My sojourn in Thailand, Malaysia & Singapore

Hiya everyone! After a long wonderful 14 day break to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, that hiya feels so carefree. I had never been to any place in the eastern side of the globe. The furthest being Kolkatta where I had been to a few years ago, and so this holiday was much awaited, beyond being the break from work. I'd like to give a feel of the sights and sounds of the places of visit along with the tips I picked up during the travel, so I hope you enjoy my little (?, ok ! so this is just the first paragraph) travelogue.

After a flight directly from Mumbai, we arrived in Bangkok's newly opened Soovarnabhoomi airport. It is touted to be the largest in the world, with more duty free shops being added for the shoppers. The liquor we found to be cheaper than the Singapore duty free, but the variety of chocolates were more in Singapore's duty free shops. There are a few Thai traditional structures built in the midst of the shops where traditional dances (Like thai puppet shows, music) are performed during the day. I found the airport a tad too large, the amount of time to move from one terminal to the other (which we had to do during our return flight) took too long. One of the terminals took ages to cover and that too with no walking escalators, it is very lengthy for the elderly.

Presently there are only taxi and bus shuttle services to reach the city, but plans are on to connect it to the city by the sky bus service called the BTS, in Bangkok. A taxi took us directly to Pattaya within 1.5 hours where we met our tour group. We were a day late due to some initial hiccups and had missed a wonderful show called the Alacazar show the day before. From what I heard it was a must-see show put up by scores of thai dancers and very traditional. Our group members were very surprised to later know that all the lady dancers were infact men. They just couldn't believe it. There was also a tour of Mini-Siam, which it seemed was overshadowed in the memories of the tourists by the wondrous Alacazar show.

Pattaya (pronounced by the locals as 'Patayaa') is a beautiful touristy city laced with white sandy beaches and crystal blue ocean water. The weather was great in the morning with a lot of sun (sun-block cream a must!). We made our start with a motor boat ride to a large jetty in the middle of the ocean, where all the para-sailing activities take place in Pattaya. With life-jackets on, we had all the 50+ aged tourists in our group queueing up first for a spin. I found as the tour progressed that the more we humans age, the thirst to enjoy new experiences increases that much more!. All were strapped into a harness and then strapped on the shoulders to a parachute. A short run and then the motor boat lifts you about a 100 feet into the air. I've tried para-gliding before in Manali and its much like that, just that this one lasted longer, obvious reason to me was that the parachute was better at defying the gravity compared to the glider. After everyone had a spin, a few opted for a underwater-walking activity. The rest of us went to a island to enjoy more water sports and a chilled nariyal paani(coconut water), after which we were to be taken on a 'glass bottomed boat'. Now I admit that I was enthralled with my imagination of a glass-bottomed boat, but the one in which were taken seemed like a average wooden boat with all of us seated along the perimeter of the boat. Once driven to a shallow water area where I presumed were the coral reefs, we were asked to lift two wooden planks at the bottom center of the boat and there it was, the glass bottom. All of us were asked to cover our heads with the beach towels we brought along, to see the 'corals' better. Well all we could spot was a hazy sight of some corals, but what was most visible was a large black tyre ! I wonder who ferried cars to this tiny island. It seemed like the Thai guide we had also had noticed the tyre a lot, because he kept asking us whether we could spot his car's tyre, in good humour ofcourse. I think he was about the only thai who could speak English, albeit with a very heavy thai accent which most of the middle aged crowd found very difficult to interpret.

Thailand is probably one of the very few countries in Asia that has never been colonised in history and the reason why most of the thais do not understand or speak English. This makes it very difficult to communicate with the average Thai on the streets but the people are very friendly and with a lot of sign language you do get across. And yes, the sign language makes you feel like a fool at times and a bit frustrated at times too, but I guess the feeling would be mutual. Pattaya fares worse than Bangkok in this department. I was actually surprised that such a huge country that relies very heavily on tourism, with a large amount of western tourists (we found the maximum western tourists in Thailand compared to Singapore and Malaysia put together) still didn't need the English language to sell itself. During the travel around the country and in particular in Pattaya I realised that one of the reasons could be night-life opportunities that are available in plenty. I also noticed that there were a lot of single western men touring Pattaya and with the skewed gender ratio in Thailand (there are nearly 2 women per man in Thailand), it seemed very obvious that I spotted easily one of the reasons for the popularity in this destination. Nevertheless, this was a beautiful place with lovely experiences in store. With over 3000 Buddhist temples and the worlds largest gold Buddha (1.5 tons in solid gold) and the largest reclining Buddha in Bangkok, Thailand has a 90% Buddhist population. I always felt that Buddhism preached non-violence (adharma) as one of its main principles. But I was very surprised with the abundance of the weirdest sea animals sold in a variety of formats as street cuisine. I know most of us have seen all of these on travel shows, but seeing dried manta rays, fried roaches is really amusing. They have large tubs of water where the sea animals are live and kicking with tubes of gas that oxygenate the water to keep the pre-sea food 'fresh'. You can pick and choose what you'd like to eat. Our Thai guide explained that the Thais have a saying which translated to 'We eat all that flies apart from the aeroplane, all that swims apart from the boat and all that walks apart from the human being'. A new explanation to us about the gorging on non-vegetarianism from our Thai guide was that the Buddha did not see what his followers ate, rather it was what they did. (Seems what they did to make their food didn't count!). Well to end this topic, it was not until we had a Chinese guide in Malaysia did I get this new Buddhism philosophy right. Well until then, let me get back to the rest of Pattaya.

I think the real highlight (after the much praised Alacazar show) was Nong Nooch village. Its about 200 acres of land that a rich Thai lady has cultivated into huge landscaped gardens. But the real entertainment was the cultural show (at scheduled times). We got a glimpse of the Thai cultural dances which had a lot of beautiful women in the traditional highly ornamental head gears and jewellery dancing with graceful hand and feet movements to the tune of stringed instruments, a show of traditional Thai kickboxing and sword fight. Later was the wonderful elephant show. The elephant is the most revered animal in Thailand (probably they should correct their saying to say they eat anything that walks except the human and the elephant!) and besides a lot of wild elephants, many are trained like the ones we watched. A cute show displaying the varied talents of these intelligent giants. From a game of darts, bowling, a football contest complete with a goal keeper elephant, to dancing and even painting, it seemed like a trunk and a brain to match was all you needed to master these skills. The dartboard was a range of balloons and the elephants would stand on their hind legs, holding the dart with their trunk there would be backward bend and a few strained moments before the dart was released to blow up a balloon on the dartboard spot on. After each performance, the elephant's perogative would be to come to the audience to be cheered and fed with bananas (sold for a few baht by young children). You could take your picture with the elephants for a few baht and moving to the exit, even a large adult tiger, some orangutans, kingfisher birds, monkeys, all for a 40-80 Thai Baht (the Thai currency which is slight higher equivalent to the rupee).

Shopping in Pattaya is to be avoided as much as possible. Most of all of this is available for less than half in Bangkok, so not much was spent here. We were all taken to a large Thai massage spa. In Thailand, there are several schools for Thai massage which is a dry massage technique. The spa consisted of large halls with wooden raised floors and large single beds to rest while a large party of Thai masseurs made their way in with minimal equipment. None of them could communicate in English, so what followed were amusing (for both parties) sign language conversations. I think what mostly amused the Thai masseurs was the Indian side-to-side head movement for 'ok'. Well mostly what they laughed at, we will never know and they us. The massage reminded me a lot of the massages that Indian new borns are pampered with in India minus ofcourse the oil since its a dry massage. So many of the elder ladies & gents had their legs stretched to all possible angles they thought not possible at that age. Yes, the gents also had lady masseurs and many a jokes were exchanged on the way back for dinner, all in good humour.

The next day en route to Bangkok, we visited the worlds largest gems gallery. Thailand is very famous for its blue sapphire and the ruby and with a short ride on a boogie that took you through some of the historical significances of the Thai jewellery and gem stone, we were escorted by personal assistants to have a walk around the gallery. The jewellery mainly was in white gold which the Thais prefer to wear and some sections do consist of the gems set in gold or a mixed variety as well. All price ranges are covered and various semi-precious set jewellery are also on display and available. With no obligation to buy, a lady's paradise, it would take more than the few hours we were given to browse through it all. They even house some very good authentic Thai silk items but the gallery is known more for the gems with a lifetime guarantee (local). Proceeding with our travel to Bangkok city, we were greeted with empty roads, but we were told not to be fooled by this since it was a Sunday and sure enough the next day we were always experiencing the Bangkok traffic jams. We checked into the Belaire princess hotel on Sukhumvit road in Center of Bangkok. This hotel was by far the best we stayed among all the ones we stayed out throughout the tour and one I would recommend. It was also interesting to note that a garlanded Lord Ganapati keeps vigil at the entrance of the hotel reception with a continuously lit diya next to him. The same night we dressed up for a formal dinner cruise over the Chao Phraya river that flows through Bangkok city. There is a lower and a upper deck and we were on the lower one. With live music and good Indian and Thai food. The cruiser floated to all the brilliantly lit palaces and skyscrapers along the river. Its a wonderful way to see Bangkok city by night, while all the oldies in our group had the time of their lives dancing on the floor with the singer who belted out some English numbers to begin with. Then we had a thai-accented SRK number, the fave-Indian number there - Dhoom (just to remind you, Tata Young is a Thai). Our Thai guide called all the men in the group as 'Kaka's, so in his words all the Kakas were having a great time dancing with the Thai singer. I've had many cruises in India and Europe, but this was a new experience really.

Bright and early the next morning we made it to the animal safari park on the outskirts of Bangkok, where vehicles (in our case our tour bus) takes a drive into the roads in the park. A visit to the marine park followed with a dolphin show, Sea lion show and a few stunt shows such a James Bond and a Cowboy stunt show. These were all in the Thai language and personally, were not very entertaining. I've been to some of the shows in L.A. and one in Holland, the one in Holland being in Dutch as well, but they were much more fun than the ones we watched here. Given a choice, I'd give this entire bit a miss. Save for the chance I got to feed a tiger cub and take pictures with it for 80 Baht. It was the cutest thing drinking milk from a large feeding bottle in my arms. Mom got pictures taken with some exotic birds perched on her arms and one on her head. I think she really enjoyed it a lot, guessing from her large grins.

At night we were taken to shop at the Sumlum night bazaar, a very colourfully lit bazaar with small shops and restaurants and a few rides like a giant wheel on the river bank in Bangkok. I would recommend this bazaar to all those picking up souvenirs, if you know how to bargain well. Its a place we got a lot of good bargains and so did many others. The bazaar is mostly known for souvenirs and interior decoration artifacts such a Thai silk (probably not authentic) bed linen, coffee table mats, bed runners, wall hanging fans. When buying in multiples, do remember to reduce the price even more. On an average bargains can be got at about 70% of the quoted price. Don't be shy to go back to a shop that quoted a lower price than all the others you visited. To travel around in the city there are many options such as the sky train, taxis, buses and tuktuks (Thai version of the auto rickshaw, named so for the noise that it gives). The advice by our Thai guide was to stick to the taxis, buses or sky train and to avoid the tuktuk as the drivers resolve to a lot of haggling on the fare after reaching your destination, even though you might have agreed a price prior to the journey. Taxis are affordable but can get a little expensive due to the traffic jams in the cities, so the sky train is probably a good option and a fun ride.

A city tour was the next days itinerary which included the world's largest Golden Buddha at Wat Traimit, the largest reclining Buddha and the spires of Phra Maha Chedi Si Rajkarn. Then onto the Baiyoke Sky hotel, the worlds tallest hotel at 308 metres in height (85 floors), we enjoyed the city views on the revolving deck outside the highest observatory deck in the hotel and then a complimentary drink in the cafe at the top.
Shopping avenues are in abundance in Bangkok and we were taken to the MBK shopping mall which is one of the largest in Bangkok. Next to it is the Tokyo mall which has all the branded goods, while MBK was more for the economical variety. We got some very good deals in MBK for souvenirs, interior decoration items, shoes, apparel, handbags (value-for-money products for as much as 250 INR!) and since we had shopped beyond the time given by the tour guide we decided to get back to our hotel by the BTS, the sky train. And as luck would have it, we were haggling for a wonderful Thai angel metal artifact made in pewter and realised that we had run out of money. We needed to save some money for the train ride, and would have to let go of the piece. On communicating this to the Thai sales girl who desperately wanted to make a sale, we got a maximum bargain. Something that was quoted as 2500 Baht was sold to us for 1200 Baht! We were sent off with a loud melodious 'Kobkhunkhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa madaaaaaaaaaaaaam' (Thank you in Thai), which was the case in all shops we shopped, but this one was particularly the loudest one. Well Kobkhunkhaa to you too!

The next day was a flight to Singapore and this was when we actually admired the Soovarnabhoomi airport and the wonderful traditional art work on display. There is a lot of mythology taken from the Hindu religion and a large artwork depicting the churning of the ocean for amrit was present with the asuras and the devas on either side and the naga dev and the tortoise. There was a lot of concern after the recent coup in Thailand, but I never saw any military presence anywhere during our visit. The people revere their King with the highest regard who has been educated in Europe and has agriculture research centers in some of large palace premises!

My first impressions of Singapore was the obvious well-manicured gardens, roads, residence localities, basically everything around was well manicured. The interesting thing to note was the immigration card of Singapore, probably the only one I've seen so far which say in bold red, 'Warning - Death for drug traffickers under Singapore law'. There are many severe laws in Singapore besides these, where capital punishment is liberally awarded for several crimes, which makes it one of the safest cities. There are high fines for spitting, littering, breaking traffic signals, etc which are humorously depicted on Singapore souvenir Tshirts. Everyone converted their currencies to the Malaysian Ringit and Singapore Dollar at the Mustafa shopping center which is supposed to give the best forex rates in Singapore. We dined at the Bombay Magic Indian restaurant near the shopping center, the Indian food that we ate in Singapore was strictly ok, although we did eat worse food in Genting highlands, Malaysia. I'm guessing we were not taken to the right places to eat. Since there is such a large Tamil population in Singapore, I would have expected better food.

The next day a bus ride of about 8 hours to reach Malacca in Malaysia, we passed through the Singapore and Malaysian immigrations on the way. Singapore was initially known as Singhapoora or the Lion city and got its independence from Malaysia and is separated from Malaysia by a kilometer long bridge over the South China sea. Malaysia is called the melting pot of Asia with its history of many groups from different cultures having come into Malacca, in particular to trade. There are a lot of Chinese, Indian, Thai cultures that have mixed with the native Indonesian people. The Indian traders first named the region Malay, meaning hills or hilly region from where the country was later named Malaysia. True to its name, the landscape is truly covered with never ending beautiful low altitude hills. The flora of the region is truly tropical with a variety of palm trees (Malaysia is the largest exporter of Palm oil), banana trees, different species of large ferns all interspersed with each other creating a feel of being in the tropical glasshouse section of a beautiful botanical garden. For me, the jungles and the countryside were the best feature of Malaysia. With refreshment centers at every 30 Kms, the travel by bus was very comfortable. On reaching Malacca, we went around the local sight-seeing places such as the Dutch square, a maritime museum and a Chinese temple that follows the Zionist, Confucianism and Buddhist principles. The highlight of Malacca tour was the trishaw ride. The trishaw is a cycle rickshaw which is highly decorated. Each one in its own unique way with flowers, peacock feathers, some even had a old music speaker with the latest Bollywood tracks played. Yes, Himace bhai here too along with Karan Johar movie songs. Well apart from the trishaw ride, the place was not much fun. Next was the drive to the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur (KL) to where we took a cable car to the Genting Highlands, which is a lovely hill station and a gamblers haven. This place was built into a larger entertainment center mainly Casinos, more than 40 yrs ago. The family that owns it has built the entire complex that has several hotels with a total of more than 15000 hotel rooms! Malaysia is a muslim country and we all know that gambling is not encouraged in Islam, hence the question was the viability of casinos in such a place. The Chinese who make up 37% of the population are fans of gambling and sure enough apart from the tourists, the large amount of the guests in the Casinos were the Chinese. I am entirely uneducated in the various games and so was just a spectator. For those who have never been to one, imagine a table full of atleast 150 tokens (not sure how much each costed) bet on various numbers. The ball rolled on the wheel chooses a number to sit on, and all the tokens sitting on the numbers not chosen by the ball get cashed by the casino! And yet the tables were all full of people waiting for a table to play at.

For those of us with no dare to bet, there are two theme parks, an outdoor and a indoor one. Both very entertaining, the outdoor one had all the thrillers like various roller coasters, the space shot (a vertical shot into the sky to about a 100 metres) was a particular favourite of the oldies! Even I couldn't get myself to sit on it. These people are truly adventorous. The Indoor theme park had a artificial Snow world. Unlike the one in Dubai, Brayhead (Scotland), etc, this one doesnt have the various snow sport adventures. It has a simple tyre slide and we all enjoyed a real long snow fight with each other which was great fun. We are not allowed to take in our cameras and this is Genting's way to make some money. Professional photographers give you the option to take pictures that you can buy for a price once you get back into the natural world. But the pictures came out really good and for a 'special' price, Ha ha! Well we needed something to take away, so most of us did pay up. They have some combo deals here, so do keep a watch out here. Some of the people at counters did not speak very good english and with our desi oldies crowd there were a few miscommunications that ended in many having to shell out more than necessary for the pictures. At 9pm, we attended a optional show called the Mysteria show which had a group of western dance groups, a magician Tim Kole who has been commended by David Copperfield performing magic, a very fine crossbow shooting act and the Chinese Henan acrobatics troupe performing their acts in a Egyptian pharoah story format.

The next day, we got back to ground level via the cable car ride and travelled back to Kuala Lumpur. On the way we visited the Batu caves. In these caves is a 113 year old temple dedicated to Lord Murugan. There is a 42.7 feet statue of the Lord Murugan at the start of the climb of 272 steps upto the cave, which took 3 yrs in all to build. This cave has very well-formed stalactites and has lots of natural light from a opening at the top of the hill, unlike any caves I have seen till date. At the base of the hill, there are temples of Shanni dev and Ganapati. Also are a large number of Tamilian shops and restaurant where many of us had lovely indian coffee and South Indian dosas. We ordered for a paper dosa just to have something light to taste and we were served a 3-feet dosa! Very tasty food.

Here we were greeted by our KL guides, one of them being the Chinese guide I earlier mentioned. He was Mr. Ooui un Ken who was a very kind and knowledgeable guide. He kept giving us information on the similarity of how much Feng Shui and astrology has relevance among the Chinese and Vastu Shastra to the Indians. The similarity of how the Chinese considered astrology while choosing names like in India. Ooui was his family name, Un a name given to all of those born in his generation and Ken was his first name. We were taken to the Petronas towers which is the 2nd tallest tower in the world and is a commericial center built by the Petroleum National corporation in Malaysia, hence the name Petronas and the technology used to build it was imported from Japan and Korea, that would help the towers during earthquakes (which are not experienced in Malaysia). Also a visit to the KL tower, the tallest telecommunications tower in the world where we enjoyed the sky view of KL. We were given options for audio tours while enjoying the views and one of the language options was Hindi! Among the many monuments we visited were the national monument, the King's palace from the outside and Putrajaya the administrative capital of Malaysia. Malaysia has several states, nearly all having Sultans and a few with governors. The Sultans elect their King every 5 yrs from among themselves who acts as a figure head of the country, having little authority. Much like the President in India who signs off the Parliament bills to legalise them, the King here does this. The country is a democracy and the Prime minister who actually runs the country. The Sultans are highly educated and many are lawyers and extremely rich owning lots of inherited property.

KL also offers a variety of shopping options, we visited the Songei wang plaza. I was in search of a laptop and hence did not spare any time for anything else there. On getting a few quotations for laptops I found them to be reasonably cheaper than in India, but since the guide advised to check them in Singapore I refrained from buying one there. Once I got back to Singapore I realised it would have been about 4000 INR cheaper to buy it in KL. But the advice was to ask for international warranty and to buy from authorised dealers since duplicates could be got in abundance here. Another point I noted was that the pirated software business was prevalent in KL just like in India. For 50 RM (malaysian ringit) the salesman told me he would load in a lot of popular software. Near the KL hotel (called the Quality hotel which is a good one to stay at) were street markets where you can get good deals for apparel, artifical flowers, etc. On the last day in KL, we visited the Sunway lagoon which is a water theme park with a few water slides and two large pools with artificially created waves, one of which had rides that people could surf on as well.

We then returned to Singapore the next day. Our travel was aboard a very comfy executive class bus. In Singapore over the next three days we visited the Marina bay where we had a boat ride through the financial centre and the view of the Merlion. The Merlion is the adopted symbol for tourism in Singapore and is a mythological creature that legends say used to be spotted in ancient Singapore. It is also a wishing well. We visited the Singapore zoo by night, where we took a night safari bus ride. Ths tram would take us through various spots where nocturanal animals would be in their natural habitat. There was a interactive animal show called the creatures of the night show and we enjoyed a dinner buffet at the zoo. Apparently there are options to even dine with a view of the animals at the zoo.

There is a bird park called the Jurong bird park which has a train taking you to various spots around the park and again various interactive shows to entertain everyone. Little India didn't really meet my expectations after seeing all the colourful snaps of it in the tourism booklets, but this is near the Mustafa shopping center which is a 24x7 shopping gala for anyone wanting to shop economically. Bear in mind, there isnt much of a customer experience here and the sales assistants are not much of help. I missed visiting the China town which I really wanted to visit. At the Singapore airport, the tourist information desk is by far one of the best ones I've visited. It has all the information and free booklets you would ever need. They even have walking tours around China town and other areas in Singapore, something I was interested in taking, but didnt have the time. I had taken a walking ghost tour in Scotland which was fun, hence the immense interest from my side. All in all, the highlight of Singapore has to be Sentosa Island.

Sentosa Island is a island at the southern tip of Singapore and would take a weekend to cover. There are cruises that you can enjoy, or you could take a cable car ride to the island like we did. The spots on the island are covered by using a bus transportation system. First we visited a wax museum called the 'Images of Singapore'. It took about a half hour to cover the scenes depicted in wax of various cultures ranging from Malay, Chinese, Indian, etc and also depicted the history of Singapore. At the end of the walk, we were asked whether we would like to take a free picture with a ornate Chinese girl. Sure we would want that. Once you come out to collect you picture, you are asked to pay for it. So never be under the impression that its only the pandits outside Hindu temples in India that want to fleece you of your money. Well, the snaps came out beautiful so I did end up paying for it. Next was a ride on a 360-degree revolving deck that cranes upward and you get a beautiful view around Sentosa Island. Again you get to take your 'free' snap here. Okay, I think I need to tone down the sarcasm a bit :-).

We then went to the Ocean world, which is the under water glass house. It was simply the best aquatic experience I've had. You have to see it, to believe it. The water and the glass above are crystal clear and you have the full view to watch the sea animals in action.
There was a wonderful 4-D movie that we watched. I've never seen a 3-D movie and had to exchange notes with a cousin who had to understand how it was different from the 4-D one I watched. It was simply out of the world. The movie was about a boy playing pranks on some pirates who were invading his island and you would feel the spiders coming to you, the water splashing on to you, the seats would move to make it seem as though you were the one falling down the slide. It was as though you were a part of the scene. More 3-D movie options were available. We then visited a nice laser light, water and sound show which was again spectacular. There were a few other places on the island we didnt see as it was already night by the time we finished seeing all the above. The few other places to enjoy on the Island are the beach, Volcano land, Dolphin lagoon, Butterfly and Insect kingdon and also a lot of outdoor sporting options.

All in all a enjoyable trip through three lovely countries. I think I still have a lot more to see in Thailand and Malaysia, who knows I still might go back for more! I hope you enjoyed reading about my travels. Well until next time, Tally-ho !

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Vaishnodevi Memoirs

(This is a travelogue which I wrote about my Oct 2003 trip to Vaishnodevi and Uttaranchal cities in India)

I thought I'd pen down my recent trip to Vaishnodevi and other places, from where I've just come back yesterday. I seem to be still in a daze so please excuse my angrezi incase it slips. I thought it would be a good read for people who'd like to visit these places and also just after a trip, your views and fact & figures are still correct on each place.

The trip was adventurous to say the least. I, my parents and my cousin sis went together and we ended up using all kinds of means of transport from cycle rickshaws, to a/c cabs, planes to horse rides, rajhdhani to khatmal state transport buses. And that's what makes the trip more interesting. Besides visiting Vaishnodevi which was the main part of the trip, we visited hill stations, pilgrimage areas and a city.

Now I can really say India has a lot of work to do as far as promoting tourism is concerned. We had a tough time and I was wondering what foreign tourists might have to go through to move around the various places other than the expensive taxis!

We started with an a/c cab to the airport (hear! hear!) and a flight to Jammu. We didn't want to get tired out by a train journey so opted for this.The flight was via Delhi, Srinagar to Jammu. At Srinagar airport we could see the snow clad Himalayas, and just wonder at what beauty we were missing out on thanks to the sad state of affairs there. There were security personnel who actually came to each passenger asking whether the cabin baggage they could spot all over the plane, belonged to someone or the other. We reached Jammu in 30 mins from Srinagar.

Vaishnodevi
Vaishnodevi is approachable from a small town at its base called Katra (the 't' is tamatar(hindi) ka 't', I realised this only when I went there :)). There are ample hotels there, all very affordable. Its a clean and neat town, serving only veggie food without onions! Each hotel includes services such as buying the required items for the puja during the darshan, providing the yatri slip (govt issues slips for a group of pilgrims to start their trip to Vaishnodevi, and having this is a must), and taking the hotel guest to the base of Vaishnodevi in their vehicle to start the journey. Atleast in off-peak seasons bargaining for a good deal on the hotel room tariff is a good idea.

The temple is open for darshan 24 hrs a day, so you would see people being forever on the road! The place is pretty systematic (save for the clamour for the cloak room to put in your belongings before the darshan right at the top). They have numerous police checking points where your bags are checked completely and each one is completely frisked. J&K hasn't still seen the light of mobile telephony as yet, so mobile phones are confiscated on being found. (Better not to take these as they don't work in J&K anyway, for atleast another few months). My dad's cell phone had to be given to a local shop selling darshan items for safe keeping until he got back to the base! It felt like a great risk to give to someone you don't know at all, but thankfully people seem quite honest in the area. Unfortunately the administration there does not have a nice centre there to keep such items in safe keeping in their hands. Cameras are allowed, but leather items are not allowed while entering the temple, so its better to have the least amount of them on person. The entire stretch is about 13Km to reach the top. The initial 7Km is pretty steep with loads of shops selling bhajan cassettes, food, etc along the walk. The path is completely paved, each point has steps to climb incase people prefer that to climbing slopes. they have options to use horses to reach the top and even a palanquin for aged people. the whole path is well lit, many places having small tea stalls, clean drinking water coolers everywhere, places to sit all along the way.
We started our journey at 8pm. Reached the top at 12 midnight. In between for about 20 mins the lights were out, we were nearly at the top that time. It was wonderful walking under a starlit sky, the paths were painted with white paint at the edges, so it was easy to be on track everytime. The darshan took about 3 hrs. including the clamour to reach the cloak room. The facility there unfortunately didn't have a nice place to keep shoes and bags etc. Such things like pens are also confiscated during frisking before the darshan, so I suggest having as little as possible with you. Before queuing each are allotted a group number, queuing is based on that, though they aren't very strict with the group numbers. Climb down was 3 and half hrs from 3am to 6.30am by when I was dead tired. My parents had taken a partial horse ride upwards and down as well, while I and my cousins treaded the whole way. They have started a new route from about the mid point of the path, this new path is slightly less steep, and though we thought it would be longer as a result, its about 1 Km less that the old one! And surprisingly its less used so its less crowded. Amazing how people prefer to use the older, steeper and longer route rather than this one!

Jammu
Once back down, we went straight back to the hotel and tried to sleep for about a few hours until Breakfast and then again until 2pm. Check out times in these hotels are 12 noon, but we requested for a little more time. 8pm was our train to Shimla from Jammu.So we visited a few temples in Jammu while we were there. Also a nice museum called the Amar mahal museum. Though small, it was neat looking. I think it was a building owned by the present royal family and it was quite ornate. Jammu incidentally is called 'City of temples'. At Jammu Tawi, the railway station in Jammu, there is even a baggage scanner to actually X-ray our bags before we enter the station!!!! Ofcourse its not very well checked, so many people are able to get through the gates without having their bags scanned. The waiting room was in a barely-ok state, and toilets ... Let's not get into that now!... Before our train left from the stations, there are sniffer dogs that go through the entire train with police personnel !!! That was a thrilling experience, since we've never been in such 'sensitive' area before.

Shimla
This hill station and capital is approachable by road and rail from a place called Kalka in punjab. We took the train route. Its a narrow gauge train winding its way through towns in small and large hills in Himachal Pradesh. The journey is about 5 and half hrs long and is quite picturesque. It crosses about a 100 odd tunnels during the course. Shimla is a taxi drivers haven, or should I say heaven. The means of transport there is either the local bus or taxis. They have unions of cab drivers there and so you have to pay through your nose to get anywhere around. Our resort was in Kufri a small place in the hills about 23Km (literally this long only from the station, we checked the Kms traversed by the car's reading!) from Shimla, and it costs us Rs. 620/-. Criminal is what I say. Food is one plus point here. It was really very good. Places are picturesque and though there aren't many places to actually visit and have fun, its a good place for treks and walks. Unfortunately with parents around one can't do much. And also recovering from a 26Km trek to Vaishnodevi, walking was a real effort! :) Places is full of tall trees and unlike most other hill stations doesn't have green lawns on the hills. The hills here are totally covered with either rocky exteriors or 50-70 feet tall trees and monkeys ofcourse!
We visited some places around Kufri, on horse back. Had our snaps taken in the traditional attire of HP. Bought apples for as cheap as 10Rs. per 4 apples!!! Visited a institute of Advanced Studies. This was the place British Viceroys had built and stayed when residing in the then Summer Capital of India. Now its a residential study center for research in Human sciences. A very good looking building of Scottish architecture, Burmese wood etc. They have a small guided tour of some of the rooms of the building. The place has nice gardens as well. Not big but good.

Chandigarh- Mussorie
We tried inquiring for transport options to reach Dedhradun and we could come up with nothing other than taking a state transport bus or a private taxi. Deluxe buses only ply on the Chandigarh route. Taxis are as i have said really costly. The taxi unions there seem to really loot people with their high rates! In hope that we should get a good bus from Chandigarh to Dedhradun, we took a state transport bus to Chandigarh. The bus was in a barely decent condition. But since it was only for 31/2 hrs journey, it was bearable. Reaching Chandigarh I found it to be a really beautiful city. About the greenest possible that I have ever seen around the world(literally). Very nice wide roads, with separate lanes for the slow moving cycle rickshaws, auto rickshaws, cycles, etc. Trees and lawns all around the roads, wide pavements and railings everywhere. Working signals all over the city. Traffic really following rules (unlike all cities in India, with an exception of Mumbai) !! The major disappointment was no presence of tourism information at the main bus depot. We had to depend on the local rickshaw drivers, who charged a very nominal fare for the transport but brainwashed us to lodge in a very ugghhhh hotel nearby. We stayed there only for 1 night. This was Sector 17. The busiest commercial area of the city. The place is thronged with garment shops, restaurants, etc. We found out later in the day that Chandigarh has a hop-on-hop-off bus to sight-see the city and the buses are really in a good condition and well maintained !!!! Since we were ready to tour the city only later in the day, we found it economical to use local transport, which consists of auto rickshaws and cycle rickshaws. The drivers don't ask for unaffordable prices and 4 of us could be comfortable in a single auto rickshaw (which is bigger than our normal rickshaw in Mumbai). Main attractions here are the Rock garden, the Rose garden, Sukhana Lake and the City Museum. We didn't visit the Rose garden as many tourists on the way said it wasn't the season for flowers and the garden wasn't in bloom. The Rock garden is a large place with good landscaping done up with use of various kinds of rocks, scrap like broken glass bangles, cups, saucers, broken sinks, even electrical bulb sockets! Though I thought the idea very good and the kind of landscaping, its not as imaginative as can be. Its made by a Mr. Nek Chand. But its a good place to see as it has many man-made waterfalls amidst the rocks etc. The Museum is very good, an Art gallery and Natural history museum. We saw only the Art gallery which housed a whole lot of great paintings by Indian Artists, lots of handicrafts used by Maharajahs (genuine antiques)and many sculptures of Buddhism and Hindu fame. The Sukhana lake was a 3 sq. Km lake, quite a large one ! Besides the normal boating trips, they have motor boats and even a rowing and yatching club which is one of the best in India!

We took another state transport ordinary bus to Dehradun the next day. The state of which, I don't want to get into. By the end of it, I swore that I'm not going to take a bus ride any more on the trip again! Dedhradun, though a new capital of a new state, is really struggling to even reach the status that its been given. Its really a small town. Since we were not in the mood for more sight seeing here, we took a taxi to Mussorie. On the way to Mussorie, we saw a large waterfall called Sahastra Dhara, literally a large number of small streams raining down. Unfortunately its surrounded by a lot of shanties now, which has robbed the place of its beauty. There is a Tapkeshwar temple there dedicated to Lord Shiv.

Mussorie was really a place we enjoyed a lot. Possibly because we ended up employing the same taxi to sight-see and take us to our next destination :) !!! Thanks to my dad's wallet! Seriously this hill station is worth a visit. Very green and chilly weather. A nice place for a walk, drive etc. We visited a Kempty Falls, which is a splendid waterfall. It seems to just pour right out of the center of a hill, which seemed amazing to me. The water is crystal clear and you can actually see the bed of the stream with its wonderful round rocks and stones of different colour. Another place we visited was Dhanolti, a small town about 25Km from Mussorie, which also is home to the 'Sarkhanda Devi temple'. This is another mini-Vaishnodevi which is really very short in comparison but also very steep in comparison trek. Since it was located at a very unexpectedly high altitude, my mom and cousin backed out. My father and me treaded the whole way and it was really worth the walk. Its the highest hill around Kilometers and Kilometers stretching all around you. The Devi is one of the forms of Durga Devi and is one of the places (along with Vaishnodevi) where when Sati (Lord Shiv's wife) self-immolated herself, pieces of her body fell on this hill, among several other hills where temples were built to worship her. Very few people know of this temple, making it a least crowded place. Anyone can go here and peacefully pray for however long and feel great. There is absolutely no hill as I said higher than this one, and whenever it snows this hill is the one that gets snow clad the first! We can see Badrinath, Kedarnath and other such snow clad mountains from here. They seem to hang in the distance, with their bases not visible and only the snow clad portions visible. People here are really nice, though poor. My mom and cousin spent the entire hour and half, outside a hut of a poor old lady a few meters up on the hill. The lady only grew her vegetables and survived alone. Seems they migrate to other towns when the hill experiences snow. She offered apples and food without any request and was very hospitable.

Rishikesh-Haridwar
Next was the taxiing to Haridwar, along the way we visited a Shiv temple where there was a large shop selling precious stones. Needless to say we spent quite a while here! :)
Rishikesh seemed like a town with narrow roads and hoards of tourists/pilgrims. We saw the Laxman Jhula and Raam Jhula. These were spots where its believed Laxman and Ram meditated for penance after they killed Ravana(believed to be a brahman King). The Jhulas are actually suspension bridges, very well made. They keep moving when you walk on it. Various temples along the way here. I found a lot of architecture students come from Ahmedabad here, who were talking to tourists to do a survey about the facilities available and town planning problems in the area. I poured my heartfelt suggestions to one of them. She seemed to feel I'd find Haridwar the same, though after I visited Haridwar I didn't feel so.
We stayed at a Math (Its not arithmetic! please), in Haridwar. Rickshaws to take us to all the possible temples there. I even found several Thematic temples !!! Many of them were like a gallery where there were large creations of scenes of various important hindu stories. Some of them electrically mobile as well. Some of them tried to re-create the atmosphere of a pilgrimage to other important temples like Vaishnodevi, Badrinath etc. This was something I had never imagined existing until I saw them. Very interesting some of them were. The Ganga was not in its full force. Since the Kumbh is going to start early next year, there is a lot of work going on to build bridges, roads etc. But whatever little I saw of it, it was beautiful. Very light ice-blue water. Very clean unexpectedly! Two Main temples ChandiDevi and Mansa Devi are on high hill tops and they have cable cars to reach the hill tops!!! Very well maintained system, only the monkeys are a pain!
And although I swore never to climb a bus again, I guess God had something else in store for me after all ! Another state transport bus to Delhi from Haridwar! But this time (possibly because of all the blessings of the Devis) the bus was good (Maybe i should say great! :)).

The Rajhdhani back was good as usual. I somehow love it when people spoil you with food at repeated intervals so.... :)

Dances on Snow Flakes

(This is a travelogue I had written in Feb 2004 which was well received amongst many of my friends.)

Some time last month, there was a mail floating around in our office. The mail was about a tour organized to go skiing in Manali in the month of January. Few of us friends got together and decided to go, and boy were we excited. To add to the excitement, my mom got onto the bandwagon as well. Many of her friends and (our) family went about raising doubts and questions, "Will you be able to do it", "Yeh umar mein! Kahin haddiyan tooti to?"... Well following is a small (!?.. ok not small) pen down of my thoughts on the trip... Hope you enjoy it. It is not anywhere near the real thing, but still I hope its worth your read..

All of us were extremely excited about the trip. There was some struggle to arrange for woollens and thermal inners etc for the trip. I mean, who would know where one can buy woollens in Mumbai !! The plan was for all to meet at Mumbai Central Station in Mumbai, take the Golden Temple Train to Delhi. By 'all' here, I mean 42 of us ski-hopefuls. We were then to board a private bus booked for us, to Manali. The ski camp was 13 Kms from Manali , in a small hamlet in Solang Valley. The name of the guest house itself was enough to set our imagination loose.... "Snow Nest".

The road to the mountains

Thankfully the 42 were punctual and there was no trouble getting all the members into the train, save for one couple who missed the train and then had to take the next train. It was a 22 hour journey to Delhi by this train and though we were not looking forward to such a long journey from within the dark-tinted windows of the three-tier A/c compartment, it was great fun. All through the day, about 15 of us played Antakshari, Dumb Charades, Scrabble, etc. The stop at Mathura was specially memorable, as some got off and got back in with the famous Mathura pedas. We all had a tiny piece of those and bang!, we said farewell to our control-freak diets...We were about a half-hour late on our arrival at Delhi, and it took our group some time before we could spot our luxury bus at the station. At 9pm we were off and on our way, with a brief break at Karnal (Haryana) for Dinner.
We were expected to reach Solang by 9am the next day, but it took us much longer. The route we took was Delhi-Chandigarh-Bilaspur-Mandi-Kullu-Manali. The bus maneuvered hair-pin curves for hours in the Bilaspur-Kullu belt to reach Solang finally at 2pm. The roads were in a good state, but the terrain being very rugged and winding around many hills and mountains, it was a bit tough to stomach for people with delicate tummys. From Kullu district, we began to sight the snow-capped peaks, crystal water brooks running softly on smooth white rocks and a slight chilly breeze. There were a lot of Oooohs and Aaahs at this point, but there was much more in store for us!

Trying to get cozy in Snow Nest

The day we reached was a good day to acclimatize to the winter there. Most of us were accommodated in the Snow Nest guest house and the rest (most of the bachelors) were put up at the Friendship hotel. We were introduced to our Solang Coordinator, Amar Thakur and later he introduced us to his group of ski-instructors Bobby, Soum, Bhagat and Nirmala. All were from a clan of Thakurs and were residents of the village there with wonderful light tanned skin, light-brown eyes and hair. All our meals were at the Snow Nest. The food all through the stay was sumptuous and never oily. We had the traditional Momos, Tibetan snack which is actually a non-veg filling within a steam rice paste covering (We had the vegetarian version of these as well). We had a dinning room with a fueled Sigdi (a small metal enclosure for burning wood with a chimney to let out the smoke out of the room). This was the main and the only heating in the entire Snow Nest. Ok,.. Its a bit difficult to digest but yes, none of the rooms had any heating at all. But we all had attached baths with geysers. After dinner, we all had a short walk into the night with a few venturing to tell some horror tales. Ofcourse the rest of the talk was more about the anticipation of snow and skiing lessons expected the next day.

The snow fight

I had set an alarm for 6.45 in the morning. But inspite of the 3 layers of razais(woollen blankets) I had a disturbed sleep through the night and woke much before the alarm set off. The first thing I and my mom did was check out the view outside. It had started to snow lightly. And the view was Wooowwww...
We had a direct view of the highest mountain in the Solang valley from our balcony and a few houses further down the slope in out valley. There was a layer of snow on everything we could set our eyes on. Doors were banged and everyone was woken up. There was a scramble to get dressed, or rather 'packed' is the term I use. So many layers of clothing, gosh! Four of the guys were already done with making the Snow Man. All that the snow man required was to accessorize. I gave it my sunglasses, a black fake fur cap and a nice red muffler and our snow man was brought to life. We had a 2-3 hour long snow fight and lots of pictures taken with the snow man. Some guys chose to behead it and took snaps with its head in their hands. Poor snow man :(..


Our first skiperience

We were divided into groups of 20 each, since there were about 20-odd ski equipments available. Our group was the first one to start off!! I think it was the first time on skis for all of us and the ski boots were a bit of a put off. Many of us were able to get into ski-suits that were available and all of us had a hard time getting into our ski-shoes. These boots have nice soft foam from the inside and are in a rigid polyurethane shell. They are rigid right from your toes to mid-way of the calf, which is why one has to actually 'learn' to walk with them on. All of us nearly seemed dressed for a shuttle to space minus the helmets. Thankfully we didn't have to carry our skis to the ground with the boots on. Now all of us experienced the new technique of walking on snow with the boots and our ski poles for support.
Finally we had our lessons on how to get onto our skis. Each ski boot had a ski to go with it. We all got onto our skis and started to slide in the snow. It was a flat ground, so we had to use a lot of arm power. Eventually the sliding lead us to pushing using the ski poles and I did have short skiing sprints. Oh, by the way I forgot to mention another detail, it was snowing all through this time and at one point of the lessons, it worked up to a blizzard-like weather. The snow started getting stuck on the under-side of our skis and that started posing as more friction to work against. I had heard that there would be a lot of falls before we could actually ski, but I didn't have to face many. Infact only one. The instructors had taught us two methods of getting back up after the fall, but trying those out was baddddd.. The legs get into such a weird position with the skis on, that it requires some amount of athleticism to get back up. I always needed assistance :).
I started to tire out and so did the others and about 3 hours after we started out, we were clambering back to our snow nest. It was a cold night again and the snow never showed any signs of waning.

Snow troopers
The next morning it was still snowing until midday. Once the heat of the sun started reaching the wooden roofs, the snow started to melt. There were mountains of snow (vanilla icecream was more like it) everywhere and even the SUVs were snowed out. All the pine trees were looking like a line of Christmas trees. The roads and paths leading to it were a blanket of white. It was a bit tough while stepping into the snow, as you could not figure out a stone from the mud underneath. Our group had the afternoon session to ski, and to make most of our time we made way to the ski ground, a few minutes from our guest house. Here we had rides on snow bikes!, the tyre slides on the snow slopes. My mom noticed another thing and she went wild. Para-gliding!! The initial rate quoted for that was 800 INR. And once the whole group of 20 got to know of it, about 13 of us were ready for it. The rate per head was a mere INR 300. Can anyone beat that! We took a snow bike to the top of the slope from where the glide started. Once buckled up, I was ready to go. There was a driver saddled along with each glide and he took care of the maneuvering. The drop was about 100 feet, about a minute in time. The key was to run the whole steep slope downwards until the take off. I'd never been on this one till that time, but it was fabulous. It was a clear day by then. Blue skies against the snowy rugged mountains. We floated until touchdown and the key to the touchdown (atleast on snow) was to land in a sitting position with one's legs parallel to the ground. Some of the others didn't get the instruction and ended up somersaulting or landing on their faces.
Well that was the end of the snow sports. We had lunch and then moved out to the next session of skiing. This time we were expected to be pros in snow walking, and had to carry our skis on our shoulders to the ski slope. Yes, today we skied on either of two gentle slopes. The main techniques taught were how to snow plough, which is the braking mechanism. On the slopes, there's really no real energy required to move. It was all about balance and brakes. Next technique that was taught were how to climb up a slope. Initially I think a few found this a bit tough to master, but most of us enjoyed the second day a lot. There were quite a few people falling on this day in comparison, but it was worth effort. The 4 instructors were very good. It never felt like it was a group that was being taught. I think I can vouch for all, in that that all felt they were given individual attention. My mom enjoyed the ski a lot and many of the instructors were pretty appreciative of her efforts and did a lot of one-on-one. One of them had represented India in Iran once. There were children as well, residents from the village come out to ski. The 8-year olds were cruising the slopes like children in our part of the world ride bicycles. We were also taught to make turns, which many of us tried but required more practise. The walk back to the guest house now was tougher. The light was failing us and the snow was beginning to turn into ice.
We had lots more fun playing games over dinner and we moved into another hotel for the next 2 nights. This one had heaters! (phew) and a sigdi as well. Still somehow didn't manage much sleep. Many of us never felt hungry during the five days, inspite of the activities of the day. But, all stuck to the eating regime as it helps to acclimatize.

Around Manali
The snowing had abated, and now there was ice everywhere. The snow while melting into water was developing into frost. The water pipes were frozen and the hotel waiters were pouring hot water onto the water pipes. All in the bid to get the ice packed within, to defrost! :) The roof top edges were dripping icicles and we were breaking them by the twos. A fancy dress competition ensued with all getting into the rabbit, walrus, devil and what not getups. Cigars were the most common usage as just the breath coming out of our mouths was smoke enough ;). The fourth day was our day to roam around Manali. I did not mention about the animals in Manali yet, which is a topic in itself. The main animals here were mules, donkeys, horses, rabbits and dogs. Any animal had a thick coat of fur. The dogs were the best (I'd be a tad partial to them as they are my favourite). They were all what we call tagda in hindi, extremely healthy and wolf-like because of their heavy furs. Though they were the most ferocious by looks, they were the gentlest and ready to follow you everywhere for a petting. They never seemed to feel the cold and tread on snow with ease along with their pups.
We had fixed up a small tour with a contact there. The places we visited were:
Vashisht hot water springs - There are separate baths provided for the ladies and the men to have the hot water spring experience. There is lovely ornate wooden door to this bath which is exquisite. Also a temple dedicated to the Vashisht Muni.
Hadimba temple - This is by far the most popular temple in Manali and has a four-tiered pagoda. Everyone was quite surprised that there was a temple dedicated to Hadimba, the rakhshasi from Mahabharat. According to the Mahabharat, she had a very cruel brother who challenges Bhima. On being killed she demands to get married Bhima, as she had taken a vow that she would marry anyone who kills her brother. There are loads of local ladies who roam around giving the tourists a chance to pose in the local Kullu costumes with yaks or very white and fluffy rabbits (they somehow seemed sedated as they never moved! freaky..) for as cheap at Rs.20.

Manu temple - This temple is believed to be the only temple in India dedicated to the Rishi Manu, the creator of the human race. This stands on a small hill in very silent surroundings.
Rohtang pass- Was unfortunately closed as it usually is over the winter months.
Buddhist Monastery - We were very interested in this visit. Its in the middle of the tibetan community's residential colony. Very colourful.
Shopping - Lots of flea markets and antique-like tibetan works as well on sale. Somehow the bronzed works are not really cheap, and the tibetan folks dont seem very interested in bargaining either. Lots of feng-shui that you can get here for the same cost as in Mumbai. Many of us bought a lot of salwar kameez suits, shawls etc, but only if they were a good good bargain.

Serendipity

Our route back to Delhi was most uneventful. Thankfully most of the group members were able to stomach the twists and turns downhill.. We started at about 4pm and reached Delhi at 3am! Checked into a small boarding kind of hotel to dump our bags. About 4-5 of us were interested in the shopping rather than the sight-seeing. But since the shops didn't open until 11am, we decided to tag along with the other dozen gone off to see India Gate (war memorial at New Delhi). Whilst reaching the place, we noticed the place was swarming with security personnel. Wondering if it was a normal Delhi scene to see this and hoping all was ok, we approached India Gate and found it was closed for the 26th Jan Indian republic day parade. After 5 minutes of taking snaps from a distance, we were about to leave when we noticed a baracade of richly decorated motorcade coming down the Janpath towards India Gate and much more following behind it. Imagine our luck, we were about the witness the dress rehearsal of the 26th Jan Republic day parade, and that too from a distance of 2 feet only!
Standing on the pavement, we saw the initial motorcade of the chief marshals of the navy, army and airforce. Next came the display of the war missiles. Heavy army battle tanks, Agni 1 and 2, Brahmos, Prithvi missiles, mobile satellite communication equipments and a small air show of sukoys !! Next came the parade of our soldiers from the different regiments, some were the BSF (Border security force) on camels and horse backs. We considered ourselves so blessed to witness the entire march (believe me, some of the guys were thinking they would win the lottery if they bought a ticket then and there :)).

Now that I'm back at home, the snow flakes didn't seem to leave my dreams and it took quite a while to get back from the daze. Did I really experience all of this! Truly blessed was our tour and I keep turning the sheets of my album and recount my memories..

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