Just About Everything

Our next destination was Tonk . Visiting Tonk was an impromptu decision, 'cause we had some time in hand after the day two's morning safari, our train was at 9.30 that night, we had the whole day at our disposal. Tonk is around 86 kms from Ranthambore and 96 kms from Jaipur.We figured that it would take us around 1and a half to 2 hrs to reach Tonk, we could tour the town form 3-4 hours and still be able to catch our train at night. We hired a car, packed up and checked out from the hotel. Tonk may not be the most popular tourist destination. It is dusty, crowded, but it is culturally and architecturally very rich. The magnificent mansions date back to the Mughal era. I had heard of Tonk before, but only in the passing I never guessed that this little town could house such beautiful gems. No wonder its is known as the "Lucknow of Rajasthan". Tonk was an absolute delight. Some of the monuments we saw were Jama Masjid, Sunheri Kothi, Tonk library, Arabic and Persian Inst...

I just got back from a rather hectic but wonderful trip! We had a very packed schedule; we wanted to pack in as much as possible in a week. We were traveling almost every night! Our first stop was Delhi. North India is much more easily accessible from Delhi, in the sense that the distances are less, overnight journeys by train can get you to Rajasthan and Punjab easily. We saved a lot of time that way. Our first destination was Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan. Ranthambore National Park is in Sawai Madhopur District of Rajasthan state. By road One can get to Jaipur within less than 4 hours, the usual route is from Jaipur to Tonk and then Sawai Madhopur. The distance by rail from Delhi is around 362 kms. We boarded an overnight train to Sawai Madhopur. The park is at the junction of the Aravalli and Vindhya hill range. It covers an area of Approximately 400 sq Km. Rantambore was a wildlife sanctuary in 1957 and 1974. It earned the status of a National park in 1981. We had organise...

In Bhowanipur we met up with our friend and after a refreshing cup of tea, off we went visiting a few more banedi baris Our first stop was Girish Mukherjee bari . It was aroung 7.30pm when we reached Girish bari. My friend who is a resident of Bhowanipur knows the family. Thanks to him, I got to see another Durga idol in a beautiful old house. When we reached there, there was a family gathering in the coutyard and a game was in progress, the whole family had got together and they were playing group games, mainly quizzing etc. The whole ambience exuded warmth and a happy feeling. Girish Mukherjee bari Mallik Bari Next stop and the last banedi bari that I visited this durga puja was Mallik bari. Last Durga pujas I barely could find my way in, it was so crowned. Mainly because Tollywood actor Koel Mallik is a daughter of this family and she was visiting. This time when we reached, she was not there, so there wasn't much crowd. I could take a lots of photographs of the house and Goddes...

We went on a tour in one of the West Bengal tourist buses on Saptami(Saptami is the first day of Durga puja) on October 14th. This trip is the "Sanatani trip". If you are interested in visiting some beautiful old houses of Kolkata, I would recommend this trip. We had a very good guide for our trip, he had a lot of information on the history of all of these barir puja that we were going to. Kolkata's creativity reaches its peak during Durga pujas. I am very enthusiastic about taking a tour and checking out the wonderfully artisitic pandals. It feels so sad that pujas are over:( This puja parikrama was however not for the pandals, I wanted to visit and get the essence of Durga puja celebrations at the Banedi baris of Kolkata. West bengal tourism was organising such a tour. I booked my ticket almost a month and a half before and still could not get tickets for the morning trip:( I did manage to get tickets for the aftrenoon bus. On Satami, we set off around 2.30pm from Netaj...

Was watching a Bond film today...Star movie has been playing a lot of Bond films recently and I quite enjoy watching them... Today while watching one of many Bond films, a thought struck me...how about a black James Bond? Will there be a day when we see a dashing tall, dark, and handsome James Bond such as Denzel Washington...perhaps? Just hoping that it happens some day soon. Will be great.

Here are some pics that I captured on my mobile... none of these are great pics (the quality is not so good) but I they came as a very pleasant surprise! Could not resist sharing these pictures. These are a few of my favourite things.... A beautiful butterfly ... My Mango bonsai plant is now full of mangoes (this time of the year!) One of my cactus plants gifted me a beautiful flower on my birthday And a rainbow set my spirits high last week...

We went for a short trip to West Sikkim, India a couple of years back. I was going through the pics and got reminded about what a lovely trip it was! View of the Bliss Resort surroundings from our room We stayed in a village resort by the name of "Bliss Resort" in Biksthang , West Sikkim.It is on the way to Legship from Jorethang. We went there in the early October. View of Kunchenjunga from our room at Bliss Resort Bliss resort was truly blissful. We spent a couple of peaceful and happy days there. We could see the Kunchenjunga range clearly from our room. While there, we visited "Khecheopalri lake" which is around 34-35 kms north-west of Pelling, Pelling was around 2 hours from Bliss resort.It is known as the "Wishing lake" and is considered to be sacred. "Khecheopalri lake" was breathtakingly beautiful! It was a spiritual experience for me. The lake does not have a single leaf floating on it inspite of being surrounded by forest! The serenity ...