krabi

Krabi is located in the west coast of southern Thailand and is famous for its beaches and limestone formations.

http://maps-guide.org/thailand/map.htm

http://www.hoteltravel.com/thailand/krabi/maps.htm

Krabi can be reached directly by air or by road or ferry from phuket.

Airlines which operate to krabi :- Airways, Air Asia, Nok Air and One-Two-Go and Tiger Airways. The main beach Ao Nang is around 30 min travel by taxi from the airport.

From Phuket it takes around 2 hrs and taxi can charge around 2000 to 2500 baht.

There are a lot of things to be done in eat sleep and play on beach, scuba diving, snorkelling, wind sailing, kyaking, rock climbing, trecking, photography. One can go on speed boat to different islands and above all get nice masaage to relax your body. There are a lot of massage parlour on the Ao Nang beach and they dont charge much ( 200 - 500 baht ). Krabi is basically a place for people from all age groups to enjoy and relax. Best season to visit would be from November till March.
I have uploaded most of the pics on

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eeshmengi/
If you need more information mail me eeshmengi at gmail dot com
Some of them

golden water

sunset

hum do :)

chicken island

limestone formations

the rock

ocean se7en - most memorable trip ever

this trip was done exactly 2 years back. it was long weekend - christmas weekend. this was the weekend when tsunami caused havoc in many asian countries. i 'll not be writting in details and instead i'll just be copying the original plan. yes we had a proper doc file prepared by nit ( for more photos and trips, check out his website http://www.flickr.com/photos/trance_nut )

Ocean's Seven

Bangalore Kanyakumari (23 Dec 2004 - 27 Dec 2004)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Seven

=========

1. Ashish a.k.a Dhoom Dhadak

2. Deepak a.k.a DJ

3. Eesh a.k.a Born Free

4. Guppi a.k.a Sparking

5. Nitin a.ka. 6 mein 1 ka mazaa

6. Vishal a.k.a Choos Lee

7. Vivek a.k.a Tan D

Statistics

Total Distance: 1900 km

Trip Start Time: 5 PM

Trip End Time: 8 AM

Trip Duration: 51 hrs

The Route:

Bangalore à Kanyakumari

Bangalore -- Coimbatore -- Ernakulum -- Kochi -- Alappuzha -- Kolam -- Thiruvanthapuram – Kovalam – Kanyakumari

Kanyakumarià Bangalore

Kanyakumari -- Madurai -- Kodaikanal -- Dundigal -- Salem – Bangalore

Vehicles:

Esteem: CH01-L-XXXX

CBZ 1: DL4S-Z-XXXX

CBZ2: KA03-EE-XXXX

ZMA: KA03-EP-XXXX

23.12.04

Leg 1: (Bangalore—Coimbatore)

Distance: 382 KM

Approx Time: 8 hrs

Route:

Bangalore--90--Krishnagiri--40--Dharmapuri--75--Salem--164--Coimbatore

<---------------------NH-7--------------------------><------NH-47------->

Depart by 3 PM (latest)

Reach Coimbatore by 11:30 PM-12 AM. Sync up with car. Rest at any hotel for 3 hrs (sleep, do anything). Start at 3 am.

24.12.04 (3 AM Start)

Leg 2: (Coimbatore – Kovalam)

Distance: 430 km

Approx Time: 10 hrs

Route:

Coimbatore--114--Thrissur--79--Ernakulum--2--Kochi--218--TV Puram--16--Kovalam

<------------------------------NH-47-------------------------------------------->

Sync at Kovalam with car. Have lunch. Chill till sunset. Leave for Kanyakumari.

view from the hotel @ kochi. this is where we had breakfast and took rest for 3 hrs

first view of sea @ alleppey

back waters @ alleppey. a night in this boat would cost you around 20k

sunset @ kovalam

sleeping @ kovalam beach

24.12.04 (7 PM Start)

Leg 3: (Kovalam – Kanyakumari)

Distance: 90 km

Approx Time: 2 hrs

Route:

Kovalam --90-- Kanyakumari

Search for a hotel for the night. Have dinner. Off to bed by 11 pm (latest).

its christmas time - on the way to kanyakumari

waiting for sunrise @ kanyakumari ( our bad luck, it was cloudy )

25.12.04 (6 AM Wake Up)

C THE SUN, RISE J. If we miss it, the whole trip is worthless.

Once done with the sunrise, have the option to go and sleep till 11 AM (negotiable). Have brunch, and leave for Vivekananda Rock. Assume to spend about 2-3 hrs for the rock visit. Lunch time (2:30 pm). Finish by 3:30 – 4 pm. Chill around, watch sunset, depart by 7:30 PM latest.

view from our lodge - vivekananda rock, thiruvalluvar statue

on the way to vivekananda rock - inside ferry

vivekananda rock

thiruvalluvar statue

@ vivekanand rock

experimenting - sun shades in front of camera

sunset @ kanyakumari - we were lucky enough to atleast see the sunset

Leg 4: (Kanyakumari – Madurai)

Distance: 235 km

Approx Time: 5 hrs

Route:

Kanyakumari--81--Tirunelveli--72--Virudunagar--89--Madurai

<-------------------NH-7------------------------------------>

Spend the night at Madurai. Plan to leave by 5 AM (latest by 6 AM)

madurai temple

26.12.04 (5 AM departure from Madurai)

Leg 5: Madurai – Kodaikanal

Distance: 130 km

Approx Time: 4 hrs

Route

Madurai --50-- Batlagundu--80-- Kodaikanal

Starting on the NH7 towards Salem/Bangalore, cruise for 32kms on a not so smooth road and too narrow for a National Highway. Once you take a left turn to go
under the BG Railway line and cross the road level MG Railway line.

Note: Uphill climb is not smooth. Roads are in a bad shape.

Reach Kodaikanal by 10 AM (latest). Have brunch. Roam around (Coaker’s Walk, Lake, some caves also, can decide there). We have 8 hrs in Kodaikanal. What to do is up to us.

sunrise - 26th Dec '04 - the day of tsunami - we left in time to miss it

early morning in kodai

uphill - bikers on the way to kodai

fog covered mountains

kodai lake

26.12.04 (6 PM departure from Kodaikanal)

Leg 6: Kodaikanal – Salem

Distance: 300 km

Approx Time: 6 hrs

Route:

Kodaikanal--130--Dundigal--164--Salem

This is the toughest part. Hope to reach Salem by 1 AM latest. Sleep over till 5 AM. Depart for Bangalore at 5 AM.

time for sleep- on the way back from kodai

sunset @ kodai

27.12.04 (5 AM departure fro

m Salem)

Leg 7: Salem – Bangalore

Distance: 205 km

Approx Time: 5 hrs

Route:

Salem--75--Dharmapuri--40--Krishnagiri--90--Bangalore

Reach Bangalore by 10 AM J. Totally SCREWED!!!!!!

Total Distance: 1770 km + 100 (Margin) = 1870 km in 90 hrs

marina beach - the longest beach in india

got a chance to go to chennai for some office work. though the trip to chennai was made by air, but the trip from abhirampura to marina beach was by road :-). this time of the year in cheenai is quite wet. it kept raining for all the days i was there except the day i had to come back to bangalore. it was burning hot outside but the temptation to capture sea in my new panasonic camera was enough to go to marina.

on the way to marina


a boat


ready to fly


land, water and sky

all alone

me too ( all alone )

though it is debatable if this beach is one of the longest in the world, i think it can easily qualify as the worlds dirtiest beach :(

what we did that summer :)

we : abhishek, harman, rajeev, shibashish and i
destination: goa, murdeshwar, jog falls, kemengundi
duration: 5 days
transportation: buses, bikes, autos, trains

its a very long travelogue, as it was a 5days trip and there were a lot of interesting incidents that happended with us. also the picture quality is not good as all these pictures are scanned
this travelogue is dedicated to abhishek, harman and rajeev ( harman was with us only during the bus journey from bangalore to goa).

our office was supposed to remain closed for 5 days (first week of july'04) as we were moving to new campus and all the stuffs ( workstations, servers, etc…) were to be moved. i was sitting in my cube ( last day at GVH office) , harman came and asked me that they were planning to go to goa and if i was interested in joining them. that was around 3:00 pm. we went to the ksrtc reservation center and got the ticket of bus which was at 5:00pm.

the journey from bangalore to goa normally takes 14 hrs but our ksrtc bus got delayed by 2 hrs. we reached goa bus stand at around 9 in the morning. near the bus stand is the goa tourism office from where we got some information and maps of goa. this time of the year is off season in goa so we decided to stay next to the best beach over there, calungutte beach ( queen of all beaches in goa). there we took 2 ac rooms for just thousand rupees per day. in the afternoon we went to the beach, enjoyed there for about 2hours. because of monsoon the sea was very rough so we couldn't go deep into the sea.

rough sea

in the night we went back to panjim and visited a beautiful hanumaan temple. it was really good, especially during night with flood lights directed onto it. when we came out of temple it was around 9 pm and the buses for calungutte beach from panjim stops after 8:30pm so we had to take auto from panjim. we paid around 200 rupees to the autowala. one can hire bikes in goa so we decided to hire bike instead of paying to autowalas. we started on bikes for anjum beach. which is around 10 kms from calungutte beach . the roads to anjum beach are quite narrow and with a lot of curves. riding bike on empty road with countryside setting at night..wow !! it was a real fun. that beach has got a disco. since there was no good crowd over there we decided to spend the time on beach instead of disco.

beach near aguade fort - behind is a ship which amir khan mentioned in dch

dch style - aguada fort

central jail aguada

next day after having parantha at one of the punjabi restaurant, we went to aguada fort. this is were dch was shot. it is an old fort on the sea shore. form there we went to chuara island. we had to take ferry to that island. the ferry carries from cycles to jeeps on it. it was a 15min trip to that island from panjim. on that island there are lake and few springs which are around 40-45 kms from the place where the ferry dropped us. then we started on bike at 65-70 kmph.

at chuara island

spring at chuara island

It was really thrilling. we went for boating and then went to the springs. at around 6 we were back at panjim, went to 2-3 more beaches mariymar and daonapaula ( i am not able to recollect the names correctly. they sound something like this only). at 730 we went for cruise. it was a 1hr cruise into the sea water but was bit disappointing, because of the crowd on it. we reached back to our rooms at around 9:30pm. whole of goa was excited about the since euro final since portugal was involved. at the football grounds large screens were put on for live telecast of the event. ndtv, aaj tak crew were also there. but we decided to goto beach and have drinks. took few beers and scotch (vat69). got prawns, pomfret fish , chicken packed and started towards beach. after beer and 3-4 pegs everybody was high and we started running around, chasing each other. somehow we managed to come back to our room. that time greece and portugal were 0-0. i think it was the start of the 2nd half. i started giving a lot of fundas about offside, offsidetrap and how they should implement it. don't know during the match when i slept, but morning at 7:30 we were up. no hangover. totally fresh.

next morning after having brunch we left for margaon, from where we took train for murdeshwar. the konkan track is ultimate.

murdeshwar beach

lots of greenry, tunnels, bridges, mountains. murdeshwar has the tallest shiv statue in the world. it is built next to the sea shore. in murdeshwar one can drive car/bike on the beach, but sadly we were without oue bikes. we spent some 2-3 hrs there and started for jog falls.

jog falls

we didn'thave any idea how to reach there. we took buses from one stop toanother to another and finally we reached jog falls at 10 in the night having no idea if we will find any thing to eat leave aside getting a place to stay. luckly there is a kstdc restaurant that serves meals and also a govt. guest house that has got really stinky rooms. somehow we spent the night there. morning we had bread toast at the same ksrtc restaurant and started down hill. the track was extremly slippery and dangerous near the bottom of the hill. it took around half an hour to reach. that place is really dangerous. a slip and you are gone and there is nobody to help you out, no facilities, no dispensary, nothing at all. after spending some time there at the bottom we started to track back. it was really exhausting. when we reached the top of the hill we couldn't move our legs... had some rest and after having lunch started for shimoga. we got a direct bus for shimoga from there. shimoga was really disappointing. we had thought it to be a hill station but it is a normal city like any other small city, so we decided to go to kemengundi. its a hill station in the heart of western ghats.

kemengundi

we had heard of that place from one of our friend in office but had no idea how to reach there. we got some information from drivers , shop walas and people with whom we could communicate :-(. we changed 3 buses before reaching the foot of the hills where kemengundi is there. it is 13 Kms from there. took maruti omni upto the place. kemengundi has got 15-20 rooms in 5-6 cottages, 2-3 canteens and an office where the receptionist sits. thats it. we decided to have beer. for that we called up a guy at the place that was 13 km from there (near the foot of the hill ), but we got a big kela as he got warm beer and were asked for service charges for bringing that. we had a big fight with that guy and finally we managed to return the beer but had to give him the service charges.
next day we enquired about the water fall and few other tourist places around it. the jeep wala asked for 1500 rupees for showing all that places. by that time we had spent more than our budget so we decided to go for tracking instead of going to those watefalls. we tracked for around 2-3 hrs.

kemengundi - on top hill after tracking

when we came back to our rooms there was no jeep, bus, car to take us back. so we started on foot. after travelling for about 2 kms with our bags on our shoulder we got totally tired and we had to go another 11 km. so we called up the receptionist to send the jeep when ever it comes. we waited for one and half hour and then decided to cover the distance on foot. jeep came after we had covered about 1km. from there we changed 2-3 buses before reaching berur. there we took beer and boarded train, jan shatabdi, for bangalore. we had to drink beer in toilet. people were confused about whats going on. 2 guys went inside, after 10 min one comes out and another goes in. one uncle wanted to use toilet after one guy came out but he couldn't open the door, and was surprised. we explained him that someone is changing the clothes inside and he was amazaed and we started laughing. after having beer we ate chips and snacks and slept. when we got up we were at banglore station.