Road Trip Day 6 - Bikaner

On Day 6 we woke up in Bikaner, the last of our stops in the road trip. I have never been to Bikaner before this. So this was a first. We had only 1 day here, almost half a day actually, so we decided to do some googling and choose 1 or 2 places to see. The first on the list was Junagarh Fort. It is famous for being one of the forts that was never conquered. It was built in the city rather than outside on a hilltop, like Mehrangarh fort. It had a moat filled with water around it. The water is sort of gone now but you can see some of the moat still around. The royal family doesn't stay here anymore and have shifted to the Lalgarh Palace, which is also a heritage hotel. We did visit the palace too for a brief visit.

We picked a few odd things from here and there. Not too much shopping. A pair of slippers, a skirt here, an earring there. We did sample the local yet very famous Bikaneri rasgullas, namkeen and ghewar. That closed our eating local delicacies part of the trip. 

On the way back we stopped at the house of one of my dad's uncle's in Punjab. They have an orange orchard. We spent some time there and N got to experience a tractor, a buffalo and a hand pump first hand. He was so happy to pump out water by himself :) A chatting session and a sack full of oranges later we were off for home! 

It was a great time, time well spent - re bonding, laughing, chatting, sight seeing and shopping :) Cheers to the last day of this road trip and here's to many more!!

You can read the previous day's posts here - Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4 & 5.

Rajasthan by road!

I have been travelling across countries and within India since last December. It started with the Sydney-Thailand trip last Christmas, followed by the move to India in Jan this year.
Once in India, I spent some time in Faridabad, Delhi, Bathinda, Bangalore and Chandigarh. Not more than a week anywhere though!
At first I thought I would get tired of the living-out-of-a-suitcase and getting-used-to-new-accommodations part very soon. But it has been pretty OK. It helps that the kid has grown up, relatively speaking, and is in general cooperative about seeing new places and meeting family (new people for him).

The next travel bit is a road trip to Rajasthan. It starts tomorrow and we plan to go from Bathinda, in Punjab to Jaipur, Ajmer, Jodhpur and Bikaner, in Rajasthan. We have stayed in Jodhpur for 3 years when my father was posted there while he was serving in the Army. I was 10 years old then.  We did travel across Rajasthan that time too and so a lot of memories will be revisited.
The road trippers include me, N, my sister, mother and father. Dad wanted to take the family out for a trip. According to him it is not very often that we get together like this and so this is a perfect opportunity :) Both his sons-in-law are away on their own business/work trips. So it's just the 5 of us. I will try to do a daily post with the highlights and if possible (network speed permitting) daily pictures.

6 days, 5 nights, some 1350 kms, 4 grown ups, 1 kid and a Scorpio.
The music is ready, maps have been printed, bags packed, car loaded and munching stuff collected.
Now it is get, set and go in the morning!!  Looking forward to it!! :)

This picture was taken in Sydney downtown. It represents movement, travel, activity and buzz to me. Life is like this - it doesn't stand still, even if we do!!

Day 27 - 3 iconic sights from Sydney

I am in a hangover from Christmas so leaving you with 3 iconic and world famous sights from Sydney!!

Sydney Harbour Bridge - People climb and do walks on top of the bridge too!

Opera House - beautiful work of craftsmanship and super location

Bondi Beach - sun, surf and white sands. Was awesome spending time there and resulted in a few sun burns too!

This post is part of the Marathon Blogging December 2012. 

Day 25 - Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all of you. Wish you loads of happiness, fun and goodies!!

There are Christmas trees, holiday crowds, finger licking food and songs everywhere we go. 

The tree in our apartment complex

The blue and silver tree at Wellington airport

The tree at Sydney airport

Yummy christmas macaroons at Lindt in Darling Harbour, Sydney

Holiday crowds and carol singers at Darling Harbour, Sydney

We have been enjoying sunny Sydney and are off to Thailand now. Have a lovely week ahead!!

This post is part of the Marathon Blogging December 2012.

Day 19 - My home tour on Magical Homes!!

My ex-apartment in Bangalore was featured on Magical Homes yesterday. The site also has a lot of tips and ideas on all aspects of a home. Makes for an interesting read. Hop over to check it out :) And let me know what you think, by leaving comments there. 
This is the 2nd home tour for my rented apartment and Dipika the editor has put together the post so well. Thanks Dipika!! 
We spent 2 years there and it was a wonderful stay. I miss my home, my neighbours, my friends from that place and hope to go back there soon.

A cozy corner in my balcony. Books and a cup of tea made it awesome! 

The 1st home tour for that apartment is here on The Key Bunch. 

With that done, my task list looks much better now - 
- Send pics for home tour - Done
- Write article for my first freelance assignment - Done
- Send pics and info for a lifestyle site coming up in Feb 2013 - Done
- Gifts for N's teachers at kindy - Done
- Holiday and Christmas shopping - Done
- Bulk of the packing for N and me - Done
- Donate N's clothes, the ones he has grown out of, to The Salvation Army - TBD 
- Last few rounds of laundry and ironing - TBD
- Clear and clean the fridge - TBD

This month has been crazy! I thought it would be the slowest month of the year, relaxed, easy breezy. But instead it has turned out to be the craziest of them all. Started with the blogging marathon and I took it up as a challenge and a way to meet new bloggers. Then came the tug-of-war of going to India vs staying here. That was is mental torture. And all of a sudden I had these 2 requests for pictures and an article to be written! Plus all the stuff for the holiday - shopping, packing. Phew! I am so looking forward to the holiday. 

What are you planning to do on New Years? Where will you be? At home with loved ones? With extended family? Out of town? Partying somewhere? Watching TV? 

This post is part of the Marathon Blogging December 2012. 

Otaki trip and farm stay

A few weeks back, we visited a home stay/farm in Otaki about an hour north from Wellington. We went along with another family so N had company ;)
We went via a scenic route along the west coast of North Island along the Tasman Sea.
Once we reached the place, we were welcomed into our cabins by this stunning blue necked beauty!

We set off to explore the place immediately; because it all looked so inviting and exciting. And we wanted to see everything before the sun went down.

The farm is very Bali-inspired. They have their head office in Bali hence a lot of Buddha statues all over the place. 

Some elephants-having-fun statues too!

There was even a cute li'l wishing well and the kids dropped coins into it and made their wishes :) 

There were lots of birds and animals on the farm roaming around freely. Some hens. 

Some geese, roosters and birds-I-don't-know-names-of. 

There were some deer. 

The best part was when the peacock decided to spread his feathers and strut about.

Then it was time for sight seeing around the town of Otaki. And it had so many hues to offer. It was a pure visual delight! 

At the Otaki Beach we saw these seagulls resting.

Ended the day with some delicious food at the local Indian restaurant.

The next morning we had a gorgeous visitor at our cabin door!

Beautiful, isn't it?? 

New Zealand is a beautiful place and here is to many more trips!! 

Valley of Flowers, Pune Warriors and Aamby Valley City!

N has his month long vacations going on! (Yes the kids have to be at home for a month!) And so I decided to spend some time out of home with family surrounded by more people so that I wouldn't go crazy!!!
And we have been having an awesome time. Spent about a week in Pune - met family we haven't seen in a long time :) Loved it.

We went to this place called Valley of Flowers near Satara. It is situated on Kaas/Kas Plateau and is nature at its best. It has slopes and fields for as far as you can see, covered with flowers - pink, blue, white, yellow! They grow naturally and look pretty! Supposedly some rare species of flowers grow here. See for yourself -

The lilac/blue velvety flower

The pinkish purple ones

Pretty yellows! We couldn't take too many pictures of the vast expanse of flowers - it started raining and became misty - perfect to enjoy the place but not to take pics :)

The valley, plateau and clouds floating by! Ah! Bliss!

There were fields and slopes covered with flowers like this one above!

Heading back home after a long and mesmerizing day!

The Pune Warriors stadium under construction near Lonavala on the Pune Mumbai expressway.

N wanted to wish them victory! and maybe play here someday ;)

A relaxed boat trip in a man made lake at Aamby Valley City, Lonavala

It was a fun fun trip!! Looking forward to many more such trips :)
Hope all of you are doing great! What plans for the Dussehra holidays?

Linking this in to Patty's Weekly Party. Happy Monday!

Trip to Kabini River Lodge in Nagarhole National Park

A few days back we did a "first-time" ever trip.
What was special about this trip? My parents, my in-laws, my younger sister and her husband, her mother-in-law and the 3 of us -  S, N and I went on this trip. This was the first time ever we all went out and spent time together. I had a lot of apprehensions and anxiety about how it would turn out. But much to my surprise everybody clicked well and we had a great time :)

We went to Kabini River Lodge, one of the many resorts operated by Jungle Lodges and Resorts Ltd. It is located on the southern border of the Nagarhole (Rajiv Gandhi) National Park in Karnataka, India. The place was beautiful and lush green after the rains. Surrounded by nature it was very peaceful and relaxing. 

We stayed for one night and the package included 3 meals from a buffet, the entry fee for the national park, the jeep and boat safari and camera charges too. The rooms were in a colonial style structure and had beautiful gardens all around. The resort was once the hunting lodge for the Maharajah of Mysore.

The rooms were very spacious and had high ceilings. There was a lovely veranda outside the rooms looking onto a lush green garden. There were tyre swings and benches across the resort. The resort takes you out for jeep safaris and motor boat safaris. It is located on the banks of River Kabini and so the location is perfect. The river is very tranquil and calming.

On the jeep safari we saw elephants, including a tusker. According to the forest officials a tusker is a rare sight. It was drizzling when I took the picture below.

We also saw many herds of spotted deers.

Some vibrant peacocks.

and langoors, wild boars, nilgais, vultures,  and a teenie meenie turtle.

The boat ride was less eventful because of the rain. But we managed to see a baby tusker, kingfisher birds(the guide very aptly named them the "Vijay Mallya" birds), cranes, ducks and a variety of other birds (whose names I do not remember).

The resort has climbing nets where N and the adults had loads of fun! They have coracle boats for a ride if you would like to try something different. They also take you on nature walks around the resort - it seemed to be a big hit between older kids and adults too.

Some of the food items could have been better in terms of taste. Other than that the service was good, the rooms and sheets were neat and clean, bathrooms well stocked and the staff was helpful. If you are going there with little ones I would suggest you carry your own stuff for snacking in between meals and something to drink too. There is nothing around close by where you can shop for quick eats. But there is a mini fridge in most of the rooms so you can keep your own stuff in.
Overall I would rate the resort a 7/10 and the whole experience an 8/10. Feel free to write in to me if you have any questions or need other details about the place and to & fro journey.

Travel: Goa

We recently went on a vacation - it was our first after coming back to India. And Goa was just the perfect destination for that :)

We stayed in a resort called "Cidade de Goa" which means "City of Goa". Its situated in central Goa close to Panjim.
The location of the resort was great - close to the capital and not very far from the airport.

We entered the resort and were given the traditional Indian welcome - a kumkum tilak on the forehead. N was buzzing with excitement after the bus ride. The resort had beautiful life sized paintings on the walls from the Portugese era.

They had a beautiful spa inside the resort. Awesome massages slathered in rich oils and herbs. The spa looked so peaceful and serene.

Beautiful Mediterranean style interiors; spacious and just perfect for kids to run around and play.

I fell in love with their dessert collection in the lunch and dinner buffets. Don't they look so tempting? 



The resort had a nice kids room where N spent some time every day.



They had 3 restaurants all of which were themed differently.
Alfama - inspired by the bohemian town square in Lisbon. It had romantic balconies and alcoves with musicians serenading you during a candlelit dinner. They sang "You are my sunshine" at our table and N loved it!

Cafe Azul - had the charming ambience of an Italian cafe. It had an awesome view of the resort pool as well as the beach and the sea.

 Laranja was a global cuisine restaurant decorated in bright and fiery orange 

The resort had its private beach, so it was quiet and yet fun! 

Sightseeing was fun too - The Basilica of Bom Jesus or Basilica of Good Jesus is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  

I loved the feel of the ancient Fort Aguada.

Lovely vacation! I am already looking forward to another one :)