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Manali - Leh road trip

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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
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Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh

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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
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Bali, Indonesia

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 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
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Ajjanamane - A Malnad homestay

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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.
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Sakleshpur, Karnataka

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A trip in Karnataka during monsoon is challenging with incessant rains, minor landslides and damaged roads. Last time we did something like this was a trip to Chikmanglur in 2018. This year we were determined to do it again, despite similar weather predictions. However it turns out completely different this time. Let's jump into the first leg of the trip in this blog - Sakleshpur. Sakleshpur is a hill town in the Western Ghats, famous for numerous coffee plantations. So the choice of stay is invariably inside a plantation. There are tons of choices with wide variety - from homestay to resorts and wide price ranges - from budget friendly to luxurious. Our destination this time was a lovely resort Rosetta by Ferns. It is located midway between Hassan and Sakleshpur. Ah! there is a back story on why we chose this place. Should I talk about it here? Probably a whole blog dedicated to the journey from Bangalore to Rosetta. Read it here . So back to the topic - Rosetta by Ferns Sakleshpu
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Vista dome train journey

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 Travelling on Indian railways was an annual affair for me during my school days. And that became more frequent during college days before the onset of cheap airfares and proliferation of airports all across India. After relocating to Malaysia, flights became a norm and train journeys were becoming a nostalgic past to cherish. So this year's India vacation was dedicated to train journeys. Apart from Vande Bharat Express, high speed train and the latest fanfare of Indian Railways, we were going to take half a dozen trains this month. One amongst them is a tourist attraction called "Vista dome" coach. Vista dome coach is an Executive chair car with lot of fancy features added to uplift the travel experience. To start with, the chairs can rotate 180 degrees. So you can sit facing the way the train is going, or turn around completely to sit face to face with fellow travellers. Even better is that you can turn half way and sit facing the extra large glass windows and admire th
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My 10th Birthday - Little VG

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I was expecting my tenth birthday party to be celebrated hugely and lavishly like my sixth and ninth birthday. Soon I came to know that my birthday was during my … EXAMS. Many people in my school might not come and I couldn’t spend too much time on my birthday, as I had to study. Now in between all of that, my mom, who is currently studying masters, had exams too. That made it even harder to set up a huge birthday party. So I said to myself, “I already had great birthday parties before, It doesn’t matter. I am still having a birthday party regardless of whether it is big or small and birthday parties are not that important anyway.” Still I had my mind set that I wanted a pool party. Soon we arranged a pool party at our apartment, inviting three of my close friends. We ordered some snacks like brownies, tarts, pizzas and garlic bread. We ordered the cake from one of my mom’s friends. My father bought orange and mango juice as the drinks. Finally, in a few days time, came the day I was w
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