The Sprawling Estates of Chateau de Labourdonnais

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Mauritius does tend to keep its tourists and travelers occupied with its beaches, adventure sports and nature parks. And rightly so, given the plethora of beaches and mountains that they have. Mauritius has a lovely fusion culture and the one thing that people often miss out or skip here is – digging deeper into the … Read more

The Lure of Lucerne

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In one of my earlier posts for Valentine’s day, I mentioned a town called Lucerne from Switzerland as one of my 10 romantic destinations. A few days back, I was browsing through my memories of Europe and that got back to my visit to Lucerne. I honestly, spend only half a day here but that was enough … Read more

Discovering the Houses of Goa Museum

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Goa is a perfect confluence of East meets West. The blend of the Portuguese culture with the Indian roots is what makes is such a colorful and delightful place. This fusion was evident to me during the heritage tour of the Fontainhas with its narrow streets and bright houses. However, it was a visit to the … Read more

The Mystical Hamlet in the Hills: Landour, Mussoorie

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By now, I am guessing that you would have read of my Princess tale at Rokeby Manor in Landour. If you have missed that, have a look through this link. This fairy tale stay of mine would not have been complete without the fairytale kingdom of Landour. A small British styled town – Landour is a … Read more

Detour to the Gulab Bari in Faizabad

The tomb of the Nawab at the Gulab Bari in Faizabad

With that call to rush out of The Residency in Lucknow, I reluctantly bundled up into the car to head to our next destination on the Epic Indo Nepal trip – Gorakhpur. With my GPS route set to the destination, I fiddled around to see other places of interest around Ayodhya where we were to … Read more

Meeting Kumari – the living Goddess of Nepal

Present day Kumari of Kathmandu

As I stood staring at the Kumari Ghar in Kathmandu Durbar Square, I thought to myself – there has to be some connection that brought me back to this country so soon – in fact, within just 3 months of my first and previous visit. If you have followed my earlier trip, you would have known … Read more

Celebrating Indra Jatra festival in Kathmandu, Nepal

Lakhey Dance at Indra Jatra

Meeting Kumari – the Living Goddess of Nepal was only possible due to the Indra Jatra – an 8-day annual festival of Nepal; one for which I was invited by the Nepal Tourism Board. I had heard of this festival during my previous visit when I discovered the cultures and traditions of Nepal. It seemed … Read more

Lost in the Lanes of Kathmandu Durbar Square

View from the Basantpur Palace Corridors

Historically, Kathmandu in Nepal has had three major Durbar Squares (Kingdoms) – Patan, Bhaktapur and the Kathmandu Durbar Square. All three of these are now UNESCO World Heritage sites and are major attractions for any traveler visiting Kathmandu. Rightly so, given the rich heritage and culture that is still preserved within the crumbling yet beautiful … Read more

Exploring and Staying in Wayanad

Tea Gardens of Wayanad

Wayanad is all about beautiful green countryside with lovely waterfalls, tea and coffee estates, wildlife, lakes and more. Wayanad literally means land of paddy fields. There are plenty of things to see but the first-timervisitors here do not realize that the distances in Wayanad are huge. More often than not, they end up just spending a lot of time on … Read more

Exploring the Swayambhunath Temple in Kathmandu

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Don’t shoot me! I know I am a little delayed in sharing the next post of my Epic Indo-Nepal Road Trip. However, violence is not the solution. You got to be peaceful about it. Especially, if you are visiting the serene Swayambhunath temple in Kathmandu -for that is where we went next after the Pashupathinath … Read more