02 Dec 2011: Followed my colleague and senior at work, IK Gautam, to his home town of Alwar on 2nd December. It is the year-end and a weekend to boot, with the day time temperatures at around a pleasant 18 degrees, so was looking forward to a great and pleasant weekend. While the distance to Alwar is not too much (150km), given the bad traffic experience I had during the last trip in March, I was actually slightly concerned about the time it would take to reach Alwar, Hence I took his advice and left Gurgaon early, so that we could have a peaceful drive. Since I was driving in the evening, I had asked another person – Mojid - to tag along, such that I would have some support in case of any trouble on the road.... Read more...

Gandikota Fort (see photo), Gandikota P.O., Jammalamadugu Taluq, Kadapa District, Andhra Pradesh, India. Formidable place in the middle of nowhere. Folks used to live here. Some still do. I don’t recall how I came to know of this place, but I guess, I was looking for a place to go for a 3 day trip, and chanced upon the unpronounceable name of a town called Jammaladugu, and I had to just go there. I mean, when you see a name of a place on the map of India, it starts well, inland wee it is located, and even at a tiny font size, it threatens to fall over into the Bay of Bengal. So started researching Jammal... Read more...

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Khajuraho is a small town, really a small village, in the district of Chhatarpur, in the state of Madhya Pradesh, in India. It is built in a region which is known as Bundelkhand, the land of the Bundelas, and was built by the Chandela dynasty.Now, this above information created a lot of confusion in my mind. Confusion about the Bundelas and Chandelas, that is. Honestly speaking, I am no historian and am still quite confused about the identity of the Bundelas and the Chandelas, and despite some research (cursory on the internet, I must admit), my state of confusion has not alleviated. No wonder I am not cut out for such history stuff. However, in keeping with the masala trends of my updates, I found the following while searching the net (source Wikipedia):  A... Read more...

Currently a district headquarter, and famous for its own rightful reasons, I am sure, Jhansi used to be famous once, for being the town or Kingdom, where Rani Laxmibai came from. And that is the fame which draws tourists to this otherwise nondescript, dusty and congested town, located in South Uttar Pradesh, in a place which is historically known as Bundelkhand, which straddles vast tracts of land in both Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh in India.First, a quick look at the local folklore about the name of the place. The following story was told to us by the gentleman who doubled up as the gate security and our guide at the ... Read more...

In the small tail of Uttar Pradesh is the town of Jhansi. If you see the map of India, you will see that the state of Madhya Pradesh seems to pinch the tail out of its northern neighbor. Jhansi is located just at the point where the pinch is. And Orchha is located on the finger that is pinching from the right.Orchha is a small resort town about 15km from Jhansi and about 80Km from its own district headquarter of Tikamgarh. Located on the banks of the river Betwa, which flows from South to North, Orchha was the second capital of the Bundelkhand Kings. The town was funded by King Rudra Pratap Singh, who was the first King of Orchha and also built the Fort of Orchha. Its is one of the lesser known tourist destinations of India, and should form a part of your itinerary of you ar... Read more...

Panna Tiger Reserve is a bit of a misnomer. The main entry gate to this national park is not at Panna, but at a place called Madla, which is half way between Khajuraho and the district headquarter of Panna (which are themselves 40km apart). If I recall correctly, Panna Tiger Reserve was the place where the Project Tiger, the ambitious tiger conservation program of the Indian Government kicked off in the 1970s. However, over the years, with the progressive failure of the Project Tiger program all across India, the population of its main attraction, the Royal Bengal Tiger, had reduced to nil. This fact has a significant impact, and is a key background for all visitors to Panna, since it has a number of implications for the visitor.For one, given the lack of tigers, which are t... Read more...

Status Update: 18 Oct 2011 This is a road trip between two famous National Parks of India – Panna and Bandhavgarh. This was a trip I was not sure I could do. However, based on some fantastic directions from Shyamendra Singh of Ken River Lodge at Panna, I did this trip, and I am glad that I did. There are very few people who can give accurate directions, and thankfully Shyamendra is one of the best. I have included the ... Read more...

Status Update: 13th October 2011This is a trip that needs to be done – so it needs to be done. From Jhansi, NH76 leads out of Jhansi east towards Khajuraho via Mau Ranipur. The highway branches out from Mau Ranipur and enters Madhya Pradesh (Jhansi to Mauranipur is within Uttar Pradesh), and you have to take NH 75 to reach Khajuraho via Nowgong and Chhatarpur (both in Madhya Pradesh).The total distance is a relatively short 176 km. However the condition of the road is quite terrible. The road from Jhansi to Mau Ranipur is just about drivable at approx 60kmph. It’s a 2 lane highway, where road work is going on. The road is frayed at the edges (both the lanes). Hence most of the traffic tends to drive in the middle of the road. Vehicles will be driving headlong... Read more...

Status Update 12th Oct 2011My road trip vacation plan was to drive from Ranthambhor / Sawai Madhopur to Jhansi and then onto Orchha. Normally, one reaches Jhansi from Agra via NH3 through Gwalior. However since I was starting from Sawai Madhopur, I had a couple of options. But before that, a brief digression. If you do want to visit Jhansi to see the fort of Rani Lakshmibai, you would do well to plan to put up for the night at Orchha, a resort hamlet on the banks of Betwa river just 15km away. Orchha has a few lovely resorts, is considerably less crowded than the district head quarter of Jhansi, and has lot of history to it in addition to the scenic beauty.Coming back to the road trip. To reach Jhansi from Sawai Madhopur. one can travel along 3 arms of a rectangl... Read more...

Status Update: 9th Oct 2011There are two separate routes you can take to reach Sawai Madhopur and then Ranthambhor from Jaipur. One route is through NH11 from Jaipur to Dausa, and then from Dausa a right turn South towards Lohasot and then onto Sawai Madhopur.The other route leaves Jaipur straight South towards Tonk on NH1, and then take a left turn from Tonk straight to Sawai Madhopur. If you imagine a rectangle, these two origin and destination places are at opposite ends of a NW-SE diagonal and the distance is roughly the same at 150km. If you ask around in Jaipur, you will always be recommended the Tonk road, since I guess most of the state transport buses take that route. Though I guess, tourist buses take the Dousa route. I took the Tonk road. U... Read more...

Status Update: Date 7th Oct 2011 FriFriday evening drive from Gurgaon to Jaipur is very peaceful, unlike a Saturday morning drive. The highway is mostly done and the traffic after Dharuhera is relatively peaceful. The NHAI authorities seem to have woken up late and are now in the process of creating fly-overs over the numerous small towns en route, something you would have expected them to do a long time back. Though the drive is largely peaceful, two bottlenecks still remain - one immediately after Neemrana at Behror. where though the fly-over has been built. its still not open to normal traffic. Hence the crossing here will cause a lot of traffic pile up. The second more irritating one is at Kotputhli. Here too, the fly-over is still under construction and you will get a m... Read more...

We recently got a 3 day holiday, and set out for Jim Corbett National Park, Nainital from Gurgaon. The door to door distance between Gurgaon and Jim Corbett is just a little of over 300km. Having lived in the South of India for 10 years, 300km is at best fit for a two day weekend trip. After all, we used to do a day trip to Bangalore from Chennai quite often when we were young – a distance of 358 km. So you can imagine my surprise when everyone in Gurgaon warned me that I should attempt a trip to Jim Corbett from Delhi / Gurgaon only on the 3 day weekend. Having experienced a 6 hour 220km trip between Gurgaon and Jaipur on the four-lane GQ NH8, I chose not to second guess them and set out at 6:30AM on a Saturday morning for Jim Corbett, hoping to beat the traffic and be cruisi... Read more...

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Located in Haryana, India. Please see BHINDAWAS for more... Read more...

Located in Haryana, India. Please see BHINDAWAS for more... Read more...

A bird sanctuary and birding area about a 100km from Delhi. From Gurgaon, take the Basai Road upto Daya Vihar, and then take a left towards Sultanpur and Farukh Nagar. For those interested in Sultanpur (of the Sultanpur National Park fame), please check my separate update on that place. However, lets move on to Bhindawas in this note. Once you cross Farukh Nagar, head towards Jhajjar via HR State Highway 15A. En route, you will find Virender Sehwag’s international school on your right. Quite a facility in the middle of nowhere. From Jhajjar, yo... Read more...

State: West Bengal        District: Darjeeling   When I started thinking of writing about locations, I wondered where should I start. Should it be Gurgaon, where I live now, or Chennai - where I lived most of my working life, or Kolkata - which is my home town, or any of the lots of other places I have visited. But it slowly dawned on me that Sukna had to be the first place that I would want to wr... Read more...