I have been visiting the temple complex in Meena Bazaar, Dubai for a long time, but I never had written about it till date. It is the only Hindu temple available for the whole of UAE and houses two temples - Lord Krishna and Lord Shiva. UAE is quite tolerant to other religions provided they doen't involve in conversion and propagating their religion into UAE. This temple complex was approved by the late Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Shamefully I didn't collect the details about the history of it, but somewhere I was made to understand that it was started around the year 2000 -2001. Will collect more details about it when I go there next weekend. This place is located in Bur Dubai, near to the creek. In this place you never feel that you aer away from India and heartening to see that people haven't forgot their roots and customs even after coming here.

The next day we wanted to spend sometime with lesser crowd. So we decided to go to Doddabetta on the morning as a early bird. Doddabetta lies at 8 kms from the Ooty town and on the way to Kothagiri. Immediately after our lunch we started to Doddabetta by the bike we retained for the second day. The upward journey was quite fine, calm and thrilling to travel amidst the dense jungles on one side and the cliff on the another side. The roads were the same as we saw few years ago and quite bumpy. By the time we reached Doddabetta, we were in for a major disappointment. May be the whole tourist crowd thought the same like us and there was a huge crowd in the peak of Doddabetta. Also the streetside vendors have shrunk the magnitude of the top and the roads.

Call it co-incidence or destiny, it took exactly 5 years to revisit Ooty since my last visit on 26 & 27th Dec 2003, when I was working in ABT Industries Coimbatore. But this time the visit was quite romantic - my honeymoon trip. No matter how much Ooty is exposed or commercialised, there lies an iner romantic beauty which attracts people towards it in hoardes. Why Ooty in December, especially this was the coldest winter in past 50 years? Once can enjoy Ooty's natural beauty with lesser crowd during the second season till mid January. Once I decided that Ooty is the place for my honey moon trip, I booked the tickets online via IRCTC and hotel bookings via Make My Trip. These plans made this trip quite breezier and relaxed to enjoy. But more than being a honeymoon trip, I enjoyed Ooty at its sizzling best. Welcome to my travelogue on Ooty this December.

The reasons that made me love Kerala are as follows - 1. Backwaters & Kayals, 2. Lush Greenery, 3. Beautiful girls, 4. Malayalee's sense of pride about their state, community and assertiveness. I have experienced the last three aspects of Kerala but kept missing the foremost reason for a while. Atlast with the long weekend (Oct 2nd) around the corner, I decided to take a plunge to Alappuzha / Kuttanad - the rice bowl of Kerala. Fortunately for me I had my Alappuzha native friend Girish to help me in exploring their town. So I got my tickets booked long back in June courtesy IRCTC (http://www.irctc.co.in). The D Day arrived, boarded the Chennai-Alleppey Express on Oct 1st... I was clearly excited that I was going to interiors of Kerala. The trip didn't turn out much I expected but it was a welcome change. Against my plan of staying at hotel, I had a nice stay at Girish's house for 3 days. Had a nice / long boat travel in the 'Kaayal' of Kuttanad to Kottayam. Some of the photos are here.

Even though I visited Mahabalipuram last year, an impromptu visit there yesterday with Vaidhees had some surprises in store for me. May be because I travelled with a person of strong literary / history intrest & keen observation, there was a remarked difference in this trip. We all tend to believe that whatever works available in Mahabalipuram are of the Pallava sculpturers' best capabilities, but I realised yesterday that they are actually the thwarted attempts and incomplete works. There are many strong indications that the sculptural works have been abruptly stopped, may be because of the war by Pulikesi & Chalukkiyas. The speciality of these Mahabalipuram temples is that they are made out of single rock, in other words "single piece". In lot of places the material removal had just started (they had a standard pattern of removing the excess material in blocks and using the same for pavements and other foundation works) and the work stopped abruptly. Why I feel that the works are incomplete one can be seen in pictures. Take a peek!!!

Yesterday I, Madhu (my niece) and Manikandan (nephew) went to Kiliyur falls in Yercaud to make the dull and otherwise boring weekend to make it interesting. We started early around 7.00 am by Kinetic scooter. Since I and Madhu are loners & we knew that Kiliyur falls will be bombarded with Salem guys along with beer bottles, we decided to make Kiliyur falls as our first destination. Reached there by 8.00 a.m, there was a considerable amount of scantily cladded male tourists, so to make Madhu feel comfortable, I took her and Manikandan to a remote corner where it was a nice waterfall and also deserted. Also Madhu is coming there for the first time, so she had a couple of slips on the steep path. Since we didn't plan to take a bath, we just came with camera alone. We kept chatting and teasing Manikandan. All went well till I started taking photographs.

Again it started in an impulse.... While I was going through an old album when I went to Madurai once in 2003, there was the photo of paintings being renovated. Then I thought why shouldn't I visit Madurai again so that there must have been more finished paintings. I booked the ticket via www.irctc.com, along with my friend Ram Prasad. This happened about 3 months before the actual travel date. Even though I had been to Madurai when I was in 4th standard and once when I was in ABT, I had no "feel" of that city. So I decided that I must stay for a couple of days to get a feel of it. On Thursday Hindu paper I read that the temples in Madurai are being renovated in a full swing. I knew I am going to miss many things, but postponing / cancelling the trip... Nah!The journey started on a fun note with Ram and me from Chennai Egmore on 19th Sep '08.. Needless to say, I enjoyed the warmth of the city, thanks to Ramprasad and his friends... Also I got to see enough of the sculpture marvels of Pandiyas and also the nature at its best in the Pazhamudhircholai.

I have told many times that Coimbatore is my most favourite place in my life, then What comes the next?... Nagercoil. Even though I have been to Nagercoil many times earlier, the geography is still an amazon jungle to me even today. But it is so close to my heart because I have two little darlings there - Viggi and Vini. I am going there since year 2000, but all the time I just end up staying ONLY in their house at Parambai. All these years the kids were too young that I couldn't loiter outside with them, but last time I really wanted to take them out to Thirparappu falls, but couldn't. When I decided to spend the long weekend of Independence Day, I chose Nagercoil over Coimbatore with one condition - I will take the kids to Thirparappu falls. As proposed I enjoyed four full days with those kids visiting some interesting places like Thottippalayam, Thirparappu falls, Padmanabhapuram palace and Kanyakumari. So this trip is overwhelming, memorable and above all blissful. I am just sharing few photos of this happy journey. The photos are seggregated under the tabs on the name of the places visited.

Yercaud - normally known as poor man's "Ooty" but I find this epithet insulting. Even though Yercaud resembles like a miniature Ooty, it has its own charm. I was in Salem for 4 years during my Engg College days, yet I had visited that place only twice. After 11 years, I visited Yercaud last Sunday. Technically this is my third trip, but literally my first trip. Once I went with my cousin's colleague trip, once with Mohanasundaram summing up two trips. Since Mohan, who was found as LM & LMS in by blogs, was my object of obsession in my Engg College days, the idea of sharing his pavilion for a long drive gave me a kick rather than visiting Yercaud at that time. Unfortunately within 2-3 months after that trip the frictions surfaced and subsequently I chose to break off after an year and half, Yercaud remained as bitter sweet memory that I didn't feel like visiting anymore. But there can never be a best healer than time. After 7 years I met LMS on this February, also I had marked the year 2008 for extensive travelling and by this time the inhibitions had waned that I desperately wanted to enjoy the natural beauty of Yercaud.

I had been to Rameswaram thrice earlier but all the times, the visit was restricted to the temple alone. Typically we start at the Chennai - Rameswaram express, land there in the early morning, visit the temple and start back by 8:30 to Karaikudi where my sister was studying. I couldn't explore much about Rameswaram. So this time I decided that I must visit alone and find out various places there & booked the ticket via www.irctc.co.in. Atlast it co-incided with the Trivandrum visit so I rescheduled the travel from Nagercoil to Rameswaran via Madurai. Later I was told that instead of Madurai I could have chosen Karaikudi as linking point. I started from Nagercoil by 8:30 p.m Coimbatore - Nagercoil Passenger and reached Madurai by 1:30 a.m and caught up with Chennai - Rameshwaran train there by 2:30 a.m. By the time I reached Rameswaram by 6:00 a.m, I had a very sound sleep.

Last time I went to Trivandrum was in 2002, to attend an interview at "Terumo Penpol". I went on previous day itself, visited the famous "Padmanabhaswamy Temple". Even though I got through that interview, I couldn't join because the offer came much after I joined ABT Coimbatore. After 6 years I visited the Padmanabhaswamy Temple recently on April 2nd. The temple is about a km from the railway station where I stayed in the dormatory. I believe you all know that men must wear a mundu and a torso to enter the temple & dresscode for ladies is saree or a dupatta with salwar or other dresses. To avoid "hiring" a stink mundu, I bought a new mundu this time only to visit the temple. The temple is neatly maintained and very calm, soothing and relaxing. I am very much fascinated with the paintings on the walls of the temple. There is a beautiful style of shading in that, which is so unique to the temple. Else the sculptures are typically Tamil Nadu styled ones. The huge Padmanabhaswamy idol that can be seen in parts through three windows is magnificient. The management is much intrested in making money through cloakroom services and lake. Typical example for shrewdness of malayalees. Even though I loved to visit the Kovalam beach and other places of intrest, I couldn't make it.

After a gap of three months I went to our Silver beach in Cuddalore. It was called as the second largest beach in Tamilnadu after the Marina beach. Thats why the beach was called as 'Silver Beach', a sort of next to 'Golden Beach' in Chennai. But now it cannot claim that title because the ravages of Tsunami & the following rehabiliation activities had definitely altered the landscape of the beach. Previously the beach used to span right from the Periyar arts college and used to go about 750 mtrs to tough the shores. But due to commercialisation & concretisation, the length of the beach is now reduced to anywhere between 350 - 400 mtrs. The beach had lost its sheen now, thanks to encroachment and pollution.