Madhya Pradesh Trip

There are 3-4 different aiports to enter Madhya Praesh - Indore, Nagpur, Bhopal or Gwalior. Depending on what you want to cover, you can chose the appropriate airport.

I had made 2 plans.

Plan A

• night Indore (Dont miss street food) 
• omkareshwar temple - day trip night halt indore
• Ujjain and back to Indore 
• train to Jabalpur 
• Kanha/Bandavgarh - 4 hours
• 2 nights in kanha 
• drive to bhedghat near jabalpur - 4 hours. Stay in Bhedghat
• boat ride and relax and stay Bhedghat
• morning drive to chitrakoot and stay there
• 4 hours drive to khajurao - see the place and stay
• 4 hours drive to Jhansi. stay - see the place
• afternoon start towards gwalior - 3 hours
• gwalior sight seeing and evening flight
• Skip chitrakoot and just see khajurao to save a day.

Plan B

• Morning fligt to gwalior
• afternoon/evening -see gwalior
• drive to jhansi see the place
• start towards khajurao - see the place and night stay
• chitrakoot and stay
• come to jabalpur and checkin at bhedghat and stay
• boat ride and go to kanha by night
• 2 days in kanha
• Feel free to end the trip by going to nagpur for a flight to bangalore
• Else, contine to Indore for Ujjain and mahakaleshware visit 

I stuck with plan A.

Route map

There are 2 Jyotirlingas in MP. To reach them, it is best to start the trip from Indore. I will capture my trip itinerary

Day1:
Land in Indore. Depending on what time you land in Indore, you can plan local sight seeing at indore.  Indore is famous for Namkeens. You can shop for them in Prakash Namkeen, Agarwal Nameen or Apna Sweets.
You can also Visit Indore’s Sarafa, India’s only night street food market
https://recipes.timesofindia.com/articles/features/visit-indores-sarafa-indias-only-night-street-food-market/articleshow/46677266.cms

Day2:
For Day 2 travel from Indore, there are several options to book cabs - like Ola, redbus, savari.com etc. But based on my friend's recommendatin, I booked cab from https://www.gozocabs.com/

Visit 2 Jyotirlingas - Omkareshwar and Ujjain Mahakaleshwar. In 2019, the roads were not so a great, so we  had start early in the morning and Visit Omkareshwar. The temple closes by 1.00 p.m. and reopens after a couple of hours. You can opt for special Darshan. Try to avoid Pundits. Finish the darshan early and head towards Ujjain.
If you reach Ujjain early, visit Harasiddhi Mata temple.  This is more than 1000 years old maha kali temple in Ujjain and it is having two pillars and each one is having 1001 lamps. At the time of evening aarthi, all the 2002 lamps are cleaned everyday and lighted again.
See how this task is done perfectly and quickly.


The main Mahakala temple is open till 11 p.m. So, try to get a darshan either before or after dinner. It takes about 20 min for Darshan.

Day3: 
Ujjain Mahakala temple is famous for Bhasma Arati. This Arati starts at 4.00 a.m. People stand in the line from 12.00 a.m. I am told that first 50-100 people who enter the temple will get a chance to go close to god and do Jalabhishek themselves. To get this chance, people stand in line from 12.00 a.m. If you are not particular about Jalabhishek, but want to get a good Darshan of Bhasma Arathi, it is good to get in to the line by 2.30. Any later than this, you might not get a good seat to view the Darshan. Booking can be done from temple website 30 days before the darshan
http://dic.mp.nic.in/ujjain/mahakal/default.aspx



For Stay, there are multiple places to stay in Indore, but I chose the Dharmashala attached to the temple. It is not fancy. It is a very basic, but clean accomdation. Advantage is if you want to go to temple for Arati, you can get up and walk 200-300 mts to reach the temaple. Other good hotels are more than a km away. Booking can be done from temple website 30 days before the darshan
http://dic.mp.nic.in/ujjain/mahakal/default.aspx

Since the Darshan gets over by 6.30 or 7, you have rest of the day to take rest and visiting near by temples. There are plenty of Auto rickshaws that you can hire for the same

My next destination was visiting National parks in MP. Most famous ones are Kanha Tiger reserve forest and Bandavgarh National Park. These national parks are more than 600 kms from Ujjain. So, instead of wasting an entire day travelling by road, I took AC train to go to Jabalpur. Jabalpur is the closest railway station to any of these National parks.

Day4:
There are a few local attractions in Jabalpur - Marble rocks at BedaGhat, Dhuadhar falls, 64 yogini temple, Jain temple, Madan Mahal fort, Sharada temple, Kachnar temple. Depending on your interest you can visit any of these places.

Enjoy the boar ride in Beda Ghat. Get a glimpse of it from the famous song from Ashoka movie "Raat ka Nasha Abhi"



Unfortunately there was an extended monsoon this year and Narmada river was over flowing. So, we couldn't go no a boat ride.
For traveling in Madhya Pradesh, I booked cabs from http://www.guptatravelsjabalpur.com/
I found them online and they gave me a good service.

Day 5:
For the next segment of my trip which was for 6 days, I booked a Tempo traveller from Gupta travels.
Roads are not great (as of 2019) and it takes long time to reach places.
We started by 8 a.m and reached BandavGarh National park by lunch time. We had booked 2 safaris. People say that tiger sighting is better in BandavGarh National park. But the best time to sight tigers is Dec-March. We had booked an evening safari (3 p.m. to 6 p.m) and a next day 6 a.m. to 10.a.m.)

Day 6:
Get up early and head to Tiger safari. The resort guys generally pack breakfast. After the safari, you can come back to hotel and get ready for next journey.
We started towards Khajurao in the afternoon. Due to bad road conditions in 2019, it took us 8 hours to reach Khajurao.

Day7:
The entire day was dedicated see different temples in Khajurao. We travelled in September and weather was still in 30s and very humid in Madhya Pradesh. So, it is better to start sight seeing as early as 6 a.m. Early morning is also good for photography.
We went to the main khajurao temple (western group of temples) at 6 a.m. It takes 2-3 hours to see the temple (depending on your interest). Return back to hotel, have breakfast, and then head to Rahen falls which is about 30 min drive from khajurao. It is a beatiful falls formed due to volcanic eruption. You can spend about an hour there and head back.
After lunch, you can take some rest. You can resume visiting eastern and southern tempples after the temperature cools down (say after 3 p.m.) Finish all temples by 6 to be back to main Khajurao temple for light and sound show (english show at 6.30 and Hindi show at 7.30)

Day 8: 
After breakfast, start journey towards Orchha. Due to road conditions, we reached Orccha by lunch time. After lunch time, we visited Orccha fort. Try to finish the fort visit before sunset to visit Chattris. https://www.windhorsetours.com/sights/india/Chhatris.html
It is a beautiful view at that time.
After sunset, head towards Jhansi.

Day 9:
Start towards Jhansi fort early in the morning. Jhansi fort was not as exciting. It takes about 1.5 to 2 hours to see the place. It is even ok to skip Jhansi. Post lunch, we headed towards Gwalior.
On the way to Gwalior, if you have time visit Datia. There is a fort and Pitambar temple (Shakti Peeth). Due to Navarathri festival, the temple was crowded, so we skipped it.
We reached Gwalior by evening.

Day 10:
Start early at 6 a.m. to cover Gwalior fort. It is a beautiful fort. It takes about to cover all the places in and around the fort. In the same premisis, you can visit Gwalior fort, Saash Bahu mandir, Gurudwara and Teli ka mandir.
Return to hotel, have breakfast, take some rest. After lunch, visit Jai Vilas Palace in Gwalior. It is a beautiful palace and you can easily spend about 2 hours.

You can do some shopping in Gwalior

Breakfast - Famous Poha



Lunch/Dinner - kwality restaurant.
For chats -(at your own risk), try Phool Bagh chaupti
Shopping - Topi bazar, sarafa bazar, subhash market
Sweets - Bahadura for Gulab Jamun, Shano-Shaukat for assorted sweets especially Boondi laddu, Daulatram Gupta, Gazak

Day 11:
Return to Bangalore

Other places of interest in MP 
I didn't have time to cover it. But if you happen to go to bhopal, visit Bhimbetka rock shelters
Bhimbetka rock shelters are in Bhopal, MP.  It is a UNESCO world heritage site that consists of seven hills and over 750 rock shelters distributed over 10 kilometres. At least some of the shelters were inhabited more than 100,000 years ago. Some of the Bhimbetka rock shelters feature prehistoric cave paintings and the earliest are about 10,000 years old (c. 8,000 BCE),

Sikkim Trip

Day 1 – Reach Bagdogra and head to Gangtok

Day 2 – Sightseeing in Gangtok - Visit Baba mandir and Nathula Pass

Day 3 – Travel to Lachung. 

Day 4 – Return back to Gangtok.

Day 5 – Drive from Gangtok to Peling. Enroute visit CharDham and Ravangla

Day 6 – Relaxed day at Peling.– Local sight seeing.

Day 7 – Head towards Darjeeling and night halt. Cover a few places locally and can finish some shopping.

Day 8 – Sightseeing in Darjeeling, go to tiger hills.

Day 9 – Start by 8 a.m towards Bagdogra 

If you have time, go to Lachen from Lachung. But the roads aren't great to reach Lachen.

Trip to Gujarat

This was my itenirary of my recent Family trip to Gujarat covering about 2300 km

Day1 and Day2 - Ahmedabad sight seeing, shopping and Gujarathi Thalis

Day 3 - travel to Bhuj -Enroute visit Lathol (an arhcealogical site from Harappa and Mohenjadaro times,  and HiraLaxmi park, Bhujodia 

Day 4 - Local sight seeing in Bhuj followed by a visit to Mandvi Beach. Visit to Vijay Vilas palace (Hum Dil de chuke sanam was shot here)

Day 5 - Local sight seeing in Bhuj (Parag mahal where Lagan was shot), followed by a visit to Rann of kutch, India bridge and Kaladungar (magnetic hill and sunset point)

Day 6  - Travel to Dwarka from Bhuj - Visit Dwarkadeesh temple followed by beach

Day 7 - Boat ride to Bet Dwaraka followed by visit to Nageshwar Jyothirling. Continue journey towards Somnath with a visit to Gandhiji's Birth place in Porbandar.

Day 8 - Sunrise, beach time, Somnath jyothirling temple visit and other local tourist attractions. Continue journey towards Diu. Relax in Diu followed by a good evening stroll at the beach

Day 9 - Visit to Diu fort and continue journey to Gir forest. Relax and go to Safari

Day 10  - travel to Ahmedabad and fly back to Bangalore

Bhuj was a clear winner with too many interesting places to see both in the city and surrounding areas. Also the beaches are clean and can spend good time as the evenings are very pleasant

Insulting Attitude of goAir call center rep

I had called up the goAir call center today and the call center representative called my friends a 'bakra'
I was very upset and registered a complaint on the goAir website

Here is the extract of the complaint....
--
I had a complaint aginst the call center rep (Tajinder) whom I spoke to today (at 3.20 pm IST, 16th Feb, 2012).
I have booked tickets for my friends who are in Ahmendabad, who unfortunately don't have access to Internet to take print out of the ticket. I had called in to enquire if they can get the E-ticket at the airport.
After listening to my question, Tejinder (without muting his line), turns asked someone in hindi "Ek bande ne 6 logon ke liye ticket book karayi hai, and un 6 bakron ke pass internet access nahi hain. Kya unko airport me ticket mil jaayegi …..". Then the phone went to mute
Wow, is this how you talk about your customers? What right does he have to call my friends a 'bakra'. It is none of his business to pass comments on us.

After a while, Tejinder unmuted the phone and got back to me. When I inquired about why he called us a bakra, he denied it and said that he was not talking about us, but about someone else.

Then I asked him to connect me to the supervisor. He agreed and turned around (without muting the line) and told someone in hindi ' usne, mujhe bakra bolte huye sun liya.' . After some low back ground conversation, the phone went mute. Before the phone went mute, I think I heard him asking one of his colleages to talk to me like a supervisor.

I spoke to the supervisor Pradeep Pandey and complained. He too denied the incident and apologized.

I regret having booking a ticket on goair which doesn't respect the customers. Please take action

Regards
Nagendra HK
---


This is the response I gor from goAir

Dear Mr. Nagendra
Warm Greetings from GO Air!
Further to your email, we are sorry to hear about your unpleasant experience at Call Center.
We empathize with your concern and apologize for the same. We wish to inform you that we have terminated both the representatives after listening to the call recording. We at Go Air, always believe and are trained to put our Customers first. A seamless, comfortable travel experience is what we aim to go about every time. At times, as in this instance, we do fall short. Feedback such as yours helps us improve. We hope you shall view this as an exception and consider giving Go Air an opportunity to welcome your aboard once again.
Mr. Nagendra, we once again humbly request you to treat this case in isolation it deserves and do not let it deter you from patronizing Go Air. We would appreciate if you could grant us another opportunity to serve you better in near future.
For further information on Flight schedules / fares / booking, please revert to us at feedback@goair.in or contact us at 1800-222- 111 / 9223-222-111. We would be glad to assist you. We would request you to frequently visit our website www.GoAir.in for updated information.
Thanks and Regards,
Aparna Desai
Customer Care

Girl power

Heard from a bunch of folks at office while heading towards stairs to go down.

First Guy: Lets take stairs, we just have to go one floor down

Girl: Nooo, we have to go 2 floors (won't it be difficult, you moron)
Another guy: Ok then, lets take the elevator
.
.
And the whole gang followed .... :-)

maya architects

These were the guys who built my house. Visit the project section on their website to see some wonderful work they have done

http://www.mayaarchitects.com/

Nasty thing I did

Recently, we had been to a friends place for lunch. On the way back, we stopped at a traffic signal. I saw a few eunuchs (khojas, hijdas) coming towards the car.

Let me pause here and give you a peep in to why they were coming near the car. Eunuchs are a menace at Bangalore traffic signals. They go and pester all the people traveling on two wheelers , cars and autos for money. Unlike other beggars on the street, who just beg for money, these eunuchs, try to harass you (by touching you, or abusing you etc). It is difficult to wade them off. If you show them that you are uncomfortable with their presence, then they take the advantage of the situation and would not leave you unless you give them money. Atleast people in the cars are safer as they can roll up the windows and avoid them.

Now, lets get back to the nasty thing I did at the traffic signal. We were 5 of us in my car with the windows closed. When I noticed that these eunuchs were coming close, I decided to play a small prank on my friend sitting at the rear seat. He had not noticed these visitors. I lowered the window on his side. Before he could realized why I had lowered the window, he saw the eunuchs talking to him and asking for money. He tried to close the window and the eunuch put his hand obstructing the window. Then the fun (for the rest of us in the car) started, with the eunuch trying to touch my friend and calling him names. This dude was very uncomfortable and this made scene more funny as the khoja pestered him more. This went on for a minute. We were all laughing, when the traffic light turned green. We managed to get away from that place without giving any money.
I regret having done this (but it was fun). My friend vouches to take revenge on me some day.

No time to blog

There was a time when people used to ask me how I get time for blogging. I used to tell them, 'if you are interested in something, then you will find time for doing it'. Today, I am finding it very difficult to get time out of my hectic day. Damn Bangalore traffic, which eats away 3 hours of my precious time.
Some people tell me that they wished there was a couple of more hours in a day than just 24. I think, the way my day goes (between office, home and traffic), even the 2 extra hours will get eaten up without doing what I want to do.
Hope I can get some time for myself from May, so that I can get back to writing more.

The Universal brothers

One of my good friends Rohini wrote a poem for me and my friend

The great poem--:-)
THE UNIVERSAL BROTHERS
Criminal looks, diehard Image
Sporting biceps thinner than matchsticks
Oh!Here they come to display their antics
One is surely Maharishi Narad
The other no better than him
Can you guess what they are competing for
Forcing their entry amidst girls
The first competition is blading
Second is a pretty disastrous one
To obtain the title of "Krishna paramatma"
Little do they know
They are two precious ge(r) ms
Presenting Junnu bhai and Nag bhai
The universal brothers of the world

The original post can be read at
http://rohini-scribble.blogspot.com/2007/12/universal-brothers.html

15,000 hits

Today I had 15,000th hit on my blog. It took 6 months to reach from 10,000 (in april) to 15,000

Saakappa september

September 2008 was a terrible month for me. A series of things happened, which were not asked for

- I left the car keys inside and had to wait for 4 hours to get duplicate key from home.
- The car front wind shield broke as a monkey threw a coconut on it. To get it fixed, I had to spend Rs 3000 from my pocket inspite of claiming insurance.
- My cousin's son dropped my Iphone and the front glass pane got cracked. Apple does not support the broken glass for a 2G Iphone.
- The cell Iphone got locked and I am still unable to unlock it.
- The side mirror from my car fell of somewhere on the road and I have to cough up Rs 4500 to get it replaced.
- Some jerk carved his name on my car. I hate the name 'Manju'
- Traffic Police caught me at the traffic signal for a wrong reason.
- Had a severe sprain in my knee and it hurts even after 2 weeks
- The external 500 GB hard disk I bought just 2 months ago is not powering up

Bel-Beligge Belegere

Fed up of the bak-bak by the RJ's, these days I have reduced listening to the private radio channels. Switch to the radio channels sponsored by VividBharati's akashvani and you will listen to the sweet-calm voice of the RJs. There are no SMS contests, no stupid quizzes, no idiotic jokes, but simple, to the subject compering. Many a times, the RJs give out good messages early in the morning which makes you think.
While listening to FM 101.3, I listened to the program called 'Bel-Beligge Belegere'. It is a program hosted by a noted writer and journalist Mr. Ravi Belagere.
This program is at 8.00 am every morning. He picks up day to day life examples and gives out food for thought. He talks about life, relationships, small happiness in life in a very simple way that everyone listening to him goes with the flow. If we follow many of the suggestion that he gives, which are very very simple and easy, we can avoid a lot of small fights in life.
Today he was talking about getting complements from the near and dear ones. These were things we knew but never gave much importance. He was mentioning that when we get compliments from the people close to us, it makes a lot more impact than the ones whom we don't know. If we start appreciating the small things in life (like appreciating the wife on her cooking or giving mom or dad a small compliment on the something they did at home), it motivates them to continue the good work.
If you read this article, then try to listen to this program sometime

This dude can dance

watch the entire video - it is awesome
It is an unbelievable dance performance



I think he Can Dance - Watch more free videos

http://www.break.com/index/i-think-he-can-dance.html

10,000 hits

Today, my blog completed 10,000 hits.

Intersting questions

1. What programming language is GOOGLE developed in?
2. What is the expansion of YAHOO?
3. What is the expansion of ADIDAS?
4. Expansion of Star as in Star TV Network?
5. What is expansion of "ICICI?"
6. What does "baker's dozen" signify?
7. The 1984-85 season. 2nd ODI between India and Pakistan at Sialkot - India 210/3 with
Vengsarkar 94*. Match abandoned. Why?
8. Who is the only man to have written the National Anthems for two different countries?
9. >From what four word expression does the word `goodbye` derive?
10. How was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu better known?
11. Name the only other country to have got independence on Aug 15th?
12. Why was James Bond Associated with the Number 007?
13. Who faced the first ball in the first ever One day match?
14. Which cricketer played for South Africa before it was banned from international
cricket and later represented Zimbabwe ?
15. The faces of which four Presidents are carved at Mt.Rushmore?
16. Which is the only country that is surrounded from all sides by only one country
(other than Vatican )?
17. Which is the only sport which is not allowed to play left handed?











Answers

1. Google is written in Asynchronous java-script and XML, or its acronym Ajax.
2. Yet Another Hierarchy of Officious Oracle
3. ADIDAS- All Day I Dream About Sports
4. Satellite Television Asian Region
5. Industrial credit and Investments Corporation of India
6. A baker’s dozen consists of 13 items - 1 more than the items in a normal dozen
7. That match was abandoned after ppl heard the news of indira gandhi being killed.
8. Rabindranath Tagore who wrote national anthem for two different countries one is our ’s National anthem and another one is for Bangladesh-(Amar Sonar Bangla)
9. Goodbye comes from the ex-pression: ‘god be with you’.
10. Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu is none other Mother Teresa.
11. South Korea.
12. Because 007 is the ISD code for Russia (or the USSR, as it was known during the cold war)
13. Geoffrey Boycott
14. John Traicos
15. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln
16. Lesotho surrounded from all sides by South Africa.
17. Polo.

why blame IT for traffic

Today, being Shivarathri, most of the Central Govt,State Govt offices along with a few other private offices are closed. Even Education institutes are closed. So, the working people in Bangalore today include the IT professionals and employees of other private firms. Today the traffic during the peak hour was minimal. It was lesser than the day when we had Auto strike in Bangalore.
People blame the IT industry which employs a lot of people to cause traffic jam. But thats not true. As seen today, the traffic was nearly 1/3rd of what it is every day. The only place where I saw traffic today was the Koramangala Inner ring where there are atleast 2 dozen software companies. In other places, traffic was very smooth. What I am trying to say is that the bulk of the traffic comes from Non-IT companies.

Beggars make Rs 500 a day in Bangalore

This morning, I read (In Indian Express) that beggars earn(??) Rs 500 a day in a city like Bangalore. Beggars in Bangalore make the highest money in India. Rs. 500 a day, sums up to Rs 15,000 a month and that is a huge Rs. 1.8 lakhs (tax free) a year.

I read another article which said that beggars in mumbai earn as much as Rs 180 crore annually.
Read the article on http://www.indianexpress.com/story/9154.html

Another article on rediff says that 1 out of 5 Indians can't spend Rs 12 a day!
Read more : http://in.rediff.com/news/2008/mar/10poor.htm

India is truly a land of diversity

Kirchoff's law

I have been receiving this mail for quite a few years. I thought of posting it on my blog as well.

Click on the image to enlarge

Save the Tiger

Less than 1500 tigers are left in india now and at the current rate of deforestation and poaching the day is not too far when the beautiful cat and all other wildlife will be extinct.
Please add your name and email to the "SAVE THE TIGER" Campaign started by NDTV-Sanctuary and do your bit for the tiger and the forests of india.
The tiger needs all the support it can get..Please forward it to all your friends for support.

Here's the link to support the campaign.
http://sanctuaryasia.com/save_the_tiger_campaign.php


For more details

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/savetiger/sthome.aspx

Buying mobile phone in Bangalore

Buying a mobile in Bangalore

In the last one week, I went out with friends and family to buy 2 different handsets. This is what I realized ...
The major players selling mobiles in Bangalore are Nokia priority dealer, ezone, Univercell, sangeetha, Mobile store etc. The guys at ezone are careless. They just don't pay attention to customers. I didn't like their attitude. I have had such expereince in two different ezone stores in Bangalore. On the contrary, you get very good experience at Univercell. Each customer is taken to a separate table, where a a reperesentative displays all the mobile phones from all the companies, and, explains and compares the features of each phone. If you are trying to decide on which model to buy, you can go to Univercell and they will help you identify the phone that fits your budget.

There are some places where all these different stores are located walkable distance from each other. So, what I did was to go to each of these shops and enquire the price of a particular model. What I did to get the best deal was get the quote from one guy, then go to the next one and say that the first guy was offering the same handset at Rs 100 or 200 less. Then this guy would quote the best deal he can offer. Take this price and go the third guy and get a further discount. What I realized was, by doing this, the price of a basic phone (under Rs 2500), the price could be reduced by Rs 200 and for a phone in the range of Rs 6000 to Rs. 10,000, the price could be brought down by Rs 400 - Rs. 500. One of the handset, we bought was Nokia 6300, which was quoted at Rs 7800 in the first shop, was finally purchased at Rs 7450.
Just 2 days after buying the phone, out of curiosity, I walked in to a Subhiksha store and en quire the prices. Subhiksha is a chain of retail stores, which advertises on TV that they give the best deal in the market. When I started enquiring the prices of the phones I had purchased, I realized that the price these guys quoted were less than the best deal that the other stores could offer (and that too without bargaining). The price of the basic phone was less by Rs 50/- and higher models had bigger discount. Nokia 6300 was costing Rs 7350/- which was Rs 100 less than the best deal we could get in the market (for which we had spent 2.5 hours for running from store to store for comparing and bargaining the rates).

From Subhiksha website
----
Call "60607777" for enquiries in Delhi & NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Baroda, Ludiana, Surrat, Jullundur Patlala, Ambala, Merut and many other towns.
----
Atleast till now, I feel that Subhiksha gives the best deal in Bangalore for buying a mobile. Checkout their price before you buy your handset. Use the price quoted by Subhiksha to get further discounts at the stores mentioned above.