Travelling

Annual tradition of spending summer vacations at mom's place took me to Mohali in May-June this year. The hottest summer months in Northern India. You think of stepping out of the home , rethink and reconsider looking at the scorching sun. We started earlier on a Monday morning around 7:15am. The first destination was Mata Naina Devi shrine. The routes were good, with the entire route almost in Punjab except for the final 12kms that fall under the Himachal Pradesh jurisdiction. That is a hilly terrain with quite curvy turns. Car goes almost till the foot of the temple steps. We reached there by 9:10am and starting our ascend. This is also the place where the cable cars drop the pilgrims. So, Naina Devi temple is on a height, cable cars operate to and fro carrying the pilgrims.  The steps are low and broad. The entire route is adorned with shops selling various stuff like Prasad, idols, other stuff like toys, wooden things, puja samagri, etc.  We reached the top in around 10-15...

Unexpected school holidays caused an already extended weekend to become a super extended weekend. Kids got bored and so were the parents 😃 We started searching for a place not too far off, and found a dam which was finalized.  Even with the map, we went off the track and could not locate the original destination.  However, the benefit of being in Maharashtra is you can still find something worth.  So this is what we found today - Mau waterfall.  Just a stone's throw away from the commercialized Jagtap waterfall.  It's just a 5 min walk from the roadside. An old cribbing granny was standing there asking for money citing the waterfall to be hers 🤣 The walkway was very narrow but not at all slippery, so was convenient for all ages. The water was very clean and had a very good flow. We enjoyed our time at the fall and so did the kids.  The route was beautiful with loads of greenery, waterfalls, and clouds touching the moutains.  The place is not much exp...

Our office group wanted to plan an outing during the 1st monsoon after the office re-opened after covid. The entire team had changed during their covid with many having relocated to Pune for the first time.  We shortlisted a couple of places but finally zeroed in on "Aadrai Jungle Trail". We opted to go with a professional trek group. So the arrangements were done by them.  We were a group of 25+ and hence a 32-seater was hired. The bus started it's route from Kharadi with 3-4 pickup points.  We reached the base village "Khireshwar" at around 9:30am (in around 2.5 hours from Pune's last pickup point).  The bus was parked at Hotel Aishwarya where we got down to have our breakfast - kande pohe and tea.  After breakfast, we decked up in our raincoats as it was raining heavily.  Our trek guide advised us to cover our heads as well.  Most of us started without any baggage and it actually proved sensible.  We covered the trail, crossing the Aadrai river...

An impromptu plan on a monsoon sunday on kids' demand. We planned to visit the Kamshet waterfall right after waking up. Freshened up, packed in a set of clothes and we set off on our journey.  It was a 75-min drive from our home in Pune to the waterfall.  Google Maps locates the place as "Kamshet Waterfall Spot" and leaves you right the the point where you can start the short and easy 20-min trek to the waterfall.  We reached the base and stopped at "Hotel Mount View". As we were hungry without breakfast since morning, decided to have something at the hotel.  Only few available options like vada pav, maggi, kanda bhaji , misal pav and tea/coffee but the food was good.  After having food, we started the trek.  It's a narrow path with slippery Rocky spots, however most of the path was pretty easy. There were multiple waterfalls nearby so groups could carve their way on which one they wanted to reach. The trek was even comfortable to the kids.  The water ...

We had to board the Goa express from Goa to Pune. We asked the taxi driver to drop us at Vasco da Gama Railway Station. After around 75min drive from Calangute, the taxi stopped outside a yellow coloured building. When we looked around, it was the railway station. It's quite a small station but very beautiful, colourful, properly managed, very neat and clean. The waiting rooms were absolutely clean and the washrooms way above the Indian railways' standards. I had seen such a station for the first time and was really stuck but he beauty and the cleanliness.

We freshened up at our hotel and walked till the boating ticket counter, bought the tickets and then had to stand in the queue for around an hour before we could get onto a boat. The boats have a capacity of 150 passengers and ferry the visitors to the Vivekananda rock memorial. There's an entry fee to the memorial. They have a small room where they show a documentary about the place, it gives the visitors a background about the importance of the rock and what happened in the history. The place has 3 different halls. One has the statue of Vivekananda, another one the footprint of goddess Parvati and the 3rd one is a meditation hall. All the halls expect you to be silent and photography isn't allowed inside the halls. The view outside is amazing with water all around and when you get to see the sun going down, it looks awesome. There's a statue of Sri Thiruvalluvar near the Vivekananda rock memorial and it looks mesmerizing too. We then came back to the starting point by the...

We checked-in to hotel Temple Citi in Kanyakumari. This was the most fabulous room amongst all of them that we have checked-in during the entire trip. A spacious 2-double bed room with wardrobe, TV, sofa, AC. The room was very neat and clean and so was the attached washroom. This hotel is very near to the boating point. Their restaurant is located on the 3rd floor. The breakfast buffet spread was average, but the restaurant was too warm and humid, making it uncomfortable for the guests to enjoy their breakfast. Finally, we had to get a few breakfast items down to our room and have them there. The old man who carried our luggage during check out was nice enough to thoroughly check the room and make sure we hadn't left any of our belongings there.