I had 400 plus pictures from my recent trip (June, 2005) to Ladakh. Like a fool I saved them in ‘my pictures’ folder on C drive. Like a fool I did not write a CD and like a fool again I did not transfer them to the other system at my home from my laptop….
Writing for Gonomad
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…
Auli: Beautiful Hillstation in Uttaranchal, India
Auli is a picture postcard kind of a place situated in Uttarakhand, India. I went there in the August of 2002, just after submitting my Ph.D. thesis and just before starting my first job that turned out to be an absolute horror. Rainy season, that is July and August are the worst time to visit…
A Most Unusual Walk through Amsterdam’s Red Light District
I traveled to Amsterdam from New Delhi in the summer of 2002. Almost all my foreign trips have been in relation to some academic work. This particular visit was sponsored by the Department of Economics, University of Groningen, as I was appearing in an interview there. Amsterdam, actually, was less of a travel destination and…
Malls Malls Everywhere Not a Library to be Seen!
The Mall Culture is comparatively new in India. When I was in college there were no malls in most of the cities. Today, the big cities boast of one too many. On a 2 km stretch of a road in Gurgaon (quite close to New Delhi) you can count four malls. There is the Metropolitan…
Manali, Himanchal Pradesh: Beautiful but Crowd and Litter Everywhere!
Manali is a picturesque small town in the Kullu Valley, in the Indian state of Himanchal Pradesh. It attracts a lot of Indian and foreign tourists, particularly in the summer months. I visited Manali in June 2005 because it is on the way to Ladakh. When rest of the India is buckling under heat wave,…
Rajaji National Park: An Excellent Weekend Getaway from New Delhi
Rajaji National Park is a wild life reserve in Uttaranchal, India. It falls in the lower Shivalik regions of the Himalayas. It is a peaceful and a quick getaway from the capital of India, New Delhi. We traveled from Delhi to Haridwar in February this year . The name Haridwar will translate roughly as ‘the…
Renuka Lake, Himanchal Pradesh, is a Beauty
Image Credit Fred Hsu Flickr under CCBY I would say that Himanchal Pradesh (HP) is one of the best-kept secrets of India. Parts of it are so beautiful and yet not visited by many. Renuka Lake is situated in HP and is one of such places. Tourism has developed around a natural lake called Renuka…
Shopping in Leh, India
When I visited Leh in June, 2005 the primary reason was to trek. It could not be as I developed a bad stomach after a few days. We suddenly found a lot of time to spend in the city, and it was not in our original plan. So, we ended by shopping in Leh. The…
Goa in December with a Difference
Along with my husband and two nephews, I trekked in Goa, in the month of December through YHAI. The photo is of the Devil’s Canyon and it is from an era when I did not have a digital camera. Goa is a fabulous place but gets too crowded for words in December. But by trekking,…