Trivandrum and Indigo tickets from Cochin to Delhi for 16th Feb.
After trying for days, visiting various booking sites and calling various hotels, I decided it was not worth the effort and we better avail services of a travel agent. We created a personalized itinerary based of feedbacks we had got and sent it to various agents for price quotes. Eventually we finalized "Kerala Travel Club". Their's was the most competitive price based on the hotels we had selected. Payments were made and bookings were done. We were all set.

9th February : Delhi to Trivandrum to Kovallam
On reaching Airport, we got a big shock. The flight was overbooked and we didn't get a seat. But thankfully they did manage to get us seats on an Indian Airlines flight. We reached Trivandrum at around 2pm (instead of scheduled 11am). Our cabbie "Baijju" was already waiting for us. Our first destination was the famous Kovallam Beach which was around half an hour away. We reached there around 3:30 and checked into our hotel "Papukutty Beach Kiss Resort". It was a nice hotel right at the beach


Kovallam Lighthouse Beach
We spent the rest of the day at the Kovallam beach itself. It is known as one of the world's best beaches. Foreigners outnumbered the Indian tourists, and 90% of the Indian tourists were honeymooners. We had our lunch at a beach side hotel and then went into the waters..Walking hand in hand, Sea water rushing onto your feet, then taking away the sand from underneath, with sun setting in the distance... is one of the (if not "the") most romantic settings .. And we enjoyed it to the fullest..

10th February : Trivandrum City Tour
Baijju was there at the hotel early morning with the cab. We started off after having breakfast for the city tour and visited the following

Sri Anantha Padmanabhaswamy Temple : They made me remove clothes and wear a dhoti and an Angaiah. We reached there at temple closing time and were lucky enough to get inside. Had we been 5 mins late, would have missed it.

Kanakakkunnu Palace & Flower show : A nice picknik spot.
Srichitra Art Gallery : It was a nice gallery with very old paintings from various Indian Artists.
Zoo : We had seen so much wild life on our trip to Singapore Malaysia that we were least interested in it. Nevertheless, it was a nice zoo with some rare species.

Samudra Beach : Finally we reached the Samudra Beach. It is one of the lesser known beaches with less tourist activity (as compared to Lighthouse beach). As a result it was quite, calm and clean. We found this beach better than the Lighthouse and spent few hours there. Waves here were more violent and my wife got a taste of it when she was thrown off the shore by a powerfull one. We were having fun or what...

That night we had the most romantic dinner of our trip. A rooftop restaurant on Kovallam beach, candlelit dinner, with live ghazals in the background and the beautiful night sea in front. For once we wanted the evening to never end.

11th February : Off to Kumarakom : Kerala Backwaters
We started off to Kumarakom early morning. It was a 5-6 hours drive. Our cabbie Baijju was a localite and was acting as an excellent guide. We reached our hotel "Waterscapes Kumarakom" in the afternoon.

Abour Kumarakom
Kumarakom is one of the best Backwater destinations in Kerala (Others being Allepy, Kollam). The area is known as the Venice of the East with small water canals all around the area. That along with the rich flora and fauna make it one of the world's best sceneries. No wonder its called as the "God's Own Country"


About Waterscapes : A KTDC resort
So good was this resort that it deserves a special section in the blog. Its built on the shore of backwater lake Vembanand. Its a 5 star property with small individual cottages built over natural canals. The area is plush with vegetation. Cottages themselves are well built with all amenities. This was undoubtedly the best place we had ever stayed at (And am talking about comparisons with some 5 star properties in USA, Singapore and Malaysia).


We spent whole of 11th at the resort itself. There were indoor games (TableTennis, Carrom and Pool) which we tried our hands at. In the evening there was a local cultural show. We were in heaven or what...




12th February : The houseboat through Backwaters

Next day was dedicated to the backwaters. Our houseboat picked us up from the resort itself. It was a smallish one with a small bedroom and a dining area. We started our journey on the Vembanand lake thru the amazingly beautiful backwaters. Its a huge lake surrounded by coconut trees all around. There was small kitchen as well on the boat where they cooked for us, delicious south indian recipes. At the night, the boat was stationed at a place. We watched a few movies (yes there was TV as well) and then dozed off. The next morning we started our way back to the resort.

13th February : To Beautiful Munnar
We reached Waterscapes back where Baijju was waiting for us. We boarded our cab and started our journey to Munnar (a small hill station). It was a 7 hours tiring drive. As we neared Munnar, we started seeing beautiful Tea Gardens (Munnar is famour for them). So well are these gardens manicured that from a distance, it seems as if a green carpet has been laid over the mountain. Late afternoon we reached our resort "Ayur County". It was a nice resort but was quite some distance away from main Munnar. We had our own cab, so were not worried.
We spent the rest of the day at the resort itself

14th Feb : Munnar tour
The day was dedicated to Munnar town tour. We visited the following
Mattupetty Dam
Echo Point
Kundala lake and dam
Munnar rose garden
Munnar town market : We bought some flavoured tea for all our relatives from the market.

Kerala Meal :
In the afternoon, we sat down for lunch at a local restaurant. There we ordered Kerala Meal. It consisted of Rasam, Sambhar, a couple of vegetables, a host of local pickles and chutneys and rice. What more, all of it was "Unlimited". And guess what..... All of it for just Rs25 (yes Twenty Five). Now this is what I call "Aaj ke zamane mein purane zamane ke daam" (yester year's prices in today's world).

15th Feb : Athirampally Waterfalls
Next morning we headed to our final destination : Athirampally Waterfalls. This place did not appear in any of the planned tours that we saw. But some of our friends had recommended it a lot, so we included it in our itinerary (and removed Periyar wild life resort). And what a good decision it was.

We reached the place at around 2-3 pm and checked into our hotel "Richmond resorts". It was the "worst" resort of our trip. They had no arrangement for food or even tea. The room was dirty and stinking with humidity. The place was haunting at night.

But the bad hotel experience was more than compensated by the "BEAUTIFUL" athirampally waterfalls. I would let the adjacent photo speak for itself. I would recommend every Kerala visitor to visit this place...

16th Feb: Cochin and back to Delhi
The final day, we started our drive to Cochin. Our flight was late afternoon and we spent the morning in Cochin. Did some (in fact a lot of) shopping for clothes and spices (South Indian Cotton and Silk are world famous and so are the spices). Finally we reached Airport and flew back to Delhi.

The trip was better than what we had expected (and we already had huge expectations from it). These will certainly remain one of the best times of our lives.

Trip to Devi Talab Temple and Rangla Punjab - Jalandhar (6-8 April 07)

Meaning no offense, I dont think Jalandhar would lie on India's tourism map, or atleast not at a very high rank. So then, why and how did I decide to venture out in this small, clean, calm Punjab city, when I could have gone to nearby Amritsar which boasts of Golden Temple(yes its covered with pure gold), Jallianwalah Bagh(just a mention of this place sends me into shivers.. How can humans be so inhuman at times..) and Wagah Border(territorial border with our "worthy" neighbours).
But then the truth is, in the coming years of my life, I would be visiting this city every now and then. Yes ofcourse, its my Inlaws' city.. :)

The Journey
I took a bus from Delhi-Lal Quila on 6th night(friday). It was a video coach and the movie "Guru" was running inside. I don't normally realize that at 5'10'', I am above average Indian male height, unless I am sitting inside one of these buses which cramp me for leg room. So the journey wasnt very enjoyable, but it wasn't my first in such a bus either. So the night went through and I reached Jallandhar at around 7 in the morning. My wife, who had reached a day earlier, had come to pick me up.

After spending whole of day at the house, we went to one of our relative's place. The lady of the house was an excellent excellent cook. With a full three course meal, we had eaten way beyond what our stomach woud permit.

Devi Talab Mandir (Godess Pond Temple)

Next morning(Sunday, 7th), we decided to go to the nearby Devi Talab temple. It was a 20-25 min drive and we reached there at around 12 noon. The temple was spread over a vast area. The first glance and I realized there was one main temple at the centre surrounded by a pond, and few others scattered around. After removing our shoes, we headed towards the main temple first. It was sunny and white marble floor was steaming hot. We were literally hopping over it rather than walking. The main temple was just like any Indian temple with Idols of Deities, and a small hall to sit and recite prayers. It also had a ever running small flame, a symbol of divinity in Indian Mythology (what we call as "jyot"). The surrounding pond also had big Deity Idols, half submerged, in it. The place had a nice aura about it.

The rest of structures in the campus were miniature models of other famous temples of India. First one was a lookalike of the famous "Vaishno Devi" shrine in J&k. It was built as a small cave with an even smaller entrance filled with water, with Vaishno Godess' idol inside. I wonder how my mom in law managed to cross the cave.. :).


Next was the miniature version of the Amarnath temple. It is dedicated to Lord Shiva. According to Hindu mythology, this is the cave where Lord Shiva told about the secret of life and eternity to His divine consort Parvati,and hence this shrine holds a very special value to the Hindus. It has a natural "Shiva Lingam", a cylindrical structure with a hemispherical top, formed by ice. This structure is a symbol of lord Shiva. I haven't been to the original one, but this miniature was beautiful.

Last one was another temple (dont know if it was also a look alike of some place) which had the God "Baba Balak Nath's" idol inside. The disgusting "Women are not allowed" mention there forbids me to write anything about that place.

Despite having a huge tourism potential, the place was not very well kept. It was not as neat clean and well managed as I have seen some other temples in India. But then there was ongoing construction work inside.

Rangla Punjab - The Heritage Village

In the evening another of our relatives invited us to a dinner at nearby Rangla Punjab resort. Its a privately owned theme park cum restaurant at the outskirts of Jallandhar on the GT road. A typical Punjab village backdrop compliments the setting for any ethnic style get-together. Rangla Punjab shows the unique heritage of Punjab and Punjabi culture.

The place has dozens of mannequins wearing different punjabi attires, depicting various different cultures, occupations, stratas of Punjab. There were ladies milking cows, kids with handmade toys, village huts with their interiors, farmers, potters and what not. There was even a real potter there, and wife tried her hand at pottery. After a few attempts, she did manage to pull one out.. :). Other attractions included horse/camel rides, Kanche (a game with very small marble balls),shopping, basketry and a Bhangra/Giddha(native Punjabi dance form) dance group performance which was awesome.

The dinner hall had ethnic punjabi decor with utensils complementing. Food was delicious (not for calorie watchers though).

Had to catch a train later that evening, else we could have easily spent a few more hours there. Punjab undoubtedly is the most vibrant of Indian states, and all its colors were on display there. An evening to remember...:)

Tips for people planning travel to Malaysia/Singapore

General Tips

- My experience with Malaysian Airlines was good. Decent food, cordial (and beautiful ;) hostesses, on time service..
- Visit Genting Highlands only if you enjoy rides at theme parks such as Appu Ghar.
- Dont spend more than a day at Kuala Lampur city. There's nothing much there.
- Langkawi is a must specially for honeymooners..I spent two days there, but three would be optimum. Hire a bike for a day and roam around.
- Dont miss the water sports at Langkawi's Cenam Beach.
- Do take the sunset dinner cruise. I paid RM200 per person. But if you can contact the cruise owner directly, the cost is RM170(or even less).
- In Malayasia always ask taxi drivers to charge using meter. Never try and fix a preset rate. You would be fooled.
- Malaysia is not a very safe place to venture out alone in the night. Beware of chain/bag snatchers on bikes.
- Keep atleast three full days for Singapore. Dont miss the Night safari and Sentosa Island.
- Taxi system is awesome in Singapore. The easiest time to find cabs is after midnight ;)
- Singapore is one of the safest cities in the world. As my hotel's receptionist told me, you can leave your beautiful wife in a drunken state on the streets at 2AM in the night and someone would bring her back to you safely... (Disclaimer : I didn't dare try that)
- Go Little India and you know its actually a little India. The only place in Singapore where you can find filth on roads, street hawkers shouting, people discussing serials/movies at the top of their voices in restaurants...

Food tips (Skip this section if you are a non vegetarian)
- Genting was the toughest place in terms of finding veggie food.. Do carry food packets for there.
- Even KL city didnt have much Indian restaurants. Though we heard there was some street where we could find them. My suggestion : keep a few packets handy for here as well.
- Langkawi : Contrary to our expectation, this place has quite a few good, reasonably priced Indian food restaurants. So no problem here.
- Singapore : Make sure you hotel is nearby Little India, and you will have dozens of options to choose from. From exotic tandoori to authentic south indian to Indianized chinese.. you name, you'll get it here..
- Little India's Sagar Ratna is nowhere as good as we have in Delhi. Other restaurants like "The Tandoori" are better options.

Shopping tips
- Langkawi is the best place to buy chocolates gifts etc. Its a complete duty free zone and you will get huge variety here.
- If you are not visiting Langkawi, KL would be my next reco. This place is certainly cheaper than Singapore. But dont buy any electronics as there is huge duplicacy here. An IRRELEVANT information : Malaysia is one of the world's biggest pirated movie buisness hub..;)
- Singapore is the costliest. If you have to, shop at Mustafa. Though tour operators take you to other shops claiming those are cheaper than Mustafa... Its not the case.. Before buying any electronics, make sure that its not available cheaper in India. Most sony and samsung digicams were costlier there while canon was cheaper. Even sony handycams were costlier as compared to India. Things like shavers, hair dryers etc were certainly cheaper.
- Mustafa has a big currency change counter which offers a very good conversion price. So get your singapore dollors from there.. and more importantly, on your way back, get your dollors converted back to Indian Re there itself. I got a very very poor conversion rate in India.

Will update the blog as and when i recall more... :)

Trip to Malaysia (Genting, KL, Langkawi) and Singapore (13-23 Feb '07)

Last post on May08 while today is april 04.. Its been almost a year.... Not that I have not been travelling.... Sadly its the writing part that has taken amiss... First it was hectic office work, then got busy with marriage preparations... then the marriage... so on and so forth.... Ahh... Ok Ok... these are all lame excuses... It was just my letharginess and procrastination...

Before I start with my trip de adventure... I would like to mention that my most worthwhile trip during the period since my last blog uptill this one was to Mystic Nepal. The place is a good one time visit... If i get time someday, i'll write about that trip as well...(hey hey.. who am i trying to fool).
Enough.. let me forgive and forget my mistakes....

After finishing almost entire India (okaay... i know its not even 10%), I planned my first "phoren" trip, A 10 day trip to Malayasia and Singapore (trip to US was an official one and without meaning to offend I dont count Nepal as "phoren"). It was just two of us...me and a very very close friend "Evan". Its quite a unique name, but then, no ordinary name would have justified my friend's persona... :)

13th February 2007, me and my friend board the Malayasian airlines flight to KualaLampur at around 12 in the night.

Genting Highland Resort


14th February : Indoor theme park
After a six hour flight we reached Kul airport early morning. Malayasia time is 2.5 hours ahead of India. From the airport, our travel agent's taxi picked us up and we headed towards our first destination "The Genting Highland Resort". For movie buffs this years Zee Cine Awards were held in this very resort last Sunday. The journey from Kul to Genting was a 1.5 hours drive...Same distance on the best of Indian roads would have taken atleast twice the time. The highway was 8 lane, beautifully landscaped and very very .. very clean. At around 11 we reached our hotel in Genting.."The Resort Hotel". We checked in and decided to take some rest before venturing out.
Genting highland is a very small hill town and has two theme parks... Indoor and Outdoor. The weather there was awesome... Sort of cool with a slight mist in the air...We had two days here and decided to visit the indoor theme park first. The place was kind of confusing... It took us some time to figure out the way to the entrance to the Indoor Park Plaza. On our way we found a Malay temple. It was a smallish temple with no one around. We took some photographs and moved on.
Indoor theme park was like a big mall buzzing with activity. There were fun rides and eateries all around. Because of the Chinese New Year which starts from 18th Feb and Valentine's day, the place (and in fact all the places that we visited on our 10 day trip) was beautifully decorated. One common feature of Chinese decoration were the red round paper lamp shades hanging from the ceiling, another one being the dancing lions' puppets. Less than half an hour at the place and we knew that our fears of not finding vegetarian food were to come true in a big way. Pizza hut was a familier logo and we decided to try our luck there. Thank God, they had this single veggie pizza on their menu, and it was good too. With our stomachs calm, it was time to ride the rides... :) The place had dozens of rides, some kiddish, some good ones and a few adventurous. Notable ones were "The Haunted Adventure", "Venice Gondola", "MonoRail".. By evening our bodies had given up and we decided to return to the hotel

15th February : Genting Outdoor theme park
Next morning we woke up early, had our breakfast at the hotel and moved towards the outdoor theme park. This place had the kind of rides both me and Evan are fond of. The best ones were "The Space Shot: a free fall experience from a great height", "Cork Screw: A real roller coaster" ,"Flying Coaster : Roller coaster with you lying on your stomach" and "Flume Ride - Made us all Wet". Other good ones were "Bumper boat", "Dinosaur Land", "Spinner"and "Pirate Train". It was a good fun filled day.

Kuala Lampur


16th February : Kuala Lampur City
The next morning after the breakfast we checked out and started our journey back to KL where we were to spend next two days. On our way, we took the KL city sight seeing tour. Our first visit was to the Batu Caves. It was a temple build in a cave on the top of a mountain cliff and required us to climb around 450 steps. But the cave was beautiful and had an aura about it, although it was stinking a bit due to dampness. After that we went to the King's Palace which we were obv not allowed to enter, so took photographs from outside, Malaysia National Museum which gave us some insight about Malay traditions and then the famous Twin Towers but from a distance. At around 4 we reached our hotel : "The Crown Princess". After checking in, we took some rest and then visited the Twin tower's shopping compex in the evening.

17th February : Mines wonderland
This was our most boring day on tour (of course in comparison to others..). In the day time we went to "Little India" a street market. Their we found our first Indian Restaurant of the trip. In the evening we went to a place called "Mines Wonderland". Its a huge shopping complex with a theme park built on top of a once tin mine. We did some shopping there and then took a boat ride that took us around the mine. Speciality of that ride was a concept known as "Lock Down". The boat was locked in a channel of water and then was taken to a depth of around 7 feet by clearing the water channel from underneath. Similarly on return the boat was taken up the channel.

Langkawi Island


18th February: Reached Langkawi
18th morning we took a flight to Langkawi Island in Malaysia and reached there at around 12 in the afternoon. No one was there at the airport to pick us up... After waiting for around 15 mins, when I was just about to call our operator, there came running a lady from distance shouting "adeya .. adeya".. I somehow figured out she was trying to say Aditya.. :). Her name was Nadia.. our tour guide in Langkawi. Our hotel "Holiday Villa" was at around 45 mins distance. This was the best hotel for our entire trip. Single storeyed, cool calm and on Sea Shore... :)... After freshening up, we took a taxi to nearby "Cenam Beach".

Cenam Beach : Para Sailing Experience :On Cenam beach, we had the most adventurous part of our journey. We did "Para Sailing". Flying high in the air on a Parachute, tied to a boat sailing in the sea with a rope. It was engaging, enthrilling, exhilarating, and what not... After the ride we went to a nearby indian restaurant Papadam and had good sumptuous north Indian cuisine.
In the evening we took a stroll on the hotel beach and a light drink at the beach bar. It started drizzling a bit and the feeling was awesome.

19th February : Langkawi City Tour and the amazing Sunset Dinner Cruise
The next morning we took the Langkawi city tour. Again Nadia turned up 30 mins late. The city tour included visit to under water world : a home to a huge variety of marine fauna.. All kinds of fishes, snakes, whales, dolphins, sea dragons, sea lions, corels.. And the Penguins : My first face to face with this beautiful creature. After that we visited a Batik factory, Semilang waterfall (hardly any water there), Eagle Square (symbol of Langkawi) and the Billion duty free shopping zone.
In the evening we went to enjoy the sunset dinner cruise. It was an evening in the sea on a big boat with snacks and drinks on the house. The idea was to enjoy the sunset from the middle of the sea with good light background music. The experience cannot be described in words.. After the sunset, we boarded a small boat which took us to the shore... onboard we had an experience... Millions of very small sea surface fishes were jumping around us many of them ending up inside our boat. We were all jumping around.. One even entered my tee... eeeeeeee
Langkawi was great fun...

Singapore


20th February : Reached Singapore : Night Safari
20th early afternoon we took a flight to Singapore and reached there in the evening. Checked into our hotel "Hotel Carlton". After talking to our tour guide and hotel travel agent, we figured out we had too much to see with too little time. So without wasting any time, we took a taxi to the night safari, first of its kind in the world. Its a kind of a wild life sanctuary which houses animals that venture out in the night. There are walking trails and a tram that takes you around. Animals ranging from jackals, wolves to lions and tigers were spotted. It was a great experience.

21st February : Singapore city sightseeing : Sentosa Island
Next morning we took the Singapore city tour. Places visited included Singapore river where we took a boat ride, which took us the Merlion statue : Symbol of Singapore, Raffle's point, a gem factory and finally the China town.
After the city tour, we headed towards the Sentosa Island. Its a smallish island away from mainland Singapore connected via cable car. The cable car ride was awesome giving a beautiful panoramic view of the sea and singapore city. Whole of Sentosa island is sort of a fun theme part with various rides/activities available. We enjoyed Images of Singapore museum, sky tower ride, Underwater world (Langkawi one was better) and a 4D show (Noida one is much much better). But the attraction of the day was the "Dolphin Show". Dolphins doing all sort of jumps, dances and tricks... It was simply superb. Because of time paucity we had to miss the musical fountain show which we later heard was not to be missed.
At night we went to the Mustafa 24 hour shopping centre.. One stop shop for any and everything.

22nd February: Jurong Bird park and singapore zoo
Next morning we went to the Jurong bird park. 16 million colors in the windows palette, yet I found some colors on birds which i had never seen... We also saw the bird show which included a singing parrot. My friend Evan got a few pictures clicked with two beautiful birds sitting on the hands.After the bird park we went to singapore zoo. It was huge and we were somewhat tired, so we had to miss some parts of it. Also by then we have had enough of wild life... :)

Later in the evening we went to meet one of our old friends Akanksha and her husband Munish settled in Singapore. We had dinner together at an Indian restaurant and the bill was on them :D. What more, they had got gifts for both of us as well.... :) After the dinner we spent next few hours at the Mustafa shopping centre buying souvenirs for everyone back home.

And back to home :
Next day we took the flight back to Delhi... After all, All good things have to come to an end.

These 10 days were the best times of my life. Fun, adventure, thrill and what not...

Oh , I think i have not yet mentioned these were the most romantic days of my life as well... But then it was expected.... I was on my HoneyMoon ... ;).. My best friend Evan, happens to be my soulmate Eva Mukhija... I look forward to many more such trips around the world with her...:)

Rafting trip to Shivpuri.

After my last year's exhilarating rafting experience, I was eager to make the next one soon. First opportunity came when the young blood group planned, but :(.. i could not go due to some personal work.

Trip Planned
Few weeks later, while chatting to vikas and manik we planned a trip, destination choices being Manali or Shivpuri. I was given the task to find out a rafting organizer group. I talked to a couple but they had closed their camps and I was told this was not the right season. But then, probably we were destined to have fun. Nimesh talked to some group who had their camps on and bookings were made. Travel arrangements were also made by him, hiring a Toyota innova.

People who agreed for the trip : Manik aka jaat, Vikas aka lala, Nimesh aka nimi, Nitin aka Chopra aka "bada ladka", Nikhil aka nicky, Deepali aka deepali (will soon have to find something for her) and Prachi aka manju and ofcourse your's truly aka addy.

All set to leave delhi on 6th "early" morning. Early being as early as 4AM.... (ha ha ha ha)

The Night Before
All of us had decided, we were staying at nimi and jaat's place so that we can leave "early" the next day. We planned for a movie in the evening "36 china town". Nimi and jaat could not go for they were preparing their house for our welcome... Lala and deepali were to arrange the tickets.... Lala called deepali and asked her to buy a ticket for me as well as i had decided to join for the movie later. Deepali did just that and bought a "single" ticket. Then they realized they had not purchased tickets for anyone eles either... Ha Ha.. Deepali bought 4 more tickets which ofcourse were far away from that single seat. Fortunately hall was not that full and we could manage sitting together.... :). After the movie we headed for jaat's place. Nikhil was not for the movie and came directly there. All the people except for me and prachi had a "few" rounds of drinks and after much hullabaloo, we went to sleep at around 3:30.... ha ha ha.. remember we had decided to leave by 4.

The morning...
Somehow we managed to get up by 6:30. Thanks to deepali we got a cup of bed tea as well. By 7:30 we were all ready, picked up our bags, loaded the innova and started..... Innova is not meant for 8+1 people. People on the back seat were cramped for leg space. But then i believe our enthu was much higher to be bogged down by such small issues..

So we moved on and reached Cheetal grand restaurant (exactly halfway between delhi and hardwar). Took wholesome breakfast there and continued our journey. By around 1pm we reached hardwar. Nimesh's dad had arranged rooms for us in a guest house and lunch as well. Nimesh thank your dad for the wonderful arrangement overthere. After having our lunch and taking a nap, we left for our camps at around 3:30.

Reaching the camps
The camps were far far up the hills. While the journey to them was tiring, the weather there was great. We reached the camps at arnd 7 in the evening. The camps were quite luxurious compared to what I had when i went last year. After freshening up, we came out for a camp fire. For the next few hours people drank.. and .. drank.... and.. well drank again. For non drinkers like me.. it was fun watching them behave like total nuts. I am sure nobody remembers what they did or said... So i wont open their secrets here. After having a nice dinner, we went inside our camps at around 12 for a good night's sleep.

The next morning we all got up, took our breakfast and left for rafting at around 8:30. We reached the starting point at arnd 11 and started our rafting expedition at arnd 11:30. Our raft guide gave all of us some instructions which none of us could really understand coz of his accent and lingua which was 1/4 hindi, 1/4 englist and 1/2 God knows what... :).

Rafting...
For the next three hours we were on the raft (and sometimes in the water). Some of the rapids like roller Coaster and Golf Course provided for an unforgettable experience. For some reason related somehow to prachi... we were left inside the water floating(for we didnt know to swim) for quite some time by our guide and that was frightening for most of us as we had gone far off from our raft. Thank goodness we all were picked up safe and sound on the raft again. Towards the end we did a dive into the water from a 20ft cliff which was an experience of a lifetime.

We completed our rafting at around 3. The camp organizers had arranged for lunch at a local restaurant which was horrible.

And we return... :(
After changing our wet clothers at the restaurant, we left for Delhi at around 4:30. On reaching roorkee, our cab was stopped by a thulla(traffic inspector). At the start of our journey, our cabby had told us that if we get into such a situation, tell that the cab belongs to one of our friends named chetan (coz the cab didnt have a tourist permit). Nimesh got down and told exactly that to the thulla. But then, as is with all of them, the thulla had to have something (and of course he knew we were fudging....). After some brilliant negotiations and pretending as if he was the poorest being on earth Nimesh got us away by paying just Rs 160(remember actual fine would have ran into thousands). Kudos to nimesh again.
On our way back we did a halt at Cheetal grand again for some munching, and reached noida at around 11.

Yet another succesful trip....

Highlights of the trip :-
- Nimesh's taking over the responsibility of arrangements which were quite good (except for the choice of innova).
- The chaos at jaat's place the night before which included a few broken glasses and bottles of beer.
- Deepali serving us brilliant bed tea saturday morning.
- Arrangements by Nimi's dad at hardwaar.
- Tuli's mimicary of Asian Sky shop advertisements.
- Manik, tuli and nimesh acting cricketers like mohinder amarnaath, madan lal, maninder singh, sidhu and commentating. New sidhhuisms like "apni gali mein to har koi koota hota hai" were invented.
- Saturday night when everybody got drunk badly.
- Of course, the rafting and diving experience.
- Nimesh getting the thulla to leave us for just Rs160.
- Tuli disclosing the pranks he had played on others during college time.

And the big one..... BHAIIIIISAAAAB... PREM...... BHAISAAAAAB... Our slogan for the whole trip.

But then, every single moment of the trip was a highlight..... Looking forward to our next trip.

Trip to Bharatpur

Around 10 days have gone by since its inception with great fanfare, nothing has happened.... Nothing looks like happening as well. Will our young blood group turn out to be another damp squib...

But then there comes a mail .... Few people planning a trip to bharatpur bird sanctuary.... And true to the name of the group, they plan to travel by MotorCycles.. WOW..... Something i always wanted.... But hey hey.. Mr Aditya Bhushan... come to reality.... what bike do you have... a hero honda passion... probably not even the makers claim it can handle a long ride....

Trip Planned
So i start looking for few people who wish to travel by car... And hitherto.. I find Nitin and Ayushman. Trip is planned. Four people travel by bikes(Paresh, Amit, Pankaj aka p2 and chaitanya), we three on my car. The day before (24th Mar) I stay at Jitender's place. In the night i ask him.. hey.. jp why dont you join us.. i have a place in my car.... And sporty that jp is.. he says why not...i am in.... and what more.. he says he can take his car as well... !!! All set...

We leave ...
Around 5:30 Saturday evening we leave for Bharatpur on jp's car. People to go by bikes already left at around 4:15. We go to P2's house first to pick up speakers and then off to our destination. By around 7 we cross faridabaad and hit the beautiful highway... Total distance to bharatpur is 180kms. JP keeps driving while me, nitin and ayush keep chatting .. various topics.. some with sense.. others senseless... At around 8:15 we reach Mathura... From here we have to take a right turn and leave the highway.. We have been told its not a good road from here on.. But never even in our nightmares we could have sensed what was coming.. The worst strech of 40Km i have ever travelled... Poor jp's car... Somehow we cross that strech and reach bharatpur!!!!! Bikers had already reached (God knows how did they manage that strech of road by bike)...YES WE ARE AT BHARATPUR....

On Reaching...
We take rooms at RTDC hotel saras and order for dinner... Alcohol enthusiasts arrange some beer for themselves and in an hour or so we are at the dinner table... After the dinner we sit down for a round of flash... For the next two hours some lose their fortunes while others make assets... Thank goodness none of us were married... Else another Mahabharata was in the making... Anyways i am Rs.65 up at the end.. so it was good fun (Paresh might have a different opinion). After some more gossiping we go off to sleep... With plans to leave by 6 the next morning..

Bird Watching...
Impossible... i must be dreaming... The next morning all of us are ready by around 6:30.. I start to wonder if were going to watch the real birds or the "figurative" ones.. coz none of us looked like the ones to appreciate any of God's creations except for one(other than ourselves of course..)... But somehow.. we were ready..
We reach the sanctury entry gate.. Thankfully for the birds, no vehicles are allowed inside.. Available modes of transport are bicycle, rikshaw or battery buses. We decide to hire bicycles for we had a rep to protect... after all we are members of young blood group.. :))We also hire a guide Mr DD Mittal, one who was an educated one. He told us he had done his research in this very park. And he had a good knowledge about birds..... For the next two hours we roam around spotting various birds...
Our first catch is the "snake bird". It has a long neck like a snake... After that many more... Hairons, eagles, various varities of ducks , stoks, and more (i dont remember all the names). We also spot a migratory bird locally named "Brahmin bird" for its saffron color. Most of the birds we see are water birds coz we see only the "Marshland" area of the park. The "dryland" is the other extreme side and we are told there are not many birds there this time of the year. We realize God has not created just "one" beautiful being on this earth... :)

Boat ride..
After roaming for around 2 hours, we free our guide and decide to go for the boat trip. A small canal flowing admist the trees... Comparisons range from a "naala" to "kerala's backwaters".. whatever it was.. it was beautiful... we take a boat... one that is driven using a bamboo stick... All of us even try our hands at becoming a naavik... but probably only chaitanya can choose it as a career... With that awesome experience we end our park adventure.

Return back to hotel..
At around 11:30, we return back to our hotel rooms. And then the discussions .. what to do next... Available options are Fatehpur sikri, Tajmahal, Agra fort and Matura temples... After few inconsiquential discussions, we decide that we will visit Fatehpur sikri fort and after that the ones on the car will head to delhi while the bikers would stop at Mathura (which as expected.. they later dropped.. :)

Off to Fatehpur Sikri..
We leave at around 12:30 and around 1:15 we reach Fatehpur. All of us are hungry and sit for lunch at a local small restaurant... After a heavy meal we head to visit the fort. We hire a guide as well.. a boy aged around 15. He tells us about the buland darwaaza, chisti's dargaah, the tunnel from agra to delhi, the mosque, the place built of principles of din-e-elahi, the seven doored corridoor...... A walk down the Mughal era is always interesting....

Back to Noida..
Finally we head to delhi... all tired, sleepy... wondering (and fearing to a small extent) how would jp drive now... But i must say Kudos to jp... he probably never even yawned and ensured we all reach back noida safe and sound...

Young blood's first outing ... Great success... !!! And surely not the last...

I have created this space to pen down all my travelling adventures. I hope i keep this alive both by travelling a lot, and then by avoiding the procrastination and writing my experiences down... :)