Skip to main content

Featured Post

Odisha Part 6: The Yogini Temple of Hirapur

I fell in love with this temple the first time I set eyes on it. Back in 2017 , I had been excited to see yet another Yogini temple, when I visited Puri. The resort I was staying at (and writing for), had arranged for a car and driver to take me around. The driver was happy to take me to most of the places I wanted to go, but when it came to Hirapur, he was appalled. He knew of the temple, but had never been there. It was a tantric temple, one not visited by women, and certainly not women travelling alone. He tried to convince me not to go, but my stubbornness and persistence paid off, and he reluctantly agreed when I told him that if he didn’t take me, I would find another driver who would. All along the way, he kept going on about the sinister things that happened at the temple, the tantric rituals that were performed at night…. An Odisha brahmin who took his religious duties very seriously, to the extent of stopping the car to perform the sandhyavandam when he deemed it time, he...
2 comments

A new trip... With a new phone!

I am relaxing in an easy chair, watching the rains lash and the waves crash against the shore. Yes, I am on another trip, this time to South India,  and as I type this, at Tarangambadi or Tranquebar. I am staying at the Neemrana property, Bungalow on the beach, and have with me for company,  Samhith of course, and the newest member of my gadget family - a Sony Xperia Z3!
The phone is with me for trial, and is proving surprisingly useful! The heavy rains have forced me to keep my camera inside and rely on the Xperia and in the process test its waterproof quality ;-)

We have been having fun trying out the phone and the many features of its camera, such as the sound pics and the panorama.

This was meant to be a long post, with my complete first impressions of the phone, but samhith has taken over my tab and I am using the phone to type this out, so this is the best I can do for my first attempt. I shall, therefore post a few of the photos clicked with the phone, and leave you to draw your own conclusions,  for now!

I shall be posting more photos regularly on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, so,  for regular updates, please follow me on :




The entrance to the Bungalow on the Beach... Strewn with flowers...

The Danish fort at Tarangambadi


That's the view from my room!!

That's where I am staying... Bungalow on the beach!
Location: Tharangambadi, Tharangambadi

Comments

  1. R Niranjan DasOctober 18, 2014 at 5:53 PM

    This is one place I so badly want to visit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anuradha ShankarNovember 2, 2014 at 2:25 PM

      Its a beautiful place, Niranjan! You should certainly go!

      Delete
  2. Shrinidhi HandeOctober 19, 2014 at 11:02 AM

    Have nice trip. Neemrana Bungalow on the beach is a nice place but a bit expensive for indians... Are they serving Indian food now? Last year when we went, they only had danish food items which we didn't recognize...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anuradha ShankarNovember 2, 2014 at 2:26 PM

      Thank you Shrinidhi! It is certainly on the expensive side, but yes, they are serving Indian food now, and good stuff too... all we had was tasty and well prepared.

      Delete
  3. TusharOctober 20, 2014 at 8:56 AM

    The same phone Mridula Dwivedi is having. You all recieved it from Sony as a gift? :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anuradha ShankarNovember 2, 2014 at 2:27 PM

      yes, Tushar. It is the same one, and we have for trial so we can write a review.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Thanks so much for stopping by. Please leave a comment for me so that I will know you have been here....

Popular posts from this blog

Gokarna Part II – The Five Lingams

We continued our Gokarna trip by visiting four other Shiva temples in the vicinity, all connected to the same story of Gokarna. The story of Gokarna mentions the Mahabaleshwara Lingam as the one brought from Kailas by Ravana, and kept at this place on the ground by Ganesha. (See my earlier post- Gokarna – Pilgrimage and Pleasure). However, the story does not end here. It is believed that, in his anger, Ravana flung aside the materials which covered the lingam- the casket, its lid, the string around the lingam, and the cloth covering it. All these items became lingams as soon as they touched the ground. These four lingams, along with the main Mahabaleshwara lingam are collectively called the ‘ Panchalingams’ . These are: Mahabaleshwara – the main lingam Sajjeshwar – the casket carrying the lingam. This temple is about 35 Kms from Karwar, and is a 2 hour drive from Gokarna. Dhareshwar – the string covering the lingam. This temple is on NH17, about 45 Kms south of Gokarna. Gunavanteshw...
10 comments
Read more

Newasa - Encountering an unique form of Vishnu, and Sant Jnaneshwar

The year was 1290 . A crowd had gathered around a clearing, where broken down pillars marked the presence of an ancient temple, now long gone. A young boy, just 14 years old, leaned against one of those pillars, deep in thought. Then, he began speaking, and the crowd fell silent, listening to his every word. He spoke without any notes, translating the Bhagavat Gita, from Sanskrit, which only the pundits knew, to the language everyone in the village knew and spoke – a variety of Prakrit which developed into the Marathi language. Even as he spoke, one of the men in the audience realized how momentous this event was, and how important this composition would be. He began writing down the words the young boy spoke, and this composition was named by its author and composer, the Bhavartha Deepika – the enlightening meaning (of the Bhagavat Gita). Now, the ancient, holy text, was no longer restricted to the pundits, but accessible to all, understood easily by them, composed as it was, in their...
9 comments
Read more

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’...
2 comments
Read more