Cambodia - eVisa, currency & transport itinerary

Highway AH11/NR4 from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville

As most of you, my readers, know that I like to plan my own travel itineraries as I believe in traveling like a local & most of trips are for budget travelers like myself. I don't believe in traveling with a tour group as their trips are mostly limited to the touristy attractions, even if some of the more attractive & popular destinations are missed & there's always a hurry & time-limit. In this post, I will guide with the steps required for obtaining Cambodian e-Visa (T) for Indians.

Turkey - Cappadocia Ititnerary, Days 2 & 3 - Derinkuyu Underground Museum, Uchisar, Goreme Open Air Museum

Driving to Derinkuyu

Hello readers, apologies for the prolonged delay for my unfinished Turkey budget trip. Got busy in various engagements. I just want to dive in straight to our Day 2 itinerary in Cappadocia where had planned to to drive to Derinkuyu town where there is an ancient multi-storeyed underground city in the Nevsehir province. We had a typical Turkish breakfast (with most of the items missing) and left Goreme. It took about 45 minutes by car to reach Derinkuyu from Goreme. This underground city is said to have housed a population as large as 20,00 along with food & livestock & is almost 85 m deep. It has chapels, storage rooms.

Turkey - Cappadocia itinerary, Day 1 - Zelve Open Air Museum & Fairy Chimneys/Paşabağları Müze ve Örenyeri, Turkey

At Goreme Open Air Museum

After having a phenomenal sojourn in Istanbul, we flew to the historical region of central Turkey - Cappadocia/Kapadokya (in Turkish). It is famous for its unusual & exclusive historical heritage, rock formations & scenic hot air balloon rides. I had kept 2D/2N in Cappadocia. But personally I felt even 5 days is too less to properly explore the whole of Cappadocia. Hence, it is always good to decide which attractions one wants to delve into.

In front of Red Valley, Goreme

Flying over interior Turkey

Notable sights of attraction/activities:

• Goreme Open Air Museum (Northern Cappadocia/Red Tour, MUST visit)
• Zelve Open Air Museum (Northern Cappadocia/Red Tour, MUST visit)
• Fairy Chimneys (Northern Cappadocia/Red Tour, MUST visit)
• Devrent Seyir Terasi (for breathtaking sunsets & overall view of the terrain, Northern Cappadocia/Red Tour)
• Love Valley/Aşıklar Vadisi (Northern Cappadocia/Red Tour)
• Rose Valley/Gül vadisi (Northern Cappadocia)
• Three Beauties/Üç Güzeller (Northern Cappadocia)
• Uçhisar Kalesi/Uçhisar Castle (Northern Cappadocia/Red Tour)
• pottery workshops in Avanos (Red Tour)
• hot air balloon rides
• ATV tours in Rose Valley
• renowned & extensive underground cities of Derinkuyu & Kaymakli (Southern Cappadocia/Green Tour)
• Pigeon Valley (Southern Cappadocia/Green Tour)
• Ihlara Valley (Southern Cappadocia/Green Tour)
• Selime Cathedral (Southern Cappadocia/Green Tour)
• Onyx Museum & Factory (Southern Cappadocia/Green Tour)
• Narlıgöl Krater (Southern Cappadocia/Green Tour)
• Belisırma Vadi Girişi (Southern Cappadocia/Green Tour)

Zelve Open Air Museum

If one visits Fairy Chimneys with ample amount of time, it is not required to spend more time on Love Valley, Rose Valley, Three Beauties, Devrent as the rock formations, terrain, landscape are more or less very similar to one another (we actually skipped these as we took our own sweet time to explore Fairy Chimneys). Cappadocia local tours & travel agencies operate 2 types of tours viz:

1. Red Tour covering the northern locales of Cappadocia
2. Green Tour traversing the southern Cappadocia

Fairy Chimneys

It goes without saying that both the above tours CANNOT be done on the same day and many attractions are not included in the above tours. For example, either Kaymakli or Derinkuyu underground city tours are included in the Red Tour but not BOTH the underground cities. If the stay in Cappadocia is exceeding 3 days, then all the above attractions can be explored with ample time & energy without hurrying.

Istanbul itinerary, Turkey 2023

Silhouette of Istanbul from the Bosphorus

Ever since I watched the series Rise of Empires:Ottoman on Netflix amazed at how Mehmed II, popularly known as Mehmed the Conqueror, captured erstwhile Constantinople from Constantinople XI in 1453 portraying the sheer intelligence & thorough dedication of Mehmed II, I became fascinated by the whole idea of Turkey and included it in my bucket list since 2020. As is the golden rule for any international or domestic travel, it is advised to buy flight tickets minimum 3 months before the final travel date so I started planning from end of February (I was still late). I wanted to avoid the rush & crowd of tourists during summer time, which starts from end of May in Turkey and all the prices - hot air balloon rides, AirBnB, hotels become double or triple of what the prices actually are in winter season. But I also had to keep in mind to avoid the holy festival of Ramadan which ended on 21st April 2023, so I bought the tickets planning to reach Istanbul on 22nd April, i.e. the day of Eid.

Bosphorus Strait & Ayasofya Camii
in the background

Phuket travel, Thailand in December (Part 1)

James Bond Island

Touchdown Phuket

It has been quite a long time since I went to any long vacation. By "long vacation" I mean to say not opening the office laptop for more than 7 days consecutively 😁 As soon as the good news came when the customer themselves conveyed that there will be a lull in the operations due to Christmas & New Year holidays in the US, I started planning the vacation with different destinations categorising them on the ease of getting the visa. My 1st choice was Egypt but as I researched more on Egyptian visa, I gave it a pass & decided on Thailand because:

• the ease of getting e-Visa on Arrival or eVoA
• hotels in Thailand were surprisingly affordable even in the peak season (December)
• the photos and reels of James Bond Island on Instagram tempted me
• Maya Bay has been re-opened by the government after quite a number of years as the beach was shut down to allow nature to heal. Due to overcrowding of tourists, Maya Bay was slowly losing its original beauty so the government took a strict decision & corrective action to close it down.

Maya Bay, Krabi, Thailand

It is a well known fact that Indians have the option of Visa on Arrival in Thailand.

A li'l bit posing before kayaking

I chose to opt for eVoA or e-Visa on Arrival as I didn't want to waste my time waiting in the long queue, that too during the peak season, and miss my next connecting flight. Procedure to get eVoA for Thailand:-

• head over to Thailand eVoA, click on "Apply Now".
• one has to create a profile so that one can upload all the documents viz
• ALL hotel bookings (therefore prior bookings need to be made)
• to & fro flight tickets
• the visa type is "regular eVoA"
• visa fees = 2500 THB per person

IMPORTANT : Carry a global Forex card like Niyo Global (not an advertisement but saying from personal experience) which gives the best international exchange rates or carry enough cash in THB from India. Please DO NOT withdraw cash from ATM's in Thailand as they charge 200 THB per transaction. If you have to withdraw cash there due to unavoidable circumstances, then kindly withdraw a large amount so that the conversion & exchange rates can be somewhat balanced. We were not aware of this & we suffered some heavy losses because of this. So a friendly reminder to my readers - AVOID withdrawing cash from Thai ATM's.

Solo-trip amidst Coronavirus pandemic to Langkawi - Part 2

Sorry folks for being away a long long time. Was caught up in a lot of things simultaneously. As far as I remember, I had shared only my first day experience of solo-traveling to Langkawi. I had already started planning my second solo travel to Perhentian Islands in my head. But unfortunately too much has happened in the last 2 years, I returned to India, I was subject to prejudice & chauvinism in my previous organization which had taken a serious toll on my mental health. In this age of Gen Z, mental health is of highest magnitude for folks like us who are drowned in deadlines & project deliveries. Anyway, back to my Langkawi trip which I undertook when the whole world was in the middle of a pandemic & I am happy that I took the decision of solo-tripping.

You can read all about my 1st day at Langkawi & how to reach there here: Langkawi Part 1.

On the 2nd day I decided to travel to North, North East & Southern parts of the island. This is the reason I always opt for a self driven car - no dependencies on any third party/ies. My 1st halt was at at a wild beach adjoining the Pantai Pasir beach. I realized why the beach was called "wild" as it is completely secluded and isolated. I didn't see any traveler or tourist come to this beach & I had a wonderful me-time here. The only negative aspect of visiting this beach solo was nobody to take my photos so I had to rely on my selfie-taking skills.

Wild beach

This beach is also a classic small scale example of an estuarine system/depositional environment as one can see the picture on the right (terms which only Geologists can decipher 😛).

Solo-trip amidst Coronavirus pandemic to Langkawi - Part 1

Update: The prices mentioned in my blog are all of 2020. My viewers who are or will be visiting Langkawi AFTER 2020 - the prices are subject to change.

Tried to click a panorama of the jaw-dropping view from the Skybridge

Did the header catch your attention? Of course! That's what it was supposed to do. So we are now in the 9th month of 2020 - a year in which surely I consider myself "fortunate" enough to have witnessed & lived through (till now) the year of the millenium. After relocating to Malaysia with a new job, I was in my own utopian bubble, fantasizing all the beautiful places I would be traveling to slowly. But alas! The Covid-19 or Coronavirus pandemic transmitted all over the world in such an accelerated rate before even the countries could realize how pestilent it is. More than half of the year is almost gone but a successful vaccine is yet to be invented.

Backpacking to Kalgha Village, Parvati Valley, Himachal Pradesh

It's been quite some time since I published about our backpacking trip to Chalal village & Kasol. So after spending idyllic 2 days vegging out in Chalal village, we were ready for the next leg of our backpacking trip and that was Kalgha. We packed our stuff & left for the bus stop as the next bus was to arrive soon at 10.50-11 am sharp. The weather was charming with the sun just warm enough not to make us sweat in that October early afternoon. Soon our public bus arrived & all of us were not expecting it in the condition it was when it arrived - crammed up with the villagers & the locals, along with a small kid (I mean a baby goat here :D). We could have left earlier as well to avoid the horde (classic mentality of the quintessential "middle class" families, more so when they are starting out young), the timing of the previous bus was 9.30 am but we were confident that we wouldn't be able to wake up so early.

Parvati River at Chalal

Nevertheless, we boarded our bus and pushed our way through the multitude and secured a standing spot near the window with support. The driver was one hell of a driver, I think all the mountainous drivers are - they drive though the perilous roads everyday every hour all around the year.

Kargil & Hundurmaan/Hundermaan, J & K, India

Rugged landscape of Ladakh

After an enthralling ride via Zoji-La and pumped up visit to Kargil War Memorial with the River Indus continuing to flow along-side us, we reached the hustling Kargil town at around 12 noon.

Entering Kargil town, crossing River Indus

My immediate yearning reaching the town was to have momos/dumplings (my absolute favorite which I had been craving for a pretty long time). The hotel which was booked for us was Hotel Siachen which was right at the marketplace, so in a way accessible to any restaurant if you are not keen to have food in the Hotel Siachen itself. We were quite exhausted, perplexed whether to do some sightseeing in Kargil or not.
Leaving that aside, we freshened up and suddenly realized that all of us are starving terribly so we left the hotel to search for a nearby restaurant to gorge on food (momos for myself). We did come across a very popular restaurant right near the end of the marketplace (I have forgotten the name) but unfortunately it was full & there was no space for the 6 of us (also, they had ran out of momos :P). So we tried our luck at another restaurant nearer to our restaurant. The first question on entering the restaurant was from my side to the attendant was whether they have momos or not, to which, much to my jubilation, he replied in the affirmative. Myself & my brother ordered 2 bowls of thukpas while the rest of the squad ordered simple daal & chawal. Now, I hadn't given much importance to this aspect but the people there (and within the restaurant itself) had a very strange odour exuding from them. I couldn't decide the source of the stink but it came crystal clear when the thukpas arrived. The restaurants there had no chicken items, all they had were lamb items. So we had ordered lamb thukpas and the malodour was intolerable. I just took one bite and couldn't put anymore inside my mouth. Thankfully my brother finished up the two bowls. Poor me - I had to share the daal & chawal with the rest of them (the daal was equally disastrous).

En-route Kargil via Zoji-La, J & K, India

After spending a night full of intolerable stomach aches & upsets, all of us except my school buddy; yes, because he had a paneer meal as dinner while the rest of us - the greedy ones, had a chicken meal as our dinner. The ordeal started at around 3 am and continued till 4 o'clock, and we were supposed to leave sharp at 5 am to avoid the traffic that usually occurs at Zoji-La due to wretched road conditions after the thawing of the snow. So after flushing out the disastrous nutrition we had the previous night, we got ready to leave our hotel and commence our next leg of the whole trip - Ladakh. Our driver took us along the precarious winding highway while we enjoyed some truly breathtaking landscapes.

First glimpse of Zoji-La

The view from Zoji-La just took our breath away, the view of Amarnath Yatra base camp at Baltal.

Amarnath Yatra base camp at Baltal

Sonamarg, J & K, India

Eventually, I come to our last leg of "Kashmir" trip. Now now, it doesn't mean that the trip was over. Actually, there are two regions of Jammu and Kashmir, rather two provinces- Kashmir Province and Ladakh Province. We left our hotel at Pahalgam at 3.30 am and waited at the exit point for the next few hours when finally Indian Army allowed all the tourist vehicles to leave Pahalgam at about 6.20 am, after ensuring that the route ahead is absolutely safe. Our driver probably had kept a brick on the accelerator as soon as we left Pahalgam. There was no stopping in between and finally we reached Srinagar at about 8.30-9-ish. We had some rest, a good breakfast and left for Sonamarg at around 10 am with another driver this time.

On our way to Sonamarg along Indus River

My school buddy was a bit shaken after the Pahalgam escapade, my feeling was more of empathy towards the residents of the 3 places we visited. The primary means of income for them is tourism. Without it, how much does the state earn from export business of shawls, carpets, wool etc? The children are always subjected to seeing security personnel patrolling the streets, the by-lanes, shopping centres. One thing is for sure- this will remain an international issue as long as human civilization will thrive in this world. Anyway, too much of philosophy.

Pahalgam, J & K, India

So I am back after quite a bit of a hiatus. Desperately needed some respite. Actually life has been a bit on the tougher side for these few months (it still is) but I hope we will sail through. Anyway, back to where I had left off.
So my school buddy was waiting for the opportune moment to blast us off for continuing our plan to come to Pahalgam as soon as we were denied exit out of main Pahalgam town so that we could proceed to our Hotel Green Height.

This was our view from Hotel Green Height, located at the outskirts of Pahalgam

We could not understand what might have caused the army/police to take such action and hence we went to Pahalgam Police station. The temperature slowly started plummeting & we started shivering. The guys came out of the police station with the news that there was a round of open fire and some terrorists as well as some jawans from our Indian Army were killed in the firing at Anantnag (a town famous for willow trees and cricket bats manufacturing hub) which is between Srinagar & Pahalgam & always a hot spot for terrorist activities), therefore nobody was being allowed to leave from Pahalgam lest they get trapped at Anantnag (all for the security of the tourists & blah blah). All our reasoning fell on deaf ears and we were left with no other option but to search for a hotel within Pahalgam in the main market. Meanwhile, our driver Khurshid left for Hotel Green Height to bring all our luggage. We roamed about the Pahalgam main market searching for a hotel. To be honest, I was quite pepped up to be a witness to how actual "adventure"would feel like (yes, many of my readers won't agree to it citing reasons like how it is quite painful to live/reside like this amidst so much distress & agitation years after years & I fully concur with them - it is indeed tiring to be amidst such turmoil years after years).

Backpacking to Chalal & Kasol-Parvati Valley

 I am damn serious of setting up my travel blog professionally and here comes my scribbles on our recent backpacking trip to Parvati Valley, Himachal Pradesh. Thank God my friend, who was supposed to this trip solo last year, missed it and so we tagged along with him this time. I will give him all the credit for his research and time invested in doing the research. Anyway, he has always been a very serious & studious fellow.So eventually I have determined that I won’t squander money anymore on some weekend getaways near Mumbai when I have more or less explored most of the beaches in Maharashtra (Maharashtra has unclean beaches except Ganpatiphule and Tarkarli), and also I have 2 days off for Diwali so scheduled of going somewhere in Northern India (I have been in a Himalayan hangover ever since we returned from the mind-boggling Kashmir & Ladakh expedition. It was my 1^st visit to any Himalayan region (yes I have never been to Darjeeling or Sikkim despite being a native from Kolkata, West Bengal). Usually the 2 days off for Diwali luckily falls on a Thursday and a Friday every year so if you take 3 days leave you get 9 days off including the previous week Saturday & Sunday.We left on a Friday evening for Delhi on Yuva Express from Bandra Terminus so that we reach Hazrat Nizamuddin (New Delhi) by morning, spend the whole day in Delhi and then leave for Barshaini via Bhuntar, Himachal Pradesh in the evening (at 6.40 pm) from ISBT Kashmere Gate. The programme was more or less this when we departed from Bombay. But after spending the whole night sitting upright on Yuva Express, we were bereft of a sound sleep and our bodies were hungry/thirsty for a good sleep. So I thought of editing the programme a little bit & called up my friend who lives in Kaushambi so that we could get fresh and get ample rest till evening at their place. We reached Hazrat Nizammudin the next morning at approx. 10 am, took a taxi and reached my friend’s place by 11 am. We were dead exhausted, drained off of our enthusiasm and what not. After a good hot bath and sumptuous lunch prepared by the newlywed couple, the irresistibly beguiling & seductive bed was already summoning to me “come to the bed my love, you need this bed, and this bed needs you”. I had a contented sleep; my nerves, my eyes were pacified & ready for the upcoming week of backpacking to Parvati Valley.We left Kaushambi in an Ola (shouldn’t have taken it, Delhi Metro was a far superior option), got stuck in the traffic for nearly half an hour just before ISNT Kashmere Gate (yes, got a glimpse of Delhi traffic too besides Mumbai traffic). We reached ISBT Kashmere Gate pretty much before time. Ours was a semi-deluxe Himachal Pradesh State Transport bus (we were fretting what “semi-deluxe” meant before we actually saw the bus, thanks to our past experience of chair-car seating in the Yuva Express). We didn’t contemplate that we would be in for a pleasant surprise when we boarded the semi-deluxe bus. The seats were quite comfortable and it could be bent backwards during sleeping. The bus was supposed to leave at 6.40 pm but it got late by 10 mins. Finally we hit the road but the bus got gridlocked in another nasty Delhi traffic for about another half an hour. The conductor switched off the lights inside the bus and everybody fell asleep (the seats were super comfy). At about 11.30 pm -12 midnight, the lights were switched on and the bus had halted for dinner. We had a simple Punjabi dinner (chhole bature and lassi) as we didn’t want to upset our bellies so soon. The dinner halt was for a good 40 mins, hence we didn’t have to hurry. After the dinner, the bus driver started his NFS tactics and we shut our eyes trusting our lives with him. My sleep got interrupted due to a steep bend, opened my eyes to see the silhouettes of the Pir-Panjal Himalayan range in the darkness with the Beas River flowing in the gorge along the road. It was quite cold inside the bus in spite of all the windows and the door being closed. I covered myself fully with my newly bought Pashmina shawl (from Kashmir) and fell asleep again only to wake up at about 8.20 am, when we reached Kullu Bus Stand/Depot. Now we could have got down at Bhuntar and boarded the bus for Barshaini from there but we went to Kullu as we wanted to make our return journey a bit more comfortable & also reach Delhi a bit earlier (instead of traveling the whole day on a Saturday and also our train was scheduled to leave on the same day in the evening so it would be an extremely hectic journey all the way from Kullu to Delhi and back to Mumbai). Since it was a Diwali week, online portal was closed for booking tickets on the day of Diwali (Friday) so the conductor suggested to get tickets directly from the Bus Stand, Kullu. But the person sitting at the ticket counter informed one cannot buy tickets in advance, hence we need to buy the ticket on the same day. We were disheartened a bit, nonetheless we boarded a bus till Bhuntar (it’s just half an hour bus journey from Kullu) and reached just in time to get a bus leaving for Barshaini.

Barshaini-Manikaran-Kullu bus route

The bus journey was quite exhilarating while we crossed an iron bridge over the confluence of Beas & Parvati river, took some stimulating sharp bends, waved to the ever-smiling and fulfilled village folks, halted while a flock of slow-moving goats waltzed by giving a damn to their surroundings while the Parvati River is flowing incessantly in the deep ravine on one side of the road. Finally we reached Kasol (mini Israel as many travelers have named this place) at about 11.10-11.30 am (forgot the exact time)

Pahalgam, J & K, India

Here comes my scribbles on our 3rd day of the itinerary. So early morning we were all fresh and ready for our Pahalgam sojourn. We had a pretty good breakfast, Kashmiri Kahwa/Green Tea and asked them to prepare authentic Mutton Pulao for our dinner the next day we return back to Srinagar. I had planned a night stay at Pahalgam as it would have been tiring & hectic to return on the same day from there after sight-seeing there. Our hotel name was Green Height at Pahalgam. Now here let me give you a piece of advice- we did not check beforehand the location of the hotel at Pahalgam and that was, well, I won't say a “drawback" sort of but yes, owing to the existing situation there at that time, we should have checked the location of the hotel beforehand. I’ll elaborate on this later in this post.

Lidder River

Now we left pretty early as Pahalgam is approx. 3 hours journey from Srinagar via Awantipora and Anantnag and reached our hotel by 11.30-12-ish. We were mesmerised by the view from the hotel and the silence all around and immediately fell in love with the location. 

Hotel Green Height, Pahalgam

But the hotel was not “inside” Pahalgam but 10 km before “main” Pahalagam. Anyway, we were not aware of this. We took the best rooms in the hotel, dumped our luggage and left immediately for sight-seeing at Pahalgam.

On our way to Pahalgam from Hotel Green Height

There was stringent security check at the entrance of Pahalgam as it was the season of Amarnath Temple Yatra and just 5 days before, there was a terrorist attack on a yatri bus hurting some pilgrims. We reached the Pahalgam Club Garden, opposite Pahalgam Police Department and our driver had his acquaintances who owned horses (this time they had beautiful, majestic horses unlike the mules in Gulmarg). Now here, we were duped again as we did not see the riding charges as determined by Jammu & Kashmir Tourism board (INR 350 approx for the 1^st 2 hours and then INR 250/300 per subsequent hour for the horse ride). Those fellows charged us INR 2200/person upfront and they didn’t even give us any place for bargaining as it was more or less monopolised. Nonetheless, we really were excited for Pahalgam hence we acceded to their demands and off we went to Baisaran and Kashmir Valley (here we committed another mistake when they said that due to Yatra season Chandanwari, Aru Valley & Betaab Valley are closed. We should have confirmed this from the local police station- will describe later why I said this).

Top 5 Things to Do in and around Agra

It was Mark Twain who rightly said, “There are two kinds of people in this, one who have seen the Taj Mahal and the other who haven't.” But Agra is not just famous for the Taj, the magnificent marble monument which is very aptly one of the seventh wonders of the world.

Gulmarg, Jammu and Kashmir, India

The following spot in our itinerary was Gulmarg, located in a western direction from Srinagar and takes approximately 2 hours to reach. Now again we drove across certain locales where we could see the open hostility of the denizens and defiance to the Indian army and Indian administration- spray paintings, slogans like "India Go Back", "Azadi", "We Want Freedom" and so much more along these lines. We tried scrutinizing why there is such unrest amongst the people here, why are they hell bent in destroying such a beautiful place- a place which God indeed has moulded with all the time in his hands. Anyway after driving on Srinagar Baramulla road for nearly 1 hour we reached the bifurcation where going left would take us to Gulmarg while the right goes to Baramulla (another disturbed region which came into limelight again a few months back when the army of our respected neighboring country Pakistan attacked the villagers at Uri and killed many). We continued on the Srinagar Gulmarg road for another 1 hour approx. and finally reached the foothills of Gulmarg- a place named Tangmarg where our Kashmiri guide Ghulam made a deal with one his known people (who owns horses) to give all of us a ride to the end of the cable car stoppage and back to the base. We were unfortunate enough to miss the cable car ride as a few weeks earlier there had been an ill-fated mishap where a whole family from Delhi lost their lives when their cable car crashed into the deep valleys in Gulmarg. Hence the cable car services had been stopped.

On Srinagar Gulmarg Road

Gulmarg from Tangmarg

On the way to Gulmarg

We reached Gulmarg by our Innova but during winter, travelers need to climb up on horses only as the road from Tangmarg till Gulmarg is heavily covered with snow. There, mules (NOT horses) were waiting for us to take us to the top point where the cable car too goes.

Srinagar, J & K, India

So eventually my most coveted itinerary in the list of travel plans have been effectuated and we arrived at Srinagar via Delhi on 15th July 2017. We boarded the Jet Airways flight from CSIA Terminal 2 and was to have a halt of 40 minutes at Delhi which nightmarish-ly turned into a 2 hour halt as some flight of Jet Airways was delayed at Delhi airport and the blokes in that flight were supposed to get onto our flight (Delhi to Srinagar). There were a few heated discussions with the flight captain, the crew and some other passengers regarding compensation blah blah blah. I won't deny that I was equally annoyed but my % of happiness was more as I would be cut off from my office, corporate politics and their nagging Whatsapp messages. :)

So we were supposed to reach Srinagar at around 12 noon and then our agenda was to have a quick lunch and go for local Srinagar sight seeing. Our guide and driver were there to receive us with a brand new Toyota Innova at Srinagar International Airport and off we went through the narrow yet clean streets of Srinagar manned heavily with army personnel every few meters. Many of all our relatives, acquaintances were skeptical and alarmed when they became of our travel destination owing to the continuous disruptions and brawls. We could sense and see the intensity of animosity and revulsion in the region- wall posters, spray paintings etc. The Kashmiris were looking at us as if we were Jovians. We faced an awful traffic on Abdullah Bridge on the Jhelum River as it is quite narrow. Finally we reached the famed restaurant & had a sumptuous lunch including Kashmiri Wazwan- Tabak Maaz, Gushtaba, Rogan Josh, Sheekh, Korma, Pulao at Mughal Darbar Bakery and Restaurant.

Kashmiri Wazwan

On our way to Nishat Bagh along the Dal Lake, Srinagar, J  K, India

Resonance

After a few fluky escapades during my growing years, I have become very wary of overindulgent camaraderie which further has debilitated my credence and reverence in this “institution” of “friendship”. The miserable aftermath of a degenerate kinship is ineffably perturbing. “Friendship” doesn’t come with a caveat, else mankind would have to be prudent before being sucked into the broiling inferno. The cradle of this feigned affinity was at a party last year, at the place of one of the pretentious menfolk. The night was youthful, and we were unsuspecting juvenile, naïve, impetuous minds ready to be beguiled because the disciplinarians needed an army, ready to be flung against bigger syndicate. Hours, days and months were invested to inveigle us and suddenly we were the vanguard in crusading against the tyranny. We were also the “controversial” avant-garde but it started “winning”  apathetic backlash from the autarch.

The Yearn

It's every geologist's ingenuous wish to visit the natural geological museum i.e the Grand Canyon's in the US. But not many of their's wish is fulfilled. Mine was in extremely close proximity to being fulfilled. I had to attend a training course in Houston and the training included a field visit to Colorado and Utah.We were traveling from Houston, Texas to Grand Junction, Colorado and from Grand Junction to Moab, Utah by car. Our field instructors, thankfully, though it wise to do some sight-seeing on our way to Moab. The 1st stop was at Colorado National Monument (see pic below). The clear color of the blue sky is not at all seen if one stays in over-populated metropolitan cities of India (no harsh feelings but this is the hard fact). We had our wee bit photo-session over here (not many are lucky enough to experience these in one lifetime). Below are some glimpses of the breathtakingly spectacular place where the time comes to a still.

The Arabian calling... Again

Even Goa will start wailing if we did not make a yearly visit here, thanks to our fondness of this stunning place of beach shacks, the sandy breeze, the yellow sands (unlike the black sands of Maharashtra) and also offering booze at extremely affordable and economic price.