Prabha Koda
I work with colours as a designer most of the year and the rest of the time, smitten by the travel bug, drive all over India (and given the chance, the world) with my partner, to see the colours, culture and people.smitten
Travel Blog Posts
September 1st 2010
Driving from Nandan farms of Sindhudurg in Maharashtra to Castle Bera near Pali in Rajasthan was an interesting journey of 5 days... not that a non-stop drive should take that long.. we planned it that way. We first drove 380kms to Prabha's sister's place in Pune to do some laundry and relax for 2 days... and the drive on the Amboli Ghats was a delight. Being a part of the Deccan plateau and the western ghats whole area was beautiful and apparently it receives the highest rainfall in the western ghats. We then drove to Nashik, relatively a short drive of 220kms, to visit the Mahindra Xylo plant - to see the place where our car was born. The road was being four laned in parts and so the drive took us almost 6 hours. The ... read more
July 1st 2010
Because we enjoyed Vijay Singh Mankotia’s knowledge of the off-roads we asked him to suggest the most picteresque road to our 11th Mahindra Homestay location - Citrus County at Hoshiarpur and he chalked out a route via the Maharana Pratap Sagar Dam. The Siwaliks in this region are soft and friable. These hills are composed mainly of clay sand, sand rocks and poorly bedded sandstones... and unless you go and touch the hard surface you would think they are sand dunes. Harkreet Singh was among the first hosts to call us confirming our booking (over a month ago... before we left Chennai on this long Mahindra Homestays trip), and was impatiently waiting to recieve us. He was so eager to make sure we got there quickly that he sent his driver with his cell phone to ... read more
June 25th 2010
Our 10th Mahindra Homestay was Jaishree & Vijay Mankotia's Om Mahal in Kangra valley near Dharmanshala. Crossing Shimla is such a pain. The traffic is unbearable and despite helpful cops standing at every turn we took a good one hour to get out of the maze. Since we were 'inside Shimla' now, we decided to pay a visit the dear old Peterhoff Hotel. In 2004 we had come to this heritage hotel to get flagged off on the Raid de Himalaya. From Shimla the road is pretty straight to Gaggal... just stay on NH 88. We took a couple of detours because of landslides (yes... even in the summer these things happen) and sometimes because we felt the off-road was more picturesque than the highway. We finally reached Gaggal (via Bilaspur, Hamirpur. Jwalamikhi and Kangra). Om ... read more
June 20th 2010
There are many roads from Uttarakhand to Himachal... and we decided to take the most difficult of the lot to reach our 9th Mahindra Homestay, Krish Rauni at Matiana. We left Camp Corbett at Kaladhungi after lunch and thanks to a board I saw at the Ramnagar entrance to Corbett National Park we took a road that was on the southern fringe of the park (via kashipura, Afzalgarh, Nagina and Najibabad). We got fleeting glimpses of some birds and wildlife as we drove to Haridwar for the night. After finding that the rooms at Ginger were dirty we stayed at a very decent Hari Heritage. The next morning we continued on NH 72 to Dehradun, and beyond. In Dehradun we took a break to pick up some wildlife books at The English Book Depot on Rajpur ... read more
June 18th 2010
Driving to 8th Mahindra Homestay destination Camp Corbett at Kaladhungi from Nainital was a mistake... after enjoying the cool weather at an elevation of 2000+ mts... we drove down the hills to Kaladhungi (at just over 400+ mts)... the heat was unbearable. In a way the mistake was from our part... we should not have been there during the hot summer days. The drive itself was great. These Sivalik Hills are the southernmost mountain chain of the Himalayan System... and probably the youngest. We stopped for some tender 'butta' (corn-on-the-cob) on the way and enjoyed the drive along the ‘long and winding roads’ in the hills passing the many lakes that dot the hills... this one called Khurpa taal really looked like a big emerald! Ome and Suman's Camp Corbett is located right on the mail ... read more
June 16th 2010
The road to Nainital (via Delhi) was hot... hotter... hottest. With 2 days to cover the distance we decided to get an early start, but, the roads were not in favour of this... the road from Bera to Pali was a combination of SH 16 and NH14 - both equally good (or bad). The road was bad after a while and did not improve till we reached Kishangarh (near Ajmer). The 100kms from Kishangarh to Jaipur was the best on that day. After Jaipur the 6-laning work was in progress and it greatly reduced speeds due to the deep excavations. Between that and the traffic as we neared Manesar & Gurgaon we made it to Delhi exhausted after 14 hours on the road. But the rasam and curd rice waiting at my cousin Sharmila's place kept ... read more
June 4th 2010
Driving to Sindhudurgh, in Sawantwadi district of Maharashtra was a great experience... as you see the commercial-ness of Goa disappear.. you get to see and experience the raw nature of rural Maharashtra! Our Xylo, Haliaetus enjoyed the rural outing. Thought Nandan Farms is owned/managed by Amrita Padgaonkar, we did not get to meet her. She was apparently holidaying in the Haimalayas... only crazy people like us would holiday in the heat of rural Maharashtra in the middle of the summer heat. Her brother, Madan and Sandeep Sawant who works with Culture Aangan, the same NGO that Amrita is involved with were around and made sure we did not miss her. Culture Aangan supports the arts and crafts of Sindhudurg. We were glad we had planned for only one night there as the heat was too much ... read more
May 30th 2010
Driving to Wayanad was an experience. The road till Calicut was pretty much the irritating NH 17 - with hardly space to overtake - sometimes you can't even overtake a bicycle! Also, Kerala towns, villages never end... they just merge one into the other. The down side is that you never get a moment to park the car on the side of the road and stretch your legs without the fear of being run down by a 'town bus'. After we hit the ghats (NH 212) and entered the fringes of the ‘12,000 Acre forest’ we were pretty safe from the traffic - and the weather became cooler. The Xylo took to the hills like a charm... prancing away with ease. Because we were driving one day ahead of the monsoon... we just had to look ... read more
May 30th 2010
If you are a true blood Malayali you should have spent a considerable time in the 'middle east', also known as 'the gulf', also known as 'foreign', also known as 'the other Kerala'. Almost every second person you meet in Kerala has at some point of time been employed there. This is true of Mathew too. After a good 25 years in Etisalat (the telecom giant based out of UAE), he and Mary are back in India and discovered the best way to combine suburban life with 'living on the backwaters'... Riverside Homestay is a perfect mix. When the house was built, its 3 bedrooms were meant for their two daughters who are now 'settled abroad'. So they decided to turn the place into a homestay to 'meet new people'. Located just a km off the ... read more
May 30th 2010
We are off on one huge trip to experience India from the eyes of the 'every-day', local, desi, son-of-the-soil Indian. We have been driving across India for over 10 years now and we have almost always stayed at resorts or hotels (except in towns where we have had a chance to shack up with friends and family). We have never experienced the Home-Stay hospitality. The reasons are many... we did not know where to find them... or what to expect in a home-stay... are they clean... will it be like a 'paying guest' thing... will we share a room with others... what will the food be like... and the toilets?... oh so many questions. It's not like we have always stayed at 5 star hotels... just that we expect a little bit of cleanliness and privacy... ... read more
Tot: 0.086s; Tpl: 0.004s; cc: 12; qc: 90; dbt: 0.0555s; 1; s:notus w:www (50.28.60.10); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.8mb
