My Little Log Book

From the archives from sometime in August 2014 from a solo trip to UK. Coming across these scraps from my files! Day 2 Day 2 in Belfast started with the Mc Combs tour. The hotel front office lady had informed me that the tour  would be over at 5. But the tour guys confirmed that we wont be back any time before 7. Thus began a long, entertaining, fun journey starting with the Carricferedge Norman castle, the Carricka Rede Rope Bridge, the Bushmill’s whiskey distillery, the Ballycastle, a long drive over the Antrim coast with many little interesting bits of history. The drive was beautiful and the Driver Dan, was entertaining. So many interesting little tidbits he shared with us – like the smallest little village on the coast, a village which has the Queen’s crown specially made for her Golden Jubilee, their rivalry with Scotland across the sea, a far glimpse of their icon Rory Mcllroy's home (or its vicinity!) It is definitely a trip I would like to do again, if only to treasure a...

 A few years back I had a pretty interesting trip to the UK. I sometimes jot down small notes. Came across one such recently. Day 1 Belfast Reached Belfast from London. Train from Orpington to London Bridge, from London Bridge to Gatwick. Reached Belfast around 10. Took the Europa Bus from the Airport. Driver couldn’t understand where I needed to be dropped and dropped me somewhere  quite far from the Radisson Blu and the city centre. In the meanwhile my neighbor in the Bus, a lovely old lady about 75 insisted with him (rightly) that I was being dropped at the wrong place and was on the verge of accompanying me to my destination (The Radission Blu). I managed to convince her that it was actually not necessary, my case was not heavy and I will manage! She had got down the steps of the Bus too! This was one of the many instances of kindness and love I was shown during my trip. I enquired and finally took a cab to the Hotel! Freshened and took directions to the City Centre and Ti...

 Yes, it's been a long time since I have posted here. But with so many other avenues to make one's posts, and ideas public, and with fewer words, it isn't a wonder that my (and I am sure many of my ilk's) blog is languishing. I started this blog to write a bit, post some recipes, travel stories, any other thoughts I could spare, some rants etc. Done that to some extent but definitely not as much as I would have liked! Many resolutions have come and gone, so no point making any more!!! Today's wake-up is because google Adsense came knocking at my door and promised to take away my privilege of using AdSense if I didn't get up and kicked about! So here goes... But again what do i write? Is reaching 7700 levels in Candy Crush a worthier effort than blogging? or should I blog about it? All the coins I have been buying (shhhhhhh), all the hours I have been engaged in destroying those sweet harmless treacles! Did I say harmless? Right. Because sometimes at the end of t...

  A few days back we had a most defining and immersive experience on a cruise on the Brahmaputra. This was my third cruise across the mighty river in this region.   We started from Guijjan, a small hamlet near Tinsukia, at 7 am, in a small boat. Our destination was an area called Maili in the upper reaches of Brahmaputra where some wild horses had been sighted by forest people. The journey was supposed to take 4 hours.   During the rainy season, junglee horses move around, as their original settlement around the Dibru Saikhowa national park is flooded.   The Dibru Saikhowa is fed by the Brahmaputra and Lohit and Dibru and an interlaced galaxy of small and big tributaries. Our boatman informed us that we were going towards the Siang (or Dihang, pronounced as Dehing) River, another of those distributing and feeding tributaries that weave in and out of the main river. It was raining mildly and the boat ride itself was a joy and full of complexities from encounteri...

Come March, the people of Odisha have to start battling the high and dry heat of an early summer that kind of side steps over what is supposed to be “Basanta Rutu” or Spring season; a season supposed to buffer the summer and be mild, but which slyly gives the state a miss. Summer is all of a sudden upon us, before we have even packed away our winter clothes. We start feeling the departure of winter when the vegetables, fresh beet and carrots and cauliflowers and laukis and peas suddenly start looking dry and withered, then one day suddenly lose their taste. Then comes the loo, the dry wind that the river bed brings in during the mid-day, that is suffocating and all pervasive. Suddenly the swarms of mosquitoes disappear and you know that the temperature is hovering around the 40s mark. But, the real indicator, that Summer is here? The Pakhala . The dish whose images have started doing the rounds of social media in recent years, and so much so, apparently, a day has been dedicated to it!...

There are fewer things grander in European Architecture than the Palace at Versailles .  The Hall of Mirrors, Palace of Versailles Like Louis the XIV,s motto "nec pluribus impar", the Versailles Palace is more than a match for anything of the era.  It fascinated me during my lectures on Landscape Architecture not just for its scale and grandeur, but also the ingenuity of some of the features. The kings of France took quite a bit of flak for the construction and maintenance of the Palace which eventually crippled their economy and lead to the French Revolution. But what a dream the Palace was! What started as a simple chateau and a Hunting Lodge in the forests for King Louis XIII, got transformed to one of the most grand Royal Courts in the world, that literally crippled a country in its maintenance.  The Versailles Palace reinforced the glamour and lavish architecture inside and outside with the varied and colourful court life of the Royal entourage, the French Nobility a...

 The morning of my third day at Fort William, I started for Ben Nevis. Ben Nevis is the highest peak in the British Isles and a favourite with trek lovers. It is a one day trek and one can easily reach the top if one plans accordingly. The walk from the B & B to the mountains was a distance of 3 kms. Not being an early waker, I reached the spot around 10 am. The beautiful walk had a curling field on the way. Curling was a popular old sport in the highlands which combined the raw strength of the Highlanders with strategy and skills. One has to slide huge round stones from one end of the play area to the other to reach its destination. It is called curling as the stones take a curvilinear path to reach the circle at the other end! Curling Field, Ben Nevis Reaching the foothills of the Nevis opened up a sight of a series of hills so breathtaking in beauty as only something so far up on the hemisphere can have. A stream bubbled along the foothills (River Nevis actually) and one had...