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Ladakh - Planning The Trip

Over 2000 Km by road, in around 10 days. Stunning landscapes, wonderful people. That sums up our Ladakh trip. But how did it actually work? How did we make it happen? Read on to find out!  Leh, the capital of Ladakh , is accessible by air and road. Flying into Leh is the easiest, and time-saving option, while the road is the time consuming one, but with the added advantage of driving past some of the most beautiful landscapes in our country. Each option has much to recommend it, and we chose the road for just one reason – altitude sickness. Altitude sickness was one of my biggest concerns, since I suffer from motion-sickness. Yes, I do travel a lot, but that is despite my condition, and, over the years, have learnt how to handle it. I struggled with it when we visited Nathu-La in Sikkim, and wondered if I would be able to manage a week at the even higher altitudes that we would encounter in Ladakh. This was the reason we stuck to a basic plan, of only 9 days in Ladakh, thoug...

The Family Traveller - My Experiences and Thoughts

I just read an article in the Club Mahindra Blog (Clay) by Lakshmi Sharath – The Family Traveller , where she talks about the differences between those travelling alone and those in a group and the kind of amenities they look out for. I started commenting on the article only to realize that it was getting too long, so I decided to write a post on it instead, interrupting my current series on my vacation. So, here are just a few of my thoughts on the same subject. Please do read her article here before you start on this one, so you can understand what I am talking about. To begin with, I am also a family traveller. I travel, not just with my husband and 6 year old kid, but also with my in-laws, and sometimes cousins too. I totally agree with Lakshmi that most family travellers look for not just the basic comforts during travel, but in fact, they look for a home away from home. They want everything that they are used to at home – the same kind of food, the same kind of routines, e...

Poovar Part 2 - A Backwater Cruise

The most interesting activities offered by the Poovar Island Resort are the variety of backwater cruises in a fishing boat. The day can begin with an hour long bird watching cruise, followed by a 2 hour island cruise in the evening and the night can be brought in by the sunset cruise. Of course, each of these cruises have their own attractions, but when we were there, it was the wrong season for bird watching (the summer sees very few birds – the best is winter), and clouds had already started arriving, heralding the monsoon and darkening the skies, so the sunset cruise was out too. However, we made the most of the island cruise. Join me in reliving the wonderful experience……….. Seeting off on our journey, with a prayer to the Lord.... A shrine errected on the beach after the Tsunami that wreaked havoc.... Fishing Boats.... And the fishing village.... The sparkling waters.... And the roaring waves dashing against the beach.... Fat, orange, juicy Pineapples - or so w...

Poovar Part 1 - The Resort and Kovalam Beach

Island – the word evokes memories of childhood classics such as Robinson Crusoe, The Swiss Family Robinson and Treasure Island. These were some of my favourite books and there have been times I have wondered what it would be like to be actually marooned on an island, cut off from the rest of the world. Well, I live on an island, but there is no feeling of being cut off from the world – in fact, it is more crowded and noisier than many other cities, and there doesn’t seem to be the remotest chance of my being marooned on some uninhabited island. So much for fantasies…… However , this vacation brought the fantasy as near to fact as it is possible in these days of faster and more efficient methods of communication, when we visited Poovar. Poovar is a small island about 30 Kms from Trivandrum, where the backwaters merge with the Arabian Sea. The river Neyyar also empties into the sea here, and thus, at Poovar Beach near the island, one can see the remarkable sight of river, sea, beach,...