Chronicles of my Life

Attukal Pongala

2011-02-19T16:28:00.014+05:30

Attukal Pongalai that was celebrated today is probably one of the most popular festivals celebrated by the women across Trivandrum. The past few years it has attracted quite a crowd. The whole of Trivandrum almost comes to a stand still with the streets becoming so crowded that it is generally advised not to venture out during that time (other than those who travel to put the Pongala,of course). In fact apparently it holds the Guiness record for the largest annual gathering of women in the world and is referred to as the Sabarimala for women. Not the same considering that men going to Sabarimala follow a long period of vratham (do we call it fasting if they are only expected to refrain from meat, alcohol and other stuff along those lines?). The Pongalai is done as an offering to the Attukal Bagavathy.

The goddess here is Kannagi who is assumed to be an incarnation of Goddess

Parvathy. I am not
sure how many know her story (She’s the central character in an epic called Silapadigaram by Ilangovadigal…weirdly enough I always thought it was fiction) but Kannagi was married to a wealthy merchant called Kovalan. Kovalan leaves her for a courtesan Madhavi and spends all his riches on her. After becoming penniless, he returns back to Kannagi. They are poor and the only thing left to be sold was Kannagi's pair of anklets. Unfortunately for Kovalan, an anklet very similar to his wife’s was stolen from the Queen. He is accused of being a thief and hanged (or beheaded). Kannagi upon hearing this gets infuriated and rushes to the King with the anklet’s pair. She proves the anklets were hers by breaking it open (hers contained rubies while the Queen's contained pearls). In a fit of fury, she curses the city and it burns which only stops after the goddess of the city asks her to take back the curse.

After this she is believed to have passed through the Killi River where she transformed herself to a young girl on seeing an old man. He helped her cross the river and took her to his place but she vanished. Later she appeared in his dream and asked him to build a temple at a particular spot marked by her leg prints which he did. After many years a temple was built nearby with an idol of the goddess and became what is now the Attukal Bhagavathy temple.

The Pongala festival takes place over a period of 10 days and on the last day,

women from all over come to Trivandrum. This involves making items of rice – plain rice, nei payasam, aravanai payasam (rice + jiggery + coconut), etc in open ground in a clay pot. The stove is traditional consisting of bricks and fuel is firewood or dry coconut leaves. At a specific time the priest in the temple signals which is when everyone lights their stove. The ceremony concludes with the sprinkling of holy water by temple priests at the appointed time in the evening.

In the initial days this celebration was restricted to only near the temple and mostly by malayalis. These days it is constantly expanding with the Pongala being put in most people’s homes. During this time, people are really friendly and helpful, opening their homes to strangers (women) who come from far off to do the Pongala along with providing with refreshments and food...inside our compound we had about 30 women doing it. There were even more women performing the rituals on many of the streets. It was quite interesting and entertaining for someone who has never seen such a thing before in her life. Of course, these days it has become more commercial and many do it because it is fashionable.

Kanji

2011-02-17T21:37:00.000+05:30

Kanji and payaru is one of the most popular dishes in Kerala. This is very easy to make, high on nutrients and easily digestible. A very good dish for the night time or at time when one isn't feeling too well.

INGREDIENTS:

1. Broken Rice - 1 cup (Best if red rice is used but if that is not available white rice can also be used. In case broken rice isn't available, it is a good idea to grind it once (just one turn in a mixer should do. This is because broken rice mixes well to form the kanji)
2. Water - 5 cups
3. Chukku/Dry Ginger Powder - 1 spoon

METHOD:

1. Wash the rice well
2. Add the about 3.5 cups of water to the rice and keep in a pressure cooker. After one full whistle reduce the flame and switch it off.
3. Kanji is supposed to more semi-solid. So if once removed from the cooker, it doesn't contain enough water, a cup or two can be added.
4. After water is added, heat this at low flame adding the chukku to it. Chukku is very good for the health and the stomach.

The above picture shows broken white rice being used but as I mentioned before, broken red rice is better. Kanji doesn't require any salt or spice in it since it is eaten usually with payaru as a side dish. Combining it with Inji Chamandi makes it even more delicious.

Payaru/ Green gram dhal dish

2011-02-17T21:36:00.000+05:30

Payaru is another healthy dish. Made the right way, it can be tasty (not sure if there is a wrong way though). It is good for digestion and hence good for dinner.

INGREDIENTS:
1. Green gram dhal/pacha payaru - 1 cup
2. Water - 2 cups
3. Red chilli - 3
4. Grated Coconut - 3 spoons
5. Hing/perungayam/asafoetida - 1 spoon
6. Mustard Seeds - 1 spoon
7. Oil - 1 spoon
8. Salt - to taste

METHOD:
1. Add water to the dhal (ratio 1 cup dhal: 2 cups water) and cook in a pressure cooker. Again after one whistle, keep it in low flame for 5 minutes before switching it off. Care should be taken to ensure it doesn't over cook.
2. After removing from the cooker, drain the excess water (should not be much).
3. In a kadai, take oil and add mustard.
4. Once the mustard splutters, add the chillies.
5. Now add the payaru along with salt and mix well.
6. Also add hing along with the grated coconut and stir well. Ensure the payaru doesn't get mashed and remain a bit separate.

Payaru is synonymous with kanji. But it can also be used as a normal rice side dish in place of vegetables.

Inji/Ginger Chamandi

2011-02-17T21:08:00.001+05:30

Chamandi or Thogayal is a sort of side dish. There are many types of thogayal - Inji (Ginger), kothamali (Coriander), Thenga (Coconut), etc.

INGREDIENTS:

1. Ginger - 1 piece

2. Grated Coconut - 3 full spoons
3. Green Chillies - 3 (can increase to make it spicy)
4. Red Chillies - 1
5. Tamarind - 1 small piece without seed
6. Coriander /Curry leaves - a few
7. Salt - to taste

METHOD:
1. Remove the skin from the ginger and cut or grate it.
2. Cut the chillies as well along with Coriander leaves if used.
3. Grind all the ingredients together with very little water to get a coarse mixture. Ensure not much water is used nor should it be ground to a fine paste.

Though made in small quantities, because of the spice level,it can be eaten with any tiffin or rice items - Dosa, Idly, curd rice, to name a few. It also tastes good to just mix it with plain cooked rice and a bit of gingelly oil

Note: If too spicy and eaten with plain rice, it is likely you will have trouble later (thirst, burning sensation in the chest, stomach ache, to name a few) so ensure you have a decent quantity of water or curd after this.

Guruvayur - Triprayar - Mamiyur

2011-02-16T23:26:00.008+05:30

We woke up by 2 in the morning (a miracle as far as I am concerned) and went to the temple by 3. I still don’t understand how I stayed awake with 4 hours of sleep and no morning coffee. The main deity at Guruvayur Temple is Lord Krishna. Though not too crowded as we had expected, nevertheless it took about 2 hours in between the shutting of the nada and the queue before we could get the darshan which was thankfully good. I wouldn’t call myself deeply religious but I do pray each day. I never find the necessity to go to a temple everyday especially when it is crawling with people. But I do love the legends attached to the temples.

After the darshan, we returned back to our rooms, had a bit of rest and then went to have breakfast. After breakfast, we hired a taxi from opposite the KSRTC bus stand (which I think is in the west entrance) to take us to a couple of nearby temples. First was to the Ram Temple in Triprayar which is about 25 kms from Guruvayur. This temple is on the banks of a river whose name I do not know. Nor do I know the background information on this temple.

This was followed by a trip to Anakotta (Elephant fort) which is in Punnathur Kotta in Guruvayur. This is the home to about 60 elephants owned by the Guruvayur Temple. Though the elephants are all well taken care of, with good food and health care, I nevertheless feel keeping them in chains, captive is not right.

After an hour there, we proceeded towards the Mammiyur temple which is also close by. This is a Shiva Temple. It is said that a visit to Guruvayur is not complete without a visit to the Mammiyur Temple. The legend behind the temple is this: At the end of Dwapara yuga when Lord Krishna returned to Vaikunta, Dwaraka was to have gone under water. Before this, he entrusted Brihaspathi (the Guru of the Devas) with the task of taking the idol (of the Lord himself which was worshipped in Dwaraka) to be taken to a suitable location. Guru with the help of Vayu (God of Wind) searched the earth for a good location and found it to be near a lake where Lord Shiva was doing his Tapas and which he had blessed. Lord Shiva knowing their mission, not only allowed them to use the spot to place Krishna’s idol and build a temple, (This was how the name Guruvayur came into being) but he also moved himself to the place now called Mammiyur (shortened form of Mahimayur derived from Mahima or Miracle) along with Parvathy.

Though most temples in Kerala used to have this dress code where men can only enter with Mundu and not pants/shorts/lungi and women cannot wear salwar but allowed to wear Sari/ mundu/pavadai, these days very few still stick to it. And the salwar ban is no longer applicable in Guruvayur either. Unfortunately, assuming the same when going to Mamiyur, I was surprised that that is not the case so had to stand outside and pray :).

After this we also made a short stop at this Balaji temple near the railway station and then reached back to have lunch.

At 3, due to the festival due to start that evening, there was this thing called the Anayotta or the Elephants run where all the temple elephants are made to run and the winner is allowed to remain in the temple and enjoy a royal treatment for the 10 days duration of the festival. For this they used the East Entrance (the entrance facing Lord Krishna) and the race starts from the end of the road where there is this huge Garuda Statue. There are rope barriers placed on either side of the road on the side of which public can watch the race. Since the road is narrow, and there is a bit of a risk with elephants, they allowed only 4 of them to run and the rest were taken by a walk. We were comfortable perched on the balcony of our Hotel (safe and good view as well :D).

First the Tantris or the priests ran from the temple carrying bells (I assume they were kept in a puja) towards the elephants and in a few minutes, the four elephants were charging down the road and into the temple. This was followed by the rest of the elephants in a proper line each with a name tag to identify them.

All of a sudden, all the elephants were stopped and we heard a rumor that one of the elephants was on the verge of a breakdown. I tried hard to find out which and there seemed to be 2-3 elephants which had gone out of the line. After a few minutes, they took the elephants down another road and away from the crowds. The next day I read on the news that an elephant had attacked someone and he was critical. Only then did we realize that the one of the 4 elephants which went into the temple was the one that attacked. Irony was that only a few hours before when we were at Anakota did I mention that none of the Guruvayur Elephants had attacked anyone during the period where there was news of elephant raging against the mahouts everywhere.

Anyway, after this, to while away time we again went to the temple and after sometime had dinner and started walking towards the railway station at 8 to catch our train back at 8:50pm and reached back home at 4 the next day.

Alappuzha

2011-02-15T21:41:00.016+05:30

We started from Trivandrum by the Janashathabdi Express at 6am and reached Alleppey by 8:30 am. From there we took an auto to the Boat Jetty road to the DTPC office where we were assigned a particular boat. The auto driver was marketing himself and suggested we take a boat through him which cost 350 an hour which ironically costs 50 more than what DTPC charges. Now, though the person in-charge there was good enough to warn us about the 8 hour thing not being fun for locals, he didn’t give info on all the boats available. He assigned a small completely covered boat which didn’t seem all that inviting to us. Both amma and I saw this Shikara and thought that would be a better option and we got that after paying another 400.

Now, I am not sure how many have been to the backwaters of Kerala (this was my first although I have seen the view from the train during my numerous Kerala trips) but it is absolutely gorgeous. Almost clear water with a few exceptions in the form of plastic stuff (blame it on the tourists) and uncountable number of coconut trees surrounding the coastline….it is a view to die for (not that I would). The positive thing about starting at 9:30 was that it was almost quiet with very few boats around. We spent most of the 4 hours basically enjoying the scenery and clicking pictures.

Since the Shikara was exclusively for us, we could stop it anytime we wanted to. And the weirdest thing was though it was blazing hot; inside the Shikara it was really cool. We also passed a few villages put there whose main mode of transport is through water. They use the backwater for most of their needs and it is fun watching them do their chores from the comfort of the boat. There are even boat stops where there are government run boats for public transport. I am assuming this is why Alleppey is called the Venice of the East although I don’t understand why we Indians have this desperate need to compare ourselves with the west (Hollywood-Bollywood-kollywood…or calling Tendulkar the Bradman of this era). I think we need to be proud of ourselves instead of trying to emulate and compare with others.

We reached Alleppey by 1:30pm and after having lunch at a local hotel, reached the bus stand at 2:15pm (this is opposite to the boat jetty) to take a bus to Guruvayur. Since the next bus to Guruvayur was an hour later, we took a KSRTC bus going to Kodamangalam, got down at Edapally bypass at 4:15pm (near Ernakulam) where we took a bus to Guruvayur. Luckily enough we got a bus on the way to the bus stop. It is a 2.5 hour travel to Guruvayur and we reached at around 6:45. Took an auto to Hotel Elite which is almost at the doorstep of the temple and checked in by 7. After refreshing, we just walked around to find out about the darshan for the next day (we were told there was a festival in the temple the next day) and found that the temple opens at its regular time which is 3am.

Alappuzha and Guruvayur - Trip planning

2011-02-14T21:32:00.004+05:30

With slightly more than 2 weeks’ vacation time in Trivandrum, we (my in-laws, hubby and me) decided to make a trip to Guruvayur and Alappuzha. Actually this trip was long pending and planned by appa during our last trip to India. But my persistent coughing from the time I landed to the time I took off, put a stop to that. Though the plan was initially to hire a houseboat for a day of backwater cruise, and making to Kumarakom, we decided against it since the Houseboat options we found were for 24 hours and it was not working well for us.

Calling the KTDC office was almost a total waste. The office at Alleppey asked us to contact the one in Trivandrum who were absolutely clueless. But they did mention DTPC to us and their website showed this Allepey <-> Kollam option for 8 hours which we thought we will take. We contacted one guy in DTPC who mentioned it costs 300 per head and we transferred 1.2k via Federal Bank. We also found a houseboat day trip option for 5k but unfortunately it was between 11:30 and 5:30pm which again didn’t fit the schedule since we wanted to reach Guruvayur that day before 8pm. Anyway, after transferring the money, the second time we contacted, we were told locals wouldn’t enjoy the 8 hour trip since it was more of a passenger boat. What he suggested was hiring a motor boat at 300 an hour for 4 hours and taking a backwater cruise. Thank god he did coz the 4 hour option turned out to be a really good idea.

Ellu/Sesame Seeds kuzhambu

2011-02-13T23:15:00.002+05:30

This is again a dish taught by mil that isn't made by mom. This comes under the sambhar/kuzhambu category that can be mixed with rice and eaten with a vegetable or papad.

INGREDIENTS:
1. Ellu/black Sesame seeds - 2 spoons
2. Vegetable - around 10 pieces cut into 1 inch cubes
Any vegetable can be used like mathan/pumpkin, Elavan/Ash guard, velarikkai/ Cucumber, Idi chakkai/tender jack fruit
3. Tamarind/puli - lemon size
4. Urud dhal - 1 spoon
5. Red Chilli - 5 or 6 (depends on the spice level)
6. Coconut - 1 cup
7. Turmeric powder - 1/2 spoon
8. Salt - To taste

GARNISH:
Urud dhal - 1 spoon
Mustard Seeds - 1 spoon
Curry leaves - a few
Oil - 1/2 spoon

METHOD:

1. Cut the vegetables into 1 inch cubes and boil it in a bit of water with turmeric powder and salt. If the vegetable if on of the hard varieties like chenai or idichakkai, it can be boiled in the pressure cooker cooked to 2-3 whistles. Ensure there is not too much water to ensure the final product is thick.
2. Take the sesame seeds in a kadai and heat it with no water or oil. After a few minutes there will be rapid crackling sound made by the seeds (some might even jump out of the kadai, so be warned :)). Once the sound stops, it can be removed from the flame.
3. Take some oil and fry the urud dhal and red chillies.
4. Grate the coconut. You can also cut the coconut into small pieces since we are anyway going to grind it. If dessicated coconut is used its better to fry it a bit to get a better flavor.
5. Grind the urud dhal, coconut and red chillies to form a fine mixture (water can be added here but shouldn't be added in excess). Once finely ground, add the sesame seeds as well and grind all of them together.
6. Keeping the flame at high, take a pan, add the cooked vegetables along with some tamarind water (around 2 cups should be enough). To save time and gas/electricity, you can also add the tamarind while the vegetable is getting cooked in the cooker/gas in the first step itself instead of water.
7. Once the tamarind water boils, add the ground mixture, mix it well with the rest of the ingredients and remove once it starts bubbling.
8. Finally, to garnish, heat a pan with some oil, add mustard until it crackles followed by urud dhal and curry leaves. Once urud dhal turns brown, remove from flame.
Add the garnish to the kuzhambu.

Potato Kuttu

2011-02-12T23:00:00.001+05:30

Another dish thought by my mil. I know the number of trivandrum based dishes are increasing like crazy but amma is not only making some real awesome ones every session, I also get to learn and make some new dish each day. This way I eat, learn and blog ( in that order :)).

INGREDIENTS: (Serves 4)

1. Potatoes - 5 or 6

2. Onions - 2 or 3

3. Tomato - 4

4. Brinjal/Kathrikai/Egg plant - 1 or 2

5. Sambhar powder - 2 spoons

6. Turmeric powder - 1/2 spoon

7. Salt - To taste

GARNISH:

1. Mustard - 1/2 spoon

2. Urud Dhal - 1/2 spoon

3. Ghee - 1 spoon
4. Curry Leaves - a few

5. Coriander Leaves - a few (finely chopped)

METHOD:

1. Cut the all the vegetables into small pieces.

2. Take the cut vegetables with very little water in a vessel, add sambhar powder, salt, turmeric powder.

3. Keep the vessel in a pressure cooker and keep it until 2 whistles, reduce the flame, keep for another 5 minutes and switch off the flame.

4. After some time, take the contents from the cooker. The cooked vegetables can be mashed a bit.

5. Heat ghee (oil can be substituted but the taste and flavor is far superior with ghee) in a pan, add mustard seeds. Once they crackle, add urud dhal and curry leaves till dhal is brown. Add to the mashed vegetables.

6. Garnish with coriander leaves.

This is a really tasty side dish which can be used with rice as well as chapathi ,dosa, etc

Kathrikai-thakali masiyal

2011-02-12T21:54:00.007+05:30

Masiyal is basically vegetables mashed together to form a cohesive unit. This particular masiyal was taught by my mil and is quite a healthy and tasty dish. It is also easy to make with very minimal ingredients and effort.

INGREDIENTS: (Serves 4)

1. Brinjal/Kathrikai/Egg plant - 3
2. Tomato - 2 or 3 (Optional, to be used only when tamarind is not used)
3. Tamarind - Lemon size (Optional, to be used only when tomato is not used)
3. Green Chilli - 5 or 6 (depending on spice level)
4. Hing/asafoetida - a pinch
5. Salt - as required
6. Turmeric - 1/2 spoon

GARNISH:

1. Oil - 1/2 spoon
2. Mustard - 1/2 spoon
3. Urud Dhal - 1/2 spoon
4. Curry Leaves - a few
5. Red Chilli - 1 or 2 (optional if green chillies do not provide enough spice)
6. Coriander Leaves - a few (finely chopped)

METHOD:

1. Cut the Brinjal and green chillies into small pieces.
2. Cut the tomatoes into small pieces as well. What is actually required is the sour taste which is usually given by tamarind water but tomatoes are an healthier option.
3. Add the vegetables, chillies, salt, turmeric powder, hing and a bit of water (if tomatoes are used else the tamarind water should be more than enough).
4. Keep in a pressure cooker and cook it until one whistle, keep it at low flame for another 5 minutes and switch it off.
5. Take the cooked dish out the the cooker and place it in a pan. Mash it well so that the vegetables begin to gel. Place in flame and after a few minutes once it boils, remove from flame(the dish thickens).
6. In a pan, take some oil and add mustard seeds until it splutters. Then add urud dhal, red chilli and curry leaves and wait until the dhal turns brown. Add this to the cooked item.
7. Finally garnish with the chopped coriander leaves.

This can be used as both a side dish and a main dish. If used as a main dish, the water used while cooking can be a bit more. If to be made as a side dish, but contains more water than required, take a spoon of rice flour and mix it well with the cooked dish and heat it (during step 7).

This can be made with Keerai (spinach) or Elephant Yam(chenai). Although keerai still tastes good with tomatoes, for chenai only tamarind water should be used.

Chenda Murian

2011-02-12T21:15:00.002+05:30

This is one of the dishes which I learnt from my mil and has never been made by mom. Apparently a favorite of my hubby's and I was able to say even before I tasted it that I would love it as well. Well, what do you expect when it has jaggery in it :P.

This is another dish made with ethapazham/nethrapazham which is an extension of the pazham nurukku made before. Chenda is a musical instrument that is basically a cylindrical drum which is used widely in Kerala. This dish gets its name from that since when the ethapazham is cut, it resembles the chenda when kept vertically.

INGREDIENTS:

1. Ethapazham/Nethrapazham - 5
2. Jaggery - 1 cup
3. Powdered Elaichi - 1 spoon (Optional)
4. Pepper/dried ginger (chukku) - a pinch (optional)
5. Ghee - 1 spoon (optional)

METHOD:

1. Cut and boil the ethapazham in the process mentioned for pazham nurukku.
2. Take the jaggery and add it in a pan with 1 cup of water and let it dissolve completely. Once dissolved, filter the sediments.
3. Take a fresh pan and add the filtered jaggery water and keep it at high flame till it thickens (not too thick since the final dish shouldn't be dry.
4. Take the peeled bananas and add them to the jaggery water. Ensure the pieces get uniformly covered with jaggery but do not get squashed and individual pieces remain separate.
5. A pinch of elaichi or its powder gives a nice flavor to the dish and once it is mixed, we can remove it from the flame.
6. A pinch of pepper or dried ginger(chukku) is also good if you feel the sweet quotient is too high.
7. Finally, a spoon of ghee can be added. This again improves the flavor but can be avoided to make the dish completely healthy.

Pazham Nurukku

2011-02-12T20:42:00.003+05:30

One of my favorite dishes as a child, pazham nurukku is made both by mom and mil. As far as the method of preparation is concerned, both mom and amma make it the same way so I guess this is one dish which is uniform through out...Of course, this dish has just a couple of steps so it is very unlikely there will be any difference in the method. Since it is very simple, it can be made in a jiffy as long as ethapazham/nenthrampazham (as mentioned before this is a type of banana which is longer than the usual banana, available majorly in Kerala) is available. Pazham nurukku is basically banana cut into pieces.

INGREDIENT : ethapazham/nenthrampazha - 4 (For 2 people)

METHOD:

1. Cut the pazham into small pieces. Though the below picture shows it cut into a comparatively small size and peeled (this is how it is cut for the chenda murian), for just the nurukku, it is enough to cut the banana in 3 pieces without removing the peel. There will not be any difference in the taste but it reduces the effort :D
2. Put the cut pieces in a bowl and add water just enough to soak them in.
3. The banana needs to be cooked. This can be done either in pressure cooker (without weight) for 5 minutes or directly on the gas until the water boils which again shouldn't be more than 5 minutes. A third process is keeping it in the microwave for 4 minutes.

Remove the cooked banana from the water and peel and serve.

This is a very healthy dish which can be used for breakfast or as a evening snack. The riper the banana is the better although I personally prefer it in between.

Avarakkai Thoran

2011-02-05T14:52:00.002+05:30

This is the side dish made by amma today with the kozhambu. Thoran is generally any side dish which has a vegetable with coconut added to it. Coconut can be ground along with chillies (as done with the beans thoran before) or can be just grated and added to the vegetable.

INGREDIENTS

1. Avarakkai/ runner beans - 250 gms
2. Payaru / karamani (Black eyed beans/peas) - 1/2 cup
3. Coconut (grated/dessicated) - 1/2 cup
4. Red chillies - 2
5. Urud dhal - 1/2 spoon
6. Mustard seeds - 1/2 spoon
7. Oil - 1/2 spoon

METHOD:

1. Boil the avarakkai and karamani in a pressure cooker. Usually karamani takes sometime to cook so a minimum of 3 whistles will be needed (it helps to soak the karamani in hot water for an hour or so before cooking it). Salt can be added now itself but adding salt means you might want to cook a bit longer.
2. Fry the coconut until golden brown.
3. Take some oil in a pan. Add mustard seeds, urud dhal and chillies and wait till the mustard splutters.
4. Add the cooked avarakkai, karamani into the pan.
5. Finally, add the grated coconut and mix all the ingredients well.

This is almost completely bland as far as spice level is concerned....to give it more flavor, a few more items like sambhar powder, hing, etc can be added.

This is again a side dish. So, as mentioned before, this tastes yummy with any kozhambu,sambhar, rasam, etc

Thengai Aracha Kozhambu

2011-02-05T14:50:00.003+05:30

We are back home in Trivandrum and I am getting practical knowledge of dishes made by my mil. Since stay is usually short here, amma ensures she packs as many of her specialties as possible in the short period we stay here. One of the items made today by us was thengai aracha kozhambu. This is more along the lines of Aracha vitta Sambhar but a few minor changes. Quite delicious!

INGREDIENTS
1. Mathan (pumpkin) - around 100 gms (about 10-12 cubes of inch each)
2. Chembu/Chepankazhangu (colocasia) - 5 or 6
3. Tamarind - lemon size (Add water to extract pulp)
4. Red Chillies - 5 or 6
5. Grated Coconut - 1 cup
6. Dhaniya (Coriander) seeds - 1 spoon
7. Urud Dhal - 1 spoon
8. Gingelly Oil - 1/2 spoon
9. Turmeric powder - 1/2 spoon
10. Salt - to taste

GARNISH
1. Mustard Seeds - 1 spoon
2. Urud Dhal - 1 spoon
3. Curry leaves - a few
4. Gingelly Oil - 1/2 spoon

METHOD

1. Boil the Chembu in a cooker. This can be cooked without the weight for about 10 minutes or with weight for about 1or 2 whistles (the latter tends to make it really well cooked and sometimes over cooked as well). This makes it easy to peel off the skin.
2. Cut mathan into cubes.
3. Add around 2-3 cups of Tamarind water into the mathan along with turmeric powder and salt and boil it till mathan cooks well. Add the chembu as well and remove from flame.
4. Take a spoon of oil and add red chillies, dhaniya and urud dhal and fry until the dhal becomes golden brown (a nice flavor arises from them once done)
5. Fry the coconut till golden brown.Again as before, a rich flavor of the coconut can be smelt.
6. Grind the coconut, chillies,urud dhal and dhaniya into a fine paste (some water can be added to make it fine).
7. Keep the cooked vegetables in tamarind water in flame and add the ground mixture and remove from flame after 3-4 minutes.
8. Finally, heat oil and add mustard, urud dhal and curry leaves. Remove once the mustard splutters.

This can be mixed with rice and eaten with any vegetable or can also used as a side dish with dosa/idli.

Journey back home...

2011-02-02T17:00:00.047+05:30

We landed in Mumbai at 12:35 am (Murphy play a big part here since we landed on time but didn’t have to rush for our next flight) and unlike Air India flight transfer which I used last time (London-Mumbai-Chennai) where immigration was done at Chennai, Jet had us do the immigration in Mumbai. That was like a 5 minute thing (So far touch wood, we haven’t had to wait for more than 5 minutes for either check in or security). Also, though our final destination is Trivandrum, we just had to identify bags for customs and once that was done, pass the bags to a staff for reloading. With just the hand baggage, we took the shuttle and reached the domestic Airport.

We finished the security check-in at the Mumbai domestic airport and sent a message through the free internet available at the Airport (can’t find a single phone though) along with helping another frantic lady who wanted to send info to her husband in

Canada

but couldn’t do so send a message. We had another 10 hour wait for our flight to Trivandrum (You know I love Trivandrum which is pretty less populated /polluted for a capital city but which inevitably means the need for flights to and from Trivandrum is largely reduced which accounts for our long wait).

We had the famous Vada Pav at a cafe which I really loved...Trying to catch some sleep was difficult was difficult because of those seats (I wonder how some people just drop to sleep anywhere any time) and the constant noise around especially the constant annnoucement. Two hours before the scheduled departure, we were not able to find the flight we were to take but a few flights even after were displayed. On checking with the Jet Airways personnel, we were told we were at the wrong Terminal.

I am not sure how we were to know the terminal was wrong since we didn't have any details mentioned in either the CST website nor the ticket. We had enquired with the Personal at the Internation Airport who directed us to the shuttle and later the driver dropped us where the Jet Airways terminal. And then we found the direction mentioning Jet Airways which took us into the Security. Since we also saw Jet airways at a few gates, we thought we were at the right place (who knew the same domestic Airline could be at different terminals especially 10 hours before the scheduled flight). Anyway, we were allowed to board a bus from the gate we were near from where we were taken to the flight along with a few people who seemed to have made the same mistake.

The flight to Trivandrum scheduled at 10:45 started only at 11:15 and was pretty much smooth. We landed at the airport at 1:10 pm and after collecting our bags, started back home.

Dabangg - Movie

2011-02-02T15:45:00.002+05:30

The final movie I watched was Dabang for the following reasons – 1. The English movies were comparatively short 2. There was nothing much which was exciting 3. I thought I would see what the hype was for the movie to be such a big blockbuster.

The first thing I would like to tell to Arbaaz Khan, who in addition to being the supporting actor is also the producer, stick to producing…you keep proving frequently that you can not act and you don’t have your brother’s screen presence to waive of the bad acting. The movie is bit different in hindi standards since there are not much action movies in the recent past especially those which shows the hero as larger than life. But with almost every other Tamil movie being on the similar lines and having been bored and sick of it, I did not find it too much of a novelty.

It was still fun to watch Salman in the now iconic role of Chulbhul (he calls himself Robinhood) Pandey who is a corrupt police officer in the sense he robs from bad guys but bashes them as well. Arbaaz Khan is Makhi, Chulbul’s step brother (or is it half brother...as I understand from the term used by Brits, step is only when the two are not related…half is when they have either the mother or father in common…not that it makes a big difference). Sonu Sood is Chedi Singh, a youth wing leader of a party to whom Pandey is a pain on the backside and who wants to defeat him at all costs (he kills Pandey’s mother, kills his party leader through Makhi, burns Chulbul’s step dad’s mill there by putting him in the ICU and tries to get Makhi kill Chulbul but that is unsuccessful since the brothers reconcile). Finally, it is a show down between Chedi and Chulbhul and obviously Chulbhul triumphs. Btw what is it with villains tearing their shirts off? Does that supposed to make them look meaner? Was surprised to find salman with his shirt on for most of the movie…of course it didn’t last long and finally he removed it off as well.

By the way, I don’t understand what the whole hoopla behind the Munni Badnam song is. Sonakshi Sinha is pretty and seems like a decent actress. But she seems to be really cool looking, and well dressed for a village potter (btw do women actually cook and work with their hair loose? One it is really uncomfortable besides even if I tie my hair up, half the hair ends up in the food. Of course it is not like the first movie to do so and it is dumb to find logic in such movies).

Was it a fun movie to watch? Yes. Is it really blockbuster material? I think it is especially when movies made by KJ, SLB, Sajid Khan, etc become blockbusters.

Life as we know it - Movie

2011-02-02T15:30:00.000+05:30

Life as we know it is the second movie that I watched. It is a “feel good” romcom starring Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhammel. I have one word for this movie – boring. Actually maybe I am a bit harsh and it wasn’t all that boring since I did manage to watch till the end, but at the end of the movie I didn’t feel too good nor did I find it too romantic nor did I find it too funny although there were a few of each.

It is basically a often repeated story hate first and love later. Of course inserted in between is a couple (their best friends) who die leaving behind their infant daughter at the care of the leads who initially don’t have a clue as to what has to be done with a baby but then rise to the occasion (quoting Amy from Friends), fall in love, briefly break up and live happily ever after. Leads were good, with good chemistry but that was pretty much it. I am a big fan of the romantic comedy genre but this definitely is one movie I won't bother watching again.

The Social Network - Movie

2011-02-02T15:00:00.001+05:30

The Social Network is a movie that has been receiving rave reviews for quite sometime which is evident from the number of Academy Award nominations. The movie starts with Mark Zukerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) trying to be patronizing with his girlfriend who hence breaks up with him. Drunk, he insults his ex in his blog and also creates a website (hacking into numerous databases) along with a algorithm from his friend Eduardo Saverin(Andrew Garfield) with a poll to rank girls’ hotness quotient. This catches the attention of the Winklevoss twins along with another guy who want him to program a site called the Harvard Connection. This in turn gives MZ the idea to create facebook, for which he approaches Saverin to put in money along with being a 30% partner and in charge of the business end.

The movie basically flows back and forth the law suit on MZ by the twins (who put forth the idea first) and Saverin (who gets cheated off his 30%) and the story being built as they describe incidents that lead to the popularity of Facebook and consequently, the lawsuit. Funnily enough it took me a few minutes to realize the movie was shifting between present and future (I wondered why the twins were introducing themselves in a conference room and then next scene shows them rowing a boat followed by an intro with MZ).

This movie basically shows how MZ transforms from a genius to a billionaire genius who becomes filthy rich but basically loses his only friend because of his jealousy and pride. Although he gets the idea from the twins, I couldn’t find any sympathy for them coz they came across as snobs and who not only have and can take everything but want others to know that. But you do feel very sorry for ES (both the main characters were quite brilliant in their respective roles) who for most of the time was a very good friend. This movie doesn’t show MZ's character in a good light but as someone who is too cold, egotistical, proud, petty and is shown as without a conscience with his actions although his expressions suggests otherwise. No wonder he was not too happy with the release of the movie...although who knows what actually happened since for all we know it might have been part truth but majorly fiction to make it interesting especially since ES is shown in a good light.

The movie has a good pace, good humour and never gets boring thanks to the screenplay and some real good acting. Anyway I didn’t want to exactly review this movie nor did I want to repeat the entire story (although I think I have done that), but just basically say what I thought when I saw the movie.

India Return

2011-02-02T14:45:00.002+05:30

We started by the Jet Airways flight from London at around 10:15am on the 1st of Feb. It is quite interesting how someone with fewer than 7 hours of sleep in over 48 hours can still avoid sleep through out the flight journey. I watched The Social Network, Life as we know it and Dabang on our 8.5 hour journey.

Loved the Social Network, had a so-so time watching Life as we know it and had a good time watching Dabang.

Adieu to Reading and the UK

2011-02-02T14:30:00.000+05:30

Reading in UK was a place which I had stayed the second longest (the first being Chennai where I lived most of my life).Having just left it, I guess I can say more than leaving Reading, it is the fact that I might almost never return back which makes me sad (It would be funny if Ram again gets a project in Reading and we end up right where we started…though at this moment that seems highly unlikely).

We had a lot of good times at Reading. I have never been in a place where every thing one can possibly need is within a 10 minute walk from home. The best is the movie theatre that, even if we leave home after the show is supposed to start, we will never miss the pre-movie trailers since movies generally tend to start 30 minutes after the supposed show time. Reading has a sizable Asian population so it is a home away from home. But the standard of living is amazing. It is pretty much relaxed and as far as we know quite safe as well (Although the Wiki entry says something otherwise).

Of course we can not mention UK and not mention the numerous travels that we had made during our brief stay. Though there are a lot of places that I wish we could have visited – Lake District, Cornwall, Dartmoor in UK or Greece, Spain, Czech in Europe to name a few. Of course, Europe is such a vast place that even if we live a lifetime there, it is very unlikely we would have covered even 25% of the total. Of course, there are still a lot more corners in the world to visit not to mention many more in India.

Leaving a place where one has stayed close to 2 years and had a lot of fun is quite hard. Of course, the fact that we are returning to India to meet our folks home and that too just 4 months after our last trip more than makes up for that 1% sadness on leaving UK.

PS: I am typing this and most likely the next couple of posts in my laptop at the Mumbai Airport while waiting for the flight to Trivandrum. But I won’t post until we reach home since I don’t want to use the free Internet available to log into my personal mail id.

Chennai Dosa @ Reading

2011-01-30T21:37:00.003+05:30

Just a couple more days to go before we return from UK for good and we are saying our goodbyes to the few friends and relatives we have in UK. We went for dinner yesterday to Chennai Dosa @ Reading. We had a reservation(the day being a Saturday) for 6 at 7:45pm and were almost immediately given a table. Unfortunately, can't say the same about the service. One of the waiters came to take the order for starters and even after half an hour, it hadn't arrived. Finally, one starter came and it was lying on the table since none of us had any plates or spoons.

By then we had decided to order the main course. I was quite interested in knowing how a few non Indians working there pronounce the names of the dishes and frankly was quite impressed by it. Anyway, after another 10 minutes, we finally flagged a waiter to know about the status of our other starter and plates. He was very apologetic but apparently he could only lay hands on a few bowls (quite a novel way to eat a starter). We also got the other starter along with our main course. Luckily, whatever complaint we have about the service is not a reflection on the food which was delicious and reasonably priced as well (I particular loved the onion chutney). And it is not even the waiters' fault (they were all quite young and enthusiastic) since they were either running around everywhere trying to get an order or serve the guests. If anything I would blame the management who weren't organised enough.

I am assuming once the restaurant is run for a few months (having just opened a month back), it would be better (or worse). But unfortunately, we will not be here to verify that either way. :)

P.S: The bill didn't come very quick either and we decided to directly go to the counter to pay for it :D

Bisi Bela Bath

2011-01-23T23:14:00.007+05:30

Bisi Bela Bath is probably on the top when one mentions Karnataka Cuisine. The recipe I have mentioned below is what I got from my mom although it changes from person to person since everyone have a different way of making it. The ingredients might be more, steps might be different. I like this way since it doesn't have to strong a flavor which, as I have mentioned before, is not I really like. There is something called as Sambhar rice which is very similar to this except for a few ingredients being different. Unfortunately, the Sambhar Rice I have had so far (never at home) is not something I like since there is such a strong flavor of spices that I generally hate.

INGREDIENTS

1. Rice - 1 cup
2. Thur dhal/Thuvara Paruppu - 1/4 cup
3. Tamarind Water - 3 cups
4. Vegetables - 1 cup (Cut an inch long. Any vegetable can be used. I usually use 400g beans and 1 or 2 carrots. But we can also include onions, potatoes, peas, etc)
5. Turmeric Powder - 1/2 spoon
6. Mustard seeds/kadugu - 1/2 spoon
7. Refined Oil - 1/2 spoon
8. Curry leaves - a few

TO GRIND
1. Coriander/Dhaniya Seeds/Powder - 2 spoons
2. Chana Dhal/ Kadala Paruppu - 3 spoons
3. Coconut - 1/2 cup
4. Red chillis - 6 (depending on the spice level)
5. Asafoetida/Hing/Perungayam - 1/4 spoon

GARNISH
1. Ghee - 2 to 3 spoons
2. Coriander Leaves - a few (finely chopped)

METHOD
1. Add tamarind water to the rice along the cut vegetables and turmeric powder. Keep the thur dhal in a separate container with 1 cup of water. Keep both the rice and thur dhal in the pressure cooker till about 3-4 whistles. The thur dhal can be mixed with the rice while cooking but keeping it separate ensure, it gets cooked well. (In case it doesn't, cook the thur dhal a while longer.
2. Fry dhaniya, Chana dhal, hing, red chillies and grind them to a fine mixture with the coconut and water.
3. Heat some oil with mustard until it crackles and then add the curry leaves.
4. Add the cooked rice,vegetables,thur dhal to the oil along with the ground mixture and mix them all well. Keep it on the flame for 3-4 minutes and remove. It is alright if there is a bit of water which can be ensured by adding more water while cooking or later when finally we mix all the ingredients. I generally make it more solid.
5. Finally garnish with 2 spoons of ghee and coriander leaves.

This can be eaten with chips or pappad or pickle or some raitha.

Aloo Tikki

2011-01-23T01:59:00.011+05:30

It is interesting how I decide on what to make these days: Check to see which item needs to be finished, think of various food items that can be made using that ingredient and decide to make the easiest :). The ingredient I had which needed to be finished was bread crumbs and sad to say a bit more is still left.

Aloo tikki is a simpler form of cutlet having to use only two vegetables and a lesser number of ingredients. Funnily enough bread crumbs is actually an optional ingredient here since we can still fry the patty even without it and get the same golden brown result.

INGREDIENTS

1. Potato - 2
2. Peas - 150g
3. Coriander Leaves - a few(finally chopped)
4. Garam Masala - 1 spoon (or more depending on taste)
5. Chilli Powder - 1 spoon (or more depending on spice level)
6. Ginger Powder - 1 spoon
7. Hing - a pinch
8. Pepper - 1 spoon
9. Cumin Seeds - 1 spoon
10. Salt - To taste
11. Bread Crumbs - 1/4 cup
12. Oil/ghee - 3-4 spoons

METHOD

1. Boil the potatoes and peas and mash them well.
2. Roast the cumin seeds in a pan and powder them.
2. Mix all the ingredients from 1 to 9. Roll them to form balls and flatten them.
3. Heat a pan and grease it with oil/ghee.
4. Coat the flattened patty with bread crumbs and place them in the pan. As mentioned before this is optional and the patty can directly be placed in the pan as well.
5. Once one side is turns golden brown, turn it to the other side till that side becomes brown as well.
6. Though oil/ghee used is quite less, it is still better to use a tissue to remove excess oil/ghee.

This tastes quite good with tomato sauce or pudhina chutney.

Vella Dosai/ Sarkarai Dosai/ Sweet Dosa

2011-01-19T19:47:00.009+05:30

Continuing with my "trying to finish off groceries", I made vella dosai yesterday for dinner. Though one would say it is probably not the best dishes to have for dinner, I don't agree with the "one" :D

Vella Dosai....another favourite of mine....brings in wonderful childhood memories... back when in school, mom used to make a different tiffin every day of the week. But Vella dosai was one dish which would be made at regular intervals thanks to my fondness for it. Mom would know the approximate time when I come home, so she generally will have everything hot and ready for me to have once I am back from school/college. I can still remember the pleasure I would feel when I could smell the wonderful flavor of vella dosai. I think when I was in school, I used to stick to the 4 meals a day concept, having something to eat every 4 hours...unfortunately, that stopped being the case once I started working and I skipped the evening tiffin substituting it with a cup of coffee...which I continue even now since my mom isn't here to make me hot, yummy dishes.

This is a very simple dish and can be prepared in no time.

INGREDIENTS

1. Jaggery - 1 cup
2. Water - 2 cups
3. Wheat Flour/atta - 1 3/4 to 2 cups
4. Rice Flour - 1 spoon
5. Oil - 2 spoons

METHOD

1. Place a pan in the flame and add the water and jaggery to it. Once the jaggery melts completely, filter it(to remove unwanted dirt) and keep it aside. The jaggery Water is done.

2. Mix the atta slowly with the jaggery water and ensure no lumps are present. Letting the jaggery water to cool makes it easier to mix and reduces the lumps. If the batter is too liquidy, a spoon of rice flour will help to thicken it.
3. Once the batter is similar in consistency to normal dosa batter, you can stop adding the atta. This is somewhere in between a liquid and solid. So basically it is not too thick that it can be spread in a pan nor is it too liquid that it will flow when poured on a pan. (Tip from mil: Adding some powdered cardamom improves the flavor).
4. The rest of the process is like how normal dosa is made. Take a pan and pour several spoonful of the batter into the pan and spread it to form a thin circle. Add a bit of oil on all sides (this can be reduced greatly with a nonstick tawa).
5. Once the first side is cooked flip it to the other side and wait till it cooks. This will have a brown layer to it once cooked after which it can be removed from the flame.

This is overall an healthy dish especially when the oil is reduced. It tasted very good on its own but I love it with a bit of ghee :)

Chana Dha/ Split Chickpea snack

2011-01-18T23:59:00.005+05:30

Just a little over 10 days to go for our time in the UK to end...Unfortunately, vacating the country means trying to empty as many items as possible as far as groceries are concerned. Today I made Chana dhal as a snack...and believe me it is one of the most unhealthy dishes I've made...I generally tend to avoid deep frying in oil but unfortunately there is an excess of Chana dhal and Oil left (It is weird how you end up buying excess of the item which you generally don't use in excess) and I have to find ways to finish it off (though what I cooked today barely made a dent to it).

This is a pretty simple item to make. The only thing we need to ensure is soaking the dhal over night. Other than it hardly take 10 minutes to finish the recipe.

INGREDIENTS

Chana Dhal/ Split Chickpeas - 1 cup
Oil - 1/2 cup
Salt - to taste
Pepper - 1/2 spoon (or as much as required)
Chilli Powder - 1/2 spoon (can be increased or decreased based on the desired spice level)
Hing - 1/4 spoon

METHOD

1. Soak the dhal in hot water overnight ( a bit of turmeric can be added to the water). I think anywhere between 5 and 10 hours should be fine.
2. Remove the dhal from the water and spread it over a cloth or tissue to remove the water. If water remains, it tends to splutter when put in oil.
3. Heat the oil in a pan and wait till it becomes hot (to check, u can add one dhal into it to see if it floats).
4. Once the oil is heated, take a bit of the dhal and put it in the oil. It should take a maximum of 2 minutes but wait till the dhal floats to the surface. It would have turned golden brown.
5. Once done, remove it from the oil and place it in a plate over a tissue paper. This is just in case you want to remove at least a bit of oil that has been used for its frying. I tried my best to remove the entire oil by repeatedly dapping a tissue over and over the fried dhal.
6. The rest of the dhal can be fried the same way.
7. Once done, put all the dhal in a box and sprinkle salt, pepper, chilli powder and hing over it and shake the box well to uniformly spread the spices.

Saw the movie 127 hours today....

2011-01-17T03:22:00.008+05:30

It is weird that I very rarely blog about the movies I see. It is always dependant on how active I am on blogger and since I have been a bit active recently, I thought why not write about it.

To be frank, I am not a big fan of the biopic genre..but then again its not like I have never watched a biopic before (Can't think of a single movie now though :)). 127 hours is a biographical film directed by Danny Boyle about the mountain climber Aron Ralston (based on his book Between a Rock and a hard place..its funny how literal the title is) who gets trapped in a canyon when a boulder falls on his hand and crushes it...how he spends the next 5 days, recalling his family (regretting not taking his mom's calls), his lover, his boss and even the 2 girls he meets in the Canyon...the courage it took not only to cut his arm but throughout his ordeal...and how against all odds, he survives that ordeal...

I think one of the most positive things about the movie was its length. With just 90 minutes, it doesn't get boring (especially when you have only one major character in the movie and the rest of the cast just have a fleeting appearance). James Franco (Harry Osbourne from Spiderman movies) was really great as the lead...be it the start of the movie where you see someone charming who is really fond of adventure and life...or someone with a genuine regret for not having been a good son, brother or boyfriend. Personally, while I do not understand the need to be so adventurous, nevertheless I think here is a person who is really inspirational (believe me, if it had been me, I would have died just from fright...but then again if it had been me, I wouldn't have gone on such an adventure in the first place...much less alone). Is it just me or was Franco's stubble (or whatever that is called) well maintained for someone who hasn't shaved for 6 days? All jokes aside, except for the scene where he amputates his hand (it had me squirming in my seat), it was a very enjoyable movie.

Music by AR Rahman was good as well....btw is it just me or was one of the background scores the same as the behene de song from Raavan.

Moral of the story : Always ensure at least one person knows your where abouts. You may never know when you get stranded in the middle of no where with no technology and might need immediate rescue. Also, the one thing you leave at home like a Swiss knife, is probably the one thing which you will miss the most :).

Nei Payasam

2011-01-15T23:36:00.005+05:30

As I have mentioned before, dishes with jaggery are my absolute favourites. Growing up, I used to love eating stuff made of jaggery - appam, kozhakattai, nei payasam, vella dosai to name a few. Today being Pongal, I decided to make one of those sweets. I know sakara Pongal is probably a more suitable choice to make today but I felt like eating Nei payasam.

Weird thing about this year Pongal...I am not making any dish which is supposed to be made on the specific date. Ven Pongal is to be made today but I made it yesterday....Tomorrow is Kanu so we generally make mixed rices like lemon rice, tamarind rice, coconut rice, curd rice...2 of which I made today...Well as I mentioned to anyone willing to listen, we eat what we cook..so it doesn't make a difference which day we make :)

Anyway, coming back to the topic...the best thing about Nei payasam is that, there is almost no chance of making it bad because it a very simple dish with minimal ingredients.

INGREDIENTS

Rice - 1 cup
Water - 3 cups
Jaggery - 2/3 cup
Ghee - 2 spoons

GARNISH (optional)
1. Cashew - 5 or 6
2. Raisins - 5 or 6
3. Ghee - 1/2 spoon

METHOD

1. Cook the rice with water in a pressure cooker for 3-4 whistles. Rice to water ratio should be 1:2. This will ensure the rice is cooked well but at the same time the rice flakes are thin and separate.
2. In a pan, take a cup of water and the jaggery and heat it to ensure the jaggery dissolves completely in the water. Once this is done, remove the jaggery water and filter it(This is to remove the unwanted dirt mixed with the jaggery).
3. In medium flame, take a pan, add the jaggery water and the cooked rice along with the 2 spoons of ghee. After a few minutes, all the water will evaporate. (Tip from mil: reduce the ghee and add a bit of grated coconut to give it a good flavor).
4. The dish is done. Finally to garnish, heat some ghee and fry cashews and raisins in them (This is generally not done with nei payasam but can still be done if you have an affinity to cashews or raisins).

Keerai Molaguttal

2011-01-13T21:46:00.011+05:30

This is one of my favourite dishes as a child and mom always ensured she made it at least once a week for me (It is mainly for me coz my brother hates it:)). And I am continuing the tradition by ensuring I make it once every week as well. This is again a pretty healthy dish especially when we tone down on the coconut and the oil and replace the thur dhal with moong dhal. It is especially easy to make it in the UK since we get cut spinach and the process of sorting the good ones and the bad isn't there.

INGREDIENTS (Serves 4)

1. Keerai/spinach - 400g
2. Toor/Moong Dhal - 1/2 cup
3. Urud Dhal - 2 spoons
4. Red Chillies - 5 or 6
5. Jeera/Cumin Seeds - 1 spoon
6. Gingelly Oil - 1/2 spoon
7. Dessicated / grated Coconut - 5 or 6 spoons
8. Turmeric powder - 1/2 spoon
9. Salt - to taste

GARNISH

1. Gingelly Oil - 1/2 spoon
2. Mustard seeds - 1/2 spoon
3. Urud Dhal - 2 spoons
4. Curry Leaves - a few

METHOD

1. Take the spinach leaves (stem is also alright as long as the root is removed) and boil them with very little water and turmeric powder in a pressure cooker to one whistle. This shouldn't be kept in the cooker for long since the longer it is placed, the more the spinach shrinks and hence the quantity will greatly reduce.

2. Once boiled, grind it to a coarse texture (without any additional water).

3. Boil either Thur dhal or moong dhal with water and turmeric. The water to dhal ratio is generally advisable to be 1:2 ratio. This needs to be cooked in the pressure cooker till about 3-4 whistles. The more time in the cooker, the softer it is.

4. Fry Urud dhal , Red chillies, Jeera in a little oil and grind them with coconut.

5. At medium heat, take a pan and add the Spinach, dhal and the ground mixture along with a little salt.

6. Remove from flame after 5 minutes (This doesn't have to be boiled too much since everything has been cooked already).

7. Finally to garnish, heat a little oil in another pan along with mustard and once it crackles, add curry leaves and urud dhal until the urud dhal is golden brown. Add the garnish to the molaguttal.

Molaguttal can be made using a variety of other vegetables as well including Elephant yam(chenai), Cabbage, Snake guard (podalangai). The preparation is the same as keerai molaguttal except for the step 2 since we grind only Keerai and none of the other vegetables.

I especially used to(and still do) love to eat this as a side dish with rasam rice. If made as a main dish, it can be mixed with rice and it tastes really good with any pickle or thogayal.

More kuzhambu / More kuttan/ Puliseri

2011-01-12T22:26:00.014+05:30

This dish is made at both my mom's and mil's place. We usually call it morekuttan...morekuzhambu is the name used in Tamilnadu majorly...puliseri from what I learnt from an aunt is basically the same as morekuttan except for Jeera which is an additional ingredient. I have started using Jeera regularly since I like the taste :)

INGREDIENTS

1. Chenai/Vazhakai/Vendakkai (Elephant Yam/Raw banana(Plantain)/Lady's finger) - 100g
I usually use any available vegetable including mathan (pumpkin), Velarikai (Cucumber), elavan (ash guard) or even nenthrapazham (ethapazham...this is a type of banana used in Kerala which is longer than the usually banana) . A friend mentioned sometimes onion are also used (this is from Karnataka)

2. Green Chillies - 6-7

3. Dessicated/ grated Coconut - 5 or 6 spoons

4. Jeera (Cumin Seeds) - 1 spoon

5. Curd - 1/2 cup (Need to mix this with 1/2 cup water to form thick buttermilk)

6. Turmeric - 1/2 spoon

GARNISH

Coconut oil - 1/2 spoon

Mustard - 1/2 spoon

Curry Leaves - a few

METHOD

1. Cut the vegetables into cubes and boil them with some water and turmeric. Again this can be done using a cooker or directly in a pan. The water needs to be just enough to soak the vegetable pieces.

2. Grind coconut, cut green chillies and Jeera. Add the mixture to the boiled vegetables along with salt in a pan at low flame. .

3. Add curd/buttermilk to the mixture. The consistency should be such that the base looks rich but doesn't thicken too much.

4. Switch off after it boils or comes close to a boil. It is best if the dish is not kept on the gas for more than 5 minutes once the curd is added. Not only does the the texture of the dish go bad (you can see water and curd separately), the taste is also spoilt.

4. Finally, heat coconut oil in a separate pan. Add mustard till it crackles and then add curry leaves. Garnish the morekuttan with this.

Apparently, this is made without turmeric in Kerala making the dish almost white/off white in color instead of the yellow color. But we generally use turmeric.

Morekuttan/puliseri can be mixed with rice and eaten along with some vegetable. It also acts as a good side dish for sevai.

Beans Thoran

2011-01-11T04:00:00.014+05:30

It is a common knowledge that most of the Kerala based dishes have coconut in them. May be the fact that you find Coconut trees in abundance in Kerala has something to do with it. So when vegetables are made, be it Beans or Cabbage or Carrot (may be even more but I can't think of any) all of them can be and are usually made with coconut. This recipe is for beans but its more or less the same process for the rest of them as well.

INGREDIENTS

Beans - 500g

Green Chillies - 5 or 6

Dessicated/ Grated Coconut - 3 spoons

Mustard - 1/2 spoon

Vegetable Oil - 1/2 spoon

Turmeric powder - 1/2 spoon

Salt - To taste

METHOD

1. Cut the beans into small pieces as shown

2. Place in pressure cooker with very little water and turmeric and cook till one whistle sounds. If there is no steamer or cooker available, there is also an option of making it in a pan by soaking them in water but the cooker option is healthier.

3. While the beans is getting cooked, cut the green chillies into small pieces and grind it with coconut with little water to form a coarse mixture.

4. Take some oil in a pan and add mustard to it.

5. Once it crackles, add the beans (taken out from the cooker.If there is no steamer or cooker available, as mentioned in step 2, add the beans along with water and wait till most of the water evaporates).

6. Add the ground coconut, chilli mixture along with salt.

Beans thoran is ready. Personally I like this with most of the dishes - Sambhar, kozhambu, rasam, morekuttan, etc.

Kozhakattai (Sweet)

2011-01-10T02:02:00.022+05:30

There was once a time when I eagerly used to await Ganesh Chathurthi.The obvious reason being the fact that it was a School Holiday. Another reason is Kozhakattais. I love anything made with Jaggery and even the thought of this dish makes me salivate.
I guess the anticipation of eating the dish after a year (since the festival comes once a year) makes it even more tasty. Somehow I can never get enough of it and always wish mom had made a bit more. Of course now that I know the process to make it, I am surprised I even got to eat that much.

INGREDIENTS

BASE

Rice Flour - 1 cup (It is usually made by grinding the rice but I prefer to find the easy way out)
Water - 2 cups
Gingelly Oil - 1 spoon
Salt - a pinch

POORNAM (Stuffing)
Grated Coconut - 1 cup
Jaggery - 3/4 cup
Cardamom powder - 1 spoon

METHOD

Making the Base:

1. Boil 1 cup of water in a pan (amateurs can always use the non-stick one since it is easier to manage).
2. Take a bowl with the remaining 1 cup of water. Add the flour, gingelly oil, pinch table salt and mix it. Ensure there are no lumps and the flour is completely mixed with water

3. Add this to the boiling water.
4. After a few minutes (shouldn't take more than 10 minutes), the mixture becomes
almost solid. It becomes a ball and stops sticking to the vessel. Now take it out of the flame and allow it to cool.

Making the Poornam

1. Fry the coconut well and keep it aside. (I fry dessicated coconut to get a fresh flavor but fresh grated coconut need not be fried).
2. Add the jaggery to water and keep it in low flame

3. Keep it in flame until the Jaggery water thickens. To test as to when to remove it, take a bowl with water and add a drop of the jaggery to it. If it mixes and dissolves in water, continue to keep it flame. Remove it if it twirls to form a ball.
4. Add the coconut and once all the water is gone, add cardamom and remove from flame.

To make the Kozhakkatai

1. Make small balls out of the base and even smaller ones from the poornam
2. Take a small roll from the base and flatten it with hand to form a small cup.
While doing this, its is advisable to add a drop of gingelly oil to the hands to ensure the base doesn't stick to the hand.
3. Stuff a small ball of poornam inside and close the base. Tweak a bit in the top to get the shape.

4. Keep it in an Idli plates and steam it for 10 minutes. When using pressure cooker ensure the whistle is not used since it will make the resultant item overcooked and squashy.

The kozhakkatai is ready to be eaten.

Isle Of Wight - Day 2

2010-12-30T22:49:00.003+05:30

Our plan for the day was to cover Needles in Alum Bay (which according to my friend was the most important of places to visit) and Freshwater Bay. We decided to have a comparatively early start to the day, mainly because buses to Alum Bay were only once every hour. Also, based on the little research we had done before, we came to know that the Needles Park was open only between 11 and 3 during winters. So the plan was to take the bus (7) to Freshwater first, spend an hour or two and take the same bus to Alum Bay.

Lesson one learnt so late from my travels – Make sure all the routes to one place are covered and chose the best one. Lesson two - Never assume the route you have chosen is the best. Unfortunately, since freshwater Bay wasn’t originally the first place we had planned on, we didn’t realize that while route 7 takes us to Freshwater, route 12 takes us directly to Freshwater Bay. We had missed the route 12 bus by a whisker and so decided to stick to the original plan and take the 8:50 bus.

It was a 45 minute ride to Freshwater and according to some website, we were to get down at Freshwater Royal Standard stop and walk to Freshwater Bay. Interestingly enough, we did that and almost immediately felt like we got down at the wrong place since there were no signs anywhere leading us to Freshwater Bay. We decided to follow the bus route which after 10 minutes took us to a right (coz that was the only road we saw a bus stop in). By the way did I mention, every islander we met is really friendly? We asked one of them for directions, and he suggested we walk straight along the road for a mile or 2.

Funny thing was we were following the return route of the bus. We got back to the same place we started from except we were in the opposite direction which we realized after another 10 minutes. How did we know this? There was this huge Co-operative store in Freshwater which had a stop called Freshwater Co-op. This was the stop before Royal Standard which we had noticed but didn’t get down at. There was also a sign pointing to Freshwater Bay. So basically, we took a 20 minute walk for nothing although it wasn’t bad because the weather was awesome and the place was beautiful (Or at least so we convinced ourselves).

It took another 20 minutes to reach the Freshwater Bay. It had been frequently mentioned that winter wasn’t the best time for tourists, but it sure was quite peaceful. At 10 in the morning, there were no other tourists in the vicinity...never mind tourists, there were only 2 other people on the road. We spent a few minutes in Freshwater Bay and then took a walk along the Coastal Path in the Tennyson Trail.
The Tennyson trail is what stuffs from books and movies are made of. You often see and read about picturesque locations with meadows on top of Cliffs located in the seashore and wonder if you can ever see such a beauty for real. And when you do come across it, you realize it is even better than you dreamed of.

Walking up the hill huffing and puffing was not probably the most fun one can imagine, but one look on the side or straight ahead, made it all worthwhile. We walked for about 30 minutes on the Trail and realized that continuing on the trail would mean a walk for at least 4-5 hours. So we decided to head back. Besides, the top of the cliff was slowly getting covered with fog and visibility was reduced to 10 feet. We walked back to the Freshwater Co-op bus stop to take the 12:30 bus to Alum Bay.

We reached Alum Bay by 12:40 and spent about 5 minutes walking around and realized that was it. There was nothing much to be done since everything else was closed. Boy, did we wish we had taken the same bus back to Newport. We did see some people walking up a hill some distance away but after the morning walk didn’t feel really up to any more walking especially on an empty stomach. So we went into a cafe there, had lunch and took the 1:47 bus back to Newport.

We got down at Carisbrooke High Street on the way to go to the Carisbrooke Castle. There was sign indicating the way to the Castle from High Street so we took that. We walked down that road for about 10-15 minutes, could see the Castle on top of a hill on our left side behind some houses but no mention of any turn there. After a while, we came across a road called Clatterford Shute on the left and decided to take it but as we walked down that road, there didn’t seem to be any route to take us to the Castle. Thinking we were lost (which we were not) we retraced our steps. We found a family coming towards us and decided to ask them for the route and as luck would have it they were also going to the Castle. It was a good thing we did since there was a turn into a small lane called Miller Lane which we would not have noticed without help. They sure need to put the signs to make it easier for walkers. This family reiterated our belief that people from the island were friendly. Not only did they take us to the Castle, thanks to their Heritage lifetime membership, they even gave us free entry as their guests along with a guided tour of the Castle.

I have almost lost count of the number of Castles we have visited so far so one would imagine to find them all alike. But that is not the case since each Castle has its own history, horror and romance attached to it. This 12-century Castle reminded me of the Cardiff Castle mainly because of the Norman Keep and Roman link which both castles seem to share. This was also apparently where Charles I was kept imprisoned. We also got to see Jill, the donkey running on the tread wheel to demonstrate how water was drawn from a 49m well for centuries. We spent a little over an hour in the Castle although in leisure, there is enough for 3 hours. After bidding farewell to our new friends, we walked back to the High Street to take the 4:20 bus to Newport.

The minute we got down at the bus station, we took the bus to East Cowes to take us to the ferry port. Once we checked into the ferry, we decided to have an early dinner (Did I mention, our breakfast and lunch consisted of a croissant, one cup of coffee and one bowl of soup? Small wonder we were hungry). The ferry reached Southampton at 6:10, took the city link bus. This was followed by a train to Basingstoke and a bus to Reading.

We could have visited a few more places had it been summer or had we had more time - Bembridge Windmill, The model village, Butterfly world, The model village, Osbourne house, Sandown beach and Shanklin chine. But for a real last minute, laid back trip this was definitely enjoyable and worth it.

Isle Of Wight - Day 1

2010-12-29T23:41:00.001+05:30

We started at 6:45 am from home towards the Reading station. Since the Reading Station was closed during the Christmas period, we had to take a rail replacement bus service till Basingstoke from where we took the train to reach Southampton Central by 8:45. There is a free CityLink bus service that operates every 15 minutes between Southampton's Central station and Red Funnel's ferry terminals which was a convenient 10 minute journey. It generally takes about an hour from Southampton to East Cowes ferry terminal in Isle of Wight.

Initialy, the plan was to take the 9:45 ferry but unfortunately, due to the weather being very foggy, the ferry was cancelled and we had to wait for the 10:30 ferry. Another 10 minute delay along with reduced speed due to fog meant that it was 11:50 by the time we reached East Cowes. Coming out of the ferry terminal and walking down the road for a couple of minutes, took us to the Well Road bus stop to catch the bus 5 (every 15 minutes) to Newport. Interestingly, there are about 10 or so bus services in IOW almost all of which start from Newport. Since we were planning to use public transport for both days of our stay, we took a 48 hour unlimited travel Rover ticket for £15.

Newport is the capital of IOW and we were planning to stay in Premier Inn which was a 15 minute walk from Newport town center. We got down at the Fairlee road stop and the Hotel was supposed to be a 5 minute walk along the road called Staplers according to Google Maps. Weird thing with Google Maps - It showed one address when the Hotel Name was given and another one when the Postcode was mentioned. Anyway, it meant an extra 30-40 minutes of walk but we finally found the location. After a nice lunch in a restaurant next door to the Hotel, by the time we checked in, it was close to 2:30. Our original plan was to go to the Carisbrooke Castle this day. We decided to dump the plan since the Castle was open only from 10-4 and we just had another 1.5 hours before the closing time. Like I mentioned before, winter isn't the most ideal time to visit IOW. We spent the next couple of hours walking around Newport.

Since it was dark and foggy, we decided not to take much of a chance and returned to our room by 5. After dinner at 7, we took an early night.

Isle Of Wight

2010-12-28T01:24:00.000+05:30

Snow! Snow! More Snow!!! That was the forecast for the whole of December. And guess what? We believed that and decided not to make much plans for Christmas which was when as the weather people put it, "A once in a lifetime Snow" was expected. And what do you know? Christmas day dawned and it was bright and sunny (by the way Ram has a 11 day vacation). We were toying with the idea of going to Lake District during Christmas vacation but scrapped it since the north of England was one of the worst affected by the snow. Our plan was simple. We decided not to plan at all…and if by chance the weather happened to be good, we decided to make a last minute trip to Isle of Wight.

Isle of Wight is a small Island to the south of England which is a few hours from Reading. The only planning required to go was the hotel accommodation. The forecast mentioned decent weather for tomorrow and the day after. So today we booked a room with Premier Inn, Newport along with the train tickets from Reading to Southampton. A bit of help from a friend and some websites has given us an idea of what to do the 2 days we are going to spend there. We know before hand that winter is when most of the touristy places are closed so we have decided to make it an easy trip instead of filling every last minute with some place to visit (like I usually plan).

Theeyal

2010-11-25T11:09:00.010+05:30

Theeyal is basically a Keralite dish, one, which I had never tasted or heard of before I got married. But I soon found out the process since it is one of my hubby's favourite dishes. I am still not able to make it as well as my mil makes but hopefully I will improve with each try. This is more or less the same like Sambhar but has a rich flavor of onion and coconut that is absent in sambhar.

INGREDIENTS (Serves 4 people)

Onion - 1
Drumstick - 1
Red chillies - 5 or 6
Chana dhal (split chick pea) - 1 spoon
Coriander seeds/powder – 1 spoon
Grated Coconut - 150 gms (around 10 heaped spoons....not very healthy is it? :))
Turmeric Powder - ½ spoon
Tamarind – Lemon size
Salt - To taste
Ghee - 1/2 spoon

Though I have used normal onions, small onions are supposedly more tasty. For this, they need to be peeled and cut into two. But apparently, using small onions and frying them reduces their quantity greatly so more need to be added.

GARNISH

Oil - 1/2 spoon
Mustard - 1 spoon
Curry leaves - as required

METHOD

1. Cut onions lengthwise (1mm thick and 1 inch long) and fry till golden brown. Using Ghee to fry gives an additional flavor to it.
2. Cut Drumstick 2 inches long and keep them aside.
3. Fry the grated coconut till deep brown.

4. Fry Red chillies, Chana dhal, Coriander seeds and grind along with the coconut
5. Extract the tamarind water and keep it at low flame. (Use not more than 500 ml of tamarind water to ensure it has a good consistency)
6. Add the fried onions, drumstick and salt to it.
7. After 5 minutes, add the ground mixture and bring it boil. (Can increase the flame a bit if required). Once it boils, remove it from the flame. Theeyal is now done.
8. Boil some oil and add mustard seeds to it. Wait till it crackles and add curry leaves. Garnish this over the Theeyal.

Theeyal tastes good with many vegetables but is really good with Aviyal. It can also be used as a side dish with dosa/idli

Aviyal

2010-11-19T15:44:00.013+05:30

Aviyal is a healthy dish since it contains a lot of boiled vegetables and pretty much does not contain any frying.

Its interesting how the same dish is made in two different ways by my mom and my mil. I guess we again bring in the difference between the north and south Kerala Iyer cuisine here.

Mil makes aviyal as a side dish. Curd is optional which is used only if mango is not used, since the sour taste can be provided by either of them.

Mom makes aviyal as a main dish in a liquid form. So basically instead of a bit of curd, quite a lot of it is added to the cooked vegetables. This can be mixed with rice and eaten with appalam/papadam.

INGREDIENTS

Chenai (Elephant Yam) - 250 gms
Vazhakai (Raw Banana) - 1
Elavan (Ash Guard) - 100 gms
Mathan (Pumpkin) - 100 gms
Raw Mango - 1
Carrot - 100 gms
Beans - 100 gms
Drumstick - 1
Grated/cut Coconut - 100 gms (3-4 spoons)
Green Chillies - 5 or 6 (depending on the size and spice level)
Turmeric Powder - ½ spoon
Jeera (Cumin Seeds) - 1 spoon
Curd - 100 ml (optional)
Salt - To taste

If all vegetables mentioned can be used it is really yummy. We can use 2 or 3 of them and still get a pretty good taste. The quantity of all the vegetables is variable and can be decided based on how much is required. I have used 400 g beans, 1 carrot, 400 g pumpkin and 1 plantain in the above picture (This serves 4 people).

GARNISH

Coconut oil - 1 spoon
Curry leaves - as required

METHOD

1. Cut all the vegetables length-wise around 1 inch long and 1cm wide.
2. Boil them in a pressure cooker with turmeric powder and salt
3. Once the vegetables are boiled, remove from flame.
4. Grind coconut, jeera and cut green chillies and add to the cooked vegetables. (When using dessicated coconut, I prefer frying it a bit to try to bring it as close as possible to the fresh coconut)
5. Add curd to the mixture. (Low fat can be used to make it healthier. This step is avoided if mango is used)
6. Finally fry the curry leaves in coconut oil and pour it on the vegetable mixture.

I personally prefer Aviyal as a side dish instead of a main dish, which tastes really good with anything that has tamarind in it – Sambhar, Theeyal, Rasam.

Karamani (Black eyed beans) Porichozhambu

2010-11-09T10:33:00.006+05:30

Karamani porichozhambu is something which many of my friends haven't come across much (it could be because I have difficult pronouncing it...its like a tongue twister even for me). So far only my mom and aunts have made this item since they learnt it from my grandma (may be I shd find from my gran where she had learnt it from).

INGREDIENTS
Karamani/payaru (Black eyed beans/peas) - 150 gms
Tamarind - lemon size
Vazhakai(raw banana/plaintain) - 1
Turmeric Powder - ½ spoon
Sambhar Powder - 1 ½ spoon
Salt - To taste

TO GARNISH
Vegetable Oil - ½ spoon
Mustard - ½ spoon
Urdu dhal - 1 spoon
Coconut powder - 1 spoon (Grated)

METHOD

1. First boil the karamani in the cooker to 3 whistles. It usually helps to soak the karamani in hot water the night before but I usually am pretty lazy so I almost always directly boil it for 7-8 whistles instead. And it more or less gives the same results.

2. Peel and cut the Vazhakai into small pieces and boil it.

3. Soak the tamarind in water and extract the juice. Ensure the tamarind water isn’t more than 500 ml since there will be a bit of water from the boiled karamani and vazhakai as well and we don’t want it to be too liquidy.

4. Add tamarind water to the boiled vazhaikkai at low flame.

5. Add the turmeric powder. After the mixture boils, add salt, sambhar powder (chilli powder can also be added but the former gives better flavor)

6. Smash the karamani a bit (this help the gravy attain an even consistency. Otherwise, the solid part will remain at the bottom and the top of the vessle will just contain tamarind water) and add it to the mixture. Water can be added a little if required. Remove it from the flame after 5 minutes.

7. Finally to garnish, heat some vegetable oil in a pan. Add mustard. Once it crackles add urdu dhal and coconut and fry for a minute.

It is to be mixed with rice and eaten with papad or any vegetable as a side dish. This is a good change from sambhar or rasam.

Food for thought!!!

2010-10-27T16:21:00.001+05:30

I wouldn’t call myself an amazing cook. In fact until two years back, the only time I’ve entered the kitchen is when mom or dad (both being amazing cooks) weren’t at home, and I would have to fend for myself. These days I would consider myself to be an above average cook. Believe me, my friends do not believe it in spite of a few of them having tasted it. Of course, I usual prefer subtle flavors so many find it a little less spicy. Unfortunately, thats the way food has been at home and I really find it nauseating when the flavors are really heavy.

I am not really creative in the kitchen. All the recipes I have tried so far have been mostly received from mom or mother-in-law. It is funny how each region has different cooking styles even in my home. We are Iyers and while mom’s style of cooking is Palakkad style, my mil’s cooking is southern Kerala (Trivandrum) style. I have been meaning to blog on a few recipes I have received over a period of time for quite sometime but I have always wanted to wait until I have taken photos while making the dish in question. Since I almost never remember to do that, I have decided to still go ahead with the recipe but hopefully add the pictures as well on a later date.

Trip to Amsterdam - Day 2

2010-06-27T00:48:00.004+05:30

We checked out from our hotel and started the day by going to the Central Station first where we had some breakfast and then left for Dam by a tram. Amsterdam is said to have developed around the dam on the Amstel River that's now a monumental square. The original town hall has now been converted to a Royal Palace which again was closed due to some renovations (Did we have the worst luck or what?). There is also a World War II National Monument in the dam square.

A 10-minute walk from the Dam square takes us to Oude Kerk or Old Church which is situated in the famous red light district of Amsterdam (Weirdly I always assumed Red-light area was just a term…I didn’t realize it was called so because the whole area is filled with red lights :)). Unfortunately, the day being a Sunday, the church was to open only at 1pm. To while away time and to escape the sweltering heat, we first had lunch. This was followed by a tram ride to take us to the outskirts of the city, which, incidentally, doesn’t have any of the beauty or character of the old parts of the city and is filled with high-rise buildings and modern architecture. We also tried finding out half-day trip options from Amsterdam and although many seemed attractive, we felt we had left it too late since we had to return back that day.

At 1pm, we returned back to Oude Kerk which is the oldest, gothic monument in Amsterdam built in the 13th century. Though initially Roman Catholic, the Church was later adopted by Protestants in the 15th century. The inside of the church is quite empty of any paintings one would expect from such old monuments. The reason being, the church was violently looted and many the images were destroyed though out the 16th century. Images of saints and altars had disappeared from the church and only because the wall paintings in the vaults were difficult to reach, were they saved. There have been many restoration work done on the church over the years. Though quite empty (or maybe because of it) save for the wall paintings, stained glass windows and some pieces of art, the church gives a sense of peace while inside.

The next destination was the Begijnhof, which was a 15 minute walk from Oude Kerk. A once-religious cloister for women, the Begijnhof, founded in the 14th century, is now a residence for elderly women. Beguines were pious catholic women who performed good works, like nuns, but didn’t want to live in a convent and therefore had not taken their vows. It is a very tranquil courtyard though which we took a quite stroll with the trees camouflaging us from the sun.

Although there are many places to visit in Amsterdam, according to me what makes the city truly beautiful is the city itself which is best felt by just walking along the banks of the multitude of Canals. Walking on the Leidsestraat (a street) gives wonderful views of the three major canals – the first is the Herengracht(or the Lord's Canal), Keizersgracht (or Emperor's Canal) which is the second and widest of the three major canals, and Prinsengracht(or Prince’s Canal) which is the third and the longest of canals. It was a lot of fun sitting on the banks of the canals eating an ice cream and watching the many boats passing by.

There were also numerous cafes and bars along the way with giant screens telecasting football. It was Germany Vs England which England lost dismally but which was enthusiastically watched by the numerous fans (wonder how it would have been had it been Netherlands playing). Around 5, we started back to the Central Station to have a quick dinner and to Amstel to take our return bus back to London. Though technically the trip is under 8 hours, it takes longer since we need to wait for the ferry to cross the Channel and also entry clearance takes a longer time with our baggage screened individually to detect any drugs which is legal in Amsterdam back to the UK.

Though neither as long or as packed as the other trips, this was nevertheless a pretty relaxing one. I concur with what I heard from many sources, Amsterdam is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.

Trip to Amsterdam - Day 1

2010-06-26T00:30:00.004+05:30

A Trip to Amsterdam was one which we had half heartedly been planning for at least 2 months. Originally it was to have been done during the last weekend of May but that plan was scrapped, which I blame on all the travelling we have been doing the past 6 months. The fact that we had anyway missed the world famous Tulip festival which happens every year between March and mid-May added to the lack of enthusiasm. We decided we will make it for sure towards the end of June for just the weekend but the plans were not confirmed until a few days before the trip. In that aspect this trip has been quite strange since we have never been this indecisive about anything.

Since we had just a few days to go, most of the Hotels which were cost effective, good and close to the city center had been booked. We decided to go with Holiday Inn since we have used it many a times before. For the transport to Amsterdam, we had 2 options – Bus or ship + train. The flight option was out since in addition to being expensive, it also meant we had lesser time in Amsterdam than we already have. Eurostar also posed the same problem. We came across this Dutch flyer site which is a mixture of overnight ship travel across the English Channel and train on the mainland. But this option proved a bit expensive. So finally we took the National Express Coach option which proved pretty inexpensive with the round trip costing £42 (which was the same as our tkts to London by train :P)

We reached the Amstel Station in Amsterdam at around 9:30 am. Since we had booked our Hotel only for that night, we had about 3-4 hours to check-in. From what we found, most of the places of visit in Amsterdam are near or better connected from the Central Station. Although the Metro in Amsterdam is not that great (the system is very simple consisting of about 4 lines), the tram and bus connectivity is great.

We found something called a GVB pass online which we got from the Amstel station itself. Compared to Paris Visite, this seemed really cheap with the pass costing about €11.50 per person for 2 days and this includes any mode of transport (bus/tram/metro http://www.gvb.nl/english/travellers/tickets-and-fares/Pages/GVB-24-48-72-96-hour-tickets.aspx). There was also the option of taking the I amsterdam Card which can be taken based on the number of days spent in Amsterdam but a bit expensive unless one visits an ample number of museums and other attractions. An advance research on the places to visit and the means to go to them helps as well which we did with the help of the website http://journeyplanner.9292.nl/default.aspx. This gives any number of options to visit from one place to another.
Though initially we adhered quite a lot to this, as we got used to place, we realized we didn’t have to strictly follow it since there were multiple comfortable travel options to any place.
Since we had a few more hours before we could check into our Hotel, we decided to take the Metro 53 to the Central Station which is more or less in the central part of the city. After a breakfast in the station itself, we walked out of the station and took a canal cruise which is right opposite to the station. The cruise was for an hour and a half which took us through the city and gave us the first glimpse of the city including the harbor and the older part of the city with its various bridges and canals. It was quite funny how during the cruise each canal and bridge looked the same but towards the end of our visit, we were able to identify each canal and the bridge individually (not that I recollect much now).

The Canal cruise was done by 12 and we took the Metro 51 with destination Westwijk to metro RAI which happened to be the closest to our Hotel Holiday Inn (2 minute walk). After an early check-in and freshening up, we started off to the Van Gogh Museum which boasts of a large collection of Van Gogh paintings. Interesting how most of these geniuses have such a miserable life but get fame and recognition posthumously. After an hour or so, we started for the Rijksmuseum which is the national museum. Since most part of the museum was closed for renovations, we decided to skip it. These 2 along with a couple more museums are located around the Museum square or Museumplein as the area is called. From the Museumplein we walked a bit to reach a public park called Vondelpark. Both Museumplein and Vondelpark are good places to have a relaxed picnic. After spending an hour or so, we took a tram to 'Westermarkt' to Anne Frank house.

Although I had heard of Anne Frank before, I didn’t know much about Anne Frank other than that she belonged to a German born Jewish family who lived underground for 2 years to escape the persecution. But being inside the house was quite a moving experience which showed the struggle the family must have gone through not seeing daylight for 2 years. I doubt anyone would have come out of the house without feeling touched by how much the family had struggled for survival and how a fifteen year old instead of leading a carefree life had overnight become a serious adult. After the house tour, we had a pizza dinner and returned back to the hotel.

Trip to Europe - Day 9 – Paris – London

2010-04-04T23:37:00.001+05:30

Last day of our trip and the last day we had to follow the timetable – Wakeup call by 7, breakfast by 8 and start by 8:45. We reached Eiffel tower by 9:20 and in spite of the heavy crowd (being the Easter weekend and all), we were among the first to get into the elevator thanks to the fact the tickets had already been purchased. It is interesting that though this was our second trip to Paris, it didn’t feel redundant since whatever we did the second time were the ones we hadn’t done the first time around…be it the an hour long Seine Cruise in the afternoon in daylight or the Paris by night trip or the trip to the top floor of the Eiffel tower.

After taking the elevator, we reached the one floor below the top level. This was completely covered with glass so we couldn’t feel the wind blowing nor was it very cold. The next level was quite open, with a safety net of course, and it was with great difficulty that we were able to take a photo since the strong winds made it literally impossible to keep one steady. We stayed there for a few minutes and realized the top floor was over hyped with the view better from the second level. We had a cup of coffee to keep us warm and then took the elevator back to the ground floor.

We started back from Paris around 11:30 and after a few minutes’ drive, stopped for a sometime near Charles de Gaulle airport for our last caravan lunch (I am not sure whether I will regret the sumptuous meal we had day in and day out or if I will be happy to get rid of the oily food). We started back at 1:30 to take our ferry from Calais at 5:30. We reached Calais by 4:15 but immigration checks meant it was past 4:40 when each of us was out. We waited in the port for some time for the bus to take us into the ferry. Once into the ferry, we had 90 minutes to ourselves to go around. We spent some time on the deck after which came down and waited to reach Dover. We reached Dover by 6 (UK being an hour behind Central Europe time) and by the time we got out the Ship, it was 6:30. It took us another hour and a half to reach East Ham which was where we decided to get down.

We also got ourselves packed dinner from a hotel nearby and took the District line on the metro to Paddington. Unfortunately for us, Easter weekend had some changes to the lines due to which we didn’t have any trains after Bromley-by-bow for a few stops which meant we got down at west ham, took a bus to Startford from where we took a tube to Oxford circus followed by another one to Paddington. Instead of reaching Paddington by 9, we reached by 9:35. We had diner in the station, took the train at 10 and reached home by 10:45.

Finally we are done with our trip and the experience has been quite surreal. Given a choice we would have definitely opted for a single country a time trip on our own which meant making our own itinerary and making our own mistakes. But this wasn’t a bad trade off considering we might not be in the UK long enough to make another trip (any more trips from now would be an added bonus). If anything this was a wonderful experience by itself and I for one, am glad we were able to do it.

Trip to Europe - Day 8 - Geneva - Paris

2010-04-03T23:32:00.005+05:30

Nothing major planned for the day except another log drive for about 6 hours from Geneva to Paris. We woke up by 6:30 and after breakfast; we went for a 15-20 minute walk around Annemasse. Another small town which was extremely pretty especially as we proceeded to walk away from the houses and we could get a clear view of all the trees and mountains around the area (I know I should have gotte bored of the numerous trees and mountains but not yet). A drive through another scenic route was followed by lunch which turned out to be a cold affair. It was really windy and the open ground all around the area didn’t reduce the force of the wind. A quickie lunch and we went right back into the bus. It was another 2 hours drive to reach Paris which was quite short thanks to the total lack of traffic.

The first thing which is visible as we enter Paris from any direction seems to be the Eiffel Tower. First stop was a Seine River cruise. This is when I saw the replica of the Statue of Liberty on Île des Cygnes. Those who are familiar with history (In my case the movie, National Treasure II) will know that Laboulaye was the intellectual creator behind the Statue of Liberty whose twin replicas have been placed at Île des Cygnes, an artificial island and the Luxembourg Gardens both of which are in Paris.

We reached at 10 to 4 to take the Bateaux Mouches Seine River cruise just ten minutes before the cruise was to start. This was an hour’s cruise which took us through almost all of the major attractions in Paris most of which are on the banks of Seine River. It started with the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre Museum, the Alexander III Bridge, the Pont Neuf, Notre-Dame Cathedral on Île de la Cité, a natural island on River Seine, Les Invalides. We were out by 5:15 and had an orientation tour of Paris which was basically going around the city and being shown the places before getting to the Hotel Novotel at Orly. Another huge group from another tour operator had also come flooding the reception with people waiting for their keys but thanks to our efficient tour guide, all our keys were ready and we checked in immediately. Dinner was early at 7 and we then went on for a Paris by night tour.

We hadn’t had the opportunity to check out Paris by night the last time we were there but this time we realized Paris is a truly beautiful city during night. The lack of traffic and people during the night added to its beauty. This was more or less a round of the main city with some photo stops at the Arc de Triomphe, Place de la Concorde which has the Obelisk of Luxor, Opera house, Trocadora to watch the lights lighting up the Eiffel Tower during the night and finally Les Invalides where Nepolean’s tomb is. The weather was really cold with heavy wind and occasional drizzle but it was still a lot of fun. We reached our rooms by 11 and retired for the day.

Trip to Europe - Day 7 - Pisa - Geneva

2010-04-02T09:25:00.009+05:30

We started a bit early at 7:45 and proceed towards Pisa. As mentioned earlier the whole of Tuscany region was really pretty and the route to Pisa was no exception. We could see mountains all around with some clouds low enough for us to touch them. We reached Pisa by around 8:45 and had an hour to spend which itself I felt was on the higher side. I had read before that it was too much of a waste to spend half a day travelling to Pisa just to see the leaning tower. Although it probably is a bit too much for a half a day travel, thankfully, our travel time was less due to the fact that the hotel was so close to Pisa. It was a 1km walk from where the bus was parked and the Cathedral square was a beautiful sight to look at. Although treated as a wonder, the leaning tower didn't give me the chills which I got when I first saw the Eiffel Tower.

Frankly I never knew the leaning tower was made of marble because somehow most of the pictures I have seen make it look like concrete. It is located in the Cathedral Square or Piazza del Duomo behind the Duomo (Cathedral) in front of which is the Bapistry. The leaning tower is a bell tower or the companile to the cathedral. Initially intended as a vertical structure, the construction reached the third floor before it sank a bit into the ground owing to poor foundation and bad soil. It was after 99 years that the construction was resumed. In the last few years, work was done to ensure the strengthening of the soil and to ensure the structure didn’t tilt further. It is said the structure would not stand longer than 2015 (wonder when it was predicted since it doesn’t look like it might fall any minute now).

Getting a ticket to climb the top cost about 15 euro which I was told wasn’t all that great (I hardly saw anyone climbing up the tower). Besides there wasn’t enough time to climb and come back either (something told me there wasn’t any elevators up there and the climb up the second level of the Eiffel tower a few months back is still fresh in my memory). After taking a few pictures and buying a souvenir of the tower, we started back by 10.

Though really sunny in the morning, it was a bit windy but by 10, it became cloudy and heavy rain started pelting down. Thankfully we escaped getting drenched by
reaching the bus seconds before the downpour. We started towards Geneva which was a 6-7 hours drive. Unfortunately for us, the next 3 days is going to be spent mainly in travelling. The route again was really pretty especially when we came into a city called Genoa which is in Italy. Said to be the birthplace of Christopher Columbus (which according to Wikipedia is disputed, btw someone needs to tell the authors of the Indian text books they might be wrong. I remember reading in my history books that Columbus was a Portuguese explorer) it is a really beautiful city. It is on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea with Mountains on another side and a stream flowing through the city. Indeed, it looked like a wonderful place to live in. The motorway was through a series of tunnels built in the mouths of various mountains.

We stopped closed to Genoa for lunch and started back at around 2 pm. On the way we had fun playing a few games. As we entered Switzerland (or what I initially thought was Switzerland after looking at Alps only to be told we were still in Italy and that the Alps stretch across multiple countries including Italy, France, Austria, Germany), we could see the Alps stretched across in a distance. Even from so far off, the mountain range looks huge. We passed a couple of small towns/ villages with rivers flowing across them. It is more appropriate to call them streams since though there was hardly any water flowing or rather there was no force to the water flowing. I guess since it is still early spring, the water flower is in the lighter side which will increase as the snow starts melting.

After a couple of hours, the Alps looked closer which wasn’t a wonder since we crossed the mountain called Mont Blanc the tunnel which took us from Italy into France. Mont Blanc is said to be the highest peak in the Alps. Once we crossed the tunnel, we had a 10 minute stop for tea and also had the pleasure to admire the view of the Alps from a closer distance in a different country. It is wierd how the surroundings changed as we climbed up the mountains from being green all around, it all of a sudden became white with snow. There was also a village visible from the valley of Chamonix which is in Mont Blanc. Mont Blanc is probably more known as the site where the Homi Bhabha died in an air crash (Quite the ray of sunshine, aren’t I).

We then proceeded towards Geneva and reached by 7. Though originally we had planned to spend a lot of hours in Geneva, it was quite late by the time we reached and hence escaped shopping. We spent an hour around the lake and went near Jet d'Eau,
or water-jet, which is a large fountain in Geneva, Switzerland, and is one of the city's most famous landmarks, being featured on the city's official tourism web site. Every second, 500 litres of water get propelled into air to a height of 140 meters. There is also a beautifully decorated flower clock. We then went to United Nations headquarters for a quick photo stop and proceeded towards a small village in the French border called Annemasse to stay at a hotel called All Seasons. Lost our way in between (I knew it as soon as our guide said the magic words that “We shall reach in 5 minutes: since the previous times he said the same, we spent the next half hour roaming around finding the right way.

Trip to Europe - Day 6 – Florence

2010-04-01T21:16:00.007+05:30

We started at 8:30 and proceeded towards Florence from Rome. I have always read that the Tuscany region is very pretty and it showed on the route to Florence. Like all the places we have been to before, there were many trees and mountains on the route. We also came across many vine yards (Tuscany being very famous for its Wine) on the way although it not being the right season so none of them had any leaves. The weather has been marvelous so far especially in Italy where the sun shines so brightly with the chill from the cold winds taking the heat from the Sun’s rays. It was of course raining quite heavily on and off during most of our drive. It was a four hour drive to Florence (thanks to traffic which increased the time by an hour) and after lunch we set off to the Santa Maria Cathedral where we were met by our local guide Mike.

The Cathedral looked quite huge from the outside and not so big from the inside. It has huge dome built by Brunelleschi which is the first 'octagonal' dome in history to be built without a wooden supporting frame and according the guide no architect has been able to recreate it ever since. Inside the Cathedral opposite above the entrance is a huge clock decorated by Paolo Uccello which apparently has been working for over 500 years. It is a 24 hour clock which ends at Sunset. Underneath the dome inside the Cathedral is the painting of the Last Judgement. On one side, there is a canvas of Niccolò da Tolentino who had fought for Florence. There are also several windows inside made of stained glass which makes the Cathedral hot during summer. Outside the Cathedral is an octagonal Baptistry which originally was a temple dedicated to Mars.

After getting out of the Cathedral, we walked across to a bridge by the name of Ponte Vecchio which is one of the oldest and most famous bridges in Florence built across the Arno. It was built in 1345 by Taddeo Gaddi to replace an earlier version. There are numerous shops lined on the bridge since at least the 12th century. In the 16th century, it was home to butchers until Cosimo I moved into the Palazzo Pitti across the river. He couldn't stand the stench as he crossed the bridge every day, so he evicted the meat cutters and moved in the goldsmiths who occupy the bridge to this day. Florence is said to be a city where gold prices are quite low. There is a sundial on the bridge which is dated to the 13th century.

Unlike many people I spoke to, I personally found Florence the prettiest of the Italian cities we had visited. Walking down the streets, we have a sense of having entered a Time warp. All the buildings around look at least 500-600 years old and even the newer buildings have been made to maintain the antique look of the place.
From there we went over to the Piazza della Signoria which is a L-shaped square in front of the Palazzo Vecchio which is the City Town Hall where the Mayor of Florence sits. At the entrance of the Palazzo Vecchio is a copy of Michelangelo’s David. The original having been moved to a Gallery after some minor damage. In the center of the Square is “Fountain of Neptune”.

The Loggia dei Lanzi, also called the Loggia della Signoria, is a building on a corner of the Piazza della Signoria. It consists of wide arches open to the street, three bays wide and one bay deep. The wide arches appealed so much to the Florentines that Michelangelo even proposed that they should be continued all around the Piazza della Signoria. Inside the Loggio are many valuable pieces of sculptures including “Rape of the Sabine Women” by the Giambologna, Menelaus supporting the body of Patroclus and Perseus holding the head of Medusa.

This was followed by another Gelato (unfortunately for us it was in a huge cup enough for 4). We then proceed towards the Santa Croce Basilica which at first glance is very similar to Santa Maria Cathedral. Mainly, as the guide pointed to us, due to the white, red and green marbles used for the construction. This one is on a smaller scale compared to Santa Maria though. It is mainly famous as the burial places of some really illustrious Italians like Michelangelo, Gallileo (his father and grandfather as well), Machiavelli, Marconi. It is also the home of many 14th century paintings. Initially, the Basilica was supposed to have been really grand but many of its original art work were removed to ensure people do not get distracted from their prayers.

There is also a small museum which has a host of many paintings one of which is the Last supper. At first when I saw the painting, I realized it was not the same as Da Vinci’s version. When I pointed that this was not the original, Adi (the guide) kept insisting the original was in a church at Milan. It was only later that I realized this is a version of Last supper but not a copy of Leonardo Da Vinci’s version but a version by an artist called Taddeo Gaddi.

After leaving Santa Corce, we planned to walk up a hill to get the bird’s eye view of the city. Instead we took the bus directly up. It was a really pretty view of the city which reinforced by opinion that Florence was prettier than Venice and Rome. We also got a Florence souvenir from a shop nearby.

We started around 5 and planned to drive straight to Pisa but a bit of delay and traffic meant pushing our Pisa visit to the next day. We proceeded towards Montecatini which is about 45 minutes from Pisa where we stayed at a hotel called Tuscany Inn..Must say though this was a good hotel, compared to the rest we had been to, it was below par. We walked around the town for some time and though it was a very pretty little town, there was hardly anything to look at. We also wanted to have pizza but the thought of pizza for dinner wasn’t very attractive and we went back to our hotel for dinner after which we retired for the day.

Trip to Europe - Day 5 – Rome – Vatican City

2010-03-31T21:18:00.004+05:30

Today was another exciting day as the plan was to cover both Rome and Vatican. Thanks to the fact that we had another night in Rome, we didn’t have the added problem of carrying any of our baggage with us….including the passports. So with our jackets, a camera and some money, we started from the hotel at 8:45. We also received a packed lunch for the day since in Rome, tourist buses/ vehicles were not allowed and we had to take a local bus into the city. Traffic was not all that heavy. It is funny how much similar Italy is to India. Thrash thrown all over the road, loads of graffiti on the walls and real rash drivers.

We first had a photo stop at the Piazza Venezia. There was a monument called "Il Vittoriano", to honor Victor Emmanuel, the first king of a unified Italy. Opposite to that is the Bonaparte residence which has a green balcony supposedly a favorite of Napoleon’s mother. There was also this building from the balcony of which, Mussolini had declared WW II(According to the guide). On the way to the Colosseum we came across the Maximus Circus which held Chariot races. Interestingly, there is a church in almost every corner of Rome. Supposedly built as temples initially but later converted into Catholic churches. We reached the Colosseum at 10 to be met by a local guide by the name of Mauricio. Apparently having a local guide is also a compulsion here.

Thanks to some contacts of the guide, we had the tickets for the Colosseum in hand and bypassed the long queue to enter the Colosseum. The guide was quite knowledgable (he apparently works a few days a week as a history professor in a college) and gave a long background on the Colosseum. It was initially called an Amphitheatre (Amphi is ancient Greek for “on both sides” and theatre is a place for viewing). It was given the name because it had 2 semi circulars theatres joined together. The name Colosseum is believed to have been derived from the colossal statue of Nero which was once present nearby. The Colosseum had a total of 80 entrances at the ground floor each of them named in Roman Numerals of which only a few of them survive. Of the 80, 3 entrances - North, South and the west entrance were used by the generals and aristocrats while the east entrance was used by the emperor and his family. The remaining 76 were used by the commoners.

In ancient times, the Colosseum was mainly used for Gladiator fights in which slaves fought against wild beasts. The slaves and the beasts were kept in an enclosure in the underground (hypogeum) above which was the ground for them to fight on. The only way out of the arena for the slaves was to kill the beasts. If they were victorious, they could walk out. It is said that around 1 million people had died inside the Colosseum. There is a Cross inside the Colosseum where the Pope prays once a year for the departed souls. We spent about an hour inside the Colosseum. It might just be ruins today but the amount of history attached to it added to its rustic beauty makes it a truly beautiful sight to behold. From the Colosseum we can also see the Arch of Constantine erected by Constantine to commemorate his victory over Maxentius.

We started from Colosseum by 11:45 and took the bus to Vatican City which is on the other side of the Tiber River. Vatican City – The pilgrimage site to millions of Roman Catholics all around the world. We walked over to St Peter’s Basilica and first finished lunch. As I had read before, there is this huge Obelisk in the center with 2 fountains on either side of the square. In front was the imposing structure of the Basilica which has a dome at 650 ft done by Michelangelo. The top of the dome is a dove with its wings spread. We also come across numerous pillars, in the shape of 2 arches which refers to St Peter welcoming all with open arms. Inside the Basilica, we notice one door which is closed. This is the “Holy Door” which apparently is open once every 25 years and the first person to enter is always the Pope followed by the Catholics visiting from around the world. This is apparently used to cleanse the soul and allowed access only for Roman Catholics.

We entered through another entrance and right in front of us was Saint Peter's baldachin, directly under Michelangelo’s dome, which was a canopy, designed by Bernini. On another side is Michelangelo’s Pieta which depicts Jesus dying in the arms of Virgin Mary. In this depiction, Virgin Mary is depicted as youthful since she was a Virgin when she conceived her son and hence morally young and beautiful. There are also tombs of many former Popes in preserved in a glass case. Though said to be the actually body, the face, hands and legs look quite healthy even for a preserved body.

One should note that the papal symbol consists of two keys which represent the keys to Heaven (according to the Gospel of Matthew 16:19) given by Jesus Christ to St. Peter. The popes are regarded as the successor of Peter, and the gold and silver keys have been significant elements in the symbolism of the Papal State since the 13th century. The gold represents spiritual power, while the silver key represents worldly power. There are also Swiss guards who work in Vatican for year for pride.

The church is extremely beautiful with most of it covered with Sculptures, murals and paintings. We were out an hour later and started towards the Trevi Fountain. We got down near the Presidential Palace which is said to have 970 rooms (wonder how long and how many people it takes to clean the Palace). Trevi was a 10 minute walk from the palace but without waiting to stop, we proceeded further 5-7 minutes down the road to reach the Pantheon which is an ancient Marvel.

The Pantheon was originally a temple which was later converted into a church. It has a huge concrete dome with a circular opening in the center. The water which enters the church during rains get drained to the ground with the help of holes made on the floor at 5 different places (ancient architecture at its very best) to prevent water logging. While many churches we have visited so far have been extravagant which gives the beauty to them, this is beautiful mainly due to its simplicity.

From the Pantheon, we came back to Trevi. Popular belief is that if you throw one coin into the fountain, you come back to Italy and more specifically Rome. If you throw 2 coins, it’s the start of a romance and if your throw 3 coins, you will end with a divorce. I just stuck to throwing one coin and then bought a model of a coliseum as a souvenir from nearby. We also had another Gelato :).

A few people willing to walk a bit more went to the Spanish steps which were some hundred odd steps leading up to a church called Holy Trinity on the Pincio Hill. In the Square leading to the Spanish steps is the Fontana della Barcaccia ("Fountain of the Old Boat") made by Bernini. We then started back by 5:15 to the bus but traffic delayed us and we reached the Hotel only by 6:30. We were told of a good shopping area next door which turned out to be a local supermarket. Dinner at 8:15 was Chinese and according to me was the worst we have had (it wasn’t all that bad but after the excellent food we had eaten so far, it was below expectations). After chatting for some time, we are now retiring for the day.

Trip to Europe - Day 4 – Venice – Rome

2010-03-30T22:02:00.006+05:30

After breakfast, we started from NH hotel, Padova a little after 9 in the morning. It was a 45 minutes drive to Venice. We first Ponte della Liberta - a 4km bridge into Venice built by Mussolini across the Adriatic Sea, to reach Torcatto which was where our bus was to be parked. Since Venice is a city mainly made of multiple islands, the only mode of transport into it is through a boat, which we took to cross the Adriatic Sea and enter the Grand Canal. It was a 30 minute ride and we moving forward, we got out first glimpse of Venice and the numerous buildings.

Venice at first glance is very exciting as one travels from the Sea into the Canal with the various buildings on either side of the Canal. After docking, we walked across to the St Marks Square crossing the Bridge of Sighs on the way( This apparently gave a final view of Venice for the people who were about to be executed) and a hotel called Danieli (supposedly expensive although I couldn’t see what the fuss was all about) where Charles Dickens was said to have stayed. We finally reached the St Marks Square which according to Napoleon was the biggest banquet hall in Europe. At the entrance to the Square are two huge pillars made from single rocks brought from Constantinople (currently Istanbul). There was also a St Marks Basilica (who died in Egypt but was brought or rather smuggled into Venice to be laid at rest there) and St Mark's Campanile which is the Bell Tower.

We then went into a Murano Glass center where we were given a demonstration of how glass blowing and glass molding is done. The guy doing it took hardly a minute to make a horse and a vase, making it seemingly easy but it was obvious one needed years of training to make that. We were also shown some pieces of chalices, Chandeliers and many more items made of colored glasses which were for sale. The pick of them was definitely the ruby red chalice which was so pretty and eye catching and also very expensive due to the same reasons. We got a comparatively less expensive and smaller piece of work as a souvenir.

Next up was the Gondola ride. The Gondola was something which I have read and seen so many times that I have always wanted to do it. It was a good 30 minutes ride which was quite fun although not as romantic as portrayed in the movies. The Canal was dirty, the buildings old and rusted filled with algae. But if we ignore that, we would realize it was still an experience not to be missed. Following the ride, we had another hour which we spent roaming around the city. Weird thing about Italy is that rest rooms need to be paid to be used. We were told there was this McDonald’s where we can use it for free but we decided to chuck searching for one and instead went to have a really tasty Gelato which we all know is a popular ice cream from Italy. I have had a couple of Gelatos in India but like the Black forest cake, those tasted nothing like these which were completely mouth watering. We had 2 ice creams before starting back to the meeting point at 1:15. We were to start back by 1:15 but a delay by a few passengers pushed it to 1:30 and we were all starving for food.

It was 2 by the time we had lunch on top of which it was raining a bit which caused a bit of a problem since we were all eating in an open area with the food served from the caravan. Thankfully, the rain soo stopped while we had food and we started from Venice towards Rome by 3. It was a 6 hour journey the first couple of hours of which were spent sleeping. After a loo break and a refreshing tea, we spent the next couple of hours playing games and antakshari and needless to say it was a blast. This was followed by another 30 minute stop and the remaining 2 hours of our journey was spent watching a movie.

We reached the Holiday Inn by 9 and had dinner a few minutes later. So far the weather has been excellent and it has been raining mostly only during our travel and not during the sightseeing. Here is hoping we will have a bright and shiny day tomorrow especially since most of tomorrow and the day after will be spent on foot. Off to sleep now and hoping to catch atleast 7 hours of sleep tonight.

Trip to Europe - Day 3 – Mt.Titlis – Venice

2010-03-29T23:36:00.005+05:30

At first we had planned to start the day at 5 to give us an hour to look around the place but since we had already spent half an hour yesterday, we decided to chuck it and wake by 6. After breakfast at 7, we had another 40 minutes to spare so spent some more time roaming around. As we had wished, it was a beautiful day with the sun shining brightly on us. We started at 8 and went to a local church which the guide named the “Wow” church. Don’t get me wrong, it was very beautiful but so have the other churches that we have visited in the past few months (Weirdly enough I haven’t visited even a single temple after coming down to UK). We then proceeded towards Mt.Titlis.

The view as we climbed by the Cable Car was really Wow. There are no other words to describe it. We first took a 6-seater cable car to Trubsee which was probably the longest stretch taking us about 20-30 minutes. During this trip, for the first half of the trip, we got a good glimpse of Engelberg with all the houses and the buildings against a mountain back drop. The second half of the trip was even more scenic which had a view of a slowly first and then steeply rising slope filled with inches of a smooth blanket of snow and rows of Pine trees all over. It is difficult to explain in words but the sight of the dark green trees on the white snow against a number of snow-capped mountains was a sight to behold.

After finishing the first stretch, we took a bigger Cable Car (Capacity of 60 people) from Trubsee to the next higher level called the Stand. This was a 10 minute trip which took us to 8000 feet which is probably nothing compared to the height of
the mountains in India. Then again, I have not been to any of them and definitely not on a cable car so this was something worth remembering. The final cable car which is also called the Gondola is the first rotating cable car in the world. Funnily enough, when I heard rotating, I assumed the whole cable car will rotate but alas! I was disappointed. There was a roating floor which gave us 360 degree view. Anyway, the sight did keep getting better and better the more we climbed up. This was again a 5-10 minute ride which took us to the steeper looking slopes and we finally reached the height of 10000 feet.

The exit from the cable car took us into the first floor of a building. The second and the third floor housed restaurants and the fourth floor had a photo studio and also another set of steps to enter the terrace. We had fun clicking numerous pictures. It was extremely windy which made the snow fly all around us and the sun was quite bright. I tried to start a snow fight for which I most ingeniously removed my gloves to lift a handful of snow. Let us just say, the result wasn’t fun after a couple of minutes. My hand was so numb; I spent the next 20 minutes trying to bring heat into it not to mention I was worried about getting a frost bite.

We walked further up in the snow and came across the Ice flyer which was supposed to have been very exciting but wasn’t open due to heavy winds. It was opened after a couple of hours but unfortunately we had only a few minutes to start and we didn’t want to delay anyone. After spending a few minutes in the snow, seeing the landscape and admiring the beauty of nature, we went back to a restaurant to have a Hot chocolate. Some 10-15 minutes later (my numb hand received consciousness thanks to the holding the hot cup) we went to the photo studio to take a picture in a traditional Swiss outfit which came out quite pretty if I might say so. Apparently thanks to Yash Chopra, Indians make most of the tourist crowd in Switzerland which is evident from the fact that the photo studio had photos of many India stars gracing their desk.

This was followed by a trip into a Glacier cave which was quite cool (literally and figuratively). We had a few more minutes to spare so we went back to the
terrace and this time went further up to the highest view point possible from there. It was quite fun to walk up the thick snow and trek all the way up. We (by that I mean I) kept huffing and puffing to climb the top, the combination of heaving wind along with thick snow leaving me quite breathless. Finally, we reached the summit which was quite scary. There was this space which was without any foot prints (obviously for a reason) and me being the adventurous person I am decided to venture out there only to have my leg sink into a 2 feet deep snow with my jeans getting completely covered :). Anyway, after some time, we started from Titlis and came back to Engelberg by 12:20. We spent some time in a café having another cup of Hot Chocolate, bought a souvenir and started to the hotel for lunch.

After lunch, we took a stroll around Engelberg again and started towards Padova in Italy at around 2:15. We had hardly travelled for an hour before the driver stopped the bus due to some mechanical problems. Calling a local mechanic proved a problem for the driver who in spite of knowing 4 different languages could not get himself understood since he didn’t know either of the 2 languages that the mechanic was familiar with. What we assumed was 30 minutes for the mechanic to reach turned into 3 hours and instead of reaching Padova by 6:30, we started from there by 6:30. We were quite sleepy by the time we reached the hotel (having been delayed a bit again due to a low bridge which required a detour again) at 11:15. Thankfully, the driver refused to start before 9 the next day which meant we got an extra hour of sleep.

Trip to Europe - Day 2 - Black Forest - Rhine Falls - Luzern - Engelberg

2010-03-28T22:34:00.007+05:30

Woke up at 6 today and after having a black coffee and a bath, we started down by 7 for a continental breakfast after which we walked for a few minutes down the Road near the Hotel since we had more than 45 minutes to spare. We started from Strasbourg at 8:15, crossed the border and proceeded towards Drubba in the Black Forest region of Germany, which is the home of the famous Cuckoo clocks. Positive thing about the Schengan countries is that we need to get the immigration done only at the entry and exit point of the Schengan area. We passed through a small German village proceeding via the city of Freiburg before entering the Black forest region. Incidentally, Freiburg was one of the worst hit cities by the World War II. It is interesting to note that many churches around this region are dome shaped…the reason being these parts were all under the Turks a few centuries back.

As we exited Freiburg, we climbed the mountains to enter the Black Forest region and as expected the surroundings were quite beautiful with Linden trees (which apparently are being used to make the cuckoo clocks) on both sides. We passed a very small village whose name I do not know. But it was damn pretty. It had a stream flowing through it which I assume is the water from the mountains. Reminded me of this poem which I can’t remember :P. I think it is interesting to note that most of the houses we passed today looked like a dollhouse – Neat, compact, serene and uninhabited. The whole place was so romantic my heart wished I could stay there for long. Of course, me being a city girl, the chances of me liking such a quite place on the long run is quite remote.

We reached the Cuckoo Clock factory/shop in Drubba, where in addition to a demonstration of how it is made, we also had the option of buying the clocks and ship it back home. We also had a black forest cake there which I must say was really yummy with multiple flavors which included Chocolate, Cream, Jam, alcohol and nothing like the black forest cake I have had back in India. One side of the shop is shaped like a Cuckoo Clock which had a Cuckoo coming out through a top window every 30 minutes.

We left the place at quarter to eleven and resumed our climb. En route, we passed a ski jump and also a lake called Titisi (which was almost completely frozen) and a village called Lenkish followed by another one whose name I couldn’t remember. We crossed the Swiss border and after an hour, we reached the Rhine Falls. We had lunch at the Rhine Falls and did a mini trek to the Jetty to take a local boat ride closer to the falls. Rhine falls is quite a small one about 150 feet high ( although according to me it didn’t look higher than 50-60 feet. The boat ride was a good deal because we got to see the whole falls up close in addition to which it was a pleasurable experience watching and feeling the spray of water. From afar the flow didn’t look all that heavy but close it was very forceful with the boat swaying quite heavily. Forgot all about the nausea I had ever since we had the Black Forest cake.

From Rhine Falls we started at ten past two towards Zurich for a short City tour. We reached by 3:10 and took a walk down the Bahnhofstrasse which is a famous shopping area…to cater the needs of the rich and suited more for window shopping. A coffee at Starbucks followed by a 15 minute walk later, we went back to the bus for a short drive the Lake Zurich for a mini fountain show. We had tea and started by 5 for Lucerne and reached around quarter to 6.

We first went to the Lion Monument which is a sculpture by Bertel Thorvaldsen to remember the Swiss guards who were killed during the French Revolution. It can be noted that surrounding the Lion is the shape of a pig. Popular belief is that Thorvaldsen was not paid for this and hence he carved a pig surrounding the Lion sculpture (A bit petty if you ask me which is exactly what I would have done in his place :P). We were then given about an hour to roam around Lucerne which is a really pretty city. I am not sure if there is a lot to see in Luzern. We walked around the first on a 14-century wooden bridge called the Chapel Bridge (or Kapellbrücke). We also got our first glimpse of the Alps surrounding Lucerne and watching the snow capped peaks which we have read and heard so much about was amazing (The enthusiasm has been toned down a little since we will be climbing Mt.Titlis tomorrow which I am hoping will be even better).

We started by 6:45 to Engelberg which itself was a climb up the mountain. What was initially just a glimpse of one or two mountains turned into close-up view of multiple mountains surrounding us with snow covering the peaks giving them an ethereal look. We also came across a couple of very light waterfalls obviously from the melting of the snow. We even caught a glimpse of the cable which is supposed to be used by the cable cars to transport people to the top of the Mt.Titlis.

Having reached Ramada Hotel at 7:40 pm, we had another hour to kill before dinner which we spent walking around the town and getting the feel of the place and taking pictures. After that we went on to have dinner. It had been raining on and off from Luzern and hoping that is not the case (I am told bad weather could curb our climb up the mountains), I am going off to sleep now.

Trip to Europe - Day 1 - Brussels/Strasbourg

2010-03-27T22:26:00.005+05:30

We woke up really early today thanks to some really inconsiderate neighbors who start partying when the whole world is asleep. Anyway, having woken up by 2:30 am, we were ready and waiting for the cab which was to arrive at 4:15 am. The journey to London was quite uneventful and we reached our destination by 5 with more than 45 minutes to spare.

Of a total of 39 in the group (trip organized by Star Tours), about half got in from Wembeley and the rest from East Ham. We were introduced to our Tour guide Mr Adi Dalal and the driver Glynn. We then proceeded towards Folkestone to cross the Euro Tunnel by a train at 9:05 am. Breakfast was done in Folkestone and that was followed by immigration. This train journey is similar to a ferry where the bus went into the train and it took us about 45 minutes to reach the French port of Calais. From Calais we left for a place called Austin in Belgium for lunch. We had an Indian Chef in a caravan following us to provide us with Indian food each day for lunch and dinner…way cool since we had the really delicious food, food which we haven’t had the opportunity in the last 10 months. Having finished lunch and buying some Belgian Chocolates, we started to Brussels.

Brussels was not originally a part of the itinerary but it was an optional tour which each of us in the bus opted for. The drive to Brussels took a couple of hours and it is quite scenic. Most of the surrounding area looked like farms with luscious green meadows and animals grazing on them with the wind flowing softly and the windmills revolving slowly. The weather was good as well – very sunny with occasional clouds in the horizon (Should stop being poetic, I think).

Brussels, like most of Europe we have seen so far, is filled with many old buildings and stone roads. This was a whirlwind tour done mostly on the bus but we did make a
few stops. One was at the Grand Place which housed the Mayor’s Office, Broodhuis (or the Breadhouse) Grand Place which is currently the City Museum, the guild halls. There is also Le Cygne (The Swan) – the home of the former Butchers’ Guild – was frequented by Karl Marx. There is this statue of Everard t'Serclaes who was beheaded for some reason not known to me. According to legend if one rubs their arm their wishes will come true. Walking some 5 minutes further down is the teeny tiny statue of the Manneken Pis which shows a small boy peeing. This is apparently the symbol of Brussels which (no offense meant) is a weird thing to be considered a symbol of, if you ask me (I know no one asked my opinion but am still giving it).

We spent about an hour walking around, had a cup of coffee and bought a souvenir (Big surprise! It was of the Manneken Pis). On the way we also came across the St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral but didn’t go inside. From there we made a quick photo stop to the King’s palace followed by the atomium which is a monument built for the Brussels World’s fair shaped like an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times.

After a cup of tea, we proceeded towards Luxembourg, which is a small country in
western Europe. As we drove from Brussels, I couldn’t help noticing that Belgium has quite a large number of churches. I am not sure if the number is really high or if I get the feel coz the countryside is sparsely populated with farm houses and the church tower is the only thing tall enough to be visible from a distance. Love the countryside with hardly any people but filled with a million trees. If the start of spring is so beautiful with most of the tress hardly having any leaves, can’t wait till summer when everything will be in full bloom.

We reached Luxembourg at 6:50pm which was more of a small stop while the bus was getting gas…apparently gas along with cigarettes, is very cheap out there. We started from there by 7:20, crossed the border, followed by the France and Holland border. WE again entered France to reach the Holyday Inn at Strasbourg by 10. Early from the name, I had assumed Strasbourg to be in Germany but it apparently is in the French border, a few minutes from Germany.

A quick dinner later, we retired for the night by 11.A bit depressed actually since after having hardly any sleep yesterday night, we are to have only a few hours sleep thanks to the removal of Day light saving.

Trip to Paris - III

2010-01-25T20:39:00.003+05:30

Our final day in Paris. We were told we could check out around 7:30 am,so after having had breakfast again in the Hotel (this time I abstained from having croissants and stuck to toast and corn flakes) and settling our Hotel bill, we started back with our backpacks. Our agenda for the day was to spend half a day in the Louvre and afternoon at Sainte-Chappelle and Notre Dame Cathedral after which we planned to get back to Gare du Nord.

We started at around 8 and took the Metro line 2 to Palais Royal which was the stop for the Louvre. The station was on the right side of the Museum. Though the museum has multiple entrances, we decided to use the front entrance itself since it wasn’t all the crowded. I am assuming had it been a weekend or summer, the museum would have been way crowded. Anyway, we were also quite early and had to wait for about 10 minutes for the museum to open. While waiting we took a few snaps of the giant pyramid. Sometimes I wonder if I would have even known about Louvre if it weren’t for Da Vinci Code. Louvre sure owes Dan Brown some money they receive through tourists whose numbers I am sure would have increased thanks to the book.

There was a baggage check at the entrance. By the way, someone needs to tell the Louvre security guys that they need to not only scan the bags but also every person who comes in. Sadly they don’t check a person if he/she doesn’t have any baggage with them. After our baggage check, we were relieved to know that could dump our bags at a locker room to enjoy the exhibits in peace. Since we had the museum pass, we didn’t have to buy tickets but we decided to get an audio guide each for € 6 (they took a form of identification when we hired the audio guides. Thankfully Ram had his driver’s license). Thought this audio guide is not essential, it was nevertheless a good one for a person like me who has zero knowledge of art. So that done, our next stop Mona Lisa. I literally bit Ram’s head off until he agreed to visit Mona Lisa first :D

After some fumbling around… we went through the Greek antiquities first instead of the Italian Paintings and it is pretty much easy to get lost there. Thanks to our map and a bit of help from some museum staff, we found the Mona Lisa on the first floor of the Denon wing. In spite of being an art dud, would I say that Mona Lisa was the most beautiful painting I have seen? Nope. I like the rest wanted to see it mainly because of its popularity. I found far prettier paintings in the same room. One which strikes my mind is “The wedding Feast at Cana” by Veronese. This was supposedly the biggest painting in Louvre and Mona Lisa which was directly opposite to it was really tiny. Ironically, the crowd in front of Mona Lisa is far more than the crowd opposite any of the paintings.

Anyway, having seen the most famous painting in the Louvre, I felt it was time to actually enjoy some art. So we went around listening to the audio guide and getting information and backgrounds on a few paintings. When I entered Paris, I knew of maybe 3 or 4 popular artists like Da Vinci, Picasso, Michelangelo. Now I am glad to say that I have a few more names to be added to the list – Veronese, David, Rimini, Volterra, Poussin, Reni, Delacroix, Gericault to name a few. Though it would take a week to enjoy each and every piece of art in the Louvre, we are glad to that in the 3.5 hours we spent there, we covered most of the Italian and Spanish Paintings, Egyptian Antiquities, Greek and Roman Antiquities, Arts of Africa and Asia which covered most of the basement, ground and first floors.

Since we were almost finished with our planned time in the Louvre, we decided to head back. The only thing left was the inverted pyramid (DVC again). It was actually at the lower ground floor and technically outside the museum. Having seen that as well, we had lunch at a starbucks inside the Musuem complex and after picking up our luggage headed out towards Sainte-Chappelle.

On the River Seine, in the center of Paris are 2 tiny natural islands -Île de la Cité and Île Saint-Louis. On the Île de la Cité, there was a palace called Palais de la Cité which was the residence and seat of royal power from the 10th to the 14th centuries. This palace housed the Conciergerie and Sainte-Chappelle which are now a part of the Palace of Justice, the new function of the building. Sainte-Chappelle for some reason was closed when we reached at close to 2pm and we were told it might open in the next few minutes. A few minutes later, the chapel still being closed, we decided to start off to the Notre Dame Cathedral which was at a 5 minute walk.

Considered one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture, Notre Dame is a beautiful structure. We spent some 15-20 minutes inside the Cathedral and then walked back to Sainte-Chappelle hoping it was open and thankfully it was. Sainte-Chappelle has 2 floors – the lower chapel has a statue of the Virgin Mary at the portal. The upper chapel is a truly monumental and sumptuously decorated reliquary (Big words isn’t it? Flicked it from a pamphlet :D). This floor is filled with stained glass on all sides depicting stories starting from the Genesis to Apocalypse.

We were done there by close to 3 and since we had another 4 hours to go before our train back, we decided to make a unintended visit to the Conciergerie as well which was said to be one of the toughest of prisons. During the Reign of Terror, which was the most gruesome phase of the French revolution when thousands were guillotined, suspects where kept along with common prisoners who were mostly brought to trial and guillotined immediately. Anyway, you have an eerie feeling when you walk around listening to various stories on how the prisoners where treated in there especially during the revolution.

After coming out of the Conciergerie, we started back to Gare du Nord though techically we still had about 3 hours to go for a train. We took a RER B from St Michel which is just outside Notre Dame to Gare du Nord. Wierdest thing - Whe we exited the Nord station, we came out through a Metro station called La Chappelle and we came out, we actually realised, we werent in Gare Du Nord any more :D.Anyway walking some 10-15 minutes down the road lead us to the Gare du Nord station again. We checked in by around 5:30pm, boarded the train by 7:15 and we back at London at around 8:30. Took a train abck to Reading and we were home by 10. Another successful trip...wonder when the next one will be :P

Trip to Paris - II

2010-01-24T22:00:00.011+05:30

This day was dedicated to Versailles which is on the Zone 4 of Paris and takes around 25 minutes by train. From the research that I had done earlier on travel to Versailles, I found that we had to take a RER line C to Versailles-rive-gauche station. A bit of research on how to travel from La Defense to Versailles showed a combination of RER, tram and bus travel. Since this looked a bit confusing, we decided to ask the person at the Hotel desk again and he mentioned that there is a line which was not mentioned in the Metro map. He asked us to take a SNCF train from Courbevoie to La Defense and from there to Versailles-rive-droite.

After having a heavy breakfast at our Hotel, we started off by 7:30 am. When we reached the station, we found that there was a train from Courbevoie to Versailles-Rive Droite directly. Now I should have either listened to what Hotel guy said, or accepted what Ram said at face value when he mentioned this was station name. But being the know-it-all that I am, I argued with Ram that the station we needed to go was called Versailles-rive-gauche. So we took the train, got down in La Defense and decided to find from someone on how to get to Versailles.

Now here is the fun part – No matter which way we took, we were unable to get to the exit. One exit we found was locked and the rest were all entrances to another line. We found a bunch of young guys and asked them the direction but unfortunately, like most people we met, they didn’t understand what we said. So finally almost giving up hope, while wondering what to do, we found this lady giving some directions to another tourist. She told us what Ram was telling me all along – Take the train to Versailles-Rive Droite since it is in the same town and would just be a 5-10 minute walk to the Chateau. We again boarded the train going to Versailles-Rive Droite after having wasted 20 minutes. And surprise! surprise! In one of my notes, I had noted down that we can take trains to 3 different stations (Versailles-rive-gauche, Versailles-Chantiers and Versailles-rive-droite) to reach Versailles estate. Unlike me, Ram is too much of a gentleman to say “I told you so”. But we reached the station by 8:45 am, 15 minutes ahead of the opening time.

As we exited the station, we found a sign pointing us to the Versailles on the left direction. We walked for 10 minutes on the same road until we came across a Chateau Sign pointing to the right. So finally we reached the Chateau just as it was opening up. We initially assumed that the Museum pass gives us entry to all in the Versailles Estate – The Chateau, The Gardens, Grand Trianon, Marie Antoinette Estate. But it was also mentioned in a website that the audio guide for the Chateau was not a part of this and we had to buy it separately for € 6. Luckily for us, we were told that this pass included the audio guide.

After getting the Audio Guide, we started in the Chateau and as we passed from one room to another, starting from the Royal Chapel, Hercules, Venus, Diane, Mars, Mercury, War and Peace Drawing rooms, we found the sheer magnificence quite staggering. Each of these rooms is filled with murals on the ceilings, statues, portraits and antiquities. We come across the Hall of mirrors which is another awe-inspiring room with 17 huge arched mirrors which face 17 windows overlooking the gardens in addition to many chandeliers and Candelabras in gilded wood. Everything in the Chateau reflects extravagance that no wonder, as Ram jokingly said, the French Revolution occurred.

It took about 2 hours to finish the entire Chateau and it was followed by a break when we had coffee along with this yummiest bread we had ever tasted. It had started drizzling a bit but not that it deterred us in any way. The rain with a bit of mist gave the Chateau and the gardens surrrounding it an ethreal look. We started our way across the Garden to the Grand Trianon built by Louis XIV for his mistress. Grand Trianon opens only at noon so we had to wait a couple of minutes for that. Although not as grand as the Chateau in size or décor, this was nevertheless rich in its own way. It hardly took us 30 minutes to visit the place after which we started off to Marie-Antoinette’s estate which comprised of the Petit Trianon and the Queen’s hamlet.

The Queen was said to have loved this place which was her retreat from the etiquette of Versailles. The Queen’s hamlet was recreated to reflect the country side with a farm, Boudoir, Mill, Barn, Dovecote and so on. Marie-Antoinette’s estate was renovated only recently and open to public from 2006. By the time we walked around the estate, it was around 2pm so we decided it was time we had some lunch.

Let me tell you something about food for Vegetarians in Paris. It is difficul to find. We survived most of the 3 days on mainly on croissants and a couple of pizzas. We first tried this café in Petit Trianon where we could only find a muffin which was vegetarian. That place did not have a salad that was vegetarian. We had the muffin to sustain us for a few minutes, started walking back and reached the Grand Canal on the Gardens, where there was this Italian restaurant and we ended up with a vegetarian Pizza. After lunch, we decided to visit the garden which was the only thing left to do in the estate. Now, if there was one mistake in visiting the place in winter, it was this. There was hardly anything left of the Gardens and what I am sure would be spectacular was merely wood and dry leaves. With the gardens in it full glory, we would have spent about 1.5 hours but since there was nothing to see there, we were had a bit of free unplanned time in our hands.So having nothing much to do, we started back at 4 to the chateau where we had a cup of coffee and browsed through our books to wonder what we could do for the rest of the day.

Since it was already 4, visiting any place was off the window since it would take us at least an hour to reach the city and most places close by 6. I was already really exhausted by then so I suggested we just go back to the hotel and stay put for some time and then have dinner. We passed a subway in Versailles but since it was 4, we thought it was probably too early to think about dinner. We only wished we had trusted our instincts. We came back to the hotel by 5-ish and thought of buying some food to take back to the room for dinner. The only problem was, it being a sunday there were hardly any restaurants open (we wondered if they would open after 7 or so but we were not to sure) so we ended up buying a couple of croissants each from a bakery opposite to our hotel. That along with a glass of juice in the mini-bar was our dinner :D.

Though our check out was at 12 for the next day, we decided to check out when we started for the day since the Hotel was totally out of our way and all the places we were to visit for the day were in the center of Paris. So we finished packing our stuff and called it a night by around 9.

Trip to Paris - I

2010-01-23T22:00:00.014+05:30

Paris- Our first Schengan trip. Took us so long to plan since initially we had come with only a 4 month visa and had to wait for it to get extended. And then one trip which we had planned got cancelled which finally made us decide we might as well make a trip in January to get our Schengan Visa. Getting a visa was relatively easy since we went through this agency called Visa First. Before getting the visa, we needed to get our travel(we did it through Eurostar) and stay confirmation. It is at times like this that I realize why people are desperate to get US/UK citizenship. They do not require any tourist visa for most of the countries.

On the day of our travel, we had an early start with our Eurostar having been booked for 6:25 am which meant that we had to start from Reading at least a couple of hours earlier to ensure there are no last minute rushes. Had to take a cab though since the earliest train was only at 4 and it was likely to take at least 1.5 hours to reach the station which would be cutting it close. One might wonder why we chose such an early train…but believe me this seemed like the best option we had. Had we chosen to take a later train, we would have hardly had much time for sightseeing. The other option was of course starting a day early which unfortunately we couldn’t since Ram had to take some extra time off work which he wasn’t too keen on.

We reached the St Pancras (or St Pancreas as I keep pronouncing all the time…wonder why :P) quite early by 5:15 am and had to wait about 15 minutes for the gate to open up. The whole security check and immigration was done within a matter of minutes after which we had to wait for the boarding. Had a coffee and a light snack to sustain us for the next couple of hours since we planned to have breakfast as soon as we reached Paris. We reached Gare du Nord Paris by around 9:45 am and we realized we didn’t have to go through an immigration check again.

Our plan after getting to Gare du Nord was to first get the Metro and Museum pass and then check into the hotel. I would say the time we went to Paris was probably the best time to go. It wasn’t very cold and since it wasn’t a touristy season, the crowd was way lesser than can be expected especially at a place like Louvre.

Initial research from various web sites suggested buying a PARIS VISITE pass which gives unlimited access to all the transport systems available in Paris (Metro, RER, SNCF, bus, Tram along with a few discounts on entrances). This pass could be bought either for zones 1-3 or zones 1-6 for single day or multiple days. We bought the ticket for zone 1-6 (€ 40.50) for 3 days since we had planned a trip to Versailles, which is on zone 4, the next day. Of course a cheaper option would have been buying zone 1-3 ticket for one day and zone 1-6 tickets for the next 2 days….but frankly it might have become a bit confusing (I am sure it is, even as you read it) so we decided against it.

We also decided that we were going to buy a museum pass at € 32 for 2 days. This was more effective since all the places we planned to cover the second and third day were covered by the museum pass (Versailles, Louvre, Notre Dame, Sainte- Chappelle) and not only was it cheaper but it also saves us the time of queuing up for the tickets. It would have probably been even more cheaper had we not spent a day and half in Versailles and Louvre combined and instead made it to the millions of monuments and museums present in Paris.

If I am not wrong, there is this counter in the St Pancras station after immigration is done where we can buy both the Paris Visite and Museum Pass. Not only is it easier as far as the language is concerned it also saves times while waiting to board. It didn’t occur to us what the counter was for until we boarded the Eurostar so we had to buy them at Gare du Nord. It took us sometime to get used to the station and the directions not that it was very difficult to decipher. But it can be noticed that there are only a few directions mentioned in English. From what we could decipher, we realized the Information/Ticket counter was on the floor below, which was easy to find once we got down, since there was this counter saying Tickets :D. Only issue was we weren’t sure if we could get the Visite Pass there.

Anyway, after waiting for some 10 minutes in the queue (during which time I was telling Ram about my expertize in French which is about 4 words in all much to the amusement of a British couple in front of us), we realized that luckily we were in fact in the right one when we noticed the Paris Visite sign inside the ticket counter. We bought our pass - It was a black colored card along with a white coupon with a magnetic strip (it took us a minute to realize that the black colored card was just a cover and the actual ticket was this tiny coupon) on which we had to write our name, a number found on the card and the date of the journey. It’s not an absolute must since no one checked it but I assume it is in case we need to track the ticket if we lost it. We were also told that the Museum pass will be sold at the tourist information office for which we had to climb up again and it was found close to the entrance. For those who don’t have a card, you can’t buy the pass here, since they don’t take cash due to security concerns. The Pass starts being valid from the time we use it so we can buy it a day or even a few days in advance if possible.

After that was done, we planned to check into our Hotel and start the Day 1 sight-seeing after lunch. We had taken all the directions with us like how to travel from Gare du Nord to our Hotel. The print out in our hand showed we had to first take the RER D line to Chatelet-Les Halles from where we take the RER A to La Defense. Though we had everything we needed, it still took some time to get our bearings right. It took me sometime to understand what to look for in the Metro Map...Somehow the London Metro seems like a piece of cake compared to this. We went to the Chatelet-Les Halles station but had to search for the RER A line. But thanks to a friendly French man, who in spite of not speaking much English showed us the directions via actions, we were able to get to the correct line to get to the train which took us to La Defense station.

According to the directions (Thanks to Google Map) we had, it was a 20 minute walk from the station to Hotel George Sand in Courbevoie where we were to spend the next 2nights. With some effort and a couple of missed turns, we found the Hotel in around 20-25 minutes. But we realized that walking that distance is probably not the best option especially since we also knew there was another station Gare de Courbevoie which was just a minute away from the Hotel. We learnt from the staff in the reception that the best option is to take a SNCF train from Gare de Courbevoie to La Defense (If I am not wrong almost all trains in Courbevoie passes through La Defense as well) and then take another train from La Defense to wherever we wanted to go to.

We checked into the Hotel George Sand by around 12:15pm. The room we were allotted to was not all that big. It was quite tiny match box type room with a double bed taking up most of the space and a foot gap surrounding the bed to walk around the room. The bath was also tiny but since all we needed was a room to dump our luggage, sleep and bath, it was more than enough. Moreover, it was very clean and I guess very convenient in terms of location. Most importantly thanks to the off season we paid around € 85 a night which was almost half the original price. So it was a good bargain overall.

Phew!!! Just 12:30pm and already felt like a day had passed and weirdly enough we hadn’t even started yet. We had lunch at a nearby Pizza place.

Our first visit was to the Eiffel Tower. We took a SNCF train from Gare du Courbevoie to La Defense and RER A to Charles de Gaulle Etolle from where we took the line 6 metro to Bir-Hakeim. As we closed in on to the station (it was an over ground track), we could see the first glimpse of the Tower. To say I was awed was an understatement. For some reason, none of the iconic places we have visited so far had that effect on me. I realized that the reason was simple…this was a structure which I have read about in books and seen pictures from since I was a kid and I was actually near it. It took us 5 minutes to walk from the station (we realized we didn’t need the directions to the Tower since almost everyone was walking towards it and with the sheer size of it, it was very unlikely that we would get lost :P).

From what we checked earlier, we realized that unfortunately for us the top most floor of the tower was closed for a couple of weeks and that we were allowed access to only the first and the second floors. Since the queue for the stairs was smaller and since we assumed that second floor would not be that big a deal, we took a ticket to the stairs (€ 4.5) and then realized that when they mean first floor they actually meant Level 1 which technically is close to 20 floors and 300 odd steps and second floor is technically the 43rd floor which takes 700 odd steps to climb. Now, I would have loved to know the facts before hand. I was breathless by the time we climbed the first floor and when we reached the second floor for a few minutes my leg failed to move :D. Although you can say the view made up for the effort we put on the climb, I sat for a few minutes since I could not move at all. After clicking a few (Read: many) pictures and buying a few souvenirs from the shop on the second floor, we climbed down.

The next stop was to Trocadéro which gives the best view of the Eiffel Tower from the opposite of the Seine River. It took around 10 minutes to walk to Trocadéro. Btw, beware of the Hawkers there, trying to sell souvenirs in the 5 minute region around the Tower. They can be a pain on the backside and do not let you photograph the Eiffel Tower in peace. As mentioned, Trocadéro does give a beautiful view of the Eiffel Tower which was all the more beautiful as the tower was looming with against a cloudy sky.

From Trocadéro we were to go to Arc de Triomphe which is an Arch which honors those who fought for France. Though it was about 20 minutes by walk, we decided to take a metro from Trocadéro to Charles de Gaulle which is about a minute walk to Arc de Triomphe. We had an option of getting on top of the Arch but decided to forgo that. For those who do not know, this Arch is at the western end of Champs-Élysées which is one of the most prestigious avenues in Paris. We walked down the Avenue for around 20 minutes and then took a metro to Louvre Rivoli from where we walked down to a bridge called Pont Neuf (Having a light dinner on the way) to do a Seine River Cruise which we were told was a must do thing... We did it through this cruise company called Les Vedettes du Pont Neuf which gave us a 1 hour tour for € 12.

There was a English/French commentary as well although we did not hear half of it since we were on the outside of the Cruise soaking in the various monuments. If I was awed by the Eiffel Tower the first time I saw it, I was even more awed by the look of the tower which was lighted with Sodium vapor lamps and in addition, for a brief period of time, there were flashing lights as well. There are also some searchlights which make the tower look like a Light House. We also got the view of some of the other monuments like the Pantheon, Notre Dame, Louvre, etc. We were done with the cruise by 6:45 pm after which we took a metro 5 from Pont Neuf to Palais Royal from where we took the metro 2 to La Defense and then an SNCF to Courbevoie. We were back at our Hotel at 7:30pm and after a cup of Hot Chocolate decided to Call it a night.

A new year has come

2010-01-03T19:35:00.001+05:30

Another year has gone and what an year it has been…Every year I wish I can make myself more efficient and laze around less...Its just a wish and not a resolution coz we all know how resolutions are like but I realized changing the word doesn't bring in a change in my attitude :).

New year wasn't anything major to talk about...We stayed at home,saw a bit of fireworks on TV, wished each other New Year and went off to sleep :D

The last year has been fantastic in a lot of ways.I got married and for someone who loved her independence I should say I am totally loving my life now.

I visited many countries - 5 according to me but Ram says England, Scotland and Wales shouldn't be treated as 3 separate countries...I don't listen since 5 sounds cooler than 3 :P.

I started cooking...and I don't want anyone to think I am bragging but I am a pretty decent cook. Even if no one thinks, at least 2 in my family think so. Ram and me...although Ram doesn't have much of a choice and for that matter neither do I.

Weirdly enough, my movie watching has reduced greatly and I hadn't watched movies for almost 5 months which knowing me everyone would know is totally strange. Me, who goes to any stupid movie releasing a weekend irrespective of how good or bad the reviews are. Anyway on a happier note I saw 3 movies in one week
3 Idiots - Loved the movie...found it hilarious...didn't even think of FPS(unfortunately the book though was interesting when I read it for the first time hasn't left any lasting impression for me to remember it over the 4/5 yrs that went past). Anyway I went to see how good the Raju Hirani - Aamir combination was and I was happy to say I came back with a sore throat after all the laughter
Avatar - Now this movie has been receiving so much hype it was a definite movie to watch for me. Watching it I realized over hyped movies always lets us down..No offense it was a visual treat...but the crux of the story is like any other - you have the good guys and the bad guys...the bad guys send a spy in the good guys camp..the spy eventually falls in love (it almost always happens that the lady in question would be the daughter/sister of the head of the group) and then leads them to victory. Without the 3D, its just another movie
Sherlock Holmes - This was an awesome movie with good humor..completely different from the Holmes Ive been reading about...actually strike that..I wont say completely different but this holmes seems more human

Trip to Scotland - Day 3: Beauly/Black Isle/Cromarty

2009-08-31T14:35:00.005+05:30

We started this day with a wonderful breakfast at the B&B and set off to the Bus station. Scottish Tours had already arranged for us to have our luggage placed in the locker room of the bus station. The plan was that we would be taken to the towns of Beauly, Black Isle and Cromarty at 9:45 am.

We started towards the pretty little town of Beauly which means beautiful place in French. There is this old Priory in Beauly and we also spent some time at the information center buying a couple of picture post cards and this Scottish folk tune CD. In case I hadn’t mentioned earlier, I have really loved the sound of the Bagpipes for a very long time. There is something haunting about the music from the instrument which makes me want to listen to it over and over again.

From Beauly, we started by 11 towards Cromarty passing the Black Isle. Black Isle is a peninsula and there are numerous beliefs about the source of the name one of which is that its soil is Black in color. We were to spend some time dolphin spotting at the Moray Firth but our driver (I think his name is Robbie) mentioned that the tide was unsuitable and it was very unlikely that the Dolphins would actually come to the Firth. Though a bit disappointed (not too much coz it wasn’t the highest on our priorities then) we reached Cromarty by 12:15 and had about an hour to explore. This is again a very small town we went to this ancient courthouse and a small Chapel after which we had lunch. The remaining time was spent just walking around the streets all of which eventually led us to the Firth of Forth. Firth or an estuary has water from rivers or lakes flowing into it which is connected to the open sea.

We started from Cromarty by 1:20 and reached Inverness by 2. Since we had already finished lunch, we just spent a few minutes going to the market to get some souvenir. We also got a book on the History of Scotland which fascinated us thanks largely to the information provided during the tour.

By 4:15, we were to start back to Edinburgh and this time, we were taken on another route via Perth where we were to have dinner and then to Edinburgh. The weather on our way back wasn’t as kind as it had been during the 3 days since it started raining a bit heavily. We were really happy the rains didn’t put a damper to our trip. The audio commentary continued till the very end and since this was a different route, we got some new information as well…

Through the past 2 days, a few names were frequently mentioned aside from Mary, Queen of Scotts and the Highlanders – William Wallace, Rob Roy Macgregor, Bonnie Prince Charlie or the young pretender. William Wallace is perhaps popular among us thanks to the popular movie Brave Heart. He is said to be a great leader who successfully led the Scots during their war against the English for independence. Of course eventually, he lost, betrayed, captured and executed. Bonnie Prince Charlie was the grandson of King James II who along with many supporters of his clan (called the Jacobites) comprised largely of the highlanders tried unsuccessfully to claim the throne.

This information relayed to us kept in addition to the scenic beauty of the place kept us occupied throughout the trip. We also had a glimpse of the Blair Castle and made a stop at Perthshire has mentioned before for dinner. After dinner, we resumed our journey and reached Edinburgh at 8. Since we were to take our written bus back to London at 10pm from the same Bus station, we didn’t have to move out of there. Of course we had to wait only an hour since by 9, it was mentioned that there were going to be four buses back to London and as and when one bus filled, it started. Thanks to our early arrival, we were able to start by 9:20 and reached London at 5:30 and were back at Reading by 7.

I am sure no number of adjectives will be enough to describe the beauty of Scotland especially with my limited dictionary. Although I am sure there will be a million other places which are probably better than Scotland, I would definitely say this is one of the most beautiful places rich in both beauty and history. The only regret we had was that we just had 3 days there. And yeah! a big thumbs up to Scottish Tours as well :))))

Trip to Scotland - Day 2: Loch Ness and Inverness

2009-08-30T04:25:00.012+05:30

Since we had to report for the Scottish Tours bus at 8:00 am at the Bus station, we decided to start from the Hotel by 6:50 there by giving us time for a cup of coffee and breakfast. If you remember correctly, we were a bit doubtful about the Scottish Tours(http://www.scottishtours.co.uk/) but a part of our concern which was if the tour actually will operate was laid to rest when we saw this particular stand in the station which displayed the timings for the tour departure. Anyway, our breakfast (actually breakfast is an overstatement) was one bagel.

After that we reached the bus station by 7:45 and saw this whole queue of people (mostly comprising of Indians) standing in the Stance we were supposed to board from. Of course, fortunately in this case we were allotted the seats and our driver (If I am not wrong by the name Andrew) took us through what to expect. I must say that right from boarding the bus, it was quite evident that this was a well organized tour. They gave us each an earphone which right from the start of journey gave us a good audio commentary. The bus was fitted with a GPS system and the commentary was made in such a way that we got the history/background of the place we were currently close to. This was one of the most wonderful highlights of the tour.

We started from Edinburgh towards Glen Coe. Needless to say the whole journey was picturesque with hills, lakes and forest all through. And the best part was that not once during the trip did we get bored. A bit of a Gaelic lesson since we will come across these words very often: Ben is Gaelic for Mountain, Loch is Gaelic for Lake and Glen is Gaelic for Valley. We crossed the Stirling Castle and reached this small town called Tyndrum where we had a coffee break. We came across a Loch named Lochy on our way(pretty cool ,eh?) We were told in advance that in order to cover the places, we will not have much time for lunch. From Tyndrum, we went across numerous beautiful sights (the history of most which I don’t remember) and then reached Glen Coe. I am not sure how many are familiar with Scottish History (I wasn’t until this trip…I really should said the tour guys did their job well).

King Charles II, a Protestant, was left without an heir due to which is Roman Catholic brother James II was made his heir. Although there was resentment with a Protestant being the king, it was eventually accepted hoping that after James, his heir will be his daughter Mary II who was a Protestant and married to William III, Prince of Orange, another Protestant. Unfortunately, James II married to a Catholic who gave birth to a baby boy, thereby making a Catholic the heir to the throne. This led to overthrowing and exiling James II and making his daughter and son-in-law joint Monarchs. It was said that many highlanders supported James II but William III offered pardon to the Highlanders if they take an oath of allegiance. The Highland chiefs asked James for permission to take the oath but were not given that until the last minute.

The MacDonalds chief set out to Fort Willam to take the oath but lack of a magistrate there forced him to go to Inveraray where he was further delayed by 3 days to take the oath. Anyway, it was said that the oath along with a letter for the reason for the delay was sent across to the King but John Dalrymple, Master of Stair removed the letter with the reason. This led the King to give orders to attack Glen Coe. For this, they took the help of Campbells who were another Highland Clan. The Campbells entered Glen Coe for shelter and on the specific day massacred about 40 people of which the MacDonalds Chief was one. This gave the name “Valley of the Weeping” to Glen Coe.

Also, the tours gave us this additional optional of Urquhart Castle and a Loch Ness cruise with an added 13 pound per head. The bus reached Urquhart Castle at 1 pm. There is something really romantic and serene about a castle which though in ruins, is filled with greenery and on the banks of a lake. In addition, it has hills on all the sides. How can it be anything but beautiful? See for yourself. We had time till 2:30 to check out the castle after which, a Jacobite cruise took us to Clansman Harbour which was where we were to be joined by our bus and continue our trip back.

The cruise again was a wonderful experience and for once I actually stopped clicking (the reason also could be coz there were millions on board who were making a heck of a noise trying to get pictures).
In spite of the chaotic atmosphere inside the cruise, I was able to block out most of them and really enjoy the serene atmosphere on the outside. If there is one thing I loved doing alone, it was going to the beach and losing myself looking into the sea and beyond the horizon. Of course I was also trying to look out for Nessie. By the way for those who assume Nessie is a pet, you are way off the mark. Nessie has the locals call it is a legendary monster supposedly inhabiting the Loch Ness. Though there is no proof that Nessie actually exists with popular belief being that it comes twice a day - 5 minutes before you arrive and 5 minutes after you leave. Anyway, like a million others before me, I wanted to see if the legend was indeed true although I didn’t have much time to spare.

After the cruise was done, we started back on our bus and this time towards Inverness which we reached by 3pm. Since we planned on a 2-day trip, we were to spend a night at Inverness. When we entered, the driver said he was going to leave us for a day and I was wondering who was going to let us know about our accommodation…only to be met by another of the Scottish tours personnel. She gave us this envelope which basically contained all information right from the B&B we were to stay to when we need to take our bus back to Edinburgh. They had a taxi arranged for us to take us to the B&B we were to stay. Once we got settled in this B&B called Duncraig Villa, the hostess gave us this map of the town. We realized that the bus station was actually less than a 10-minute walk from the B&B.

Inverness comes from a Gaelic word Inbhir (Inver) Nis (Ness) which means at the mouth of the River Ness. Inverness is the capital of the Highlands. We took a long walk along the River Ness Path which led us to a very small but pretty island called the Ness Island. The whole walk took us about an hour but it was a really really pretty and wonderful walk. Finally after that, we weren’t very hungry but still decided we will have something light at this Indian restaurant called Shapla Tandoori Restaurant. We came out without eating anything coz in this restaurant, we are not allowed to eat how much we want. Apparently, they will not serve us if we don’t order food less than 11 pounds per person (totally sucks I must say considering this was not mentioned anywhere when we entered and was included in the last page of the menu. I would personally not recommend anyone to that restaurant . The prices were high which I would still not comment on but the workers there need a serious reality check if they want to continue doing business(Of course they might say they have been in business for over 30 years and have done well) since the workers were were stiff and snobbish. They were polite with words but hardly with their actions. Made me wonder if we were the customer or they were. We ended up in a Chinese restaurant and went off to sleep by 9.

Except for that small incident at the Indian restaurant, it was over all a great day. And everyone from the Scottish Tours driver to the hostess at B&B was very friendly and polite.

Trip To Scotland - Day 1: Edinburgh

2009-08-29T03:43:00.008+05:30

We started from Reading yesterday at around 8 though our bus was only at 11 since we didn’t want to hurry at the last minute. Thankfully everything went without a hitch. Train from Reading taken at 8:05 reached London Paddington at around 8:30pm. It felt a bit cold so we took and hot chocolate from the station after which we took a tube to Victoria. That went on smoothly as well and we reached Victoria railway station by around 9 – 9:15. The Bus station was about 5 minutes from there and we reached the station well in advance which was in my opinion just as well. Since it was a long weekend, there were 2 buses to Edinburgh and the first bus got filled by 10:30 and we started immediately which was 30 minutes before the scheduled departure. Weird thing about buses here - There are no specific allocated seats…So it is basically first-come first-serve basis.

I wouldn’t call the bus journey comfortable. For that matter I doubt any overnight journey will be for me because I have this weird habit of never sleeping while travelling – bus/train/plane – they all make me stay wide awake. On top of that during the 7-odd hr journey, there were 2 stops for 15 minutes with 2 hour interval which is necessary since it was getting progressively cold and the drivers did need some rest and a coffee break. By 5:30, I lost any hope of sleeping but by then the sun had almost risen and I was spell bound by the beauty of Scotland. I then decided that if that was the pre-cap of what was to expect in the next 3 days, the trip has to be exciting. The landscape all around was really beautiful.

We reached Edinburgh at around 6:30 which was more than an hour before the scheduled arrival time. As I had mentioned before, we planned to freshen up at the station in the morning. Of course a few dozen other people had the same idea…but thankfully we were one of the firsts. Anyway, the next thing we needed was a cup of coffee. We searched everywhere near the bus station…there was even this mall with a food court in which we were the sole occupants. I guess Sunday at 6:45 is not a time food courts open up :D . Anyway after getting a cup of coffee in McDs, we decided to check out to see if there was any breakfast place to have a nice heavy breakfast but as mentioned before, no place was open. So we ended up at the railway station (locating these places were not difficult since we were armed with my directions map and Rams compass) and had some croissant sitting in the East Princes Street Garden.

By the way, did I mention it was frigging cold there? And we had just the jackets with us. Since we were in the City Center and this Garden was right opposite to Marks & Spencer which opened at 8:30 and our first stop was at the Edinburgh Castle which didn’t open until 9:30, we decided to get a couple of thermal vests for us which we knew would be helpful in the Highlands. By the time we came out of M&S, it was 9:15 and we began our walk to the Edinburgh Castle which is on top of the Castle hill…Whoever thought of building a castle on top of a hill, which albeit small was a bit steep, was a sadist. Of course, one can argue that added to the defense of the castle but who cares how things were then? :P

The Castle itself is a magnificent structure but I didn’t completely enjoy it because it was very crowded. Anyway, the tickets to the castle cost 33 for the two of us and we spent the next half an hour listening to one of the tour guides explaining the history of the Castle. One name that we heard in the Castle and later throughout our journey was about Mary, The Queen of Scots. She was this typical example which emphasis that power and money bring misery and enemies. Hers was a colorful and sad life story. The winds were making the climate pretty cold which promptly made us enter a coffee shop within the castle (I have the feeling the first thing they do when they decide to open a castle to public is allocate a room for a coffee shop…not that I am complaining). Since it was close to 10:45, we decide to spend a maximum of another 30-40 minutes there and walk the Royal Mile next. Of course no trip to a castle is complete until we buy souvenirs. We also visit this war memorial inside the castle along with the birth room of James VI(son of Mary, Queen of Scots).

We then started walking the Royal Mile. FYI – Royal Mile is a mile long street which starts from the Edinburgh Castle and ends at the Holyrood Palace which is the Scottish home of the Queen. It took us about 30 minutes to walk to the Palace due to the crowd and we took tickets of 10 pound each into the palace. There was this combined ticket to the Queens Gallery as well which would come at 14 per person but since we were a bit short of time, we decided against it. The Holyrood Palace was also a beautiful Palace but not awe-inspiring. With the help of the Audio commentary, we were taken across to the Palace which was once occupied by Mary, The Queen of Scots. The Palace and the gardens took about an hour after which we crossed across to the Scottish Parliament and went into the Chamber.

It was about 2 by the time we came out, and after having a sandwich lunch, we took a Lothian bus (we took an all day pass since we were planning to make another trip back to the city center) 26 to the Edinburgh Zoo which was next door to the Holiday Inn we had booked our room in. We checked into the room by 3, by then needless to say we were exhausted a bit first with the lack of sleep and also with the walking we did the whole day. We took a couple of hours rest, freshened up and then went back to the city center to have dinner. This was at an Indian restaurant near St Andrews Square which was quite good. After dinner, although the plan was to take a stroll, the cold winds made us head back to the room and since we had a comparitvely early start the next day, we decided to call it a day.

Trip to Scotland - Pre-visit

2009-08-28T15:10:00.002+05:30

Scotland or to be more specific, Edinburgh was one of the places which Ram wanted to visit (him having already visited the place once) once we reached England. We knew it would be good to have more than a weekend to visit the place, and since we had the 2nd Bank Holiday for the year coming up in August, we decided that was as good a time as any to visit the place. Since this was a long weekend, and the probability of rooms getting filled was high, we decided to book everything well in advance…about a month before the actual trip. A month before is not a big deal but believe me waiting for something you have been eagerly awaiting for is painful.

First on the list was picking and booking the mode of travel. Edinburgh is at least 8 hours from Reading and since the timings of the trains were not being convenient, we decided to take a bus. Although bus is probably not the most comfortable of journeys it takes comparatively lesser time and the time it reaches Edinburgh was also convenient. Of course the fact that it is 1/3rd the cost of the train tickets helped as well. The National Express tickets we took were from London Victoria which meant we had to take an additional train ticket from London to Reading as well.

Once the tickets were booked, we then decided to book the accommodation as well. The plan was to take a bus on reaching Edinburgh on 29th August morning and returning to Reading on 1st of September. Although we did have to freshen up in the morning, booking a hotel just for that when we were going to spend the rest of the day sightseeing seemed a bit too much. So instead of taking a room from Saturday morning, we decided to check into a hotel Saturday afternoon so that we would only have the expense of one night.

If we took a room for just one night, then what did we do for the next day, one might wonder….thing is a few hours of browsing brought us to this site called http://www.scottishtours.co.uk/ and we decided to take a 2-day tour (Inverness, Loch Ness and the High Lands) from them where they provide us with accommodation for one night. Believe me when I say we hardly found much information about the Scottish tour guys on the net. So we weren’t even sure if they were genuine or not or even if they would provide good service. But the site and the details on it seemed quite good as we decided to go with it since we didn’t have many options to decide on.

With this we had everything done…travel to and from Edinburgh and a 2-day tour. This left us with just the part of covering what has to be done on the day we land in Edinburgh. We weren’t too worried coz we knew there is this Hop on – Hop off bus in Edinburgh but checking the bus tour, we realized that most of the places in the tour are about 5 min walk from each other so there wasn’t much point taking the bus. So I spent the last 3-4 days digging up directions to the places starting from the Bus station to the remaining places.

Now that all the planning is done, only thing left is for us to actually go on the trip….and hope that everything especially the Scottish tours (from whom we haven’t heard anything ever since our booking was done, I must add) we are starting today for the trip.

PS: As always, though I am writing the blog long time after the trip is done, I prefer putting it against the appropriate days

Trip to Wales - Day 2

2009-08-16T03:53:00.003+05:30

The first thing Ram suggested when we woke up in the morning was to also try and visit the castle called Castell Coch about which we saw in one of our guide books. The previous day was nothing great to talk about. I would not say it was a bad day coz we did enjoy a lot during the last 3-4 hours in the Cardiff Bay and later Bute Park. But other than that the day was a bit wasted. Anyway, at 8, we started from our room and headed to the Cardiff Central to get breakfast (there was hardly any open anywhere else). After having some coffee and croissants, we also booked tickets to Caerphilly having decided we would either take the 12:05 or the 2:05 train.

By 8:45 we were back near the Cardiff castle waiting for the counter to open so that we can get on with our sightseeing. We went in as soon as the counter opened which was fun since we were the only ones other than the staff in the castle grounds. Unfortunately, we had forgotten that the HOHO tickets that we got also included a free entry into the castle which we didn’t realize until the last minute. The castle and the grounds on the whole is a magnificent piece of work. Who would have believed looking at high walls all around the castle from the outside that the inside takes us to a completely different timeline. After what seemed like minutes but was actually an hour, we decided to first go to the information center before going to the Cardiff Museum.

Since we had no idea about Castell Coch, we enquired about it at the information center and were given a pamphlet which gave us the bus route timing and boarding point. According to the information we had, on Sunday we had a bus every 5 minutes past each hour from 10 to 5 with the return being every 37 minutes past the hour till 6:37 at 3.20 GBP per person. Also, there was a mention about taking a cheaper option wherein we can combine both Castell Coch and Caerphilly Castle for pound 6. Anyway, having already bought our tickets to Caerphilly, we decided against clubbing both.

We had 2 options – Go to Castell Coch at 11:05, comeback by the 12:37 bus, take a train to Caerphilly at 2:05 and come back in a couple of hours. But this means the museum would be out since the likelihood of us reaching before 4 which was when the museum closed was quite low. So we decided to go with option 2 where we first get to the Museum, take the 12:05 train to Caerphilly, come back before 3 and take the 3:05 bus to Castell Coch.

The first plan of going to the Museum went perfectly. The museum itself was quite huge sponsored by the Welsh Government giving everyone a free entry. It was beautiful and informative filled with science and art…starting right from the creation of the universe to how Wales as a country developed over the centuries. After a cup of coffee and a small detour to the Alexandra garden, we went back to our hotel to check out. We reached the station with 10 minutes to spare to catch the train to Caerphilly.

We reached Caerphilly at 12:30 and found that it was a small town. We set of to the Caerphilly castle having received directions that it was a 10 minute walk from the station. I must say it was love at first sight for me as far as the castle was concerned. While the Cardiff castle was beautiful, it had been restored in the last century where as this wasn’t. Most of the castle was in ruins but I think that was what drew me to it. It had a rustic beauty to it which appeals to anyone and I thanked Ram for having wanted to visit this in the first place.

After spending an hour or so there, we decided to take to 2:05 train back to Cardiff. We all made a small pit stop to pick up a sub for lunch. We reached Cardiff Central at 2:20.
After taking a coffee break, we went to the bus stand which was right outside the station and took the 3:05 bus to Castell Coch (Red Castle). The bus on Sundays takes us to a village called Tongwynlais from where it is a 10 minute walk to the castle. This is another small village, a bit hilly and we started our walk towards the castle which though was only 10 minutes away felt like an hour since half way through, the road became extremely steep. Although Castell Coch did not have the brilliance of Caerphilly Castle, it still was nice. Although I must say I felt the walk up to the Castle was picturesque and prettier. Having spent 35-40 minutes in the castle, we headed back to the bus stand and waited for the bus to take us back to Cardiff Central. Reaching by 5, we took a train back to Reading at 5:50 and reached home exhausted and exhilarated.

Can’t wait for our next trip…will talk about it once we come back

Trip To Wales - Day 1

2009-08-15T23:39:00.009+05:30

Continuing with our globetrotting our next destination was Wales. Though Wales has got quite a lot of tourist destinations, we decided to go to the Capital, Cardiff. Considering we just had a weekend to spare, we had decided to go first to Cardiff on Saturday and then move to Bristol (in England) on Sunday. We made our hotel reservations at Holiday Inn about a month back. We also took the train tickets to Cardiff with a break at Bristol a few weeks back since it is cheaper here to books tickets earlier than at the last minute.

Our plan was to start by the 8:10 train from Reading to Cardiff since the earliest train was at 7ish and it took more or less the same time as the 8 o’clock one. Unfortunately for us, the train we were supposed to take was cancelled and we had to wait another hour before we could catch a train. So that instead of reaching Cardiff by 9:45, we reached by 10:45. At first glance, Cardiff was like any other city. People there were more laid back and it didn’t have the bustling activity as can be found in London which one would expect considering it is the capital of a Country. Like most of the cities we have visited so far, Cardiff also had a good Information center which is almost the first thing we search for the minute we get into a city. Almost the first because the first is always having something to eat. This time it was some mouth watering apple-cinnamon and honey and lemon pan cakes.

Anyway, after eating, we quickly got the directions to the information center. After a couple of misses with us walking by the same road to and fro a couple of times, we finally found what we were looking for. At the information center, we took the tickets to the Hop on – Hop off bus and also took a couple of books on Cardiff and Caerphilly (along with getting a couple of souvenirs as has been the norm for us). Though Caerphilly was not a part of our original plan, Ram wanted to check it having been interested about it ever since he read about it in a BBC book about historic sites in Great Britain.

The HOHF started from the Cardiff Castle which was about 5 minutes walk from the information center and we were just on time to catch the 11 0’clock bus. As in the rest of our trips, we decided to first take a complete tour of the city, which was about an hour’s trip, once before checking out individual places. After finishing the first trip, we decided to go have pizza for lunch following which we checked into our hotel which luckily for us was in the town center almost opposite to the castle. We started back to take the 3 o’clock bus to continue with our tour. Since we were not greatly impressed by what we saw, we decided to just make one stop which was at the Cardiff Bay. Unfortunately, due to my extraordinary intelligence, I made my husband get down a stop before the actual one. It would have been good had that place actually had something to visit but there was just a Hotel and though it was probably a 15 minute walk to the bay, we were unable to do so since the route was through a motorway. I think I should appreciate that Ram did not get irritated at me for having wasted 30 minutes.

With no other option, we waited for the next bus to arrive to take us to the Bay. The Cardiff bay has a lot of things to see like the Wales Millennium Center, National Welsh Assembly, Norwegian Church, etc. Anyway after spending some time clicking pictures of ourselves, we decided to take a walk on the Cardiff Barrage which is constructed on the mouth of the Cardiff Bay. Though we were not able to completely walk on the barrage owing to time, we spent about an hour walking to and from the Barrage just on time to take the last HOHO bus back to the Castle.

After we returned, we decided to go to the Bute Park which is adjacent to the Cardiff castle and which we assumed was quite a small one. We were forced to change our opinions after having walked for an hour and not finding the end of it. Luckily, they seemed to have a multiple entry-exit points without which the likelihood of us having to spend the night at the Park was high. And as usual, at the exit we were unsure as to which direction we were supposed to take to get back and thanks to a friendly Samaritan reached without losing our way.

Dinner was supposed to have been a Sub but we soon changed our mind and entered an Indian restaurant. As for the next day, we decided to chuck the Bristol plan, spend another half a day in Cardiff and spend the afternoon at Caerphilly. After a good dinner, since my legs were killing me, we decided to retire by 9.

Appearances

2009-07-26T04:28:00.006+05:30

The other day I was watching Lois and Clark(Believe me,I like to watch any superman movies/tv series there is except smallville...which of course doesn't count) on television and there was this particular episode in which Clark went under cover and as a disguise used a beard and a moush and Lois was able to blow his cover in a second. Nothing wrong about that but its a bit unbelievable that she is not able to see through his disguise as a superman when the only thing different was the specs? Of course there are bloopers, its a comic book, one might argue.

I find it really strange something so small can bring about a huge change in appearance. In many movies, a person is termed ugly just because he/she wears glasss. Now what is that about? Removal of glasses makes a personal drop dead gorgeous, does it? Of course the days there is another definition of being gorgeous. Be skinny and wear skimpy clothes. It is wierd how perceptions change from person to person.

Anyway, I think it is high time people stop looking at outer beauty and look at the inner beauty of a person.

Watched Harry Potter yesterday...

2009-07-19T21:37:00.004+05:30

It is an evidence of how popular this movie is all over the world coz we got tickets in the second row and it was houseful by the time the movie started. The movie started about 30 minutes late with all the ads driving me really crazy and 30 minutes into the movie left me wondering why I wanted to watch this movie in the first place. And I realized that I wasn’t really able to really come up with an answer for that.

And when I thought about the reasons for not watching the movie, I was able to come up with quite a lot of them.
1. It was slow and by slow I mean even a tortoise or a snail can overtake the movie.
2. It was a romance movie (or chick flick as many would call it) without much romance in it.
3. Many good and interesting points of the book have been completely erased and unwanted scenes were included in it.
4. There was magic in the movie (which of course is the essence of the movie) but none of the real action sequences which I came to expect.
5. Important characters were made insignificant and vice versa.

I wondered if I would have liked the movie had I not read the book but then again had I not read the book I am sure I would not have understood it. Because the fact was that this movie followed the tradition of all Potter movies in one aspect. No non reader would understand head or tail of what the movie is all about. Now, isn’t the true talent of directing a movie lies in making the audience understand the movie instead of making them look out for reference books? Anyway, all pros and cons aside, I am sure I will watch the next two movies as well. What can I say? I am a glutton for punishment :D

Ice Age 3D...

2009-07-08T19:51:00.002+05:30

...was the movie we went to yesterday night. I was really excited for many reasons. Number one being I loved the first two Ice Age movies and the other is the fact that this was the first 3D movie I have watched (kind of ironic). Anyway, we were to go for the 8pm show and we started from home at around 7:20 (I really love the fact that the theatre is just a 7 minute walk away from home).

We reached, bought tickets, the smallest bucket of pop corn which actually was too large for us and then went into the theatre. I wish I hadn't thought how we were going to finish off the big bucket coz when I place the bucket on the next seat as I was sitting, half the contents of the bucket toppled onto the seat. This is when I missed Sathyam the most since in Sathyam, the seat are foldable types in which if something falls, the contents get emptied onto floor. Anyway, I spent the next 10 minutes alternating between trying to clean up the seat and praying to God that no one must come to that seat. Finally, after some effort on my end, I cleaned the seat but unfortunately the floor below was filled with pop corn. But thankfully, God listened to my prayers and the seat remained empty through out the movie :))

Anyway, the movie was thoroughly enjoyable although I thought I found the second movie funnier.

Trip to Bath

2009-06-29T04:12:00.000+05:30

When my friends saw the name "Bath Spa" in one of the pictures sent by me, the first question I was asked was “so did you have a bath or did you go to a spa?” To which I replied that we did neither of those. Pretty amusing, don’t you think? Bath has been something of a fascination to me ever since I have read about it in Jane Austen novels.

Bath, a world Heritage site, is a beautiful place to visit. It is full of Georgian buildings made of Bath stone, beautiful parks (not to mention the extraordinary flowers) and most important of all the Roman Baths.

We took a train from Reading to Bath Spa which is about an hour’s journey. Once at Bath, we went to the Tourist information center to get tickets to the Hop On – Hop Off bus for a city sightseeing tour. Poorer by 22 pounds, we started our 10 minute walk from the station to the Bath Abbey. There were two tours operating in Bath – The City Center Tour and the Skyline Tour.

We first took the City Center tour which was a 45 minute trip around the city. On our way back to the starting point, we come across the Pulteney Bridge across the River Avon which is supposed to be an architectural splendor. This bridge is more like a street which contains shops on either side of the bridge. So what, one might ask but it apparently one of its kinds so thought I should mention it. By the way, River Avon here is different from the one is Stratford-upon-Avon. Apparently the whole of England is filled with a number of river names Avon. I guess they had a problem creating a new name :)

Once the tour was over, we decided to have a light snack of Tea and scones. Scones have been something of a fascination to me ever since I have read about them in any novels by a British author. Did you know scones are really yummy? You have my word that scones with jam and fresh cream along with tea is something to die for.

Following that, we then took the skyline tour which took us outside the city. This place takes us back in history and the best part is, even after so many years, the history is still preserved. Any new buildings have been built along the lines of the old ones and rarely look out of place. We got down at one of the spots which the Prior Landscape Garden. This an 18-th century garden (now owned by the National Trust) was the creation of Ralph Allen along with Alexander Pope with some advice from the Landscape designer Lancelot “Capability” Brown. It was a one-hour walk on the circular path around the garden which 6 Kms. You know it is days like this that I don’t regret not taking a regular walk/jog coz this more than compensates for the previous 6 days.

Once we were done with the walk, we took the skyline tour back to the Bath Abbey. We decided against a proper lunch (that is after we were thrown out of a restaurant since we didn’t have a booking). Then we went into the Roman Baths which as the name suggest was where the Romans bathed :D.

Now to a bit of boring History: The Roman city of Bath was previously known as Aquae Sulis by Romans, who invaded Britain in the first century AD. The Baths and the Temple were the most important places in Aquae Sulis which is also known as Aquae Calidae mean “Hot Waters”. The baths were dedicated to the goddess Sulis Minerva. The mineral-rich water from hot springs rises millions of meters each day at 46 degree Celsius. This was one of the most sort after destinations by Romans who came to bathe, heal and pray in the Roman Baths, sacred spring and Temple of Sulius Minerva. It is said that a drop from the sacred waters cures most illness…but word is that you will have to be really sick and desperate to even consider drinking that water coz it is that bad.

Next stop was to Jane Austen Center for which we hopped onto the City Center Tour bus. But we decided against entering it since only one of us was a fan of Jane Austen. Besides, to us the tour of a small house wasn’t really worth the time and effort (I know some may beg to differ). From the Jane Austen center, we took a five minute walk to the Royal Crescent which is supposed to be the most photographed building in Bath. As the name suggest the building is the in the shape of a crescent which is said to house 30 individual houses.

The final stop was at the Parade Gardens…Kind of sad that to enter the garden we had to spend a pound per person and there was nothing much to spend time at. After clicking pictures (we wanted to get the value for our money), we started our walk back to the central, waited an hour for the train and then spent the next hour standing on our way back. By the time we had come back, my leg was hurting like hell. And to make matter worse I left my jacket at burger king in the station and realized it only as we were close to home which resulted in us making a dash for it. Thankfully, we were able to recover the jacket hale and hearty.

MJ:RIP

2009-06-27T20:28:00.008+05:30

For he past couple of days news channels all over the world have gone in a frenzy with the news of MJs death...Its wierd how till now no one even bothered about him save a few die hard fans of his and all of a sudden there is a huge number of people mourning his death and writing/reading about him....To tell you the truth I am one of them. I would not say I am shattered by his death but as in many cases, it is quite unbelievable that this pop star, whose songs I have heard during my childhood and enjoyed them a lot, is no more. Like everything else, I am sure this will be yesterdays news as well and life will go on till the next new sensation occurs.
Anyway, here is to a very talented musician whom we have seen not only rise to glory but fall down as well. May his soul Rest in Peace!!!

Stonehenge - Old Sarum - Salisbury

2009-06-14T19:30:00.002+05:30

I have been hearing about Stonehenge quite a lot and apparently coming to UK and not visiting Stonehenge is like coming to India and not visiting the Taj Mahal. May be it was the exaggeration or maybe it was the imagination on my part but somehow I expected it to be out of the world. What I didn’t expect was a bunch of huge boulder like stones standing erect to form a circle which we are not even allowed to go close to. And I can tell you, I am not exaggerating…coz what is shown in the picture below is it. I was wondering if it was worth the effort to wake up at 6 in the morning, take a train at 7:30 from Reading to Salisbury (via Basingstoke, paying 14 quids) followed by a 30 minute trip on the Stonehenge tour bus (paying 17.5 quids).

Stonehenge is supposed to be the most sophisticated stone circle
(not sure what it means or what we should do with the information though) in the world. The giant stones were said to be at least 4000 years old. We were given an audio commentary which went on and on about the possible history behind it. I say possible since people aren’t really sure what it really signifies. It could have been an astronomical observatory or a burial ground or used for sacred rituals related to the sun. Anyway, I was glad about one thing - I wasn’t the only one who came a long way to look at a bunch of stones. There were hundred or so people who seem to be equally interested in the place and most likely enamored as well.

After spending an hour or so in Stonehenge, we took the Stonehenge tour bus (which was available every 30 minutes) back to Salisbury but got dropped on the way to a place called Old Sarum. Old Sarum was a beautiful place which reminded me of a romantic setting from a book or a movie. In Old Sarum is located the ruins of a castle. In the 12th century, this was a castle and a busy town but was later moved to the place now called Salisbury. After spending close to 2 hours in Old Sarum, we took the next tour bus back to Salisbury.

Back at Salisbury, we had lunch and then went over the Tourist information office to check out the attractions of Salisbury. With a map of Salisbury in hand, we went over to the spots mentioned in the map, namely, the guildhall, St.Ann’s Gate
before reaching the Salisbury Cathedral which is one of the most beautiful cathedrals I have seen (not that I have seen many before this). This cathedral is home to best preserved of the four surviving Magna Carta which is the inspiration for all the democracies in the world. Following the view of the cloisters, we went out of the cathedral to follow the maps and check out a couple more places before reaching the Salisbury rail station.

Unfortunately, we took a wrong turn and after walking around 3-4 kms, got completely got lost. Trying to find directions from a passerby led us to understand that we were completely off the route. But thankfully, that guy was going the same direction as us and offered to take us back to the cathedral. Only after we reached the cathedral did we realize the next place mentioned in the map was right opposite to the entrance. Anyway, we crossed the river Avon (different from the Stratford-upon-Avon) and finally reached the station to take a train back to Reading.
Although I wouldn’t say I was very impressed with the first part of trip, all the places were definitely worth a visit.

Board Games

2009-06-12T16:35:00.002+05:30

The other day my husband and I were talking and we realised its been ages since we have played monopoly. It used to be my favourite board game for a long time...especially during vacations when my friends and I literally spent almost the whole time together playing except while eating and sleeping. I thought I outgrew it since I had not played it since when I was in 8th standard in school. Of course, I didn't realize until a cople of years back that it wasn't that I outgrew it, its just that I didnot have company to play :)

Anyway, I also realized that games are very addictive. Once you start, it is quite difficult to stop. The past couple of days I have been trying to find the online version of Monopoly.Unfortunately, all I got was the trial version which let me play for 60 minutes. So I was left with no other option but to buy a monopoly board game...It is actually a travel game which is a cute tiny miniature version. Our plan is to spend most of tonight playing it :). I am sure like everything else, this will cease to be interesting to me in a few days or months.

Today, I have spent the whole day playing games. I played monopoly against myself and I won. Of course according to Ram, I have lost as well. Anyway, thanks to Nandita I have got hooked on to a few online games as well...Real stupid ones but very addictive :D

News

2009-06-09T18:45:00.000+05:30

Reading/Watching the news is really depressing these days. It has been for quite some time now. One is about some bomb blast at a place and another is about some plane going down killing people. What is going on with the world???

Of course these days its either death or film stars that get the maximum mileage by the media...Is it the fault of the media or readers/viewers like us who enjoy such news?

Wierd thing about BBC...oh yeah!!!being in the UK has forced me to watched BBC a bit...anyway back to the wierd thing - when I watch the news at 7:30, there seems to be a weather report very often with a new weather girl each time...now what is that all about? Of course, had I listened to the report instead of finding the reason for it being showed every 10 minutes, I wouldn't have felt like an idiot who when it is sunny goes out with a jacket and when its windy goes out without one...

Hurray! Kangaroos are going home :)))

2009-06-09T01:05:00.004+05:30

As I am writing this blog, I have an eye on my scorecard on cricinfo with just a couple of runs seperating Australia and a first round exit. The match being Sri Lanka Vs Australia and Sri Lanka have won what is probably the worst performance by Australia in a world cup in a very long time...Atleast ever since I have started watching cricket.
May be I am being a sadist but I frankly I have had enough of the Aussie domination in Cricket...It would be good for a change to watch some competitive cricket where you do not enter a tournament knowing for a fact that a particular team is going to win.
I am hoping to go to atleast one match...although the tournament would most likely get over before I decide to get the tickets :)))

Back online

2009-06-02T00:18:00.002+05:30

Finally, am online....I must say it is a big relief. Apparently, it will take us a couple of weeks to get the broadband connection as a result of which we have now taken internet over the phone. Bad for long term use since the speed is abysmal.

Yesterday, we called up the helpline to get the net activated through our phone. It was not done even after 24 hours. On calling the call center again we got the easiest solution on the book. Restart the mobile. And like most cases, this worked as well. By the way the helpline call center is obviously in India. I was attended by someone with a Brit sounding name but an accent so bad, that half the conversation was with an Indian accent and the other half with a "British" accent.

London, baby

2009-05-25T22:59:00.003+05:30

It was a bright day we started from home at around 8:20 filled with enthusiasm (at least on my part. My husband has been to London so long that it wasn’t that big a deal for him) and reached Reading Station by 8:30. We decided to take an all day travel card for 39.50 quids (Dictionary: Quids is another word for pounds, apparently) per person which allows us access from Reading to London and to all of the Train zones in London (underground and DLR).

It is a good thing I had been accompanied by my husband who knows the way things are here. Else, I would have spent a good hour with the ticket in hand wondering how to get to the platform. Actually, that is a slight exaggeration because the whole system here has been developed in such a way, with signs all over that you can literally go to any place without having to seek directions as long as you know English.

We reached London Waterloo at 10:00am. From Waterloo we walked towards The Big Ben and House of Parliament. We also caught a glimpse of the London Eye although we decided against checking the view from the eye due to the lack of time. We passed the Big Ben followed by the House of Parliament(which I am sorry to say was not open for tourists today) and then the Victoria Tower Garden. After taking a few snaps, we went over to the Westminster Abbey. I must say this is the best abbey I have ever seen.

It is a magnificent structure which stands in spite of a major part of it being damaged by the WWII. We paid 15 quids per person to enter the Abbey and were given a handset for audio commentary. It is quite an innovative method since the handset also each person to view the abbey at their own pace.If I am not wrong there are about 5 chapels in the abbey which is the houses many of the dead Kings, Queens. Many poets and writers have also been buried or given a memorial there. The only depressing thing about going to the chapel is the fact that we were not allowed to take pictures inside the abbey.

After Westminster, the next trip was to Downing Street. We came across the Treasury and some Museum en route. The entire of Downing Street is protected so we weren’t able to see No 10. Following a Pancake and orange juice lunch, we came back to Waterloo with Buckingham Palace as the destination in mind. The Palace is mid way between the Green Park and St. James Park so we can take a train to either. By the way, I think almost the whole of London is connected by the tube and the tube map available in each of the station helps us know which Line (there are about 13 of them) and station is to be taken to reach a particular place. From Waterloo, there is a Jubilee Line which could have directly taken us to Green Park. Unfortunately, the Jubilee line was not in use so we had to take the Bakerloo Line to Piccadilly Circus followed by a Piccadilly Line to Green Park.

It took us about 10 minute to walk to the Buckingham Palace from Green Park. Again as in Downing Street, all we did was take pictures from the gate. I was under the assumption we are allowed a tour of the Palace but looks like I was under a misconception. Either that or there was no tour that day. We decided to then go to Greenwich which by the way is pronounced Grenich here. I still don’t understand why they spell it Greenwich when pronounced Grenich. They really butcher the English language here:D. We took the Circle Line from St.James’ Park to Temple Hill…walked to the Tower Gateway station and took a DLR Line to Westferry and from there to Greenwich.

Once we landed in Greenwich, we first booked a ferry back to Tower Bridge which costs about 4.6 quids per head about half of the actual ticket price thanks to our Travel Card. After getting our tickets, we started our walk towards the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. We stopped at a Greenwich market in between for refreshments. The Royal observatory is on a tiny hill in the middle of a huge park and I must say it was interesting to stand on the meridian line with the east on one side and the west on the other side. As usual, we wanted pictures and we found an antenna like thing right in the middle of the line where we took a picture of ourselves from. Only thing is we didn’t know we were line hopping with a whole queue of people standing behind waiting for their turn. It was so embarrassing, even more when no one objected to what we did that I turned my head and acted like I have no idea what was going on.

After spending a couple of hours in Greenwich, we took a ferry, walked across the Tower Bridge. By that time I was really exhausted by the time we reached London Bridge but my dear hubby felt so fresh after walking more than 20kms that he was reading for another 20. Anyway, we took a tube from London Bridge to Paddington and then back to Reading to reach home by 7:30. Phew!!!it was indeed a very long day :)

May 24

2009-05-24T22:42:00.000+05:30

It was 7 by the time we woke up in the morning which meant that our London trip was on the rocks since it would take us another 3 hours at least to shift and get ready. So having decided to ditch that plan we decided to finish off with the shifting and hand over the keys before the check-out time which was scheduled at 10am.

The rest of the day was spent in getting the apartment set up and we have decided to have an early night. Monday is Bank Holiday here and we are hoping against hope that we would wake up early tomorrow and go on our London trip.

P.S: Apparently, my husband was an early riser before our marriage. Married less than 6 months and my good habits have already rubbed on to him. :)

Appartment Shifting

2009-05-23T22:36:00.003+05:30

We will be without the internet for the next few days since we are shifting to an apartment tomorrow. So thought why not type the stuff I want to blog anyway and post it on the appropriate dates once I get my broadband connection. By the way, if you are looking for something interesting, this is not it.

The apartment we are going to move in to is in the same building as the service apartment we have been staying the past week. The building is right next to the Town center so it is quite good in terms of comfort. The apartment itself is furnished but we did end up buying a few things for our home today. First stop was to the Rosebys Home which is next door to get some pillows, duvets and bed sheets.

Since we did not exactly have any other plan for the day, we decided to go for a movie as well. So we went to The Vue, booked tickets for Angels and Demons (my first movie in over 4 months on theatre I might add) for a 4:15pm show and then went to Tesco to buy some household stuff. Now weird thing was I was feeling a bit lazy to go for a walk in the morning and a bit guilty of course. I might have as well saved myself from the guilt-trip since we ended up walking to Tesco which is about 3-4 kms from our apartment. The onward walk was quite comfortable walking by the Thames Path with a good view of the Thames. I must also add that Reading is a very beautiful town with loads of greenery with riverside walks which never tire you...well almost never. The return journey was a bit tiring with loads of luggage in our hands (I had horrific images of the polythene covers breaking in the middle of the road from the weight of the stuff in them and me scrambling to collect the fallen items). Thankfully, we reached home soon a little bit bruised but without any accidents.

Since we had something passing for lunch at a café in Tesco, all we had to do was put away our purchases in the new apartment, come back to the current apartment and take some rest. The movie was scheduled to start at 4:15 and we started only at 4:10 almost walking a record speed to the theatre(it is about 7 minutes walk from home) and reaching there at 4:15 sharp only to spend the next 15 minutes watching the trailers. I think whoever spoke about IST have not been to the other parts of the world.

Anyway, the movie started at 4:30 and I must say I didn’t have much expectation from this. Although Tom Hanks happens to be one of my favorite stars, I could not stand Da Vinci Code. It was basically soulless which made Hanks look like a mediocre actor. But Angels and Demons was far better than DVC. For one it had a pace which the first lacked and the actors fitted the characters better. I didn’t have the urge to laugh like I did when Hanks said "you are the descendant of Jesus Christ" or something like that in DVC. A few alterations were there in the movie but overall it is a onetime watch. Btw, movie tickets here are so expensive and I decided then that I will stop converting pound to Rupee every time the money is spent. :)

We have shifted half our luggage (not that we had many) into the new apartment. Tomorrow we are planning on completely shifting to the new place and also go on a tour to London.

Its day,day and night

2009-05-21T17:59:00.004+05:30

It is bright in the morning when I wake up. It is bright at night when I go to bed. Except when it gets cloudy of course...which is quite a lot.I am not sure if I will ever get used to things here...or like most foreign returnees, I might end up finding India wierd when I get back :P.

We have spent the past couple of days looking out for appartments and looks like we might end up moving in this weekend itself, if there are no unforseen issues cropping up.

I have taken up to morning walks with my husband. Very important considering all the fatty food we end up eating. But so far we have been having pretty healthy food and it was only yesterday that we had real junk. Pizza, chocolates, ice cream. Requires a lot of working out to burn the fat. I must say Ram is a very good influence..cant say the reverse is true though :D

A new place

2009-05-18T15:26:00.004+05:30

I have become a globetrotter. What else would you call a person who until the age of 25 has not visited any other country other than India but in a span of 3 months has visited 3 countries. I am writing this blog today from a serviced apartment in Oxford Street of Reading, UK.

The past 2 days have been quite hectic with the last minute packing on saturday followed by taking a flight to UK on sunday. I had a total of 4 hours sleep for about 41 hours but am grateful that the flight journey was not tiring nor was there any jet lag. The almost 10 hours spent on the flight was filled with watching movies and eating so much that that though of food made me want to puke.

The climate is quite good here but for a person who spent most of her life in chennai where the minimum temperature is 30 C will find it difficult here where the 20 degrees that was the temperature yesterday was apparently on the warmer side but which left my teeth rattling.

I have a strong feeling living in UK is going to be quite an experience for me. The first time I went out alone I locked myself out of the apartment in spite of having the keys. The reason being that the code to enter the building did not work. I ended up walking for an hour up and down the road before getting a number of the wife of Ram's friend who also happens to live in the same buliding.

Looking forward to more mis(adventures) in the future which I am sure will be plentiful considering I have zero clue of the way of living here. But all said and done am sure this willbe an interesting experience.

Blood-Suckers

2009-05-09T10:41:00.005+05:30

That is what I call auto-drivers. And if any one tells me the drivers in Bangalore are better than those in Chennai, they have it coming from me.

Today I had to go for some medical tests and while coming back took an auto. The auto meter was not working but the driver said it takes a couple of minutes to work. I made 2 mistakes on my part
1. I should have stopped the auto the minute he said that
2. I should have taken down the number of the auto.

How can a journey of less than 10 minutes cost me 54 bucks, when the onward journey which included an extra couple of KMs up a flyover cost only 40 bucks? The only thing which resulted was me getting into a huge argument in the middle of the road, getting an headache and wanting to slap the @$$**** of an auto driver.

Stinky Feet

2009-05-07T11:29:00.006+05:30

We are planning to move out of our house soon as a result of which we had put an ad about it being available. One guy came over yesterday to check out the house. No offense to him but I really wish he hadn't come. He had obviously worn his shoes and as is the habit in Indian society, removed his shoes and entered in with his socks...boy! The smell emitted by his socks/feet were enough to make my husband want to run away from the room and me to puke. Of course, courtesy demanded that we did not show or do either of those emotions.

I mean, I think it is a crime against humanity to torture us so. I have had this issue so many times even when I was working. Especially when the guy tends to remove his shoes(Eiuuu!!!) inside the cubicle. Do you know how difficult it is to get rid of the stench in a room which is closed with centralized A/C???

A piece of advice to all guys (I am not being a feminist but I have so far not faced this socks issue with girls) more specifically bachelors out there. If you are not intending to
- Take revenge on your enemy by using your socks to suffocate them (or)
- Try to revive someone from a faint (or)
- Ensure your friends do not share your socks (as it happens with bachelors) (or)
- Aim to create your unique brand of perfume (or)
- Save one quarter spoon of washing detergent (or)
- Save one mug of water from getting wasted,
please wash your socks everyday. And I think relatives/friends of such people have a basic responsibility to ensure they know the riot they cause.

Of course with girls I have faced a similar issue when they wear flowers or even heavy perfumes. I think I should be thankful for small mercies that it does not stink like the socks but the heavy perfume does stay on for long in the room making me dizzy and nauseated.

Maybe my nose is very sensitive but really, people need to ensure that what they do or wear should not be in anyway a hindrance to the others around them.

May 5

2009-05-05T18:13:00.000+05:30

Judging by the fact that there has been no blogs in the past 5 days, one would assume I have been busy...the assumption is hundred percent wrong.

Although we had a long weekend, we had not planned on anything this weekend since we were not sure if we would be here then...unfortunately for us, we were in Bangalore and did feel like kicking( at least I felt like it) ourselves for not having planned anything for the 3 days.

I would not say it was a waste of time for Ram and I did have a lot of time to ourselves...we spent most of the time watching movies...I am proud to say I have got Ram interested in watching movies...unlike me though, he prefers watching movies only with company.

Anyways, he has now become a big fan of animation...Kung Fu Panda, Ice age, Monsters Inc....he liked them all...We are awaiting the Shrek series to be delivered by Big Flix in the next 3 days...

We also enjoyed watching Indiana Jones. Now, Indiana Jones is one of my favourite all time movies. It has action, adventure, dialogues are funny (especially the Last Crusade which has Sean Connery) and I enjoy such movies which has a bit of archeology/history/myth attached to it....Of course the fact that Harrison Ford looks sexy with his Fedora and whip helps the enjoy the movie better...I am not a big fan of his but I liked him as both Indiana Jones and as Hans Solo(Star Wars which incidentally is another favourite of mine).

Moving on, if you have been wondering that I have been accident-free, dont worry...I got hurt....my right ankle twisted and I put my entire body weight on the left big Toe..Poor thing is hurting like crazy :D

No cooking as of now since we are out of Cooking Gas...Got to book it coz the lazy bones at the agency are not picking up our call...

An early start

2009-04-29T10:31:00.003+05:30

Yawn...am still sleepy...missed out abt one hour of sleep thanks to the need to wake up early...why the need? well, I had to go for a biometric scan(and by that I meant finger print scan which has nothing to do with pregnancy as one of my friends wondered) to an agency here in Infantry road. The agency apparently has a tie up with the embassy and the necessary documents are sent across to Chennai for the finally Visa stamping.

Anyway, having woken up by 6, all we had was a cup of coffee before we started( after having a bath of course) by 6:45.(Un)Fortunately lack of traffic made us reach the location by 7 and we had to wait for close to an hour.Of course, in middle of that we did try to go up and down the road in search of a restaurant for breakfast...unsuccessfully i might add..I mean what was that all about? Here is this road filled with many offices and there was hardly a place to eat...

We were back home by 9 after which I started to HDFC Bank by 10 to transfer some money in our Forex card back to the account. I hate those people...the last time we went there, we were told they do not do Foreign Exchange on saturdays and that all we need to do was give a letter requesting a transfer on any work day.So when I do go on w orking day with just the letter do they process the request? Nope. Today he informed me that I need to have my Forex Card as well. I am planning to go back tomorrow. Wonder what new detail he will ask for.

Wierd that the day has not yet started and I already feel like it has been more than half a day :)

As good as it gets

2009-04-28T13:37:00.003+05:30

That is the name of the movie that I watched today...First of all, let me tell you that this is not a movie review. For a movie buff(at least I used to be until sometime back) it is wierd that I have not watched this movie inspite of it being telecast on HBO(or was it Star Movies???) umpteen number of times.

Frankly, the reason I have never watched it is Jack Nicholson...I know he is considered a brilliant actor but somehow he gives me the creeps...the idea that he is the star of a Romantic comedy(I think this movie does come under that category) is difficult to swallow...I always imagine him more suitable as a villain than a hero which is why I enjoyed his Joker(even that now pales after watching Heath Ledger's portrayal of the psychopath).

I have been told that this was a good movie which is why I ordered it through Big Flix(In case you dont know, Big Flix allows you to rent any number of movies for a deposit delivered at your door steps). The movie's story, I am sure can be read on Wikipedia or imdb.

Anyway, as I said before Nicholson fits his character to the T. His portrayal of the writer with a Obnoxious compulsive disorder is brilliant and it is no wonder he received an oscar for it. He makes you laugh most of time but at times makes you feel sorry for him as well...The rest of the cast - Helen Hunt(her acedemy award winning role as well), Greg Kinnear, Cuba Gooding Jr and even the cute dog are each vital and make their presence felt.

Irony is that I previously did not watch this movie coz of Nicholson but now I would not mind a second time watch coz of Nicholson.

Another Sunday has come and gone

2009-04-26T18:21:00.003+05:30

Its Sunday today...although it does not feel like it...well for a person who stays at home every day is a Sunday :))).

I would say that I had a fruitful day but only if having a fruitful day refers to sleeping well...I seem to be sleeping a lot these days thanks to the cough syrup that I have been drinking.

Power - to be there or not to be there

2009-04-25T08:10:00.005+05:30

One problem with Banglore...Actually I can think of loads of problems but I am not going into them. Before I go off the tracks the problem is power. It goes off for atleast 2 hours each day. It got a bit better in the past 2 weeks...of course these days the power does not go off on a daily basis. Instead on the days when it does go off, it does not come back for 5 hours.

Unfortunately, not being in an apartment complex has its disadvantages since we do not even have a back up. Banglore has started getting summer showers in the past week. Even the slightest hint of rain or wind and bang! the power goes off. It is like it just requires a reason or something to shut off.

Anyways, yesterday it rained quite heavily and it almost reminded me of a cyclone with the wind howling heavily and leaves from trees flying in all direction. I tried to capture the image on my Camera but thanks to my skills as a photographer, the resultant picture had a dead feel to it instead of the intended fury.

April 23

2009-04-24T02:44:00.004+05:30

I am proud of myself. I have stuck with my vow of being irregular with the blogs right from the start. I can frankly say that there has never been a resolution which I have stuck to. Looks like I am changing (:P).

Actually, I have been sick for the past 3 days. It was more of cold and fever but somehow I have a feeling I made it worse by lying on the bed for the best of 2 days. Now I am fine...although maybe saying fine is stretching the truth a bit. Otherwise I would not be awake at 2:44 in the morning typing this blog and all because of the non stop coughing which is making it impossible for me to sleep. I have a feeling I am going to be sleeping the entire day today. What are the odds of that? :)

Anyway, today I had just stepped out of house once to get my photo taken for a visa. It was quite an interesting experience with the photographer telling me to ensure my hair is neatly piled up behind. Apparently, the Visa might get rejected if one strand of hair is found in front of my ear. I had to bite an urge to tell him that if that were the case, his skills as a photographer needs to be questioned and not my single strand of hair.

April 19

2009-04-19T23:31:00.002+05:30

Still in Trivandrum...Today I had the pleasure of checking out this beautiful ancestral home which has been in the family for the past 70 odd years. Actually beautiful is an understatement. This is what a home should be like. This might not be the most beautiful of houses built but it was definitely among the ones I have seen and I have been to many houses in Kerala. Very few have what it takes to look cozy and at the same time look like something out of a classic.

It is something of an agony to see the state at which it has been left to by the current owners. Be it the imported tiles or the wonderful marble Tea Tables or the timeless looking mirrors which still adorn the walls or even the Grandfather clock from Germany(unfortunately does not work), every one of them have a life of their own...a used feel to it...which makes us less intimidated and more awed. I even saw this treasury case which I have only seen before in movies...I mean I felt like a child taken to a few decades back in time by a Time machine.

The worst I felt was when I heard there was a plan of demolishing the house and converting it into a group of flats which according to me is nothing less than a crime. But I doubt anything can be done about it if indeed that is the plan.

A new day....

2009-04-18T11:18:00.004+05:30

I keep realising time and again that I am totally irregular with my blogs. Although I take a resolution to never let it go dormant, that is exactly what is happening. I can not even blame the busy work schedule I have since I am currently jobless :). And no, I was not chucked out of my job due to recession(Am serious!!!I was considered a prime resource in my project). It was my decision to resign my job (Please do not ask why a prime resource like me was allowed to resign) since I hardly think getting married and living far away from my husband was the ideal way to start a newly married life and haven't regretted once. Okay!I think I am going off the track now. I have taken a resolution to be irregular now coz I know that is one oath I can stick to :)))

One might wonder why I am writing this blog now. Well the fact is Internet Explorer is creating a problem here. It all started with me deciding to download VLC software and IE automatically closes when that site is opened. So, to avoid that I decided to download Google Chrome and while GC is downloading I decided to write this blog. Only, inspite of all my efforts GC is also not opening the sites :((((

We are in Trivandrum now. Everytime we come here, Ram and I assume it will be our last trip for a very long time since we plan to travel abroad but of course God has other plans. He has made sure we have visited his country atleast thrice in the past 2 months which might not be a big deal to most but it is to us considering these have been short trips by flight. There was a time when I cribbed to my parents that I have never travelled by flight. I guess the phrase "Be careful what you wish for" is very appropriate here.Anyway, as we flew to Trivandrum, the view of the city while landing sure made me realise how beautiful our country really is. Be it the rows of coconut trees along the coast line or the Hills of the Western Ghats, it sure is breathtaking. The last trip we made to Kerala was when we went to a place called Varkala which is a beach around 60kms from Trivandrum and it was no less beautiful than the countries which we so wish to visit. We visited a place similar to that called Uluwatu in Bali(Oh yeah! considering it was my first trip abroad, it will feature in everything I say until I go to a new place). It is besides the point that I still wish to travel to a lot of places and countries. One never is happy with what one has. It basically us ignoring what we have and wanting what is beyond our reach. Now that I have shared my piece of wisdom I will shut up and get the VLC player downloaded.