My Sunset Album

Sun rise & set - by Sarvepalli

Photography and Food

Photography and Food


Pictures and food dominate my travel. And lots of hot coffee.
Well, before you turn the page, there is some logic to it. Rather, my perspective of it.
We travel to please our senses. Completely different input to our brains is refreshing. Our senses i.e. sight, sound, smell, taste, touch – are used to the daily mundane routine and the brain is tuned into monotony. The creation of ideas/thoughts in the brain gets into the same routine and eventually we feel that life is just, stuck.
Most people need recreation. “Re creation” of their selves. A nice movie & a dinner or some beer-over-football would generally do, but over longer periods of time, we need a bigger break. The senses need radically different inputs to recreate the brain and its impressions.

Getting my point? Yes, that is the reason people take big vacations and go out to explore places, cities, hills, seas and forests.
They go out and absorb the new sights and sounds and feel refreshed. But sights & sounds only satisfy the eyes and ears. Capture those moments on still and video cameras. Even after 5 years you will actually feel the place when you watch those pictures/videos.

The same thing goes with the tongue. Taste the local food, don’t compare it with your native cuisine. Just enjoy the food as it is. Remember those tastes, find out those recipes. Come back home and try out those recipes after 2 years. Those lovely memories will surely be rekindled when you stoke your taste buds.

It is like recording on tape. Your sensory organs record the images in your brain and play them for you. Use this mechanism intelligently and you’ll find new ways of recreation !

Package Tours

For me, travel always meant planning, budgeting, last minute arrangements and a little bit of chilling out. Until I discovered the joys of package tours.
My earliest memory of a package tour was the Delhi-Agra tour which I went when I was about 6 years old. I remember we were horded around like programmed robots - "Get-down-at-Yamuna-and-have-a-dip", "30-mins-at-Qutb-Minar", "If-you-miss-the-bus-at-Taj-Mahal-then-catch-us-at-xyz-place" etc. Somehow I was under the impression that package tours don't give you enough freedom to explore things on your own and have your own privacy.
Well, I realised only in 2004 that common sense was not my sole birthright. People in the tourism business have given some thought to this over the years and the process has matured to a point where we now have "tour guide" as a career.
Take a look at Haggis Adventures
This is a tourism company started in Scotland by people with passion for tourism (and Scotland). During Easter 2004, being a desi bachelor in the UK with lot of desire for travel, but no company, I blindly booked a package for 269 pounds at Haggis Adventures. I had my own concerns about the kind of people who would travel with me and how I could gel with them.

I did not regret it. Not a bit.

Will write more about my Haggis Adventure (yes, I will explain what is Haggis too !) later.. But for now, I am convinced that package tours are the best.

So my next holidays did not involve "Planning, budgeting, last minute arrangements and a little bit of chilling out".
I now do only two things: 1. Research a little bit and identify a great tour operator 2. CHILL OUT !

The primary concern for many people is the costs involved in buying a package.. "Wouldn't it be cheaper to do-it-yourself ?", "Will I really be interested in all the places those guys show us?", "Will I get enough time for my leisure shopping ?"..

Believe me, all those are things of the past. You do get packages to suit every pocket. And the little premium you pay is WORTH it since you don't really have to haggle with taxis, you don't have to handle conmen or waste time in hunting for accomodation, food or directions.

If you don't want to see every single spot in the city, you could always opt out.

I've tried the group tour at Haggis Adventures and also a customised private 7-day tour which I bought from Orbit World for my honeymoon trip to Shimla-Kulu-Manali. It was pretty good.

Fun does come in packages.

Me

 

Bangalore to Hyderabad

Bangalore Hyderabad trips are part of thousands of Telugu software engineers.
A whole section of the transport industry thrives on this chunk of population who work in Bangalore but have strong ties back home.

My favourite mode of transport has been the Bangalore-Hyderabad Express inspite of the inconvenient timings.
Being a 'true blue' engineer, too lazy to walk over to the reservation counter, I always got a kick from booking tickets online at www.irctc.co.in. Every single time I booked an online ticket, I felt so happy being an Indian with access to lightning service from the largest railway company in the world.

The train used to leave Bangalore City at 5 pm, but most of us used to prefer the pretty Cantonment station.
With just two platforms and conveniently located at the heart of the city, the Cantonment station is heritage Bangalore at its best - clean, small, quiet and convenient. I used to leave office at 4.30, haggle with those auto drivers and finally reach the Cantt station.
Buy a magazine, grab a cup of coffee, look around to see if anyone I know is travelling too..

At 5.20-ish I am settling down into my seat, looking around for some good company (if I have not already met a friend/colleague/ex-colleague).. I don't know why but I always used to get those typical families who have a son working in Bangalore and a daughter settled in the US (80% chance that she is in San Jose).

In my early days as a s/w engineer I used to participate in those discussions of how high we are paid, how late we work etc.. "Your generation don't exercise enough. You sit all day with your computers and don't use your brains." - says the old man next to the window seat.
I stopped bothering about giving my opinions on such mundane stuff and preferring keeping to myself.

The guy next to me is reading Outlook Money to get the latest dope on hot stocks and investment avenues. He happens to work for - TCS, Infy, Wipro, IBM, HCL, TI, Intel - or some other company at Whitefield.
After the routine chat on Java, SAP, Peoplesoft, Onsite salaries & Indian salaries, we end up discussing common friends. The Indian software industry is well connected and if you are a graduate from a decent college, there are good chances that you know someone who knows someone who inturn knows your friend's brother !

We've crossed Yelahanka now and by then we'd have had a good look at the booming real estate and the Hebbal Flyover. Little stations zoom past us. Let me remember: Bangalore East, Bayyappannahalli, Doddaballapur.. not bad.. Yelahanka has a stop.

Slowly you find everyone quite cheerful and before you wonder why, you know why. Its the sunset.
It was always a pleasure watching the sunset as the train sped away through the hills.

Hindupur is the first station after the train enters Andhra.
And the sequence is:
Dharmavaram - Get down, have omlette, buy water, go back and goto sleep. Its 9.30-10.00 pm
Gooty
Kurnool
Mahbubnagar
Kacheguda - 5.30 am

There is a definite sequence of things you eat/drink on this train:
- Chai, coffee
- Alu Bonda/masala vada
- Tomato Soup (with two crusty pieces of bread)
- Meal from the Pantry
- Omlettes at Dharmavaram

Get down at Kacheguda at 5.30 and wake up to harsh realities : Hyderabadi Auto Drivers :-)

Scotland - The Haggis Experience

Scotland is my best travel experience till date, not just because I love mountains, silence and single malt.  It so happened that I was suddenly alone during the 2004 Easter long weekend in the UK.  A splendid (well, almost) Italy trip got cancelled in the last moment.  I sincerely think Italy would have been splendid since I chalked out the itinerary after hours of Googling.  We planned to cover Venice, Florence, Lake Garda and Rome -  travelling in trains and staying at quaint little B&Bs.  But, never mind...

Ok.. So I had 3 days left to plan a long weekend and I somehow stumbled upon this company called Haggis Adventures.  I blindly went and booked a package for 269 pounds for 5 days and had a superb holiday.  
The guy met me (and a bunch of wild backpacking girls) at London’s King Cross station on Thursday morning.  Put us onto a train to Edinburgh (EdinBurrraaaa ).  Picked us all up at the station in the trademark yellow bus and drove us down to Bruntfield’s Youth Hostel.
And drove us all around Scotland for the next 4 days, taking us on trekking trails, staying in a castle, having a bon fire, arranging Scottish folk music & dance at the cute little Scottish pub in the village at Carbisdale, tasting authentic Malt throughout, spend a night on the Isle of Skye and educating us all the while on the ancient geography and tragic history of Scotland.

Not to forget the tour guides.  They were mad. And made us play all sorts of games and made it feel like a college trip.

Next time you see a whisky whose name starts with Glen,  think of me.  Because Glen is the scottish word for mountain.  Any Speyside whisky is good because the water from the river Spey has the peaty taste imbibed from the coal in the land.
I made some great friends from all over the world – US, Brazil, New Zealand, Yugoslavia, South Africa, Canada and Australia.
I can devote a whole page for this trip, but in short :
Go for Haggis adventures when you go there next time.

Tour operators information

Information:

Hope you’ve read my previous post evangelizing tour operators. Here is the list of companies I’ve bought packages from and reasonably happy.

Haggis Adventures – Scotland – http://www.haggisadventures.com
Amazingly creative and ‘honest’ people in the business. Will write later about my Scottish experience (yea, it was not just a tour, but an experience).
Rating : 4.5 / 5

Eurostar packages – Belgium & Holland
Eurostar maybe running into a tunnel of losses, but for tourists it is still a great chance to get a great, inexpensive ride in the under-sea tunnel connecting England and France.
Train from London to Brussels is about 3 hours and you can book hotels & packages from affiliated operators. Very reliable.
Rating: 4/5

Orbit Tours & Travels – India – Himachal trip: http://www.orbit-world.com
These guys specialize in business tour packages (of the conferences & exhibitions variety). But of late they are into “Discover India” packages to all the popular destinations in India and abroad.
Recommendable, considering the price and the scale of operations: Rating: 3.5/5

Travel in 2005

Well, the travel mania didn’t stop with my European conquests in 2004. I returned to India finally in April 2005 and did travel quite a bit. June-August were just about Bangalore-Hyderabad trips, but then, if you do it every consecutive weekend for 2 months, I guess that counts as “travel” (
And real travel started when I got married on August 11. We traveled to Vizag, Tirupati, Bangalore and finally the big one – Himachal Pradesh..

The how and why of all my travelling
I’ve always believed more in DIY than ‘outsourcing’. But as I get older, I am able to see value in not doing everything yourself. It is not about one thing being better than the other. Both the approaches offer us a “different value” and we have to choose one of them.

Before I lose track of what I am talking, the point I’m trying to make here is: Choose travel packages from professional tour operator.
The idea behind travel: People have various motives in going traveling/sightseeing. Following are some of them, not necessarily in this order:

• Curiosity


• Adventure – do something exciting


• Get away from the crowd/routine


• Introspection

You go for a package tour if your motives are the last two and you go out on your own if it is the first two. Simple :-)

Himachal Honeymoon

Awesome !

Rush Hour in Manali

Idyllic - that is the word.
Rush hour in the mountains of Manali, Himalayas. 

Blogger: User Profile: Greg Dinning

Greg Dinning's blog - Guy from canada who taught me web services

On the economics of Web services

For the full article, see xml.com.

Mind and Matter

Good one

Two evenings in Paris

A windy, rainy and cold weekend around the Ides of March may not be the best time to visit Paris, but a lazy, sunny, English, September afternoon is surely a good time to write about it on a borrowed IBM T23 Thinkpad!
With 4 couples, two toddlers and me the single guy, it was a sizeable desi batch making a trip from the southern tip of England to Paris. May or may not be interesting or useful to you, but just for the record, here are the names: Vadiraj-Kaustubha-little hyperactive devil Anirudh(The Pyatis), Subodh-Urmi-little cute devil Shreya(The Ranjans), Manmeet-Ashu (The Sardars) and Prateek-Ruchi (The Agrawals) and Kiran(The Writer).

I must mention here, the enthusiasm and efforts of Rajesh and Pressi for getting a Schengen visa, in vain.

By the way, just to make sure that my ego is not the only entity getting enriched by this piece of writing, I am going to mention Information whenever there is something for you remember if you ever you make a trip to Paris.
(The well-read, high IQ lot of you who have read the Dummies series of books will recognise what I am trying to achieve. The others.. do not bother, just read on).

So, here is the first piece of
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Information:
The Schengen visa is the visa required for all the "Schengen" European countries e.g. France, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Greece, Germany, Austria etc.
If you plan to travel to, say 3 countries - France, Belgium and Holland - then you need to apply for the Schengen Tourist visa at the Consulate of that country which you plan to enter first.
We took a 30-day visa valid for a period of 6 months.. What it means is I can spend a total of 30 days in any of the European countries, in a span of 6 months.
You will need a valid passport, bank statements, confirmed hotel and travel bookings and some other documents to apply for a Schengen visa.
Here is the link :
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Okay, back to the trip.
Being bright software engineers from India, we came up with brilliant out-of-the-box cheapest plans to reach Paris. And, much like the fate of out-of-the-box software projects, we ended up shelling out more than we ought to. At the end of this article, I will anyway document "Learnings and Best Practices", but I'll first continue with what we did. That'd cover WWW (What went Wrong :-)) )

Living in Portsmouth, the sea did seep into our thinking. Cannot blame ourselves really, but that is what happens when every little corner in the town has something to do with ships, sailors and the sea.
Naturally, we took the sea route to France. Our decision was triggered by a brainwave from Subodh that Brittany Ferries offers cheap overnight travel to France and we dont have to make the 2 hour journey to London to catch Eurostar or a flight. And the decision gained some credibility when we learnt that the Portsmouth-Caen return fare was just £45.00.
Wait a minute, I just said Caen and it is not in the top 10 holiday destinations in the world. So I better introduce it.
Caen (pronounced as Caan) is a town in Normandy area of France where the D-Day landings happened at the end of World War II. The Ouistreham port at Caen was one of the battlefields. Dad's generation can related to Caen via movies like "The Longest Day".
Folks from the current generations : Need not relate to Caen. You'll probably never have to go there to reach Paris :-)

As new battlefields are being identified by mankind on other parts of this planet, the Old Battlefields have turned into tourist spots. Maybe a good idea to promote tourism : Wage a bloody war, build history around it and thereby generate tourism for the next generation.
Brittany Ferries operates overnight trips (about 6 hours) from Portsmouth to Caen. If the sea is not too rough, the ride is worth every penny. With lovely restaurants, bars, lounges, shops and decent cabins, it can be fun in a group. Here are some pictures of the ship :

The plan was to reach Caen on a Friday early morning (19 March, to be precise), quickly make a 2-hour train ride to Paris and get ready for sightseeing by 12-1 pm. We conveniently forgot that we were desis.
So when we docked at Caen and headed straight for immigration, the bloke there realised that this was the most important day of his life. The present and future of France lay in his hands, and he would give his best that day. Wondering what the hell I am trying to say ? Well, basically the officer incharge at the port hadn't really handled immigrations and entry clearances earlier. So he was kind of stressed out, confused and totally went berserk when he saw a bunch of desis (with one guy actually wearing a turban). He checked every inch of our passports and interviewed each one of us about every single detail, before finally letting us in.

The best joke :
It is Manmeet (Sardar) and Ashu's turn for the interview.
Pointing to Ashu, Officer asks Sardar : "Is she your wife ?"
Sardar confidently answers : "Yes Sir!"
No expression on officer's face.
Pointing to Sardar, Officer asks Ashu : "Is he your husband ?"
For a moment, we were all confused as to who was the Surd.. Manmeet or the officer..

People get married to each other in India, without even talking to each other for 10 mins and this fellow interviewed us just to let us visit the Eiffel tower. Damn him.
Really hate these sort of moments, when you have to struggle to prove you are a good, peace-loving citizen of the world, just because of your colour..

Anyway, having realised that we were just harmless tourists, he finally let us in around 12 pm and wished us "Enjoy your trip". Damn him. He was just an unidentified risk in the project.

After 3 hours of boredom, when we walked out of the terminals and took the bus to the train station, we found that Caen was the typical European village that we all had imagined. Ginger bread cottages, little children on swings, old people, a little chapel, tiny winding roads, flowers and greenery everywhere.. We loved it and quickly forgot the immigration officer. Damn him.
Looking back, he was just a regular guy trying to do his job properly. Okay, bless him.

After reaching the train station, we realised that whatever we heard about food and language barriers in Europe are all true.
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Information :
- It is tough to get vegetarian food in smaller places in Europe. Just saying "No meat" is not good. Many places consider eggs and seafood as vegetarian.
- Even if you do eat meat, it is quite uncooked. Not enough for desi palates.
- You might get a lot of respect when you speak English in India, but not in France. Worth spending some time learning a few french phrases. Here is the link :
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The ride and the route was good. Green fields and white sheep were standard. Fast smooth trains , impressive stations, ticket collectors in suits - are all true. Sit by the window, turn on your favourite music (instrumental, Kadri's saxophone is what I tried), sip beer and watch the countryside. Worth every penny.
Manmeet


We reached Paris around 4 pm at the Gare du Nord station (The North station). Eagerly worked our way out with all our heavy bags and the kids' prams. Very eager to have a first glimpse of The City of Lights. Expectations ran high. After all, we all were the good students in our class, who toiled hard, got into software, worked hard (patao-ed our managers) and secured onsite positions. We deserved to have see beautiful places in the world.
Scene cut. Click here to read what happened next.

Idle brain - Philosophical question

Why do people need to travel ?

When every place on earth more or less looks the same with buildings, trees, hills, water and animals (and ofcourse crowds),
why is it that people feel the need to travel and go sightseeing ?

Much like all questions involving human beings, this one too is complicated.

The traveller brigade would stick to their logic that you expand your mental horizon, you learn new things, meet new people and learn about different cultures. Not to forget that you get to taste different cuisine and also get a small halo to show off to your friends.

The anti-travelling crowd ofcourse roll out all the mature phrases - "all places are the same", "you've seen one, you've seen them all", "buy some useful rather than wasting money on tickets and hotels".

After making all the trips very enthusiastically, I've good memories (digital :-) ) and pictures of all of them.
But not sure if I've really added anything useful to my head.
I now know that Scotch has to be tasted on the rocks at the tip of your tongue along with scottish shortbread,
that the D-Day landings happened in Ouistreham,
that there are more than 500 varities of beer in Belgium and why Holland is called Netherlands.

So ?

Inviting your comments. (Unless ofcourse you get into another loop - "What will I achieve if I comment on this ?" )

PS: I will post all Europe pictures and actually start writing about each trip soon er, tomorrow.. During weekend actually.

The European Bug - A desi's perspective

I am a desi. At heart, in thinking, by habit, by mindset. For me, Europe means Yash Chopra's movies.

I am part of the Great Indian post-1995 Engineering Graduate club.
I talk about India in 21st century, Indian value systems, honesty, ambition and simplicity sipping a Rs.50 coffee at Cafe Coffee Day or Barista at Indiranagar.

I dumped my Metallurgical Engineering education ( ?? ), conveniently avoided foundries and shop floors and jumped straight into the IT pool. After all, software "allows me to use my brain, provides me more scope to prove myself". (Never mind if I am just running jobs, agents, spending 4 hours on changing font sizes, updating timesheets and organizing team meetings)

Splashed about for a year.5 in Infosys, "the bellwether of Indian IT (whatever that means)" and moved to IBM - "The dancing elephant providing solutions for a small planet".
Currently in the UK, trying to hang on for 6 more months.

Okay, now that we've established who I am, let me throw some light on my Europe trips.
I must say that all the above effort to paint a picture is to basically let you know that I am part of that category of Indians which is somewhere in between the elite Mittals, Shyamalans, Bosess and the poor souls who risk lives for menial jobs in the Middle East.

Like a middle-class Indian Resident, I am a middle class Non Resident Indian. I can afford to take European holidays but not with 5-star champagne cruises. Will plan for 5 countries in 10 days, not 10 days in a seaside villa. Ready to try out a couple of wines, but ultra careful on food (no meat, no meat).

Before we start, a few tips/tidbits :

- Like any sightseeing exercise, a trip to European countries will overshoot budget.
Doesn't matter even if it is a total kanjoos budget (in which you carry your luggage for a whole day without spending the night at a hotel and you pack rotis, fruits, chips etc for 3 days )

- The cities are a dirty as our regular Indian cities.
- You will see more desis (Thou shalt not wish/help each other) than the local Europeans.
- Do not try and polish your English. Europeans are not interested in English. Just speak plain English, slowly.
- It is not always cold. May - August is HOT. Even if you've seen 40 deg C in your hometown, you will feel hot here at 25 degrees. Don't know why.
- Pickpockets and conmen do operate. Travel in a desi group, split cash between bags and pockets.

And the universal advice to all desis :
Please do not convert every Euro (Rs. 55) or Pound (Rs. 82) when you go on these trips. Just relax and have a holiday. Avoid the urge to cover 20 attractions in 1 day just to back and brag to your friends.

Okay, now..
I had the opportunity (read that as "mood to spend pounds" ) to go around Paris, Belgium/Holland, Scotland and smaller places in UK like the Isle of Wight, Bath etc.
Italy was missed due to a last minute brainwave by a Sardar colleague that the budget was overshooting. Not interested in seeing Switzerland as a bachelor.
Germany - boring.
Austria, Sweden, Finland - cancelled due to realisation of the rupee value of Pounds.

In the next few blogs, I'll try and pour out all my memories of these trips using the best English I can :-))

The Traveller

Tiny place to capture my travel experiences. Planning to add all travel-related articles, tips etc. You are most welcome to contribute your experiences, but please make sure that the experience is first-hand.

Let's go!!!!