I came across this quote and loved it!

“I shed my inhi­bi­tions, my fears, I trav­eled light. I traded my stock options for a lonely planet, my cell phone for a com­pass. My brief­case for a back­pack. I took off. I wan­dered in the com­pany of tourists, rev­el­ers & a gui­tar as old as me. I learned that peo­ple are good. Strangers are fas­ci­nat­ing. And that every jour­ney reveals another. I’ve lost track of time. And per­haps my job, my apart­ment & my fiancé. But I have my com­pass & I know its point­ing me in the right direction.”

I am pas­sion­ate about trav­el­ling. After about 6 years of doing hardly any­thing (and mostly crib­bing and whin­ing about lack of time and money), I decided it was time to start doing the things I loved most — trav­el­ling being one of them. Now, I usu­ally set aside a few days every year for trav­el­ling to new places and re-discovering old ones.

Liv­ing in Mum­bai, all I seemed to be doing was travel in the crowded local trains :) 

I’d like to see more of India and the world in the years to come. 

TRAVEL IDEAS:
Be pre­pared for your trip with qual­ity lug­gage. Get all kinds of things for your trip like clothes and shoes with online shop­ping. Even find nice wom­ens hand­bags to use as your carry-on for the plane.

Some of my recent travels. 

Circa 2008

* Work in progress — Chik­ma­galur, Sri­ran­ga­p­atna, Bijapur, Sra­van­abelagola, Belur & Halebid, Melkote, Coonoor/Kotagiri. 

July 2008: Nandi Hills
A morn­ing drive to Nandi Hills, fol­lowed by lunch and tea at the Sil­ver Oak Farm, located at the base of the hill. Turned out to be a nice relaxed day out of town and loads of fun!
Words | Pic­tures

May 2008: Fringe Ford, Wayanad
Nes­tled cosily in the mid­dle of a for­est, miles from civil­i­sa­tion — Fringe Ford — is near­est you can get to par­adise! Along with the breath­tak­ing view of the moun­tains, you also get to taste some of the most deli­cious food… ever! The folks at Fringe Ford make sure they feed you so well that there’s no option but to go for a few walks so you can shake off the feel­ing that you are putting on sev­eral pounds as you stuff your face! Whether it’s a short trek to a water­fall or a long trek to the near­est hill-top, there’s enough to keep you busy. And if you want to just relax, that too is an option!
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May 2008: Kolar
We spot­ted a group of boys hav­ing a lot of fun in the water on a day trip to the town of Kolar. That’s the place you go in search of gold. Or at least it used to be. The Kolar Gold Fields (KGF) have since closed down so we couldn’t really go in search of our pot of gold after all.
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May 2008: Begur
Accord­ing to his­tory, the name ‘Ben­ga­looru’ appar­ently occurs for the first time on a 9th cen­tury stone inscrip­tion in the town of Begur. This Ban­ga­lore ham­let was part of Gan­gavadi 96000, the numeral being a revenue-pin code of those days.
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April 2008: Sin­ga­pore
A very quick trip to the island city of Sin­ga­pore. I came away quite impressed by the clean streets and the dis­ci­pline :-)
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March 2008: Guwa­hati
My annual visit to see the folks and remind that I still exist :-) Spent a week there dur­ing Bihu — one of our main fes­ti­vals.
Pic­tures

Feb­ru­ary 2008: Bylakuppe
Images from new year cel­e­bra­tions at Bylakuppe. We vis­ited the Golden Tem­ple, Sera Jey and Sera Mey and the Kagyudpa. Tasted the local brew — chang — served by our Tibetan host at a tem­ple. And got to see a Tibetan dance per­for­mance at the monastery — an occa­sion graced by a sur­prise guest — Steven Segal — who is also a Bud­dhist (Rin­poche). Feb­ru­ary 2008.
Pic­tures

Feb­ru­ary 2008: Auroville
On the Feb 16/17 week­end along with a gang of friends trav­elled to Pondicherry for the Auroville marathon. Auroville turned 40 on Feb 28 and this was one of the events to com­mem­o­rate the occa­sion.
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Feb­ru­ary 2008: Palace on Wheels
A ride aboard the Golden Char­iot : Karnataka’s lux­ury tourist train and answer to the famous Palace on Wheels. It was the oppor­tu­nity of a life­time, really.
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Circa 2007

Decem­ber 2007: Kun­da­pur
Spent the Christ­mas week­end in what I call Unwind Island — a small lit­tle piece of land that has a house on stilts, a boat to row you around and good food to keep you happy! An ideal place for a relaxed week­end.
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Novem­ber 2007: Coorg
Spent a week­end at the Club Mahin­dra resort in Coorg with a bunch of travel and blog enthu­si­asts — some who I was already famil­iar with and a bunch of new faces.
Words

Octo­ber 2007: Bhutan
We started our Bhutan trip from the bor­der town of Phuntshol­ing and trav­elled to the lit­tle but charm­ing town of Paro, where there are more street dogs than peo­ple. Sev­eral thou­sands words will be needed to describe the more than 1000 km jour­ney we under­took, but here’s a sneak peek! 

~~ Sneak Peek:
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~~ Pas­sage to Bhutan:
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Sep­tem­ber 2007: Agumbe in the Rains
Along with Man­jula, Venky, Ayan and Lavanya, went in search of the rains. And we weren’t dis­ap­pointed. It rained, and poured and we thor­oughly enjoyed the wet cli­mate. Went walk­ing around the vil­lage, trekked to a water­fall, admired an old tem­ple and ate lovely mal­nad cui­sine pre­pared by kas­turi akka. We stayed at the dodda mane, a quaint old bun­ga­low where the ser­ial Mal­gudi Days was filmed.
Pic­tures

Sep­tem­ber 2007: Bike Ride to Hogen­hakkal
Most peo­ple would prob­a­bly stay away from Goa dur­ing the mon­soons. But some­how, I like this sea­son. Maybe, because one of my fond­est mem­o­ries was going with a few friends to Goa in August of 1998.
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August 2007: Goa in the rains!
Most peo­ple would prob­a­bly stay away from Goa dur­ing the mon­soons. But some­how, I like this sea­son. Maybe, because one of my fond­est mem­o­ries was going with a few friends to Goa in August of 1998.
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July 2007: A tryst with nature in a small town that shall go unnamed!
It was an out­ing with the girls and four of us set off to spend some time at this off-the-beaten-track vil­lage in Tamil Nadu. It was mag­i­cal. One of those places you don’t want to tell any­one about because you don’t want it to lose its quaint and quiet charm. And you def­i­nitely don’t want to see it teem­ing with truck loads of loud touristy fam­i­lies with a bunch of badly behaved chil­dren.
Words | More Words | Pic­tures

July 2007: A drive to Sul­tan­pet and Nandi Hills:
With the Ban­ga­lore Week­end Shoots gang, this was an open plan and a drive towards Nandi Hills. We hap­pened to come across a pot­ters colony in a small town called Sul­tan­pet and spent many a cou­ple of hours click­ing there.
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June 2007: Cham­paku­lam Boat Race in Alleppey:
Spent a long week­end at Alleppey and went for the boat race. Was good fun under the hot sun to watch all those peo­ple try and out do each other in the water. The spir­its were rather high around the river where lots of folks had gath­ered to watch the event. Unfor­tu­nately, I lost all my pic­tures in a hard disk crash. And the words never hap­pened. With Reena, Venkatesh and Sandeep. You can read Sandeep’s account here. Inci­den­tally, his cam­era also failed as a result of which none of us got pic­tures of the race :) 

June 2007: Very, very green Val­parai:
Located in the Anna­malai range in Tamil Nadu, Val­parai is a tiny hill sta­tion that is home to sev­eral tea estates and plantations.We spent a lazy and green week­end in the first week of June enjoy­ing the beauty of the place.
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May 2007: Delight­ful Coonoor and Welling­ton:
A trip to the beau­ti­ful tea coun­try of Welling­ton in Tamil Nadu along with my sis­ter, Ree and her amma. A rather long but nice drive. Sam­pled home made wines, took a ride on the toy train and enjoyed a long lazy lunch at the Taj.
Words | Pic­tures | More Pic­tures

May 2007: Long week­end @ Nersa:
Nersa is about 500 kms from Ban­ga­lore and is on the Goa Kar­nataka bor­der. In May, com­bined with a hol­i­day, took a long week­end off and we drove down to this serene and peace­ful vil­lage and stayed in a house on stilts. Spent time laz­ing around, catch­ing up on sleep, going swim­ming, eat­ing and such plea­sur­able activ­i­ties. What a lovely, lovely place!
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April 2007: Sangama:
A Sun­day drive, cou­ple of week­ends ago in May. It was hot, dry and prob­a­bly not the best time of the year to visit. But inspite of it, we found hordes of vis­i­tors at Sangama, play­ing in what­ever lit­tle water they could find! On the way back, we dropped in at the Art of Liv­ing cen­tre to refresh our­selves and grab a bite.
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April 2007: Ban­daje Abbe
A lovely place sit­u­ated in the Chik­ma­galur range. Nes­tled deep within the moun­tains, we trekked for about half a day to reach the Ban­daje Abbe falls where we camped. The next day we walked through 2 forests to reach the Ban­daje Abbe vil­lage. April 21,22.
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March 2007: North East Chronicles

The Umiam lake or Bara­pani as it is pop­u­larly called is located a few kilo­me­tres before you reach Shil­long, the cap­i­tal of Megha­laya. We spent a cou­ple of hours by the lake­side, enjoy­ing the peace and quiet and the beau­ti­ful sun­set. March 17.
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Loreto — Back to School: It’s been many, many years since I passed out from Loreto. And that’s why it was per­haps even more thrilling to re-visit my old school again. My trip to Shil­long would have been incom­plete with­out going back the famil­iar por­tals of LC again! March 19, 2007.
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Mawlyn­nong: On March 19, we trav­elled from Shil­long to the lovely pic­ture per­fect vil­lage of Mawlyn­nong, Megha­laya. The vil­lage prides itself on its clean­li­ness : the clean­est vil­lage in Asia is what it boasts : and it’s not an empty boast we dis­cov­ered. We stayed in a cute house on stilts that had two machans with a view of the sur­round­ing for­est and green­ery. It was sim­ply awe­some!
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Wild Wild East: Kazi­ranga: On March 21/22, we vis­ited the Kazi­ranga National Park in Assam, about a 6 hour drive from Guwa­hati. The park is home to the endan­gered one-horned rhino, tigers, deers, ele­phants etc. It also has a wide vari­ety of birds and but­ter­flies. The sanc­tu­ary is a must visit if you’re plan­ning to travel the North East.
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Island in the Sun: Majuli Located in the mid­dle of the mighty Brahma­pu­tra river, the jour­ney to Majuli island is around 2 and a half hours in a noisy ferry. We vis­ited the island on March 22 & 23 and got a good view of life in the satras.
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For­ever Jung! A quiet, charm­ing hill town, sit­u­ated between Dirang and Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh. Took our breath away — lit­er­ally!
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Feb­ru­ary 2007: Cof­fee Val­ley @ Hosamane:
A bike ride to Hosamane, 23 kms from Sak­lesh­pur. We spent the week­end at the Cof­fee Val­ley home­s­tay where the hosts plied us with amaz­ingly yummy food and end­less cups of chai and cof­fee! Per­fect place for a chilled out week­end. Feb 10/11, 2007.
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Jan­u­ary 2007: Mag­i­cal Mul­layan­giri:
Pic­tures from a trek up to the high­est peak in Kar­nataka. A steep climb from Sarpad­hari start­ing at 6 am in the morn­ing. Dawn break­ing and a gor­geous sun­rise with light engulf­ing the entire val­ley below us and the hills around us. From there, we made our way to the Babubu­dana­giri Hills and camped at Lake Galikere for the night under the open skies. And many more spe­cial mem­o­ries! With Sandeep, Sil­vester and Apra. Jan­u­ary 14/14, 2007.
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Circa 2006

Decem­ber 2006: New Year in the Nil­giris:
Spent New Year in the foothills of the Nil­giris. On the 31st trekked up from Masi­nagudi to Ooty, a stretch of 12 kms through beau­ti­ful for­est and the most amaz­ing views. A lovely way to bring in the New Year and all that it holds! Wel­come 2007!
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Decem­ber: Christ­mas in Goa:
Four whole days to explore Goa dur­ing the fes­tive sea­son! We stayed in Can­dolim and vis­ited North Goa — Aram­bol and Tira­col. Old Goa and Pan­jim another day. And then took some time to wan­der around the old areas of Mala (Foun­tain­has) in Pan­jim. Dec 23–27, 2006.
Pic­tures

Decem­ber 2006: Fontain­has, L’ancien quartier de Pan­jim:
At Fontain­has will get a glimpse of the real Pan­jim as it existed dur­ing the Por­tugese rule. The peo­ple as in most of Goa, are friendly and laid back and at the most will give you a side­wise glance and a smile while you go about your explo­rations! With brightly painted walls, and old her­itage archi­tec­ture, this lit­tle cor­ner of Pan­jim is a delight to wan­der around!
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Decem­ber 2006: Man­ga­lore:
The Kadri Kam­bala is an annual event held in Man­ga­lore, whose main attrac­tion is the bul­lock races. We were lucky to have got­ten the info that this year’s event would be held right near the cen­tre of the city on Decem­ber 10. We headed out for the week­end to Man­ga­lore where we explored Bekal Fort on day 1 and then wit­nessed the Kam­bala event on Sun­day.
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Decem­ber 2006: Nandi Hills revis­ited
14 of us set off for Nandi Hills one misty Decem­ber morn­ing. We stopped via the Bhoga Nan­deesh­wari tem­ple at the base of the hills for a bit. After that, we climbed up the hills to the top and explored and walked around till around 1 pm in the after­noon. On the way back we dropped in at the Gopal­swamy tem­ple inside Devana­halli Fort. Fin­ished with a late lunch @ Sanjay’s Dhaba and we were back by around 5 pm. Sat­ur­day, 16 Decem­ber, 2006.
Pic­tures

Octo­ber 2006: Chik­maglur:
A taste of the true beauty of the West­ern Ghats I thought as we drove through some most amaz­ingly scenic routes to reach our des­ti­na­tion : a remote home­s­tay hid­den inside a cof­fee plan­ta­tion over­look­ing the misty hills. Truly par­adise.
Pic­tures

Sept-Oct, 2006: Chill­ing in Coorg: A road trip with a few bud­dies from my pho­tog­ra­phy gang turned out to be beau­ti­ful and enjoy­able with great weather and some lovely scenery on the way!
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August 2006: Road trip to Maha­balipu­ram:
A road trip along the beau­ti­ful Ban­ga­lore Chen­nai high­way. We went via the Old Madras Road and cruised back on the new high­way via Krish­na­giri, which was a plea­sure to drive on. In Maha­balipu­ram, we sim­ply let our hair down, sat by the beach, read, ate and watched the waves!
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July 2006: Nandi Hills:
This beau­ti­ful place, about a hour’s drive away, is best expe­ri­enced early morn­ing, which a few of us did one Sat­ur­day.
Pic­tures

July 2006: His­tory comes alive at Sri­ran­ga­p­atna:
A one day trip to the town of Sri­ran­ga­p­atna, just before you reach Mysore, turned out to be quite an inter­est­ing expe­ri­ence!
Pic­tures

May 2006: The Himalayas:
Took off on a trip to the Himalayas with a few friends. They went off trekking, I had to forgo it due to bad health, but I had a nice time breath­ing in fresh air in Man­ali and Dhara­masala. On the way back, we stopped in Bom­bay for a shop­ping expe­di­tion!
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Circa 2005

Octo­ber 2005: Europe & UK: I took off on a solo trip to the UK, Scot­land, Spain, France and Switzerland. 

In the UK, I met my sis­ter who works and lives there. From there, I trav­elled to Barcelona, Spain where I met Emma and Romain (who work in a dance com­pany there) and who I had met in India ear­lier in the year dur­ing a ski­ing trip. I loved Barcelona and wished I could set­tle there for while!

Then I took a flight to Switzer­land to meet Stephanie, a fel­low blog­ger and trav­eler who’s been to India and vis­ited me here the year before. I spent some time in her lovely home and town of Lausanne. 

Next, I took the TGV (what a train!) to France. There I was all alone for 4 days in the cheap­est hos­tel I could find! I roamed around and admired the Lou­vre, the beau­ti­ful Sacré Coeur and was fas­ci­nated by the dark allure of the Notre Dame. I used the France tourist buses every­day and saw as much of the city as pos­si­ble, walk­ing along the Seine, the Mont­martre, the Moulin Rouge, the Place de la Con­corde and to the Arc de Tri­om­phe. I gaped at the mar­velous won­der of the Eif­fel Tower as I stood below it and took a tour around so I could look at it from all angles! I loved the Metro and used it at every oppor­tu­nity. And as luck would have it, on the last day I bumped into 2 famil­iar faces : pho­tog­ra­pher Param (who I knew only online!) and his wife Shruti, who were on their way to meet another blog­ger and pho­tog­ra­pher (study­ing in Paris at that time), Mahesh Shantaram. 

After the 4 lovely days it was time to come back to Lon­don this time where I spent time with my very preg­nant friend, S. Roamed around Lon­don city, met fel­low blog­gers Masala Chai and Jag and had a great time walk­ing across the Lon­don Bridge and the river Thames. 

From there, I met with my sis­ter again and took a train to Scot­land (we missed our flight!). We went via the mys­te­ri­ous Lochness but didn’t see the mon­ster :) We trav­elled on to a remote town called Inver­ness where we met another Indian girl called Aparna and her hubby work­ing there as a doc­tor. Scot­land was amaz­ing — rolling hills, beau­ti­ful scenery and lots of sheep. After almost 3 weeks of trav­el­ling, it was (sadly) time to come back home! 

Words
A photo essay and a few ran­dom posts here

Pic­tures
Lon­don, Eng­land | Lau­sanne, Switzer­land | Barcelona, Spain

Glo­ri­ous Gokarna:
A friend told me that I have to do a moon­light trek in Gokarna. After that, I couldn’t think of any­thing else for a while! When the oppor­tu­nity pre­sented itself, eight of us left for this town on the North­ern coast of Kar­nataka (Sept 1/18th week­end). Close to Goa, this stretch of coast­line is beau­ti­ful, vir­gin and truly a treat for one’s eyes! And to add to it, we got a near full moon!
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Pondicherry Revis­ited:
On the Inde­pen­dence Day long week­end (Aug 13–15), about 15 of us loaded our cars with good­ies and drove down to Pondi via Chen­nai. Stopped enroute for break­fast at Muru­gan Idlis at T Nagar, Chen­nai. Then some long island iced tea at Fisherman’s Cove near Maha­balipu­ram and we were on our way! Pondi was humid and muggy, and crowded since it was Aurobindo Day. But we packed in quite a bit, besides run­ning up huge spirit bills!
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River raft­ing on Seethanadi:
I lost my old faith­ful Nikon auto­matic cam­era I picked up in Aus­tralia to the strong cur­rents. Some­where in the mid­dle of the river when water gushed into our raft, my cam­era could not sur­vive the onslaught, though it was ensconced in a plas­tic packet. This time, instead of doing the usual trav­el­ogue, I wrote about some of the inter­est­ing peo­ple I met on the trip!
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Enjoy the waters at Hon­nemardu:
A beau­ti­ful water adven­ture place about 2 hours away from Shi­moga, about 19 of us made it to this des­ti­na­tion. The most event­ful part of it was camp­ing on a deserted island on an extremely rainy night. There’s water every­where and won­der­ful views all around.
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A Man­ga­lore wed­ding:
A Shetty wed­ding set the stage for the Man­ga­lore trip. A really quaint and pretty town, my sis­ter and I tried not to wilt under the Man­ga­lore sun and did as much sight­see­ing as we could in the few days we were there.
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The birds of Kokkre Belur:
One of the very few exist­ing pel­i­can­ries in the world. Also home to the beau­ti­ful painted stork. This small vil­lage is sit­u­ated about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Bangalore. 

Ski­ing at Auli, Uttaran­chal:
A ski-trip that saw me visit quite a few places in North India, includ­ing Dehradun, Rishikesh, Harid­war, Delhi, Joshi­math and Auli. 

Circa 2004

Mag­i­cal Hampi: The mag­i­cal town in North Kar­nataka, which takes you back a few cen­turies. A must visit, if you haven’t already been there.

Dandeli/Goa: A fun trip where we had great fun river raft­ing and chill­ing out at Palolem Beach, Goa.

Ran­gan­thittu: A bird sanc­tu­ary near Mysore. You can take a boat trip out into the water and see many migra­tory birds. 

Sangama/Muthathi: Con­flu­ence of a few rivers. The jour­ney there, along with a few photo bud­dies, proved to be more inter­est­ing than the destinations!

Nandi Hills: Lovely, cold and misty in win­ter, this van­tage point about 60 km from Ban­ga­lore, proved to be pretty scenic. 

Tayen­de­n­amol, Coorg: A trek to the high­est peak in Coorg. With a bro­ken ankle. Unforgettable!

Bandipur: A scenic drive to the Bandipur wildlife sanc­tu­ary and an encounter with a few wild animals. 

Ooty: The quiet and serene hill sta­tion proved to be a balm for our fraz­zled nerves :)

Seetha Nadi/Kudlu Teertha: River raft­ing down Seetha Nadi and a trek to the Kudlu Teertha water­fall turned out to be quite an adven­ture. My first encounter with leeches. Ewww!

Kihim: Just before I left for Ban­ga­lore, an out­ing with a few friends to a beach near Mumbai.

Ker­ala: Along with fel­low vis­it­ing blog­ger, Tara, we man­age to take in quite a few scenic places in God’s own country!

Hyder­abad: The city of nawabs turned out to be as grand as I imagined.

Cal­cutta: A lovely place for pho­tog­ra­phy. If you’re okay with get­ting swal­lowed in the crowds everywhere.

Guwa­hati: My home­town. Or more specif­i­cally the place where my par­ents now stay calls that I visit it once in a while. 

Ban­ga­lore: A city I vis­ited off and on and then moved to in April 2004.

Tawang, Arunachal: Abode of the clouds. A piece of heaven. A 12 hour jour­ney from Tezpur makes this a mem­o­rable trip along with my sister.

Pondicherry: A trip to Auroville and the dis­cov­ery that we couldn’t cycle did us no good in this quaint lit­tle settlement.

Wish list: Kabini | Wayanad | Rantham­bore | Band­hav­garh | Cor­bett | Sun­der­bans | Rajasthan | Orissa | Sri Lanka | Italy | Gujarat | Ladakh… and the list continues.