Europe Trip 2007 [part-4]

Switzerland was the peak of the our whole trip. It has beautiful lakes, landscaped mountains and endless natural beauty. On top of that we found local people to be very helpful and tourist friendly. Swiss rail system is very reliable and makes getting around Switzerland a snap. Everything went as per our plans. We took cruises in the Bernese overland region and scenic trains through various parts of Switzerland (Glacier Express and Golden Train). It is a heaven for photographers. Even amateurs like me can get some excellent shots. No matter how much time you had, it always seems less in Switzerland. I am definitely going to revisit this place. Here are the some of the pictures:

Bernese Oberland

Glacier Express

Bern & Zurich

Stay tuned for more updates.

Europe Trip 2007 [part-3]

Paris is an interesting place. Lot of preserved history with some excellent museums for art lovers. I don't think of myself a museum-lover but this time I was curious and open minded to try few things. We visited Louvre Museum, which is the biggest museum in Paris. If you like painting you must have heard of 'Mona Lisa' painting, it is the classic and by far the most famous painting in the world. Painting is held behind bullet proof glass and there is so much security around it. We spent few hours in the museum and by the end of it I was desperate to find more about Mona Lisa painting. We went to a book store and spent some time researching about Mona Lisa. Painting is popular for variety of reasons and the main one I could understand is : from whatever angle you see the painting Mona Lisa always looks directly into your eyes with an enigmatic and mysterious expression. After this we went back to Museum to see the painting again and it was much more enjoyable this time.

Other than this Museum there were few other historical places we visited. You can checkout the photos.

Other interesting incidents in Paris:
After I spent few hours using metro in the city surprisingly I got questions regarding train directions by many folks and that too in French. I was surprised to see how somebody could mistake an Indian tourist for a French local. Anyhow I thoroughly enjoyed helping these people. Not sure where they end up -:)

Once we were at a train station looking at the map and one local guy comes to us and started helping with directions. He told us he is also going to the same place and will join us. First I was pretty happy but then I got suspicious. First of all he was limping and then he would try to walk just after me. Few moments later I realized his intentions and moved my wallet from back to front pocket. This guy saw his revenue going away and disappeared within seconds. Next time you visit Paris be careful with super-helpful folks.

Here are the pics:

Paris

Europe Trip 2007 [part-2]

We had very exciting time in Madrid. Before the trip our initial impression of Madrid was that it is not a safe place for tourists. We were told this by folks on Internet and even people in other parts of the Europe. We were bit scared but excited for the adventure.

Our flight to Madrid airport got delayed and we reached there by 01:00am. Our hotel was close to airport and there was a shuttle service between the hotel and airport. But we did not have phone to contact the hotel. One of the Spanish person who was also waiting there asked me something in Spanish and as I did not understand anything I just told him the Hotel name. This person called somebody to find the hotel number and then called the reception for shuttle. He really helped us even though we couldn't understand a single word from each other. What a nice start.

Madrid is a very dynamic city and specifically old city is very lively. Food was very tasty and spicy. I specifically liked the concept of coffee bar which is tapas style snacks with coffee. Coffee was just like Indian coffee with lot of milk. We also visited Toledo which is about 50 miles from Madrid and has lot of history. Toledo used to be Spain capital before Madrid. The main attraction of Toledo was Cathedral. It was grand in every sense.

Madrid

Toledo

There is so much to talk about Madrid but I am very sleepy right now. Will publish more details soon.

Europe Trip 2007 [part-1]

How can our trip start without surprises? Our flight was scheduled for 7:00am departure which we made it well ahead in time. Thanks Mohit for dropping us so early [specifically by his standard]. We had a connection at Philadelphia which we later realized was only for 45 minutes. Our flight to Philadelphia was late by 30 minutes so we had only 5 before airline closes the gate. We had to sprint for about half a mile. My marathon training can have a real life use. We barely made it but our luggage couldn’t. We realized that at Frankfurt airport when everybody left and we were still waiting for our luggage. What an interesting start of the trip.

We left for our first destination to Heidelberg which is only city left with history in Germany. Heidelberg is about an hour by train from Frankfurt and is popular for its Castle and old town. I am publishing the photos of the city which would speak for its own beauty.

Heidelburg

Stay tuned for more updates of the trip.

India Trip

Some more photos from our India trip...

India Trip

Vanu's Wedding

Vanu got married on 13th Dec, 2006. Congratulations to both Vanu and Praveen! I wish them great life ahead.

Vanu Wedding

Few things I still remember from wedding:

1. 13th Dec. was very popular date for Indian marriages. In Delhi only there were 36000 weddings that day. Some of my friends took 3 hours to drive 15 miles in Delhi that night. There were 3 weddings in the hotel where Vanu's wedding was held. You can imagine the number of folks who got confused that day and attended wrong wedding. If you are in anniversary planning business mark 13th Dec. on your calender.
2. As I was doing some of the arrangements, realized an interesting thing about Delhi's new generation. Folks have become quite health conscious. Everybody loves (or pretends to love?) non-fatty food, so next time you arrange something keep that in mind.
3. Planning to hire a photographer? Tell him that he would be paid based on the number of quality photos NOT based on the number of photos he takes. Because of digital cameras photographers take thousands of photos and later on you would end up doing the job of selecting quality photos and paying for near-duplicate photos. Worst part is they would ask you to pose in weird forms in front of entire family. This whole industry needs to move to photography 2.0 now.
4. Other interesting part of wedding is during phere (last but main wedding ceremony) panditji (priest) would ask you if you accept few conditions from each other. Now given you have gone through the pain of arranging the whole wedding do you really have a choice? I would suggest making these conditions freely available well in advance, just like home disclosures so that you don't get surprised at the last moment like Vanu was -:)

Singapore

Life has been really hectic lately as you can see that I haven't done any blogging in Q1.

However I am using my 'dead time' during mafia and trying to publish some of the stuff from our India trip. On the way to India we took a break at Singapore and following are pictures from our stay at Singapore:

Singapore Trip

Singapore is really an amazing place. Tiny in land area but huge economy. Among the places we visited a museum at Santosa island which has a presentation about Singapore's history. Singapore was founded by people from India, Chinese, Malaysia and Britain. Its great to see four different cultures blended together and being successful. Kudos to Singaporean governance!