The evening after visiting Humayun’s Tomb, I got to experience Delhi’s night life! Or atleast some aspects of it!!

Disha and her friends

I met Disha and a bunch of her friends at CP (Connaught Place) and they took me to some places there. We then went to Pindara Road for dinner and finally went to India Gate for the amazing ‘Kala Katta Chuski’ (a lot of ice stuffed on a stick and dipped in sugar syrup available in different flavours)!

India Gate by night

It was a nice experience and I really liked the atmosphere at India that late in the night. It was still packed with a lot of people and kids and noise and vendors selling everything from balloons to ice creams!

Near India Gate

What an amazing city!

More updates to follow…

The following is a video compiled by Sangeetha and Vinayak with the photos taken on the trip!

Masti Ki Paatshaala

Anyway my Noida trip was really awesome on the whole. I managed to learn so much at work a lot of new things and processes and also managed to see so many new places in and around Noida and Delhi!

Noida was an ok place. Nothing really in it to see, apart from the Atta market and Sector 18 areas (which I did frequent a lot!).

I really fell in love with Delhi as a city and I managed to explore quite a lot of this ancient city. Its got so much history and culture in it and I had an amazing time trying to learn more about the city and checking out different places in the city. I reckon I still have a lot more to explore and it will take many more visits to see everything!

Highlights of the trip -

1. The many markets of Delhi and Noida: Connaught Place / Chandni Chowk / Khan Market / Dilli Haat / GK 1 M block / GK 1 N block / New Friends Colony / Saket / Atta Market / etc. etc. went to many such places and loved the atmosphere and mood at these places.

2. Nizamuddin Auliya’s Dargah, Delhi:Went there for the Qawwali performance that happens every Thursday evening. Imagine listening to Qawalli’s sitting in an open courtyard, right there inbetween the tombs of Nizamuddin Auliya and Amir Khusrao (considered to be the Father of Qawalli)!! Pure Nirvana!

3. All the monuments in Delhi: Humayun’s Tomb / Qutub Minar / Akshardham Temple / India Gate / Red Fort / etc. etc. In Delhi there have been so many empires and so much of history, that no matter where you go, you will end up running into some tomb or monument or some place of historical significance!

4. Taj Mahal, Agra: Finally managed to see one out of the 7 wonders of the World!

5. Fatehpur Sikhri: Amazing place, with great architecture and monuments from the Mughal era all around.

6. Golden Temple, Amritsar: Never even thought that I’d be visiting Amritsar on this trip! Thanks to some friends from Bangalore who insisted I join them, I got to go on one helluva a trip to Amritsar!

7. Wagah Border: The visit to the India-Pakistan border to see the colourful and patriotism inspiring ceremony in the evening was simple amazing. The whole atmosphere and display of patriotism by everyone was very touching and the ceremony itself was very interesting to watch, with an exaggerated march past display and well dressed, very vocal army personnell. It felt great to be so close to the border, that we could see the Pakistanis on the other side of the gate in their stands! All of it concluded with the lowering of the flag on both sides of the border.

8. Haridwar and Rishikesh: This was a religious plus adventure trip. I’ve been wanting to go to Haridwar and take a dip in the Holy Ganga and finally managed to do this in this trip. The trip to Rishikesh was more for the adventure of Water Rafting, and what an adventure we had!!

9. Delhi Metro: I had the opportunity to travel on the swanky clean Metro and I was simply blown away! The whole experience was really great and I was very proud to see the Metro. It was like stepping into another world. Considering I got into the metro after going around parts of old Delhi and the markets of Chandni Chowk!

10. Meeting friends: Most of the above happened largely thanks to me meeting some old friends and making new ones on the trip! Although I would have ended up travelling alone, I doubt if I would have covered so many places and/or had this much fun if it weren’t for them. Thanks to Animesh / Nethra / Sayor / Disha / Shobit and even Leelu and gang (who coincidentally also came to Delhi while I was there).

A very eventful trip on the whole and I return very satisfied, although disappointed as I missed out on one place that I also wanted to visit – Jaipur in Rajasthan. First the very sad incident of the bomb blasts occurred and later the Gujjar strikes removed all chances of me going there this time.

I have a whole lot of photos to process and upload and a lot of blog posts to write about the above places and more in detail. God knows when I will get around to doing it all! But keep watching this space!

Perfectly aligned

I loved the build up to the monumen as you walk through the several perfectly aligned gateways – how slowly the monument is revealed to you.

First Glimpse through the last gateway

Once you’re through the final gate – there the monument just amazes you.

People who visit this monument should take time out to see how the monument is so perfectly symmetrical. Everything is aligned just right. Its so simple, yet so grand. The architecture is outstanding.

Wide Angle View

This monument is very important as it is the first of its kind in India, built by the Mughals and was a precursor to the great Taj Mahal in Agra.

Humayun’s Cenotaph

The monument was built under the orders of Humayun’s wife, Hamida Begum. The tomb has a lot of graves apart from the main one of Humayun’s, which is located right in the centre of the monument.

This monument is a must visit for anyone visiting Delhi. And like Niti keeps returning to the monument, I hope to go there again sometime before I leave Delhi.

More pictures located here. Do check them out.

Afternoon Siesta

Anyway, Its only been 6 days here in Noida/Delhi and its been good so far! I’ve been going around and seeing a lot of new places, and met some old friends after ages and also made some new ones on this trip!

On my first day here last Thursday I met Animesh, who took me to Noida’s Sector 18, where all the malls and shopping and food places are and we had a great evening checking out different places and eating yummy road side food and getting a good experience of Noida’s night life (which does tend to die down rather quickly though!!)

Animesh at a chaat stall

Then on friday I met Animesh again along with another old friend from my Microsoft Academia days, Sayor and we went to Delhi – first to this place called New Friends Colony community centre for some great Dilli Chaat and later to Khan market for dinner at Chunas.

With Sayor in Khan market

The whole market/community centre concept to hang out at is really nice and comes with a good mix of old and new shops, eateries and modern cafes, books and gadgets, corridors and narrow lanes and lots of people! I havent seen any similar areas in Bangalore to hang out at. Delhi is filled with places like this as I discover over the next few days!

A view of NFC Community Centre

Saturday morning I went to more ‘markets’ – the M Block and N Block markets in GK 1 – with Badri’s sister, Nethra. She took me to a great place for lunch (Cafe Turtle), which had some good pasta and a nice ambience as it was in a book store. As Niti said of the place, it was very comforting being surrounded by books!

Saturday was a long day (and night) – after lunch Niti and I went to Humayun’s tomb [more in seperate post] and in the evening I met more friends who took me to Connaught Place (CP) and then to India Gate for some awesome Kala Katta Chusti and finally dinner at a restaurant in Pindara road!

Sunday was relatively lazy in the morning and in the evening I went to Delhi’s Sarita nagar, from where we went to Dilli Haat along with Niti, which is this government run bazaar kinda place with food stalls from every state in the country and a lot of interesting handlooms and handicraft items to shop.

All in all a great start to my Noida/Delhi trip!!

This is my first visit to the Noida and second to Delhi – although last time I was here for just a day on my to Varanasi.

I am super excited to be here, as I really wanted to visit these places and spend more time in and around Delhi. Expect to see a lot of photos and read a lot about my various outings over the next couple of weeks!

I joined a Yoga and Pilates session at office, last month, to try and do some good to my abused body. Our group went on a one day trip to Mekedaatu last Saturday (3rd March 2007) along with the aerobics batch!

We left early Saturday morning and picked up people on the way and had breakfast at some restaurant in Jayanagar and proceeded to Sangam (where Kaveri and Arkavathi rivers meet). Time flew in the cab amidst games of Antaakshari and Dumb-charades! We reached Sangam by around 10:45 AM and stopped our cab there and then started off on a 4 km ‘trek’ (rather walk) to Mekedaatu.

Mekedaatu

Following an interesting walk and some time spent admiring the gorges and scenery at Mekedaatu and many photos later, we returned to Sangam on a rickety old bus, sucking on a ‘lolly’ (ice-candy), on a bumpy road!

We then spent the rest of the evening playing in the waters at Sangam. There were quite a few water-battles between us and we had lots of good fun! We left the place by around 5:30 PM.

Sangam

The day out was good and the place is ideal for a one-day escape from the madness of the city. Made a lot of new friends and some good ones, especially one special person, and will never forget this trip for the people I met. It felt like my soul was covered with dew drops!

More photos here

The year started off with a very relaxing and fun trip to Kerala. Holidaying in the hill stations of Munnar and the backwaters of Kumarakom and Alleppy was the perfect way to celebrate the dawn of a new year. Went with a mixed group of friends, consisting of my colleagues and some of the farmhouse gang and some common friends!

The second trip in January was to Gokarna and Goa with my team-mates from work. It was a three day beach trip, filled with lots of sand, water and what not! Not surprisingly we all came back many shades darker and higher! ;)

Earlier this month I also went to Hyderabad to meet some friends and for some function. This unlike the previous two was more of a city trip and by the end of the fourth day I really got to know Hyderabad. The trip was supposed to be a three day one, but thanks to the bundh in Karnataka due to the Cauvery water issue, I stayed a day longer there.

I shall hopefully blog more about these trips individually with pictures and more details as soon as possible!

Soon we were on our way and we reached the border of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, somewhere right on top of the hills. While the driver was showing his documents to the border police, we stepped out of the cab and into heaven. This entry that we got to Kerala was undoubtedly the best moment of our entire trip. There was a slight drizzle and the fog had surrounded us all and the wind was blowing at great speed. We were exhilarated and felt like we had all connected with the divine. There was a small temple near this place, where we prayed and then after some photos returned to the cab. If the entry was like this, we couldn’t wait to see the rest of paradise.

Enroute to our hotel in Munnar, we crossed acres of tea plantations and amazing scenery and stopped the cab every now and then to take some shots and to enjoy the beauty. After coming from a concrete jungle like Bangalore, it was refreshing to see so much greenery and to inhale pure pollution free air.

We reached our hotel – Royal Retreat – at around 9AM, but not before stopping for as-fresh-as-possible tea at a Tata Tea factory. We checked into our comfortable deluxe suites and lazed around for a bit on the hammocks. After some much needed rest we got ready and went for lunch at the in-house restaurant. After lunch, while waiting for the driver to finish lunch, we took more photos in the hotel gardens.

Finally around 1:30 PM we left the hotel to check out more of Munnar. We saw more tea gardens and then went to a dam. On one side there was this huge river and on the side where they were releasing the water, the water was gushing out with immense pressure through a tube only about a metre in diameter! We went speed boating in the river and had good fun.

Our next stop was this echo point, with a lot of people (including us) screaming out at the river and the forest behind, only to get screamed back at! Next we saw more tea gardens and took more photos between tea plants. We then went to another river + dam, hoping to find row boats, but left disappointed. All this while we were gradually climbing up hill and our next stop was at the peak of the hill.

We had to trek a bit from the car park to the peak and once again were treated to some great scenery. The trek back was exhausting; apparently our lungs weren’t used to such clean air! After more photographs we returned to Munnar city for shopping and also went to a computer centre to transfer photos from our nearly full camera memory cards to my mp3 player. We returned to our hotel for dinner and some rest and relaxation.

Our holiday was going great so far, but we were literally sick of seeing so much greenery! Unlike the morning where we asked the driver to stop every now and then for us to take photographs, in the evening even, when he was suggesting us some places to take photos, we just asked him to drive on!

Our ever changing trip plans changed some more and we decided to leave Munnar the next afternoon itself and proceed to Kumarakom for a boat ride on the famed backwaters of Kerala.

More pictures here

The three day weekend was the perfect chance for some of us to get away from Bangalore and have some fun. The planning bore fruit and although Rishabh couldn’t make it, another champ, Ankith joined us.

After leaving office early, we — Sunil, Sharath, Ghana, Raghavan, Ankith and myself –finally left on 28th April (Friday) evening in a Qualis (cab) to Kerala!

Our cab for the trip

The start wasn’t very good. While waiting to pick up Raghavan on Hosur road, we witnessed an accident. A mini bus tried to avoid a speeding two wheeler and swerved straight towards us, he then swerved again and the bus went flying and landed in a ditch, barely a few metres away from us. Luckily noone was hurt, except for probably the bike rider who was thrashed by the public for causing the accident and yeah the bus was a goner, it probably had to be craned out of the ditch. Later our cab developed some problem and we had to stop at a service centre for quite some time to get it fixed.

At the service station

The rest of the onward journey was long but fun! We all had a nice time talking various things. The major theme for the evening was love and relationships, which the “newly-in-love” dudes were busy talking about, while Raghavan and I enjoyed laughing at them and reminiscing about our own past relationships…they have no clue what’s in store for them!

Food!

Most of us didn’t sleep much that night in the car, or did so only in brief phases. We were all excited about the trip and eager to reach Munnar, our first stop. Next day early morning – we were treated to the most awesome entry into God’s own country, Kerala. Will write about that in another blog post!