Back in the groove - tips on better holiday !

There have been times when I have returned from a trip and  felt that I needed a break to get over the break. Happened to you too ? Well after almost  many such breaks I finally put some “learnings’ into practice and for once in my life I returned from a holiday and was ready for daily grind ..well almost. Here is what helped me this time to get back into the groove

1 . Clean your house before you leave or at least make your bed : My packing is always last minute, I am always rushing to find the hat I  picked in the last trip or the lovely silk scarf which will go fabulously with all dresses , end result house it topsy turvy and I  just have time to lock the door and run.  This also means that when I  return and I am  so tired and one look at the mess and all I  want to do is to run away. So the tip this time was to clean up at least the living area before I left  and also since we were reaching back late in night , I made the bed. Once back,  the house look good enough for at least not to make me call housekeeping and run away J  I peeled over the bed covers and slept my jet lag away.

2. Account a ‘break in’ day :  So typically our holiday ends on Sunday and we have to be back in office by Monday. This time we actually returned on Saturday that gave us a day to unpack , chill , load up on grocery water the plants and gently get back into the groove, by evening we were feeling so good and relaxed that we actually caught a movie and slept early . Monday was not too terrible for once.

3. Arrange for food : You know what time you would be arriving home so arrange for breakfast / lunch / dinner accordingly. After all these days of eating out , home food is what one really craves for and ofcorse kitchen is not the first place you want to be in. Personally , we are lucky  to have a place our area that delivers homemade food . In case you don’t have any such place ask your friends and family nearby. My mum and Aunt live within couple of kms  and they have a wonderful arrangement going on , whenever any of them travels the other  ensures that hot food is delivered at her place on arrival day. You can have a similar arrangement , in case your friends don’t travel much you might want to ‘repay’ the favour by babysitting for them or taking them out for a nice meal or better still inviting them for dinner while you prepare the new exotic recipe you learnt on your trip. Win - Win for all.

4. Unpack right away : A huge point of contention with my husband always. Whenever he is back from a trip (and he travels a lot – 20 days a month !),  he simply unpacks right away, putting clothes in washing machine and such,  and I always hated it. Gradually I have realized that this is probably the right way. I may not do the laundry right away but I do put away clothes batches to be cleaned later and clean up the suitcases to be stored away. This also ensures that if I bought perishables (And I always buy local food), they are stored properly and not found stinking after couple of days. 

I followed all these tips after a 2 week break this time and somehow the ordeal of getting back to daily routine was not that painful. Try it this time when you are heading to your spring / summer break and you just might be as glad as I am.

P.S. looking for a perfect scarf , i really like this one .

ANNA CORONEOWatermelon-print silk scarf

Happy dance !!!

Would you believe it , "my" article was published in Travel and Leisure magazine way back in September and found it just now ! Well as they would say better late than .... Check it out here 

http://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-blog/carry-on/2013/9/6/100-ways-to-travel-better-3-tips-from-a-lazy-traveler

Ulaanbataar Day 2

After the rather chilling but very exciting experience of day 1 in Ulaanbaatar, next day we planned to take a trip down to Terelj national park , about 60-70 kms away from the city center . Its a national park which is largely un developed and is best to view and understand the landscape of Mongolia away from hustle bustle of capital city . The travel to national park is pictresque with miles and miles of imposing mountains and hardly any settlement .

Landscape on the way

While in summer the there are plenty of activity at the park like Rafting horse riding, hiking and you can even stay in the famous Ger tents , with snow all around for us it was more of the journey than the actual destination. You can attempt skiing in winter but we are yet to learn to ski so there was nothing much 'to do'. We had a rather nice lunch at Terelj international resort and spa hotel .

On the way to national park , there is a mini stopover at Genghis khan statue complex , an imposing structure over 40 meter tall set against the barren hilly landscape. The complex is still work in progress and there is a small museum in the complex. While the museum's collection is not very grand its interesting nonetheless. Do check out the small video playing in a corner room which describes how this structure was made and put together.

Genghis khan statue complex 

The imposing structure

Lanscape from the statue complex

There are couple of interesting rock formation on the way like this turtle structure :) 

We had hired a cab from our hotel Kempinski Hotel Khan palace   and it was great choice , the driver was knowledgeable and car very very comfortable.

And  the best part of the trip, we got to see dianosaurs  !!

Ok so they were rock stuctures but given the surreal landscape you would almost think they were real, dont you think so :)

Ulaanbaatar - Day 1

It all started with a business trip and like per almost always husband's business trip. He gets to travel to some really exotic parts of the world due to his job and although he is not good with exotic or even anything remote, preferring to travel cities and beaches , somehow he thought this was different enough for a return trip and that I must visit it.

Well this exotic place is Ulaanbatar . Don't fret if you have not heard of the place before most of us had not. It's capital of Mongolia. A country landlocked between Russia & China . While i was little tempted with the pictures i saw of him there i was very much skeptical, i mean if  i am spending time and money in going somewhere why don't we go to switzerland or even eastern europe,  surely prettier and more 'known' , but for once husband was in mood of trying the off beaten path and i was curious enough so i said yes.

After that i got busy with official meetings and trip and just 2 day before we were to leave i finally reached back home to basically pack and leave for holiday. Now before going to any place i like to read up a little about the place, weather , to dos etc but this time i just didn't get any time. Before i started packing i quickly checked the weather  and WHAT ?? -30 degree C , seriously why are we going there again ?? I am so not equipped to handle that .  I now live in bangalore , i have not shopped for anything woolen in last 3 years and would we even step out of hotel in this weather. Anyways too late to think now , we were leaving next day . So i pretty much packed everything from my cupboard (big mistake, more in next post)

We flew Dragon air (Code share Cathay pacific ) from Bangalore  to Hongkong  (, after a brief stop over of couple of hours next flight from HK to Ulaanbaatar , we reached in evening after 6 pm.

I was wearing layers and layers of cloth but the moment i stepped out of airport a chill blast hit me really hard. Now i have lived in Chicago and london during cold weather but this is something else. I froze in that 2 minutes walk to cab. On way to Hotel , although it was almost dark outside from whatever i saw it felt little bizzare , like i have landed into Narnia type of place. It was surely not real, unfortunately the traffic jam at the next red light made it all too real and since it got really dark outside and the cacophony of traffic made me lose interest in whatever was outside , i was happily smug in heated comfort of car.

We were to spend 3 days in the city , so on day one we decided to do a city tour of sorts . There are not too many things in the city to really visit but some places worth visiting Sukhbaatar palace , Winter Palace, Zaisan memorial and Choijin Lama Temple Museum. There is also a national museum but we decided to skip that so really cant comment on how good it is. But the first stop we made was at State Department store (must visit in Ulaanbaatar for all your shopping need) , after having foretified ourselves with suitable gloves and caps socks we stepped out to tour the city.

Like most of the developing asian country Ulaanbaatar or UB as it is better known is in middle of crazy growth and that means high end stores (LV has a huge building next to main sqaure), big cars and crazy crazy traffic ! Although its a small city do account for snail pace traffic time to account for travel time.

Here are some photos from day 1 , Day 2 in next post

Choijin Lama Temple Museum

Choijin Lama Temple Museum

Sukhbaatar Square

Sukhbaatar Square

Zaisan Memorial

City in development , View from the top 

Winter Palace 

All wrapped up :) 

annyeonghaseyo from seoul

Hello from seoul , reached yesterday and enjoyed beauty shopping ( first for me). Today onto more touristy things ....palace etc. 

Skyline of seoul from my hotel room 

Coffee cups

I am in seoul for last 3 days , and while I will do a detailed post on food and shopping in seoul later, let me take a moment to talk about the coffee. People in seoul take their coffee seriously, really seriously . If you thought Americans were crazy about coffee you should check out seoul, there is a Starbucks in 25-30 meter radius no matter where you stand in downtown area. And it's just not about star bucks, there are gazillion home grown shops dotted all across the road

There are coffee shops in rows. 

I have seen people sipping and walking in with one coffee cup into another coffee shop, crazy right ? 

Another really cute thing is how you can collect your order. Since  some of these shops are huge and spread across floors , they give you a e token of sorts , which vibrates and lets you know that your coffee is ready !! Cute no , after we are in cute land ( more on that later)

So if you are planning a trip to seoul, make sure you try as many coffee cups

Suraj kund mela 2014

It's all so colorful in the mela this year. Despite the weekend crowd and rather gloomy weather it's was super fun . Lots of inane shopping and food and , a brilliant start to weekend ! 

Wish you a happy new year .

Warmest of wishes for a happy , healthy, and safe 2014. As per always we are spending our year end holidays at Auroville  and finally after couple of years of failed attempt we managed to catch the first ray of sun by the shore temple in Mamallapuram .


Leaving you with first shot of Shore temple today morning, more detail about our stay in coming posts.

Getting Back On

So, I have been away for a while..bit of family fun, bit of personal getaways all in all some really beautiful and relaxed time.

Some quick snapshots 

Cloud no 9 - setting sun from the airplane window 

Pool side view 

its all soo blue 

tents @ beach..party 

just as the sun goes down ..from Marriott lobby 

good food goes with good view 

pool & river Mandovi from Marriot 

food and more food 

and like always, to bring good end to all things good ..Chocolates  

Lazy traveller guide to travel

I always thought us to be lazy traveller, till the time i came across this article in T&L where the author classified himself as 'Sight skipper' . I mean we never made it to top of Eiffel tower cause there was four hour long queue for that and instead we had  wine by Seine river, have not been able to make it MET museum so far because there is always some lively makeshift market in the area on the weekends, or instead ended up watching a musical in theatre district.
Glad to finally found a decent term for ourselves  and to know we are not the only  'weird ones'  thought i will share our experiences in travelling around the world and what we have learnt so far.


Stay : This was always a point of contention between my husband and myself, he would always opt for fancy place and i was keen to try apartment exchange , B&B kind of place. But after all these years of travelling , i finally get and agree to his point. Its a vacation after all and if you still spending time in taking out trash or doing the bed what is the point of holiday , might as well stay at home. I now appreciate if some one else makes bed for me and better still leaves those tiny chocolates on my pillow after a day of heavy duty roaming around.
Also in my experience if you really clever in using your hotel points & shopping for hotel deals inclusive of breakfast etc  the difference between the prices wont be that significant but the level of comfort would surely be.

If you really plan well, you can enroll yourselves in one of the hotel membership group and stay in those places for your business travel. If you reach a certain membership level you get free room upgrades, free breakfast or club lounge access all these small free services that makes the travel more enjoyable and save precious dollars.


Local Travel : This is a trick we learnt early on in the game. Most of the big cities in the world, will have an all inclusive, day , two day or week transport pass system which would typically cover all rides in local train/ bus /metro etc for the designated period. This is the ultimate money saver, while those fancy tourist buses (hop on - hop off types) are an option, these work equally well and at a fraction of price. Be sure to check the validity - in some cases a day pass means 24 hours from the time you purchase / punch in other cases it's valid for the date you bought and likely to expire by 12 o clock midnight.

Also we do this really silly thing , sometime we just get into a bus (any random bus) and we go till the last bus stop and wait for it to turn around and drop us back to the place we boarded. This way we usually get to see the areas which are typically off the 'tourist route' and discover some local hidden gems. Although we once had a nasty experience in Chicago where we ended up in a not so nice part of town at around 7 pm and had to practically run from there. Nonetheless, do give it a try (during day time & if you are not travelling alone) its a fun way of discovering new place.


Eat : Go by your nose & eyes, follow the locals. See where ever a long rush of local people that is definitely a place to visit, if you smell something good try it. Yes do visit the place recommended on lonely planet , tripadvisor etc but in my experience sometime these places get over hyped and in the end you end up having a average meal at probably exorbitant prices.  i have had some great food bought from local bakery shop , farmer's market, amazing but inexpensive wines from local vineyard which you'll probably never find in a fancy restaurants because they ain't that famous. In fact while we were in Paris, we almost exclusively ate from our local bakery shops , packed nice picnics with wine bottle (as low as 5 euros), breads and couple of  fruits (from the breakfast spread of the hotel) and had the most amazing in middle of parks.
And yes we did have a couple of 'haldiram' bhujia & namekeen packets carried from home, whenever there was a Indian taste craving  :)

Sight seeing : OK so even if you are a lazy traveller / sight skipper there are things to see and admire and that is primary the reason why you are holidaying in that particular place. Some things that has worked for us in past. Check the timings -not just opening timings, every one wakes up early and tries to be the first at these places, how about closing timings. For example in Louvre when we got there in morning there was an hour long queue just to get inside, we thankfully decided to skip it and instead came back in afternoon couple of hours before closing time , no queue :) and even inside most of the people had started to leave so we got most of the sections almost to ourselves  :) :). Weather forecast - Save museum tours or any controlled weather experiences for days likely to rain / windy etc and all the outdoorsy experience for days expected to be pleasant & nice and if weather changes , change your plans accordingly.


Packing : This is important, pack well but don't carry your world with you . Beside your prescription medicines,  almost everything is available  all across the world these days and outside of India you would hardly find any body who would carry your luggage for you, so save yourself some back pain and travel light. In terms of clothes think Jersey dresses, cotton t- shirts, layering clothes etc. Restyle  / Re purpose your clothes, you are on holiday no body cares if you wear your jeans twice, And if you need to attend a fancy event last minute & need something glamorous, well shop locally , i would say any day a better souvenir, every time you will wear your dress it would have pleasant memory of the wonderful vacation you had :).

However, comfortable shoes are must and not those sports shoes variety, before leaving for holidays , spend some time and shop around for good looking comfortable shoes and break in those shoes by wearing them for few days (here are some other innovative methods ) before you travel in them.

Shop : Beside fridge magnets & shot glasses (i have a collection going on for these), mostly I end up shopping for local food. My pantry still is stocked with some wonderful olives that husband got from Oman & olive oils i got from Italy. Even our friends and family appreciate these food gifts better than those silly souvenir t shirts & mugs. Most importantly when i cook with these ingredients,  in a way i extend my holiday experience to my day to day life as well. Always a great bonus !



P.S. This article is now part of CNN approved I report  :)

My top 11 travel essentials

We love to travel and more often than not , it is pretty much last minute decision. Whether its a long haul flight or a long road trip, I now have the 'essentials' packed in a simple pouch ready to grab and go whenever we want.

1. A comfy wrap / shawl, I once sat through a low frill airline from Delhi to Singapore almost freezing and had a nasty cold all through the trip thanks to over enthusiastic air conditioner . After that no matter what the season is I always always carry a shawl with me. Even in car my husband likes to keep temperature around 20 degrees and i definitely need it then.

2. Ear plugs : crying babies, loud group going to bangkok for  bachelor / hen party, ear plugs are really life savers, plug and sleep.

3. Lip balm : No one wants chapped lips, especially in the drying environment of planes

4. Mints : Better than chewing gums for the ear popping times , also general time pass

5. Cotton pads :  clean, wipe ...you need them all the time

6. Simple hair band : to keep my extremely unruly hair in somewhat manageable space

7. Disposable emery board filer : I never get time to sit file my nails on a normal day, i use this time to 'beautify' myself.  Well groomed hands are so important

8. Sanitizer :Two words ..Public Toilets

9. Water :  You need to hydrate yourself all the time.

10. Hand cream : Too much air condition makes my hand super dry, i need to keep rubbing this all over all the time.

11. Pen : At one point i always had a pen with me , now with all the smart phones / tablets, pens are getting rather obsolete. Often while filling up a immigration form there would be ten people and one pen so i this again becomes an essential.


Well, this is my list, what are your essentials ?  Things you really cant travel without ?

The Coorg story - Weekend Gateaway

Coorg had been on our to visit list for a long time and after looking at the picture of Taj Madekiri i was definetly keen to visit . So finally we made it one fine weekend this summer. If you have heard great things about this place and not yet visited, I assure you Coorg is all that its touted to be and much more, a must visit place I think ! (We liked it so much that we visited twice in one month:) ) 

View from The Tamara

The route we took was   Bangalore -  Srirangapatna - Hunsur - Kushalnagar - Madikeri about 290 kms.

Except for a few kilometers  here and there, roads are great in general and took us about 6 hours to reach with a quick breakfast break in between. And since it was mango season there was plenty of distraction on the road side :p

mountains of mangoes all along the way :) 

Coorg is a small town and there is nothing much to do except may be to buy local  specialities. Coorg is famous for coffee, pepper cardamom and honey , so these are obvious buys. We bought it from Tata planation provision store, reasonably priced and good stuff.

The best you can do is book yourself in a nice hotel / homestays / plantation guest house and be lost in all the greenery around and if you are feeling particularly energetic, trek & trail around various routes.

Stay in Coorg is slightly on the expensive side but trust me the view & the serenity of the place is worth spending your money. In our two visits , we stayed at Taj Madikeri, The Tamara and Tata planation trail guest house. Homestays in Coorg is particularly famous and gives you taste of authentic coorgi life. My absolute favorite was Taj Madikeri.  It's a completely different world from the moment you step into reception area , surreal ...almost magical. Putting it into words might seem like exaggeration, but see for yourself...

view from the foyer of Taj Madikeri


The picture above will give you some idea, unfortunately my trusty old camera was playing up, so couldnt get any good shot, most of the photos are from phone :( 

Reception area

If you are at Taj, you have the luxury of 2 pools , the stunning outdoor pool with a view of lush field and mountains and absolutely breathtaking indoor infinity pool & Jacuzzis . 

Outdoor pool

Jacuzzi with a view 

indoor infinity pool 

The Tamara is another interesting stay option , all rooms are individual tree houses with spectacular 180 degree view. The only caveat here is kids below 12 are not allowed . 

Spectacular tree houses 

Interesting flora & fauna 

When you want to take a break :) 

We also learnt the coffee making process - from blossom to brew !

And the tree house / cottage from inside

And finally the Tata Coffee plantation trail. Erstwhile residences of Tata Coffee officers now converted into tourist bungalows . Typical Guesthouse experience with acres & acres of coffee and spice planation, great place for walks, bird watching and relaxation in typical homely environment.

If you are lazy traveller like us , Coorg is  simply a paradise on earth. Choose your place of stay carefully, enjoy your days with the lovely aromas of coffee , pepper & honey  and come back home fully charged !!