Maui, the Valley Isle We spent three days on Maui, just one day on the Big Island, one day on Oahu, two days on Kauai and were wholly satisfied with our choice. Maui has a lot to give and is generous with her gifts. Each island of Hawaii is predominantly associated with a particular activity. The Big Island is synonymous with Kilauea volcano; Kauai evokes an image of canyons and rainforest while Oahu gets identified with Pearl Harbor and Diamond Head overlooking the Waikiki beach. Each island has a ‘leeward’ side and a ‘windward’ side, and consequently, soft-sand beaches and wild, craggy coasts are found on all the islands. The difference in the weather of Hilo and Kona even though they are on the same island and separated by less than 100 miles, can also be ... read more

Hawaii Alias Air Mother We boarded the ship ‘Pride of Aloha’ on 25th February 2006 and sailed the same day from Maui Alias Mawshi (Maternal Aunt) towards Kaui alias Kaku -Ai (Paternal aunt). Lahanai (Younger Mother) and Molokai (Elder Mother ) were left on our wake. I have always felt a kinship towards the Polynesian. No, not ALL Polynesians, but only the ‘good’ ones. There were Polynesians, who were cannibals. There were Polynesians who regarded shrunken heads of their enemies as highly desirable trophies to decorate their homes with and there were Polynesians who were plain vanilla pirates. I do not feel any kinship with them, but I do feel a kinship when I come across any Polynesian word, which clearly has Sanskrit roots, and there are so many of them. The names of the islands ... read more

Mountain waterfall and river cruise in a day Whosoever heads for Black Forest of Germany, generally visits Triberg to see Germany’s tallest and easily accessible waterfall and buy a cuckoo clock. I am proud to declare that we could withstand the temptation and did not buy a cuckoo clock. We were not always immune to Temptation. Once upon a time, long ago, we HAD succumbed and bought two cuckoo clocks, but what they say is true : The best way to conquer Temptation is to succumb to it. So, this time we won. Triberg has a lot of facilities for outdoor activities. Right opposite the train station, there is a rock-climbing facility. However, I will rather leave rock climbing to more energetic persons and to monitor lizards. Triberg is the cuckoo clock capital of the world. ... read more

Megalomania in the Bavarian Alps Neuschwanstein castle, Herrenchimsee castle and Linderhof is a trilogy, the ‘mad’ king LudvigII wrote in stone. (I do not mean he carved the stone edicts like our Ashok, but he built these three stone monuments to his own ego in the Bavarian Alpine region.) We spent a day in summer of 2005 touring Ludvig’s castles. It is well nigh impossible to write about Neuschwanstein, Linderhof and Herrenchimsee without mentioning king LudvigII . He was a poet and a dreamer and his Linderhof (supposedly a ‘hunting lodge’) is an architectural poem, while his dreams have taken a concrete shape in Neuschwanstein. Like all dreamers, he was highly impractical and emptied the treasury to realize his dreams. Throughout our tour of his castles, a half-forgotten nursery rhyme kept running in the background of ... read more