Traveblogs

Masinagudi

2006-08-31T05:01:00.000-07:00

"...Road trippin' with my two favorite allies

Fully loaded we got snacks and supplies
It's time to leave this town
It's time to steal away
Let's go get lost..."
- Road Trippin, Red Hot Chili Peppers

Dilettante, Crocodile and I drove down to Masinagudi last weekend. Masinagudi is a small town in the Mudumalai hills. It's in Tamil Nadu, and the forest is basically a continuation of the better known Bandipur forest on this side of the border, in Karnataka.

Dilettante has a short post with photographs which does a good job of outlining our exploits (or lack of them). I'm posting my pictures here.

This was where we stayed. It was by a canal/river kind of thing, which was nice to laze by at sunset (below)

We went on numerous rides in the jungle on the jeeps looking for animals. We didn't see much except deer and birds and stuff. But the jungle was nice, with muddy brooks all over the place.

We also spotted a wild male tusker, which was a scary experience. Will post pictures when Crocodile gets his snaps developed etc. Masinagudi is a small one-road town, though.

How-to-get-there and other touristy information: The best way to get there is by road. First take the "Infrastructure Corridor" to Mysore. From Mysore, get on the road to Nanjangud, and just keep driving, and you'll reach Bandipur. Keep driving, and you'll reach Masinagudi. It's difficult to miss it. Keep driving further, and you'll get the steeper road to Ooty, with the 36 hairpin bends. As far as animal sightings go, I feel that Bandipur is a better bet than Mudumalai, though. Just my opinion. Masinagudi has many lodges and resorts which will cater to your stay and subsequent entertainment.

Warszawa's 'Old Town': Photoblog.

2006-07-20T05:07:00.000-07:00

Amidst my messing up with the camera on a recent trip, some snaps from Warsaw survived. I'm posting a selection, from an evening spent at Warsaw's 'Old Town', a most quaint and engaging place.

Most of the snaps were taken well after seven in the evening, since it's summer there. I used a 5 Megapixel Canon Powershot.

Naruwan Taiwan

2006-06-24T03:07:00.000-07:00

Never had been to a Chinese country that enjoyed unfettered democratic freedom.

The change was heralded by this

I like the way that letter ended , those last 3 words are used time and again by foreigners to best describe the quirks of that country and its colourful parliament.(Check this 1 , 2, 3 )

..and some grand freedom too , even in proud-of-freedom India or Bush country , I doubt if a protest wouldve been allowed right at the main entrance to the Hotel

...but hey , it was not without some supervision

...and some photo ops for Tourist brethren from less free Chinese lands .
Tamasha.Cheese.Click.

Given that approach to dissent , the news media has a ball.
Not sure if Indian media has yet reached this level of Frenzy.(Aye! to the Gents 1 , 2)
Every little restaurant/shop/barber who has a TV is glued to breaking news...no matter if its been broken to smithereens by 48 hours coverage.
In Taipei, News is King . Solpa contrast to pelvic grinding Jhankar in Indian small shop TV.

TV graphics on steroids

President Chen Shui Bian is facing a recall motion thanks to his wife trying to sell SOGO(ala Shoppers Stop) discount vouchers worth millions - new frontiers in under the table innovation.... and the media milked it.

...complete with flow charts

... and you know the media is doing more than its job when you have question marks and exclamation spicing headlines

..which might be alright if we are talking political scam. But speed limits?

...or a panel discussion with a dentist??

...and, yeah - I tripped on the blazing colours, sensationalism and Chinese dissent.

But this tendecny to cram every inch of eyeball real estate goes beyond Television, evidence this chinki chaat stall

Its probably no coincidence those TV screens remind one of Japanese TV games.
The Japanese cultural Armada has shaped a large slice of Taiwanese conscious...and street signage

Which leads to outdoor innvovations like this building(not an exception at all)
in downtown Taipei

Keep Gaping.

But there sure is more to this nation of 20 million.

I expected a Hong Kong/Singapore like aam junta disposition , and as anal as customers can be about procedure and precision , I found the people quite chilled out , unhurried and garrulous. Taxi drivers entertained me with their barrage of mandarin to encourage my spartan knowledge of that fascinating tongue.

..and to satisfy the famed Chinese libido , the city is peppered with Love Hotels . Complete with 24 hrs inhouse porn channels.

..and with Computex Taipei on and all hotels full,and while I lounged here , one of my colleagues solpa bent company policy by shacking in one of those .
If he did care to find out what Room Service meant in a hotel like that , he kept it to himself.

This is whats called a truly national beer.

.... much as this bird tries to paint itself in the colours of the Chinese Opera

I used to trip no-end on that Famous Grouse TV ad.

...and ofcourse no visit to a Chinese city is complete without guffawing at the Ingwen

Check it the guy inside , making a point as a Frenchie would in a Parisian Cafe.
As popular as golf is in East Asia, my guess is more business is carried out in Massage parlours than on the greens.

Meanwhile at Shihlin Night market -
Dear God! We have a situation , Consumerism is in overdrive.

...and I'm a selling the values on this T-Shirt

... and there are five Starbucks and seven 7-11's within 5 mins walk of each other

But then again , theres also street food to die for..

..and wash it down with some Chinese Tea ( thats now cosy with Japanese heating technology)

...or some bitter gourd and carrot juice

...yeah thats bitter gourd on the left , fat as fat cucumber and the colour of a ripe guava.

...but also Dear God ,look , heres a Cat striking a pose

...and Ray Charles is Smiling ... so maybe its still OK

Chinese Ray chose a vertical keyboard , probably because,back in the day , Chinese was written right to left and top down.As this vertical menu attests

On the 30min commute , often times saw stalls with bright lights and sultry women , on enquiry they turned out to be Ping-lang chi-tsi. Its never Ping-lang nuihai(Betel Nut woman) ,its always Ping-lang chi-tsi, like if we'd say Yeley Adke Apsarae

Imagined the stall back in the day when mini-skirts were unknown in China , a geisha with a red-tongue .

Much like the Indian association of beeda with sensuality....remember ? Khushboo in Nattamai jiving to 'Kotta paakaum..kozhundu vettalyaum..pottal vayyy sevakkum' ...buahahahaha

Anyway ...these bright neon lights are on every street in Taipei .The economics support that number , a pack of 7 little beedas , the size of a large bubble gum costs about Rs.70 .
And so the clientele spends more on Betel nut than does the average chain smoker on ciggies...and it has a cult following on the night-club circuit.

Reminded me of the days in school when we'd hoard up on Bambaiya from Friends Stores during the lunch break.

Ofcourse , I had to try some pinglang , and stopped by that chi-tsi above .

The Taxi driver warned me its addictive . I ventured forth boldly.
...and as I savored the juices , our friendly taxi driver went onto describe how a famed local fraudster not unlike Harshad Mehta , was sentenced to 10years in jail and the terms of confinement included only 20mintues a day outside the cell for a walk in the prison yard. Devout ping-lang chewer that he was, he pleaded that he be given ping-lang in exchange for giving-up the 20min a day walk.
Thats Stranger than Camus.

...and last, the place that served some kickass Taro bubble tea and reminded me to blog this.

Cross posted at Makyo Verandah

PhotoBlog - Around Colorado

2006-06-20T09:06:00.000-07:00

@ Garden of the Gods

Ever seen a double rainbow?

@ The Balancing Rock

Storm ahead - on the way to Denver

Afternoon in Cipanas

2006-06-12T09:37:00.000-07:00

Having deferred my grand plans of doing a Michael Palin , first filming and then writing Sahara , I make my first post with pics from Circa 15 months ago.

Cipanas is a tea garden town outside Bandung,Indonesia.
Bandung is 2 hours from Jakarta on a freeway which can be a parking lot on weekends and public holidays.

Thanks to outpourings from the active volcano - Tangkuban Perahu, its a 'hill station' with a to-die-for weather.

Theres a perennial nip in the air , much like Bangalore's pre-monsoon breeze.

If Bangalore had the SAARC summit in 1988 and forgot about it,
Bandung had its Asia Africa summit in 1957 and to this day , children are named Asia Africa.
Apparently, Nehru did his thing there and laid the groundwork for the Non Aligned Movement.

Pic above: Road to the airport lined for Asia Africa Redux

Anyway , Bandung is a charming city .
Famed for its factory outlets,steamed Brownies and Sundanese food . Its a memorable place.

Weekend drive down to Cipanas yielded some..

# Solpa like Mannina Ooru

# Made with Clove - Gudang Garam.

# Green is the colour.

Until I was 10 , lived in a house where we and the neighbour each had Guava trees , the fruit of the neighbours tree was the best. They thought our was.
All those who trip on pink guavas - say Aye.

# Chettiar Bommai - 2 thumbs up

# Rice

# Back after shopping

# Chaiyeeeee, Chaiyeee
Soooda...chaiyeee

# White riding hood

# Susu - Bahasa for Milk

# Bubble de dum

# Tilt

#

The minds eye keeps more than a picture.

Colorado Springs - PhotoBlog 1

2006-05-20T15:34:00.000-07:00

During Sunrise

2006-04-29T03:20:00.000-07:00

This one's exclusively a sunrise post. I also had some shots of the Mahabs beach under a full moon, but cameras on phones aren't up to catching those too good. (Reminder to buy a real camera)

Some Snaps

2006-04-27T08:23:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos I took with my phone earlier this year, when I did Mahabalipuram with family. There's a text part to it, which will follow shortly (Watch this space)

This reminds me of some painting, Van Gogh, I think..

The main Mahabalipuram beach

The Shore Temple (Check out full moon rising)

Dead Turtle.

A stern warning

There's a series of snaps of a sunrise following this...

Lothal

2006-04-07T23:33:00.000-07:00

Wikipedia's entry of the day made me do this. Anand, Gogo, Marcus forgive me if I reveal more than I should.

On a cold day in December, we decided to go Lothal. No, actually, the decision was made here in Mumbai on December 21st, when it was warm, but I would not belabour the point.

(Many people have asked us why we decided to go to Lothal. The answer is simple. Because it was there in our minds and in Lonely Planet. We were planning a road-trip across Gujarat starting from Mumbai (Tamara, if you are reading this, I promise to write about it for you soon). Everybody had a dream place they could suggest on the way from Mumbai to Diu. Bad idea. For here's what three of us chose: Silvassa, Lothal and Ahmedabad. Thankfully, Anand chose Alang, which he writes about here.)

Marcus chose Ahmedabad for our trip because he would get a bus back from there to Mumbai. We chose Silvassa and Lothal because we had read about them in school, in class 6th Geography (India and its states) and History (Ancient India).

Silvassa with its dam and lion park is another story. So are Bassein, Surat, Baroda, Bhavnagar, Alang, Diu, Somnath, Rajkot, Wankaner and Ahmedabad. This is about Lothal. Which Gogo chose.

The image that you see right on top is, what Wikipedia calls, 'Ancient Lothal as envisaged by the Archaeological Survey of India'. Good sense, Wiki has. For this is nothing like what is there at the moment. But let me not rush into the story.

The story begins at a railway station in Baroda. 3 of us had reached there around 10 pm from Surat and thus didn't want to check into a hotel for the night. Hence, we went to sleep on the station itself. Anand being Anand captured the moments for posterity. The camera was shaking because it was cold.

Me sleeping at Baroda Station

We woke up at 4:30 am, when Marcus arrived from Bombay. One glass of tea each and we were ready for Lothal. "Why Lothal?" Marcus asked. That wasn't the last of questions we asked ourselves.

We went to the train ticket counter and asked.
"Bhai saab, Lothal kaise jaaayen?" (Brother, how do we go to Lothal?)
"Kya chahiye - hotel?" (What do you want - hotel?)
"Hotel nahin, Lothal." (Hotel no, Lothal yes)
"Woh kya hai?" (What is that?)
"Jagah hai, puraane zamaane ka" (It's a place, from ancient times)
"Is time to nahin milega." (You won't find it at this time)
"Nahin, nahin, aap galat samjhe, Lothal jaana hai." (No, no. We want to go to Lothal)
"Woh kahan hai kya, yeh to bataiye?" (Where is that?, at least tell me that)
"Yeh hum jaante to aapke paas kyun aate?" (sarcastic reply)
"Time mat waste kijiye. Aapke peeche aur bhi log hain." (Don't waste my time. There are more people behind you)

So, we went away. Took out the map and tried to figure it out ourselves. Now, if you have noticed the map of Gujarat, it has the Gulf of Khambat nudging into its armpit. The map revealed that we were almost on one side of the Gulf and Lothal on the other. To complicate things further, there was no reassuring line (road) connecting the two. "Sriharikota, we had a problem."

So, we went to the Oracle. The bus conductor, at the bus station. And got a sense of deja vu, when we were asked, "Woh kya hai, hotel?"
We showed him the map.
"Wahan to koi gaadi nahin jaati hai" (Nothing goes there.. for good reason)
"Par humein jaana hai" (But we have to go)
"OK, yeh bus leke Nadiad chale jaiye. Woh is jagah ke paas lag rahi hai. Wahan se dekh lijiye." Sound advice. Draw a straight line on the map. Reach the closest intersection point - Nadiad. Figure out things from there.

Now that I look back, the world was trying to tell us something. But we refused to listen. Gogo mentioned Silvassa (which I chose) under his breath.

Hence, we boarded a rickety bus to Nadiad. We hoped that we will find something to go to Lothal, there. Not a chance.

It was bone-freezing cold when we landed. It was also ghostly and empty. The three other people who had done the one hour journey to Nadiad had mysteriously disappeared. There was no one to ask but the same bus conductor. He found a boy behind the bus station (three walls in the middle of nowhere). The bright boy told us to make our way to Dholka (using the same geometrical principles and the map).

Dholka seemed to be the place to be. For mysteriously, a three wheeler called Vikram appeared. It was going to Dholka. We climbed in. Anand took another photograph. That's me in the corner of the photographs, with the gloves on.

Inside a Vikram

In the excitement and in the freezing cold, we forgot that we were going to Lothal. Reaching Dholka seemed good enough as of now. We wanted to scream. A whistle came out. It was that cold.

Soon, we were in Dholka. With nothing to do. If we thought Nadiad was as unremarkable as a place can get, then Dholka was singularly underwhelming. Nothing again. Mental note of not taking straight lines on the map was made. If we had to reach a point of no return, then this was it. And we had a stray dog for company.

We tried to bribe the Vikram person to drop us at Lothal or anywhere else, for that matter. He obviously had no clue and even less interest. We started walking. It was a long way to Lothal. We soon turned lucky though. Another Vikram was passing by and would drop us close by. For 200 bucks. Anything.

We crossed a couple of small farm-shanties on the way. This obviously was no tourist spot which was surprising since Lothal's probably the only large Indus Valley Settlement in India. At the very least you would expect a dhaba. Maybe it was too early in the day (it was 8), but we couldn't even find a small tea-shop anywhere.

The Vikram passed by a remnant of a brick kiln. This was exciting, as at least it looked like someone in the near past had decided to make some productive use of the land. There was also what looked like a bus stop close by. The Vikram stopped.

"Yahi pe utar jao" (Get down here)
"Kyun?" (Why?) We had not been particulary nasty about the countryside. Even if we were, we were paying him a lot of money and thus, he shouldn't protest.
"Yahi hai Lothal" This is Lothal.

What? No Great Bath. No Granary. No Dancing Girl statue. Not a protected monument site. Nothing. Just a few bricks laid out in a row. This trip was turning out way too minimalist for our taste.I had not felt this anti-climatic since I saw the MonaLisa at the Louvre.

ASI envisaging notwithstanding, Lothal was a small (100 metres square, maybe) patch of land with a few bricks laid out in a row, one pond on one side and an unused well. All of which were new. The bricks said "ASI, 1965" and "ASI, 1980". Plus, there was a bus stop and a large warehouse which was locked. Later on this warehouse turned out to be the museum, but I am getting too far ahead.

Since, there was nothing really to do in this stupid brickyard, we wandered off to the pond a little bit ahead. At least the blue water was nice. Looking at its smallish size, I claimed that it was the Great Bath. I remembered the photo from the same Class 6th book that was responsible for all of this. I was wrong. That tiny sliver of water which was smaller than the swimming pool at school, was the Dock.

Somewhere I had read that the Lothal harbour could be compared to the Vizag port. If that is true, then it is also true that the Headman's house at Lothal can be compared to Westminister Abbey. Both pictures below.

That bath-tub is the Dock.
That is the palace of the headman.

We had nothing to do in this wasteland. So, we headed off to downtown. Lower Town was defined by the blue board. Lower Town could maximum have had five houses. Or the men were two feet tall. The chances of any night-life were thin. So, we moved on. The only excitement came when we posed around the pool and pretended to be a boy-band. That's how bad it was.

Downtown Lothal

Besides posing, we tried to find other things to do. Anand even tried to find the real ruins within those bushes. None of us had any luck. Having said that the day did brighten up a little when a Japanese traveller arrived. It was almost expected. Who else but the most intrepid traveller would find his way here? Bongs, Gujaratis and Japanese*. The traveller tried to take a few pics. Even he gave up soon. For Lothal is a place which deserves to be written off the map of India (actually, it already is) and the history books. There is no sense of history nor is it travel-friendly. I have gone to some really uninteresting places on my travels across India and Europe (on work and on leisure), but Lothal was the worst of the lot.

In the end, how do I close this travelogue? Well, I will let the expression on our faces tell the story.

Men contemplating Lothal.

Read this for an alternate view of the site. It's all false.

*Two of were Bongs, it was Gujarat and the traveller was Japanese.

Cross-posted at 22nd floor.

Falstaff meets the Pacific

2006-03-28T00:18:00.000-08:00

Falstaff, our superhero* goes and discovers Washington and meets the Pacific.

"As the sun goes down, the sky is bathed in gold, with great swathes of purple cloud drifting across. The rock formations around us seem ossified and timeless, set in an endless twilight of stone, trapped in the shapes of their sorrow. I think of Lot's wife. As the sun vanishes and the sea gleams in waves of gold, these rocks are the only thing that can resist reaching out to the sunset, going forward to the very edge of the tide to try and touch the glory of the sky at dusk. Here at last is the moment made timeless, and I begin to finally understand the vision, the intuition that drove Yeats to write Byzantium. Here it is - the dolphin torn, the gong tormented sea, here are the golden smithies of the Emperor breaking their flood, here is the flame "that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit, nor storm disturbs". In this shining, spectacular instant all you have to do is to open your heart to the distance in order to fully experience the majesty of the Pacific, its ageless, immutable presence. That this is the high point of the trip is unquestionable, just watching the changing colours of the sky and the shoreline would have ensured that."

Read on if you want to plan a trip in his footsteps.

*this term is under trademark and thus I can't use this in the title. But I couldn't call him what Boingboing wants me to call him

Niagara

2006-03-20T21:19:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid, I used to hear about Niagara in references to some magic trick or the other - magicians bound in chains jumping off and getting free miraculously. And the Maid of the Mist and the yellow raincoats!

So when my parents shifted to Toronto, I got an excuse to travel to that part of the world. My first trip was in July 2005. Middle of summer. Canadians living it up, the few months of summer they get. Clear blue skies (which is such a contrast from winters - will get to that too), warm sunshine on your back. Sometimes as warm as back here in India. Best part about a new place is if you have old friends. Shaun Mehta. My old friend who had come on exchange to India and we kept in touch ever since. He plays the part of an immaculate host superbly. Took me around town. We talked. and then he offered to drive me down to Niagara. It sounded good and my brother tagged along too.

If you are driving from Toronto to Niagara it should take you around 110 km (from Mississauga) which is around 1 hour and 30 minutes by car. You would need to take the 403W to Hamilton (around 8km) after which you would need to travel 24 km on 407 ETR W which would lead to the QEW ramp to Niagara. Keep going on this for 70 km and you should be there. You would pass the towns of Grimsby, St. Catherines The best place to park is just opposite the entry for the Caves; you cross the falls on your left.

The first thing that hits you when you walk to the railings is the spray. The good kind which makes you smile. We were grinning at eachother as we got wet. Made me remember when I was a kid, coming back from school, walking in the rain. It was a nice feeling. This tops it. And the noise. Some serious tonnes of water going over. How things like these transfix us, I don't know! Shaun suggested that we do the caves instead of the Maid of the Mist as according to him, its much better. So we nodded and got our tickets.

Tip: As soon as you land up there, and want to do either the Caves or Maid of the Mist, buy your tickets as usually it'll be anywhere 3-5 hours before your turn comes. In those 3-5 hours, walk around, go to Clifton Hill, get some coffee or some beer at the Hard Rock Cafe. Its a nice place to walk around and explore. If you are a WWE fan, theres a retail store on Clifton Hill you might want to check out.

When our time came, we trooped down this serpentine queue where you go down the stairs and pick up your personal yellow raincoats (basically a polythene sheet to put over yourself). There are 3 areas in the cave to explore (if I remember correctly). The best is the deck where when you step out, the falls are on your right gushing down furiously. Awesome. Only someone who's been there can understand what I'm talking about! Spend as much time here because its an out-of-the-world experience.

When I was back there during the winter with Sunil on Christmas day, the falls were a different sight. A pretty picture. Ice everywhere. White. But the spray still hits you. So come prepared with a jacket unless you wanna freeze to death after getting wet. And get one with a hood. Leather gloves are preferable. In the evening they shine colored lights on the falls.

You should try and do both the summer and winter trips if possible. But at least one. Then you would know what you had been missing!

Remixed

2006-03-17T19:08:00.000-08:00

The following is an article I wrote for a magazine sometime last year. It derives from two different trips to the same place. The first was with dhoomketu sometime in 2004, and the second was with a four friends on New Year's Eve, 2005.

Sand in My Shoes

It takes a certain kind of determination to turn one’s back on the establishment to minimise revelry and hit the sack early on New Years Eve. It takes a little more than that to wake up at five in the morning on New Years Day and make one’s groggy way to the Gateway of India to catch the first ferry to Alibag. The moral high ground from which one looks upon the remnants of a festive Mumbai night does little to please my sceptical fellow travellers.

The first ferry leaves at six from Gateway, and we make our way to the upper deck of the Nazia. The bracing sea air, the imperfect chill in the air, and the gathering light join hands and set about attempting to affirm the fact that this was actually a good idea. The ninety-minute crossing across the bay seems like much less, with the island of Elephanta, assorted ocean-liners and the occasional fishing boat all passing us by at a leisurely pace, setting down the leitmotif of the weekend.

The short bus-ride to Alibag has us warming-up to the salty air. The city and its various lures are readily forgotten. The small but busy coastal town has little in store for us weekend road-trippers. We wait in the bus-stand for the next State Transport bus that will take us southwards down the coast.

Most of the two-hour journey to Murud is spent staring out of the window in wonder. This is an awe-inspiring drive around half-hour out of Alibag. The highway makes its unhurried way between the hills and the sea. There are places where the highway is barely ten metres from the high-tide line, while gently sloping hill and dale commence immediately on the other side.

Murud is yet another quaint little coastal town, with a significant weekend crowd, recent tidal disasters notwithstanding. The palace of the Siddi king, atop a hill just before the town begins, looks interesting. But it’s private property, not for tourists. The town and its unobtrusive beach do not excite really. Its narrow lanes are animated with an equal mix of weekenders and townsfolk. We decide to move on, piling into an auto-rickshaw that proceeds along the same road, towards Janjira. “It’s just two hills away sa’ab”, the smiling driver informs.

Twenty minutes later, the auto groans around the bend that reveals Janjira fort, and the vision proceeds to place itself into our minds forever. Standing proud amidst crashing waves is a majestic fort in the water, roughly a kilometre from the coast. The imposing sight from high up in the hills looking down on the tiny town and large fort reminds our shutterbug of his mission, and he makes good time with his equipment.

We reach the little jetty and pay our twenty-rupee fare. An entire tourism economy of vendors and peddlers thrust everything from potato chips to soft drink at us as we pile into the crowded sailboat, which is frighteningly low in the water. Riyaz the smiling boatman doubles up as resident guide, and proceeds to narrate the proud history of the 16^th century Siddi fort, which took a century and half to build, and was never conquered since. Janjira is a mangled form of Zizera, Arabic for island, we learn. The sailboat pitches and rolls, as we drift surprisingly quickly towards the impending monument.

We wet most of our lower halves getting into the small entrance of the fort at the uncomfortable makeshift jetty. The architectural marvel, however, is impressive. The impregnability of the fort makes itself readily known. Salim, in the meanwhile, regales us with the tale of the deception of Perim Khan and his two Abyssinian followers who entered the fisherman’s makeshift island fort as traders. After plying their hosts with sufficient wine, they captured the island and kick-started the construction of the fort. The Kalal Bangadi, an eighteen feet long cannon with eight-foot diameter, was built to impress, and it does such duty with pride.

The dilapidated queen’s quarters, more large guns, steep turrets and green stagnant bathing pools do their rounds. Our guide proudly points at the wreck of Shivaji’s descendant Sambaji’s attempt at a rival fort, further testimony to our bastion’s powers of defence. We wish to see the underground tunnel below the sea that leads back to the town of Janjira. No one really knows where it is, says Salim. It’s been years since it was used. “But it really exists”, we are reminded. Hunger coaxes us away back to the waiting sailboat.

You must eat at Patel’s Inn in Murud, everyone replies. Patel’s affirms the faith the populace have in it, and does well to reinforce our belief in coastal cuisine. The place is packed all through the lunch hours on weekends, and we’re lucky to get a table within ten minutes. The open-air feel below thick foliage, simple décor, and quick service reinforce the cooking, making it a popular choice. The limited bill of fare makes our order an obvious one. The best idea is a full meal (chicken, fish or crab) supplemented with one or more of the side dishes. Fried Prawn, Surmai curry compete with kokum juice and soul curry for attention. The well-worked appetites make room for all and more. The cooking is predominantly malwani, in keeping with the rest of the coastline. The seafood, expectedly, is very fresh.

After some post-lunch deliberation, we take another auto-rickshaw back up the coastal highway to Kashid, our last stop for this weekend. Kashid is a simple fishing village, barely a few square miles wide. The highway is less than a kilometre from the waterline; silvery sand and palm trees cover the intermediate portion. The compact little village is on right on the other side of the road.

Kashid’s beach tops off the weekend in style. Everyone and everything is on the same languid plane of consciousness. It is a beautiful world, one is gently reminded. Hammocks are quickly settled into, while the sun takes her time to down the lights. One eminently cinematic sunset and too many bun-omelettes later, we head back to the silent village, and turn-in for the night.

The plan for day two is obvious. The hammocks on the beach beckon, and are obliged as soon as is humanly possible on a Sunday morning. The sea is not rough, and the temperature is just right to laze about in the water. We walk the entire two-odd kilometre gentle curve of the beach, ogling wistfully at the row of picturesque beach houses, a stone’s throw from the water’s edge. We reach the end of the beach, where a tiny picture-perfect creek pours out into the sea.

There are a reasonable number of weekend getter-aways from Mumbai on the beach today. A group of European families arrive in their station wagons, and set up picnic table under the palms. The children jump readily into the water. The beachside shacks serve up a restricted, yet sufficient assortment of refreshment.

The delightful weekend draws to a gradual close. We decide to avoid the buses and use the auto-rickshaws back to Alibag. The open mode of conveyance is ideal for the ride, the bracing sea air being better accessible. There is a change of vehicle at an intermediate town. The soporific Sunday sunshine, and insistent waves cajole us to stay, or at the very least, return.

Songs of the Road

2006-03-16T05:08:00.000-08:00

"That's one thing about my life; it has a great soundtrack", said Roddy Doyle in The Woman who Walked into Doors. Similar affliction affects my friend, Falstaff, who has a soundtrack to his Vermont trip. Served with cookies, dal, biryani and various other assortments that he had across the way. Do read anytime you have a weekend off and are wondering what to do in New York.

"Further north, we stop at a sweet little roadside bakery, pick up fresh scones and cookies (and some of the best Cappucino I've had in a long time). The stereo is playing Bismillah Khan. The shehnai swoops and peaks with the control of a true master; as we listen, the music takes over, we close our eyes, hang suspended in its shrill, swooning universe, in the endless labyrinth of its variations."

Consider the following paragraph, which captures Beethoven and biryani (though I must remind Falstaff that chicken biryani is like chicken sausages or IMFL, completely full of falsehood and non-deserving of a place in your exquisite tummy.)

"Consider strangling V and T when they finally arrive, Beethoven blaring blithely from the car stereo. Actually start to pull out belt of raincoat as they wax eloquent about awesome South Indian meal they had and which, it seems, was the reason for their delay. Then discover that they've brought me some food. Thoughts of homicide disappear amid loud munching sounds from the back seat as I make steady progress through a monster helping of chicken biryani. It's a robust and bracing biryani, the kind where the cook believes that liberal quantities of chilli powder are a valid substitute for more delicate seasoning. Half way through the meal I discover that V and T haven't bothered to bring any water. My mouth is burning with the spice. I consider sticking my tongue out of the window. I think I may have abandoned the strangling idea too hastily. Then I make the important discovery that the best way to deal with spicy food is to have more of it, thus temporarily drowning out the burning sensation."

Do pay a visit to Falstaff, a fellow traveller, if there ever was one!!

Venice by Dawn

2006-03-14T22:03:00.000-08:00

Come after the summer’s over, come on a weekday and come early in the morning – was the advice an Italian I knew gave me when I told him that I am going to Venice. That was our best chance of catching Venice, instead of watching millions of Japanese with camera-wearing eyes and Americans with trainer-weary feet.

Since the advice seemed reasonable, I and two of my friends found myself getting off an overnight train at Mestre at five-thirty in the morning during our week-long Italy trip on a November morning, going towards the most serene of cities. 15 minutes and another train later, we got out of Santa Lucia station in Venice, trying to figure out how to reach Grand Canal and St. Mark’s square fast. However, no one was around in that dark hour and we decided to walk out to the bus station. On the Grand Canal.

Now, findings canals in Venice is as expected for a traveler as snake charmers in India (thankfully, not as hard to find). Yet, it is difficult not to react when you look past an ordinary looking bus-stop and catch the first sliver of water shrouded in a light mist. We let out a few whoops instantly.

We had to wait a bit for our first vaporetto (the famous number 1, which goes round the Canal) and struck up a conversation with John, a Brit living in Milan, who was here for a day. He wanted to capture the morning light off the lagoon and take a few pictures of San Giorgio Maggiore before the tourists made the city look ‘appalling’.

Now, however, it was dark and city didn’t look anything at all. Which according to a lot of people who have come here, isn’t bad. The houses which are worn-down at the edges (all of them are) and the dark canals look dirty to them. The same people turn up their nose at old towns that are not treated with a coat of varnish every year. However, John and I had no problems with the melancholy. The noise of the approaching bus shook the mood out though.

Right then, child-like excitement of being in Venice and catching a waterbus gave way to wonder. Silvery mist which had hung around the canal turned to pale gold, as the light and the bus arrived at the same time. As the bus started winding past the lovely classical buildings piled one after the other, we took the best seats at the bow.

Thankfully, the bus moves slowly allowing the eyes to take in all. Just as you notice Ca’d’Oro, with pink walls, does the Rialto bridge decide to take over. The bridge made in 1500s by Antonio Da Ponte (whose last name means Bridge) has enough space below for boats to pass and enough shops on it for it to become the centre for souvenir hunters. Right now, however, all the shopping was happening on the fish and vegetable market on its bank. In the morning light, the fish looked lilac and gold.

As the light grew in the morning sky, the mist, which had shrouded the statuettes on the corners and the carvings above the doors, gave way. As we looked ahead at the Venice’s city hall, made in the 12^th Century, the city was coming to life. And John became suddenly worried that the sun would have removed the fuzziness that Monet saw when he peered across the lagoon at San Giorgio on Castello island and started taking pictures of the multitude of palaces and buildings on the banks.

He need not have worried. Just as we passed Galleria del’Accademia on our left, did the Santa Maria della Salute appear. Resplendent in the salmon light, the massive church built in 1682 as a dedication to Virgin Mary, looked like a gatekeeper. Just besides the church, the Canal melts into St. Mark’s basin and as we passed the misty outpost, we were torn between the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s palace), the bell tower and the basilica on the right and an eerily similar San Giorgio (with its own domes and bell towers) on our left.

As we were going to St. Mark’s square anyway, we decided to side with John and looked out into the mist towards the beautiful island. Soon, our vaporetto gave a hoot signaling St. Mark’s.

It was almost seven when we sat down in the middle of the ‘most beautiful drawing room’ in the world – the St. Mark’s Square. Sharing the space with us were a few locals and lots of pigeons.

The coffee tables were just being laid and the four copper horses in St. Mark’s basilica looked out into empty space. Just above the horses, the culmination of styles marked by Byzantine domes presented a contrast to the Doge’s palace. The palace actually looks like a brick warehouse, supported by delicate stone arches. The bell tower, from which criminals and heretics used to hang for days in cages, completed the curios brew. The sun was just behind St. Mark’s and we decided to rest there, looking at the sky grow lighter.

We closed our eyes for a bit. Suddenly, we were surrounded by noise of pattering feet. We were in the middle of the invasion. American old men and Japanese groups had taken over, forming lines to enter the basilica and climb the tower. The seats would not be empty for some time. Sellers of gondolier’s hats were setting shop.

It was seven-thirty and for a couple of hours, Venice had lived up to its name of the most serene one. It won’t be the same again, whole day.

I wrote this for an Indian travel magazine in December, 2004. The trip still stays fresh.

Travelling light

2006-03-13T22:15:00.000-08:00

Thats something most of us have not been able to master. I would love to do with only one bag but I often end up carrying other people's stuff. Ok, thats something I can't help. But if you are looking at ways to figure out what to take, maximise space and pack well and as such travel light, you might want to visit OneBag.

They claim to offer exhaustive (some might say exhausting) detail on the art of travelling light, living for an indefinite period of time out of a single (carryon-sized) bag.

Get wise, get light!

Missing the Mardi Gras

2006-03-13T18:28:00.000-08:00

The Plan: Fly to Chicago on Friday evening, meet a couple of friends, then drive out to St. Louis early Saturday morning in time for the Mardi Gras parade. Stay overnight in St. Louis, drive back Sunday morning. See the city (if you can ever see a city in one evening) on Sunday. Fly back early Monday morning and head straight to work.

The Problem: Meeting friends on a Friday evening, and expecting to drink sufficiently little that evening to wake up sufficiently early the next morning.

The Reality:

R wakes up at 6, as planned, and begs, grovels, for an extra hour's sleep. Since he's going to drive, and since we're all in the same shape as he is (but too dignified to beg), we aquiesce.

R wakes up at 7, and begs for another hour. We agree to half an hour.

By the time we're all ready, it's 8:30. After stops to buy coffee and food and for smokes, we reach St. Louis finally at 2:30 p.m. The parade is over, and only its junk remains - debris from the floats, broken beads on the ground. We settle for being tourists, go up in tiny steel cubicles to the top of St. Louis' arch. The view is strangely disappointing, as the trip has been so far. As must be, when strangers decide to be friends taking a trip together somewhere. Starving after no meals throughout the day, there is, really, only one option: alcohol.

The TrainWreck:
We walk into "TrainWreck" - a restaurant / pub / nightclub, and things begin to get happy. Copious amounts of beer and vodka are consumed, happy people at the next table join us, and we all get up and dance (around the tables, thankfully, and not on them), and exchange phone numbers. S calls from Delhi, and I speak to him for half an hour, but have no idea what we spoke about the next day - I only have a vague memory of using the F word fairly often.

R wants to drink on the way back, so I drive back part of the way on Sunday. Open roads, miles of nothing all around, wonderful driving. R plays DJ, inserting CDs and going ga-ga over some song before losing patience and skipping to the next one, till we are at the end of our tether. (It is annoying, when singing along loudly and tunelessly with Billy Joel, to suddenly find oneself singing loudly and tunelessly on one's own while the CD searches for the next track.)

The Madness:
Chicago is big, and R doesn't know his way around yet. But we manage to find our way to a comedy club, where there are some decent performances, then onto downtown Chicago. As we drive around, R, who can barely see straight by this point, shrieks at us desparately to keep our eyes open. "Quick, what's that road? what's that road? Is it Michigan?" "We're on Michigan already, aren't we?", I ask, poking my head out of the window to check. "Shit. OK, so is it Congress Parkway?" And so we navigate on.

The Sight-Seeing:
And so, if you visit Chicago, let me recommend that you see (based on my somewhat unconventional tour, which comprised coming across things more by accident than design, and my even more unconventional and somewhat pickled tour guide who made up for his lack of information with liberal doses of scorn, alternating with careless inventiveness) the Millennium Park (which we saw from a distance, and which, as per R, "has some structures and shit"), the famous Chicago theatre (which is "famous for some shit") and the Magnificent Mile (a mile of road on Michigan avenue, famous for shopping, but with some old architecture that is interesting). The Millennium Park, R says, letting go of the steering wheel and gesturing grandly with his arms to the near-detriment of the car in front of us, is the biggest park in the US. P and I both look suspiciously at him. "Bigger than Central Park?" "Oh, Shentral Park!" says our guide, "yeah, that might be bigger. OK, sho it'sh the shecond largesht." Moments later, he tells us that Chicago's Hard Rock Cafe is the second oldest in the US. A moment of thought, while we just look at him suspiciously. "I jusht made that up", he tells us proudly. "Do you even know this city?", I ask him. "Not really", he says in rare moment of honesty, following it up immediately with another whopper. But to do him credit, he does find his way to the House of Blues (where we missed B B King playing the previous night), entirely by the hit-or-miss method of "that looksh short of familiar, let'sh go that way", and eventually does manage to find his way back home.

The Epilogue:
I sleep through the ride to the airport the next morning, and all the way back on the flight. So we missed the Mardi Gras parade, and so we didn't end up doing anything we couldn't have done in New York or Chicago... but it was a fun trip anyway. And it's fun to have strangers become friends.

Update:
Pictures are here

Cross-posted here

First Entry

2006-03-12T23:31:00.000-08:00

Start of a long journey, I hope. A pic, what else? By T.

A new journey...

2006-03-09T20:30:00.000-08:00

Progga had posted this a few days back. And Kau posted this. All of us love travelling. But we keep our travel memories hidden in those small boxes in our head. Progga reminded me of our train travels in 3-tier sleepers (non-ac) during college days. On an average there would be 15 of us travelling to Shimla, Goa, Hyd, Ahd, Mumbai, Digha etc etc. And each of them were an adventure. Then we all went our seperate ways. But travelling didn't stop. For some, work alone takes care of that. This blog would try and capture journeys, old and new and hopefully make for good reading! So let the jouney begin...

This pic was taken in Helsinki; the town centre which was converted into a global village.