Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from January, 2009

Featured Post

Review of Executive Lounges at New Delhi Railway Station (NDLS)

During my recent trip to Uttarakhand , I was faced with a problem I had never encountered before. We were passing through Delhi, but we had hardly any time in the city. On earlier visits when I have had to change trains/flights at Delhi, I have always arrived in the morning and left again at night, visiting relatives in between. This time, I was arriving in the city at night, and leaving again early in the morning. There was hardly any time to visit people. I would only have a couple of hours with them before I’d have to leave again. For the first time, we considered booking a hotel, but there again, we were hesitant about the actual hotels, the costs involved, and the logistics of getting from the airport to the railway station and then back again from the station to the airport.  That’s when we remembered reading something about a corporate-managed lounge at Delhi station. We soon figured out that we could book online and pay by the hour. Besides, we also learnt that there wasn’t ju

In the lap of nature - The Hermitage

Waking up early in the morning in a small house with a tiled roof with no alarms, just birdsong acting as one, sitting down for a healthy breakfast cooked with ingredients from the garden, spending the day walking in a jungle or swimming in a river, looking at birds and butterflies, warming oneself by a bonfire at night and calling an end to the wonderful day with a dinner by candlelight – doesn’t that sound idyllic and hardly possible? Yet that is just what we did this weekend, taking advantage of the holiday on account of Republic Day. We spent three wonderful days at The Hermitage, an hour and a half away from Belgaum. Our hosts, David and Morvarid Fernandez have lived there for 28 years, and for the last seven years, have allowed a few guests like us to spend time at their home, and experience the rustic village life for ourselves. From The Hermitage Jan 09 The Gota - a rural cottage, where we lived We took the night bus from Bombay to Belgaum, where a cab met us to take u

K.Gudi – in Harmony with Nature

There is something about wilderness which attracts us. Maybe, living in a concrete jungle with predatory humans for company, the tree filled jungles where real predators and their prey remain in harmony seems a better option. Of course, being a city dweller since birth and knowing nothing of rural life, I wonder if I will be able to live happily in a village for more than a few days. All the same, it is wonderful to get away from the sea of humanity during the holidays, and we are always on the lookout for a place which will take us far from the madding crowd. This time, all our wishes were fulfilled when we spent the best 48 hours of our Christmas vacation at K.Gudi near Chamrajnagar (Karnataka). From Ooty - K Gudi Dec 08 We started from Ooty early in the morning, and weaved our way along the highway which passes through Masinagudi, Mudumalai and Bandipur. (If any of you are planning a similar trip, it would be a good idea to combine a visit to the sanctuary along with the journ