Love All... especially the lady guards.......

Since I have reached a age where I have accumulated so much of experience, that I tend to start sentences with 'When I was young, it was......'. So today too am starting with a unnecessary flash back to relate few things which happened couple of days ago. So here it goes....

When I was young, I used to play tennis a lot....erm...if you could call that as tennis. Racquets made of wooden pieces and a piece of thread serving as net and a ground so uneven that there was no need to spin the ball honed my tennis skills. Of course watching the matches on door darshan and arguing with friends on who is better was another past time.Couple of my friends(who are brother actually) were fans of Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg respectively. Whenever Becker and Edberg met in finals of a championship (which they did...), my friends provided great source of entertainment by fighting so intensely that the intensity of the players on the court paled in comparison.

And of course there were the terminologies Love All, Love -30, Love-40 -- were a great source for giggling. As I grew up, I understood the game and started following the careers of the players Sampras, Steffi Graf, Monica Seles, Andre Agassi and others. And as I became wiser, I understood the nuances of the game ...err....especially the ladies matches...he he he....

Wimbledon has always been a fascinating tournament... the traditions, white dress code, royalty has made it a tournament which has still stuck to its roots. I have always liked the telecast of Wimbledon on TV. Apart from the matches, the documentaries or the old archive footage of the championships which were shown when it rained (rain being the integral part of a successful Wimbledon) were good.

As luck would have it, I landed here in the UK, just in time for the tournament and last weekend I made my exodus to Wimbledon to the hallowed turfs of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club to watch this year's championships. To enjoy the complete experience of Wimbledon, one must camp out the previous night in the queue to get tickets for next day's play. It has been the tradition and me coming from a very traditional family didn't want to break any traditions during my pilgrimage to the temple of tennis. So I left office on friday evening along with few like minded friends and reached the Wimbledon Park, where people form the queue.

The park is about a kilometre and half from the stadium. As we entered the park, we noticed that people had already formed the queue and pegged their tents. We too joined the queue and were handed queue cards, which is basically a number showing your position in the queue. Based on the number you get, one can get entrance to the centre or the court numbers one or two. We were as usual late and were saddled with numbers which would not have given us entry ti the main courts. And as we did not have any tents, we weaseled or way in to a tent of one of our other friends and settled for the wait till next morning.

The weather was very good for a British summer day with no hint of rains at all. And people around us were in the mood. They had set the tents and were very much enjoying the atmosphere with ample assistance from the various beverages of the alcoholic kind. As the day came to an end, the enthusiasm of the crowd became directly proportional with the amount of the spirits consumed. Our friends too, not to be left behind launched themselves in to the middle of the happenings with abandon.

We met a couple of interesting characters . A couple from New Zealand who in their highly 'spirited' state took sympathy on us - a bunch of guys- and went upon a mission to find us some girls. They scoured the length and the breadth of the park and came back with the locations of girls. They were kind enough and offered to accompany us to them and help us get acquainted with the girls. Though the offer seemed exciting, we had to politely decline it as it was time for us kids to go to bed and we snuggled in to the tents and attempted to sleep with the uneven floor below us and the cacophony of the revelers outside and the snoring of a friend (who complained that he would not be able to sleep even for second with all the noise outside and promptly fell asleep within a minute) inside the tent. I spent the night equally distributing my time between finding a comfortable position in which all parts of my body felt the same kind of pain due to the floor and listening to the babble of folks outside.

The next morning we packed our tents and stood in the line to start our walk towards the stadium. And for once luck seemed to favour me and we got the tags to court number 1.the walk to the stadium took couple of hours and after a elaborate security check we reached the ticket counter. After seeing the amount I had to pay, I doubted whether getting entry to court number 1 was good luck or not. I had to pay as much as my day's allowance I get here !.

The stadium is pretty awesome. With the centre court and 19 other courts spread all over, its a place to visit for any tennis fan. Though I had visited it when I had been to UK last time, its completely different when the tournament is underway. Spectators thronging the courts, waiting for the players to show up with autograph books in their hands. Food stalls with the traditional Strawberries and cream and the official drinks Pimms No 1. The shops selling ridiculously priced merchandises.

We strolled around the stadium taking in the sights. One other major attraction at the stadium is the Henmen Hill which a small hill in front of which a giant screen telecasts the matches being played on all the courts. People sit on the hill drinking, eating watch the matches. And its a sight to behold with thousands of people staring at the screen and erupting whenever their favorite player wins a point.

Summer in Britain this year has been an unusual one. With no rains and temperatures reaching 31 degrees, people are complaining of the oppressive heat. This is also affecting the way they dress. To paraphrase a popular saying 'hemlines do rise with the rise in temperatures', and Wimbledon offer ample proof to it. We had tough time in deciding what to look at, the matches or the haute couture of the ladies.

The security in the stadium was pretty good. There were male and female security guards all over keeping an eye on things. And I believe the criteria for selecting the female security guards was to find the most prettiest girls and deck them with guards uniform. All the female guards I saw were more suited to walk on a ramp rather than stop a trouble maker. I guess the rationale behind it was the ruffians intending to cause ruckus would be spell bound by seeing these guards, that they will forget what they came to do. At least I forgot to close my mouth after seeing a couple of female guards.

Another attraction was the promotional stall of HSBC where 3 nubile things in short skirts were clicking pics of people holding a racquet in front of a blue screen. Then their photos would be morphed with a tennis court back ground and copies were given out to the people. Initially we thought that they are charging money for it and decided 'who wants such fake photos?, only foolish tourists would go for it' . But when asked we were told its free and we too stood in the queue. I posed as if I am waiting to receive a serve. After sometime we went to collect the photos expecting pictures which showed us as real tennis players. But talk about anticlimax. One of my friend looked more like a police constable chasing the lovers out of park with his lathi. Another looked like he is swatting a fly rather than playing a tennis shot. One more was doing a dance move and I looked like a moron who was standing to receive the serve facing the audience with the court behind me.

There were also other freebies being distributed around ranging from free sunscreen lotion application by girls(which some of my friends went for many times) to free distribution of things useful to ladies (one of the guys went to get that too, but was politely told that it wasn't for men).

Then we partook the traditional dishes of Wimbledon, strawberries and cream and not to forget Pimms No 1, which is the official drink. Having heard a lot about it, I was keen to taste it, but its price made me think twice. For that price I could have bought a crate of drinks outside. Then I hit upon a idea which only a true Indian can think of... Ask the girl at the bar to serve a 'one by two' (or cutting in bambaiyya slang) Pimms. The way she looked at us when we said her to split a drink in to two was worth looking at. She asked us to confirm our age !(thinking that we are a couple of underage kids trying to get a alcoholic drink). Once she was satisfied that we were adults albeit a bit mental, she served us the drink. It tasted good with a hint of spices and citrus fruits and did not taste anything like alcohol (not that I am an experienced hand in that area). No after effects too..err.....seeing two balls being hit by the players on the court was more due to the heat.... I think.....

And as the sun set at the stadium, we set off towards home carrying with us some incredible experience and thinking why we too cant have beautiful girls as security guards in India for sports tournaments.....

Here are some pics which highlights our day at the Wimbledon.

Don't ask me what to do with 2 men and a van. They are available and its left to your imagination

Our tent... 5 of us spent the night inside it in various positions (sleeping I meant)

Inspired by another blogger who is on a mission to introduce people to the various urinals and paintings in them across the world, here is one which asked you to aim at the painting of the ball. I startled all other men in the toilet with my flash photography and fortunately no body took me for a pervert and kicked me out.


As the pic itself says, that's it...enough of wasting time reading this.... do your work

PS: I seem to have forgotten to write something..... blame my age.... aah yes...we watched a few tennis matches too.... they were good.

Travelouge of a tired techie......

A vacation is what you take when you can no longer take what you've been taking.

~Earl Wilson

For the past few blog posts I have been ranting about managers, leading and related topics. I thought it would be better to refrain from writing further lest my manager should chance upon these posts (the probability of that happening is as remote as apart from excel sheets, I don’t see him reading anything else ..........) and cause more trouble for me than I am already in. So here I will recount my experiences of the trip I made last weekend.

After an intense negotiation for a day's leave, we decided to leave on Friday night.
Imagine my plight when I am asking for a day’s leave to go on a trip and I do not know where I am going! Yep we had not decided where to go. The driver had arrived with the vehicle and we were still arguing about the places. After much indecision the only thing we decided was to get in to the vehicle and start. The general opinion was to travel and stop where ever you found something interesting.

The first destination was Jog Falls. The world famous waterfalls, though was on the lighter side in terms of water volume, is breath taking. Photographers surround you offering to click a snap of you with the falls in the back round and deliver he photo in 5 minutes. I thought that these guys use Polaroid cameras to take pictures. But no, they use digital cameras and get the print out for you in minutes. Even if the water falls is not in its full glory, they morph the photo to show us standing in front of one which is roaring down.
They don’t stop at that. They carry the pics of actors and actresses and can morph our pictures with any of these. A salivating old man clutching the shoulders of a pretty young actress in front of the water fall!!!. Well that’s digital revolution for you....

Our next stop was Yaana. The two gigantic volcanic rock formations leave you with wonder. Located in the midst of jungle, it offers a good trekking opportunity. The huge cave in one of the rock formation is magnificent and makes one think about the natural forces which formed these. An excellent place to visit if you are not squeamish to walk on the bat guano dropped by horde of bats residing inside he cave and not to mention wild bees which is sure to attack you if you make too much noise.

Vibhuthi falls is nearby Yaana again hidden in the jungle. Have to walk about a kilometer and half to it. As promised to our elders before leaving, we did not touch the water, but directly plunged in to it. After splashing around for quite some time and some of us donating our blood to the leeches we turned our vehicle towards Murudeshwara.

Murudeshwara is a holy place located beside a beach. It looks more like a tourist spot with all the resorts, hotels and bars all around the place. Mythological,it plays a part in the story of Ravana's quest for 'Atma Linga' and subsequent trickery of the Gods to thwart him. Sometimes I wonder, was Ravana (who was a highly learned scholar, musician and a warrior) a cruel despot as he is projected to be or was it the negative propaganda of the Gods?. Here is one theory.

Nevertheless, with a magnificent statue of Shiva and a huge temple tower facing the beach, the place is definitely worth visiting. Finding room to stay was a bit of an adventure. One place we went informed us that all rooms were booked and after looking at me and my friend for few seconds, the receptionist asked if we will be interested in a A/C suite, as if we are a couple on our honeymoon. And any thoughts of us acting like one to get the room left as soon as he mentioned that it costs 4500 bucks a night.
After some search we spent the night in a room with a latch less bathroom door.

Next day, visited the temple, the giant Shiva statue which had a beautifully built montage of how Ravana got tricked and after spending some time in the beach we turned our vehicle towards Kudremukh.

On the way we stopped at one more falls called 'Hanumanagundi Falls', which again is situated inside forest and one has to climb down a hill to reach it. Again a beautiful waterfall and after doing exactly what we were forbidden to do, we continued in our path.

Lakhya dam is a pollution control dam built for the Kudremukh Iron Ore Industry. One has to see it to enjoy it. No words can describe them. Located in between green hills, the vast dam is magnificent. It also made me think, why people instead of visiting these places, clamor to go abroad and talk about the natural beauty there.

By the time we reached Kalasa, we were so hungry that (Did I mention that we had eaten nothing since morning and it was night), we stopped at the first hotel and rushed in.
After an hour of extreme gluttony, causing the waiter who served us a mental breakdown just by eating almost a week's worth of provisions, we emerged out with a look of content on our face. Finding a room to stay was surprisingly easy and we got much better room at half the price of what we paid in Murudeshwara.

Then we set about to explore the town on foot. Its a small town which has retained a old world charm. People are friendly, go out of their way to help and they talk a lot. We entered a shop just to have a drink (ok, it was just butter milk, but writing it as 'a drink' makes it sound better), the shop owner sensing that we are tourists started talking. From the quality of the coffee powder that he sold to the miracles of the local God, nothing was spared. Upon his suggestion, we then decided to go to Horanadu temple, where the main puja was scheduled to happen in next half an hour. We got in to our vehicle and just as it moved a few hundred meters, we realized that one of the tyre is flat. As we got down and trying to change to spare tyre, people started to come over and ask , guess what?.. 'Was the tyre Punctured?' !!. 'No, we get the kicks by changing tyres in the middle of the road'...Ok, we did not say that, cause these people were helpful and enabled us to find a mechanic as all the shops were closed. After changing in to spare tyre, we went back to our rooms and settled down for the night.

Got up quite early to the sounds of the grinder and aroma of the food from the hotel next door. A short trek to an observation point, from where the view was supposed to be spectacular had been highly recommended to us the previous day. So we set off and after sometime realized that we do not know the way. One of us started asking people on the road, the way to the sunset point. The look on their face spoke volumes. "Who are these morons, early in the morning asking for sunset point?". Nevertheless, they pointed us towards the right way and when we reached the point, the view was truly spectacular. We were so high that there were clouds below us and surrounded by hills all around. After a customary photo sessions where we posed our ugly mugs in front of the scenery, we headed back.

We paid our obeisance to the local God 'Kalaseshwara'. Breakfast, again was a repeat of the previous night. The waiter who served us the night before ran away as he sighted us and another poor blighter came over to us. After polishing off a week's worth of food again and sending another waiter to his doom we climbed our vehicle.

Amba Theertha is a place where the flow of water has bored holes through rocks creating formations in them. Its a treacherous place where the water current is high with whirl pools and pretty dangerous. A number of warning signs have been put up, informing people not to get in to water. As is our wont we ignored them and spent quite sometime jumping on the rocks, sailing paper boats, in general acting like the kids we are...

After a pretty long drive, we reached Chickamagalur. Mullayanagiri is the highest peak in Karnataka. You have to drive through hairpin curves with a steep fall at one side to reach the bas of the hill. In rainy seasons, land slides and fog makes the drive that much dangerous. To reach summit, you have to trek for about half an hour. The peak offers a great view of the surrounding hills that is if they are not covered by fog and clouds.

The travel back to home was littered with a flat tyre again and eating at a hotel, where I suspect the waiters had heard about our earlier gastronomical exploits in Kalasa and were determined to close for the day as quickly as possible lest we eat everything in sight, including them....

As always returning back was painful, to leave behind the calm and pristine nature and get back to the polluted city, hectic work and managers.... Somebody has rightly said 'No vacation goes unpunished'.....

ನಾಡಿನ ಪ್ರಾಣಿಗಳು ಕಾಡಿನಲ್ಲಿ .......

Last weekend decided to leave all behind and head towards the jungles to get some well deserved rest, reach to my inner self to answer some of the burning questions that tormented my soul (why did I watch Race?)

So me and my friends drove (they did the driving of course, not me...If I drive we will reach only one destination and most of us were not ready to reach there yet) to Bandipur, Beligiri Rangana hills . With my cousin being kind enough to make some arrangements for our stay and sight seeing, we looked forward for 2 days of pleasant fun.

Our first stop was Gundlupet where we had our guest house rooms booked. From here we headed to Gopalswamy hills. The road from Gundlupet to the hills has been declared as a national monument by the Archaeological Survey of India, so all vehicles were avoiding the road and moving along the sides so as to not to disturb the ancient road way, which I believe was constructed during the reign of kings and has never been repaired since then.

Once we reached the hill, we did the most important hing to do. Yes, check our mobiles for the signals (yeah I know I said, I wanted to get away from everything, but who knows a sweet young thing may decide to call me ...). After a few choice words for the mobile service providers for the lack of signal (in fact one of my friend's service provider was informing him that he was in Tamilnadu and wishing him a pleasant stay there and my other friend was supposedly in Kerala. All the time we were standing in Karnataka. Note to self--send Kannada activists to the offices of these mobile companies)

The temple is pretty old and the priest there informed us of the history and importance of the Deity. He also mentioned about the huge rock somewhere in the hill which supposedly helped childless people to conceive. He did not go in to the technicalities of how it helped. But while driving back we saw this rock. It was huge and there was lot of space behind it and the place was devoid of any human presence. So it wasn't hard to imagine how the rock helped, if you know what I am saying...

The view from the top of the hill was pretty good and yes we had the obligatory photo sessions.

Next was the safari in Bandipur. As we waited for our bus for the safari to come in, I saw a lots of tourists waiting with us. Most of them were busily clicking pics of monkeys, which as is their nature were busy scratching their unmentionables. At last when the bus came in there was a mad rush to get in to the bus, with people pushing each other. The bus driver had to shout at them and tell them that the tickets had seat numbers in them and there is no need for this mad scramble. Well at least I gotta see quite a few 'wild' animals even before the safari started.

The bus started and took us in to the forest. Everyone were eager to see what the jungle offered them. But the noise they made was loud enough to scare away the animals and the driver had to shout at us once more to keep quiet. We saw a few animals on the way like deers, bisons, wild boar, stags, peacocks and not to mention a cock which was looking for some adventure out in the jungle and was making pass at a peacock (either it was too drunk to notice that it was a peacock or preferred it that way).

But there was no satisfying the people in the bus. The bison was not near enough, the deers did not pose, the peacock did not fan its feathers (I wonder if humans had a highly elongated upper tail coverts jutting out of their bottoms, whether they would be inclined to show it off to others). Some people concluded that the best place to see wild animals is in a zoo.

By the end of the of the safari, I was left wondering whether this trip was for us humans to see animals in their natural habitat or was it for the animals to take a close look at humans and be wary of us. If it was the latter, then no doubt we succeeded in it by our shenanigans .

We decided to call it a day (why do we call it a day, when in fact its night baffles me) and after a good dinner at a local mess, we retired to our rooms. It was quite early and devoid of TV, computer I was confused as to what to do. It was a weird experience where you had to just sit and talk with friends. We couldn't do it for long and submitted ourselves to sleep and became mosquito fodder.

Next day we started early and after a brief stopover at my cousin's place for a wonderful breakfast, we drove to Beligiri Rangana hills (henceforth known as BR hills). It again is part of conserved forest area and we can get in to the area after 6 Am and before 6 Pm. The road to the hill is winding and narrow and after a close encounter with a state transport bus we reached the top and made our way to the Ranganatha temple. After paying our respects and seeking blessings, our guide took us behind the temple and through a fence to a rocky outcrop from where the whole forest spread across below us. It offered a beautiful view of the whole area and was quite dangerous too as there was nothing to stop us from hurling ourselves down except for the fear of dying.

Our rooms were in the guest house at the top of the hill and when we reached there we were informed that our rooms were not ready yet. Next we visited the ashram of Swami Nirmalananda. A nice and quiet place with lots for trees and plants . Behind the ashram was another treacherous rock jutting out in to the forest and we had to climb on to it to get ourselves clicked. again the forest below us was breathtaking and a slip would really have taken our breath literally.

After a satisfying lunch at a restaurant we reached the guest house where our 'VIP' room was waiting for us. A short nap later, we were ready again for a safari through the adjoining forests, only to be disappointed by the forest officer who informed that he could not arrange it and would be possible to do it only the next day. We then decided to roam around the place and our roaming led us to a view point which offered a spectacular view of sunset and the forests. We spent the rest of the day sitting there looking at the setting sun and talking. It was a good experience. Our conversation ranged from in depth critical evaluation of the latest movies we saw to the profound philosophical questions (why till now girls haven't fallen for me?)which has plagued mankind. We also came up with a script for a horror movie, which we plan to produce and direct in the near future.

The sun disappeared at the horizon and the sounds of the forests became louder and a light breeze blowing. It was a perfect moment to lose yourself in. But as everything in my life, this moment was shattered by a watchman who told us to vacate lest we terrify some wild animals which come out at night. As we made our way back to our room, we were struck by the clear night sky. It had been ages since I saw so many stars and my knowledge of astronomy begged to come out. We spent some time staring at the sky and pointing out at stars, constellations, identifying them and creating our own on the way. The local people no doubt had a good laugh looking at four of us staring at the sky and shouting.

An early night again and the next morning started with I must say with quite a bit of trepidation. The in charge of the guest house was an expert in human physiology and had come to a conclusion that there would not be any use of water to us during the night. He had turned the water mains off and our morning was a mixture of cursing the in charge, stomping around the room. All I can say is I would not want to repeat that experience again. So lets move along.

The forest official came along with his vehicle and raised our hopes by announcing that there was no hope of seeing any wild animals at this time and we should have gone a lot earlier. As we moved along the forest we did see a wild squirrel, bisons, stags, deers. But the drive it self was akin to a roller coaster ride with our driver imagining himself driving on a 6 lane highway whereas in fact the road (if you could call it one) was a stretch of mud winding in and out of the forest.

With our short vacation nearing an end, we started back towards home. On the way back, we stopped at Shivanasamudra. The water falls is quite good and would have been spectacular when the river is full. We chose to look at the bigger picture and ignore the fact that people have used the place as a waste bin and dumped all kind of rubbish in there. Our next hop was to Talakad which is a place covered with sand. It has been excavated and quite a few temples have been unearthed.

As we approached Bangalore and its traffic, I was wondering staying back in that ashram would not have been a bad idea after all....Also I watched race just to ogle at Katrina....

Dove posso trovare il bagno....Scusami!.....Mi sono perso.....Arrivederci!

After a 3 hour journey in Euro star (the train in fact was very good considering the fact that we were travelling 2nd class) we arrived at Venezia , "City of Water", "City of Bridges", and "The City of Light".

The city is full of small canals and narrow alleyways and its very easy to get lost. We did not need any further invitation and did the most obvious thing, got lost on our way to hotel. After some panicky moments, we found the correct way and landed at our 4 * hotel, which I must say was quite impressive. We even had a bell boy to take our luggage to our rooms (in Rome and Florence, we were handed just the keys of our rooms and told where to go). That goes to prove you get what you pay for and we had paid a lot for our rooms in Venice.

Venice is an intriguing city. The only methods of transportation are walking or boats. The local transport system consists of water buses and there are private water taxis. Even the municipal and police vehicles are boats.

We walked through the narrow alleyways crossed innumerable small bridges (getting lost goes without saying) and arrived at Ponte di Rialto , which is one of the three and most famous bridges across the grand canal .

The bridge is beautiful and is a major tourist hot spot, it offers a very good view of the Grand canal. The atmosphere and the crowd around made me realise why Venice is known as a romantic city (couples snogging while standing on the bridge made me realise that Venice had other effects too if you know what I mean).

Then we walked along the grand canal and reached Piazza San Marco which is a big square with St Marks Basilica at one end. At night the whole square is lit up and is a sight to see. Whatever I saw of the St Mark's Basilica in the twilight impressed me a lot.

We then took a water bus to another bridge across the grand canal, the Ponte dell'Accademia or the Academia Bridge. There were some stores across this bridge which sold amazing paintings and artifacts. The masks for which Venice is so famous were beautiful. But unfortunately they were closed due to Christmas (not that I would have bought them if the stores were open. But it gives me a valid excuse when somebody asks me what did I buy in Venice..'Nothing as the stores were closed, you know') .

Roaming the streets of Venice was a great experience. We also visited some smaller churches. But again the statues and paintings in those churches too were very good.After a dinner of pasta (what else) with mushroom (which by the way had more mushroom and some strands of pasta and should have named mushrooms with pasta dressing) we retired for the day (Imagine staying at the most romantic city and sleeping at 9 PM !!. The woes of being single) .

Next day, the sun was shining (at last) and we made our way to St Marks Basilica. The Basilica is again a testimonial to the art and artists of the bygone era. The paintings on the ceilings, the artifacts in the treasury speaks volume.

Another attraction at the square is the pigeons. The pigeons are so used to tourists that they don't shy away and practically pose for photos and not to mention the fact that they have become so fat eating what the tourists feed them, probably they have forgotten finding food on their own. Feeding the pigeons and getting photographed while they climb over your hands and head, pooping all over you seemed to be great hit with the tourists.

Next we climbed the bell tower of the basilica and at the top, we were treated to a splendid view of Venice.


Gondola ride through the canals of Venice was awesome. With the driver (I don't know what to call him) of the gondola describing the major landmarks as we passed by them, it was an experience to remember. Another famous bridge is the 'bridge of sighs' which connected the old prison with court house (hence the name, as prisoners were either heaving a sigh of relief or despair depending on whether the the court acquitted you or other wise).One more major historical fact is that Casanova (remember him?.. the womaniser...whom all men strive to become..but more often than not act to be..) was the only prisoner ever to escape from one of the most secure prison of that time in Venice (don't know why he escaped, he would have been better off inside, as all the women whom he seduced would have been waiting for him outside...what a terrifying thought !). The driver mentioned as a matter of fact that at some places the canals are 50 metres deep, which made me remember that I do not know swimming.

As the afternoon wore on, our stay at Italy was coming to an end. After a final lunch of uh...er... pasta we headed towards the last of the three bridges across the grand canal, Ponte degli Scalzi or 'the bridge of the barefoot'. The sun was setting and reminding us the end of 5 wonderful days of exploring a beautiful albeit ancient country (for a moment lets forget all those misadventures, gaffes and pasta & pizza ok.. ). It was a great trip.

We made our way to the airport at Treviso and after a wait of 3 hours boarded our flight back to London. Stansted airport greeted us with this......

I'll leave you people to interpret the photo......

PS: 'The Chronicles of an Intrepid Traveller' ends here. But don't heave a sigh of relief. I will be back with more stuff which is liable to cause permanent brain damage.

One more day of oohhs and aahs !!

The flourishing city is about an hour and half from Pisa. We hopped down from the train, located our hotel (only after the traditional getting lost ritual). The rooms were much better that those in Rome. After a bit of freshening up, we set out to explore the city.



Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, also known as the Duomo is the most beautiful church I have seen till now. You have to see the intricate work on the exterior to admire the builder's art. The Duomo along with its bell tower makes an impressive sight.
Since it was already evening when we came to Duomo, we decided to visit again the next morning.

As you might have guessed that we are not the kind who learn from our previous mistakes. To prove this we again decided to board a local transport bus to go to a happening shopping place of Florence.

The board at the bus stop showed that our destination is two stops away. So as soon as the bus stopped at the second stop we hopped down only to see a dark place with no lights and no sign of people. It turned out that the boards at the bus stops display only the major stops on the way and not all stops. With choice words for the Italian transportation system, we waited for another bus to turn up and with our trademark hand gestures, asked the driver to drop us off at the intended destination.

Once we alighted at the place,we seriously got down to the business at hand i.e, peer through the shop windows and look at the display cases. There were a lot of amazing things to be bought and we spent about an hour looking at things which were out of my reach metaphorically.

Then we decided to visit the Piazzale Michelangelo

We walked along the bank of river Arno which flows in the middle of Florence. The bank has a whole lot of buildings on one side and formed a pretty picture in the night. We walked along clicking photos and exclaiming ooh!, aahs! looking at the photo. (This is something which I don't understand.People rather than experience what they are seeing, take much pains to capture it in to a tiny photograph and admire the photograph. The same goes for the videos too. In the process to getting everything in a photo, we fail to enjoy what we are seeing through eyes. That's why I leave all the photographing to my friends and enjoy the view while my friends bend in awkward angles to get the picture right. Also not owning a camera helps...)

We climbed over a hill and arrived at the Piazzale breathless (reminder to self: check your physical condition, before you turn in to a slob). The Piazzale is a big squear on the top of a hill. Its dedicated to Michelangelo (who along with Leonardo Da Vinci heads my list of people who created masterpieces as they had nothing better to do). There is a replica of David (the most famous sculpture of Michelangelo, which at the end of the day is just a statue of a naked man standing tall and not shy about it. Well that's art for you.Abstract, aloof and sometimes absurd). The Piazzale offers a great view of the city below and we saw most of the major landmarks of the city from up there.

We then took a bus down (it was easy this time as our destination was the last stop on the route). Then we began our hunt for food.We were not expecting to find pav-bhaji or Masala Dose. But hoped for a decent food which doesn't involve Pizza or Pasta in its name. We began checking out the menus on display out side the restaurants and it turned out that the restaurants did not offer what we needed and we did not need what the restaurants offered.

We were standing in front of a restaurant deriding the menu and the food of Italy in general when the waitress of the restaurant opened the door to call us in. One look and I started to enter the joint right away (It was the closest I came to being hit by a 'thunderbolt' in Italy) .

My friends called out from back (they had not seen the waitress yet)

'hey !...this joint offers only pasta and pizzas'

I responded back 'That's ok' (still following the waitress)

My friends 'But you are fed up of pasta and pizza' (They still had not seen the waitress)
I replied 'No, they are the greatest food in world'

By this time, my friends too had seen the cute waitress and came to unanimous decision that there is nothing better than a pizza or pasta and came in with sheepish grin on their faces.

The tables for some reason had table clothes with a cartoon of two kids learning the basic fact of life (picture on the left)(From what I saw the girl kid was taking the new information philosophically, but the boy had this look of bewilderment on his face and . But you might say nothing new there..).All I can say is it was a wonderful evening. We had a great time. The waitress was charming (no wonder a certain someone fell for an Italian waitress and the rest as you all know is history). We even got a photo with her (when we asked her to pose with us for a photo, she came back with a bit of make up and all eager to pose. But my friend in all his infinite wisdom ordered her to get a bottle of water. The look on her face was like 'what are these morons up to?. They tell me to pose for a photo and then when I am ready they tell me to get water'). And by the way we had some food too (same old pasta...but it tasted great if you know what I mean). The waitress had the last laugh when she presented the bill and saw the look on our face (have you ever heard of 'Cover Charge' ?..not me until now).

After bidding good bye to our friend at the restaurant we called it a day (but it was night actually...English is a very phunny language you see).

The next day (Christmas day) we ventured out of our hotel only find deserted streets populated only by over excited tourists. If the Duomo was impressive at night, during day it was spectacular. The carvings on marble has to be seen to be believed. Then we visited the Piazza della Signoria which is in front of Palazzo Vecchio. This square has some amazing statues like the 'Fountain of Neptune' , Judith and Holofernes,Perseus with the head of Medusa, Hercules and the centaur and various other masterpieces. From all these statues, I infer that the ancient Romans and Greeks were not too keen in dressing up decently or the sculptors of these statues were dirty old men with perverse taste. The line between art and porn is ever so thin.

As we were running out of time, we bid goodbye to one of the beautiful cities and then climbed on a train to pay a visit to the ..'Queen of the Adriatic'

PS: The chronicles of an Intrepid Traveller will continue (I am sure you are sick of it by this time, but as any self respecting tourist would do, its my duty to bore you with my misadventures)

Of Pisa, pizzas, pasta, people and pets

Continuing from where I left off...

We left Rome behind us and took a train to Pisa. The train journey was for about 3 hours. Pisa is a small city. One can walk from one end to the other in 30 minutes. We met an old gentleman outside rail station, who informed that he had been to India and he loved the place, Mumbai, Goa, Delhi, Rotis. He loved them all and he also mentioned that he liked Soniaji too.

Bidding good bye to him we started to walk towards the most famous tower in the world. As we were on the way, I started thinking about Italians. Italians are a bit similar to us Indians. They are emotional and like to express their feelings instantly (not like the Brits, who always go around with sober expressions). I encountered a Italian in a loo, who right after coming out from the toilet, started to talk passionately about his bowel movements with me accompanied by wild hand gestures (it was in Italian and one doesn't talk about the effect of banana crop failure in Jamaica on the per capita income of Italy standing in loo). I too with my hand gestures conveyed back that I do not know Italian, but I completely agree with his views (you have to think twice before contradicting anyone in Italy, remember Godfather eh....). Nevertheless Italians are great people.

Its not just the people, animals too believe in free expression. I see dog owners getting their dogs to walk. As soon as one dog sees another, it leaps up in joy and starts a serious conversation with its mate in canine language. They get so excited that the owners would have to struggle to keep them in control. The dogs then proceed to introduce the owners to each other and then all four start to discuss matters of great national importance or bowel movements. I don't know cause I don't understand Italian or barking for that matter.

With these thoughts in my mind, I walked to see the tower and what a tower it is !!...It stands (leans more precisely) tall and is a great structure. Even if it did not have this tendency to surrender to gravity, it would have been a great tower standing tall and straight. The architecture again is too good.

As usual tourists from all over (basically Indians and Chinese, everybody else were in home celebrating Christmas) were doing what they do the best. Spoil the scenery by standing in front of it and posing for photos. Posing as if they are trying to either straighten the tower or push it was a favourite past time.

Apart from the tower, the cathedral adjoining it too is impressive.

After making sure that none of our antics has disturbed the tower and increased its leaning, we left in search of a quick bite. If you are wondering why I haven't made any mention of food in the chronicles, that's because there is nothing in the Italian cuisine which a vegetarian can partake.

Pizza Margarita was the only option available in pizzas and my stomach still winces by the thought of it. Here is a typical conversation in Italian restaurant

me: (pointing at a dish in the menu, which I cannot pronounce) 'what is this?'

waiter just reads it

me: 'what is it made of?'

waiter: 'its made of beef?'

me: (pointing another one) 'whats this made of then?'

waiter: 'its pork'

me: 'is there anything which has no meat in it?'

waiter stares at me and then heads off to talk with chef. After a few minutes, he comes back and points at a dish on the menu and says 'this has no meat'

I am happy and proceed to order that, but at the last moment look at the name and realise that there is something called tuna in it. I call the waiter back

me: 'It has tuna in it'

waiter:'tuna is not meat no'

I then again start perusing the menu and the whole cycle starts again with me pointing out the dish and the waiter informing that its made of things which don't fall under vegetarian category.

In the end I either resort to Pizza Margarita or spaghetti with tomato sauce.

So there is not a lot that I can speak about the food. After eating a delicious slice of Margarita(belch...), we climbed our train to Firenze.......

PS: 'The chronicles of a intrepid traveller' will continue......

Roman Holiday: Addendum

As an addendum to my earlier post , here is a video which was taken from the Capitolini museum. This shows a group of birds doing a synchronised flying which is simply amazing. They fly in formation and do amazing shapes in air....have a look...

After the display, they sit on tree tops and make a hell of a noise. I think they were discussing the day's show, appraising individual performances and deciding on the next day's strategies. By the sound of it, I felt there was a lot of argument going on.....

PS: 'The chronicles of an intrepid traveller' will continue in the next post...

Roman Holiday

Long back I saw a movie in which a princess visiting a Mediterranean city gets fed up with daily princely duties, steps out one night in to the streets. She is joined by an American journalist and both explore the city and fall in love along the way. It was a mushy movie
and still one of my favourites (yes...I like mushy movies....don't you look like that!!!).

What impressed me was the city which came to life on the black and white film. It was so attractive, that I decided to see it. I mean the movie again and not the city, as I never thought I would get a chance to do that. But as with everything in my life, the power above takes a great pride in proving me wrong and decided me to offer a chance to visit the Caput mundi ("capital of the world"), la Città Eterna ("the Eternal City") .

Remember the princess from the movie?....My life too had become something like hers. Before your imagination begins to work overtime, conjuring images of me wearing gowns and going about waving to people, let me clarify, I too had got fed up of the monotonous work, clients, meetings and not to forget the lousy weather of London. Roomies came up with an offer that I could not refuse and we decided to spend the Christmas weekend in the
land of young cattle .

As part of our 5 day trip across Italy , Rome was our first destination.As the flight landed in the Rome Ciampino Airport, I hopped down eagerly to bask in the sunshine and forget the cold of London. But it turned out that lousy climate - like odour from unwashed socks - had followed me and Rome was laden with clouds and it was cold.

After a short bus (supposedly a 15 min journey, but was a 60 min one in actual) and a train journey we reached the city centre. The next step was to locate our hotel. After looking for it in all directions except the right direction, we reached the hotel. We dumped our bags in the room and headed out to see what Rome had in store for us.

Colosseum was our first stop. Its basically a huge arena where traditional gladiatorial games were held, many other public spectacles were held there, such as mock sea battles, animal hunts, executions, re-enactments of famous battles, and dramas based on Classical mythology. Its immense and the ruins now stand as witness to ancient Roman technology and at the same time reminds us the brutal games which were held here involving the gladiators, beasts and prisoners.One of my friend told that since those roman senators did not have an Xbox or a PlayStation during those times, they had to build this big gaming arena, where they could enjoy people being mauled by wild animals, gladiators killing each other (kind of 'Unreal Tournament' in real life)

After the Colosseum, we walked towards Piazza Venezia which houses the Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II , the first king of unified Italy. The monument is magnificent and again classic Roman architecture. There is the Musei Capitolini just after the monument. These museums house a large number of ancient Roman statues, inscriptions, and other artifacts; a collection of medieval and Renaissance art; and collections of jewels, coins, and other items.
The museum also offers a spectacular view of the ruins of Rome.

Also in the museum I found the reason for the fall of Roman Empire. See the picture , which is from an election campaign poster for the Roman Senate and advertises the candidature of a person belonging to one Congressum (R) party. The books available in the secert archives of Vatican talks about a lady leading the party to victory in elections. But this became the start of the fall of the Roman civilisation. Leading archealogists believe that this election was a turning point in Roman History. (sounds like the plot for next Dan Brown novel isnt it?....Well I too have got the talent you know....)

Brimming with confidence after our early successes in roaming Rome (pun intended), armed with just a map and a Italian vocabulary of words which primarily consisted of 'grazie' and 'ciao'(I knew a few more from the mafiosi novels that I have read, but using them would have probably resulted in me becoming a part of Roman history) , we decided to visit the 'Travestere' region of Rome, which is supposed to be famous for its nightlife, restaurants and cafes. We climbed in to one of the city service buses and with a combination of words which mainly involved grazie and ciao we conveyed the driver to drop us at this place. When the driver did drop us at a big square, we hopped down to experience the nightlife of Rome, only to realise that we have travelled exactly in the opposite direction and landed at the other end of the city.

We being what we are, immediately arrived at a consensus that this place is far more better than 'Travesterewhatsitsname' and plunged in to the nightlife, which involved walking through roads where no one else were there and looking at the windows of closed shops. From what I saw the mannequins and the dolls in the shops were having great time.Some of them were having too much fun and were in various phases of disrobement, which would have made the moral police of our country see red and wield saffron flags.

After so much fun and frolicking, we decided to call it a night and headed towards our hotel.The hotel owner must have seen our happy faces and surmised that if we can have so much fun outside in freezing cold and rain, there is no need for any heater in the room. So he had turned off the heater and room was as cold as the outdoors.He also reasoned that it would help to keep our momentum going in to the next day as the forecast for the next day too promised rain and cold. What a kind hearted man !!!. We targeted to leave at 7:30 in the morning for Vatican.

As you people know, I am very lousy at targets and my friends too were not far behind me. So our target was off by 2 hours(we had valid reasons you know. The room was cold and the bed was warm, Although the alarm in my mobile woke me up just enough for me to shut it off, it was not loud enough to make me get up and get ready.All these external conditions made us late and it wasn't our fault)and we made our way towards Vatican at 9:30.

Vatican City is the base of Christainism and Basilica di San Pietro is one of the most important buildings. Here the Pope gives his Christmas message. Without getting in to the religious aspect (which I can neither understand nor want to dwell upon it) and only from a architectural point of view, the basilica is a wonder. My words cannot do justice to what I have seen and I'll just say that you have to see it to experience it and shut up. We went to the top of the dome which offered a breath taking view of Rome (not to mention the fact that we were already out of breath due to climbing all those steps to the top).

The places I really wanted to see were the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican museums (yeah yeah, Dan Brown syndrome, which makes people to see what was described in his books and pose in front of it) were closed and made me ask the most philosophical question which I ask when something unlucky happens. 'Why it happens only to me?'.... I havent had the answer for that still, but only feel that God has a wonderful sense of humour .

We then proceeded to visit many landmarks. Since this place is so steeped in history and the people had such a penchant for creating big buildings, there was one in every alternative road and we repeated the same set of emotions ("ahh ! look at that !!, its so beautiful !!, f*** maan!!!, lets take photos..."), which we had adopted since we landed in Rome. We visited the Fontana di Trevi, the Pantheon, the piazza di Novana, the Castel Sant'Angelo, the Republicca and as was the norm, were dumbfounded by the work of Roman architects and sculptors.

On the way dropped in to the Ferrari shop,spending sometime gazing at the merchandise on display and dreaming of buying them one day.There was this other shop which sold toys and trinkets made of wood. It was so good that I wanted to buy each and every thing they sold. In the end I had to satisfy myself with some small things which would fit in my bag (the airlines and their one bag per person rule basically ruled out any shopping, unless you wanted to spend more on baggage fine than what you have shopped).

Two days in Rome is not enough to cover all the places, museums and landmarks. We made the most of it with whatever time we had. By the end of the second day, we had become the masters of Rome's underground rail services. But we never dared to get on a bus again,after our initial debacle. The next day we left to see Torre pendente di Pisa.....

PS:'The chronicles of an intrepid traveller' will continue in the next part....wait for it....