i had a plan to have a lovely weekend out of mumbai. monday taken as casual leave from work, so we have a three-day holiday… the hotel’s booked. the town is a close-by one that you never visit mainly because it is just too close, so ‘we’ll do it another time’! we have driven through it on our way to pune, but never stayed there. it’s … Continue reading i had a plan…
my first guest post at inspiringtravellers.com! thanks andrea for posting my ‘what to do list for a first visit to south mumbai’ at her travel blog! over to the guest post…
Continue reading “20 & more things to do on a first visit to south mumbai!”
this was 15 years ago. my dad worked abroad and i was traveling across the seas to stay with him during my summer break at college. there were a lot of ‘new’ things, first times, to handle! it was my first international flight, and just the third time i was traveling by air anyway. and one of those three times was when i was 8 … Continue reading how a turban made me, a south indian, feel at home!!
matheran is very close to where i spent most of my growing years, but was never tempted. even been dissuaded by friends.
i went there for the first time 5 years ago, and then willingly went again last year! and i wish to make it a hat trick with one more visit in the coming months!
here are my TEN reasons why you MUST MUST MUST visit matheran!
Continue reading “10 reasons why everyone should visit matheran”
there are many beliefs about solar eclipses in india… superstitions. i had heard all these growing up!
bad time. deformations. don’t go out. don’t look at the sun. stay indoors. don’t go out!
in 2010, when the annular solar eclipse was passing and would be visible in india, i decided to go and watch. the inspiration came from a friend who was planning to come down from pune for this, but cancelled her trip. i am no star-gazer, or astronomer. i have studied about eclipses in school, but forgotten most about it. i went because i was curious – to watch a total solar eclipse, to visit rameswaram again.
Continue reading “can i walk out of my house during a solar eclipse?”
i visited the mysore palace many years ago. and everyone tells you ‘come back at night, it looks gorgeous.’ it does. the entire palace gets lit up with a series of lights on every sunday night for around 45 minutes! you can see every bend, every curve and every edge. the palace shimmers in front of you. every inch defined. i loved it. and i … Continue reading lighting up a palace or homes?
i think it was at 11. can’t remember anything before that. and this was the BIG trip! for 10 or 15 days we were out of our city. that was huge. i think we did go to nearby places, and every summer to chennai to stay with grandparents… but in those days middle class indians didn’t waste money on ‘site-seeing’ at non-native places. we plonked ourselves at our grandmothers, as all our other cousins did and it was this huge melee of people. of course that’s another story, for anything time and another place… and, middle class tams, definitely did not ‘travel’ and importantly, stay at a hotel!! there were other more ‘educational’ things to be done! right?
preference for the known non-indian exotic? but not excited by unknown indian exotic? even at the same cost?
should you even bother? this is a situation i have been faced with often… a couple of year ago, i visited the river nila project. set in kerala. this is the efforts of one person to make people respect and care for the river that runs through the north – the malabar region of kerala. over years, there has been much abuse in terms of … Continue reading visiting ‘recommended’ artisans in a city, town, village?
there is this quaint part hidden in the midst of a large, hip suburb with big buildings on either side with a suspension bridge on the third stuck in time. between modernity. this little village. stays afloat. islamic architecture melts into christian porches crosses at every turn that date to the 17th century. drying teddy bears dot today’s presence graffiti welcomes in freedom of expression … Continue reading walking down the lanes of bandra…
merry to go around 