BSM
Sunjay, Bindu and Maya Mohan Joined: March 30th 2008
Logged in: January 15th 2012
Logged in: January 15th 2012
Travel Blog Posts
Dubai Airport
The blog is still a work in progress and was published by mistake. Sorry!! We went to China during Maya's Spring break. We had originally planned on going to Egypt but the Arab spring of 2011 happened and later we settled on Japan but the tsunami happened. When we changed to China we feared something bad would happen but luckily we made the trip. We visited 4 places - Beijing, Xian, Guilin and Shanghai. We took Emirates which was not a very smart thing to do. We flew right over Bangalore on the way back :)). Beijing (Peking) Our first stop was Beijing which is the capital of China and is directly controlled by the central government. The capital has shifted many times in the past. Beijing has been the capital since the Mongol Yuan dynasty. ... read more
Soles to Soul
Nikhil's family was visiting Mumbai. We wanted to see them and also take the opportunity to see the city. So we flew down for a weekend trip. One good thing we did was to stay there on a Sunday since the traffic was light and we were able to cover a lot of ground that day. Monday was a whole different story. We were on the road 70% of the time even though we had a late flight. We arrived on Friday. The travel agent had arranged for us to stay at Hotel Sea Princess. A friend had warned us about the place and she was right. The carpets in the room were stained, bathroom was not too clean and we weren't too thrilled about staying there. The travel agent quickly changed our reservation to Taj ... read more
Bush fire on the way to Kruger
One of our main purposes for visiting Africa was to see the wildlife. Kruger National Park (KNP) seemed to be the perfect destination. After Stellenbosch we headed back to Cape Town airport to catch a flight to Joburg. We did not intend to stay in Joburg but what we did not realize was that it would be a 6 hour drive just to get to the gates of KNP! It would take another hour within the park for us to get to our lodge, the Imbali lodge. KNP is huge- it's bigger than Israel! We come into the park around 6 PM. Our lodge has sent a vehicle to pick us up. Within the one hour drive to the lodge we see buffaloes, elephants, Kudus (a largish deer type animal), Rhinos and most pleasant surprise of ... read more
View from the hotel room with Table Mountain in the background
Ever since I read James Michenor's "The Covenant" during pre-apartheid days when I was in high school, I have been fascinated by this country. It has an intriguing history that involves people from around the globe - Africans (both Bantu people and the bushmen), Europeans (the Dutch, English, the French protestants), Indians, Malays, Indonesians, and Chinese. We were looking for the perfect destination to go to during Diwali week. So we settled on South Africa. I say settled because Bindu was hesitant. She would have rather gone somewhere in Asia. I was sure she would enjoy South Africa and she did! We decided to visit Cape Town, the wine lands nearby and Kruger national park. Cape town is a gem. It has been blessed by nature. It is surrounded by water and Table mountain provides ... read more
Charlie
Picnic in the desert We arrived in Dubai around 9 local time. Christian and Anne came to pick us up at the airport. We took a quick tour of the city, seeing the Burj Khalifa for the first time. We also drove around the bay where we saw flamingos. Dubai is a city with many tall buildings and is a good place for students to study modern architecture. The city is divided into different sectors such as medical, banking, IT etc. You hardly see any local people around. It is also quite expensive, especially books, food and housing. A lot of construction has stopped since the financial crisis. We arrived at Strohmeyer house and met their cat named Charlie. Charlie was adopted by the Strohmeyers after they found him foraging around in the garbage. Apparently, a ... read more
At Lalith's restaurant in Pokara
When we told Rindi that some friends of ours had trekked the Himalayas, she was very excited. The trek was going to be the highlight of her visit to India and Nepal. She had a lot of ground to cover in India. So our trek was just 3 days. It was a wonderful experience and I highly recommend it. We reached a maximum height of 2100 meters. Our route: Nayapul, Ghandrung, Landruk, Devrali and Phedi. We saw Annapurna south, Hinchuli and Fish tail on our trek. BTW, Rindi is ecstatic because she has discovered the secret after 62 years. Men in Nepal and India could not keep their hands off Rindi. She says she will let you in on the secret for a small fee. Things to remember next time if trekking in lower elevations of ... read more
In Kathmandu
We flew from Aurangabad to Delhi that afternoon so we could fly to Kathmandu the next day. I have to say we were disappointed with our hotel in Delhi. Someone had really not paid attention to the housekeeping details in our room. The sheets were dirty (had many dark chocolate stains), we didn't have enough towels or a bath mat in the bathroom. To top it all, there was a badly designed shoe storage area below the suitcase stand which kept falling down. At one point, it fell on my leg, my feet started swelling and I couldn't walk. This was quite alarming since we were leaving on the Himalayan trek the next day. So I took a Bacardi bottle from the bar and stuck it on my foot inside a sock. I had to go ... read more
Ajanta
Ajanta Rindi arrived on 4th October and we left on 5th October to Aurangabad, Maharastra. This was the first stop on our trip. We were delayed (about 80% of all flights on our trip were delayed) and we missed our connection to Aurangabad. We had to spend one night in Mumbai at Hotel Airport International. I ordered American Chop Suey here which was the worst decision I made regarding food during the entire trip. Rindi made the comment that I should not order anything in the future that is twice removed from it's origin. She is wise! Even though we were in the airport for a short duration, we saw some Bollywood stars (no big names though). We got on an early flight from Mumbai to Aurangabad and headed to Ajanta caves soon after. Our guide, ... read more
060
On our way to Portland from India this summer we took a break in Europe. We first went to Germany for a quick break before heading to Greece. In Germany, we had a chance to spend some time with my colleague and good friend Jason and his family before they packed up and went back to Palo Alto after a two year assignment with SAP in Germany. They lived in Heidelberg so we decided to stop there. Bindu and Maya were also curious to see Heidelberg since I travel there on work frequently. As you can see from our pictures, Heidelberg is a beautiful city. It has been an important center of education in Germany for many centuries. They have a wonderful Haupestrasse and great old churches including some excellent Catholic ones. The city is dominated ... read more
051
Maya learned about Greece this year in school. So on our home trip, we decided to go Greece . On the way stopped by Heidelberg to see Jason and his family and then went to Greece. We had told our travel agent in India that we would like to see the Parthenon and go to an island that was not very touristy. So we went to Athens and she suggested we go to Tinos island. Tinos, a small island in the Aegean sea was just perfect. We highly recommend it. It is just beautiful, blue and white like the colors of the Greek flag. There are hardly any people on the islands. When we were wandering around in the afternoon, there was not a soul around. Must have been siesta time. We met some wonderful people ... read more
