Coorg - The Scotland of India :)

Finally All the planning worked out and we went to Coorg this long weekend. We stayed at Windflower resort.  Turned out to be a great choice.

Will update the details of journey and fun we had soon :).

Some of the pics are uploaded below:

The swimming pool of the hotel was truly the most amazing part :).

Walking through the greens, listening to birds' chirping, sipping coffee sitting in the balcony with rain making greens even more greens. It was a weekend that will be cherished and remembered for life time.

Long Live Long Weekends :)

Long weekend is around the corner and but still I have not planned anything yet. Looking forward to go to some hill station and unwind.

I have already two books to read and the only way I can imagine myself reading is a) Sitting at beach in Goa with a mocktail to refresh and book to read with endless sea to cover the view :).

Or sitting in some serene hill station at a very quiet place, birds and misty winds to fill the silence, with a hot cuppa of coffee and book in hand surrounded by hills like being in cocoon.

Lets see which plan materialize. Hope I have something great to share over here next week.

US Trip May, 2010

This was my first US Trip so thought of penning down the experience. I left on Sunday 9 May, 2010 from Delhi International airport with heavy heart saying my bye to my hubby.
After all the formalities I boarded Qatar Airways flight to Doha, which was packed fully and I got the seat which I booked through web-checkin. Qatar Airways provide 24 hr prior web check in to US flights. And after 3 hrs I reached Doha.
It was treat to eyes, A beautiful turquoise blue sea shore with a never ending sand beach. It is a dessert area. So all I could see was sand meeting the sea on one end and other end sand meeting the horizon. The airport was good with lots of shopping options. But I resisted doing that for now :).
My flight to Washington DC was after 2 hr 45 mins after I reached Doha. Roamed through the Airport shopping complex.
Finally I boarded my flight for Washington and landed at 4:30 pm. It was a mixed feeling of enjoyment and loneliness since this was the first time I was traveling alone so far. I felt the same way the years before when I landed in Bangalore with no place to stay.
I reached my hotel around 6:00 pm and just dropped into bed as I was feeling jet lag and was very tired of the long journey and woke up at 2 AM could not sleep after that I guess it was the jet lag feeling. I did some unpacking and cooked something to eat. And started preparing for next day office. In the morning at 8 AM, I reached office. The best thing was that hotel was providing shuttle service to and from AOL office. It was really easier to manage this way otherwise It would have been really difficult to commute to office.
My manager over there was very helping and made me comfortable by knowing he is there to help me. It put me at ease, since its difficult when you are traveling for first time and that too alone to a new country.

Rest of the days went as usual at office. Lots of meetings to attend, trainings to be in. It was a great learning experience for meeting different people looking at their perspective of work and technology. And I love traveling to new places.

So finally the long awaited Friday came :). I was planning to go to New york city which was about 4 hrs drive from there. But this plan could not work out since there was no direct transportation available to reach New york from dulles and more over I did not have cell phone with me, so it would have been very difficult to reach out my friends in case of any issues. So I dropped the plan. I was li'l sad as I did not have any idea what I will be doing alone on weekend. But then I packed my bag on Saturday morning and thought of going to Washington DC. I did not know that the bus guy need the exact change and a couple from hotel helped me with the change. It was really nice of them :). Later in the night, I dropped a Thank you note along with the money in their room.
So I reached Washington DC at 10:00 AM in the morning. It was a beautiful sunny day. I saw white house, treasury building, FBI building, National Mall, Museums, Old post office, down town and lots of other buildings. Yes I did a lots of shopping too :). Being a girl I think its irresistible :d. By end of the day I was really tired and finally found the bus stand to catch a bus back to Dulles. Over all it was great day, had fun roaming alone on Washington streets.

When I reached hotel, I was so tired that I slept without having dinner. It was a great feeling that still one more holiday is there. On Sunday morning, I slept till 10:00 AM and then had my breakfast and started on expedition of Dulles :). I did lots of shopping from Dulles town center mall and many more stores around it.

So this is how my first week ended in US. The new week, with Monday having lots of meetings and stuff It started on a hectic note. There were few trainings and sessions I had to finish before I leave for India.
The best part was, I was able to talk to all my friends with whom I have not talked for almost ages and only get to read about them through social networking sites. It was really great talking to them and never felt that they were away for such a long period of time.

So there comes the Friday again, the day I had to leave for India. I was really excited to go back as I was missing my husband alot and had lots of things to show him that I bought.

Over all It was a great trip, learned about lots of stuff, interesting to meet new people and how they behave and work. It was like looking at other end of your team and putting faces to the voices that you hear on a day to day basis. All the team members I met there were really good and very helping.

So a good one! :)

Maldives - Heaven on Earth

This was the place chosen by us for our honeymoon :). Truly a great choice we made.

Maldives is a small country, which is just 5 miles above the sea level. These are small islands in the Indian ocean. There are hundreds of islands present under Maldives constituency out of which very few are human habitat. The others keeps on coming out or sinking in the sea again.

We came back to Bangalore after our wedding in Punjab on 12 Oct, 2008. Till that time we did not have any plans made for our honeymoon yet and I was kind of angry with my husband how come no plans of Honeymoon yet :(. But he surprised me by telling that he is inquiring about the place where I wanted to go (Maldives :) ) and we MAY go in coming next 2-3 weeks. Then the excitement began. After doing extensive research,  we narrowed down on Kurumba Island resort (http://www.kurumba.com/). This is the oldest resort in fact the first five star island resort in Maldives. But the sad part was, it was fully booked :(.

We were chasing our travel agent to get us a booking as soon as possible. But he asked us to make full payment before he does the booking for the hotel. We did the same for traveling from 24 Oct, 2008 to 28 Oct, 2008. Till 22 Oct, 2008 we did not have any confirmation from the travel agent, and finally we got a call from him at 12:30 pm that he has got a booking for 23 Oct and we have to travel next day only.

We ran to our home from office. Everything was so quick. There were lots of things pending to do. We have to do packing, arranging USD for traveling and do shopping. Till 2 AM in the night we were busy packing.

Finally the big day arrived, we were soooooo happy :). We boarded Air India flight from Bangalore at 10:00 AM in the morning and reached Male (Capital of Maldives) at 12:30 PM. On top of Maldives, we could see so many small islands and could recognize many islands which we saw while doing research on net.The best part , the runway of the airport was a road which is surrounded by sea from both side, truly an awesome view.

From there we were greeted by Kurumba staff and taken to our personal boat ride to Kurumba island. The smell of sea, excitement of the journey everything was just awesome :).

We reached Kurumba, and what we saw there was exactly the replica of the photos we saw on internet. We were little scared that usually people put up the pictures which are clicked by professionals and so they are beautiful by default. But Kurumba was much more beautiful, scenic than what we have imagined. A perfect honeymoon destination.

We checked into the hotel and were taken to our Sea side bungalow.

The view from the room was of a paradise. While laying on the bed, I could see the endless sea with layers of colors, turquoise blue at the shore, blue in the middle and dark blue at horizons. The beaches were white sand and properly maintained by the resort.

There were lots of other people on the resort from various countries, maximum from Russia.

The resort served different kinds of cuisine from sea food, Indian cuisine, Continental, Chinese and lots of other stuff. The best part of the food was the Breakfast which includes everything from every corner of the world.

Our first day at resort went at leisure sitting at beach side looking into each others' eyes  :). Next day we woke up early in the morning and explored the full resort by walking beach side. It was like living in a paradise forgetting about traffic noises, mobile ring tones, work pressure.

In the night we used to go to the deck which was surrounded by sea. The sea waves coming and hitting, the air filled with the smell of sea. We could sit there till 1-2 am in the night.

It was as if the days were rushing, before traveling my husband said "What we would do on an island for 5 days?" and now he wanted to extend the trip for 2-3 days more :). This was our first trip outside the country.

Everything was so picture perfect, much more than what we had imagined.

During our stay, we got a special honeymoon dinner.

Finally the day arrived to come back to India, with heavy heart we left Maldives and vowed to come again and again to this place.

Intro

Hi,

This blog contains the details of the places I traveled so far in my life and other helpful information about the places.

Hope it helps everyone!!

Thanks
Param