Moments

Yeh haseen wadiyaan Yeh khula aasmaan The charm of the majestic Himalayas spread across Northern India is enchanting.  Be it the green mountains stepped at villages glowing green and yellow Be it the lush green valleys with rivers and tributaries meandering in the valley in lower Himalayas in Uttarakhand  Be it the higher altitudes with gigantic alpines trees towering over winding roads in Himachal Pradesh Be it the roads curving along the edges of the mountains rising up to cross over the hill or going down till the valley to cross over a stream Be it the deep gorges that chills your spine when the vehicle caresses the edge of the narrow road to give way to the incoming truck Be it the rocky terrain jutting out of the face of the mountain as you drive around the curve under the huge rock Be it the numerable paths of stones and soil sliding down the hill causing avalanche and landslides threatening to wash you away Each part of Himalayas tells a story, captures your imagination, invite

18 February, 2012 Lucknow was on my travel wishlist for quite sometime. It is the capital of the state where I had spent my childhood for 9 years. ...... Continuing on this travelogue draft after almost a decade.. I dont think I can justify writing it fully. So let me compensate for it with some photos to help me walk down the memory lane. So this trip materialized courtesy a wedding invitation from my classmate at school. She has /had been a friend and a sister. Ah, you noticed the strikethrough on the word.. Well lot of things change in a decade. She is still a good friend at heart but we havent talked for a long time now. Nevertheless, lets us get back to our travelogue. So accepting the wedding invitation was quite natural and even though none of my other schoolmates were turning up for the wedding, I decided to use it as an opportunity to tick off one more place on my travel bucket list ( Can I even have a bucket list? Probably no.. As I cant possibly write down all the places

 When I wrote the India vacation blogs , I was feeling that it was the most memorable occasion of 2023. However, here I have, yet another one ticked off our bucket list of south east Asia vacations. This trip has so many firsts - An international holiday planned at such a short notice - just 10 days, A week long - 8D7N trip, A vacation covering 3 different hotels and more that I will reveal in the blog. A pre-trip discussion - as is common in all my travelogues. A build-up.  Bali seems to be the destination of 2023. We had at least a dozen friends and families who bombarded our Facebook feeds, WhatsApp statuses and Insta Reels with Bali photos and videos. "This ought to be done", so we thought. A chance almost came up in October when few friends from India went for 4 day trip. But it was too quick since our Sakaleshpur trip. Next up was our 13th wedding anniversary in November but that didn't work out for many avoidable reasons.. Oops! unavoidable reasons like school and

2023 will be a year to remember for us - especially for our India vacation. We were desperately missing trips in India and enjoy Indian hospitality and tasty vegetarian food. So this year, we decided to spend a month long Indian vacation to get enough time for Varsha to spend with grand parents and for us to go on trips in South India. The places on our final shortlist were Kumarakom, Thiruvananthapuram, day trip in Bengaluru, Sakleshpur , Jog Falls and Shivamogga. As part of the Jog Falls trip, we picked a unique place to stay - Ajjanamane. Located 5km from Talguppa station, the rail terminal closest to Jog Falls in Shimoga district, Ajjanamane is a traditional Malnad home with 3 rooms that can accommodate 14 people, large living room and kitchen built in traditional architecture with natural lighting through the roof. The stay includes all the meals that are prepared from locally sourced fresh vegetables. Note that it is a Brahmin, pure vegetarian family and expect only satvik food.