My Bundi Article

Bundi, Rajasthan

My article on Bundi is now up on Gonomad. I still remember those beautiful lotus flowers so vividly. Here are the starting passages of the article-

When my nephew Sunil and I visited the Sukh Mahal (Palace of Comfort would be the rough translation) at Bundi, the caretaker who opened the room filled with paintings told me (in Hindi), “This is where the Mowgli writer stayed.”

I told him the writer’s name was Rudyard Kipling and the book that is associated with Bundi is Kim not The Jungle Book. But he told me firmly, “It was the Mowgli man who stayed here.”

That is how Kipling is remembered in Bundi. Kipling is said to have got inspiration for writing Kim in Bundi (I have yet to read that book but it is now high on my agenda) and I can imagine why. The Phul Sagar Lake behind the Palace gets filled with lotus flowers in September. I have never seen so many lotuses at one place in my life.

Feeling Lazy about Writing the Orchha Trip

Vultures at the Cenotap, Orchha

It rarely happens to me that I do not wish to write a trip account but this is one of those rare occassions. Let us see if blogging about it breaks the jinx.

Reactions to the Barog Story!

The Water Compartment at the Kalka Shimla Train

I was showing my Barog story to Brat 1 and Brat 2 and I wanted them to pay particular attention to the last photograph where Steve has written the following caption-

Mridula Dwivedi with Dilip and Sunil, also known as Brat One and Brat Two

The brats reacted, we will give Bua (aunt in Hindi) a name on our Face Book!

Then on this Barog trip we were taking a train back from Solan to Barog where we barely had standing space. Brat 2 had put his hands against the wall over me in aisle and he could so easily place it over my head. Brat 1 was standing next to Brat 2 quite close to the door.

I mean it feels only yesterday when they were knee high and just by standing in front of them I could block them effectively from taking a basket ball shot.

Then I remember the younger one standing in front of a guy who was six three with his hands raised to prevent him from taking a shot at the ring and his hands would not even reach the other player's shoulders.

And today they are polite to me and me take my shots at the ring or else they just have to stand in front of me!

PS. There is a coach on the toy trains that takes water to Shimla from other stations because there is a shortage of water at Shimla. When the train gets full people travel in the water compartment too!

The Complete Barog Story

The Beautiful Barog Railway Station on the Kalka Shimla Railway Route

My Barog (Himachal Pradesh) story is now available at GoNomad.

The Barog Tunnel is the longest tunnel (1144 meters/3752 feet) on the Kalka-Shimla route. The name of the English engineer in charge of its construction was, unsurprisingly, Barog.

However, the original tunnel built by him is at a distance of 1 km and the two ends of that tunnel didn’t meet. He was fined Rupee 1 (.02 cents or so) for this mistake and due to shame he committed suicide.

Triund Story now at Gonomad

Souvenirs for Sale at McLeod Ganj.

My entire trip account about trekking through Triund, Snowline and beyond is now up at Gonomad. Do let me know what you think about it.

On our other treks, we hardly met anyone but this one was different. I did a lot of talking with people from Germany, Israel, Switzerland (she was in India for the third time and was staying for more than 6 months) and the US (the boy was staying in India for a year and he had already completed 10 months) and of course the shop owners and the guides.

But there is one conversation that has still stayed with me. I was talking to the groom at Snowline thinking that there were just two of us around. When he walked away I realized there was a figure in a sleeping bag inside the chai shop behind me.

He said, "God, the way you talk, ...

My Lucknow Article at Gonomad

La Martiniere College, Lucknow

My Lucknow article is now up at Gonomad-

If my writing sounds rushed to you, so was my tour. The guide would literally run from one structure to another and so would some of us.

We tried to form a breakaway group walking at a more leisurely pace but then we gave up that strategy quickly inside the labyrinth; we did not wish to be left behind inside those dark alleys.

Jaipur in an Autorickshaw- On CLAY Now

Amber Fort Jaipur

I wrote the Jaipur Story (November 2008 with Brat 2, my younger nephew) for CLAY too (the first one was for Gonomad) and it is now up on their site-

Our plan was to hire an autorickshaw (because of this recommendation by Arun) with Gopi as our guide. I called Arun and asked for Gopi’s number and got in touch with him. Gopi assured us that he would be at the Jaipur station to pick us up. I got a call from Gopi as the Shatabdi was nearing Jaipur and that was quite reassuring. However, it took us quite some effort to figure out who was who once we got down at Jaipur. Once we met each-other, the first task was to find a hotel.

Surathkal Trip Report at Gonomad Now

Boats at the Beach, Surathkal

My trip report about Surathkal is now up at the main Gonomad site.

I kept walking just next to the waves soaking my jeans up to my knees. There is hardly any beach wear concept for women in India. ... but I have to remind myself to wear a Capri and a material that dries soon, instead of a heavy jeans that weigh a ton when you get wet.

However, the sun was so bright (even in the winter month of December) that I got wet at least ten times and dried within half an hour or so every time.

The funny part was that my cell phone had full connection (I don’t consider a holiday complete till I lose my cell connection) so I called home (Dad and younger nephew and my sister) and put the phone away from the ear so that they could hear the waves. Hardly anyone could guess what they were listening to!

...

The price to pay for seclusion is maggi (Instant Noodles made by Nestle and very popular in India) and omelet for lunch sold from a small shop quite near the lighthouse, but that is something I would gladly live with.

...

What do We do with the Time we 'Save'

Picture taken from the Manglore Express, as it was entering Mangalore Station

When we were planning our journey to Bangalore by train in December 2008, a frequent consideration was to 'save' time. I think it is a common tendency of almost everyone to try and 'save' time. I wonder what do we all do with the saved time! This occurred to me for the first time when I was writing a short post on the Bangalore train journey for CLAY.

The biggest advantage of traveling by the Rajdhani Express to Bangalore, is the time saved (though I wonder what we do with the amount of time we try to keep saving, sometimes it feels it is better to spend that time on rain, rather than in my mundane activities).

So what do you do with the time you save?

The Jaipur Story!

Amber Fort, Jaipur- Sunil Feeding the Pigeons

I wrote this post to say that my Jaipur story is now up at the Gonomad site. It is difficult to compress Jaipur in 1500 to 1700 words but that is what I did. So there are many stories that would get narrated here only.

PS. The tall guy in the picture above is my younger nephew. He liked roaming among the pigeons quite a lot.

Timbaktu Anyone?

Image from the original article at Gonomad.com

When I saw the title 'Timbaktu: The Blue Man of Sahara' by James Michael Dorsey I must say I was intrigued. I mean how many times did it reasonably occur to you that you can actually go to Timbaktu! The places people manage to visit! I thought I will share the article here too. It makes a very interesting read.

At one point we crest an enormous dune and Mahkmoud tells me to get out and walk down in case he rolls the car. I am about to do so when I realize that would mean I am alone and on foot in the Sahara. I refuse and tell him why. He laughs, and with a loud throaty scream guns the engine sending us hurtling down a 100 foot wave of flowing sand, covering us in the process and forcing me to restart my heart.

Time and again, we "surf" the dunes and I finally learn to relax and trust his expert touch as we careen downhill at various wierd angles.

Chile Anyone?

Villarica, a snow-capped volcano in Chile's Lake District (photo by Patty McCrary, taken from Gonomad Website)

No, no, I am not heading there but I loved a wonderful article about cycling in Chile by Dale Fehringer on Gonomad. The pictures! One day ...

In the afternoon, we cycled along beautiful Lake Villarrica, and our guides pointed out native birds and trees while we enjoyed views of the stunning Villarrica and Lanin volcanoes.

Villarrica is an active volcano, and we could see smoke rising from its peak. That night our cozy hotel had lovely gardens and sweeping views of the lake and volcanoes.

The Oxford Story at Gonomad.com

Carfax Tower, Oxford, UK

My Oxford Story is now up at the main Gonomad site. Have a look and tell me how do you find it. Here is a small piece from the article-

Initially, due to my pathetic sense of direction I was quite scared to walk alone but I gradually realized that there are sufficient arrow marks and signposts on the street and whichever road I would take sooner or later an arrow would point me towards the city center and the Carfax Tower again.

I can assure you if I did not get lost in the city chances of anyone else getting lost are really really slim.

My Har-Ki-Doon Article at Gifted Travel

View at Kedar Kanta: On the Har-Ki-Doon Trek

My story about the Har-Ki-Doon trek is now featuring at the Gifted Travel Website. I had queried them and they accepted my article later and they pay (or were paying) a token amount. I found the whole interaction with them a pleasure. However, when I went to their submission guidelines recently this is what I found:

UPDATE: As of 3/14/2007, we cannot accept queries. We have an overwhelming number of article ideas submitted to us at this time and while we wish we could commission most of them, our meager budget does not allow for this. Check back for updates and thank you for your interest.

I hope this changes soon.

Tourism: Some Quotes from a Journal Article

I have been reading a few journal articles on tourism (when a person like me in academics takes to tourism as a hobby, this was bound to happen). I came across the article 'A Theory of Tourism' from a database. The article has been written in German by Hans Magnus Enzensberger in 1958. It was translated into English in 1996 and published in New German Critique.

Some of the passages in this article are so hard hitting, I thought I have to blog about it. The author of the article quotes two critiques of tourism, I am presenting part of the arguments here.

"Occidental tourism is one of the great nihilistic movements, one of the great western epidemics whose malignant effects barely lag behind the epidemics of the Middle and Far East, surpassing them instead in silent insidiousness. The swarms of these gigantic bacteria, called tourists, have coated the most distinct substances with a uniformly glistening Thomas-Cook slime, making it impossible to distinguish Caior from Honolulu ..."

Nodding your head already? At least I was, when I was reading it. Remember this was written sometime before 1958 but it rings so true even today. Now, I quote part of the second critique as given in the article:

"Forty years ago, there were cozy hotels but no unruly masses ... In those days tourists were comparatively rare, and there were no cheap trippers ..."

Nodding your head again (well, I was shaking it vigoriously)? Well, here goes the response of Hans Magnus Enzensberger (from the same article) to both the criticisms.

"In social terms, both voices are reactions to a threat to their privilaged positiopns. Implicitly, they both demand that travel be exclusive, reserved for them and their like. They never say exactly what it is that distinguishes them from ... the cheap trippers. The luxury they appropriate without a second thought is considered sinful when consumed by the mob." (emphasis mine)

Now what do we say to this one? I think I am guilty of the thought (like the two authors quoted above) that 'travel is my thing' and when many others go to the same spot (like Manali), it looses its charm for me. I have to learn to be less snooty!

There are many more interesting arguments in the article and I will surely write about it in a furure post.

Gonomad Travel Writers Page

Gonomad has put up travel writer pages. So, all my Gonomad articles can be seen from the writer page now (scroll down the page a bit). What I am thinking is, I have enjoyed writing each of them as much as I have enjoyed visiting those places. OK, I enjoyed visiting those places a bit more than writing about them.

But I have started enjoying writing about travel a lot more than what I ever thought was possible. But you probably guessed it already by the number of the blog posts I am churning out off late.

Two Wonderful Articles on GoNomad: Antarctica and Israel

I read a very inspiring article by Chole Jon Paul on Gonomad. She writes "

“After life in the vastness of a vacant continent, civilization seemed disappointingly narrow, cramped, superficial, and empty.”

- Frank Hurley, photographer on Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endeavor

Those words certainly ring true for me. As an older woman traveling alone to such a distant place, I knew that I would have to start planning well in advance and explore all my options before booking passage.

And where did she go? She went to Antarctica! Now that is something!

Also, I read a lot of Gonomad blog (naturally as my blog is also hosted by them) more so when the good folks started providing the update status from the main GoNomad page.

I have been reading Be Our Guest by Kent E. St. John and I was so surprised to see that he was a guest of the president of Israel (though now in news for all the wrong reasons). He has an interesting account of his trip to Israel.

Ahh! When will December come? Only then I get to travel once again.

My Rajaji National Park Article on Oktatabyebye.com

So what if I did not win there contest, my article about Rajaji National Park is now featuring on Oktatabyebye.com's website.

The good thing is that I also got a check from them for writing it :)

I am not sure about their author contribution policy but I love the sites that pay you to write about travel!

I Stumbled!

When I started working in the higher education sector in India, it turned out to be a real eye opener for me. When I was studying, I either went to better places or our generation was a bit more tractable. When I started teaching, I found the first two places completely impossible. This period of gloom lasted around two years. But I will write about that some other day. I will write about one good thing that came out of it.

My husband and I have always been fond of traveling but before I was really thrown into bad jobs, traveling for me was a nice change. But now it has become a religion. In between the breaks both my husband and I, dream about the vacations we are going to take later!

Our Trek through Har-Ki-Doon, Uttrakhand

It also happened that during my bad jobs I had zero opportunity to do research. I used to feel very restless then. It was then I started trying to write either in magazines or for websites. I started with the Indian ones and most of the time I never even got replies for my queries or unsolicited manuscripts. If I sent them by post after 2 to 3 months I would get a reject card! Even with the foreign publications it usually was no reply.

Our Recent Trip to Leh

Then one day when I was browsing the net, somewhere I saw a bunch of travel websites. One of them was http://www.gonomad.com/.

If you take a look at my post:

http://traveltalesfromindia.blogspot.com/2005/09/one-tale-from-abroad-most-unusual-walk.html

It is a watered down version of what I sent to GoNOMAD.com. And to my surprise I got a reply from them within three hours! Of course they rejected it. But getting a reply that fast itself was so reassuring, after all someone was reading whatever I was trying to write.

That got me hooked, and sometime later I sent them another story (on Goa) and this time I did not get an immediate reply. That raised my hopes. I thought, if they had to reject it they would have done it immediately. Later, I got a mail where they asked me for photographs related to the story. That raised my hopes still higher. Finally, that story came on their website after nearly three months and the check came one month later after the publication. In India the foreign currency checks take more than 15 days to get cashed, and I have still not seen the money in my account. But, it has turned out to be such a thrilling experience. The story on Goa can be found at:

http://www.gonomad.com/alternatives/0508/goa.html

After this, I tried searching for other sites that pay, and though I found a few that do, but so many that do not. I tried very hard to find another website where I could send my other two stories but after my initial search proving so fruitless, I got lazy. I again sent them my two stories and they again have asked for the photos after a long time!

Before I sign off, some of the best stories that I found on GoNOMAD are listed below:

Photography Tips:

http://www.gonomad.com/traveldesk/0505/photographers_advice.html

To Drive or to be Driven?

http://www.gonomad.com/transports/0505/ireland_drive_or_bus.html

On Paris

http://www.gonomad.com/destinations/0508/paris.html

I may continue writing travel stories and looking for avenues to publish them or I may get busy with my job, but either way I am going to remember GoNOMAD for giving me the first avenue for my stories.