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Archive for the 'Travel' Category
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மனிதர் உணர்ந்துக் கொள்ள இது மனிதக் காதல் அல்ல ….
அதையும் தாண்டி புனிதமானது…. புனிதமானது…. புனிதமானது….
Manidhar unarnthuk kolla ithu manidhak kaathal alla…
Athayum thaandi punithamaanathu… punithamaanathu… punithamaanathu…
Excerpt from the song Kanmani Anbodu Kaathalan – movie (Tamil) Gunaa. Most part of this movie is shot in Kodaikanal, a hill station in Tamil Nadu.
Oooh ooh! It’s vacation time for me and I am heading to Kodaikanal tonight with a group of friends and will be back to Chennai by monday morning. I have never been to kodai but I have heard a lot about it. Hope this is going to be a great trip and a memorabe one. 
P.S.:- Will post pictures once I am back.
Update - Come and watch my ” Trip to Kodaikanal “ Pictures at Flickr
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Balaji, Susheel and I were off to Ottapalam, Kerala for Umesh’s wedding. It was a good journey an opportunity to meet new people. I got new friends in Nicky and Vinu (Umesh’s cousins) and Susheel. We met Shikha (our blog friend) and her mom. Umesh’s family was loving and greeted and treated us well. More about the trip in a separate post.
Captured some moments of our trip with my Canon SD camera. Here is a Flickr slideshow of our travel and Umesh’s wedding.
My wishes to Umesh and Tejasi for a wonderful life ahead.
Although I am not a motor enthusiast, I am thrilled to see how the mch hyped, awaited , Tata’s one lakh rupees car is going to be. Buzz is that Tata has plans to unveil the one lakh rupees car in New Delhi Auto expo which is to be held between january 10 and January 18 2008.
The car is expected on road by the latter part of 2008. As with every new product, there are both optimistic and pessimistic views on the car. Lot of emails have been floating around with pictures of the car flooding the corporate mail exchange servers, but the integrity of it cannot be believed until we see it for ourselves.
The pessimistic views are from the competitors and other motor companies in India who speculate that Tata motors has to compromise on quality and safety standards by offering at such a price. Socialists criticize that such cars are not necessary in the already congested Indian roads. Imagine a city like Bangalore or Chennai, which is already struggling to breathe amidst heavy traffic and high pollution levels. But Ratan Tata, the chairman of the Tata group is much confident by brushing aside all these remarks. He says that the new car will be a milestone in Indian car industry and it will abide by the safety standards. This reminds us of the mobile revolution created by Reliance some years ago. When Reliance communications spoke about mobile phones within Rs.1000, none of them believed it. Reliance emerged as a winner and is one of the fastest growing mobile service providers in the Indian market. Let’s see how the Tata group handles this challenge.
I thought of buying a car before a year but I am very much happy to use the public transport system now. Considering the fact that I am spending 4 hours of my daily life commuting to office, I am not sure if I can handle Chennai’s traffic with a car. Also the price of fuel kept increasing which made me to drop the idea of buying a car. Let me see if Tata’s new car induces me into the idea again. I also need to think on the terms that neither the traffic nor the fuel cost is going to go down because of this new entrant. Let me see how it goes. Let me wait till the Auto Expo. At least this makes me thrilled and curious.
P.S.:- What will the Tata motors name this car? Is it already out and have I missed it? If not any guesses?
I always suggest my friends and relatives to use the online booking facility, if available, for any kind of utility or services they use. I explain them how it will be easy and how we can save time and energy by using this online booking facility. Online booking facility has come a long way in India than it was a few years back. Balaji used to say that people in UK live on ebay. Three years before, I remember seeing Umesh shopping online for movies and stuff. He said that he was cautious and tested the site before he bought anything from it.
Even our Indian railways did not stay back in this race and plunged in with the offer to book tickets three months in advance to the journey. I have used it and it is kind of ok. I was trying to use a local and famous bus travels’ site today to check for availability of bus tickets. They wanted me to register before I queried their system. I obliged and registered. Logged in and was trying to block some tickets and when I hit the back button in my browser accidentally, it took me to another person’s account with the name Karthick. I was able to view his mobile number, email address and even had an option to change the password to his account. I was shocked and immediately mailed the person and alerted him of the vulnerability this site had. Now that, I am afraid to suggest anyone of online shopping.
Why does not Indian e-commerce websites look for the best in the market and use those techniques?
How can one give the credit card information to such poor sites?
Why does not Indian e-booking sites accept a pay partner like Paypal?
P.S.:- I have listed below the sites I use frequently for online booking and have not found any problems as of now.
Indian Railways Satyam Cinemas Inox movies India gifts portal
After 7 days of continous tiresome night shift at office, found the escape route to Bangalore, with Balaji on saturday, morning by Shadabti. Balaji and Umesh were heading up for some bar camp conference. Escaped to meet Sarayu who happens to be my senior at college and a very good friend. I was there at the garden city for not more than 2 days. Here I am sharing my observations of the garden city.
1. The Forum
is the best place to burn fat. Only for your wallet. Was surprised to see kids wielding cards and spending like adults.
2. Is it Lal Bagh or Lovers’ Bagh? Lovers were showing their divinity of love in public as early as nine in the morning. 
Do they ever find time for break fast? Doubt it. 
No moral policing? huh?
3. Found that Bangalore has the most number of immigrants. More people speak tamil, hindi, malayalam than Kannada. A lot of my friends have warned me on how Tamils are treated badly and have told me stories to substantiate it. Wanted to test and so deliberately asked a few people for directions in tamil. None of them gave me a cold stare. They either gave me directions in Kannda or hindi. Even a few tamils I spotted were reluctant to give out directons in Tamil. Why is it so?
4. None of the buses have directions in English. 
People are forced to take autos. Fortunately, the auto rickshaw fares are cheaper when compared to Chennai. One does not bargain for fares as the driver turns the meter on for any distance. Also noticed that the driver’s license was enlarged and stuck up in every auto. A good way to track down culprits.
5. Umesh was joking that every street has a Wipro as every street in Chennai has a tea shop. True! I found either a IT company or a pub or a maill. And the most ubiquitous shop I found in Bangalore is the pizza hut. Sarayu told me that a lot of women don’t cook on weekends. Buying power has increased and the cooking power has decreased. Thanks to the IT boom.
6. ICICI ATMs had atleast 100 people in queue for most of the day. May be I went on the first week of the month. when enquired, it is common for most part of the month.
7. Climate was good. Did not feel the heat much.
8. Traffic is heavy and dangerous. Synonymous with any Indian metro’s traffic.
My final observation
Every place has its own pluses and minuses and so is Bangalore.
P.S. :- Bangalore is changed to Bengalooru. Will be there be change in the term Bangalored ? If so, it will sound more of Telugu than Kannda.
Bengaloorudu
.
Last week, I was in kerala for a colleague’s wedding. It was my first visit to the coconut paradise. I was gob-smacked by the scenic beauty of the state. After the marriage in Palghat, I and Sabaree (my colleague) headed to Ottapalam. Ottapalam is a small town with great views of the nature. After visiting Sabaree’s relatives there, we headed down to Guruvayur. On our way, I asked, our driver-cum-guide, Mr.Velayudham (aka) Aiyaapan
to stop the car to attend nature’s call number one. I was running towards the bush and there Sabaree spotted the yellow snake. 
It is called by the name “manja saara” in tamil. It was around 6ft in length and golden in colour. forgetting the urgency to pee, I clicked the scene with my Konica Minolta film SLR. I was 3-4 ft from her. It was truly the biggest snake I have ever seen in my entire life.
This incident reminds me a couple of things people always say when they speak about snakes.
“paambu padam edukkum”. In my case, I took the picture of the snake.
“paamba partha onnukku vandhudum”. whereas, “naan onnukku adikkum pothu paamba paarthen”.
The highlight was when Velayudham asked me to pee somewhere inside the bush as the snake was sitting comfortably outside. I never wanted to gamble and forgot my venture of peeing in the woods.
One more essential gear for travellers got my attention when I was surfing in the morning. It is the USB Travel Plug.
A flash demo on their site gives a crisp description of what this gadget can do.
USB Travel Plug – One adaptor with four options that means power in over 150 countries worldwide.
Not only is it a handy worldwide travel adaptor, but it is unique as it has an additional USB converter – allowing you to recharge or operate your device directly from the main power supply, where ever you are! Simply remove the usual cap, replace with the USB cap and enjoy!
Suitable for all devices without ground pin (2-pin connections; 2.5A; 110V – max.275W; 220V – max.550W).
When USB module is connected, voltage is reduced to 5 volts as per a standard USB outlet socket.
Includes essential USB charging unit – charge your iPod, travel speakers, PDA, MP3 player and mobile phone via USB CABLE. USB cable needs to be� bought separately� though.� But� on the� whole, this is a� good� gadget� for people who travel with� gadgets which can be charged� only� through USB cable. This little gadget costs $20.
