As usual, when traveling in India, waking up at the crack of dawn to beat the city traffic is a must. Early (very early) Wednesday morning, we joined our friends Kashmira and Dadi for a much needed getaway trip to Pondicherry and Kodaikanal. Kodaikanal is one of those honeymoon-destination type places in India so I was intrigued to see what all the fuss was about. It was set up in 1901 by an American (the only hill station in India to be built by an American) as a retreat from the heat of the nearby towns. After leaving Chennai, we stopped [View Full Entry]

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For my birthday weekend, we decided to take a trip to Kanyakumari and sneak a peek at Kerala. Kanyakumari is a little beach town at the Southern tip of India. It’s the place where 3 bodies of water meet: the Bay of Bengal from the East, the Indian Ocean from the South, and the Arabian Sea from the West. This little area is of great spiritual significance - there is a Hindu temple devoted to Goddess Devi, an island devoted to Vivekananda, a memorial to Gandhi (where some of his ashes are buried), and sacred waters for people to bathe in. [View Full Entry]

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I’ve visited India many times over the years and I’ve always noticed how crowded and noisy the big cities are but it never bothered me so much. Probably because I knew that I would shortly be returning to the quiet of the US. I took it all in as just part of the experience. Now, since I’ve been commuting for the past month, I’m wishing that I could go back in time and stop GM from adding the device known as the horn to its first car. If the makers of the horn only knew the way it is being overused [View Full Entry]

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All the animal activists and general animal lovers out there, this posting is not for you. Please stop reading and go do something else because this is something that I’m sure will not appeal to you. For Indians (and other people living in third-world countries), this is likely a run-of-the-mill every day occurrence. But for me and my fellow Americans, this story is one worth sharing. We, as Americans, live in very sterile environments. If we see a tiny spider or a fly in our homes, we chase after it until it’s expelled out the door. Now, after traveling in remote [View Full Entry]

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I’ve been working in Corporate India for about 3 weeks now. Some things are very different and some things are not so different from Corporate America. The one thing that strikes me every day as I walk into the building is how everyone looks the same. The men come in 2 varieties: with mustache and without. Everything else is identical from their hairstyle to their dressing sense to their accents and mannerisms. As for the women, they all wear the typical salwar kameez with their long, black hair slicked back and braided. As I stand at the back of the elevator [View Full Entry]

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I've been seriously slacking on my blog posts lately. My apologies to my faithful readers :) Here are some pics from our honeymoon in Thailand! Unfortunately, we didn't get to enjoy much because we were still recovering from the wedding festivities and were sick/exhausted for the first 2 days. The beaches of Pattaya were breath-taking and luckily just walking distance from our hotel. A few hours on the beach listening to the calming waves was exactly what we needed to get over the stress-filled days (weeks, months!) of wedding planning. The temples in Bangkok were soul-stirring. And of cou [View Full Entry]

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The incessant rains of Cyclone Nisha have finally come to an end. My mom is visiting me this week and unfortunately we've been stuck indoors for the past 5 days! We ventured out to the grocery store the other day and we had to wade through knee-deep water to get there. Here are some pictures ... enjoy :) [View Full Entry]

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After a restless night, I arrived in Kuala Lumpur not really knowing what to expect. As the plane was making its dissent, I could see a country overflowing with trees and rivers. From the sky, it looked like KL was somehow dropped in the middle of a rainforest. It was a spectacular sight! Unfortunately, our plans of spending a few days along the coast had to be cancelled because we couldn't get train or bus tickets out of Kuala Lumpur. The week we were there was Ramzan so everything was sold out. We did go to Genting Highlands, which is Malaysia's [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Yercaud many hours later than planned - our train was delayed by 4 hours. As we chugged our way through the wee hours of the morning, I hoped waiting at the train station until 3 a.m. was worth it. There is no worse feeling then struggling to reach a destination only to have disappointment set in. After 5 hours in the train, we hopped in a rick, zoomed across town to the bus station, climbed into the bus heading out of Salem Junction through the hills to Yercaud. After 20 hairpin bends (they were numbered so that's how [View Full Entry]

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Being in Pondicherry is like stepping outside of India into another world. The streets are clean, honking is not allowed (in certain areas), French and Italian restaurants abound on the streets, European architecture appears alongside Indian craftsmanship, and the rickshaw drivers speak French! Over 55 languages are spoken in Pondy: Tamil, Telegu, French, English, and Malayalum are the official five languages. Why the influx of so many languages? Pondicherry was ruled by the French for over 100 years, is home to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, and is the town closest to the international community [View Full Entry]

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