Travel | KrishnaShasankar.com

Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category

US Return

Jul 26, 2010 Photography, Travel

I am back home after my first US Trip, Biryani in any Chennai hotel will seem to taste 2x-times better now. I was on a short business trip for 2 weeks to Saratoga Springs, NY. Had a marathon visa application process (I don’t know why it gets so complicated for US Embassy to issue a simple business visa) after getting my visa stamped on June, I was all set to travel on first week of July.

From Chennai

[6th July, 2 AM in the morning IST]
I am at the airport with my buddy Vijay [just as usual ], haven’t slept the whole night, and have very little prospects of sleeping in the day. And the routine begins, check-in baggage scanning, check-in, and I am off into the immigration counter, But this time I was clever, I told my two colleagues who were travelling with me that It will take time for my immigration to complete, and it was as expected, took about 5 mins , yes!!! whopping 5 mins (people who were behind me would have cleared the security check by now) this guy was like asking allllllllll sorts of questions, I know Chennai Immigration will ask weird questions, but I don’t understand why just me. Now time for security checks, here is my two cents… never travel with too many things in your pockets (or) simply never wear pants which have too many pockets while travelling…. I had to go back and empty my pockets for like 3 times… After convincing the security check guy that I am not going to burn this plane, I was let off…

Qatar Airways & Doha

The flight route is like this Chennai/MAA -> Doha/DOH -> New York/JFK and you won’t manage to get good sleep because here is how the flight works, It starts at 4 in the morning and will leave you at Doha at around 7, very little chance of sleep, since you have to be awake during takeoff, food, breakfast and landing, etc.. and the next flight starts during morning at around 8 local time/Doha and will have you kicked out of the airplane at like 1 PM local time/New York, and considering the excellent comfort we get in economy class , sleeping during the flight is a luxury. So if you want to get good sleep and rest… Never take this plane… I am not complaining about any of the Qatar services, they are good, but it’s about the timings. About the flight service, it was good; I have heard for lot my colleagues complaining about Qatar, but having flown Lufthansa and a couple of other European carriers before, I find Qatar has better seats in Economy class (leg room, comfort, etc..) and In-flight entertainment is excellent, I have no complaints about the food, but the flight attendants very were not that active (interactive maybe…).

Doha Airport was good, except for the inhospitable outdoor climate, the airport was huge, was not offered any time to roam around the airport but It looked kind of big with hundreds of planes parked around and all that. As soon as I walk into the airport, Some security guy said “New York? Gate 18, Please proceed quickly to Special security check for US…” and I was like… “I hate it…” the only thing to celebrate is that I was not randomly selected, it applies to everyone.

And I was off to US of A, from the skies of Qatar, the view of ground was excellent, there were absolutely no clouds what so ever, it was a great experience to see the curvature of the earth, I could see the land (desert), sea, sky and space all in one picture. After 13 hours I was at JFK, this is the shocker. JFK as I have been misguided in movies is not really the coolest airport, but I looked like some Mumbai/old Bangalore airport. I was not really the great airport, but just another place where flights land and takeoff + security + customs and a parking lot for cars, absolutely that’s it, nothing more, nothing less. Add to that the terrible heat, 37C (Chennai was 26 when I left) and really really rude security staff at the airport, people yelling, noises, jumping queues, etc… etc.. It was a home experience; I think Delhi T3 will be like a million times better than JFK. My wifi didn’t work, seems like you have to pay bingo some dollars a month for using wifi at JFK, forget about airports we started getting free wifi at our railway stations here in india… Enough of complaining, to simply put it, this airport sucks. Did I forget to tell you that a luggage trolley costs 5 USD, yes it does. So after identifying the fact the my skype-out won’t work in the state-of-the-art US airports, we resorted to use GSM over VOIP to make our telephone calls

Saratoga Springs

We had to go to a place called Saratoga Springs; it’s near Albany, which is the capital of New York, 3~4 hours from the City, yes! NYC is NOT the capital of New York State. We reached our Hotel; this was our home for the next couple of weeks. About Saratoga Springs, this place is a traditional resort town, not much business activity, slow pace of life, lot of tourists, much like typical European city, Saratoga is known to be famous for horse racing and there are a couple of lakes around which offer a good sightseeing opportunity. The racing season begin just about the end of July. So we were in town a couple of weeks before. Personally I liked Saratoga very much, just for the pace of life; I like it when people have time to live their lives, instead of running and rushing for everything. No much to talk about Saratoga, there was a Walmart Super centre nearby, a colleague of mine did buy like half of it (he he he). Used the public transport (CDTA) rarely, the services were on time. You will find horse statues and springs in every road in Saratoga, The water from the springs is very sulphury, you can may be taste it once, but it is not like really drinkable. Cost of living in US is lot cheap, compared to europe, people can probably live with what they earn, food is really inexpensive. For example, a large pizza costs about 5~10 dollars, costs pretty much the same price in India. And for oil, well everyone knows the modern world history, gas is cheap in US. So comparing the economies and wages, I fell its quite cheap.

» More Pics Trip Photos

Niagara Experience

Deepak came down all the way from Madision,WI to take us on a trip to Niagara Falls. (In return, I have promised him, that I will come all the way from Pammal to Anna Nagar to take him to Kutrallam). We started off early in the day on Saturday and were in Niagara Falls at by about 2:00 PM; we found inexpensive accommodation at America’s best value Inn (Right opposite to Holiday Inn Express and near the airport), left out things and started off to Niagara. We had our lunch at an Indian restaurant (Maharaja Restaurant, Just near the park) and we headed for the falls. One the way I saw an Indian family speaking in Telugu, I told my friend, that they are from my place, he told me to keep watching, and after a few mins, I realized that every one is speaking in Telugu, It’s like 80-90% of the Indians who are visiting there look to be from AP, it looks like a mini Andhra of some sort, I was waiting for someone to shout “Jai Telengana”. That will be kinda funny to believe, but that’s very true. The Maid of the Mist tour was very good, took a lot of pictures, felt jealous about the Canadian Side, they have the most exotic view of the Niagara Falls. Few moments into the tour, I was in a dilemma, whether to take pictures of the stunning scene or to just stop and watch the natural wonder. Little later I realized that if I continue to take pictures too close to the falls I will end up losing my expensive camera. We left the place after the tour and went to the local casino to spend some time there and were back in the falls at night to watch the light show. Here is the catch, the best view of Niagara is not during the day, but at night, when lights and projected on the falls from the Canadian side. If you don’t trust me, see the pics below. It was the awesome-est experience that I ever had taking photographs. We were like clicking and clicking and clicking, and during one photo I had to hold everyone from moving since the shutter needs to be kept open for long during low light and any slight movement can introduce shake.

» More Pics Trip Photos

New York City

New York City was our last leg of travel, we took the Adirondack Trailways from Saratoga to NYC with a transit in Albany, although it was exceptionally late, the scenery on the route was very good. We reached the outskirts of the city and the city was lit up with lights and the city offered great panoramic views, and all of a sudden we are taken into a tunnel (Lincoln Tunnel), after 5 mins of drive in the darkness, the bus jumps out in the middle of 42 St, in the heart of NYC. The sky was lit up with multiple colours, skyscrapers, cars, traffic, for the next 2 hours I couldn’t not believe that I was on our planet, it was a completely out of the world experience. There is nothing to match the night experience of NYC. We took residence in a state-of-the-art budget hotel right near Times Square (Carter Hotel), the hotel was very basic, but what can you expect for 100$ a night Near Times Square.

Next day morning we went on a trip to Liberty state, took the Subway 5 from Port Authority to Battery Park, then took the ferry from there to Liberty statue and Ellis Island. It looks if you were to visit the crown of Liberty statue, prior arrangements have to be made, Tickets for the Crown visit will not be available directly at the Castle Clinton. We came back to hotel after the ferry ride, roamed around Times Square, took some random pics and were off to JFK to take out flight back home.

There are few things I missed in NYC; Emipre state @Night, Saravana Bhavan, WTC Memorial, Although I was staying a street away from Madame Tussauds, didn’t get enough time to visit it and the UN HQ.


		» More Pics Trip Photos

Spent a long 6 hours at JFK before boarding the flight. Got a free business class upgrade on the way back, I would certainly appreciate Qatar airways for that. Arrived home at around 3 AM in the morning in Chennai/MAA, after having a lost 1 day in my calendar.

All in all, it was a great experience and definitely worth the long flights (and the security checks).

Tags: Airport, Business class, New York, Niagara Falls, Qatar Airways, Saratoga Springs, Travel, Travel Blogs, US

New Camera

Feb 11, 2010 Photography, Travel

Gifted myself with a new camera, a couple of weeks ago, so was busy researching on it. This is a Nikon 3000, it came with a 18-55mm Kit lens, Kit bag, 4 Gb mem card, etc.. .

The Camera as such is excellent with a wide range of enhancements, the zoom is the only thing that hurts. I certainly do know the metrics behind zoom lenses in SLR cameras, but having got used to a superzoom (FujiFilm S5700) for more than a year, I find this very hard to get used to. But if you go to a store and check the price of those super zoom lenses for SLR’s you wont think about them.

Here are some of the snaps taken with the new camera

Also see, Snap from Kodaikanal trip Jan 2010, taken on my friend’s Sony A200 DSLR

Tags: chennai, D3000, Kodaikanal, Nikon, Photography, Travel Blogs

Trip to Ooty

Apr 17, 2009 Photography, Travel

Lazinees in blogging

The last time i blogged about travel was in late may last year after my stavanger trip, although i have been traveling to a few places i havent found time to blog about my travel experiences. Here is the list that i have missed to blog about , Hyderabad Trip – Jun ‘08, ECR Trip – Aug ‘08, Coorg Trip – Oct ‘08, Pondy – Jan ‘09, Bangalore – Feb ‘09, Thiruvannamalai – Feb ‘09, ECR Again- Apr ‘09 and now Ooty Apr ‘09. Coorg Trip was really amazing, more than 2000 kms of travel on bus during 5 days, I can only regret that i couldn’t manage the time to blog about that experience. Bangalore trip was highlighted by our lunch experience at Nandinee. All done and said, lets talk about this trip.

The plan.

Shetty (quoted among one of the greatest civil engineers of all time for creating the plan and the arch. design to build a flyover between Gwalior and Chennai) now wanted to build a flyover between Chennai and Bangalore, and we wanted to find a place where we can plant the foundation stone. After rounds of meetings we finally decided that instead of starting the flyover construction from the ends, we will start it from the center, the center point being Ooty hill.

- If i didnt get kicked for this, then there is a serious problem out there… he he

The plan actually was because we had a long weekend, and we wanted to celebrate a few events. so we decided to ooty, as it happens with every travel plan involving me, we had nothing inplace until we started out for the trip. the only things that are confirmed with us are the return tickets from coimbatore to chennai on monday night.

Thrusday evening

4:00 PM at office, I start off to koyembedu, so that i can catch the bus, which praveen told me to be a super deluxe, i will try to post a photograph of the bus here. This is by no means a super-deluxe bus. When we were boarding the bus, joseph asked the conductor, if it was a video coach. The conductor replied to him saying that this is a video coach, but the passengers should bring their own TV’s, he was true, there was a tv provision, but no TV in it.

From Ooty Trip -Apr 2009 (Friends)

5:30 PM The bus starts off from bus stand.

7:30 PM The bus halted 45 Mins in pallavaram, due to a small accident.

9:30 PM The bus halted 1 hour due to noise in the Tyre, this is getting us frustrated now, first the bus, now the delays.

6:00 AM next day, the bus which is supposed to reach Coimbatore already, hasn’t even touched erode yet.

8:30 AM at last we are in Coimbatore

Friday Morning

After the breakfast we start off on our second phase of our journey, the uphill travel through the mountainous terrain of the nilgiris. But wait, this cannot be as smooth as expected. We get to the bus stand to catch our bus to Ooty, this is where we get our first shock, there is a queue, at least 150 Meters long, and people waiting for more than 1 hour at the first few places. Now we realized that this wont work out for us. We wanted to find a alternative, all my efforts of trying to book a bus through redbus.in were ineffective since, they didn’t cover that route.

Joseph came up with a idea to get to connoor and then to reach ooty from there. So we took a bus to connoor, this bus was terrible than the previous bus, the standards of buses are getting sicker and sicker.

From Ooty Trip -Apr 2009 (Friends)

After 90 mins on our travel and say 13 kms off Connor hill top, our bus breaks down. Then we say, wow, this is what we are waiting for . they funny thing is that once we get down form the bus, say 20 of us, the bus starts up, and the bus leaves us, we were under the assumption that the bus will stop somewhere near to pick us up, there was nothing to worry, since the conductor was walking with us. But the bus didn’t stop for say like the next 750 M / 1 Km. We were walking , walking , and walking… the shades gave us some relief, although the uphill climb and the reducing air density as we climb upwards were talking a heavy toll on us, and finally the bus reached connoor and then we took the next bus to Ooty.

Friday Afternoon

A bus from Connor drops us in ooty now, tired and restless, we have been traveling on road for more than 20 hours now. We dropped into to the hotel room, to take some rest.

Ooty

If we had to go by speculations climate in ooty during this time is supposed to be terrible , it was really bad during the second day, when it got hot upto 28~30 C. But teh first and third days were ok, it was cold enough for someone who came all the way from chennai.

From Ooty Trip -Apr 2009 (Friends)

We did a lot of sight seeing and shopping during the 3rd day. I will have to write a separate blog about that in case i had to explain the details. It was a nice weekend getaway to relax ourselves from the fast paced offices that we work for.

The Down Trip

The down trip was not as eventful and the upward trip, as we had confirmed ticket through the travel and we had already exhausted all our energies to take any risk. We traveled form Ooty to Coiambatore on Sunday evening, to reach Coiambatore on sunday night. One full day rest at koovai on monday and repeat biriyanis at koovai thalapakettu, had spoiled our plans to visit the koovai kutralam. We didn’t manage to acheive the core goal of the trip which is the treat from shetty. But nevertheless it was great fun we had during the four days.

Albums

Ooty Trip -Apr 2009 (Friends)

Ooty Trip -Apr 2009 (Photography)

I am still here.. haven’t quit blogging yet

May 29, 2008 Fun, General, Photography, Travel

For all those who were thinking that i had quit blogging…. bad news .. i m still here just that i am not finding enough time to work with google tools (gmail,gtalk,analytics,adwords,docs,calendar…. and this one blogger).. I have been quite busy these days (everytime i say this, i want to give some other reason but couldn’t find one).. if you wanto know what happened in between last blogpost and this one is that i travelled to two places one long trip to my office headquarters at stavanger(March) and one short but enjoyable trip to pondy after that(April). Pics posted below. Try here : http://picasaweb.google.com/itkrishna

Stavanger – Trip – March2008

Tags: Blogs

Photography – the old NEW hobby

Feb 25, 2008 General, Photography, Travel

Hi, all

Its been a long time since i had posted anything on this blog. Reasons are simple, i m too busy with my work, havent found time to travel or to take a few snaps. There are too many things happening over here, couldnt catch up with everything in these schedules. Well the good thing is that i managed to find a small trip to coimbatore (fotos below) and an across the border view of kerala for a couple of days and i have got a new prosumer camera (FujiFilm s5700) for myself and what next would you expect me to do all these times… its only been fotography.
Coimbatore Trip

More pics here