Coolwayfarer's Diary

Escape to the Jungles

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:29:00 +0000

This weekend, our friends and family trip was of a different kind. An escape from Kochi to the jungles of Sethumadai and Parambikulam and participation in harvesting tomatoes at Kozhinjampara was indeed an unforgettable experience.

View Sethumadai Parambikulam Trip in a larger map

We started in a Tempo Traveller from Kochi at early morning. The first stop was at Mannuthy for breakfast and a short visit to Kerala Agricultural University. Then we headed to Pattikkad to visit another friend on our way.

It was already late in the afternoon when we arrived at a friend's farm in Kozhinjampara. We spent some good time walking through the bitter guard and tomato farms and finally participating in the tomato harvesting along with the farm labourers. The lunch was served there. Next was the visit to a vegetable distribution center at Kozhinjampara where the tomatoes we harvested and other vegetables were sorted and packed in crates to be sent to the super markets across Kerala.

Sethumadai Nature Trip

We also visited a sugarcane plantation nearby Kozhinjampara where jaggery was manufactured. The sap was extracted first from the sugarcanes and then boiled in a very big pan for making the jaggery cubes. The waste after extracting the sap was dried in the sun and used as a fuel for boiling.

When we reached Sethumadai, it was almost dark. The climate was very comfortable... cold but not too cold. We had booked three cottages in the Cots Villa Resorts (http://www.cotsvilla.com). They had arranged camp fire with BBQ; and a team of locals were there to entertain us with country music (typical dappaan kuthu). The cottages we stayed for the night were of unique construction having stone walls, palm thatched roof and bathrooms with a sky view option :).

The beauty of the locality was revealed more clearly in the next day morning. The resort was set in a spread of few acres under the scenic foothills of Western Ghats. We could see lots of peacocks roaming around within the resort compound. The Anamalai Tiger Reserve was just across the fence and we enjoyed a nature walk through the forest in the early morning.

After the breakfast, we headed to Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary after a brief stop at Topslip. The safari arranged by the forest department took us through the various scenic view-points like the reservoir, dam, Kannimara teak, etc. We could spot a lot of wild animals like bisons, deers, hogs, variety of monkeys, malabar giant squirrel etc. After the safari, we returned to Kochi and reached back home before midnight.

Poster by: Hari P, Trip Organization by: Subunu K, Photos by: Sameer C Thiruthikad

Weekend Outing: Lake Vembanad, Vaikom

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:00:00 +0000

This weekend, our friends and family trip was to Vaikom for a house boat cruise in Vembanad Lake. The one hour drive from Kochi with seven families in a Tempo Traveler early in the morning took us to the shores of Kerala's largest lake. After few hours waiting, we boarded the mighty 90 feet long 'Shoreline Princess' equipped with all modern facilities. The cruise was nice but more interesting was the fun we had within the boat playing various group games. Here are some snaps:

Weekend Outing: Andhakaranazhi Beach

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 18:19:00 +0000

This weekend our friends and family trip was to Andhakaranazhi, a serene beach around 30 kilometers from Kochi towards Alappey. We reached there by evening and enjoyed a great time playing volleyball and football on the beach and wrestingling with the big waves.

Weekend Outing: Munambam Beach

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 12:49:00 +0000

This weekend I and my wife went to nearby Munambam Beach with our friends and their family members.

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It was a fun filled evening and we thoroughly enjoyed building those sand castles and dipping ourselves in the salt water.

You can read a nice travelogue on this beach by a Sulekha member here at http://bindiageorge.sulekha.com/blog/post/2009/03/munambam-beach.htm

Goodbye again, it's time to go home

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 09:23:00 +0000

The hectic but exciting week in US is over now and it is time to go home. An early morning Alaskan Airlines flight on Feb 15, Sunday from Seattle took me to Los Angeles.

I waited there at the LAX airport for few hours to catch my Emirates flight to Dubai. I slept most of the time and the 16 hour flight seemed not that boring.

After two hours waiting at Dubai, I boarded another Emirates flight to Kochi and was home by early morning on Feb 17, Tuesday.

Microsoft, Boeing, Whidbey, and Deception Pass

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 07:41:00 +0000

The only full day I got here in US without work assignments was today and was meant for sight seeing in the Seattle area. I and Ranjeesh with his family set off in their car early in the morning. First was a courtesy visit to Microsoft corporate campus in Redmond. After all that is the company which is helping me to earn my bread and butter. :)

Next we headed to Everett, 20 miles away from Seattle, to see the Boeing Company's factory where Boeing 747s, 767s, 777s, and the new 787 Dreamliner are built. First, we saw the air museum named as 'The Future of Flight Aviation Center' where everything about Boeing aircrafts were presented.

Next was the famous tour inside the factory, which is is the largest building in the world by volume covering almost 100 acres! Cameras were not allowed inside, so I am sorry, I don't have any photos. It was a great experience to watch those bigger jets getting assembled in different stages.

A ride on the ferry service to Whidbey Island was the next activity and we spent some good time at the beaches of Cultus Bay. Next destination was the beautiful Deception Pass bridges.

By that time, it was getting dark, and we ended our day with a final trip around Seattle down town and some shopping.

One day at IdentityMine, Tacoma

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 07:35:00 +0000

My friend Ranjeesh's home was in Bellevue and his work place was just across the road. My last working day here in US was meant for meeting my colleagues in our head office at Tacoma, around 40 miles away from Bellevue. I drove Ranjeesh's Toyota RAV4 to office and it took me around one hour to reach there through the highways I-5 and I-405.

After work hours, I and Ranjeesh went to Seattle downtown. The city's famous landmark 'Space Needle' stood out from the rest of the buildings there. We roamed around that place for some time and returned home as it was freezing cold.

Visit to Universal City and to Seattle

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 07:02:00 +0000

Today was my last day in LA and I decided to visit the Universal City in the morning, before going to work. It was near my hotel and I spent almost an hour walking around the Universal Studio premises and the 'City Walk' area. I wanted to enter the theme park but that would require more than half a day to experience completely. So I returned after taking few snaps from the area.

After noon, there was some confusion on my travel plans as the management considered an option to send me to our San Francisco office instead of Seattle. Later on that plan was dumped and I headed to the LAX airport, returned my rental car and boarded the flight to Seattle. My good old friend and college classmate Ranjeesh is living in Seattle working for Microsoft there, and I will be staying with him for the rest of the week. I landed at Seattle airport before 10 PM, and Ranjeesh came with his family to pick me up from the airport. Seattle was too cold (2 degree Celsius) and I was too tired. So no outing was in plan... just sleep tight.

Visit to Hollywood

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 06:53:00 +0000

It rained yesterday and was windy too. But today it was all sunny, though very cold. After work, in the evening I went to Hollywood Boulevard, the most famous place in LA. Our office and my hotel was in North Hollywood and I walked to the Metro underground rail station near my hotel to catch a train to Hollywood area. It was very near by and I reached there before it was too dark.

The Hollywood Blvd is the street where the famous theaters like Chinese Theater (which hosted Oscar awards earlier) and Kodak Theater (which is now the permanent venue for Oscars)
are located. It also had numerous shops and entertainment spots. I didn't have a camera and hence I bought a small one from here. A Canon PowerShot A470 for $108. It was not that interesting for me to roam around alone in that cold night and so I limited my tour to just walking around all the famous places including the walk of fame where golden star shapes are embedded on the roads with famous movie/music star's names.

I was back in my room before 10 PM and was so tired with a lot of walking.

Gestures and Surface at IdentityMine, LA

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 06:14:00 +0000

My first day at work in US was very much interesting. I had detailed demos and walkthroughs of an interesting project our LA team was working on. It enabled multi touch gestures on applications for multi-touch devices like Microsoft Surface and Windows 7.

I tried out some samples using it and tried them on the Microsoft Surface and Windows 7 HP touch systems we had at the office here. It was fun and exciting.

A short visit to US

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 05:22:00 +0000

This travel was very much unexpected and was with a short notice. This time, it is for an internal project discussion and I will be visiting IdentityMine offices in Los Angeles and Seattle. And I have got just one week here.

During my last visit to US, I was in Dallas, Texas and was never been to LA or Seattle. So of course, as a travel freak, I was excited with this trip and was also a little worried about the issues in my passport. I had a B1 visa from my previous employer which was valid for another 7 years. I knew that's not an issue as B1 visas are not tied to the employer unlike H1 or L1 visas. But the passport with that visa had expired and now I am having a new passport. My previous passport and hence the visa had my name written in wrong order of first name and last name. The Indian passport has fields like 'Sur Name' and 'Given Name' and in my passport the name was written continuously without caring this order. But in the new passport, I had it corrected so my first name 'Sameer' is at the 'Given Name' field and my middle name and last name 'Cholayil Thiruthikad' is at the Sur name field. The 'h' in my middle name was missing in my old passport and I got it corrected in my new one. All this was enough reasons for a confusion at the immigration counter.

The flight was 'Emirates' from Kochi and took off on 2009 Feb 8, Sunday early morning. After few hours it landed in Dubai and there was a change in aircraft. There was only enough time to change the gates to catch the onward flight to Los Angeles from Dubai. It was a new Boeing 777-200 LR with good facilities. I liked their updated innovative in-flight entertainment system named as ICE (Information, Communication, Entertainment) that had lots of movies and TV shows that we could watch as we like it. But still the long 16 plus hours flight was so boring. To beat the jet lag later on, I tried sleeping in my day time and being awake all my night time.

I landed at Los Angeles on Sunday after noon. The officer at the immigration counter was just checking the validity of my visa in the old passport and not the passport expiry date or confusions in my name. The only question he asked was about how long I would be staying here. After that, it was business as usual. Scanning the whole left arm, then left index finger, then the same for right, and then taking a photo. That's it, and I got the I-94 form piece stapled on my passport allowing me to stay here for 3 months.

It was very cold outside and I caught the shuttle bus to the 'Budget' car rental center. There are many good things you can enjoy on a visit to US after having been here on an H1 visa before. I had my US identity card and driving license still valid and that made it easy to rent a car. It was a compact Volkswagen car. I was bit nervous on driving here after more than an year but everything went fine. I had the printouts of maps and directions from airport to the hotel where I had a reservation. Without making any mistakes, I got onto the freeway and took the correct exit and reached the hotel Holiday Inn after half an hour drive. It was a nice room and I was very tired and went onto sleeping the whole remaining day and night comfortably.

Volvo Ocean Race Farewell from Kochi

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 19:02:00 +0000

The India Stoppover of Volvo Ocean Race concluded today here and the racing teams left Kochi for Singapore starting the third leg of the race. The see off ceremony was a remarkable event with thousands of people gathered to see the yachts take off. Sailors seemed enjoying the cheers from crowd and many responded saying thank you in Malayalam. One team was dressed up in typical Mallu dotis. The family members of the sailors were also there to bid farewell. The stunts performed by an international paraglider was another attraction at the event.

Volvo Ocean Race India Stopover, Kochi

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:17:00 +0000

Today evening, I visited the race village which is getting ready at Kochi in association with the Volvo Ocean Race India Stopover. Ericsson 4, the team which is leading now has already arrived here and some stalls were also getting ready. The festivities are supposed to start from 3rd December and will last till 13 December. Volvo had set up a big showroom there displaying many vehicles ranging from bigger trucks to compact concept cars.

Thrippoonithura Temple Festival

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 18:10:00 +0000

Spent the whole night at the Thrippoonithura Temple Festival and got some interesting photos including the backstage of Kadhakali performance.

Kochi Naval Fest

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 18:03:00 +0000

Visited Naval Fest at the Naval Command in Kochi. It is a festival Indian Navy organizes every year to showcase their skills and equipments to public. Many war ships for open for public and the stalls from different departments explained their activities in detail.

Branding case study - Unopix

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 07:25:00 +0000

Brand building is an interesting exercise I have always enjoyed. Even though I have not yet started any companies/brands of my own yet, I had worked on many ideas before. Recent examples are CoolMallu (http://coolmallu.com) and Zosma (http://zosma.biz). Being a software guy, my initiatives start on the web and usually ends there before hitting the ground. The new idea I have in mind now is to setup a photo studio at my hometown Manjeri. This time I have started from the ground (by booking a building room at Manjeri) and is now planning to use web just as another medium to take it forward.

Even though I am going to start something very small, I like to think big… I mean, think very very big… at an international level! There is nothing wrong in dreaming big; and dreams are the easiest affordable things you can find pleasure from :). So the idea do not start from setting up a small town studio room. It starts from being a successful brand having branches/representations all over the world and doing all kinds of business (not just photography work). Naturally, you wouldn’t appreciate a name board like ‘Sameer Studio’ representing a software firm on Times Square in New York! ;)

The first part of brand building is naming. My idea of a great brand name includes following (based on many articles and expert opinions on branding):
-    Very very unique… No one would ever say I have seen another brand exactly like this.
-    Easy to pronounce… should rollout from tongue easily
-    No spelling ambiguity… you say the name over phone, and the buddy at the other end can write it right.
-    Not very long… less than say 10 letters.
-    Availability of .com domain. (It’s required to go international.)
-    Does not directly represent the business you are starting with… name should be still suitable if you get into a different domain of business.

After considering many names like Pixeloma, Ajania, Imagio, etc and receiving feedback from my well wishers, I have now finalized the name Unopix.

The next step is to make a logo. A logo may include the name, acronym, the font typeface, the colors used, the style of writing, a graphical symbol and tagline. For example, McDonald’s logo includes the yellow ‘M’ graphical symbol, “I’m lovin’ it” tag line and the red, yellow, white color combinations. But look at Microsoft logo… It’s just the name of the company written in Helvetica italic typeface, with a slash between the o and s. It’s simple yet easily recognizable and powerful. I love this kind of simplicity and the cost advantage that comes along while printing/reproducing the logo on different surfaces.

My colleague and friend Hariprashanth spent some hard late night hours with me yesterday to come up with the logo for Unopix. He is an excellent creative designer. Thanks a million, Hari for this work and I am expecting more such helps from you :). In the logo, there is no separate graphical symbol (it adds more cost while implementing the branding) and no tagline (you always ends up in realizing that the tag line is not that relevant for your new venture). It’s just the company name written in a typeface that is simple and clear. There is just one twist… a single pixel (uno pix) standing out from the last letter.

Now comes the hard part. Choosing the right set of colors. The colors need to look interesting, pleasing, and cost effective on all mediums like web site, paper prints, sign boards, etc. I also plan to use these colors for everything related to Unopix, be it walls and work desks inside studio, visiting cards, web site, sign boards, and album covers.

So help me choose the colors… Please let me know which logo you liked by telling me its number (1 to 6 from top to bottom). Also let me know if you liked the name, and the logo.

Velipadukal - Biography of a Sacred Cow

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 04:39:00 +0000

“The human body is sacred and you have to transfer your blessed molecules to the subsequent generations through oral or non-oral molecule transfer”.

Welcome to the future... where the entire world believes in ‘Scientific Religion’. The above quote is an excerpt from ‘The Book’, the holy book that guides the followers of Scientific Religion.

World has dumped all the other religions since long. They are now history and are now referred as the non-scientific ancient religions. They promised of rewards and punishments in some other world to motivate their followers to lead a moral life and failed.

The Scientific Religion grants eternity to its followers - dead persons are cooked well and eaten by others, letting their molecules start their journey to the subsequent generations. When it dawned upon the people that their molecules can attain eternity and lead a human life forever if they make a few compromises and lead a moral life, the entire world marched into Scientific Religion without any reservations. All misdeeds vanished from earth.

Then one day, someone gets a hunch that there is a problem somewhere. ‘Velipadukal – Biography of a Sacred Cow’, a Malayalam short movie, unfolds through the situations the lead character is going through when doubts spring up in his mind about the religion rest of the world blindly follow. As one can expect, being the world’s only non-believer is not going to be fun.

Velipadukal was premiered at Montage Documentary/Short Film Festival at Manjeri last week. It is a daring attempt that cleverly delivers its message to the society through simple thought provoking events. Though the story is happening in a place in the future, do not expect flying cars and busy robots in alien looking surroundings. The events are happening in places familiar to you, where buses and auto-rickshaws are still the primary mode of transport. By avoiding fancy costumes and futuristic surroundings, director has succeeded in projecting the storyline powerfully.

The movie has short but powerful scenes that build the backbone of the story. Though there is just one religion in this future world, there are factions that are divided on petty aspects. Like all religions, Scientific Religion too has extremist groups whose violent thoughts sadden the religion’s supreme. In one scene, the lead character asks “Why am I getting all these doubts about the religion? Is it because I am more intelligent than others?”. Velipadukal portrays all aspects of a religion-driven society through well thought out scenes.

Velipadukal is written and directed by Shahul Ameen. Dhanoop plays the lead role. Ramachandran’s cinematography and J S Shyam’s music works stand out. Visit http://reactionshots.in for more details about this movie.

Good bye Saudi Arabia

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:24:00 +0000

After spending busy and eventful 11 days in Saudi Arabia, now it is time to go back. The days here were well spent and enjoyed. I still plan to come back here to explore the remaining places in Saudi and to have another treat with the Arabian cuisine.

Since both of mine and my wife’s leaves were already exhausted, we returned back to Kochi through Mumbai instead of a direct flight to Kozhikode. The flight by Air India was okay, but the long waiting at Mumbai due to the delayed connection flight was really tiring.

Al-Kar and Al-Hada

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:17:00 +0000

Al-Kar is a place which is less than an hour drive from Makkah with a small tourist village. It has various rides, family parks, swimming pools and other water amusements. I really enjoyed the Alpine Coaster ride that took me from top of a mountain to the bottom on a trolley car whose speed can be controlled by a break handle.

Al-Hada is another tourist town located in the Taif Mountains at an altitude of 6000 feet (1800 meters). The 4200 meters-long cable car (rope way) ride took us from the low altitude area of Al-Kar, where the temperature was still hot, to the high altitude area of Al-Hada where it was very cold. We spent a lot of time there enjoying for the first time a comfortable weather (it must be around 20 degree Celsius) in Saudi Arabia, before returning back to Al-Kar by cable car.

Jeddah Visit

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:12:00 +0000

I have some friends and relatives living and working at Jeddah, whom I wanted to visit during this trip. But we never got a relaxed schedule for that and kept this plan postponed. Today we had some time in the evening for a quick visit to Jeddah.

We visited the Jeddah Beach where the huge water fountain in the sea was the major attraction. After spending some time in shopping malls and meeting my school time friend Firoz, we returned back to Makkah after midnight.

Mina, Arafat, and Muzdalifah

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:00:00 +0000

We came back to Makkah from Madinah after the adventures at Madain Saleh. My sister and family, who are now settled in Khamees Mushait (Also spelled as Khamis Mushayt, is a beautiful oasis town in Saudi near Abha city) were there to spend a day with us.

We headed to Mina and Mount Arafat areas near Makkah where the major rituals during the Hajj pilgrimage are performed. The whole area was empty and thousands of white tents meant for the pilgrims stood out from the plains reminding us how crowded this place would become during Hajj.

However the Muzdalifah area was busy with facilities for camel and desert bike rides targeting the tourists. We did enjoy it though the rides were very short. The guys there also carried Polaroid cameras to give us instant photos of the rides.

Madain Saleh - The World Heritage Site

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:53:00 +0000

After Al-Ula sight seeing, it was now time for Madain Saleh. Entering Madain Saleh archeological site required a special permit from Department of Antiquities and Museums of the Ministry of Education. We went to their 'Museum of Archeology and Ethnography' in Al-Ula and requested the permission. The officer, who spoke good English, declined it demanding the permit letter from our Umrah agent as we were on Umrah visa. Getting that letter now was out of question and I pleaded to him asking to keep our passports in custody. The more I pleaded, the more stubborn he was and we dropped the idea of getting the permit and enjoyed artifacts displayed in the museum. It had a good collection of antiquities and a wealth of information on the history of this place.

Later, we decided to try our luck at the entrance gate of Madain Saleh and took another Keralite guy working in Al-Ula with us. The police officer at the gate insisted for the permit but finally after a lot of pleading by our new friend, allowed us to enter the site, off the records.

The site initially looked like just another group of rocky hills but as we reached nearer, small rectangular holes on them were visible. Further close, we could see the neatly etched facades around these holes. They were the monumental tombs of Nabataean civilization that lived here from first century BC to first century AD. Some of the inscriptions here dated back to the first millennium BC. We entered these tombs through those doors like openings and the feeling of being in a place where our ancestors lived thousands of years before was amazing. The awesomeness of this place is more explained through the photos than words. Look at the size of people near them to get an idea of the huge size of these rocks and tombs.

The site also had a not so old (1906 AD) railway station used by people from Turkey for coming to Makkah for pilgrimage. It is now getting renovated. We spent hours inside this area but covering more than hundred such tombs in that scorching heat was impossible. Most of the tomb decorations looked similar but the rock they were carved into were different in size and shape giving it a unique look.

We drove back to Madinah after sun set and had a police officer verified our passports only at one place, where he easily let us go after a few questions.

Al Ula - The Ancient City

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:37:00 +0000

Al-Ula is an oasis town 400 kilometers away from Madinah on the road to Tabuk, known for its spectacular scenery and archaeological remnants. Madain Saleh (also known as Al-Hijr) archeological site is just 22 kilometers from Al-Ula and was in news recently as UNESCO proclaimed it as a World Heritage Site.

I had added this to my 'must to see places in Saudi' after reading a lot about it. But not many of my friends or relatives here were aware of this place and there was very less information available on reaching there. Saudi society considers it as a cursed place due to some verses in the Qur'an titled Al-Hijr that describes about God's curse on a society (Prophet Saleh's people) lived there, when they didn't obey orders from the God.

[Complete story from Quran: Saleh was a pre-Islamic prophet. Medain Saleh means the "City of Saleh". The people in Medain Saleh refused to believe in God. The prophet Saleh tried to convince them otherwise, and even asked what they needed in order to believe. They replied that wanted a miracle. So in those hard times, he brought in a giant white camel, and if the people allowed the camel undisturbed access to their well every second day, the camel would give them enough milk forever. Not wanting to believe, some of the inhabitants killed the camel, with the result that they were destroyed by a bolt from heaven in retribution.]

Another issue was my Umrah visa which didn't allow me to travel to any places other than Jeddah, Makkah and Madinah. Due to this, no taxi people were ready to take me there.

Finally I got one private taxi guy named Yusuf, a very interesting Keralite chap, who was more than willing to take us there and guide us through the sites. He planned the whole trip and we started our much awaited voyage in his 5 year old Mazda 323 car on July 21 night from Madinah. The 5 hour long ride was interesting as Yusuf kept saying stories after stories, mostly from his eventful life. The passion he showed and his narration style were unique enough to keep us listening all the time without getting bored.

I wanted to drive a car in Saudi as I had never done it before and Yusuf was immediately ready to offer his car when I requested. In our whole trip I did the driving most of the time and Yusuf found himself happy in story telling.

We reached Al-Ula by midnight and I and my wife checked into a nice hotel room Yusuf had booked for us. Yusuf's friends had a shop near by and he rested there.

Next day morning, we started sight seeing in and around Al-Ula. This ancient town (known as Dedan earlier) is totally different from rest of the Saudi with its numerous red sandstone cliffs in spectacular shapes and patterns. It reminded me of the Red Rock regions in Nevada and Arizona, USA. But this place was more beautiful and the red cliffs, vast sand deserts, and the blue sky with pure white puffy cumulus clouds was a feast for my camera.

Madinah Experiences

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:49:00 +0000

Madinah is the second holy city in Saudi Arabia after Makkah and is 420 kilometers away from Makkah. We went to Madinah in a government operated bus (SAPTCO) and spent couple of days there staying in a hotel room. The temperaturte here was more scorching than in Makkah and we ended up spending more time in room than outside.

We visited all the important places here like Al-Masjid al-Nabawi, Shuhada of Uhud where the martyrs of Uhud Battle are buried, and few other historical sites and mosques.

Like most other cities in Saudi, Madinah also have lots of Keralites and some streets were having shop sign boards in Malayalam as well besides Arabic and English.

Makkah Experiences

noreply@blogger.com (Sameer C Thiruthikad) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 10:13:00 +0000

As this is the peak of summer, the daytime temperature in Makkah varies from 40 to 45 degree Celsius these days.

As part of the huge expansion project for Haram, heavy construction work is going on in and around this area, making it much difficult to walk around.

Moreover, photography in Saudi Arabia is a tricky affair. You are prohibited to take photos of women not related to you. In such a crowded place like this, it is hard to have a bigger canvas without at least one Purdah clad women caught in the frame. It is also prohibited to take photos of mosques and official buildings (which are sometimes hard to notice and may fall somewhere in the background).

I had two cameras with me; a very compact one and a big SLR one. I could slip in both of them into the Haram without getting caught at the security checks. But using them wasn’t easy. Many pilgrims were taking photos using their mobile phones and compact cameras and I also took lots of photos using the compact camera. The officials on duty were polite whenever they noticed it and their warning was limited in saying “Pilgrim, please don’t do it”.

But the big camera was almost useless here, as it invited immediate attention. Once an official almost had the camera confiscated and after that I never took it into any mosques.

Today we spent most of the time in and around Haram and my brother also showed some of the biggest shopping malls close to Haram. The malls here had all the international brands and it was curious to watch most of the food outlets having two separate sections for men and women.