Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

May 2, 2024

Visiting Cambodia

Filed under: My Thoughts,Travel/Trips — Suramya @ 6:20 PM

Cambodia is a country that I have been wanting to visit for a long time and last month I finally got a chance to visit it thanks to Santosh from Exotic Expeditions. The planning for this trip was a lot more fluid than I like but we finally made it there and back. Initially me and Jani both planned to go for the trip, then as I was about to book Jani had a work trip come up so I decided to book the trip as a solo traveler. Then a little while later Jani’s trip was pushed out so she also booked the trip. This meant that we both had two different PNR’s for the flights. Interestingly, for some reason while I got a single PNR for the entire flight to Cambodia (with a halt in Thailand) she had separate PNR’s for each leg.(more on that later)

The day of the flight we left home and checked into the flight. Met up with Tittli at the airport and the boarding etc was quite smooth. As Jani had two separate PNR’s we booked both our bags under my name only so that she wouldn’t have to re-check them in at Thailand. When we landed at Thailand, we tried getting Jani’s second boarding pass from the Transit desk but were told that she would have to go clear immigration and then check back into the flight at the Airline counter outside. I thought I will go out with her as well but was turned back at the immigration counter and told to go via the Transfer desk to the boarding gate. Jani had to explain multiple times about why she was going out via the immigration before they finally let her through. Once out she was smart enough to figure out that she could print out the boarding pass via the self-service kiosk instead of waiting in the queue at the counter.

Once she cleared security things were simple, and the flight was uneventful. We landed at Phnom Penh and took a cab to the hotel (SIM Boutique Hotel). Unfortunately for us we reached the hotel at 10:30am where as the check-in time was 2pm. The lady at the reception told us that the earlier she could give us a room was between 12-1pm. So we had to wait in the lobby till we got the rooms allocated. We thought that we would grab something to eat but the hotel restaurant was closed and we really didn’t have the energy to walk around so we just hung out in the lobby. I think the lady at the reception got tired of hearing the snores so we got the room around 11:30 and we went up and crashed. After a few hour nap we were a lot more eager to explore the area and by then the remainder of the group had also arrived. (They came from Vietnam via bus as they had combined the two countries). While the others were freshening up me and Jani walked over to this small restaurant called ‘Wheat & Beans’ a few streets over where we grabbed a quick snack.


Ready and eager to start exploring Cambodia

By the time we were finished with our meal the others were done freshening up and ready to explore so we took two tuk-tuk’s to the Night market. The market was decent and I did manage to pick up a T-Shirt and a shotglass amongst other things. Since folks were still tired and hungry we broke early for dinner. Jani and Santosh decided to try the local cuisine and the rest of us ended up having Indian food. This was the first trip where we had a lot more Indian food than the local one because the rest of the group was tired of local food (they didn’t have the best experience in Vietnam food wise). This particular restaurant was pathetic and the quantity was so small that effectively we had like one piece each of Aalu Ghobhi and 2 pieces each from the Paneer. The naan looked like what you would get if you made a pizza without any toppings. To top things off, the refuse to serve any water unless we paid for it and we had a lizard giving us company. Both Fatima and Divya are petrified of lizards so they had an especially fun time.

Once we got back to the hotel the original Idea was to get some sleep but then Divya, Sapna and me decided to go for a swim at the rooftop swimming pool while some of the others went shopping and it was a lot of fun even though we only swam for about half an hour. which was enough time to cool down my body as it is ridiculously hot in Cambodia right now because they’re in the middle of their dry season. The average temperature was in the mid 40’s and since we were walking about all over the place in direct sunlight for most of the trip it felt even worse. Of course Jani enjoyed it but even she was drained out after a whole day in the sun.

The next day started off with breakfast followed by a drive over to the ‘Royal Palace of Cambodia‘, whichwas built back in 1866 and has served as the home for Cambodian monarchs since then. The current king has no official power and is mostly ceremonial. The official name for the palace is “Preah Barom Reacheaveang Chaktomuk Serey Mongkol (Khmer: ព្រះបរមរាជវាំងចតុមុខសិរីមង្គល)“. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos of the main hall but the rest of the entire setup was impressive. Apparently only 40% of the area is open to public and out out that we walked through most of the important parts.


Group photo in front of the Royal Palace of Cambodia

One of the interesting (for me anyway) things was that you are not allowed inside if you are wearing a sleeveless top. At most of the other places that have this rule you were allowed to go in if you wrapped a shawl or a shrug around yourself before entering but here that also wasn’t allowed. You needed to change into a sleeved shirt or but a T-Shirt from the stall conveniently located right next to the ticket booth. Divya ended up having to purchase a T-Shirt because she wore a sleeveless dress and even though the color matched with the dress it looked funny :). Our guide was sweet enough that he told her that she could take off the t-shirt in the end and took a photo of hers in the dress for her.

The palace also has these beautiful wall paintings portraying the story of Ramayana (called Reamker or the Story of Rama in Khmer). The depiction is mostly the same as what we have in India but their ending is completely different, in their version Rama and Sita lived happily ever after once the story concluded. Whereas in the Indian version, Sita returned to earth at the end. The paintings are gorgeous but are done in the Cambodian way making it look very strange to us because the faces especially are painted very differently.


Mural depicting Ramayana (called Reamker or the Story of Rama in Khmer)

The palace also has a small hill in the middle called Mount Kailash with a temple at the top. We couldn’t climb it as it was still under renovation but the structure looked impressive. On the other side of the hill is the Silver Pagoda, the official name for which is “Wat Ubaosoth Ratanaram (Khmer: វត្តឧបោសថរតនារាម), also known as “Wat Preah Keo Morakot” (Khmer: វត្តព្រះកែវមរកត, “Temple of the Emerald-Crystal Buddha”).

The pagoda is named such because the entire floor of the structure is inlaid with 5,329 silver tiles each weighing 1.125 KG. Amongst the treasures displayed in the pagoda we have the “Emerald Buddha” which is a 66 centimeters tall statue supposedly carved from a single emerald. Another notable treasure is the gold Maitreya Buddha statue which is a 90 kg life sized statue covered with 9584 diamonds. I was surprised to see that the French who ruled Cambodia till 1953 didn’t end up stealing all the diamonds from the statue the same way that the British stole from India. The statue even survived the Khmer Rouge which is even more surprising as they were rabidly anti-religion.

We also saw loads of other artifacts and treasures in the complex which were beautiful but too many to list out here. One of the exhibits that stood out was the dress code for the palace. There is a dedicated color for each day of the week and everyone dresses in that color for the day.

After the palace we drove over to the Killing Field which was a horrible experience. Not because of any problems but because I can’t understand the mindset that would drive someone to such atrocities. You can read about the killing fields over on Wikipedia if you want, but be aware that it is a grim read. Basically over 2 million Cambodians were killed in just over 3 years, 8 months. Some in the jails, most in fields like this one where folks were killed in what can only be described as an industrial scale. Walking through the fields listening to the audio tour was sobering. There is a tree in there, where kids were killed by bashing their skulls against it and tossing them like garbage into the pit next to it. Others were hacked to pieces or killed with DDT to cover the smell.

Once we were finished at the Killing field, we went over to the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum, which continued the story of brutality. This site was originally a school which was converted to a Jail where confessions were extracted from prisoners using the most brutal torture. After the prisoners confessed or if the prison was overcrowded they were sent to the Killing field for disposal. Only 12 people survived the prison (7 adults and 5 children). The Wikipedia page on the museum has more details if you are interested. I was in no mood to take any pics over there as it is depressing to go to such sites.


Multi-Storied Monument containing skulls and bones from people massacred at the Killing fields

That being said, I am glad that they have this memorial to the atrocities committed there so that the world knows what they went through. We need to have similar memorials built for the massacres that happened India as well, so that our future generations and the foreign visitors know what our ancestors were put through by the Invaders and colonizers especially the British. I know the Jallianwala Bagh massacre has a small memorial dedicated to it but we should explore something like this for memory as well as memorials to some of the other massacres we had to deal with such as the Bengal Famine, Kala Pani jail at Andaman’s amongst others. The really sad part is that British have still not apologized or been held accountable for any of their actions in India and other countries they subjugated.

Once we were done at the jail, we took a break for lunch as it was much needed. This trip was pretty much the first one where we ate a lot of Indian food during an international trip as most of the folks with us were tired of the local food and the lack of vegetarian options in it, or rather the lack of tasty veg options in it. This restaurant was quite good and the food was great.


Group pic at Lunch

After lunch we braved the heat again to go to ‘Wat Phnom Historical Site’ which had a lovely temple with some great views and peaceful atmosphere which was much needed after the earlier sites. We walked about the location and once we were all relaxed headed back to the hotel and pretty much everyone just crashed because the day had been pretty exhausting with the heat and the content.


Wat Phnom Historical Site temple


Full Carrot in the Sauted vegetables we got

Jani and I decided to order room service late at night as we got hungry where she was served a sauteed carrot (amongst other things) complete with the leaves. She liked it is all I am going to say about that but I am happy I didn’t order it 🙂

Day 3 started with a drive over to Siam Reap which was supposed to take us about 6 hours but took almost 7 1/2-8 hours thanks to stops. We ate some weird fruits on the way along with Mango’s and Ice Apple. They also had fried Spiders and Crickets available as snacks but no one in the group took them up on the offer for some reason ;). We got to Siam Reap in the late afternoon and again had Indian food for lunch, after which we reached our hotel (Central Privilege Hotel) and checked in.


The mangoes were a ‘little’ sour

This was an interesting hotel in many ways. Firstly there is no elevator so you have to use the stairs to carry the luggage to your room. We were on the 4th floor and even though they offered to have the luggage carried over to the room we decided to just do it ourselves as we already had the backpacks on. The AC was quite slow to cool the room and we ended up leaving it on the entire time so that when we entered the room after roaming about it was cool enough. The other problem was the shower which barely gave a stream of water enough to take a bath in. All that being said the hospitality of the hotel was phenomenal and they went out of their way to support us during the stay which more than made up for any lack of amenities or issues.


Hanging out at the pool

After freshening up we all walked over to the old market which was nearby and did a little bit of shopping. It was so hot even at 5pm that I felt like I was melting in the heat. Bought multiple cans of Soft drinks from a shop nearby and they were very amused by my exhausted/drained out look when I was ordering. An interesting fact I noticed was that there were so many folks selling paintings that I kept getting tempted to buy one as they all looked phenomenal. Unfortunately as I don’t have space at home to put up more paintings I had to restrain myself. 🙁 We did pick up a few T-Shirts and other things from the market but I felt that the market at Phnom Penh had more varieties/selection of t-shirt designs available. Right next to the market is the famous Pub street which was buzzing with lights, music and lots of people. It reminded me of Walking street in Thailand (without the sex shows).


Walking over to the Pub-Street & Local markets

We tried out a bunch of street food over there and I especially liked the Ice Cream rolls that were freshly made for us. The folks here are very friendly and it was fun hanging out over there. We ended up skipping dinner because we had a late lunch and had been munching on stuff frequently. We did get a massage from a street shop which was actually quite good and cheap. We wanted to get a full and proper massage the next day but ended up not doing that. On the way back to the hotel we crossed a road side stall which had insects and other ‘weird’ things available for munching. Even though most people don’t end up buying the stuff I guess enough like taking photos that one of the stalls decided to capitalize on it by charging 50 cents for a photo. The hotel had an outside pool which was quite tempting but none of us had any spare energy so we just crashed.


Taking a Tuk-Tuk’s to Angkor Wat

The next day we visited Angkor Wat, the worlds largest religious monument at about 9 square kilometers. We took Tuk-Tuk’s to the temple along with a guide and it was a good thing that we did that because he was able to give us so much information about the temple which we would not have known if we had just been roaming around. You have to purchase a ticket for visiting the temples, we got a day pass each for $37. You need to ensure that you don’t loose the ticket as you have to show it at every location. The counter is quite a way away from the temple entrance itself so unless you know the place it is possible that folks would end up going to the temple and then being sent back to get tickets. Just as we got to the entrance of the main Temple, Divya face planted on the floor and twisted her ankle and scraped her knee. Since she wasn’t hurt too badly, I was making fun of her that she ensured that she did a Sakshat Pranam (Step 5/6 in the linked article) before going into the temple.


Group Pic in front of Angkor Wat

It is hard to describe the scale of the temple if you have not seen it yourself. Each block weighs a few tons and the carvings/paintings in the temple are amazing. You can read about the temple and the complex over on their Wikipedia page. There is a lot of restoration work going on at the site and one of the interesting points is that they are restoring using the original material as much as possible. This means that for each block to be restored, they first search the site for the block and then use it. If they don’t find it then they carve a replacement using the same stone but with only about 30-40% of the carvings. This is so that future generations know that that particular block was replaced and is not the original.


View of the temple complex from the top


Me, just about melting from the heat

Since we started our tour at 9:30am which is something our guide told us that we shouldn’t do because of the heat (but he told us that after we started the tour 🙂 ) and sun. By the time we finished walking around the main temple, we were drained and just about ready to have the Tuk-tuk come inside to pick us up… unfortunately that wasn’t possible so we had to walk :(. The Tuk-tuk’s carried cold water for us with was really sweet of them and really required as we all were getting dehydrated in the heat.


Monkeys in the water trying to escape the heat


Carvings at the temple

After the refreshing drink of ice-cold water, we broke for Lunch at one of the local restaurants recommended by our guide. We ordered a varied bunch of stuff at the place and pretty much everything we got tasted awesome. Jani ordered coconut water and they came back with a coconut that was more than double the size of coconuts we usually get. (See below).


Jani with her gigantic coconut

The place was air conditioned so it was hard for us to head back out into the heat but we had to so we drove over to the second stop of the day “Ta-Prohm” temple about a kilometer away from the main temple. It is also known as the Tomb Raider Temple, because the move was shot here. This temple was built in 1186 AD by Jayavarman VII in honor of his family. It was abandoned in the 15th century when the Khmer empire collapsed and was lost in the Jungle. During this time nature tried reclaiming the complex and since the temples were created without the use of mortar, trees took root between the stones.

As you enter one of the first structures you see is a temple with a tree growing on top of it. The roots of the tree have grown around the structure and it is pretty much impossible to remove the tree without the structure collapsing as the roots are key supports for the remainder of the temple.

Another really cool structure was a small room with a base pedestal in the middle where if you stand on the ledge around the edge of the room and thump your chest it creates an cool echo. But only if you hit your chest. (or the chest of the person next to you if you want to be mean). Striking any other body part or clapping etc doesn’t echo. I honestly have no idea how they managed to do that but it shows the skill of the people who built the temple. To make it clear, it was all human effort and ingenuity with no aliens involved or needed.

The western word has this notion that they were the only people who could create things and any of the work done by indigenous people in other parts of the world couldn’t possibly be done by them because that would mean that the locals had an advanced civilization that was destroyed (for the most part) by the invaders. So they have come up with this elaborate tale that other than the ancient structures in the western world (Europe mostly) the rest were created by Aliens. (Watch Ancient Aliens if you want to learn more about the torturous logic they use to explain some of the findings).

We walked around the complex awed by the size of the trees that are growing on and around the structures. Obviously took a lot of pics even though we were sweating like anything almost ready to collapse due to the heat. Even Jani found it to be too hot which is something I thought I would never hear.


The “Ta-Prohm” temple

The final stop of the day was Bayon temple which has over 200 smiling faces of Buddha carved into the rock. As per Wikipedia “The name of Bayon was given by Etienne Aymonier in 1880. According to his report, Bayon was the Latin transliteration of what he had seen written in Khmer as “Bayânt” which he presumed most have been a corrupted form of the Pali Vejayant or Sanskrit Vaijayant, the name of the celestial palace of Indra of which the Bayon was presumed to be the earthly reflection.”


Group pic in front of the Bayon temple

The carvings on the walls in the temple are very detailed and show scenes from the everyday life along with significant historical events. They show the varied culture and people known to the Khmer empire and how well traveled the Khmer people were.

We spent a good amount of time walking around the complex and then were ready to head back to the hotel. Initially we thought we would relax in the pool but it was too hot for that so we all retired to our rooms to cool down a bit before heading out again.

At night, Jani, Divya, Sapna and me again walked over to the Pub street as they wanted to pick up some T-shirts and we wanted to check out the restaurants over there. We ended up having dinner at an Italian place where we ordered Pizza, soup and a Salad. The quantity of the soup given was enough that all 4 of us could have a bowl each but I am not a soup fan so I enjoyed my pizza with a drink. We spent quite a bit of time just hanging out there and could have stayed longer but folks were tired so we headed back to the hotel.


Exploring the Pub Street

For the next day there was an interesting reversal, in that we had the first half of the day free with the tour starting in the second half instead of the other way round. So we had a relaxed breakfast and hung out a bit. Lunch was ordered in via Grab and we all basically relaxed for the first half. Some of the folks did go to the market, even we went over to the Adidas showroom but were back within 20 mins as we didn’t get what we were looking for and it was too hot to walk around the area.

Post lunch we took a van over to the Tonle Sap lake, which is a UNESCO listed biosphere reserve as well as the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. Since it was the dry season, the lake was a lot smaller and shallower with the max depth of only 3 meters instead of the usual 8 meters plus during the rainy season. This meant that we couldn’t take a boat directly to the lake from the parking but instead got to walk through the floating village and interact with the villagers which was a lot more fun.


Stilt houses at the ‘Floating Village’

We tried some local food as well as they had veg options as well. The first item was deep fried potato with some local spices which I loved because potato is pretty much my favorite vegetable. The second item was like a dosa but eaten with literally a lot of leaves of different kinds. It was decent, but a bit bland for my taste.


Local dish that looks like a Dosa

All the houses on this road that we were taking to the lake are built on stilts raising them over 8 get in height. What was really surprising was the fact that even though the road we were walking on is underwater every 6 months for 6 months it was still free of army pot holes and well maintained.

After the walk through the village we got to the jetty and took a boat over to the lake the boat we got had issues with the steering where we got stuck a few times in shallow water and had to be pushed clear using poles. In spite of that we made it to the floating restaurant in good time where we chill out for a little bit waiting for the sunset. Took some lovely photos there.


Posing for pics at the floating restaurant


Posing with my drink at the floating restaurant


Divya, Jani and Me at Sunset


Everyone was too busy taking pics of the sunset to pose


Sunset at Tonle Sap lake


Sunset at Tonle Sap lake

Once the sun set we took the same boat back, and fully justifying our apprehension the boat did in fact breakdown halfway back to the jetty and we got to enjoy sitting in the dark waiting for the replacement boat. Santosh, me and Jani was sitting on the top of the boat so we had a good breeze and surprisingly I didn’t get bitten by many mosquitoes. I did take the chance to experiment with my phone camera settings trying to take some interesting pics. It was too early for the moon to have risen so it got dark pretty soon and I got some cool pics. Found out later that a bat mistook Divya’s hair as its nest, snuggled in and she had to chase it away. That would have been a fantastic pic… After about 20-30 minutes of waiting, while the folks were trying to repair the engine, we finally got a replacement boat and headed back to the jetty and then started back to the hotel.

Since this was the last night we have a small party at the hotel where we picked up some drinks, ordered pizza and just hung out till late night. It was a lot of fun getting to know everyone and share stories and experiences and we ended up staying up till 1am before crashing for the night.


Replica of Bayon temple carvings at the Airport

The last morning of the trip all of us except Santosh were on the same flight. Thanks to the system glitch we talked about earlier Jani again had two different PNR’s so her luggage was again checked in under my name. Thankfully this time she had an eboarding card and didn’t have to leave the transit area and go through Immigration again in Malaysia airport. For the first leg of the flight I got the entire row to myself as the folks next to me moved to another row and was able to nicely stretch out. (Jani was allocated a different seat as seat selection was paid). By the time these folks moved Jani had already settled and didn’t want to move. Plus there was no space near my seat for the carryon luggage to be stored…

The second leg of the flight was much worse as it was a full flight and folks came with multiple carry-on bags so they ran out of room and had to put a bunch of bags in the cargo area. Plus multiple folks were seated away from their group so people were constantly moving up & down and kids were running around like it was a train instead of a flight. I was watching this hilarious show called “I am Nobody” so was able to ignore most of it but still.

Finally landed in Bangalore and were able to head home and crash. It felt so good sleeping in my own bed without feeling like I was going to melt in the heat.

– Suramya

December 15, 2022

Visiting Nagaland: The land of festivals

Filed under: My Life,Travel/Trips — Suramya @ 4:54 AM

North East India is not a very well explored area of India and over the past year we have been making an effort to explore more of it and have already covered Assam, Meghalaya and Sikkim so far. This time we decided to visit Nagaland as Santosh from Exotic Expeditions had organized a trip that included the Hornbill festival. It was our 4th Trip with Santosh and as always it was a fun experiential trip.

We (Jani, Me and Punita) started on the 3rd morning at 4am from our place for the airport for the flight to Delhi. Initially we had booked via Calcutta but one of the legs of the flight got cancelled so we decided to route via Delhi instead. At the Delhi airport we met Uma, Veena and Jaclyn who had flown via different flights. This was the first time I was flying via Terminal 2 and found it to be a lot more crowded than T1 & T3 but not insanely so. The flight to Dibrugrah was uneventful and once we reached Dibrugrah Santosh received us at the Airport and we drove over to the Hotel where we were staying. This trip people came via different transportation methods, we had 2 folks who came by train and another who came via bus and the rest flew so it was evening by the time everyone arrived at the hotel. Another interesting fact about this group was that it was a majority women group with 4 guys and 8 ladies.

Since it was my birthday, Jani and Shankar had planned a surprise cake cutting and it was a pleasant surprise. After the cake cutting, we stayed up for dinner (the hotel only served dinner at 8:30) while the rest ate out and then crashed for the day. Santosh, Shankar, Jani and me hung out for a while and then crashed hard post dinner.


Group photo taken just before the cake cutting

The next day started early as we had a long drive ahead of us. I wanted to try the local breakfast food for breakfast but when I asked the cook what the local folks ate for breakfast he answered that they also eat bread and omelette. *shaking my head*. The food was decent and post breakfast we all piled into the cars and started the journey. About an hour into the drive, we were told that since it was a Sunday most of Nagaland would be closed so we picked up snacks from a local bakery and while the bakery looked a bit shady, the quality of the food was great. In addition to the baked goods we also picked up samosa’s and assorted junk food. One of the packets Punita picked up was a packet of Paneer Bhujia which was something I was seeing for the first time. Turns out that there was a reason that it wasn’t popular and we hadn’t seen it because it tasted pretty bad. During the stop we did see various pigeons in colors that we normally don’t get to see them in.


Group photo at a random stop on the way

The views as we were driving were amazing, we stopped for a bio break next to an abandoned bridge over a small river where I managed to click some really nice pics.


Abandoned bridge we found on the way


Abandoned bridge over the river

We reached Longwa around 4pm and within 30 mins of us reaching there the sun had set and it was already dark. We stayed at the Longwa Homestay (+91 8730-027353) where Nok Au was our guide. As we hadn’t had a proper lunch yet, the first thing we did after dumping our luggage was to sit down for a meal. The food was all sourced locally and was a bit bland to be honest. However, they did give us naga chilies which more than made up for the lack of spices. The Longwa Homestay is owned by the tribes and the main hut served both as a kitchen and gathering place. This was also the home of the king and queen of the tribe and their family only took care of us during the stay.


Having local tea in Bamboo cups


Photo with a Head Hunter who has collected 5 heads

After food, we explored the hut and the large collection of handmade jewellery, masks and other items. Jani bought a necklace and others bought a bunch of stuff. I was tempted to buy a mask but then decided not to because of a lack of space at home to put them up. Amongst other things, they also had carvings made out of Mithun bones (a species of ox), wild boar teeth and spinal bones of animals. Interestingly, all the carvings etc were done with a machete which is something I didn’t think was possible because of the size of the blade, but these folks were extremely skilled with the blade and did some intricate work. We also got to meet a real live headhunter who was gracious enough to pose for photos with us. In addition the front of the hut was covered with the skulls of animals that had been sacrificed during festivals. As per their beliefs they keep the skull as a reminder of the sacrifice made by the animal. We could identify wild boar, Mithun, Monkey, bison skulls amongst others which was quite fascinating.


Sunset photo I took near the homestay

After food and meet and greet we walked around for a bit before it became too cold to hangout outside and got some nice photos of the sunset. Post dinner we hung out for a bit before crashing as we were all tired from the long drive. The rooms we were in were a concrete structure but the walls were extremely thin, to the point that we could hear snoring in the next room and conversations at a normal volume were easily understandable in the other rooms. To make things even more interesting the toilets for the two rooms (ours and the next door room) shared a common wall that only went up 2/3rd of the way. So, anyone in one of the toilets could easily hear whatever was going on at the other side. To reduce the awkwardness we ensured that both were not occupied at the same time. Another very innovative implementation we saw in our bathroom was their version of a shower. As you can see from the pic below, instead of a showerhead which would have been expensive and difficult to maintain they just put a tap on top that you could open to have a shower.


Fancy Showerhead we had in our room

Post shower and breakfast we started the next portion of the itinerary where we walked up to the watch-tower between the India – Myanmar border. Since it was a bit of a distance we did take the car partway and then walked the next. From the tower/viewpoint we could see both India and Myanmar. The views were fantastic and the pics we took came out beautifully. Indu and me took a lot of pics (she took way more pics than me of the landscape while I mostly focused on the people).


Photo at the border, the stone visible in the back is the India – Myanmar border marker

From the watch tower we walked back down to the cars and on the way passed a house having its roof being put up. Interestingly the entire structure was built without the use of any nails etc. They used cords made from bamboo to tie the components together and the roof was covered with palm leaves which were again tied down with bamboo cords. The roof needs to be replaced every five years or so and most of the village comes together to work on it.


Pic taken on the way

Then we drove over to the Ang’s (Chief) and met the king, queen and prince of the Konyak tribe. His house is on the border of the India – Myanmar border and their kitchen is bisected by the border, so half of it is in India and the other half in Myanmar. They also had a lot of indigenous crafts available for sale and a few folks did end up buying from them.


Group photo with the Ang (Chief)

Once we were done meeting with the Ang we walked down to the local gunmaker’s place where we got to observe the gunmaker making a gun from scratch. When we saw him, he was building the stock of the gun and there were a few complete guns on display as well. One person can make about 15 guns a year and they only cost about 20k INR each and they don’t require a license. I really wanted to get one but there was no way for me to get it to Bangalore without getting arrested for carrying a gun without a license. They offered to let us shoot the gun if we wanted and I volunteered thinking that I would get to shoot at a target in a range setup, but unfortunately, they didn’t have such a setup. So I got to fire the gun without a bullet in it (basically a blank shot). Which was interesting but not as fun as firing a proper shot would have been. It was easy to figure out that the gun was locally made and not 100% efficient as some of the gases from the firing came out from the back/side as well and a few sparks hit my cheek. Divya has also wanted to shoot but backed out at the last minute stating that she really liked her fingers and wanted to keep them.


Naga Gunmaker handmaking guns

After people made sure that I was still in one piece and had all my fingers we went on to visit one of the last head-hunters who had captured five (5) heads as a youngster. He showed us the head-hunter victory dance and allowed us to take pics with him and trust me, we were all very polite while dealing with him since we wanted our heads to stay attached to our bodies.


Pic with one of the oldest headhunter

Post the photo session, we drove back to the homestay as we were done with the official itinerary for the day. At the homestay we had our lunch (which was again chow-chow and a few other things) and then Jani crashed and some of us decided to take a walk around the area to the nearby helipad which gave us a wonderful view of the setting sun. Near the helipad there was a field growing radish so me and Divya walked over and picked one (technically stole one) and ate it with our dinner. While waiting for the sunset we just chilled out and got to know each other better.


Picking (or rather stealing a Muli/Radish) from the field

As soon as the sun set the temperature dropped so we all hurried back to the kitchen / central hut where we found a carom board already setup so 4 of us decided to play with me and Divya teaming against Santosh and Indu. It was a lot of fun to play carom after years (decades) and while we didn’t plan our strategy as seriously as the other team we did end up winning multiple times. After a few games, others took over and we hung out waiting for the dinner. At this time some of the other guests who had arrived earlier in the day also joined us so we got to spend time with them as well. Post dinner, we all hung out for a while and Santosh, Jani and Shankar had a dance session with the queen, king and their family members.


Carom session


Picture at the Tribal Kitchen


Group photo outside the homestay

The next day, we started early as we had a long drive ahead of us. Initially we had planned for about 8 1/2 hours but were told that the roads were really bad and took another group 10 1/2 hours to travel the distance. Calling what we traveled roads was being extremely generous as they were ditches & potholes with delusions of grandeur. There is a song that I have been listening to and the lyrics go something like: “Itne Khaddon Se Hoke Nikli Hai Gaadi Nut Bolt Hil Gaya Hai Har Ang Ka” that translates to “The car has traveled through so many potholes that every body part is hurting” and that basically captures what the travel was like. The roads were so bad that we even got a flat because of the bumpy roads. Thankfully we had a spare and were able to change the tire otherwise it would have been a major problem since we were barely getting any signal.


Waiting for the tire change after we had a flat

After over 10 1/2 hours of bouncing we finally made it to Mokokchung in time for dinner. The rooms here were decent but we were all pretty exhausted so we crashed soon after dinner. Next day we started early again without breakfast as the plan was to visit the Longkhum village and have a breakfast picnic over there. The road to Longkhum was bad but not as bad as what we traveled the previous day and we made decent time. The village was quite picturesque and we had a lovely picnic over there and took a ton of photos. The villagers were super friendly and helpful and we had a fun time walking through the village back to the cars.


Panoramic shot at Longkhum


Picnic at Longkhum


Group photo taken at Longkhum

Then it was time to resume our journey to Kigwema near Kohima. The roads were better than earlier but still not good. Basically, there is a lot of construction going on across Nagaland and most of the roads are being expanded and repaved and due to this they are quite bad right now till the work is completed. We made good time with a short stop for lunch on the way and reached the Hills home stay, Konama. The owner Stanley (+91 96128 88938) was there to greet us and helped us get settled in.


Night view from Hills Home Stay, Konama

The homestay only had 3 rooms available, with 5 beds in 1, 3 in one and 2 beds in the last one. We moved beds around so that 5 girls were in the largest room. Jani, me, Divya and Sapna took the next largest one and Santosh, Shankar and Venkat took the last room. Originally the plan was for Santosh and Venkat to stay in tents but with the reshuffling we managed to get everyone to fit in the rooms, which was a good thing because the temperature outside was pretty cold. (At 5am when we checked it was 4 degree Celsius outside).


Full Moon visible from the homestay

The sky was crystal clear and since it was a full moon I took the opportunity to take a few pics of the moon with my phone that in my opinion came out really well. After dinner some of the folks went to sleep early and the rest of us were outside in the cold snugged up to the warm fire with drinks and snacks. We managed to get Shankar to dance and he then ensured all of us got up and danced as well. It was good that we were the only guests at the place since we were making quite the racket. There are videos of our dance but they will not be shared as we are all pretty bad dancers (except for Shankar and Uma). The dance party continued for a while and then as we were all tired we crashed as the next day we had the Hornbill festival to attend.


Hanging out in the cold outside


Early morning pic of the ladies

The day after started with a nice breakfast in the sun post which we all walked over to the Hornbill festival. The Hornbill Festival is an annual festival celebrated from 1st to 10th of December to encourage inter-ethnic interaction between the tribes and to promote cultural heritage of Nagaland. It is also called the Festival of Festivals and was started in Dec 2000.


At the entrance of Hornbill Festival

When we got to the venue we found nice seating right in the front, but what we didn’t realize at that time was that that particular area of the amphitheater was empty because it was in the direct sun. I walked around the venue quite a bit to get some really awesome photographs of the tribal performances. Towards the middle of the show I found the perfect spot to take photos from and basically didn’t move from there for the remaining show. Each tribe showcased their cultural heritage, which included songs sung during harvest, games played by the youngsters, contests of skill and courage etc. The morning half of the show ended with the tug-of-war contest between various tribes and it was fun to watch. The winners of these games claim bragging rights for the rest of the year and also get a cash prize.


Our seating during the cultural events


Tribal Dance during the event

During the lunch break the group broke up in two, with vegetarians going one way and the non-vegetarians going another. We veg folks had a Chinese buffet while the nonveg folks tried a bunch of weird stuff like silkworms etc. The second half of the cultural event was as interesting as the first half and this time I went and sat in the venue itself on the grass and got some more fantastic pics and videos.


Tug-of-war participants preparing for their match

Once the show ended, we all walked over to the stalls to check out the massive range of stuff available. We bought a bunch of stuff even though we weren’t planning to buy much except a naga-shawl. After we got tired of shopping we had a snack break where I ordered two drinks that sounded cool but were pretty bad. Divya was kind enough to help me finish the coffee but I had to finish the other one (cranberry + vodka). As soon as we had fortified ourselves with food, we resumed walking around the festival to see all the huts etc that had been setup that showcased how each of tribes traditionally built their houses. Took a ton of pictures and explored a lot of the setup and by then it was time for the music festival part of the show to start so we headed back to the main arena to grab a good seat.


Group pic in front of a tribal hut

By this time the sun had set and the temperature was dropping fast. We were one of the first to reach the stage and got a nice seat on the grass. The evening show started with Swarathma who have been doing a collaboration with 14 tribes to showcase their traditional music mixed with Swarathma’s music style. I have heard the band before a couple of times and really enjoyed them. Even this time though the collaboration didn’t always work overall the performance was excellent. The band which followed them unfortunately wasn’t that great and played songs that were quite depressing. As per Jani the singer must have had a recent breakup and was thus torturing us by playing breakup songs. By this time, most of us were freezing and Jani wasn’t to be seen as she was buried under so many layers of clothes that it was difficult to identify her. So, we all decided to head back to the homestay to warm up.


Hornbill Festival 2022


Waiting in front of the stage for the concert to start

At the homestay after we defrosted some of the folks again slept off early and the rest of us didn’t have the courage to sit outside for long so the four of us snugged up in our blankets and chatted late into the night. The homestay folks were nice enough to stay up late to ensure we had hot food and didn’t freeze.


How Jani watched the musical performances at night

After a cozy sleep with freezing temperature outside, we again had a nice breakfast in the sun before starting off to Khonoma which is an Angami Naga village located about 20 km Kohima. The drive was again quite bumpy and because of the poor condition of the road it took us almost an hour to reach the village which is the first green village in India. In addition to being India’s first green village, it is also the site of one of the last major resistance against the British by the Nagas, who were fighting to stop the British from force recruiting Nagas as bonded labourers. The naga forts are quite small as compared to the forts in other locations but looking at the terrain it was apparent how difficult it would have been for an attacker to capture the forts.

The folks here are very simple and trusting. We saw multiple stalls of fruits and snacks where no one was there at the stall but a jar was kept where people would put in the money for whatever they picked up. I thought think that this setup would work in most of the other places in the world but here it looked like it worked beautifully. From what I could see most of the houses didn’t lock their doors either so I guess crime was almost non-existent here.


Photo of the jungle path we saw

Once we were done soaking up the atmosphere and had some really tasty guava’s & oranges we wrapped up for the day and headed back to the Hornbill festival with the idea being to reach there before the second half started. We made it to the venue on time and this time we had lunch at a different setup called the ‘Food Paradise’ where they had multiple stalls selling different kinds of food. We tried the burger, fries, veg noodles and fried rice. The food was decent but the desert was phenomenal and we ended up ordering multiple servings.

Post lunch the group split up into two with Jani, Indu and me heading out to the War Museum and the rest went to see the cultural program at the main amphitheater. The war museum covered the battle of Kohima and it was an eye opener. I don’t remember ever reading about it in history books and reading about the fight sent goose-bumps through my body. You can read about the battle on Wikipedia and on the BBC site. Historians have called it one of the bloodiest battles of World War II but not many people know about it.

After the museum we walked around and explored a bunch of art exhibitions where the local artists were showcasing their paintings and while browsing I really wanted to buy some of them as they were done so beautifully but the price of the paintings was way out of our budget (some of them went up to Rs 2,00,000). One of the exhibits was by an artist who didn’t have hands and had painted the paintings by holding the brush in his mouth. According to the curator they had gotten over 20k postcards with his prints for sale and they were sold out within 2 days. They are also planning to create posters with his work so that more people can purchase his art. Next we walked over to a book exhibition where we picked up two books of folk tales from Nagaland. Haven’t read them yet as we are still recovering from the trip but it is on the agenda.

There was a horticulture exhibit along with a organic produce exhibit next to the book store so that was our next stop. The flower displays were done very beautifully and in the organic produce section we had the tastiest pineapple juice I have had. We picked up some naga-chili pickle along with some other snacks. By this time the cultural festival had ended so we regrouped with the others and had some snacks followed by a bit more shopping and then headed back as none of us wanted to brave the chill for the night music show.


Night time chats

During the walk back we bumped into another friend (Jyothi) unexpectedly who had also come for the festival and it was nice to meet her unexpectedly after a long time. The walk back was cold but uneventful and we once again decided not to brave the cold outside but rather sit in blankets to chat, so we went over to the other room and all of us cozily fit under blankets and chatted for a few hours which was quite fun. Some of the old stories came out from other trips and it was good spending time getting to know everyone. Pretty soon we all decided to crash as we had a long day.


Group photo outside the Hills home stay

Next day was a relatively lazy start as we were not starting that early in the morning. After another tasty breakfast we said our goodbyes to Stanley and family during which everyone got pretty emotional and were on our way to Kohima to visit the Kohima War Cemetery. After having read the history the previous day the cemetery had a lot more impact and allowed me to visualize how the fight must have taken place. The cemetery is beautifully maintained and one of the quotes I saw over there on a gravestone really hit me “When you go home, tell them of us and say, For your tomorrow, we gave our today”. We don’t realize how much soldiers sacrifice for us and this quote really sums their sacrifice in one line.


At the Kohima War cemetery

After the cemetery we drove over to the Kohima Cathedral Church which was unfortunately closed due to renovation but from what we could see the church would be very impressive once the renovation is completed. We spent a bit of time outside taking pics but there wasn’t much to see so we quickly wrapped up and drove over to the Kohima Museum.

The museum covers the history and culture of the tribes and was quite interesting. It had a lot more impact since we had seen some of the things being showcased in the museum during the Hornbill festival and during our travel such as the games and the culture of the head hunters etc. Took a lot of photos, some silly others more educational and had a great time. Finally we were done and we started the last leg of the journey towards Dimapur. The roads in this part of the state were a lot better than what we had traveled through earlier so we made good time. We did manage to stop and buy chilies on the way so that mom can make some pickle for me.

We stopped for lunch on the way at this really small place, and while the folks having the thali got proper plates those of us who were having Puri Sabji had to make do with the food being served on a piece of newspaper. Here the food wasn’t that great and we suspect that it caused a few of us to get an upset stomach but as always Kutjarishta helped even though Divya claimed that we were trying to poison her with it. (The faces she made after she drank it were hilarious).

After we reached Dimapur we checked into the hotel and Jani crashed as she had caught a cold, I caughtup with my emails and some of the others visited the night market where they tried more of the weird non-veg foods available. The rest of us had dinner at the hotel only and crashed quickly since by this time we were all feeling like we had been beaten up with clubs during the journey.

Next day it was time for us to head back so we came down for breakfast only to find out that it was taking them hours to serve food. When asked to hurry up they had a standard answer that they only have one chef and that is why things are taking time. Luckily we had budgeted enough time so even with the delay we were on time for the flight back which was long and exhausting. It took us almost 11 hours from the time we left the hotel to the time we reached home in Bangalore.


Last pic at Dimapur just before we started back home

I really enjoyed the trip and the friends we made during it. The conversations we had ranged from philosophy to mythology to movies to travel stories. If I tried writing down all the stuff we were talking about this post would be another 10-15 pages longer.

It was really difficult to select the pics for this post. There are a ton of other pics that I wanted to share but would have made the post unwieldy so I ended up not sharing. Jani has shared a lot of the pictures from the trip over on Facebook so you can check it out here. Let me know if you don’t have access.

Well this is all for now. Will write more later.

– Suramya

May 26, 2022

Visiting Sikkim: Home to glaciers, alpine meadows , Monasteries and lots of wildflowers

Filed under: My Life,Travel/Trips — Suramya @ 11:53 PM

The North east has always been a part of India that is not as well explored as the rest of India and it has been on our list of places to explore for a while now. Last year we traveled to Assam and Meghalaya and over the last week we did a week long trip to Sikkim with Exotic Expeditions and it was an amazing experience. It was our 3rd trip with them and as always Santosh made sure we all had a great time. The trip was supposed to be for 9 days but due to Jani’s exam getting rescheduled to the day after we were supposed to fly out, we had to miss the first day and half of the trip. Thankfully the first 2 days were mostly the shopping and stay in Gangtok which we were ok to miss, as we had another evening in Gangtok half-way through the trip.

The start of this trip was pretty hectic, both me and Jani had our exams (my mid-terms and her 3rd sem) so we barely slept and had to leave home at 2:30am to reach the airport on time for the 5:30am flight. The flight was fairly smooth and we reached on time, But then we had to take a cab from the airport to Dzongu to catch up with the rest of the group. Due to the issues with inner line permits the cab we got from the airport couldn’t go all the way so the driver coordinated and got hold of another guy who would take us the rest of the way. The drive was very picturesque but we both dozed of for the most of it as we had hardly slept for 2 days.

Unfortunately the road system in Sikkim is amongst the worst in India beating even Bangalore (which is a hard thing to do). So the drive was not super comfortable as the roads are full of potholes and in some places there are more pot holes than roads. The issue is exacerbated by the frequent landslides which require a lot of repair work. It was raining in Sikkim from when we arrived there due to the weather disturbance caused by the cyclone in the south and this created a high risk of land slides. In fact we were stuck for about 45 minutes during the drive because there was a road slide ahead of us which was still being cleared. One thing I really like about the drivers in Sikkim is how they all follow the lane discipline, when the traffic is stopped due to something hardly anyone will try to drive on the wrong wide of the road to try to skip the other cars waiting. This ensures that when the issue is resolved the traffic starts moving immediately.

After a few scary portions of the road, a drive under 2 water falls on the road, we reached where Google Maps told us the Lepcha Homestay was located and the map showed that we had to walk about 600m to the place, which was true if you don’t mind climbing a vertical hill with luggage, but since we didn’t want to do that we drove another kilometer or so to reach the place. It was still raining when we reached so we quickly scrambled down to the homestay and settled into our room. This place is basically a traditional Lepcha home and the rooms were cozy and quite comfortable. After freshening up, we had Lunch where they served us fried rice and a local specialty soup made from a local cheese with some other stuff. Initially the soup had a very sharp taste and I thought I couldn’t finish it, but after a few minutes the taste settled and combined with the rice I really liked it. Jani wasn’t much of a fan but I loved it.

Done with Lunch, we finally got to meet the rest of the group as they had also arrived just before we had. There were 9 of us in the group including Santosh which made for a cozy group and allowed us to get to know each other easily (which is sometimes difficult in large groups). This place had a really cozy seating area where we all hung out for a while and after getting to know each other we played dumb charades and had some local made wine. The wine was decent, similar to the homemade wines we get in Goa etc.


Enjoying Tea, Wine and snacks at Lepcha Homestay

The interesting drink we got to try was the ‘tongba’, which is made from fermented millet. It is a popular drink in Sikkim and Nepal. The drink is served in a bamboo container also called Tongba which is filled to the brim with the fermented millet seeds and boiled water is poured in it to the brim. It is then left undisturbed for about five minutes after which it is ready to drink. You use a bamboo straw to drink from the container and as the level of water goes down you can refill it with hot water to renew the drink. Each container can be refilled multiple times before you need to replace the seeds. There is a local ‘superstition’ (if you can call it that) that you should never mix the drink with the straw when drinking it. If you do that then you will get drunk very quickly as it will hit you badly. The drink tastes a bit like beer which Santosh liked so he finished it after the rest of us had a taste.


Trying out tongba, a local drink

Dinner was a traditional spread of food which was quite tasty. Post dinner we didn’t have much to do as it was still raining so most of the folks went to bed early while Jani, me, Santosh and Chaitanya sat outside our cottage and chatted till late night. Had a surprise visit by a frog which crossed the sitting area in 3 jumps making us all jump out of our seats when it first appeared. Since Chaitanya and a few of the others were planning on waking up early (~6am) to go to the nearby monastery we didn’t stay up too late. We would have loved to go to the monastery but it was raining (plus we hadn’t had much sleep the past 2 days either) so we decided to sleep in. Got up to lovely birdsongs and had a traditional breakfast (with a few non-traditional items added in) and we were ready for the next portion of the trip.


Group photo outside the Lepcha Homestay

We started the drive to Lachung in high spirits and enjoyed the views while driving. We had to get out of the car in the middle because the road was broken and the driver was worried about damaging the underside. I was planning on making fat jokes but managed to stop myself in time to avoid being beaten up by the three ladies in the car. 🙂 It took us about 3-4 hours to get to Lachung and on the way we stopped at this amazing waterfall for pictures. When we asked about the name of the waterfall we were told that there were too many waterfalls in Sikkim for them to name each one and during the rainy season new ones come up all the time. It was freezing cold due to wind chill so we quickly took some pics and then ran back to the cars to continue on the way.


Jani and me at the unknown waterfall


Group Pic (Chaitanya, Neha, Saniye and me) near the waterfall

After a bumpy drive we reached Lachung and checked into the Wonder Hill Inn which was where we were staying. That is when we found out that there was a severe rain warning in effect through out north Sikkim and due to the heavy rains all of north Sikkim had lost power. Based on the history of such incidents we couldn’t be sure when the power would be back but we were hopeful. So after checking in and freshening up Jani, me and Neha decided to walk around to the shops nearby whereas Saniye and Chaitanya hiked to the nearby Monastery and Tasneem and family decided to call it an early day as they were feeling the effects of the height combined with motion-sickness. Walking around we bought some good quality woolens for quite cheap and Jani found an interesting new dish made of Yak meat to try out. Apparently it was quite tasty and both Santosh and Jani quite enjoyed the dish. Dinner was at the hotel but only three of us (Santosh, Chaitanya and me) had dinner as the others had decided to skip dinner. We had a candlelight dinner since there was no power and crashed early.

Next day we woke up early and after a quick break-fast headed out to Yumthang Valley followed by Zero point. The hotel had waterproof shoes, gloves and jacket available for rent (for Rs. 250 for the full set, Rs 100 just for the Boots) and because the lady told us that we would need to cross a stream we all ended up getting the boots. However, it wasn’t required since the stream had a small wooden bridge over it. It is very cold there so if you don’t have a proper jacket/gloves I recommend you rent a set. The water proof shoes on the other hand were a waste in my opinion but you might feel differently. The drive to the valley was uneventful and we made good time even with the poor condition of the road. There was a bit of crowd at the valley but it wasn’t too bad.


Jani and Me at Yumthang Valley


Group Pic (Santosh, Saniye, Chaitanya, Jani and me) next to the river

Neha wasn’t feeling too well at the valley due to the altitude (11,693 ft) so she stayed in the car (which was the best thing she could have done) and the rest of us walked down to the river and took pics. Then we fooled around trying to do yoga (All of us), cartwheels (Chaitanya) and hand-stands (Saniye). Saniye even took a Yak ride while the rest of us watched. The view from the valley was awesome and luckily for us the rain had stopped and it was a clear day so we got to enjoy the valley without worrying about getting wet.


The Boy’s posing at the Valley


Trying out Yoga poses


All of us doing different Yoga poses

After a quick discussion we agreed to go ahead to Zero Point, which is called that because that is the last point till which civilians are allowed and after that only the armed forces are allowed access. The area is quite near the Indo-Tibetian/Indo-Chinese border. The drive up took almost 2 hours via a twisty-turny road but we could see an amazing vista around us while going up that kept us engrossed during the drive. We finally reached Zero point which is at 15,300 ft above mean sea level.


Group pic on the way to Zero-Point

We were all excited to go play with the snow but Jani wasn’t feeling too great due to the altitude so after taking a few quick pics she stayed in the car while the rest of us explored. Unfortunately most of the snow had melted so it was a good walk to where the remaining snow was. None of us had the energy to walk over so we just explored the area for a bit and took lots of pics. By the time we were all done, Jani was feeling better so she joined us as we took a break to eat Maggie with Channa (chick pea) and Egg. It was a weird combination but because we were all so hungry it tasted great (plus it had a lot of calories that we needed due to the cold). Me and Santosh also tried the local wine made from Rhododendron flowers which was also quite good and the rest enjoyed hot tea/coffee.


Jani and me at Zero Point


Chaitanya and me with the phenomenal Zero Point view behind us

Due to the altitude we didn’t want to stay for long and just as we were wrapping up it started to snow which gave us additional incentive to rush back to the cars to head back down. Thankfully we made it back before the snow caused problems on the road. Once back at Yumthang Valley we picked up Neha who was feeling better by then and had a quick bite to eat along with some shopping before starting back to the hotel. The power was still not back but was expected to be back by 8pm so we just relaxed and hung out till it was time for dinner. The food at this place was fantastic, even though the folks had to cook it in the dark all the dishes we ordered turned out to be great. Thankfully power came back later in the evening so we were able to charge our phones and power-banks.

Next day, we had an early breakfast and started for Gangtok. It was raining for a good portion of the drive but it had lessened to the point that it didn’t feel like someone was poring buckets of water on the car so we made good time to the hotel (Griffon’s Nest). The drive took almost 6 hours and by the time we reached the place it was time for lunch. We initially thought we would have food that the hotel but they told us that it would take a while because the cook was not there (they had gone out for grocery shopping) so we decided to head down to the market and have lunch there instead.

We (Jani, Saniye, Chaitanya, Neha and me) had lunch at Nimtho, Mahatma Gandhi Marg where we ordered the Sikkimese thali, Thakali thali and Thukpa. The ambience was pretty nice and we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves since we were having a really late lunch. I liked most of the items in the thali except this dish made of fermented soyabeans which to me tasted like spoiled beans. I don’t think any of us liked that.


Thakali thali (PC: Neha)


Sikkimese Thali (PC: Neha)

Once we were done with lunch we walked down to the Lal bazaar with the intention of lots of shopping, thankfully for the sake of my wallet the market was closed as it was Thursday which is a holiday for the market. So instead we roamed around the MG Marg and did a bunch of shopping. I got some nice jeans and turtlenecks and Jani got some turtlenecks as well along with some other stuff. This took a while and as we were about done we decided to go for a snack since the shopping had made us all hungry, so we walked over to Bakers Cafe where we managed to snag a seat next to the window and had some really tasty Banana pancakes and coffee/tea/hot chocolate. After chilling there for a while we were ready to head back as it looked like it might rain again but thankfully we made it back before it rained.


Group Pic at M G Marg


Chilling at Bakers Cafe

Once back, we (Jani, me and Santosh) decided to hang out at the terrace seating area at the hotel which was quite nice and pleasant. We all sat there till about 2am and Chaitanya joined us as well half way through. It was good to just chill, have a nice drink (we tried some of the local wine and whisky that we had picked up) and chat. We would have stayed up longer but we had to leave early to make good time for the next day’s itinerary so at ~2 am we had to crash for the night.


Night time view from the Terrace at Griffon’s Nest

Next day was again overcast but not as much rain as before, we drove over some really nice terrain to reach Tsongmo Lake which had a phenomenal view. Jani, me, Neha and Chaitanya dressed up in local ethnic dress for photos which was fun. I really liked the cap as it was very comfortable and warm. There was also a cablecar at the place but none of us went for a ride. I was expecting that we could go down to the water and while there was a path we could take down for the most part we were about 2-4 feet above the water.


Chaitanya, Neha, Jani and me dressed in traditional Sikkimese dress

Then we drove to the old Baba Mandir which is located on the road between Jelepla and Nathula Pass.

The temple is dedicated to Sepoy Harbhajan Singh of the 23rd Punjab Regiment who went missing while leading a pack of mules from his battalion at Tukla to Deng Dhukla. A manhunt was organized when he went missing and as per the legend he himself guided the searchers to his grave by appearing to one of the soldiers in his dreams. Soon after solders started reporting that he was appearing in their dreams asking for a samadhi to be built in his memory at the location. He is supposed to still patrol the area and guards the lives of the soldiers posted along the border. The temple is located near the indo-china border and a lot of soldiers come here to pray before heading out to the border.


View from the old Baba mandir

It had been pretty foggy most of the way but we got lucky when the sky cleared up for a few mins and we got to see an amazing vista in front of us. Took a few pics before it got foggy again and then had a quick bite of spicy pasta to eat before heading out. One thing to know about this place, the toilets are perched on side of the hill about 10 mtrs down from the parking and are not the cleanest in the world. If you can hold it I would recommend you do so. 🙂

During the drive down the weather cleared up again so we stopped for some pics, just as we were wrapping up the fog/clouds were back and within minutes we couldn’t see anything again. Phone signals were pretty spotty on this road and none of the carriers work here (Airtel, BSNL or Jio). Interestingly we did manage to connect to the China Phone system partway through for a little while, I immediately switched off data so that I didn’t get charged a ridiculous amount accidentally.


At Tukla Valley


Photo’s taken seconds apart showing how quickly the fog was advancing

We got to the homestay (Khangrri Home Stay, Phadamchen) that was a little difficult to spot as it was above the line of sight from the road but it was really nicely done. The flower beds and plants at the place were really amazing and the hospitality was great. It started raining when we got there so we spent a couple of hours playing Bluff after having some pakoda’s and tea. The food was pretty good and the company was even better so we had a great time. Dinner was traditional food and quite good. I especially liked the local ‘pickle’ though it was more like a salad than what we would call a pickle.


Breakfast at Khangrri Home Stay, Phadamchen

It rained throughout the night to the point that our driver was worried about possible landslides on the way. Thankfully we were lucky enough that there were no landslides on the way and drove all the way to Siliguri. The hotel we were staying at was a bit hard to find since there were two places with almost similar names but we managed to arrive in one piece. Lunch was at the hotel only since we didn’t feel like exploring immediately as we were all very hungry.

Post lunch we took an Auto to the Hongkong market which is a place for local shopping along with cheap stuff from China & Hong Kong. It is similar to how the shops are in old Delhi or Palika Bazaar (except that this wasn’t underground). We explored the market for a bit and then as it looked like it was going to start raining decided to head to the Planet Mall which is nearby. The mall was pretty much deserted so we strolled over to ‘Worth the Hype’ to check out if it was indeed worth the Hype. The food there was decent and the drinks were ok. The ambience on the other hand was fantastic though it was surprising that other than our group it was all girls at the place.


At Worth the Hype, Siliguri

Once we were done with the snacks we decided to check out the nearby Baisakhi Mela that we had spotted on the way to the mall. Initially I wasn’t super interested as I thought it would just be a bunch of stalls and a lot of crowd. Inside it turned out that it was a proper mela (fair) with lots of amusement rides and street food to be enjoyed. I didn’t like most of the street food as I found it to be bland but the others seemed to enjoy it. Chaitanya, Saniye and me went for multiple rides and really had a blast. It had been a long time since I have been at an amusement park and now I want to go to one again, with people who enjoy the rides so that Jani doesn’t get tortured riding the rides with me as she really doesn’t enjoy it. The rides were a lot of fun and way better than what I would expect from a small setup like this one. After the last ride where we were suspended upside down we decided to call it a night and headed back to the hotel. Since we had hogged out on junk food none of us wanted to have dinner and ended up crashing early since we had early flights.


At the Baisakhi Mela, Siliguri


Enjoying the Chaat at the Baisakhi Mela


Artsy pic at the mela

On the last day, we got up early to reach the Airport on time. I was a bit worried about the extra weight in the luggage but we just managed to squeeze by (we were about 600 gms over the allowance) without extra charges. The flight back was uneventful and soon we were back in Bangalore with the lovely Bangalore traffic.

Overall the trip was great, I would highly recommend it to others as well as long as they are prepared to rough it out a bit and not expect super high luxury during the travel. I mean it is possible to travel in high luxury places but then you don’t get to enjoy the local specialties and homestays.

Well this is all for now. Will post more later.

– Suramya

September 19, 2021

Trip to Historic Hampi – Part 2: Visiting a 3000 year old Megalithic site

Filed under: My Thoughts,Travel/Trips — Suramya @ 11:05 PM

This is a continuation of my previous post about my trip to Historic Hampi. After spending a few days in Hampi, we had visited most of the famous places and were ready to head back when we got into a conversation with Mr Sarath Champati, who is the Associate Director for Conservation and Experiences at Evolve Back Resorts. During the conversation he mentioned that they were in the process of preparing a new trail and had just come back from a walk through of the trail the day before. This was an place called ‘HireBenakal’ which hardly anyone knows about which has Dolmen’s dating back almost 3000 years, making it a megalithic site. Since both of us are quite interested in history we requested that we be allowed to accompany them on the trail and after reminding us that this trail was still under development and involved a lot of hiking they agreed to take us up to the site the next day. We immediately extended the stay by another day and crashed early since we had to wake up early morning to reach the place.



Ombatthugudda, Start of trail to site

The next day we started early (around 6am) and reached the starting point of the trail by 7:30am. If you don’t already know about it, it is hard to find this place as there are almost no signs or directions. I bookmarked the location on Google Maps, so if you are planning to go you can use this to navigate: Ombatthugudda, Start of trail to site. There is single guard over there who is basically there to prevent folks from trying to dig up the Dolmens. A few weeks before we visited some folks from the nearby villages damaged 3-4 of the structures while trying to dig under them because they thought that there would be buried treasure under them. That is not the case but still the damage was done and some priceless artifacts damaged by morons.


Overview of the Hirebenakal Prehistoric site and the trail

The trail up from the starting point is a wonderful trek, you get to see a lot of flora and fauna. Plus since not a lot of people come this way there is a high chance of spotting wild animals on the way. While we were walking up our guide suddenly asked us to stop and talk loudly. After a min or so he showed us a pile of fresh shit on the trail and explained that it was from a Sloth bear which we had interrupted in the middle of taking a dump. They have very bad eyesight but have excellent hearing so if you are walking along quietly and stumble on them they might attack as they wouldn’t see you from a distance. If you keep making noise while walking then they hear you and leave so as not to have an encounter. Which is what had happened in this case. He then told us that the bear had been feasting on Mango and other fruits down at the village and he tried showing us the remains in the poop. But I took him on his word and didn’t try to verify what he was saying.


Fantastic view on the way

About a third of the way up we took a short detour (5 min hike off the main trail) and came to some really cool Rock Art which were dated to be more than 2000 years old. It is not clear why the paintings were done at these rocks but a popular theory is that they had something to do with religious ceremonies. There are about 10 rock shelters in the area which have these paintings.


Over 2000 year old Rock Paintings


Some more rock paintings

At first it was hard to see the paintings as they look like rust or regular mud but when you get closer they suddenly take shape and you can see people, animals and other day to day activities painted on the rock. As this is not a often visited site there were no barriers stopping us from getting close to the paintings so with extreme care to avoid touching/damaging the paintings we got as close as we could (a few inches away at times) to check out the paintings. The paintings are done with natural paint called Red Ochre made by mixing powdered haematite (an iron ore) with water.


Mr. Vinay showing us the paintings


Some more paintings

Since the paintings are exposed to nature a lot of them have been erased by erosion over time. The only way to preserve them is to cover them with something that prevents natural elements from touching the paintings. Unfortunately that would be a massive undertaking and not something that can be done easily or cheaply. Which is why we need to put pressure on the government and the Archeological Society to take steps to preserve these artifacts for future generations.

After spending a little while admiring the paintings we started back up the trail and noticed a massive boulder on the way which looked like it was cut in half by a giant knife. One theory is that this rock acted as a waymarker and guide for the folks coming to visit the Dolmen’s, another is that it was used to warn people about attacks or to notify them about the start of important ceremonies etc. It was carved by hand without any power tools and I can only imagine the time and effort required to cut the rock in half so precisely using only stoneage tools.


Stone kettledrum on the way to the site

Shortly after you see the rock signpost the trail flattens out and is a pleasant walk between trees and shrubs. Soon thereafter we started seeing Dolmens all around us. They started off as small structures about a foot in height and as you near the center they are massive structures over 10 feet high. One theory is that the central dolmens were for the chief’s or other important people in the tribe and the further you came out from the center the lesser the status of the people making the structures which translated into smaller structures that would be cheaper/easier to make. But again there is no way to know for sure why these were built or if any of the theories we are putting forward have any merit.


Tiny Dolmen’s near the outskirts of the site


Slightly larger Dolmen found as we get closer to the center


Dolmen’s getting larger as we get to the center

Dolmen’s are basically stone structures usually consisting of two or more vertical megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or “table”. They are found all over the world and are thought to be tombs or prayer places for ancestor worship. But no bodies have been found at any of the Dolmen’s around the world possibly because of the age and the fact that it looks like the bodies were left in the open inside them which would allow wild animals access to the bodies and over the years all evidence of them would be erased by time. One of the most famous examples of Dolmen is the Stonehenge in the UK but there are multiple sites in India with these structures as well.


Gigantic Dolmens at the center of the site

This particular site started off with over 490 when it was first discovered by local herdsmen but due to damage and time only ~200 are still left standing. There are multiple kinds of Dolmen’s here starting with 3-sided chambers with a large capstone on the top allowing them to balance on each other. These are massive stone structures with each slab weighing several tons. It is hard to imagine the effort required to cut the slabs and then lift them up over 10-15 feet in the air while ensuring the ‘walls’ are stable and don’t collapse. Some of these structures have a porthole carved into one of the walls and they are perfectly circular. Imagine carving a hole in a 6-8 inch thick slab of rock while ensuring the hole is perfectly circular. It would be difficult to do so with modern power tools but these folks did it with hand tools.


Circular hole carved in solid rock without power tools.

In addition to the 3 sided chambers, the site also has several buried and semi-buried dolmens called cists and dolmenoid cists along with irregular polygonal and rock shelter chambers. All of these were carved manually over the years. Near the center there is a massive water reservoir which is where archeologists think the tribes created the Red Ochre paint and one can see portions of the rock that are still colored red from the years of paint mixing.


Photo with the dolmens in the background


Shot of some of the Dolmens still standing after ~3000 years

As per the excavation and study done there, it doesn’t seem that people stayed here full time but rather came up from nearby villages to work on the structures. This supports the theory that the site had religious significance but as I said before it is almost impossible to confirm these theories since there is hardly any remains here. Which is one of the reasons idiots around the world dismiss the possibility that they were created by ancient humans. A popular theory is that Aliens came to earth and built these structures because humans couldn’t have done it. These theories are mostly sprouted by western ‘experts’ who can’t believe that indigenous people did what Europeans could not and thus try to discredit their work. Shows like Ancient Aliens and like don’t help either as they spread this racist theory that without ‘white man’ the natives couldn’t have created such works. These programs ignore the massive amount of supporting evidence that it is in-fact possible to create these structures with only muscle power and time. Similar theories abound about the pyramids and other ancient structures and all I can say to them is that, just because you couldn’t do it doesn’t mean that other cultures were not advanced enough and skillful enough to do it. Looking at what they did with stone-age tools it is humbling to imagine what they could have achieved if they had access to modern tools and resources.

Hirebenkal is one of the very few Indian megalithic sites found with associated habitations. In the nearby village archaeologists have unearthed rich cultural material, including pre-megalithic implements, iron slag, pottery of Neolithic, megalithic and early historic period. So it is sad to find it so neglected and poorly protected. There is ongoing effort to get the site classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Hopefully it will happen soon and this amazing site will be preserved for future generations to admire.

After a couple of hours around the site, we started back and the trip down was a lot easier but a lot hotter (as it was quite sunny). We reached the start of the trek and had a quick breakfast there from the packed food that we had brought along. Once done with the food we headed back to the resort, where we relaxed for the rest of the day.

The next day, we had breakfast and started the drive back to Bangalore with a determination to try visit more such historical sites in India and spread awareness about them and our rich cultural history.

– Suramya

August 6, 2021

Trip to Historic Hampi – Part 1

Filed under: My Thoughts,Travel/Trips — Suramya @ 2:45 AM

Early last month I made my second trip to Hampi with the goal of actually exploring the city this time. My 1st trip was focused primarily on Wine tasting as there are some pretty cool Vineyards around Hampi. I am going to break this writeup into two parts, in the first part I am going to talk about all the regular Hampi monuments that everyone explores. In Part 2 I am going to talk about a historic site that hardly anyone knows about which is about 3000-4000 years old approximately and is similar to Stonehenge. (More details in the next post 🙂 )

Hampi is one of the lesser known historic sites in India and it is better known in the south than in the north. It’s name is derived from Pampa which is another name of the goddess Parvati. I first heard about it when I moved to Bangalore in 2010. It was a popular destination with a certain group of people because of the Hippie island and the easy availability of drugs etc. With the administration looking for better crowd of travelers and less drugs etc along with the desire to remove the encroachment into forest lands, the island was cleared, and a lot of work is being done to restore/maintain the historical monuments.

First Day

Our trip started on 6th July, just after the Evolve Back, Hampi resort reopened their doors to visitors when the Karnataka lockdown rules were eased. We had originally planned to travel on the 29th June but due to the lockdown had to push the trip out by a week. As always, we started early in the morning around 6:30am so as to avoid the Bangalore traffic which has been slowly going back to the pre-lockdown levels. The drive to Hampi was fantastic and the roads are amazing. I had to consciously remind myself to slow down as it was quite easy to go super-fast without realizing it. The highway system in India has really improved in the last few years. We reached the Evolve Back campus without any issues except for a minor funny incident right at the end. When we were less than 1 km from the resort, our GPS told us to turn into a complex which it claimed was the resort, but it turned out to be the Forest Department’s office. When we asked them where the resort was, they looked at us like we were crazy, and the guy told us “This is not the resort”. When we told them that we knew this wasn’t the resort and asked for directions they told us to drive on for another 600-800mtrs and the resort was there on the left side. I think that the issue happened due to the GPS losing satellite signal and thus lost an accurate reading of where we were. In any case we reached the venue and checked in without any further confusion.

This was our third stay at the Evolve Back properties, and I have to say that they outdid themselves with the service they provided. This is from the check-in staff to the waiters, manager, trail guides to everyone. To give an idea of the service level and the personalized service we got here are a few small examples. Jani always takes hot water when we go out and I take ice-cold water, we told the serving staff this during our first meal there. After that they ensured we got a glass of hot water and a glass of cold water every single time without asking. They also remembered that we both liked our food to be spicy so all our meals were custom made to be spicier than the usual. In fact the chef actually came and chatted with us multiple times to ensure that the food was made as per our requirements. Even the room we were allocated was selected to give us great views of the sunrise (which we missed because we were sleeping) and the sunset (which we missed because we were on the trails). But it is the thought that counts. Every single person there was always smiling and working to ensure we had a great visit. I am bad with remembering names and since Jani already did a post detailing our stay and how all of the staff made this a fantastic stay, I am not going to duplicate the work here. You can read her writeup of our trip here, on her blog.


The Room we stayed in at Evolve Back, Hampi


The Room we stayed in at Evolve Back, Hampi


View from the Balcony


Night View from our Balcony


Night View from our Balcony

Since, I had a hectic few days before we started the trip and had gotten up early, we decided to take it easy on the first day and just relaxed. The architecture of the property in Hampi is based on the royal palace in Hampi including the open area in the middle with a water source to help cool the place. As we were planning to stay 3 nights we had 2 full days (and 2 half days) to explore Hampi, which was perfect because they have 4 trails for guests (Raya Trail, Vithalapura Walk, Tungabhadra Trek & Virupaksha Trail) which you can choose to go on. We decided to all 4 of them, doing one trail in the morning and another in the evening.

Second Day

We started off with the Vithalapura Walk, which is a walk through the ancient market and the temples of Vithalapura – a Hampi suburb known for the famous Vijaya Vithala temple that houses the renowned Stone Chariot and musical pillared mantapa. Our trip started early morning post breakfast to avoid the heat, the drive to the Vijaya Vithala temple was short and interesting because Santhosh who was our guide kept us entertained with stories about the historical city. We parked the car at the entrance and then walked to the temple. If we had come a little later, there are electric golf carts that will take you there but as we wanted to stretch our legs we walked the ~1kms distance and I am glad we did that because it gave us the chance to explore the area in more detail rather than watching it from the cart.

The first structure that catches your eye as you are walking is the ‘Kuduregombe Mandapa‘ (Horse riders Pavilion). It is named so because it has sculptures of horses with riders mounting them at its entrance and the word Kuduregombe translates to Horse Riders in the local language. This is a temple for one of the Hindu Gods and was built over 500 years ago. Unfortunately, over the years the idol was removed and much of the temple is in ruins so we don’t know for sure which of the Gods the temple was built to worship. Another theory is that it was used as a prayer place by the horse riders during the annual chariot festival.


Kuduregombe Mandapa (Horse riders Pavilion)

Across from the Mantapa there is the remains of the temple pond which supplied the water to be used for the temple and for the drinking/cooking of the staff and visitors. The pond has steps going down to the water and when we went it was in poor shape as the water had stagnated and a lot of plant growth was there. There is a small structure in the middle of the pond where it is assumed an idol was carried out and prayers were done there before taking it back to the temple. Restoration work is going on in the rest of the compound, but they haven’t gotten around to here yet as there is a lot of work remaining. My sister has been working with various folks to map, photograph and look at rejuvenating step-wells around India as they are a sustainable way of water storage and distribution. (More on water distribution later).


Remains of the temple pond, that supplied water to the Kuduregombe Mandapa

As you are walking down the road you will notice these stone pillars parallel to the road placed about 5-6 feet apart in rows. These are the remains of the market stalls that were placed for the vendors to sell their goods. Only the support structures remain as part the structure was made from wood and has decomposed over the years. The market at its peak was almost 1 kilometers long and had shops on both sides of the road. The market was host to merchants from all over the world, including Rome, Persia etc. At its peak the Vijayanagara empire was compared to the Roman empire by the traders and scholars who visited. It was rich enough that diamonds were used as decorations on the horse’s saddles and reins/bridle. In fact legend has it that Diamonds and other precious stones were actually sold by weight instead of per piece in this market because they were so common. There have been writings about this market (and others in the empire) by famous visitors from across the world. But hardly anyone knows about it.


Remains of the Market stalls

During the walk we also spotted some brightly colored lizards (Agama’s) and other wildlife and plants that Jani found to be a lot more interesting than I did. Still they all looked very pretty 🙂

Another few mins of walk brought us to the entrance of the Vitthala temple and even in it’s current state the word that came to mind when I saw it for the first time was “Impressive”. The Vitthala temple was initially built in 1422AD and expanded between 1509-1529AD out of solid granite rock. The temple is dedicated to Lord Vitthala, who is an incarnation of Lord Vishnu.


Entrance to the Vitthala temple

The temple complex is huge and a lot of restoration work is going on as parts of the temple is in ruins due to the age. Some of you might ask (as I did) why folks are not allowed to drive up to the temple and park right in front as there is enough space available there. This is not allowed because of the fear that the vibrations from the vehicles would damage the structure. Then Santhosh pointed out an ingenious method that is being used to monitor the cracks to ensure they are not expanding. In other countries, I have seen sensors being placed all over such structures to monitor the cracks, here they have taken a very thin strip of glass and stuck it over the crack. If there is any activity or increase in the crack dimension it will break the glass notifying the ASI staff that they need to check for damage. It is cheap, simple and very effective.


Cheap ‘sensor’ to monitor cracks on the structure

Once you enter the complex, the famous The Stone Chariot (Ratha) is right in front of you in the temple courtyard. The Chariot is a shrine to Garuda who is the vehicle mount (vahana) of Lord Vishnu. Garuda is also a dharma-protector and Astasena in Buddhism, and the Yaksha of the Jain Tirthankara Shantinatha. It is one of the three most famous chariots in India with the other two located in Konark and Mahabalipuram. The chariot was built by King Krishnadevaraya of the Vijayanagara Empire during the 16th century. It was created to showcase the beauty and artistic perfection of the Vijayanagara empire. The chariot is made of multiple slabs of granite but due to the skill of the craftsmen it looks like it is made from a single stone. A small example of the skill of the craftsmen is that even though the wheels of the chariot are made out of stone they were crafted in a way that they could rotate freely. (Now the wheels have been fixed in place to protect against damage). Originally the chariot had stone horses pulling it but the statues were damaged and have been replaced with elephants taken from another location.


Us at the entrance of the Temple complex with the stone chariot right behind us


The famous stone chariot

The Maha Mantapa (Great hall) of the temple is behind the Stone Chariot in the in inner courtyard. The hall is built on top of a ornately carved platform from solid granite. The whole platform is covered with images from Mythology, flowers and other designs. The Mantapa was under repair when we visited and still was one of the most impressive structures that I have seen. The hall has 16 musical pillars that have been carved from a single piece of rock, each pillar has multiple smaller pillar carved in it. The carving is done in a way that when you tap on the pillar it creates a musical sound. Each pillar produces a different musical note and there is a carving on each pillar that denotes what sound will be produced when the pillar is tapped. Imagine the skill required to carve these pillars flawlessly. During festivals and events musicians would play music for the dancers by tapping on the pillars with short sticks. The pillars in the hall are curtailed from access to prevent folks from playing music on them to protect them from further damage as they are pretty old.


Maha Mantapa, Vitthala temple


Maha Mantapa, Vitthala temple


Sounds produced by Playing the Musical Pillars

The skill of the carvers is evident from the intricately carved water channels in the platform that are part of the design (see photo below).


Carved water channel to safely channel water from rains into drainage.

Other pillars in the hall are covered with carvings that tell the story of Narasimha and parts of the structure tell the story of Hanuman’s visit to Lanka and Lanka Dahan (The burning of Lanka). What I found very interesting was the carving of the king riding a mythical creature with the parts of various animals each symbolizing a different virtue. Unfortunately I forget what each animal was supposed to represent and I will update the post once I find the details.


Carvings on the temple pillars


Carvings on the temple pillars


Carvings on the temple pillars

Another cool aspect that Santhosh pointed out was something that had never occurred to me even though I was aware of the components. He basically told us that the various avatars of Lord Vishnu tell us that our ancestors were aware of the theory of evolution and his avatars evolved over the ages to show how life evolved from marine life to the current form. Evolution teaches us that we went through the following stages of evolution and each avatar corresponds to that stage:

Marine life -> Matsa (Fish) avatar)
Amphibious Life -> Kurma (turtle avatar)
Simple Animals -> Varaha (boar avatar)
Early humans (like Australopithecus Afarensis) -> Narasimha (man-lion)
Tool Users/Farming (like Homo Habilis) -> Vamana (dwarf-god)
Warriors -> Parashurama (Brahman warrior)
Civilized Man -> Rama/Krishna


Pillar carving showing Hanuman’s Lanka Dahan

Each of the other smaller halls are also covered with carvings and paintings. If I wanted to detail each aspect of the carving this post would end up becoming a book so I am not going to do that as there are others with more knowledge who have written about the temple and what all the carvings mean. By the time we finished the complex, it was starting to get a little hot so we rested for a while next to the 100 year old Temple Flower tree and then headed back.


Ancient Temple Tree

After reaching the resort we rested for a bit. As we had to head out again (and since we were hungry from our outing) we took an early lunch and were ready for our next Trail called the “Raya Trail. This trail started with a visit to the Queen’s Bath. The Queen’s Bath was created by Achyuta Raya over 500 years ago for use by the Royal Women. It is an interesting structure surrounded by a moat on all sides which served the dual purpose of preventing any strangers from entering the building while it was in use and secondly to help cool the building during the summer days by evaporation. The building is designed in an Indo-Islamic style as during the time it was built, there was a lot of cultural exchange happening between the Vijayanagara empire and the Muslim kings (Moguls and their followers).


Carved windows in the Queen’s Bath

The center part of the structure is currently open to the air but it is believed there was a wooden canopy over the structure when it was in use. The halls around the bath have beautifully carved pillars and balconies and it is easy to imagine the splendor of the bath in it’s prime. The bath was supplied with water via ingeniously designed aqueducts and some of that original network is still in service and used to supply water to parts of the city and fields.


Ornate windows overlooking the bath at Queen’s Bath

After the bath we visited the Zanana Enclosure (Women’s Enclosure) which contained the residences of the Queen and her ladies. The enclosure is surrounded by a massive wall built to protect the women against attack while the men were away for war. Due to ravages of time only the foundations and the base of the buildings are left in the enclosure as the buildings are said to have been built using wood which decomposed over the years. The most famous structure in the enclosure is the ‘Lotus Mahal’ which was the primary residence and contains lots of geometric windows and ingeniously designed cooling pipes to reduce the temperature during the summer months.


Lotus Mahal


Carved designs around the cooling piles (that spray water)

Our next stop after the Enclosure was the ‘Elephant’s Stable’, where the king housed his famous elephants. The stable was built in the 15th century and is a massive domed structure. Each dome is a different type such as circular, octagonal or fluted. The structure was covered with plaster and Stucoo ornamentation and the remains of the same can be seen in both the exterior and interior of the stable. The mahout’s (Elephant rider/trainer) residence is right next to the stable so that they could care of the elephants.


Elephant’s Stable

After the stable, we visited the Madhava (Ranga) Temple which is famous for the Hanuman statue inside it which is over 3 meters high. The pillars in the temple are carved with depictions of Garuda, Vitthala, Hanuman and depictions of other Gods & Goddesses.


Hanuman statue inside the Madhava (Ranga) Temple

The final stop of the day was the ‘Royal Enclosure’ which was the core of the capital city of Vijayanagara. It housed over 43 buildings for the civil servants that managed the day to day running of the empire. The main entrance to the enclosure was guarded by a pair of massive gates which admitted visitors to a zig-zag area that took the visitors to the ‘Mahanavami Dibba’ platform. This platform was where the king accepted vows of fealty from his subordinates, showcased their military might and performed prayers for victory before any military campaign. Each layer of the platform is decorated with carvings showcasing the military might of the empire, their cultural achievements, representation of visitors from other nations and the tribute they offered (that included, exotic animals, dancers etc). You can see depictions of merchants and ambassadors from the Chinese, Mesopotamian, Persian and other major empires in the world.


Massive Stone Gate protecting the entrance of the Royal Enclosure


The ‘Mahanavami Dibba’ platform


Ornate carvings on the side of the ‘Mahanavami Dibba’ platform


Carving showing some of the visitors to the empire from around the world with the gifts they brought


View from the top of the Platform

Some of the other structures in the enclosure include grain storage area’s and water storage wells. Interestingly, each block of stone used to build these structures has a maker’s mark on it along with marks that tell the mason where exactly this stone was meant to be placed. In case of damage they would carve a replacement and replace that stone without having to measure the original again.


The main water storage for the Enclosure


Maker’s mark on the stone used to build the structures

The enclosure also had provision for soldiers to camp and right next to the aquaduct supplying water there is provision for the soldiers to have their meals in massive stone plates. (I am trying to convince dad to get some stone plates for home).


Massive stone plates for soldiers to have their meals on

The last stop of the day was the ‘Hazararama Temple’ that is the only temple located in the core zone of the royal Enclosure between the residential and ceremonial enclosures. The temple is dedicated to Lord Rama and is a great example of the Dravida Vimana Temple style. The temple is famous for the carvings and sculptures telling the story of Ramayana in three tiers.


The ‘Hazararama’ Temple


Carved pillars at The ‘Hazararama’ Temple

With is visit, we concluded the first day of our trails and headed back to the resort where after freshening up we rested for a little while enjoying the cool breeze and then had our dinner in the Specialty restaurant called Bahmani. Continuing with the theme of giving us a really VIP treatment the staff seated us next to a lotus pond near the window where we got to enjoy the nice breeze and watch the rain while staying dry. The food was again fantastic and we really liked the meal and the service.


Pond side seating at Bahmani for dinner

Third Day

The third day of the trip started with a heavy breakfast followed by us heading out to the ‘Virupaksha Trail’. We drove to the beginning of the trail and started with a visit to the ‘Saisivekalu Ganesha’. This is a 2.4 mtrs high statue carved from a single rock which was built around 1506 AD, as per an engraving on the rock next to the pavilion. The statue is in an open pillared pavilion that has been standing for centuries without any mortar/cement being used in it’s construction. The whole thing is balanced to an inch and even falling rocks have not damaged the structure.


the ‘Saisivekalu Ganesha’

Next to the pavilion, there are a lot of rocks which were prepared for construction and here is where I found out how the ancients broke these gigantic rocks into smaller pieces or slabs without using any kind of power tools. First they locate the fault line in the rock and carve rectangular holes in the stone using chisel & hammers. These holes are then filled with hot water and left for a bit, then they immediately fill it with cold water. They repeat this for about 10-15 days to allow the hot & cold water to expand & contract the rock to start expanding the fault line. At times, they also insert wooden pegs in the holes that are wett’ed with water which forces the wood to expand forcing the cracks to widen. Once they judge enough time has passed and the stone is ready, they use a hammer and chisel to strike hard blows at key points on the rock and it everything was done correctly the rock splits apart easily. The process was then repeated if smaller pieces of the rock were required.


Square holes in the rock made to cut the rock


Massive rock cut in half using the method above

The walk from the Ganesha statue to the Virupaksha temple is quite nice and you can see how the temples evolved over the years. In the beginning there Shiva linga is carved into the rock right in the open, then a few years/decades later the first structure is built around the idol/Shiva linga which is a simple room, with rudimentary carvings on the temple. Carvings are not very detailed because the rock is extremely hard and difficult to carve. Then the later temples built a room around the central room with additional carvings and more idols. Around this time other stones were used in the construction along with Granite so the carvings start becoming more detailed as well.


Shiva linga’s carved in the rock in the open


Single room temple


View of the Virupaksha temple from a distance

A short walk down the hill brought us to the entrance of the famous Virupaksha Temple. The Virupaksha Temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva and has existed since at least the 7th century as there are records of the temple from the 7th century onwards. The temple was built by Lakkan Dandesha, under the ruler Deva Raya II of the Vijayanagara Empire. It started off as a simple shrine and over the years was built into a a huge complex during the Vijayanagara rule. The carvings of the temple are phenomenal and cover almost all the pillars and roof. The temple base is made from rock with the top portion made from brick. This allowed the architects to create very intricate carvings on the temple as brick is easy to carve and shape as compared to granite.


Inner Courtyard of the Temple complex

The temple has a lot of repeated patterns in it’s design and if you look carefully you can see the patterns demonstrate the concept of fractals. The patterns divide and repeat themselves as they become smaller and smaller. The roof of the temple is covered in beautiful paintings with some of the original colors still visible.


Carvings showing scenes from the Ramayana in original color


Roof Paintings inside the temple complex


Carved pillars in the temple.

One aspect of the temple, which is not known to many people is that it is designed in a way there is a small pinhole camera that shows us the top of the temple as an inverted image within the main temple in a small room off to one side of the main shrine. Things like this were what made it worth going on the trail with the staff from Evolve Back as they show you stuff that you would have missed otherwise.


Pinhole camera showing the top of the temple next to the shrine

The complex had a lot more decorative structures in and around it which were destroyed by the Muslim invaders in the 16th century. Which is extremely depressing when you think about it. How much of India’s culture and history was demolished by these invaders?

While walking around the complex we walked over to see the step well that functioned as the water storage area for the temple use. The structure is still in use and had fishes in it that you can feed. We didn’t but others were feeding them as we watched.

Post that we walked over to the ‘Kadalekalu Ganesha‘ statue, which is the largest Ganesha statue in South India. It towers over you at a height of 4.6 mtrs and is known as Kadalekalu Ganesha because its belly was carved in the shape of a Bengal Gram (Kadalekalu in the local language). The statue sits in a temple hall that is decorated with tall and slender granite pillars carved with various mythological characters and themes. We spent a few minutes resting in the shade here and then started the drive back to the resort.


The ‘Kadalekalu Ganesha‘ statue

On the way we stopped at the Lakshmi Narasimha Statue which is another major tourist attraction in Hampi. It is also known as the Ugra Narasimha or Angry Narasimha. It was built in 1528 AD and is dedicated to Lord Narasimha (an avatar of Lord Vishnu), and Goddess Lakshmi. The statue of Lord Narasimha is sitting sitting cross-legged position on the coil of a giant seven-headed snake Adishesha and originally had a small figure of Goddess Lakshmi sitting in his lap to keep him calm. The statue was vandalized by the Mugals during their attack and the limbs of the statue were broken along with the Lakshmi statue. The damaged Lakshmi statue is now kept in the Archaeological Museum in Kamalapura for safekeeping.


Lakshmi Narasimha / Ugra Narasimha Statue

Right next to the statue is another famous temple dedicated to Lord Shiva called Badavilinga Temple. Badavilinga is a combination of two words – Badva (Poor) and Linga (Shiva) in the local language. It is called so because legend has it that the Shivaling inside the temple was commissioned by a poor farmer lady. In her honor the temple is known as the Badavilinga Temple. The Linga in the temple is surrounded with water to keep Lord Shiva calm and control his destructive dance.


The Badavilinga Temple

Awed by this grand tour we drove back to the resort where we rested for a while before heading out for lunch. Lunch was great as usual and after a short rest we were ready to tackle the next (and the last official) Trail of the resort, the “Tungabhadra Trek“. While we were waiting to head out, Joydeep who is the General Manager for the Hampi property stopped by to check on if we were enjoying the stay. During the conversion he mentioned that they had just completed the recce for another Trail that they were planning on starting in the future which was something that most people didn’t know about. This was to a site (Hire Benakal) that contains structures between 3000 to 4000 years old with rock paintings from the same time. Since both of us love history and wanted to ensure we visited this place, we asked them if they could organize a trip for us to this place (More details in the next post). They agreed to take us out to visit the Hire Benakal but only if we extended our stay by a day because it was a half day trip to visit the location. We immediately asked the staff to extend our stay by a day and then started off for the Tungabhadra Trail.


Nandi Statue at the start of the Tungabhadra Trail

We were joined by Mr Sarath, who is the Associate Director of Conservation and Experiences on this trail along with Santhosh. We then drove over to the start of the trail which has a giant statue of Nandi at its beginning. The statue is looking towards the Vittala Temple and overlooks the entrance. This trail is a little more hiking than the other trails we did till then at Hampi but was a fairly easy climb. Due to the monsoon season starting the whole climb was through some amazing greenery and we could hear a lot of wildlife such as birds and other small animals. The area is wild enough that there have been sightings of panthers and bears at times. Near the trail there was another trail that takes you to a cave that is said to be the location where Sugriva hid from Bali during their fight and his exile. We didn’t have time to visit it, but are planning to do so during our next visit.


View of the Vittala Temple from the trail


Carved image of Vishnu (I think) on the way to the Achyutaraya Temple

A short hike brought us to the Achyutaraya Temple, which looks like the temple from the Jungle Book which is the home of King Louie. As per Santhosh this temple was the inspiration for the ruined temple in the movie. The complex is huge and mostly abandoned with hardly any visitors. There is a way to come to the temple via the river which is where the main entrance used to be. The entrance we came through was the side entrance only used when the river entrance was flooded and couldn’t be used. The complex is covered with beautiful carvings which tell the story of Ramayana. It was built in 1534 AD and is dedicated to Lord Tiruvengalanatha (a form of Vishnu). The main entrance has the remains of a massive market in front of it and traders from all over the world came there to trade.


Achyutaraya Temple, hidden in the forest


Selfie overlooking the Market at the Temple entrance.


Us overlooking the Market at the Temple entrance.


Carved Pillars inside the Achyutaraya Temple


Walking through the Market Stalls at the Temple entrance.

We walked through the complex, and over to the Kodanda Rama Temple on the banks of the Tungabhadra river. The temple overlooks the Chakratirtha, which is is considered to be one of the holiest places in Hampi. Legend says that this is the place where Lord Shiva gave the Chakra Lord Vishnu which is his most powerful weapon. While we were there some shooting was going on for some documentary and due to this we got a highly decorated Coracle instead of a plain looking one. Initially I wasn’t too interested in a coracle ride but then was convinced to go for it as it was the only way to see the ruined temple and the shiva lingas.


Overlooking the Chakratirtha


Coracle ride to the ruined temple

The coracle took us to remains of temples on the bank of the Tungabhadra river and these really detailed carvings of Gods & Goddesses done on the rock itself. A short climb brings you to the highlight of the trek which is a collection of 100 Shiva Lingas in the rock with another set of 1000 Shiva Lingas in the background. Imagine the effort and skill required to carve these without a single mistake on a surface as hard as Granite. After looking at all the amazing carvings we climbed back to the coracle and came back to the Chakratirtha from where we took another trail to the car.


Remains of the temple carvings in the rocks


100 Shiva Lingas carved in stone


1000 Shiva Lingas carved in stone

On the way back to the resort we stopped at another structure that not many people know about, this was the Akhada (a place of exercise/martial practice with facilities for boarding, lodging and training) used by the king’s soldiers and visitors who wanted to compete and show off their skills for hiring. The walls are covered with carvings showing various forms of exercise and fighting forms. Even though the place is a little overgrown it is still impressive.


Tea break at the Royal Akhada

We had a small tea break at the place before we headed back to the resort. By this time the team had confirmed our extension of stay even though we didn’t get the same room we were still glad that we got to stay another day. After a short rest, we went for dinner. Since we had liked the specialty restaurant a lot on the previous day the team again booked us for the specialty restaurant with the same seating location as the previous day. By this time a lot more people had checked in to the resort so the place was full but since we were off in our own alcove we were able to ignore the crowd and felt that we were the only people there for dinner.

Finishing dinner, we headed back to the room and crashed for the night as we had an early start the next day. This completes Part 1 of the write up of my Hampi visit. Part II focuses on the visit to Hire Benakal and will be published shortly.

Well this is all for now. Will write more later.

– Suramya

PS: At ~5900 words and 59 pages long with 67 photos this is officially my longest Blog post till date.

July 5, 2021

Trek to Huliyurdurga

Filed under: Travel/Trips — Suramya @ 7:34 PM

Thanks to Covid we have been unable to go for trekking since March 2020. To give some context we normally went for a trek every month, sometimes multiple times in a month depending on how we felt. So it was quite understandable that both Jani and me were eagerly looking for going on a Trek. With the latest lockdown opening up a little, we started looking for options for a day trek. Spoke to Ayush, Akanksha and Shashank to decide a place and when they didn’t have a strong preference I selected Huliyurdurga which is a fort hill and part of the Navadurgas (9 forts) near Bangalore which are said to be erected by Kempe Gowda to protect Bangalore.

The destination is not very popular for the normal tourist crowd but is apparently quite popular with the trekking crowd. The palace is approximately 100 kms from Bangalore which made it a comfortable 2 hour drive. We started from home about 6:45am on Friday (since the weekend was still under curfew). Akankasha, Jani and me were in our car while Ayush and Shashank were on their respective bikes. I personally am not a bike fan but Shashank’s new bike looked impressive and this was a great way to inaugurate the bike.


Pic on the way just after a toll when we were waiting for the bikes to catch up

The drive was uneventful and we made good time. In the past 5-6 years I have seen the quality of roads all over India (including Karnataka) improve quite a lot so I was able to maintain a good speed.

If you are driving to the venue, I suggest that you enter the Haliyurdurga Police station as the destination since the trail is right next to the station. Once you are nearing the end of the route keep an eye on the right side of the road, as you will see the station on the right side of the road even though the map will still insist that you have another 500 mtrs or so to drive. Another landmark is the Haliyurdurga Bus station which is about 100 mtrs from the station. Just before the station on your right you will see a small concrete road take that turn. Google Maps doesn’t show that particular road as connected to the main road you are on, but you can ignore that. As soon as you turn on the road, you will see a cemetery on the right side of the road. Keep driving till you come to a fork on the road. You will need to take the right side road that appears to go through some houses. After about 500 – 1000 meters the road ends and you will see stairs going up the hill. Park your vehicle near the steps and you have reached the start of the trail.

We started climbing immediately as we were eager to start and the steps are a bit steep initially. We made good time and reached the Temple on the end of the steps quite soon. After that the hike becomes a bit more challenging. The best way to climb up is to take a left turn from the temple (there is a faded blue arrow pointing the way). If I hadn’t read about the trek before we started, we would have been sure that we were going the wrong way as the trail is quite narrow and goes through some boulders and you need to squeeze your way through. Since no one had come trekking on this trail since March 2021 due to the lockdown in Karnataka the trail was quite overgrown with a lot of thorny plants taking over the trail.


The overgrown trail


Interesting Fauna we saw on the way

After braving a lot of thorns we reached a point where it looked like we would have to hack through the overgrowth if we wanted to cross without becoming a pin-cushion. By this time all of us have had enough of the thorns and since the only knives we had were a butter knife and my credit-card knife we had to turn back. I was disappointed that we didn’t get to climb all the way to the top as the view is said to be spectacular.

Once we reached the temple, I remembered reading that there was another trail going towards the right of the temple that was supposed to take you to a nandi statue and a small pond, so we decided to take the trail on the right side. The trail was a bit less overgrown and the view on our right was quite phenomenal. After a bit of walking we reached a point where we would have to bend over in half to continue due to overgrowth and I was willing to do so but the rest of the group chickened out and so we stopped. Just before that section, there was a rock overseeing the view that looked very inviting so we took a break over there before starting back.


View from our break point


Jani Relaxing mid trail

Once we got back to the temple we started looking for somewhere we could setup our picnic and grab a bit to eat. Halfway down the stairs we found a flat section on our left side and when we explored the place we found another Temple which was in the process of being renovated. Just outside the temple there was a nice shaded area so we retrieved our picnic bag from the car and had a lovely picnic.


Selfie in front of the temple


Picnic on the rocks

The entire climb and picnic took us about an hour but with the sun right overhead it was getting to be too hot to stay. The only person comfortable with the temperature was Jani but she was overruled by the rest of us and we started back soon after we finished eating. The drive back was again quite uneventful and we made good time till we entered Bangalore city limits after which we got to enjoy the Bangalore traffic. That is one part that I hadn’t really missed during the last year and half.

Some general notes: The trail can be overgrown if not under use and I would suggest going with someone who is ok to hack and slash through the vegetation if required and in which case you would need the proper tools for the job. I would also recommend that you wear clothing that allows you to cover your body/arms even though that might be hot. This is because of the thorns on the trail, having thorns stuck in your bare skin is painful (obviously) so anything you can do to avoid it is good.

After having traveled a grand total of 24 kms during the March, April and May it was great to go on a long drive. Even though we were unable to climb to the summit it was fun enough that we are planning to visit the other 8 forts over the next few months as day trips. Since we were the only people on the entire hill and didn’t see anyone else during the entire trek we were comfortable in planning the next outing.

Jani also did a writeup of the trek that you can read here.

Well this is all for now. Will post more later.

– Suramya

February 7, 2021

Travel in 2021: 3294kms driven as of date

Filed under: My Life,Travel/Trips — Suramya @ 8:25 PM

I complained a lot about not being able to travel in 2020, mostly to my wife who suffered through my complaints heroically. So the universe decided that I would get to travel a lot in 2021 as compensation. Jan 2021 has been a marathon session of driving all over south India, primarily because of Covid as we only wanted to go places within drivable distance from Bangalore as we normally would try to drive directly to the location without having to stop on the way. Plus we also ensured that we were only going to places with very limited crowds and mostly ended up staying in places where we were the only people (apart from the staff).

The first trip of the year was to Dindigul where we had gone for New Years. It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed it quite a bit. The second trip was to Kannur, Kerala (not to be confused with Coonoor, Tamil Nadu), which we did with Jani’s friends from IBM with whom we had been talking about going on a trip for over 4 years (almost 5). The drive to the place was quite nice and we made good time. I had planned on writing a trip summary as I normally do but didn’t get the time as I was swamped with classes and assignments. In any case, Jani has now started writing about all the trips so that reduces the pressure on me :). Her writeup on the trip is available here.

The next trip was to Kotagiri, Tamil Nadu with Anil, Manisha, Suprita , Vinit and the kids. We drove down from Bangalore to Kotagiri but thankfully I wasn’t driving because by this time I had already driven almost 1.8k kms in 2021. Anil, Manisha & Vinit drove for the trip and I got to relax and spend time with the kids for a bit. A big surprise was that I bumped into Gaurang in Ooty, as he had driven down for some work. We both stay in Bangalore but hadn’t seen each other for months because of Covid. So he came over and we spent some time together there and then he drove back with us which gave me a chance to spend some quality time with him during the drive.

Finally the last trip of the month was to visit Jani’s hometown, Colachel in Kanyakumari District for some work (plus spend time with family). It was a 14 hour+ drive from Bangalore and initially I had planned to do it in one shot. However, then we decided to break it up into two with a halt in Dindigul which is almost exactly half-way between the start and finish. This was the first time we were stopping on the way during a trip but in hindsight it was a great idea. It allowed me to take a break and rest as I was also up on night for my classes. If we hadn’t stopped on the way I would have been exhausted by the time we reached and this way I got to rest on the way. The drive down was fantastic, and I really loved the NH44. The road was well maintained and an absolute pleasure to drive. I had to consciously restrict myself from driving too fast and I really enjoyed it. The traffic also was minimal so I could really relax and enjoy the drive.

In all I have driven 3294 kms so far in 2021 and now that I am home I absolutely refuse to drive anywhere else for the month of Feb. We will see how I feel in March, but most probably we won’t be going anywhere till at-least the end of March as we both have exams in March. But based on our past experience, I will not say that we absolutely will not travel anywhere for the next two months.

I am eagerly waiting for the Covid vaccine to be generally available so that we don’t have to worry about Covid when traveling. Looking at the current status I have a feeling that it will be Q3, 2021 by the time we get vaccinated. Hopefully by the end of the year things might be back to normal so here’s hoping for that.

Well this is all for now. Will write more later, now that I am back home and not driving all over south India.

– Suramya

January 7, 2021

Welcoming 2021 in style at Rajakkad Estate, Dindigul

Filed under: My Life,Travel/Trips — Suramya @ 5:06 AM

One of the biggest things that I missed in 2020 was traveling. Usually we travel to multiple places over the year but in 2020 it wasn’t the case due to Covid and we barely traveled anywhere. So, we wanted to do a trip for new years because we were getting stir crazy and we wanted to celebrate with a small group of close friends without having to interact with unknown folks. After a bit of research we decided to head down to Rajakkad Estate, Dindigul. This is an 18th century palace that was transported from Kerala by breaking it down to 35000 pieces and re-assembled in Dindigul in the middle of an 80 acre estate. The reviews of the place were amazing so we booked the place and prepared for the journey. Due to Covid we had to register for an e-pass as we were crossing into Tamil Nadu and the pass was auto-approved. Interestingly, there was no check for the epass but I don’t recommend traveling without it because if you don’t have the pass then you are sent back.

The trip started early morning (5:30am) on the 31st with me, Jani, Ayush & Akanksha in my car and Shashank on his bike. Just as we left home it started raining and it continued to rain throughout the trip. Due to which we had to drive at a slower speed and we also ended up stopping a few times due to the heavy rain so that Shashank could take a break from driving in the rain. Thus the trip which was estimated to take ~7 hours took us over 9.5 hours to complete. The last part of the drive was amazing with spectacular views but I didn’t get to enjoy them much as I had to focus on the road and I didn’t want to drive off the cliff while admiring the view. 😉

We finally reached the estate around 3pm and found that we 5 were the only guests over there for the duration, so we got to select our rooms. Me and Jani selected a corner room with spectacular views of the forest. The host Robesh walked us through the place and once we settled in we immediately requested for lunch as breakfast was a long time ago and this time we couldn’t stop for snacks as we usually do due to the rains. Lunch was quite good and every item in the menu was locally sourced from the estate’s own farm. Can’t comment about the non-veg dishes but the veg options were quite tasty and healthy. I do recommend that you stick with the south-Indian food options (they do make continental food but we didn’t try any) as the cooks are not that great with north Indian dishes (especially chappati’s). Other than that one dish most of the dishes were quite good. I even enjoyed the banana flower vegetable which is something I have never liked.


Hogging on great food

After lunch we thought about exploring the surrounding area a bit but it was still raining so we just relaxed in the sitting area and played a bunch of board games (they have a good collection). It had been a while since we all got together so it was good to catch-up with each other’s lives. Thanks to the rain the temperature dropped quite significantly and Jani was quite thankful for her electric heated jacket. We asked if we could get a heater setup in the area but apparently there was no power outlet (15A) that could take the load of the heater so after braving the cold for a bit we moved the gathering to the room where it was a lot more warmer after we closed the windows and the door. (If you are someone who doesn’t like the cold make sure you pack warm clothes as it gets quite cold in the evening as the place is on a hill)


The Central courtyard of the palace

We had initially planned to ring in 2021 with a bonfire, but thanks to the rain we thought that it wouldn’t be possible. However, the staff went out of their way to get a bonfire started for us and we got to sit outside next to the fire to welcome 2021. It was completely unexpected and a very pleasant surprise. After enjoying the fire for a bit we moved back to the room due to the cold and spent another couple of hours just chilling. We couldn’t stay up too late because all of us were tired as we had an early start so we crashed.


Welcoming the New Year with a bonfire


Cheers to having a fantastic 2021

The next day, I woke up at 8am for some reason and then couldn’t go back to sleep, so I spent a very pleasant morning walking around the surrounding woods and exploring the lovely garden. Once everyone else woke up we had a great breakfast with fresh juice, homemade bread, south Indian dishes and eggs. Thankfully it had stopped raining and the weather was very pleasant so we decided to explore the surrounding area and walked over to the Yoga platform which is built into the side of the hill with a spectacular view of the hills and the sun-rise (if you wake up early enough). We didn’t wake up that early so we just sat there for a bit enjoying the view and listening to Jani talk about all the flowers that she could identify (which were a lot). We then went for an hour long walk in the forest and saw a whole bunch of flora & fauna. The walk helped us build up an appetite and we were reading to do justice to the lunch prepared for us. It was served in an outdoor seating area and we all really enjoyed the food and the location.


Jani and me at the front garden


Freshly plucked tamarind directly from the tree


Group Selfie at the estate


Chilling at the Yoga platform

Post lunch we relaxed for a bit and Robesh suggested we checkout a waterfall nearby so we all drove for about 15 mins to the entrance to the trail and then walked down to the fall. It was a nice walk with a rope bridge on the way that we had to cross. It was amusing to watch some of the folks crossing the bridge (I am not going to name names) as they were quite scared. We did see a couple of giant squirrels on the way along with a whole bunch of birds and that was quite nice. Once we got back we remembered that we had brought badminton racquets so we played for a bit till it became too dark to see, post which we had dinner and another round of games, great conversation and relaxed. There is not a lot to do at this place so be prepared to entertain yourselves. The phone and 4G signal was quite spotty in the property and the WiFi was down thanks to the rain so we got to spend time without the constant distraction of the online world.


Enjoying the waterfall view

Next day all of us were up early as we had planned to leave immediately post breakfast so that we could reach home before dark. The breakfast was served in the open at a fantastic open air seating and we enjoyed great food with the sounds of nature as background music. Post breakfast we finished our packing and started back to Bangalore relaxed and rejuvenated.

However, the trip had some additional surprises in store for us. After about an hour of driving I realized that my car’s AC Fan had stopped working, and the temperature soon became too hot for me to handle (though Jani loved it). We ended up driving with the windows down, which was fine when on the highway but everytime we had to slow down due to tolls or traffic I was quite miserable. The return journey took us almost 11 hours due to the more frequent stops and traffic.


Breakfast in the forest

By the time we reached home I was exhausted and ended up crashing immediately. We drove ~850 kms round trip and it was worth every minute as the trip was a lot of fun with good food & stay, great company and a fantastic way to welcome 2021!

Wishing you all a Very Happy New Year!

Will write more later.

– Suramya

October 7, 2020

Trip to Evolve Back, Coorg

Filed under: Travel/Trips — Suramya @ 7:43 PM

As you know, thanks to Covid-19 traveling has been a distant memory this year and for me that has been the most difficult part that I needed to adjust to this year. We did 11 trips last year including my trip to Antarctica & China, in contrast we had only done 3 trips so far in 2020 and the last trip I took was to Yercaud in March 1st week. So it was getting to the point where I really needed to take a break and travel somewhere but we were both concerned about Covid and didn’t want to take unnecessary risks. After a lot of discussion we finally decided to take the plunge and do a short trip to Evolve Back, Coorg. It is a highly rated property and after reviewing their policies, feedback from folks who traveled there after the lockdown was removed & the reviews we felt comfortable enough to book with them.

We started early morning at 6am from Bangalore on Friday, 2nd Oct. Normally when we travel we stop a few times on the way for food, snacks (coconuts) etc, but this time we decided that we will not stop anywhere and prepared accordingly. We carried all the ingredients for making sandwich’s in the car and as always we also had the water camper with us along with my portable refrigerator to keep my drinks cold. This has been one of the best investments that we made as it makes traveling a lot simpler and I don’t need to keep buying cold drinks/water throughout the trip.


Driving through nature is fantastic. Especially after so many months of staying home

The drive was quite nice with good road connectivity for the most part. There was a stretch of about 30-40 kms which was a problem as there was ongoing road-work happening in the stretch. But other than that the drive was fantastic. We did see a lot of bikers on the way as everyone seems to have taken this opportunity of the long weekend to travel. But I also noticed that folks were mostly avoiding the restaurants/shops on the way and instead eating on the side of the road with their own group only. I saw multiple cars stopped on the road where the folks were drinking from flasks & eating snacks that they carried. Another interesting data point I noticed was that the mask usage went down drastically after we left Bangalore city limits. In Bangalore most of the folks wear masks and only a few are not, however outside Bangalore most of the people were not wearing masks and this reinforced our decision of not stopping anywhere even though we were tempted by really fresh looking coconuts.

Due to the good road conditions and limited traffic we made the trip in 5 hours 30 mins and arrived at EvolveBack. As soon as we arrived and were entering the property we were asked to sanitize our feet (by walking through an antiseptic footmat) and our hands using hand sanitizer. To reduce the interaction we had already submitted all our identity documents online and just needed to sign one form. This was also done in a very safe way; they asked us to take the pen from one stand, sign and then immediately put it in another stand where it would be taken for Sanitization before being made available for the next guest to use. I was slightly concerned when 5 more groups of people arrived just after we did but the hotel already had seating in the reception that followed Social distancing between the groups so my concern was quickly addressed.


View of the Pool & the Lilly Ponds from the Living room


View of the Pool & Lilly Ponds from the outside

After we finished checking in , one of the staffers escorted us to our cabin which was a few mins walk from the reception area. Almost immediately I was floored by the property with its well kept paths, giant trees and the beautiful tweeting of birds. While walking she explained about the various activities available, the timings of the restaurants and facilities. Since it was near lunch time we dumped our luggage in the room and explored the cottage & pool for a bit before walking over to the Granary multi cuisine restaurant which was about 10-15 minutes’ walk from our room for lunch. We were one of the first people to arrive for lunch and after our temperature was taken we were seated at a windowside table overlooking the pool. The pool was closed due to Covid but the view was amazing and we even had a lot of birds (Sparrows) flying around inside the restaurant. I wanted to feed them some bread but Jani refused to let me as she felt that it would create a nuisance for the staff and other guests who might not like it.


The Lovely Pool view at the Granary Multi-cuisine restaurant

As part of their Covid-19 precautions, all restaurants on the property have gotten rid of the physical menu’s and we were asked to view the menu online via the link provided to us on check-in. The food was scrumptious and for me the highlight of the meal was the ‘Coffee Rasagulla’ which was basically a regular Rasagulla soaked in diluted Coffee. At first I was a little apprehensive of ordering something with Coffee in it as I am not the world’s biggest fan of Coffee but this was phenomenal. The Rasagulla was sweet enough that it countered the taste of Coffee and together it was a unique taste. After lunch we walked around the property a little bit before heading back to the cottage for some rest as we had gotten up early and drove a lot. We were warned to keep the glass doors closed for safety because we were in the middle of a jungle and we followed that rule. Even then I woke up to find a nice big spider in the bathroom and Jani found a frog on the deck sunning itself on the deck chairs.


Spider I found in the Bathroom

In the cottage we were planning on soaking in the pool but fell asleep in the really comfortable bed. By the time we woke up it was late evening and the pool was too cold for us to enjoy a dip in. So we just lazed around near the pool and just relaxed. The pool was well maintained and the back of the property was open to nature so it was very peaceful and relaxing. Soon enough it was time for Dinner and we walked over to the Granary Restaurant for another great meal followed by a short walk around the estate at night. Due to the large area of the estate (300 acres) we hardly met any of the other guests. Mostly we would pass some of them while walking around on the estate.


Shot of where the Cultural program is held


Gigantic Palm tree we found while exploring


Pics taken around the property


Pics taken around the property

Since this was supposed to be a relaxing trip we didn’t register for any of the activities (another reason was that most of them were starting early in the morning between 5am – 6am and neither of us were interested in waking up that early to go bird-watching (as we could see most of them from our cottage) or nature therapy (which we were anyway doing by walking around the estate). On the second day we got up for a lazy breakfast followed by a walk around the property. We were lucky enough to see two Giant Malabar squirrel’s during our walk. One was high up in the trees but the other one was fearless enough that I walked up to within a foot of it to take photos without it being scared of me and running away. We also spotted many many species of birds but they were harder to identify because they keep moving so fast.


Giant Malabar squirrel we spotted on the way

After building up our appetite for lunch we walked over to PepperCorn Restaurant which is a specialty restaurant that we had booked for lunch. The place is built on the lake-shore and we had a lovely view of the lake during our lunch which was again phenomenal. They had a special homemade ice-cream available called ‘kadi patta’ (Curry Leaf) which sounded interesting so I ordered it and it was surprisingly tasty.


Lunch at Pepper Corn Specialty Restaurant

Post lunch we again walked around the property to digest the meal and explored their Nature Shop which had a great collection of natural stuff like jams, local wine, locally made flower vases etc. We bought a few things and then retired back to the cottage to enjoy the pool. It was a bit chilly at first but once we got in and were moving around it felt great. We tried the Jacuzzi built in to the pool as well but I prefer the regular pool as it was less noisy. Since it was a small pool there wasn’t much to do but just laze around and enjoy the nature. After a long relaxing session in the pool we took a shower and just hung out in the room before falling asleep.


Lily’s in our Backyard

The next day we had a slightly more busy schedule starting with Breakfast followed by an hour long session on Coffeeology and history of the estate. This was the first time we met & interacted with a few of the other guests. During the session we learnt about various types of coffee and how it’s prepared followed by a tasting session. We tried 6 different preparations of coffee during the tasting: Espresso (black coffee), French Press (Black Coffee), Cappuccino (milk + coffee), Vietnam coffee (milk + coffee), South Indian filter coffee (milk + coffee) and Moroccan coffee (milkmaid + coffee). Since I am not a big coffee drinker I just took really small sips of my share before passing them to Jani who loved all the options. I really liked the Moroccan Coffee because it was cold + very sweet but Jani didn’t like it for the same reason.


This is how many coffee’s Jani tasted (i helped with a few)

After the session, walked over to the Souvenir shop to buy some souvenir’s & lots of coffee and then hung out at the pool for a bit before heading over to the Vaidhyashala for our massage treatments. I did the Abhyanga (Full body massage with herbal medicated oil which removes toxins in the body) and Kati basti (massage targeted for lower back, to reduce the lower back pain) and both were great. I felt so relaxed and rejuvenated after the massage ended that I even asked them if they have a branch in Bangalore. Unfortunately that isn’t the case though they do have centers in all the EvolveBack locations including Coorg, Hampi and Kabini. I really like the massage but not so much that I would drive over for a stay just to get a massage.

After the massage we weren’t supposed to wash off the oil till next day, so we ordered room service as we didn’t feel like walking around smelling like medicinal oil and feeling sticky. The sandwiches we ordered were ok, nothing too great but not bad either. After dinner we read for a while and I tried to get a good photo of the night sky but since I didn’t have my telescope I was only moderately successful.

On the last day of our stay we woke up early to pack and then had a quick breakfast as we wanted to leave early. After breakfast we settled our bill and started back. The drive back was uneventful for the most part. We did stop once on the way at a Spice store so that we could stock up on Spices but other than that we drove non-stop and reached home by 6pm. The overall trip was a huge success and we both feel really rejuvinated after the break. I will highly recommend Evolve Back to everyone even though they are on the expensive side they are definitely worth it.

Jani has also started blogging about our trips so you can read her writeup at her blog as well if you are interested.

– Suramya

September 28, 2020

Happy World Tourism Day 2020!

Filed under: Travel/Trips — Suramya @ 3:16 PM

Today is World Tourism day, 2020 and thanks to the current ongoing Pandemic we can’t really travel anywhere to celebrate it. In fact its been over 6 months since we traveled anywhere, so celebrating the World Tourism day in such a situation seems to be a bit of a downer. However just because we can’t travel somewhere doesn’t mean that we can’t celebrate the past trips we have done. So here are some of the Trips that Me & Jani took in the past 4 years:

There were a whole lot of other places we also traveled to which are not listed here, you can check them out here.

Hopefully things will improve soon and we will be back on the road visiting new places and experiencing the best the world has to offer.

– Suramya

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