While on Travel....

At the time of sunrise Fresh clean air, small busy town, and most interestingly just a stone's throw away from Mumbai. Hard to believe eh? That Saturday, 16 Dec 2006, was quite a warm day in Mumbai, and we had an appointment to keep with the small beach town by the coast - Alibaug . Unfortunately although we were supposed to be 8 of us; busy city schedules and unplanned activities made it possible for just the 3 of us to keep that appointment. Although at first we were a little disappointed that the others dropped out, the place and our host, R made the holiday worthwhile. We met at the docks, and embarked on to the 5.30 pm launch to Mandwa. No ferries go upto Alibaug since the waters on the coast are shallow. The weather changed gradually in the next 45 mins as we drifted away from Mumbai towards Mandwa. We caught the lovely sunset. Ship at sea The sea was dotted with a few cruise liners, one particularly good looking Luxury Liner, many launches, some catamarans (the only differ

Achoo! I went, achoo! again. Oh God! I hope I make it this time to Ganapatipule, a beach that has been on my check list for long. And thank God, we managed to take that weekend ( 1st weekend of Dec, 2006 ) off to G'pule. There are 3 ways to get there. Either one drives down or opts for a bus or train. The journey being 8 hrs long, we thought train would be a better idea. The closest station to G'pule is Ratnagiri which is connected to the mainland by the Konkan Railway - all credits to the Konkan rail go to Mr.Sridharan, bless him for it and for the wonderful metro-rail network that he is putting in place in Delhi and Mumbai. I sure wish there are many more like him. The Matsyagandha train beginning at Tilaknagar terminus, Mumbai and terminating at Goa, left the station at 2.00 pm and got us off at the Ratnagiri station at 9.00 pm the same night. The road journey to Ganapatipule from Ratnagiri was a pleasant one hour drive, complemented by good roads. By the time

Thank you Manish for this lovely piece ....u guys sure ate a lot ;). We had been to Goa a long while ago, must be close to 7 yrs now. I did make a business trip there last year, but that wasn't as much fun as being there on a holiday :) Thank you for rekindling good ol' memories. Over to Manish..... We are back from our Goa trip and heres a brief update for your blog....... We started from Delhi on Trivandrum Rajdhani which leaves Hazrat Nizammudin at 1100 hrs and reached Goa the next day at 1500 hrs a full 1 day and 5hrs. We have been enquired a number of times as to why we didnt take a flight and all about flight fares being cheaper. Of course, flight fares have nosedived and we have no nostalgia attached to good old train journey but still train remains cheaper especially if you are travelling with small kids. We had two, 4 and 6 years old and you have to pay full discounted fare for them whereas train you buy only 2 1/2 tickets.Anyway, we had kept a lot of activi

November 2004... We landed in Baroda at 3.00 am....thanks to my cousin who took the pain to pick us and get us home to his place. Baroda has changed.........looks more like a metropolis (not as bad as Mumbai tho') Our bus ride from Baroda to Ahmedabad was quick.....three cheers to Vajpayeeji!!!...the express way couldn't have been better. Ahmedabad dint meet our expectations.........highly polluted and sickening...our eyes were watering. We spent the evening at Mc Donalds (the most familiar and comfortable place we could find). Were we relieved to get out of Ahmedabad?! The journey from Ahmedabad to Jodhpur was comfortable(except that I got tossed around easily like a lone noodle in a pan). Began at 9.45 pm on 9th Nov and we reached Jodhpur at 5.00 am. Toured around the place Jodhpur - the blue city. All houses here are painted blue. The story goes that the paint containing a pesticide was used in the good old days to ward off insects, and this was

"Known as the Tahiti of Konkan" We took this trip in 2004. It was a weekend trip in the month of January. Taarkarli is a virgin beach on the Konkan coast, a few hundred kilometers befo re one hits Goa. It takes ~8 hrs by road to get there. We however opted for a ~6 hr train journey to Kudal and an hour and a half drive down to Taarkarli. The road journey is through the villages and offers a flavour of the native culture, homes, people whilst getting there. We stayed at the MTDC " Konkan huts", as the cot tages are fondly referre d to. The cottages are ~60 in no. , each complete with a hammock and a palm tree by its' side. We landed there at around 10.00 am, refreshed ours elves, got into swimwea r and walked right to the ocean, which is only a few steps from the cottages. After a refreshing bath, we lay in our hammocks with a book and the quiet sea breeze and graceful waves making it to the shores; for company. The food, is made to order. It is best therefore

" A dream becomes reality" With few words to express the ephemeral, unreal, celestial experience, I choose to resort to my normal style of writing, which is "dramatic". However no words could do justice to what we experienced........you gotto be there to believe it! In the month of August 2005, after having always had to sadly let go the idea at the last minute, on account of several reasons, we managed to embark on our journey to the beautiful land. We were in all 29 ppl (yes that includes us).We had for company, a small group of photographers, doctors, architects and.....corporate zombies like ourselves. The last few weeks had aroused many anxieties, owing to the relentless rainfall paralysing the city and it's rail services, and also owing to the past experiences of having to cancel the trip at the last minute.....we were to say the least 'simply hopeful' The rain Gods blessed us......the waters had subsided allowing us to carry on with our "miss