Archive for Trip

August 29th 2009

A Trip To Kumarakom, Via Cochin And Kottayam

by Anwin in India, Pics, Trip     tags: , , , , , , , , , ,       18 Comments

So, last week I had a business trip to Kottayam and Kumarakom. Before landing there I went to Cochin for a couple of meetings. So this is my story of my trip, minus the business meetings I did.

My uncle who stays outskirts of Cochin has a dog, a nice looking brown mongrel, named Terry. So this guy loves to chase lizards and kill them. For what joy nobody knows. He doesn’t even eat them, maybe a little too buggy in taste for him. Anyways, I found this lizard the dog had killed in the house the previous night in the front yard almost completely eaten, by ants. It was about 10 in the morning and the ants where just about finishing the job.

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Then, I went on to my meetings. The next day I was in Kumarakom for some meetings. I had to take a bus from Kottayam and got down at Kumarakom boat jetty stop. From there I took an auto to Eastend Lakesong resort. After that, went on to the next meeting nearby. So I ended up walking on a parallel road by the hidden but huge lagoon. And took some snaps.

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Above, a canal watering the nearby farmlands and ponds. Below, a board announcing the way to the nearest Toddy shop where you can get Toddy, a local alcoholic drink taken from palmyrah (palm) trees.

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A pond where fish is commercially reared for sale. It has a For Sale sign, right in the middle of the pond. Unbelievable, never thought ponds were for sale. I thought were only leased. Hmmm…

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Picture of marshlands on the way back, taken from the bus. Above, a house covered on three sides by water and marshlands and coconut trees. Wow! And below, the Malayalam Film Star Mammootty’s local fun club board.

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A couple of houseboats. I did not have time to go on a houseboat trip though.

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The houseboats had satellite TVs and were fully equipped with most modern amenities. Oh man. Kerala Government has really spent a lot in Tourism the past few years. Kumarakom was quite new to me when I heard about it a few months ago. A very beautiful place right in our backyards. But there isn’t much to do for more than two days there.

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A view of the lagoon through the trees and taken from the side of a canal. And below a couple of fishermen going for the evening fishing to the backwaters.

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One thing that saddened me though was that the locals were behaving as bad as the tourists, I saw a woman dumping waste into the canal. As I was walking by I saw a lot of tourist waste like bottles, plastic, etc. That was a bit sad.

Other than that I had a very good week.

P.S: Kerala is really hot and humid, I must say.

June 19th 2009

Goa Trip 2009

by Anwin in India, Pics, Trip     tags: , , , , , , , ,       7 Comments

Last week I was in  Goa. Why? I had some meetings lined up for myself and thought I would take the wife with me. Goa is one of my all time favorite tourist spots. The reasons are many and very simple. The beautiful beaches and beautiful countryside aside, what I like about Goa is the inherent hospitality in Goans, the laidback attitude that helps you relax, the nice and smooth long roads and, the best part, you can choose your own way to travel around Goa.

Choosing your own travel means by bike or car is the very best thing about Goa. You do not need to depend on a 3rd person to take you around Goa at all. All you need to do is find the nearest place where you can rent a motor bike (or a scooter) or a car for yourself by paying a small advance, submitting an original identity card like a PAN card or something and showing your driving license as proof that you are legally entitled to be on the road. That’s it, and quite simple. You’ve got yourself a vehicle to drive around in Goa. And Goa, especially the tourist spots, are not too far away. You can probably divide your travels between South and North Goa on different days and visit most of the places. And then you can keep a couple of days aside for some relaxing fun maybe.

So when I went to Goa my company had booked accommodation at Hotel Green Park at Mapusa. This was not really a centrally located place. But, it suited me quite well since Calangute was just 15 minutes away by bike and I had quite a lot of meetings planned around this area.

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A relaxing sunset at Calangute beach. Once the sun set we set off to Baga, my favorite beach from my last visit.

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Candle light dinner at Baga beach. Very romantic. Loved it.

I didn’t take too many pictures since this was a business trip with a little bit of fun. I couldn’t travel much for local sightseeing. I could go out only in the late evenings. Maybe next time we should go to Tito’s.. Hmmm…

July 15th 2008

Travel Arrangements In Mangalore

by Anwin in Trip     tags: , , , , ,       4 Comments

This is the story of how I ended up booking a hotel in Mangalore when we all went to attend Naveen’s wedding.

So, as you all know (again, to my invisible readers), we all packed our bags and stuff and landed up in Mangalore some time back for Naveen’s wedding. But what nobody really knows is how I managed to arrange for the stay – that is, book rooms in Mangalore.

Actually, Jackie’s folks had arranged for some place in Mangalore for everybody to stay, relatives, friends etc. I heard that the place was pretty good. However, I knew the crowd I was going with (including yours truly). I knew them well enough that I should book in a decent hotel so that we can all get some privacy AND have lots of fun. Hehehe! And the fun part was big, really really big for everyone.

So I googled for Mangalore hotels and I decided to stay at Poonja International. The other options were from this site http://mangalore-hotels.hotelskarnataka.com/index.htm. The biggest problem was I didn’t have anyone in Mangalore to actually assist me with the best option.

And at the last minute, one of Nafisa’s friends had a cousin in Mangalore who actually was willing to help. God knows for what. (If you read this, thanks a lot dude. You were awesome and very much appreciated). I mean, there are extremely few people who can actually help without expecting anything in return. Awesome.

Anyways, he booked us at Suniel Shetty’s hotel (damn forgot the name now) and even called me back to inform that we should call him before settling the bills so he can get us a discount. So this is how we got to Mangalore and stayed without trouble. We even had a terrace party that night, thanks to Duncan (Jackie’s uncle) and Naveen. Nice!

Now this might look like an isolated incident. But this was the case again when I was traveling to Seoul and Bangkok. We ended up staying at The Ambassador in Bangkok and Seoul hotel was booked by client. But the point is that I am kicking myself for not finding a site like Hotels Combined. The reason being it would have saved my day any time. I mean I could have searched for the right hotels within my budgets and requirements right from one site instead of googling and looking at a hundred other sites. Anyways, no crying over spilt milk.

Definitely next time though. The search engine to find hotels anywhere in the world is just brilliant.

February 27th 2008

The Bangalore Chows Go To Chennai

by Anwin in Chows, Friends, Humor, Pics, Trip     tags: ,       6 Comments

All great things start from a small idea. I think something like that is a saying or a maxim or whatever. But we, the Chows, believe that all fun things stem from a whim or a trip that is unplanned.

So Anoop, Karthik, S, Nafisa and I got into Anoop’s trusted Knight Rider at about 4:30 in the morning and we were off. It all started a couple of days before that when Renie asked if we would like to drive down to Chennai. And of course, Anoop said yes and then informed me. Hehehehe. That’s how it works you see.

We were all so happy and excited that we forgot about the turn at Krishnagiri and went straight towards Salem. We realized the mistake after 45 kms and then we had to turn back. About an hour or so was lost. We felt a little bad since we were actually making very good time at a steady speed, thanks to Shell’s Super Petrol.

Once we reached Chennai and Renie’s house, the sea, we relaxed (you know what) and contemplated what to do in the evening. We, the chows, and Nafisa were ready for anything. But apparently S had come down with some grand plans of clubbing and night life of Chennai. So she wanted to go to Temple Bay. No amount of coaxing for a relaxed evening convinced her. Since she was the new one in the group (at least for Renie), we decided to go. After a brief sleep and rest we took off in the evening towards East Coast Road.

Temple bay was seriously good though. It was a peaceful environment by the beach with subdued lightning. I am sure we got cursed by all and sundry for making a lot of noise. One sample pic below.

Temple bay, Chennai

Then we went back to Renie’s place for some quiet time of “memory game”. I won’t go into details too much except for the facts that S got conned into not sleeping early (as usual of course, we are really good at this) and that I started snoring in the wee hours that everyone went to sleep.

The next day we went to Kafeoke, a Karaoke coffee bar, by the beach side. We had loads of fun there singing to a lot of memorable songs. Anoop started off with Call Me, by Blondie. We literally scared a lot of people who were there. Then I sang Cocaine by Eric Clapton and got the highest point for the evening – fifty something. My bro, Edin, did a couple of songs – Crazy from Aerosmith and Light my fire from Doors. The girls did an awesome song from some Hindi movie which was quite entertaining. Below pic is when we finished with a song on the house, with a photoshoot by a photographer for a local weekly newspaper.
Karaoke from the Chows And then, I bombed trying to sing Creep by Radiohead. It was so bad that Nafisa

  • tried to pull the mic from my hand
  • then hesitated because I refused
  • then she laughed at me
  • then she hid her face from me
  • and then she pretended to sleep and not hear me sing

The whole sequence can be found at the below gif. The pictures where taken by the damned fellow Renie and me being good humored created a animated gif out of them.
Anwin doing a karaoke

And then it was time for all of us to leave. So we were back Sunday night at our respective places. Thanks Renie for a wonderful time! Remember, that was not an invasion but the start of a series of raids. Hehehehe!

February 6th 2008

(un) Lucky In Mumbai

by Anwin in Concert, Friends, Humor, India, Personal, Trip     tags: , , ,       5 Comments

My tryst with luck or fate or whatever you call it runs true to form, as always. And I hate trains. People are always amazed that I travel long distances by bus rather than train. And there is a reason to it too. I am always unlucky because I always miss the obvious when traveling by train.

Read about my Chennai trip and Mumbai trip to know how I get caught in something or the other while traveling.
Anoop, Karthik, Sanjeeb, N and I went by bus to Mumbai for the Iron Maiden concert. My bro joined us at Mumbai by flight from Chennai. We had an awesome journey by bus. Really! No jokes! So we reached Dadar and we were shown a cold shoulder regarding rooms. But finally we got the rooms. And we started to the concert area – MMRDA grounds in the Bandra-Kurla complex in two taxis. And our taxi which started earlier, of course, was the last to reach the area.

And at the concert area we all got mauled, hehehe. Especially Anoop, my bro and N. Except for my bro and Anoop, we escaped from the mosh pit area and came to the sides. But apparently, Anoop and Edin got caught right in the ‘twirl’. But man, that was real fun, at the end of the day. And, of course, Iron Maiden on stage helped a lot in keeping our moods soaring to new heights.

While coming back, we had to walk so many kilometers looking for a taxi. In the end we got an auto to Sion. As usual we three started earlier and got down at Sion. And I, with my zest for trying out new things, asked if we can take the metro to Dadar. Everyone agreed and we got onto the train. And yes, we were caught by the Ticket Checker for getting on to first class when we had tickets for second class. I mean, we just saw that it was empty and we got on to the first class compartment. No amount of begging and pleading could help us. It was late at night and we did not have the energy or patience to go on. So we paid 500 bucks and walked off. Oh man!!! And yes, we reached much much later again even though we started off first :(

And then when we were coming back we went early to Sion for a small refreshment. Our bus was scheduled for 3:00 PM. At 3:40 PM we realize that we did not have our tickets. On thinking back we realized that Karthik had given the ticket at the restaurant to Edin to call and confirm the place of pickup. The two buggers happily left the tickets at the restaurant. Talk about carelessness or something else. And then they both ran to find the tickets. And we were losing time. They came back right on time before the bus came in with a soiled and wet ticket. Apparently, they had to dig it from the trash bin. Yes, my friends, we came back on a soiled ticket. God knows, what Edin and Karthik did inside the trash bin. Hehehehe.

At last, we boarded the bus and reached Bangalore safely. Even in Bangalore, we three reached home last even after getting an auto first. That’s the way  it works for me I guess! Apparently, the auto driver was trying to con us and took a wrong turn.

But in the end, we enjoyed the whole trip and the concert. It was immensely satisfying!!!