Slept 12 hours straight on the first night in Wanla. Woke up to a bright and sunny morning at 9 am. Feeling nice and warm, temporarily forgetting it is the end of December and bitterly cold in Ladakh. Little discomfort in the night due to the smoke of the kitchen rising up to the first…
A Second Winter Trip to Ladakh – Reaching Wanla from Leh Airport
On a cold December morning in 2016, it was time for my second winter trip to Ladakh. We boarded an early morning flight from Delhi and arrived at Leh airport at around 9 am. Even though I highly advise taking it easy and acclimatising to the rarified, thin altitude air of Ladakh especially during the…
Villa Life on the Mediterranean Coast in Kas, Turkey
Popular travel planning websites and blogs had thrown up names like Bodrum, Izmir, Antalya, Fethiye, Marmaris on the Aegean Sea and Mediterranean Sea Coastline in Turkey. Akin to how I travel in India, we had decided to keep the Turkey trip flexible with no fixed itinerary. After spending a few days in Istanbul and Cappadocia,…
Slow Travel in Corbett, with V Resorts Kotabagh
The map showed it would take around 6 hours to cover the 300 km distance to reach Kotabagh from Delhi. It was a forgettable drive through dusty and lawless Uttar Pradesh, which made me reiterate in my mind that if Uttarakhand has to really progress – they must have a different road to themselves that…
Anecdotes from the Malabar Coast of Kerala
If memory serves me right, I made 3 trips to Kerala in 2017 and early 2018. Co-incidentally on all the trips, I had the chance to traverse across the historical Malabar Coast. The mind harks back to the unforgettable moments across some pristine beaches, backwaters, magical sunsets, and succulent biryani; among a vast plethora of…
Orange Festival of Adventure & Music in Dambuk, Arunachal Pradesh
Back in 2017, over a glass of delicious home-brewed rice wine in Nagaland a friend had thrown the words ‘Dambuk Orange Festival’ at me. I was intrigued; Dambuk sounded exotic and the fact that it was an adventure and music festival held in the midst of orange orchards felt too good to be true! About…
In Lake Country : Tawang to Bumla & Shungatser Lake
It was a freezing cold morning in Tawang; and we were supposed to go to Bumla. We had a reasonably late night at the Tawang Festival. It was the end of October and night temperatures in Tawang were already hovering in the negative. On top of the cold, the local alcohol that we all had…
The Charms of Ranikhet : A Handy Travel Guide
It had been an uncharacteristically indecisive day on the road. I was somewhere in the middle of my long summer in Kumaon and had randomly landed in Ranikhet. After wandering to an ancient temple and water source in Someshwar, I’d hopped into a shared taxi to Ranikhet with no plan at all. It was that…
Offbeat Museums with Cultural Treasures across India
When I am travelling to an offbeat ; I always make it a point to check out if there’s a state museum around. Usually state museums are located in capital cities and they make the best places for an introduction to a state’s culture for travellers like me. Over the course of my journeys across…
Favourite Cafés & Restaurants in Delhi
Over the years, Delhi has been a transit stop on many of my journeys across India and elsewhere. I’ve had the opportunity of sampling all kinds of cuisine in Delhi ranging from street food in Old Delhi to the boutique cafés of hep Gurgaon. Yes, you sure want to eat good food when you come…
Alternative Living in Kasar Devi, Almora
In hindsight, I can say it must have been a fortuitous moment when I revisited Kasar Devi near Almora. It was the long Holi weekend in March 2018 and the trip had began with great difficulty from Delhi. It is a well known fact that migrating workers from across India go back home for celebrating…
Tribes of Nagaland – Hornbill Festival
As briefly mentioned in the earlier photo story; the Hornbill Festival near Kohima in Nagaland is a great place to have a glimpse of the different tribes of Nagaland in their traditional attire. Names of the various tribes of Nagaland are : Ao, Angami, Chakhesang, Chang, Kachari, Khiamniungan, Lotha, Konyak, Kuki, Phom, Rengma, Sangtam, Sumi, Pochury,…