Blogs from India, Asia - page 8

Kolkata Durga pooja -Piprey on wheels With school holidays over, I imagined it was the perfect time to travel from London to Kolkata on empty flights and catch up on movies in the flights. Very confidently, I arrived at London Heathrow to be denied boarding because I did not have a negative RT PCR test. My option for one free change of date was also denied ( I re-confirmed later in Kolkata that I did have a free change). I paid 179 GBP penalty to fly the following weekend. London Heathrow should be renamed chaos. We were still doing security checks past the flight departure time and asked to RUN to the aircraft. We arrived late at Doha airport and 8 of us missed our connecting flights. 6 eager Bengalis stuck together, took alternative full flight ... read more

Lucky Lucknow -Piprey on wheels Lucknow has a royal feel. It used to be the land of etiquette, poetry and subtle behaviour. Urdu language here is at its finest so much so that two people fighting sounds like music. I had an opportunity to visit my cousin and his family; jumped at it. I was so happy to meet my cousin. The airport was small, clean and tidy. The city was small, more like Delhi but refined with architecture showing loads of arches by the river Gomti. There were fishes carved on the arches as it was considered auspicious (I thought the architect was Bengali). My cousin’s flat was spacious with lots of green plants, song birds and an old dog. After tea, we went to a lovely homely place where I tasted authentic Awash biryani ... read more

Rewalsar, September 22nd2022 “When you do something, if you fix your mind on the activity with some confidence, the quality of your state of mind is the activity itself. When you are concentrated on the quality of your being, you are prepared for the activity” Shunryu Suzuki: Zen Mind Beginners Mind “When the mind goes out to an object, it's suffering The mind going out to an object is the arising of suffering When the mind has no object, that's the end of suffering Withdrawing the mind from all objects, that's the path to the end of suffering” Pandit Bikkhu “Everything changes, nothing remains without change” MrGuatama (aka The Buddha) “Plans are things that change” Fujio Cho I didn't plan to be exiled from India for four years. But that's a long story (and a lo ... read more

India is set to url=https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdollarflightclub.lt.emlnk1.com%2FProd%2Flink-tracker%3FredirectUrl%3DaHR0cHMlM0ElMkYlMkZ3d3cuYWxqYXplZXJhLmNvbSUyRm5ld3MlMkYyMDIyJTJGNyUyRjExJTJGZ2xvYmFsLXBvcHVsYXRpb24tdG8taGl0LTgtYmlsbGlvbi1idXQtZ3Jvd3RoLXNsb3dzLXVu%26sig%3DHFtcFAnLF2VoTYwdKzsuxQYy9dNuAgp18pTKFWagFPjD%26iat%3D1657713320%26a%3D%257C%257C251900229%257C%257C%26account%3Ddollarflightclub.activehosted.com%26email%3DS5oi0iYR%252BtscPI1SrtB0mEzkASpiHornD%252Fz2wZTd1jg%253D%26s%3D3786e4a3928d70664f48a6029be06911%26i%3D5794A5951A60A111226&data=05%7C01%7C%7C5d510e4495544885c4c308da64c793cf%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637933105599965461%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=1bazkSBRYSahDTBI%2FAYmYVrzCENaLUv4xduT2er8wu0%3D&reserved=0overtake China ... read more

Shimla-Manali (2004), Char-Dham (2016), Ladakh (2021) and Sikkim (2022) – A comparison For the second time in 9 months, we travelled to Himalayas – to Leh-Ladakh in August-2021 and to Sikkim-Darjeeling in May-2022. Prior to that we had been to Shimla-Manali in 2004 and ‘Chardham’ in 2016. I am comparing only these four tours (omitting South India and other States) as these four tours were in Himalayan regions. There are many things common among these four trips and many dissimilarities. All four tours were in ‘peak’ season. We had planned Shimla and Ladakh tours on our own, ie the itinerary, hotel bookings and internal travelling. Chardham – we had booked for ‘organized’ tour by ‘Radhe-Shyam’ of Ahmedabad. For Sikkim-Darjeeling tour we booked through a ‘Ajay Modi’ of Ahmedabad. I have always debated – which one is ... read more

Day-7: Darjeeling Got up at 3.25 am. Reached hotel foyer at 3.45 am. Taxi was to arrive at 4.00 am. Tiger Hill to see sunrise – golden yellow reflection of first sunlight on mount Kanchenjungha peaks. Taxi didn’t arrive till 4.30. Driver said, he was caught up in traffic jam. Tiger Hill view point is 18 km from this hotel. Sunrise was to occur at 4.52 am. About 10 km from Tiger Hill, we were caught up in traffic jam extending all the way to Tiger hill. At about 5.45, we were still 3 km from the view point and driver said, there is no way vehicle can go further. We were asked to go on foot or turn back. We decided to turn back. Sun was already high at 6 o’clock. In our Ajay Modi ... read more