Melkote and Srirangapatna, a day trip.
We made a quick trip to Melkote and Srirangapatna on the 31st of Jan 2009. My inlaws wanted to visit a Narasimha temple (Their ‘family god’) on the eve of their wedding anniversary and the only Narasimha temples we knew of outside Bangalore are in Sholingur (TN) and Melkote (KA). Having been to both these [...]
A DIY (Damp It Yourself) story: DynaMat, FonoMat…Yoga-Mat ????
Normally I listen to music in my car with the volume set at ‘sane’ levels. But once in a while I get this urge to crank up the volume towards the ‘are you deaf?’ mark for a song or two. I don’t use a sub-woofer, but with a custom amp set-up and good speaker boxes, [...]
Weekend drive to Srikalahasti.
Looks like this is a season of weekend drives for me! Some pre-planned, some unexpected… On 8th & 9th Aug 09, we did a weekend trip to Srikalahasti near Tirupati. My in-laws had a pooja vow to complete there and had planned to go by train. But tickets were on the 3 digit WL even [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
A Long walk, Monsoon, Leeches, Wildlife & Railway History.
We went on a trek in the Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary, Kerala, over the weekend of 6th & 7th June 09. We travelled in a Tempo Traveller, with a group of friends and friends of friends! Left Bangalore at around 8.30pm Friday evening and returned back at around 5.00am on Monday morning. The trek was along [...]
Flying High – Ballooning @ Jaipur.
26.10.2011, Jaipur was celebrating Diwali… and we celebrated it in a different way. We went Ballooning ! There are very few places in India where Ballooning happens regularly; luckily Jaipur is one of them. Since Ballooning requires favorable wind conditions and relatively plain land to operate safely, it is a seasonal activity and is conducted [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Kotilingeshwara – A quick little trip.
On the 30th of March 2008, we were returning back to Bangalore from a family trip to Chittoor. Since we had started our return journey quite early in the morning, we were quite ahead of schedule and were driving back at a very liesurely pace. On a couple of earlier trips along this route, we [...]
Belief – A trip to Kebre
“For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don’t believe, no proof is possible."-Stuart Chase. A very good friend of mine underwent a brain surgery late last year. Though the tumor was removed, he has not recovered his vision even after 9 months. Initially the doctors were somewhat positive, saying that though [...]
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: [...]
Kukke Subramanya & Kumara Parvatha; a drive and trek
We came back today (26th Jan 09) after an unforgettable trip spread over 3 days, drove 690kms from Bangalore to Kukke Subramanya and back… and trekked for a total distance of 26kms to the top of Kumara Parvatha. Kumara Parvatha (KP) is the second highest peak in Karnataka after Mullayanagiri and is considered to be [...]
The Elephant & the Tiger – Hathi Bhata & Ranthambore trip.
It was the 19th of December 2011. We had just come back from the big trip around Rajasthan. Vani & Aish had taken the flight back to Bangalore the previous evening. Sangeetha & me still had a few more days of vacations left and we scanned through our list of ‘must see places in Rajasthan’. [...]
Havelis & Mosques – Ahmedabad old city
Sangeetha was in Ahmedabad during the weekend of 26th & 27th June 2010. That weekend, we took some time off to visit a couple of places in and around Ahmedabad. After covering Adalaj, Modhera, Patan and Sidhpur on the 26th (That is a seperate travelogue), we went around to see a few places in Ahmedabad [...]
7 days of driving around Karnataka – Temples, Hills, Forests, Caves, Ruins, Forts and Highways
The three of us returned on 2nd Jan after another wonderful road trip! [Sanjay, Sangeetha & Santro ] We started out at around 7.00am on the 27th of December and parked back at 10.30pm on 2nd Jan 09, making it a 7 day trip around Karnataka.. 7 days of sheer driving pleasure. Day 1 – [...]
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 [...]
Hathi Singh Temple, Sidi Saiyyed Mosque & a Haveli in Ahmedabad.
Ever since I landed on the IIMA campus in April 2010, life has been mostly following a regular pattern. A normal day revolves around the classroom, dining hall, syndicate-room and the hostel-room… An occasional ‘highlight’ in the routine would be a visit to the Big Bazaar @ Himalaya mall. After stumbling through yet another hectic [...]
The shore temples of Mahabalipuram
In early 2007, we had to go to Chennai over a weekend for a family function; this was the first time that me and Sangeetha were visiting Chennai together. After the function we had some time on hand and post lunch we headed out to Mahabalipuram, which is included in UNESCO’s list of World Heritage [...]
