Thursday, June 26, 2008

Hectic Weekends

When I came to Singapore and for the past 7 months I was getting bored about the weekends as there was nothing much to do. Finally since I have been to India my weekends are so wonderful and busy that I dont really get time to sit near my system. The 2 weeks after I came from India I went to Vietnam. 2 weeks after my Vietnam trip, this weekend I am going to Phuket. 2 weeks after my Phuket trip I am planning to go to Kaulalampur. In between I may also go to Bangkok which is yet to be decided on the dates. Its really nice to travel so much. I am having a wonderful time for the past 1 month. Hope this continues.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Upcoming ...


Was just thinking as what's next for the next few days in my life. So thought I shall write this blog about my Upcoming events in next few days.

Trips to go:
Phuket, Thailand - This weekend.
Bangkok, Thailand - Tentatively next weekend.
Kaulalampur, Malaysia - Tentatively 2 weeks later.

Movies to Watch:
Dasavatharam.
Love Story 2050.
Ready.

@ Office:
Have to withdraw my PF from previous organizations.
Have to work on the reports.

@ Home:
Have to clean my room.
Have to adjust sleeping on bed.
Have to learn some cooking.

In Singapore:
Have to go to Bukit Gombak.
Have to go to Singapore GP.
Have to go to Night Safari.

These are some of the many things that came across my mind at this moment.

Perfect Bachelors Weekend

I am living the single life for 8 months now. I used to get amused thinking of people leading a bachelors life away from family. I heard of boozing, dancing, going out etc. Finally I had this perfect weekend in my singapore bachelors life. It inculded crate of beers, eating out, pub & disco, night out etc.

Saturday afternoon I, Nagaraj, Srinivas and Santosh went out for shopping as we heard of some discount sale. We did one of the biggest mistakes to go there with out seeing the * in the advertisement. We were disappointed. We had Turkish ice cream at Clarke Quay and came back home. On the way back we planned to booze. There was an offer going on in Fair Price, so we decided to go there and buy a crate of beer which was being sold for just 48SGD. It was really nice to see the fridge filled with so many beer cans.




We headed home and started taking those tins one after other from 6PM. We had some snacks along with beer. We sat and chatted for sometime and then thought of watching a movie and we decided on bommarillu and pokiri. It was at 9PM that we decided to go out and have some food. We went to the nearby food court and had some fried race and came back home and had some more beer. It was 11PM then we decided to go to Clarke Quay for disco.

At 12 midnight we were at Rupee Room pub in Clarke Quay. Took the entrance ticket and entered the pub. With each ticket we also got a drink free which we took Vodka with Sprite. We danced till 4 in the morning. Though we missed girls in the group but still we had a great time dancing to those hindi numbers. We came back home at 4.30 and thought of drinking some more beer but the beer was transformed to ice as we kept it in deep fridge.




We saw Dubai Seenu movie till morning 5.30 and then slept. We were 5 people there and we just had 2 beds available. So one slept on couch 2 on beds and 2 on the ground. Everybody was tired and slept till late in the morning. We started waking up one after other from 10AM to 12noon. We got ready and thought of going out for dinner as we were all very hungry.

We went to a Japanese restaurant. The food there was awesome. It was very spicy and the taste was also really good and it was healthy food. After the good meal we came back home and my friends wanted to finish the remaining beers. I was very tired and fell asleep while Nagaraj and Srinivas completed the crate. Even they slept for sometime after having beers. In the evening at around 7 we again went out for dinner and left to our respective houses.

It was a simple but great weekend.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Solo Traveller

How does it feel when you travel alone? I didnt knew it till this weekend. I planned a trip to Uncle Ho city with my roomie. I didnt really have any information about the city nor the country that I am going to visit. I was totally dependant on my roomie as he had some friends there. Last before the day we were supposed to travel he postponed the trip. As this was not the first time that this happened, I thought I shouldnt depend on anybody and took a bold plunge into the unknown world of solo travelling. When I planned the trip I assumed that I would be alone and took some tips from my friend who already visited the place. I thought it would be lots of hard work and pain to actually travel lonely. But once I reached there I felt I was wrong on all counts. I found out that traveling solo is very rewarding. There is a treasury of companionship out there.

On my second day in Uncle Ho city, I met a group of people who were from different countries with diversified cultures. They were all hardcore solo travellers. I learned a lot about travelling from them. I was there with no knowledge about the place. They were all so well prepared that I was totally shocked to see their knowledge abou the place and the surroundings. They gave me lot of tips about travelling.

The group was very interesting. There was a guy who quit his job and have been travelling for the past 1 and half year. Another guy was just a kid and was a high school passed out. He was about to go to University next year. One of the girl was a social worker from Holland. Infact she helped me bargaining the lonely planet vietnam book for me. She was in India for 6 months where she learned bargaining. There were over all 5 singaporeans, 2 Malaysians, 1 from USA, 1 from Holland, 1 from London, 1 from Germany and 1 from India and thats me.


We all shared our experiences in the previous tours and discussed about the next tours. Also discussed about the different cultures of their countries. Everybody was interested in India also. Similarly there were some real nice incidents that happened between us in the group. We finally had dinner and parted our ways by sharing the facebook IDs.

Some tips I got from them were:
1. Carry a Lonely planet book
2. Always stay in places where more independent travelers stay.
3. Try to Start Smart and a little organised.
4. Avoid Unwanted Attention by doing a flashy dressing.
5. Do Talk To Strangers, that is how you make friends
6. Wine & Dine Yourself
7. Avoid Romantic Destinations

So finally the statement of the day. It is better to BE alone than to wish you WERE alone.

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Away from my Camera

I came back to Singapore by leaving my DSLR. I thought I will not need it. But suddenly I planned to go to Vietnam this saturday i.e., 7th of June. Now I started thinking about the camera. Though I am planning to take my roommates camera, I miss my camera. Though I am not a great photographer, but once a you get a nice shot you will be on cloud 9. This is possible with DSLR but not with digital camera. Hope I will get my camera very soon.

Monday, June 02, 2008

My Piligrimage Trip to North India

Its been more than a week that I wanted to write about my trip and post some pics. The problem was that I didnt have time. I have been staying late at office to finish the last weeks work and the next weeks work. Anyways finally got sometime in office to start my trip details. I shall write about the trip on basis of each day rather than each location. That would give a clear idea about my trip. Here you go.

My First Experience at New Hyderabad Airport

I have loads and loads to write about my trip. So I guess the next 5 or 10 topics would be about my 10 day trip to India. Anyways this time I wanted to write about my first experience at our New Hyderabad Airport at Shamshabad, once again something named after Rajiv Gandhi and called as Rajiv Gandhi International Airport. I am weak in politics and dont really know what he has done to our state. But when ever there is something new built it has been named after Rajiv Gandhi in Congress Govt rule. Lets leave politics aside.

When I started from Singapore I knew I was going to land in the new airport this time. I was very excited and at the same time a bit nervous about the customs. I was carrying a DSLR and Handycam worth 1700SGD each. I packed my bags and started to Hyderabad on 16th May. Took the Singapore Airlines flight from Changi to Hyderabad. I had a nice time in flight as I was the only person in my 3 seat row. I always heard that if there was nobody in the row then we can relax my putting our legs on the seat. But I was a bit skeptical about that. After 30 mins people started doing this in the flight. So immediately even I did the same :).

I came to Hyderabad Airport by 1030PM. While landing I saw Hyderabad from top and it was simply superb. Previously I never got the window seat so couldnt really see this beauty of the city. While landing I was looking for the huge airport which was one huge thing and unlike anything you would have ever seen in India. I heard that current structure is supposed to be designed to handle 12 million passengers a year (current Hyderabad traffic is around 7 million passengers). When the whole airport is completely built it would be able to handle 40 million passengers a year, but that’s still quite a few years away.

I have landed and went for the immigration check looking at the lavish interiors. It was a huge steel structure. Just as I came out I the first thing I saw was the customs notified counter. This was something similar to what I have seen in Singapore. Then I realised that Singapore Airport also had 30% stake in this airport. As I was already carrying bottles so I didnt really wanted to go into the store.



This time the immigration check people were also friendly. At the security check the guy started scanning my hand bag in which I was carrying the cameras. He scanned them and wrote a slip about the cameras. I knew that this is the point where customs would come into picture. With that in mind I went to take my luggage. I saw some huge baggage claim areas and thought this was a stop to the long wait and long queues at the baggage counter. I always heard some complaints about the baggage being damaged in the check in. But after seeing this counter I thought things would have been handled smoothly. But to my horror and disgust both my luggage suitcases were damaged badly that I had to get 2 new bags while coming back.


After collecting the luggage while leaving out we have to give that slip given at the security check to a customs officer who would check if things are fine. Now things were not fine for me. He sent me to other officer who was sitting there smiling at me(thinking naya bakra mil gaya). This guy had a pan in his mouth and was in mid 50s who knew how to tackle guys like me.

Officer: What do you have in bag?
Me: DSLR and Camcorder

Officer: How much is the cost and show me the bills?
Me: 1700 dollars each( which was way high than what I was supposed to carry)

He started calculating something and said

Officer: Babu you are carrying goods worth more than 25000 rupees which is actually allowed. So you will have to pay 30% of the extra amount which comes to Rs. 26000.
I was shocked.
Me: Is there any other option. Why dont you pls think. These are my personal items and shall take them back while going.

Officer: You should read the site. You are allowed only goods worth 25000.
Me; Pls think again and tell me if there is anyother option.

He thinks a while and asks me
Officer: Ok gimme 10000
Again shocked do you really think that was an option. huh.
Me: Sir even that is not an option pls see if there is any other option with which I can get away.

THis time he doesnt think.
Officer: Ok babu. You leave your items here at the airport and while going I shall give them back to you.
huh. what?
Me: No no no how can I do that. I came for piligrimage trip and wanted to take the pictures. Anyways I said I had just 1000 rupees and 40SGD. So take that and sign it off.

He said OK for that. So finally I thought we never change and they never change and still we curse them for doing this.

After all this confusion and problems I went out and saw that my brother and cousins were waiting for me. I met them and told the story inside. Mean while I was just looking all over the airport and saw a huge parking lot available. I guess it would easily accomodate hundreds of cars. Then I asked my brother regarding how is the taxi system and all. The taxis are really good and they charge around Rs.15 per kilometer. That would be costly affair for the domestic travellers. Because the whole return ticket would cost around 5K and just the transfer from home-airport-home in taxi would cost around 1000 bucks. There is an alternative for this with the aero express bus which would cost just Rs.95 to some of the major destinations with in the city.

The major problem is the distance of the airport from the city. Currently it’ll take about 1 to 1.5 hours from Banjara Hills to reach the airport. The expressway is going to take ages to be ready. So if you’re planning day-trips to Hyderabad, think twice and plan when to start accordingly!!