Two Mantras that applies to absolutely any situation

3 Days Family Trip to Bhutan from Chennai

As you all might be wondering from the title, 3 days is definitely not enough to completely explore this wonderful Himalayan Nation. I preferred to keep this trip short because of two reasons,

1. I did not have enough leaves 
2. I was traveling with one year old baby, so having a long trip will be tiresome.

How it all started?

I had recently been to Srilanka and wanted to visit Bhutan ever since. I read a lot of fascinating stories and facts about Bhutan which tempted me more to visit this place,

1. Bhutan is also called as Carbon Sink of the world- As it is the only nation which absorbs more carbon than it emits.
2. Bhutan believes in sustainable development. Bhutan has made constitutional amendments back in 1980s itself - long before the nations started to discuss about climate change.
3. Sustainable development - even if it means forgoing economic developmental opportunities. Bhutan is the only country that measures its progress through Gross National Happiness - Just like other countries measures its economic progress through GDP.

Planning for Trip - Advance arrangements

I could not resist more when I saw various airlines announcing Monsoon sale offers. I could travel from Chennai to Kolkata with just Rs.1000! I planned for a solo trip at first, but my parents were very desperate to visit a foreign nation having acquired a passport 6 months before (Anyways you dont need to have a passport to visit this beautiful country :P - Applicable only to citizens of SAARC nations)

Since it is a family trip, I had booked a cozy 2 Tier AC train ticket for travel from Sealdah to Hasimara. Hasimara is the available railway station to Bhutan border. Border town of Jaigon(India) and Pheuntsholing (Bhutan) was roughly around 20 Kms from here.

For return journey, I dont want it to be as lengthier as the onward trip. So I booked a flight from Bagdogra Airport (200Km from the border town) to Chennai, to avoid the 15 hrs train journey to reach Kolkata.

Unlike India, you cant find all hotels listings online. Bhutan is slightly underdeveloped than India and they started to adopt TV Internet only after 2000. Very few hotel listing that I managed to find online through travel websites are only expensive >3start hotels in Bhutan, costing around Rs.5000/ Night. Less expensive hotels are not listed in most of the travel websites. However, you can find all prominent hotels in the website www.bhutanhotels.bt and communicate through mail to confirm your booking.

What I did is contacted a Travels office in India, and asked them to book rooms appropriately along with booking their cab for trip.

Cab - Innova 6 seater - Rs.3200/day
Room @ Thimpu - Rs. 1200/day

I got a feeling that the taxi guy over charged us, as initially he quoted Rs.3000/day thinking that the trip was for more than 5 days. As the trip was brief, he charged us Rs.200 extra per day.

Traveling to Bhutan

All set - two way flight tickets, onward train tickets, Taxi and Hotel rooms - Its time to enjoy the Land of Thunder Dragon


Why Thunder Dragon? - Even I am not pretty sure. But from what I can get from online source - It is one of the place in Himalayan range that receives thundering heavy rain. If this is the case, then I should say that I had taken a huge risk of visiting The Land of Thunder Dragon while it was thundering with immense rain. It was raining heavily such that even the Bhutan officer at the Bhutan Immigration office said "You are traveling at the wrong time.. Travel at your own risk" before approving my permit. Those works kept thundering at the back of my head during entire span of my 3 days stay in Bhutan. 

Meandering through Kolkata was not so easy task with lots of people criss crossing the road, No wonder this part of the world is one of the densely populate. A simple travel from Sealdah railway station to Howrah railway station took around 1hr and 15 min to cover a distance of only 4kms.

We boarded our train at 8:30PM Kolkata and it had started raining incessaantly. It started at night of 10th August at Kolkata and it continued along with us till Bhutan till 12th August afternoon.

Our confortable train journey ended at Hasimara at 12:30 PM next day, delayed by 2hrs. Our taxi guy picked us at Hasimara.

Taxi Driver himself took care of filling the forms submitting it at the immigration office. All you need to carry for Permit into Bhutan is,

1. Passport/Voter ID - Original and Xerox
2. Passport size photo - 2

It took around 1hr for us at immigration office as it was not crowded and the counter was readily available.

Travel from Jaigon/Pheuntsholing to Thimpu is just 150Kms but it takes more than 5hrs to reach. Also, travel to Thimpu can be gruelling and tiresome as it is in mountainous terrain. Travel can cause nausea sensation, so I advise everyone to be ready for that.

We left Pheuntsholing after all the formalities at 4:30PM and we reached Thimpu only at 10:15PM.  We stayed at Hotel Dechen in Thimpu booked by our Taxi drive. Hotel room was decent and good enough for a family stay.

Sightseeing inside Bhutan

Unlike other tourist destination, there is not much commercial attractions in Bhutan, and that is the speciality of this country. We have visited just two places in span of 3 days - Thimpu and Paro.

Return Journey 

We started early at 2PM from Part to reach Jaigon, because of possible delays due to landslides. We reached Jaigon at 8:00PM delayed by 45mins because of landslides in couple of places. After overnight stay at Jaigon, we started at 9AM from Jaigon to reach Bagdogra Airport at 2PM, well in advance for our flight to Chennai at 4PM.

We also witnessed Bangladesh border with India enroute to Bagdogra airport. It is just few Km away from Siliguri.

5 Days itenary to Sri Lanka

This was is first international trip that I had been planning for more than a year and at last I was able to make it along with 2 of my friends.

Why Srilaka?
Well, I said this is my first international trip and hence we wanted to go some nearby place where there are not much of a formalities. So, as an Indian, the options available for us is all SAARC countries. SAARC nations have relaxed norms to facilitate easy travel for it citizens. As a Tamilan, what best option can there be apart from Sri Lanka? Sri Lanka, as you can see from map, appears as a natural extension of Tamilnadu with a shallow sea water of just <30Kms seperating them.

Bought a new MacBook Air - My first MacBook ever

After months of researching on online, I finally had the guts to press "Order now" button in Paytm to by MacBook Air, which costed my around Rs.74000 with Rs.8000 cash back.

My 5 days trip to Srilanka -The Island Nation

After a generous Auto driver offered to take us from Wellawaya to Thissumaharamma in just LKR 1500, we found a great hotel room for just 3000/Night for 3 person. Overall the travel from Nuvara Eliya to Ella to Thissumaramha was an extremely fun filled travel with lot of experience in unexpectedly less cost, sprinkled with lots of rich experience.

Next day early morning we started for a leapord wildlife safari at Yala. We spotted lot of animals which could have very well witnessed in Kottaimedu, or at least at Mudumalai Reserve forest - Crocodile, Bison, Peacocks, Monitor Lizzard, but could not spot the animals the reserve is known for - Leopards and Bears. At the end, we felt that we made a wise decision to go for 4hrs safari which costed around $92/ head and not 7 hrs or full day safari which costed well beyond $140/person. Safari was exciting at first but tend to get boring after an hour, if we could not spot any animals.

We returned back to our rooms after safari by 10Am. After few hours of rest, we packed our bags to leave for Colombo after visiting nearby kathirkama Murugan temple. This is renowned Murugan temple in this part of the country. But even after a crowded bus travel to kathirkama and a 20 mins walk in scorching sun with heavy luggages, we are unlucky that we reached the temple when it was closed in the afternoon. We reached the temple at 3PM and we were told that the temple would open only at 6:30PM. We had no other option but to just worship and circumambulate the temple when it is closed. We were running out of time and we had to reach Colombo before night. After all we could not get lucky twice and get a inexpensive auto ride again as we had the previous night from Wellaveya to Thissumaharama. Also this trip to Colombo is going to be 350KMs. It is during this travel that I am writing this post with Eeps and Kishanth sitting behind me.

While I write this blog, I am at my last leg of Srilanka trip - My first ever international trip. I am traveling from Kathrakagama(Near Yala National Part) to Colombo. Normally it takes around 4 hours in a proper national highway. But because of lack of any expressway this journey took around 7 hrs - thanks to the expressway between Matara and Colombo. To kill time during this journey, I started to write this blog using my iPad 4 mini.

Overall the trip was fantastic. The plan we had was good to cover various aspects of diverse Sri Lanka,

1. Kandy - Known for cultural heritage and the famous Tooth relic temple of Buddha

2. Nuvara Eliya - Awesome Hillstation with optimum commercialisation - good enough to sustain its natural value while accommodating the influx of Foreign tourists.

3. Nuvara Eliya to Ella Train - Train travel with good natural views along side. Also reminiscent of 1950s English railway system.

4. Thissamaharama, Yala and Kathirgamam - as shared above.

5. Colombo - a surprise city. Having roamed around mountain, Forest reserves and other rural areas of Sri Lanka, where people not comfortable with even basic english,  I was expecting a mediocre city with noth much activity going around. But to my surprise, city was buzzing with all activities even well past midnight. The city is very clean organised with lot of high rise buildings. Relaxed towards last leg of our trip, me, Eeps and Kishant strolled around the city looking for some good food. Found a nice

Highway Movie Review

          Hi guys, before saying about this movie, I should say that I do not understand Hindi. All I can say in brief is that, even without understanding the language, I have never felt bored while watching it. Director Imtiaz Ali, has made me stuck to my place by showing amazing scenaries and realistic acting from the actors, especially Alia Bhat and Randeep Hooda.

          I got attracted towards this movie when i first saw the trailer. The locations, background music and songs were too good that I have decided to watch just for these reasons. I had no hopes and expectation from the story of the movie, but for locations and music. I am really happy that they satisfied me with top class music and jaw dropping locations that I can only watch in movies.

          Alia Bhat gets kidnapped by some gang and after knowing that she belongs to some influential family from Delhi, most people in the gang back away. But Randeep Hooda decides to proceed with his plan of demanding ransom. At some instance, they both get to share about their difficult childhood, over which they would become closer. This is how the story moves on if i had understood correctly.
       
         This  movie captures several highways and beautiful mountain ranges of India, beautifully. Songs are extremely good as usual as  you could not expect anything different from the Oscar winning music director :P  . I would have expected to watch the songs Maahi Ve and Pattaka guddi(Male Version) in the movie. Both songs comes blended together only during credits at the end. Alia Bhat's has acted extremely good, especially during climax of the movie.

          Overall, this movie worth watching for every aspects of a movie. Imtiaz Ali Direction, Randeep Hooda and Alia Bhat action, together with AR Rahman's wonderful music has made Highway,
a perfect entertainer.

           

Visit to Chikka Tirupati Temple, Bangalore

I heard about this temple from my colleagues at first. The name Tirupati, made me so desperate to visit this temple someday. Chikka Tirupathi is the Vishnu temple located at the out skirts of Bangalore.This place is present at around 20Km from Hope farm. It is a vishnu temple and the climate here in Bangalore is similar to the one at Tirumala. For me, these are the similarities between this temple and the one at Tirupathi.

   This temple was at around 24 km from Hoodi, the place where I stay. So I thought it would be better if I go by any private vehicle. The road and views on the sides was too good which made me to take this decision. Bike would be the best option, sice you can have full feel of the atmosphere here.  I was also in need of someone to accompany me. After lot of thinking, my friend Kishore Kumar was the only one who could fit into my plan and he had a bike too with him!. And I know he would fit into my plan, because he is the one of my ready to go friend, who always adapt to situation. You may be thinking that I had some strange and cruel plan. But not exactly. The only thing that you may feel hard is, starting as early as 5:30 in the morning. Reason being, I love early morning outings - calm, cool and clean atmosphere. Everything is fine and we were ready to go the next day.

   So, as planned he arrived at my place by 6:30AM and we started our trip to Chikka Tirupati. Without much confusion of the route, we got to the temple. The peculiar thing that I have noticed in this Temple is that, you have to break the coconut by yourself before going into temple for archana.  Deity is good and decorated with flowers and we had a good darshan. The temple is good and well maintained.


   I returned to my place around 8:30, sooner than I have expected. Overall, its a cool experience for me for those 2 hours and you should sure visit this place. You also get a little bit of respite from Bangalore traffic soon after you cross the place called hope farm. Overall this is really good temple to visit.