Am going to be in Brisbane for the next three months - can’t say I am too happy about being away from home, but will try to visit the Gold coast and Byron Bay while I am there.
WIll also see if I can get a flavor of aborigine life as Queensland is supposed to have a greater space for aborigine life than NSW does. I love their art. And songlines.
I am also resolved to see Kangaroos & Koalas, which I have not yet managed so far on my previous trips.
Monsoons are on their way, in fact they have already made their presence felt in Bombay and around, so it is time to get on the road again and enjoy all the work they have done.
For this weekend, our destination was Murud of the Murud-Janjira fort fame. We were of course more interested in the sea, but an additional excursion doesn’t hurt.
As usual, we set out to drive not so early in the morning. This time in stead of taking the long-winded route of last time for the Awas trip, we took the Vashi route leading to Sion-Panvel Highway via the Palm Beach Road. The Palm Beach Road drive was a rather delightful surprise - since when do such roads exist in the vicinity of Bombay?! After Panvel, the route was pretty straight forward - the Goa Highway up to Penn and then the diversion to the state highway which leads to Alibagh, Kashid & Murud.
The road from Alibaug onwards is a little painful. However, about 10 km before Kashid, the road starts along the sea, in between meandering high and low. The pit-stops on this part of the drive were for us one of the best features of the trip. The place felt isolated, serene and self-absorbed.
After some 5 hours of lazy driving, we reached Murud. We had booked ourselves in a resort called the Sand Piper resort, which is slightly on a height from the sea front. The access to the resort, even though only about 300 meters, is not yet made into a road and it was quite a task to get the car up.
However, from the height of the resort, we got a beautiful panoramic view of the sea against the backdrop of surrounding hills, which were laden with the lush green of fresh rains. It helped that we had a large balcony to sit in and admire the view.
After a while, we climbed down to the beach, which was about a 5-7 min walk. We entered the Murud beach from the remote end, which was great, since the other end was the Chaupati end and thus terribly crowded. Thus we got an undisturbed access to the sea where we could run around, play, walk, sit. I was surprised by the number of people in the Chaupati end - it seems Murud has caught the tourist fancy in the last few years. And of course where there are crowds, there rush the usual fanfare - the hawkers, the horse-rides - but somehow, if remote, they do add to the charm of a beach day.
After a leisurely time at the beach, and see the sun hide behind the clouds instead of setting down over the horizon, we came back to the resort for a dip in the pool (which had a sea-view too btw) and then a nice meal, followed by (of course) a bit of reading and lot of chatting.
The next morning, after the breakfast we set out to the Murud-Janjira Fort, which was about 5 km from the resort, along a really bad road. To reach the fort, we had to take a sail-boat from the Rajpuri village, and I was wondering all the while as to how these boats were being allowed in the monsoons, as they will definitely not be manageable at all in the rain. Anyway, the sail boat ride was not too long - perhaps 15-20 min, and we landed at the fort from an entrance which had been efficiently hidden until landing. The landing was quite a feat, as the boat keeps moving violently, there is no jetty, and you have to jump accross the stairs, barely being able to maintain balance.
Inside the fort we hired a guide who gave us a brief overview of the history and construction of the fort. Built first in the late 15th century, the fort was strengthened later by a Siddi king. After that the Marathas made several attempts to capture it, and being unsuccessful, built an alternate fort (Padamdurg) some distance away, which now stands in 3 parts and can be seen from the Murud beach. The Janjira too is quite in ruins now, with its main building halved, unable to withstand the large gatherings in the palace. Apparently the fort was still inhabited till as recently as 1972 (or was it ‘92, I forget), after which its 2000 inhabitants moved to Rajpuri. The access to Padamdurg is banned and requires permissions from Customs and navy for a visit, as apparently it was used as the landing ground for RDX during the Mumbai bombings.
Packed with all this history, we returned on our sail boat after a 25 minute halt at the fort. The task of getting into the boat was quite another adveture - thanks to some villagers who helped to load us into the boat, else I would have hardly made it in un-drenched. Do be careful with your electronics in the process, as two cameras and cellphones from our boats were sacrificed to the sea that day 
So that was it, we headed back, always on the lookout for food and regretting not eating lunch at our resort, for it is quite difficult to find restaurants on the way. We finally found one at Alibaug - Patang, which was a decent fare.
And oh, we did experiment with the route back, taking the JNPT (awesome road) up to Uran instead of turning right towards Mumbai - we finally landed again on the Palm Beach Road miraculously, though I will really appreciate knowing a straight forward route from Panvel to Palm Beach without taking the JNPT! Anyone?
A long time ago, in Altjeringa, or the Dreamtime, ancestral spirits formed The Creation. These spirits and cultural heroes took several forms and shapes and started walking, to bring to life new places with their singing. Lands opened up as they sang, and they kept singing along the way, adding each place and its forms to their song. These trails traversed through time and were repeatedly sung by the children of the spirits who revered these trails as Songlines. The songlines guided them on the form of the land as they went walkabout, told them where they would find water and irrigation, marked for them their spiritual places.
Each spirit formed its own trail, and established a dreaming which set the rules and values of its society. Each child conceived into the dreaming, became a custodian for the part of trail and was governed by the spiritual beliefs of that dreaming.
These dreamings stay with the tribes even today, and form an important part of their being. The millions of songlines scan through the entire land of Australia, traveling thousands of kilometers, each of them sung in more than one language and carried through land and time. These songlines confer the title of land to the people, but at the same time lure them to follow the songlines to distant lands.
That, anyway, is what I have learned. About the beliefs of Australian aborigines. It was taught to me by a simple and haunting tale of the nomad in man - The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin. A lovely book - which made me a little more curious about Australia and all that is original in it.
(The pictures are from some of the artistic mementos that I purchased there.)
Planning a vacation is a rather involved activity. Usually, I have spent weeks in planning my holidays, because I often want to avoid a commercial vacation, and it always takes time to find a non-commercial, lesser known place, which is also interesting enough to visit. For travel planning abroad, mainly Europe & Americas, I had found BootsnAll to be a very useful site, but its coverage of India is tentative at best.
So it was with great joy that I welcomed the idea of an Indian travel planning site, when I discovered Holidayiq a few months back through one of the blogs - a blog by the founder of HolidayIQ, Hari Nair who quit his consulting practice to fill an important gap in Indian travel.
Holiday IQ is a user based website, which allows travelers to share their first-hand experiences on destinations and hotels, along with photographs and videos, to give a more realistic overview of the place in contrast to the glossy advertising coverage, which is often the only way of getting an impression of a place.
In terms of range, HolidayIQ covers extensive number of destinations throughout India (439 currently - as their website tells me), but an even larger number of hotels (~9000!). Like tripadvisor, there is an average rating for each hotel, based on the aggregate of ratings given by different users on multiple parameters. Of course, in some cases the rating is a little skewed as the user base is still relatively small and many hotels have less than 3 reviews. But by encouraging users to share specific comments, holidayiq ensures that the overview turns out to be descriptive and helpful.
Apart from user experiences, the site gives extensive information on the destinations and also lists down the hotels by category, mostly along with the relevant websites, which aids a comprehensive travel planning. Other cool features of the website are:
It’s monthly guide, Vacationer, which lists down some good travel ideas and has some good features like photo journeys, theme vacations
Xchange: here you can ask specific questions on your travel plan and get suggestions from other members of the community. The answers, in most cases are fairly detailed and very useful. HolidayIQ goes a step further in helping its members by emailing any new questions on a destination, to people who have earlier reviewed/responded about them, requesting them to post their replies.
Fairchase: Well, it is another flight search utility, which are already available on so many travel sites. The special feature on fairchase is that it tells you the nearest airport to your destination. However, more often than not it is not able to find flight deals, which is one thing the site needs to improve upon
A few other things that would be useful would be a categorization by holiday type apart from geography. Also, in many destinations, the ‘How to get there’ piece is missing, which is rather crucial. It might be a good idea to allow users to add destinations (if there is, I have not yet found it). This will allow people to chose from many more destinations - I would have liked to add Sitlakhet, Mukhteshwar and Igatpuri, three places which I have been to, have a good idea of, which are not there in the current list of destinations.
Overall, HolidayIQ is a great place to plan your trip, to know about many destinations, to get motivated to travel more - a site for every traveler, and what’s more - thought traveler.
Did some more bush-walking in Blue Mountains on this visit. This time, I went down the Giant-staircase (999 steps!), along the Three sisters, and took the Federal Pass. Ventured around in the Leura Forest for a while, before losing the trail, and having to retrace.
Finally found myself back at the foot of the staircase, from where we took a path towards the Scenic Railway (again!) - crossed the Furber steps, along which I had bush-walked the last time I was there.
It was great - on the Federal Pass there were hardly any people. Leura Cascade was pretty.
The descent down the steps, however, made me virtually immobile for the next two days!
My earlier post on bushwalking in Blue Mountains here.
I found myself in Sydney again this weekend - and decided to maximize the fun by getting a Day Tripper pass. The day tripper pass allows access to trains, buses and ferries in the Sydney region and suburbs. At 16AUD, it is the best way of seeing this famous city.
We took this pass at the Parramatta train station, got a train to Central, and walked to Circular Quay to catch the ferries departing for many places. The walk itself was interesting, especially as we passed through the Chinatown - the Chinese build a world of their own in every major city.
At Circular Quay, we caught a ferry to Watson’s bay - a place that I had not no clue about. On a windy day, with temperatures hovering around 10, it was a very pleasantly chilly ride of 20 min. On getting down the ferry, you have to walk about 500 meters to see the sea on the other side, which is lined by tall cliffs. We climbed up on one of the cliffs which seemed taller and walked around for some time.
After the cliff walk, we came down to the ferry point, and had lunch at Doyle’s - which is one of the most famous restaurants of Sydney. Being right at the beach, it has a lovely mood of laziness combined with the weekend banter. However, it is a seafood place, which is quite wasted on the vegetarian in me.
Very close to the ferry point, there are many sail boats parked. A few people also indulge in fishing.
From Watson’s bay, we came back to Circular Quay, and boarded another ferry to Manly. This ferry was much larger than the other ferry. And more punctual as well. From the upper deck there were some lovely views of the Harbour
At Manly, we were thinking of going to the Ocean World, but that looked a bit too small for an aquarium. Besides I think I have already seen quite a few aquariums to not be so specially enamored with them anymore. We in stead started to walk on the walkway to Spit Bridge, which is a rather scenic walk. However, we had barely begun before it began to rain, and we had to return and hunt for cover. In a while the rain subsided, and we took the pathway again. However, Spit is quite at some distance and it was already late in the night, so we went midway and returned. The walkway, however has a surrealistic beauty which I was absolutely enamored with.
At the Manly ferry point, we took a takeaway coffee and walked into the market. I found a shop for aboriginal art, and with my recent fascination with Australian aborigines and songlines courtesy Chatwin, I went in and picked up a couple of items.
After returning to Circular Quay, we took yet another ferry and went to Darling Harbour. The place is electric in the evenings, especially so on a Saturday. In the glaring cold, it is quite an adventure to walk the bridge without jackets - but it was fun.
A good meal later, we walked back to Central, and trained off to Parramatta. After a day of tripping.
Penned down these thoughts on my phone when I was in a small cozy room of ‘The Fort’ resort at Nagarkot…
From the comforts of a palace, we have come to the charms of a fort. A fort which stands unadorned and without fanfare, alone amongst the lovely himalyas. In this brazenly chilly place, we have come accross only about ten people. Our room is like a small attic, cozy and warm. There are windows on both sides, placing us completely in the hands of the hills to whom we have come. The moon shines brightly, perhaps it would have defeated the sun today in its shine. May be that’s why today the sun dissolved quickly into the clouds in stead of taking its usual long route.
The place is called Nagarkot. It stands many feets above Kathmandu, though only 40 km by road and is a completely different world from that slightly muddled city. It is the Nepal I wanted to visit- hilly, windy, a little harsh even. It is supposed to offer a peek of the everest on a clear day, but today the clouds stood fast guarding their treasure. We went to the tower that claims the peek and marks the geological date line of nepal, and despite the clouds the view was majestic. From there, one km down a winding route, there is a lovely coffee shop, which offers an unarmed view of the hills and the valley. It is a place you would hate to abandon.
I am so happy to be here and can’t wait to greet the sunrise of tomorrow from the window of my room.
Well, in the morning, we did see the sunrise from our window - the sun rises beautifully over the Lang Tang valley to which the Fort resort looks out. After a refreshing cup of tea, we went on a walk around Nagarkot, which is a beautiful hill-town. It used to once occupy a strategic economic position as a tax collection point for trade in the valley, but now is more famous for its fabulous views of the sunset and sunrise. The walk was wonderful and the air was chilly, until the sun rose up. At this time, there were hardly any tourists in the town, but we were told that it is almost bustling in November. So it seems we found the right time to be there
I loved both dearly - Fort the resort and Fort the city (Nagar-kot literally means City-Fort).
It is hard enough to spend a month living with the same person under one roof. So if you complete an year of doing that, it is certainly cause for celebration. So these celebrations were our motivation for flying to Nepal. It turned out to be an interesting trip, the Himalyan country does have a charm, contributed to by many reasons.
To begin with, it is the first country that I have visited where the Indian rupee has an upper hand over the local currency. After years of watching a bagful of Indian rupee vanish into a handful of dollars or euros, it is exhilarating to find your money being revered and earning for you a thicker wad of notes. The stay seemed cheap (~5000 INR per night for a 5-star), the food seemed cheap (~600 INR for a meal for two!) and the drinks! (150 INR for a Margarita!)
In Kathmandu, we stayed at Yak and Yeti, which is a palace converted to a hotel. The usual fanfare is lower than a 5-star, but I think Nepal is a great place when it comes to service (It may not be efficient, but the service will not be absent). The food was good - we particularly liked the breakfast buffet. The palace has 3 other restaurants, but we stuck to the Sunrise cafe, even though Chimney is supposed to be quite good, but opens only for dinner.
Kathamandu itself is a vibrant city, but very reminiscent of a small Indian town. It looks too similar to feel like a foreign land. Despite being in Himalyas, the day-time temperature is high, and the city is densely populated, not to speak of the chaotic traffic which could put Bombay to shame - or may be not.
We took a taxi to visit the city of Lalitpur, which is better known as Patan. It is a historical city, somewhat like the old parts of Jaipur - with a traditional architecture, rich cultural heritage and scores of jobless people enjoying the sun. On steps of most buildings, and on pavements, you see people chatting, reading, sitting idle, and the place feels so alive that we felt immediately invigorated. We visited a museum, mainly for its architecture - low stairs, rooms leading into each other and into different floors - very interesting.
We also visited the famous temple Stupa of Swayambhunath, which offers a very good view of the valley being on a height. Despite the crowds, the place is surprisingly quiet, and it was nice to just stand there for a while.
Next day we took a taxi to go to Nagarkot - a hillstation just an hour’s drive away from Kathmandu- even though at a significantly higher altitude (2000m). More about Nagarkot later - because I think that is a place which deserves a dedicated post.
With Eric in town, the sleepy heads of Mumbai finally motivated themselves to escape the boredom of city summer. We figured that summer can not be too attractive anywhere, but an outdoor summer is perhaps better than the listless idleness of the couch.
So on a bright Saturday morning, we fled from the dirty, noisy city of Mumbai and headed south. Not without many cans of buds, batteries and cokes. The destination was a small village of Alibagh district called Awas village - a sleepy coastal village that is. Being so close to Mumbai (only about a 140 km from Mumbai), it seemed an ideal weekend haunt.
After some wading through the city traffic for a while (which surprisingly was not too bad), we headed towards Panvel using the JNPT road. It is a beautiful stretch of road - one I had not yet been on in all of my two years of living in Mumbai, and it was sad that we could get only a 10-15 km of drive on it before we were thrown back to the regular run-of-the-mill roads that connect most of the Maharastrian towns. I am not even sure how we got on that road, since that is not part of the standard route to go to Panvel, which goes via NH-4. But the longer circuit was totally worth it. Anyway, after Panvel, we did get on to NH-4, which eventually led us to NH-17, the Mumbai-Goa highway. To get to Alibag, we had to take a detour from the national highway a little after Pen. Having come on road after a long while, we made this journey long, taking a few pit stops along the way to enjoy the arid landscapes, their abrasive wind and the feel of the highway.
So with all this, it was already 3 by the time we reached Awas. We had booked the Jogalekar cottage for stay, which is only about 4-5 minutes walk from the Awas beach. The beach itself is a 10 km stretch lying between the more popular beaches of Kihim and Mandwa. Its hard to stay if I liked the Jogalekar cottage - I had a fun time staying there for sure, but I don’t think any of it had much to do with the place itself. It is a property owned by a couple who have tried to put too many ‘in-things’ in their ‘resort’ - they have a few tents to give the feel of the jungle, some cottage which is now being used to keep geese, a few deluxe and super deluxe rooms with A/C and TV, some swings, an aquarium and an open area for meals. They offer lunch, breakfast and dinner as part of the package, but the food is purely Marathi, and oily. The good thing was the servility of the staff and their general lack of any intrusion which is always a concern in any homestay.
Anyway, within minutes of reaching there, we walked to the beach - which, as expected was a calm, secluded black-sand beach, without a trace of even the customary vendor which generally is the mark of a tourist spot. It reminded me of a Bergman beach, and that perhaps inspired the black & white snaps that you see here. We generally walked about, played in the water, rode the waves - in other words did all the beach things, before settling down peacefully on the sand. In the usual pattern, I fished out a book from my bag - the ideal travel companion for such a quiet place- Soul Mountain by Gao Xing.
In a while, as the temperatures subsided, the local kids came out for a regular dose of cricket, and Rupesh established himself in one of the teams Slowly, a few more idlers stumbled upon the beach and by sunset, it did not look so deserted anymore.
The sunset at Awas was a very pretty site, mainly because the beach is so silent that it gives you enough time to savor each moment of sun’s journey. Before going down the sun shines brightly like a huge ball, and then suddenly, as if reminded of some forgotten humility, makes a diminished exit. Then, it is hard to say with certainty whether its the sun or the moon. The hues change and a jarred reflection appears in water. In a while, all traces of the sun’s existence vanish, and the crabs emerge (Ouch!) and run off all the idlers from the beach. So soon we found ourselves in the usual setting - a bed and A/C and the TV. Things we are very comfortable with.
We woke up late the next morning, which was just as well as the sun was in a very hot temperament. Not wanting to clash with him and get caught on the wrong foot, we stayed indoors until lunch, after which we packed up and left. We drove to Kihim, found it to be a super crowded popular beach full of vendors, and got away without stopping. We stopped somewhere on the road to Kankeshwar, so that the ‘men’ could feel useful by tuning the car a bit. And then drove off peacefully.
Our next stop was nearer sunset time again, this time almost after the exit from NH-17. There is a small little village on the side, and I regret that I didn’t check for its name. It was so close to the highway, and still with its hill-lined horizon, hay stacks, cattle and flocks of birds looked quite far removed. We had a few snacks at a restaurant there, enjoyed the swings, captured a little more of the sunset and headed back after an hour.
To home. A place called Bombay.
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