Wayfarers and Pathfinders

Sojourn By The Sea

2011-04-10T23:41:00.002+05:30

Alibag, Murud, Janjira on PhotoPeach Guest blogger Mohsin Khan Pathan makes an unplanned trip to the coastal towns of Alibaug and Murud located near Mumbai. A bunch of colleagues were transferred out of Mumbai and in the last few days of their stay here decided to visit Alibaug, famous for its beaches and forts. I being the so-called local, the responsibility of making last-minute arrangements

A Date With the Coast

2011-01-29T20:50:00.002+05:30

(Cross-posted here.) To explore more of Karnataka I set off to Mangalore with colleagues for a team member’s wedding on the evening of January 25. We took a sleeper bus from Bangalore. The bus was far from what was portrayed on the website of the bus service but the journey was just about decent. After a long night's ride in the cold with no bed sheets and bad roads after Hassan, we reached

Srirangapatna and Mysore beckon

2011-01-03T17:55:00.000+05:30

(First published on December 29, 2010 here at The Jaunty Albatross.) Come December and I headed to Srirangapatna and Mysore with my aunt. A hot day packed with too much to see wasn’t among the nicest travel experiences during the peak holiday season. Nevertheless, it was an experience in itself. A few pictures from the visit: Nandi, Mysore Tipu Sultan's body was found here, Srirangapatna

Dona Nobis Pacem

2010-11-04T12:24:00.001+05:30

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Trip to Vaishnodevi - II

2010-10-05T09:00:00.002+05:30

Trip To Vaishnodevi -I Day 3 started with the renewed enthusiasm of exploring places close to Vaishnodevi. I had already inquired about some including Dera Baha Banda Behadur, Aqhar Jitto, Nau Pindian, and Dhansar Baba. My mother was still down with the pain of the strenuous journey but I convinced her to come along. I booked an auto rickshaw and told the driver to cover all the major places

Trip to Vaishnodevi - I

2010-09-29T13:00:00.008+05:30

Some journeys are unpredictable. When you decide to undertake them they don’t happen. When you don’t, everything starts working out. My trip to Vaishnodevi was one such journey. I started from the Old Delhi railway station for Jammu by the Jammu Mail with my mother. She was extremely excited because she would be in Vaishnodevi in a few hours, I because I would be catching glimpses of mountains

Visiting the Jama Masjid in Delhi on Eid

2010-09-12T21:46:00.005+05:30

The Masjid-i Jahān-Numā, literally meaning the 'World-reflecting Mosque' and commonly known as the Jama Masjid of Delhi, is the principal mosque of Old Delhi in India. It was commissioned by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan who built the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort. The construction as completed in the year 1656 AD and is the largest and best-known mosque in India. It lies at the start of a very

Bheemeshwari

2010-09-01T13:01:00.034+05:30

Bheemeshwari is located 105 kilometers from Bangalore along a stretch of the Cauvery river. I went river rafting there a few years ago. Rafting was not all that exciting in shallow waters. The rapids were not of a high grade either. Nevertheless, to be lost amidst nature and its serene beauty was a break I deserved and badly needed. The entire trip was good but exhausting. I jumped into the river

Wordless Wednesday - I

2010-08-18T13:59:00.000+05:30

Mecca Masjid near Charminar, Hyderabad, India Wordless Wednesday Home

Prodigality in Stone - Bateshwar

2010-08-12T19:28:00.004+05:30

A restored temple [Edited version of post first published on Wholesome Options in Dec 2009 by Varsha. She is a bureaucrat and mother of two. Her interests are writing and strength training.] Fall of Harsvardhana (7th century AD): The end of State patronage to Buddhism and the rise of Hindu Kshatraps [satraps] led to gradual wane of Buddhism in face of the all -absorbing Hinduism. In

Syncretic Shrines - II

2010-08-06T12:24:00.004+05:30

Mount Mary Church, Bandra, Mumbai The Basilica of Our Lady of the Mount, better known as the Mount Mary Church looks like a typical Roman Catholic Church with its stone edifice, arched façade, broached spires, a Rose window and buttresses. Yet it is arguably the most fabled of all churches in Mumbai and the most prominent of the twenty odd churches located in the suburb of Bandra near Mumbai.

A Jungle Jaunt and Misty Memories: Trip to Manas

2010-07-30T23:48:00.003+05:30

We travel, initially to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves - Pico IyerWe travel to escape from the mundane, to explore the unknown and feel the bliss of being ourselves. We lose ourselves in chatter and drunken revelry. The inner voice we wanted to hear is lost in the cacophony rising out of tour guides advertising their services and tourists haggling in a souvenir shop. So

Syncretic Shrines - I

2010-07-23T15:38:00.006+05:30

St. Mary's Orthodox Church, Kerala, India Guest post by Sajoson Mathai who is an engineering student and lives in Mumbai. The architecture of the church located in the Pathanamthitta district in Kerala has the influence of that of Hindu temples. Driving up the hilly roads of Kallooppara I gazed at the rubber plantations on both sides. It was my first time in Kerala on a Good Friday. The sun had

Another look at the Bandra Fort in Mumbai

2010-07-10T22:53:00.009+05:30

A brief history of the fort is carved in stone As you walk towards the end of the Bandra Bandstand promenade, past the aptly-named Hotel Land's End, the ruins of the 'Castella de Aguada' come into sight. Better know as the Bandra Fort, the Castella de Aguada is located on a hillock by the Arabian sea. Standing at the archway which was the entrance to the fort, I found it difficult to imagine

Unplanned Trip to Jaipur

2010-07-05T14:27:00.007+05:30

[This is an account of a solo, unplanned trip taken by a woman. And that on an occasion like New Year's Eve. We hope more Indian women shed their inhibitions about travel and take off on the paths they fancy, with or without a companion.] On the last, freezing night of 2009 in Delhi I was wandering aimlessly after returning from work, wondering about what to do on the last night of the year. It

Photos from a trip to the Qutab Minar

2010-06-30T20:53:00.001+05:30

Wayfarers and Pathfinders, being a travel blog, will be incomplete without photos of the beautiful places around the world where the members and contributors go to. Kickstarting this facet of the blog, here is the first photo story of a trip to the Qutab Minar in Delhi. More of these will be posted from time to time. Hope you like them. :)

Of empty handed homecomings

2010-06-27T11:30:00.000+05:30

(First published at Sometimes I write, Sometimes I am in December 2008.) Sometimes traveling is not about the things you bring back but what you leave behind. The flaming red rhododendron that fell from my hand on a slope near Cloud End. The look in your eyes as we were treated to an October sky pierced with a million stars while the bus rushed down the mountain on its way from Nainital to

Bandra Fort

2010-06-21T19:09:00.004+05:30

(First published at Travel Magic in May 2010) At ‘Land’s end’ in Bandra there are the ruins of an old Portugese fort - Castella de Aguada (Portuguese: "Fort of the Waterpoint"), also known as the Bandra Fort. The name indicates its origin as a place where fresh water was available in the form of a fountain (Aguada) for Portuguese ships cruising the coasts in the initial period of Portuguese

Masinagudi - Foothills of the Nilgiris

2010-05-27T18:45:00.032+05:30

(First published here in April, 2010.) A quarter has gone by and I haven’t been able to add any new blog posts. Time that I traveled, eh? Absolutely, I so needed to get off and so I did. Three of us (two friends and I) headed to Masinagudi, located in the land where I hail from – Tamil Nadu. Situated at the foothills of the Nigliris, on the edge of the Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary, Masinagudi is

Kerala Trip - IV

2010-05-15T19:15:00.003+05:30

(This is an account of a week spent in Kerala in late September, 2009. Cross posted here.) There are numerous churches in Kerala with bright, colorful murals and glass paintings of an armoured man on horseback holding an unsheathed sword aloft. (I believe he was one St. George of Norfolk.) On the day before I left Thekkady for Cochin, I decided to visit one of them. Everyone inside the church

Kerala Trip - III

2010-05-15T01:20:00.011+05:30

(This is an account of a week spent in Kerala in late September, 2009. Cross-posted here ) If I were to make a list of things I wanted to eat before I died I would count in the home-made chocolate of Thekkady. Made from cocoa grown in the plantations there, it is unprocessed and has all the goodness of a local produce. For eons, Kerala – green, fecund, tropical – was the prime source and

Mouth Watering Food

2010-05-12T12:17:00.006+05:30

Saddi Dilli is famous for its chatpata food, we all know that. And yes, my particular interest in writing this is because, I, myself am a food lover! And today I am a little nostalgic about my days in the campus and am also terribly hungry, as I sit in office waiting for the lunch hour. If you too love to traverse the streets in search of good food then you should read on. Here are some of the

Kerala Trip- II

2010-05-09T23:27:00.018+05:30

(This is an account of a week spent in Kerala in late September 2009. Cross posted here Kerala Trip - I Kerala Trip - III Munnar was a six hour bus ride away from Cochin. Much of the journey was through the Nilgiris, pristine hills shrouded in blue at dusk. (Would that have given the Niligiri, literally meaning ‘Blue Mountain’ its name?) Despite the forest cover, hairpin bends and zigzag

Kerala Trip - I

2010-05-08T11:49:00.006+05:30

(Cross posted here. This is an account of a week spent in Kerala in late September 2009.) Kera, from the little Malyalam I know, means coconut. When I left Mumbai for Kerala, I expected my trip to be an endless mis-en-scene of coconut country - plantations of coconut, banana, tea, stretches of paddy fields, lotus ponds, verdant valleys and emerald - green pools. As I packed my bags, I hummed the

A hilly retreat in Binsar...

2010-04-05T13:13:00.005+05:30

It was an auto strike in Delhi the other day when I had gone out with bag and baggage to hit the hills for yet another weekend getaway. I managed to reach the Old Delhi Railway station just minutes before the train was about to leave. But all the running around and sweat was worth the try. As we were in for yet another hilly retreat! This time our trip was to Binsar, a bird sanctuary in