diary of a traveler

          The quarterly alarm started ringing in my head from the beginning of September as 3 months had elapsed since my last tour of Goa & as per my personal new normal, a holiday was due. So after exploring all the suitable options, a package tour of Kerala offered by Yatra was booked.           The selection was done due to the variety of attractions available in the same trip - hill station of Munnar, Jungle safari at Thekkady, beach at Alleppey. This was my first experience of a package tour which was quite pleasant especially as all the daytime transportations were included - there was no night life to go for anyway. Day 1 - Kochi to Munnar                          About 100 km drive on narrow roads surrounded completely by trees takes you to Munnar from Kochi airport. As you get closer to Munnar, hills with tea plantations add to the beauty of the scenic ro...

                The trilogy that began with a Daman trip in the year 2019 - halted due to the Corona chapter in the year 2020 & achieved another milestone in 2021 with the Diu trip - was looking forward to its apt conclusion on the beaches of Goa & finally it did happen in the scorching hot month of May 2023. May 5, 2023             So, the month of May 2023 marked the much-awaited trip to Goa which turned out to be quite dull apart from the thrill of first flight of my life & first loss of bag at the ripe age of 43. Also, it was my first airport lounge access after years of having many cards with lounge access. The coffee was good but the flight timing was not right so once again there was no free lunch for me. The guest house booked for one day was quite close to the airport but to justify the taxi fare we took a longer route to reach there.           My one-day stay was in...

                 This little story is about the first marathon I took part in my life which actually turned out to be a walkathon of a sea of participants jamming the roads leaving no space to run at all & anyway I couldn't have finished it if it involved actual running for 5 kms. Nyay Mandir                The name of the category was Fun Run & it did complete justice to its name as nobody had any stress of the race at all & plenty of musical & dance groups were there to entertain us on the route. The collective excitement & spirit of hundreds of participants got me through the chilly winter morning without my jacket. The only pain point I faced was the parking which was at least 1 km away from the event ground & so the year 2023 began with a new walkathon record of 7 km for me. Mandvi Lal court