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4-day Udupi Itinerary
Getting there We reached Udupi on the day of Christmas in 2019, and needless to say, the town was beautifully decked up and looked festive, We had also pre-booked a Zoom car for the trip. The drive from Mangalore to Udupi was also quite nice and it reminded us a lot of Kerala and its coconut trees. We’d planned our stay for the next 4 days at an AirBnb for its proximity to many of the places on the itinerary. Udupi Itinerary – Day 1 Sri Krishna temple, Udupi We made our way to the famous Udupi Sri Krishna Temple. The temple has a picturesque tank from where the line…
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Hoode Beach, Udupi – Where time and waves stand still
This particular blog is more of a photo dump of our time at Hoode beach and less of words. This was the first beach we visited during our trip to Udupi and we were totally blown away by the serenity and the vibe of this beach! The amazing white sand, the gentle waves and the colour of the sky made for a magical day! I just sat on the shore and let my 3 year old to play all by herself, a first for her, as the sea was so so calm that it almost felt like a large river! The beach was very clean, probably because of the very…
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Everything You Need to Know about Nathula Pass, Sikkim
We visited Nathu La or Nathula or Natula pass as part of our first ever trip together to Sikkim, way back in 2013. So, the photographs and description you find here maybe wildly different from how you may find the pass today. The way up A visit to Nathula requires securing a permit from Gangtok the previous day. However, the travel desk at our place of stay took care of this as we’d informed them on the morning of the previous day that we’d like to visit Nathula the next day. The only vehicles that we saw on the way to Nathula and back were Scorpios and Boleros. We started…
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Hampi Itinerary – Day 1 of 4
You can see the magnificent Hampi in your own way. Some choose to hire an auto rickshaw, some take their car and some of us do it with a hired bike or on foot. We visited Hampi in the October of 2018. We took an overnight bus from Chennai to Hospet and then an autorickshaw from Hospet to our B&B in Hampi. It was a modest and clean homestay with a view of the Virupaksha temple from its balcony. It was perfect for us because many places were accessible by foot. Day 1 of our trip was completely on foot. We decided to get acquainted with the town and hence…
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5 Days Bhubaneshwar Itinerary
I am calling this our Bhubaneswar trip – but this was also in and around the city. We travelled to Bhubaneswar in Odisha in February, 2020 and this trip is very memorable for us, not just because of the amazing places we visited, but also because this was the last vacation we took just before Covid struck. Bhubaneswar Itinerary – Day 1 Nandankanan Zoo Most of our trips have a ‘Zoo day’ in the itinerary. Our daughter loves animals and we try to make every vacation fun for her as well. Since zoos tend to be crowded over the weekends, we typically plan our itineraries in such a way that…
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Toda Temple, Ooty – A peaceful tribal village in the hills
The Todas are a tribe that have lived in Tamilnadu along with the other tribes such as Kurumbas and Badagas. The Toda settlements are called munds and there is one such mund with a temple in their traditional half-barrel shape at the top of the hills that form the Botanical Garden campus in Ooty. A smaller model of the temple is at the entrance of the Botanical Garden and it is also where one can buy Toda-made handicraft items. The trek to the top of the Botanical Garden is scenic and is best taken at a leisurely pace as the last stretch involves quite steep slopes. The below snapshot shows…
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Achyutaraya Temple, Hampi – Paradise Lost
As one walks through the wide road that leads directly out of the Virupaksha Temple’s gopuram (entrance tower) towards the pavillion that houses the seated monolithic Nandi (the bull that is the divine steed of Siva), the single and two tiered ruins of Hampi Bazar bear silent witness to the start of the magical trek to Achyutaraya Temple. The Matanga hill that was a safe haven in the to the monkey king Sugreeva from the wrath of his brother Vali due to a curse in the epic of Ramayana, is visible to the right as one makes the climb from the Nandi and past the shrine. The humble shrine is…
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Bhangarh Fort- Mysteriously Magnificent!
The journey We started our journey to the Bhangarh Fort, considered the most haunted fort in India from Jaipur. Our plan was to visit the fort and then the Abhaneri step well before returning to Jaipur. The fort is about 70 km to 80 km, depending on the route from Jaipur. Of wizards and ghosts! On the way, our driver shared some interesting folklore about the Bhangarh Fort and the reason for its decimation. According to him, a wizard tried to court the princess of the fort, the legendary beauty Ratnavati, against her wish. Once, when the princess’ attendant went to the marketplace to get her perfume for her bath,…
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Gandikota – India’s Spectacular Gorge
We travelled to Gandikota from Chennai with a stopover at Nellore. The drive from Nellore to Gandikota is especially scenic. We stayed at the Haritha resort in Gandikota which was also close to the points-of-interest there. Gandikota is a small village which has seen the rule of different dynasties such as the Chalukyas, the Vijayanagara empire’s vassals and Golconda Sultanate before passing into British control over time. The first structure that you come upon is the barracks which open up on the Charminar. However, we could find no steps that led to the three tiers above the ground level and so it seems to be a more ornamental structure than…
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Jaipur’s Chhatriyans – Peace amongst chaos
The architectural marvels of India’s pink city are many. While places like Amer fort or Hawa Mahal are exquisite, we simply fell in love with the Cenotaphs or Chhatriyans of Jaipur. Read on to know why! Maharaniyon Ki Chhatriyan It was just because of sheer proximity that we chose Maharaniyon Ki Chatriyaan as our first place to visit. Our hotel was just a stone’s throw away and we thought we’d do something light after about 7 hours of travel and we were so glad we started with this lovely place!! This is located on Amer road after Jal Mahal as one travels from the lake palace to the city center…
