A Day in Kandy: Maanvi’s corner

When my Pappa told me that we are going to Kandy.. I thought that place is filled with candies 😉

In the streets of Kandy near Tooth Relic Temple

Tooth Relic temple: Tooth Relic Temple is a must visit place in Kandy. The most revered site in Sri Lanka. The shrine overlooks the vast expanse of the Kandy Lake.

The importance of this temple is that Lord Buddha’s tooth has been preserved and hidden within a gold casket. We visited the Temple during noon. My parents were amazed to see the well protected inner shrine where it is kept.

People of Kandy

Hey Pops, we’re taking boring pictures.. let’s show some energy yayie!!

Let’s pose for a picture- for moms satisfaction

Stop posing and let’s go pappa, don’t waste my time in taking pictures😉

I don’t care even if you’re not coming.. I’m going Pappa- buibui..!

Incense sticks

Walk around the Kandy lake also known as ‘Sea of Milk’ was beautiful and very peaceful. It is surrounded by Mara trees and it has a beautiful walking path. There are lot of venders who sell snack and drinks in between. My parents tried some local foods around the temple. The soothing sounds and calming waters of the lake will definitely erase the hustle and the bustle of the town.

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  Teaching my pappa how to meditate..!

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  For my parents it was an exercise but for me the drive around this lake was so good.. saw so many ducks and birds

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  Kandy Lake view

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  Mummified Elephant

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  Inside the meditation Chamber

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  Carvings on the walls

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  Ducks

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  Birds

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  We

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  Kandy lake view

Gem Factory and Museum: My Mom wanted to visit Gem museum, There we saw a video documentary of how Rare earth materials like gems, rubies, graphite are mined in Srilanka.

Kandyan dance and cultural program: The dance performance was filled with so much of energy. The drumming, juggling, acrobats & their colorful costumes was very impressive.

Colorful dresses

Drummers

I was almost glued to the chair for almost 45mins.

Kandy viewpoint:

Few tips before you visit Kandy will make your travel smoother with a better experience:

1. Adults don’t have the privilege to have prams/ strollers, always carry umbrellas, sunscreens, sunglasses with you.
2. Strollers are not allowed inside the sacred temple, get ready to carry your child on your shoulders
3. Carry water bottles
4. Don’t buy tickets of tooth relic temple from strangers

Happy Holi- ‘The Festival of Colors’

Holi – The Festival Of Colors celebrated in every part of India signifies victory of good over evil. Each and every festival of India has its own significance, If we talk about Holi, it’s all about celebration of overcoming your fears or transformation of negativity to positivity in life, whether it’s repairing broken relationships, Victory Of Good Over Evil, End Of Winter season over arrival of spring, Play and laugh, Forget and forgive etc.

I wish this Holi all colors of rainbow make your life more colourful, joyful. Happy Holi. — Life is very beautiful and colorful, may this Holi add more love and color to your life and your family.

History behind this festival:

Holi has derived from the demon king Hiranyakashyap’s sister ”Holika”. Hiranyakashyap had a blessing from the Lord Vishnu that he won’t get killed by any animal or human being and he wants everyone to worship him rather than any other god which made him angry because of his own son ”Prahlad” worship Lord Vishnu knowingly of his father wants him to be worshipped.

Hiranyakashyap attempted so many ways to kill his own son but keep on getting failed miserably, Firstly he made his own son jump in a well but he remained unscathed. He also poisons him which becomes nectar to Prahlad, ordered wild elephants to kill him but remained unharmed, He  also put him in a room with full of wild snakes but still, he gets out of it uninjured. He was so disappointed that he has to get help from his demon sister Holika

Holika, Then made Prahlad sit with her in a fire in order to hurt him, Whereas she put blanket around herself in order to protect herself from fire, Fortunately, blanket flew over to Prahlad and Holika got burnt alive, That is why we celebrate Holika Dahan – Victory of good over evil – a night before Holi. Afterwards, Lord Vishnu came to earth in form of half lion and half man, Killed Demon King Hiranyakashyap.

Source:themysteriousindia.net

Happy Sankranthi

Makara Sankranti is a harvest festival celebrated widely in India and is dedicated to the Sun God. the festival denotes the entry of the sun into the zodiac sign of Makara as it travels on its celestial path. This marks the end of winters and the onset of spring.
Celebrated today on January 15 this year. Hope this auspicious occasion of Makar Sankranti,
Connect you to some brightest moments,
Just as the kites dot the sky,
May you reach new heights of happiness,
Adding charm to your celebration.
Happy Makar Sankranti!

Shot this in Best buy, Hyderabad

To know more about this festival check out..

Temple Traveling: Kapaleeswarar Temple

Kapaleeshwarar Temple, is located in chennai, Tamil nadu. The form of Shiva’s consort Parvati worshipped at this temple is called Karpagambal is from Tamil, (“Goddess of the Wish-Yielding Tree”). The temple was built around the 7th century CE in Dravidian architecture.

According to the Puranas, Shakti worshipped Shiva in the form of a peacock, giving the vernacular name Mylai (Mayilāi) to the area that developed around the temple – mayil is Tamil for “peacock”. Shiva is worshiped as Kapaleeswarar, and is represented by the lingam. His consort Parvati is depicted as Karpagambal.

The present masonry structure was built during the Vijayanagar rulers of the Tuluva Dynasty (1491–1570 CE)

Infobits:

1. Temple opens at 5.00am and closes at 12.00 p.m. and again opens at 4.00pm closes at 9.00pm

2. Direct buses to Mylapore are available from all parts of the city.

3. Local trains are available for every 15mins.

4. It is around 6kms from chennai railway station.

Discovering Telangana: Mannemkonda-‘The Palamoor Tirupati’

Being a Hyderabadi, I always had this two questions from people during weekends…

• What do you guys do over your weekend?

• Don’t we have any weekend gateways around Hyderabad?

In fact, I used to share few places which most of them are aware of it, I don’t really have many places to share to go out for a drive over the weekends from Hyderabad.

My Beast: The car I drive say a lot about me

I could now realize the fact that most of us haven’t really explored the surreal beauty around Hyderabad. If you are nature lover, yes you have one now which is 2 hours drive from Hyderabad.

Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises. -Pedro Calderon de la Barca

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. -Albert Einstein

Mannemkonda is best enjoyed when the sky is overcast, which makes the 20kms journey from Mahbubnagar delightful. The varied hues of Nature and fresh air rejuvenated my senses. The secluded green valley’s surrounding the hold this temple best kept secrets.

“Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.” – Kahlil Gibran

Before we arrived our destination, we had several stopovers to capture the nature at its best. I felt exactly like rolling greens spread like a carpet, floating clouds jealously hugged the Hillocks alongside and a seamless path ahead dotted with beautiful nature.

For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree

“Nature itself is the best physician” – Hippocrates. “

Manyamkonda is the hill where the Lord Venkateshwara Swamy Temple is located. This place is very calm, mesmerizing, beautiful and of course a perfect destination for devotees and tourists. It is believed that this ancient temple is more than 500 years old. This temple is located in a cave which is reportedly balanced on top of the three hills. It is considered as one of the important spiritual centres in Mahbubnagar District. Here pilgrims can have a glimpse of the ancient caves where the sages were believed to have practiced penance.Hence this place was called as Munulakonda (Munulu means Saints and Konda means hill) and later as days passed by it has been referred as Mannemkonda or Manyamkonda.

Garuda Statue

A view from inside..

On the heart of the forest and on the hilltop, Lord Venkateshwara Swamy could be found majestically. The shrine is located on a hill which is 915 m high and at a distance of 2 Km from the village.

Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky..

  One can enjoy the nature’s splendour and scenic beauty at the temple. The temple has a beautiful Rajagopuram with the images of Gods and Goddesses carved on it. Very rarely we can find Lord Venkateshwara as a “Swayambhumurthi” which means self manifested. Seeing Lord Venkateshwara in the forest, with lush greens is truly a blissful experience.

Spending time in nature is healing energy..

Sunsets are so beautiful that they almost seem as if we were looking through the gates of Heaven. -John Lubbock

If you are a nature lover and wanted to spend time peacefully plan for a trip to Manyamkonda. Have a nice week my dear friends!!

Bhutan Diaries: Tashi Delek Thimphu

It all started from having an intense plan and huge back packing of 20-25 days which included a good part of North India , a long sojourn in the Northeast India but for all of us the most exciting part was to explore “Bhutan: The Land of thunder Dragons” as it is fondly called and the dice were rolled out. Highly planned and most exciting part of our journey started on the third week of March 2015.

We took a flight from Delhi to Bagdogra in West Bengal as it is the most preferred way to reach Bhutan for Indians. Our first stopover was at the queen of hill stations called Darjeeling which was roughly 80 KM and a 3 hour drive from Bagdogra Airport. Then After reaching Darjeeling(Click here to read my posts on Darjeeling & Street foods of Darjeeling) we visited some of the must see places there and the next morning we planned to leave for Jaigaon/ Phuentsholing ,which is the gateway town to enter Bhutan.

Day 02: Darjeeling to jaigaon is a 5 hour drive about 200KM going through NH31 and overlooking the beautiful Teesta River for a part of the drive. A permit is mandatory to enter into Bhutan for Indian/Chinese citizens for others it is the routine visa procedure and they have to pay some royalty fee to the government. We had to make sure that we reach Jaigaon before 10AM as the permit office in Phuentsholing closes at 11AM and the driver was just the right guy for the task taken straight out of a fast and furious movie. We reached the Jaigaon border town around 9:40 AM then we crossed the border by foot and entered into Bhutan(Phuentsholing) then at the customs office we applied for our Bhutan permits.

GK, Prashant &Karthik

We got the permit in an hour, had breakfast in a local restaurant and exchanged our Indian rupee and got some Bhutanese currency NU (Indian Rupees also works in Bhutan) and a local Tashi cell SIM card as Indian networks will not be working here and we were set for the capital city Thimphu while one of my friend GK still struggling to find the difference between Bhutan and Taiwan.:P We reserved a 6 seater taxi for Thimphu from the local taxi stand for 3500INR.Thimphu is 174 KM from Phuentsholing, a 5 hour drive from a risky yet beautiful road carved out of Mountains. As we enter the serene environment of Bhutan we are greeted with a cold breeze and a peaceful noise of the surroundings. We felt like we are in for something soothing and also exhilarating.

On the Land of clouds & Mountains

Rorboyz

The highway to heaven as it is called was a masterpiece by the creator and also by the Bhutanese government as the road is neatly carved out between mountains and makes for a decent yet risky ride, surrounding the nature. The weather was pleasant and the air was so soothing, That is one of the reasons why Bhutan is called as the most peaceful & Happiest country in South Asia. As we were having this discussion the driver proved it right by revealing that he has been happily married for almost 15 years with two wives, living with both of them under one roof for these many years which was something astonishing for all of us. It is more of a tradition in Bhutan and there are many such examples.

Tashi Delek-Thimphu:

We entered Thimphu city after a 5 hour drive and what we saw was large houses with similar Bhutanese/Tibetan Architecture , clean roads, probably the cleanest we have seen.

The city had a very calm yet happening vibe. We had to complete a tough task of finding cheap and best hotels in the vicinity called as the clock tower. We found one called as tashi delek which was 950 INR per room. Please note that there are hardly any hotels offering rooms at ground/first floor and you will have to to shell out a lot more to get a room on lower floors.However we got one on the third floor and it was a never ending climb to the third floor after an almost 400 KMs long cross country drive.

The capital with no Traffic lights..

We in Clocktower square

vicinity of Clock tower square

Most happening place in Thimphu

Next Day of the plan was to explore the every nook and corner of Thimphu. Basically to know about the traditions and culture that represents this beautiful country. Thimphu, as I mentioned is the most populous city in Bhutan which also means that there were enough people to interact. The men were extremely welcoming, the women equally beautiful. Karthik already began to work his charm, while lalla was still finding ways to start a conversation 😛 We took two local taxi’s as all taxi’s in Thimphu city are only small 4 seaters and we were 5 and we first went to the national library of Bhutan.

Typical Bhutanese Architecture

We’ve no idea that it is closed on weekends. So we just clicked pictures from the outside and moved to Zorig chusum, a government backed institute in providing education in embroidery, sculpture, painting, weaving, carving, etc to aspiring students to provide them with skills to boost their employment opportunities in the future.The school had an annual orientation going on as it was good to see an assembly of school kids after we were last part of it a decade back. Wow!!A decade!! i just realized. Time flies.

Closer to the school was National folk heritage museum which was an exhibition of the heritage of Bhutan, Also depicting how ancient Bhutanese used to live. We were out after a short visit to the place, which was an education of Bhutanese history, culture and traditions and took a taxi to the most famous tourist place of Thimphu called National memorial chorten. Believed to be built in memory of the former Queen’s brother the place is right in the center of the city and is mostly visited by old monks for their prayers and to relax.

Little did we knew, that the next place we were going to was this spectacular. It was the giant buddha dordenma golden statue, which is not yet completed from the inside. Upon completion this will be one of the largest buddha statues in the world.

Geographically it is perfectly located. The statue will be visible from a very long distance as we can see the Buddha shining in gold and also overlooking the whole city of thimphu from the top of the cliff. The place is hugely spacious and also windy and we moved on to spend some quality time at the place.

Thimphu City view..

If you go to a different country make sure you see its animal species.That is what we did next.The takin preserve was the place which houses the national animal of Bhutan, Takin. You can see a lot of them here and you can cover this place in quick time as it is only a conservatory for Takins.

Then we paid our visit to a small Buddhist monastery called Zilukha nunnery.The nunnery is located in Zilukha, Thimphu overlooking Tashichodzong and is a few minutes drive from Zoo.t was built in 1976 by the 16th emanation of Thangtong Gyalpo, Drubthob Rikey Jadrel. Currently, the nunnery is home to about 60 nuns.

 

After the whirlwind tour of these places without a break , we had to do the most important part of the day, FOOD!!!! And what better than some local Bhutanese food. We went to a restaurant called as “Ama” on the same street of our hotel as ordered Thupka, kewa datshi, Ema datshi, Thai rice, Chicken chilly, Veg crispy, Veg fried rice. (To know more about food click here..) All this for an astonishing N.U 900. That was the best part of Bhutan, It doesn’t burn a hole in your pocket when it comes to food. We spent the rest of the evening wandering on the streets of thimphu.

Tashichoedzong_fortress of the auspicious religion. This Dzong is the seat of government.

Thimphu roads

While GK and lalla were at their usual “loving” antics and a couple of us decided to hit a local hangout spot called vivacity and then back to the hotel as we had to be early for a long yet exciting, exhilarating, extravagant day of exploring waiting for us tomorrow.

Next day morning we had a walking tour of the city and had fun meeting new people there. Then I went to watch a competition on the archery field. Archery is Bhutan’s national sport and is played all year round. 2 painted targets 30cm large and 120cm high are placed at each end. The bows and arrows are made of special kind of bamboo, the target is 120 metre away. Team members encourage their archer on the other side of the field. They stand really close from the target. Each team usually consist of 11 members. The first team to reach 33 points wins the match. The method of scoring is complicated as if an arrow lands within an arrow’s length of the target even without hitting it, it also counts. Every time an archer hits the target his team members will perform a kind of victory dance on the field. It was very entertaining as all players were wearing the Gho, the national costume.

We almost killed the day just by exploring the city by walk and getting familiar with the buses, culture and meeting new people and also paid our visit to Postoffice at last we went to the weekend market. We were in Thimphu for 5 days and every day we used to discover new things about this lovely city.

TIPS from my perspective:

• Please make sure you carry your passport/original voter Id, driving license, two passport size photographs along with you to apply for a permit.
• I would suggest to take a hotel near Clock tower square.
• National Folk Heritage Museum is open from Mon to Friday 10:30am to 4:30 pm Saturday: 10:30am to 1pm and on Sunday 11:30am to 3:30pm. Entrance fee is 150N.u
• Don’t miss Buddha dordenma, Zoo & National Memorial Chorten.
• If you want to experience nightlife of Thimphu, I would suggest you to go Vivo city.

Happy Ugadi:“Durmukhi nama samvatsaram”

After a month’s break, I am back to blogging to wish you all a Happy Ugadi. Now you must be wondering, who are not familiar with this part of the world, What is Ugadi? Why do we celebrate Ugadi? Where & How do we celebrate Ugadi?

Ugadi is derived from sanskrit ‘yuga’ means ‘age’ and ‘adi’ means beginning. Two Telugu states Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are celebrating Ugadi festival today.People celebrate it in resemblances of new hope and new aspirations.For the year 2016, Ugadi is celebrated with name “Durmukhi nama samvastram”. There are 60 Telugu years rotating in the cyclic process. If 60 years are completed, it resembles that one era (Yugam) is completed. The festival is celebrated on 8th April i.e. Chaitra sudha padyami.  Many states celebrate this festival with different names. In Maharashtra it is known as Gudi Padwa. The day of Gudi Padwa begins with an oil-bath and eating Neem leaves ritual followed by prayers.
As per the Hindu solar calendar, Keralites, Tamilians, and Bengalis will celebrate New Year as Vishu, Puthandu and Pohela Boishakh, respectively on 14th April.

Ugadi Pachadi: Ceremonial dish

On this day, the particular dish “Ugadi pachadi”is more populous. It is made of new jaggery, raw mango pieces and neem flowers and new tamarind which truly reflect life – a combination of six different tastes sweet, sour, spice, salt, tanginess and bitter tastes symbolizing happiness, disgust, anger, fear, surprise and sadness. 

Bhakshalu: Special & my favorite dish

In our states, a special dish called Bhakshalu or Bobbattu or Polelu or Puran Poli or Oliga are prepared on this occasion. It consists of a filling (gram and jaggery/sugar boiled and made in to a paste) stuffed in a flat roti-like bread. It is usually eaten hot or cold with ghee or milk topping. 

Ugadi celebrations on Airindia.. Bakshalu, ugadi pachadi, lemon rice etc.,

 

Some of the good and bad non-political predictions in Vedic Astrology:

1. Vegetarians will increase and this will cause rise in prices of Green leafy Vegetables.
2. Agriculture will not be encouraging this year. More farmers will try to find new jobs.
3. More flight and helicopter crashes will occur in 16-17
4. Juvenile criminals number will be on par with adults.
5. Governments across the globe will take measures to control, safeguard wild animals and forests, archaeological findings, etc.,

This Ugadi, may you be blessed with good fortune as long as Ganesh ji’s trunk, wealth and prosperity as big as his stomach, happiness as sweet as his ladoos and may your trouble be as small as his mouse. Happy Ugadi! May your hate for your enemies fade away, May the darkness around you become lighter, May this Ugadi bring joy, health and prosperity to you and your family.

Fantastic Friday: Windows and doors

A Window is more entertaining than a TV.. clicked @ENchey monastery, Gangtok Sikkim.

Doors and Windows represent the culture and architecture..

Paro is a place of peace and serenity with colorful buildings..

Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.” – William Butler Yeats

Entrance of Punakha Dzong

Skull & Penis (Phallus-A symbol of fertility in Bhutan) at the entrance of Folk & Heritage museum of Bhutan.

Clicked at Zorig Chusum

Meridian Hotel, Thimphu

Colorful Zorig Chusum

In the olden days people used to hang Skulls at the entrance..

In Most of the Bhutanese Constructions, Smaller windows are built into lower floors, with larger windows on upper levels to add to structural soundness. Clicked at Punakha

Inside of a Bhutanese House/hotel. Colorful Local lunch 😛

Clicked at Lachung,Sikkim.
What we really want to do is what we are really meant to do. When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open for us, we feel useful, and the work we do feels like play to us.” -Julia Cameron.