Brahmagiri , Irpu falls – A trip and trek.
The trip/trek was done on the 8th Feb 09. Brahmagiri is a hill in the Western Ghats (1608 mts). It is situated in the Brahmagiri wildlife sanctuary on the border between Wayanad District of Kerala and Kodagu district of Karnataka. The Brahmagiri wildlife sanctuary is a restricted area, featuring a rich variety of wildlife including [...]
Andaman & Nicobar, Port Blair & Havelock Island – 2009 Big trip – Part I
This is Part I of the 2009 Big trip – covering Andaman & Nicobar, Port Blair & the Havelock Island trip Part II of the 2009 Big trip where we covered the Temples of Tamilnadu is at this link It was time for one of our annual holidays and the planning started from the first [...]
Temples of Tamilnadu – 2009 Big trip – Part II
This is Part II of the 2009 Big trip where we covered the Temples of Tamilnadu. >>>Part I of the 2009 Big trip – covering Andaman & Nicobar, Port Blair & the Havelock Island trip is at this link The long drive part of the trip started from the 24th of Sep 09. The route [...]
A weekend trek to Mukurthi Peak near Ooty.
Ooty seems to be the flavor of the season and this was a trek through the Mukurthi national park which is very close to Ooty. This was done over the weekend of 28th & 29th Nov 09. The park is named after the distinctive looking Mukurthi peak, which at 8,379ft is the fourth highest peak [...]
An incomplete guide to Hoysala temples ;-)
From the preface of the “Complete Guide to Hoysala temples” by Gerard Foekema: “For me, enjoying Later Calukya and Hoysala temples is one of the great pleasures of life. I love these temples because their plans are so logical and natural, because their architecture is so ingenious, and because their execution is so rich…" We [...]
IIMA Campus – Nature Walk.
On Sunday I went to the old campus for some bird watching… and saw quite a few of em.. Birds of the feathered kind I mean. Honest! It started with a mail… ” Prakriti – The Nature Club of IIMA is organising a nature walk to observe and appreciate the beauty of flora and fauna [...]
5 years with the Xing…
Our Santro ‘Xing’ completed 5 years and 1,00,000 kms in 2010. . . 5 really pleasurable years! I don’t think a very detailed ownership report is required since there are 100s of reports out there for the Xing. So just a small note on the experience so far. During all our trips, not once did [...]
Gurramkonda, Vontimitta, Siddhavatam, Brahmamgari matam.
Another ‘Blast from the past’ from my archives. This trip is quite recent though, from November 08. The main purpose of the trip was to attend my relative’s wedding in AP. Since we were driving into the interiors, we thought of visiting some lesser known places which are somewhat off the beaten track. Route taken: [...]
Pranlal Bhogilal Vintage Car Museum – Autoworld
Trrrrriiiinnngg… Trrrriiinnnggg… Doc: Hello SG: Hello Doc, I was thinking of visiting the Pranlal Bhogilal vintage car collection tomorrow morning (Saturday 10th July 2010)… Doc: Hmmm… I too was planning to go there sometime. I drove past this place a few days ago when I was going somewhere, it is around 30 – 40 minutes [...]
Tirumala, Tiruchanoor, Vellore and Sripuram.
Parkinson’s Law goes something like "Work expands to fill up all available time" and so it had been for the last couple of months. With work often spilling over into the weekends, we had not gone out for any serious long drive after our Hoysala Temple trip in March 09. It was also around two [...]
Chennai and Kanchipuram
There was a wedding in the family and plans were made for a trip to Chennai. Not being much of a crowd person, I did have second thoughts about joining in for the trip… but the temptation of a long drive on the GQ was too irresistible and I opted in. We left on the [...]
Chamundi hills, the big Nandi and Lalitha mahal palace
This is a trip from the 9th of Feb, 2008. It was just another lazy weekend when we decided to head out towards Lokaruchi for a leisurely lunch. During lunch we were discussing about Chamundi hills and the big Nandi… on a whim, we decided to drive up to Mysore post lunch. There wasn’t much [...]
Kadapa, Pushpagiri, Gurramkonda & Horsley hills.
We had just come back to Bangalore late on the night of 30th September 2009 after driving around for over a week in Tamilnadu and this trip was from the morning of 2nd Oct to the evening of 4th Oct… So two back to back trips. The main high-lights of this trip were visiting Pushpagiri [...]
Chembra Peak, Meenmutty waterfalls, Himavad Gopalaswamy betta.
This is a trip from March 1st & 2nd 2008, which I dug up from the archives. Infact the main reason why I started to write these travelogues is that within a few months of a trip, the memories slowly begin to fade and the story behind each pic gets fuzzier and fuzzier. I also [...]
The MacLehose Trail – Hiking in Hong Kong
We were in Hong Kong & Macau during November – December 2011 as part of my IIMA PGPX exchange program with the China University of Hong Kong. While Googling around for interesting places to visit in and around Hong Kong, I came across the MacLehose Trail. Though the complete trail was out of question due [...]
A DIY Story: Home Audio Speaker Boxes in a Car ??? Yes!!!
Before starting off with the DIY story, let me clarify a couple of things… [1] Every DIY has its own inherent risks. I considered the ‘worst-case-scenario’ and decided that if I ended up with damaged speakers / blown HU or Amp, I was ready for it. [Acceptable risk] [2] I have been using the setup [...]
My brush with the ‘Yamdoot’ :-)
There are bikes that I love, there are bikes that I hate… and then there is a bike that I respect – The Yamaha RD350 aka the Rajdoot RD350; or the ‘Yamdoot’ as it was nicknamed in India. The RD350 is not something that you can buy off the shelf, it is a part of [...]
HAL Aerospace Museum & Heritage Center. Bangalore.
Gave the Xing for service. After a ‘not so good’ experience with my regular service center last time, I decided to head over to the Advaith service center in Whitefield for this service. Left home post breakfast and reached Whitefield by around 10.00am. Gave the service rep a list of stuff that needed to be [...]
Little Rann of Kutch Wild Ass Sanctuary & Rann Riders resort – Dasada.
IIMA had organized a Leadership Development workshop for the PGPX students over the weekend of 3rd and 4th October 2010. The venue was the Rann Riders resort in Dasada village, Gujarat. The village of Dasada is a few minutes drive from the entrance of the Little Rann of Kutch Wild Ass Sanctuary. The Rann Riders [...]
Incredible Rajasthan ! – A 2320 kms road trip, without reservations.
Normally most of our trips are planned in advance. We at least have info about the places to cover, a rough idea of the time required at each place, road conditions and the route to take… What made the Rajasthan road trip incredible for us is : We just had an arbitrary list of [...]
