Dusty Roads Beckon

It was the Christmas holiday of 2015 and much to my happiness, it was a Friday. So, calls for a long weekend and what can you expect a travel freak like me to do in such a situation? A quick road trip was planned in no time and this time it was the city of Mysore, also known as Mysuru. Situated in the southwestern state of Karnataka, in India, this city is rich in history, art and culture. History always fascinates me and hence I had Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan famed Srirangapatna in mind, which is just adjacent to Mysore. My post today isn't about the history of the city or its surroundings. I am here to write about a quaint little eatery, we stumbled upon en route our driving escapade. From Chennai, it took us about 8 hours for us to reach our hotel in Mysuru. By the time we checked in, it was way past afternoon. So, we barely had time to quickly freshen up and get ready to go and see the night view of the grandiosely lit Mysore Palace. After braving the tedious evening traff...

  They say, it would be a travesty to come to Jordan and miss the Dead Sea. So, I headed up there (or should I say,"down there"?) as the last leg of my trip to Jordan. At 400m below the sea level, when I set my eyes on this extraordinary body of intense blue water, all I could see was numerous human heads bobbing out of the water. I was reminded in my head, of all the facts I read about this place - that the extreme salinity makes for an intolerable environment for almost all life forms and also difficult to swim. One can only float effortlessly and still can't drown. I looked at the buoyant tourists and was tempted to float but the fear of water won't let me do that.  All I could do was either stand in the water or simply soak my legs in and sit by the side. I told myself I am not leaving this place without managing to float and it took me one full day to conquer the fear and finally come to terms with this floating business....and did I forget to ment...

Remember reading about Palk Strait in geography classes back then in school days? Those assignments, where you were asked to draw the map of India, used to be complete nightmares for me as I used to get all the curves and bends wrong on the map and my drawing was, in fact still is, terrible. However, last year in the month of September, I got an opportunity to drive straight down to one such point on the map of India, where the coastline makes a nearly right angle turn- one of those difficult parts, I never got right while drawing. No matter how much I hated it then, today while I stood at the 90 degree bend, I was thrilled to the core! Imagine being at a deserted beach, standing at a point where you are flanked by Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean, along the Palk Strait and the ruins of a lighthouse from the Chola period, destroyed by Tsunami, staring at you!! Then if myths are to be believed, Lord Rama stood there looking at Ravana's Lanka before starting his battle agains...