Rajasthan Diaries: The Holy Rats of Deshnoke

You might have visited a lot of temples. But ever heard the shopkeepers shouting 'Sir! Buy some prasad for the rats!!'? Karni Mata Temple, Deshnok It is always good to read about the place before we go there. But it is better to read about the places nearby also when you travel to a place. I learnt it after I missed visiting the Lonar lake during my Aurangabad trip. Even though I still do this mistake sometimes, I was lucky this...

Nadunaadu Bike Trip: Part 2 - Mamandur

Mamandur is just 10 km away from Kanchipuram in Vandavasi road. We reached mamandur after crossing Dusi. Initially it was confusing to reach the place, since the local people were showing us two paths. But luckily we found the right one that had motorable road till the gate. The gate was closed with a big lock but the local boys who were playing near by told us the secret that the lock is just for show and if we remove the chain we...

Nadunaadu Bike Trip: Part 1 - Kanchipuram

In Jab We Met, Shahid and Kareena discuss the fear of missing a train and running on the platform to catch it. My phobia is just opposite of it. I always fear that I will miss my station and sleep off on the train. That's why I prefer bus than trains. Even then, there was one incident when I slept off in a bus and got down in Kovilpatti instead of Virudunagar. But I will tell you about that in an another blog post. It was the weekend...

A Road Trip in Srilanka: Day 6 - The End

You might have noticed that I mentioned Colombo in my previous post but didn't say much about the city. That is because we did not see much places there. The only sightseeing we did was, watching some luxurious hotels in their full glory on the night. In morning, we did not want to jeopardise our departure to the airport by doing some extra sightseeing. So after having our breakfast in a 'Saravana Bhavan' style hotel with our friend's...

A Road Trip in Sri Lanka: Day 5 - Kataragama, Galle and Colombo

Kataragama The morning dawned earlier and when we shared the information about the temple we got from our driver to others, they were also confused. After having some appams from a small tea shop in front of our lodge, we started towards the temple. We were early and the temple wasn't opened yet. So we paid a visit to the Buddhist Vihara behind the temple and spent some time there. Some of our friends were still hungry and had some...

A Road Trip in Sri Lanka: Day 4 - Anuradhapura to Kataragama via Polonnaruwa and the East Coast

It is very rare for bachelor boys like us to start early in a day; Especially after the tiresome day like that. But I believe all of us knew that we were lagging and had a lot of miles to cover today. So we started early from Bevary Holiday Home and moved towards Polonnaruwa which was the same route we covered yesterday from Dambulla to Anuradhapura. We stopped at a small town to have breakfast. It was run by a tamil muslim and...

A Road Trip in Sri Lanka: Day 3 - Dambulla, Sigiriya and Anuradhapura

Now we had a plan. And it was time to execute it. We left Kandy and reached Dambulla around 9 am. It was time for breakfast but we couldn't find any good hotels there. Dambulla was not a big city as I expected and had only a few options to eat. We chose a small hotel and had some idiyappam and bread loaves. Dambulla Our first stop for the day was Dambulla Rajamaha Viharaya and the Dambulla cave temple. There is nothing much in the...