Barog

A beautiful small hill station where you can spend a relaxing weekend. I stayed in the Himachal tourism hotel there and they have huge open gardens and lawns. Icing on the cake, the backdoor of our rooms opened into the lawns directly so we had all our meals arranged in the lawn only and it was amazing. This what I love when I go to hilly areas because we don't get all this in our busy city lives.

This place, Barog, is famous because of the special significance of the toy train station here. The Barog tunnel is one of the longest tunnel of all the operational tunnels on the Kalka-Shimla railway line and this station is right after the longest tunnel finishes.


As the railway line is just used for the toy train, the time gaps between train arrival are huge so you can easily walk on the tracks and even get some beautiful pictures clicked anywhere.

The railway station has some small eateries as well where you can enjoy tea and snacks.


A few kilometers ahead of Barog there is a brewery where beer is produced and packaged. If you want and if they allow you can go and take a look inside at their process of beer making and bottling.


Rest this place is more unwinding and relaxation so I suggest that target for a hotel which has some open area to sit and enjoy outside.

The famous Laxmi Villas Palace - Baroda

Woww!! the one word that I have for Laxmi Villas Palace. A beautifully created structured and maintained really well. I must say it is a must visit if you are in Baroda. I personally felt that the entrance ticket price was little high.


This place still remains residence for the royal family and they live in a part of the palace and rest is open for the tourists. The palace has banquet and lawns which are now used for parties and weddings. Definitely it is a beautiful location for wedding.


Once you go there, you need to buy an entrance ticket and then you would require to collect your headphones from the office room. These headphones have the recorded details about the palace and would guide you to go from one room to another to make you visit the entire palace with all the detailed information.


The campus has a zoo, a museum and a golf course as well.

Visit to Manali

Manali has a beautiful drive, along the river on one side and that itself makes the visit to Manali worth it. This time I stayed in the Himachal tourism cottages and the experience was amazing. They were small & cozy wooden cottages with huge garden area with each one of them. The staff was courteous enough and even arranged for bonfire on our request on one of the nights. Good food, wine and bonfire, what else would you need. The morning was equally beautiful there as the days were quite sunny and it was the time around Christmas. We enjoyed our hot cup of tea and yummy breakfast in the garden area where there were lovely flowers as well.

Personally I like walking and exploring the place wherever possible as hill stations are easily manageable by walking. We visited a quite a lot of cafes during our stay there and I must say old Manali has amazing cafes and that side of Manali has it's own charm. A few places where we had lovely experience personally are -


Café 1947 - A very cozy place, with a bonfire place inside and the food they serve is delicious. We had all Italian - pasta, pizza, lasagna as suggested by our server. Whatever we ordered was great. Also this café is river side, so if you can manage to get a seat outside and it's sunny enough to keep you bit warm, you would be able to enjoy the food and drinks with the beautiful sound of river flowing beside you. These kind of experience I specifically enjoy as we don't get any of these opportunities in our metro cities. One suggestion I would like to give, if you plan to visit this café to spend the evening there, please book a table with them in advance as they are always full and the waiting is couple of hours as once people get in here they just don't want to move out and usually sit for long long hours.

Johnson's café - This café was just at a walking distance form the cottages where we stayed and went for dinner on one of the days. the place is good and the food is good too. the only issue that we faced is that most of their menu and kitchen were closed because it wasn't the peak season for visiting Manali somehow so they were serving only from a very small section of the menu. We tried the trout fish there and it was done well.

Drifter's café - This place became one of my favorites and would be on my list for sure whenever I visit Manali. We went there for breakfast and ordered some sandwiches and Omlettes with cappuccino. Each of the food item was very well prepared and I loved it. After placing our order and while we were waiting for our food to come, we suddenly spotted a few games and books lying in the corner and we decided to pick the very old and one of the childhood favorite games - Ludo :) We started with the game and we were perfectly 4 people for it. We kept on playing for 2 hours till we finished the game. In between our food came and coffee kept on flowing in. That morning gave us a chance to revisit our childhood days and we all were super happy faces when we stepped out of that place.


River side cafes - Just before you are entering Manali, there are a few river side café and they serve amazing fresh river trout fish. We tried the grilled version of the fish and it was really well prepared and the feel itself is amazing, of sitting by the riverside, with that sound coming from flowing river, lovely rays of sun or the setting sun (depending on the time of the day you are going).

Manali has a nice market as well on the mall road in case you want to indulge in some shopping. I personally don't shop much from these places until and unless there is something really specific manufactured in that area only. Like we shopped for the local fruit wines from there, like - Apple, Peach, Guava, Grapes, Pomegranate etc. One tip - Don't forget to bargain :P


All in all, it was an amazing experience to visit this place and would love to visit anytime again, preferable this time in the season when apple orchards are full of juicy apples :)

Birthday in Singapore

Loads of fun, amazing and lively city, delicious food and lovely people, that is what describes Singapore. I visited the place this summer with my husband and had a superb time. We went there to celebrate my husband's birthday and it was a perfect destination.

 

I usually prefer a few leisure days on my vacation to relax and explore the local city and this time also out of five days we kept two open days. The first day was free so that we could explore a bit and get comfortable to the city and the environment. We got geared up with our sport shoes, picked up the city map and left to roam around and explore the place. We tried some amazing local delicacies at the local restaurants, checked a few malls and did a bit of shopping. Our hotel destination was amazing, with metro station, market and restaurants just below the hotel. In our entire 5 days vacation we just used the metro train for travel and I must say they have great connectivity and system. We did not face any issue even a single time and the entire process was really smooth and clear.

 

Next day we took a small city tour and headed for the special Sentosa island visit. It is a beautiful man made island they have created with water park, Madame Tussauds, Aquarium, a lot of rides, water shows, restaurants and also a few beaches where one can relax completely. There are many beach side cafes as well where you can enjoy some chilled beer and snacks with the mesmerising view in your front.

 

Next day we kept a bit adventurous for Universal Studios and were completely thrilled with their roller coasters and rides. Let me tell you I am super scared of rides but this time I tried everything when my husband insisted rather almost dragged me to the rides :) Thankfully one of my friend told me in advance that the no. of things to do and visit in the studios are a lot and the day would be short for all, so we took a list of show timings and a map without wasting any time started with the fun time. By the evening we could cover a lot of it but still some things we had to leave as our driver was waiting. We don't realise there but once we were back at the hotel, we were dead tired and the bed felt like heaven. We already had our evening planned for the casino but had to cancel it. After a little rest we just went to the nearby market and got some food and drinks and just got lazy.

 

We also went to some other places for shopping and visit the iconic Merlion. It is a huge sculpture created and we took our crazy pictures there. One of the most amazing experience on our trip was at the casino. I think they have the biggest casino than anywhere at Marina bay sands and one can get crazy inside. It is like a huge mall with gaming machines and tables all around, with people mostly getting disappointed at losing money and making more and more bets in frustration. We spent almost an hour or two in just observing people and understanding the games and finally settled in for Roulette. We took some coins and decided to go for a machine game as the bets were smaller and was easy to start with. I had all my luck with me then that we did invest 20 dollars and I made 100 dollars within minutes. I was thrilled and feeling on the top and my husband was amazed at my skills. He sensibly suggested to take out the profit and then reinvest but I was almost overconfident till now and within sometime I lost all the money. Haha, and that's the rule, only the house wins always.  Finally we left the casino early in the morning after losing a few dollars and I was super disappointed with my performance there. But we had an amazing time the entire night and the place was still full when we left at 4 AM.

In all I would suggest the below places as a must go if you are visiting Singapore and would also suggest the city of Singapore as one of the must visit places. Here is the list -

• Sentosa Island
• Universal studios
• Marina bay sands and it's casino. You can plan for the restaurant at the top, 55th floor and I must say the view and feel is amazing from there.
• Gardens by the bay
• Merlion place
• Clarke quay
• Orchard street for local clothes shopping
• and my personal experience, their public transport is amazing

The holy city - Varanasi

The city of temples and ghaats, Varanasi has its own charm. All around you will hear the noise of the temple bells and eating joints after every two steps. This city is a heaven for the foodies. One can find every kind of food like kachori jalebi, kachori chhole, samosa,  the world's famous chaat, superb sattu pranthas with chokha, a vast spread of sweets available and a lot more. It's a dense hub where you can find loads of things to eat and of course one can't forget the special Thandai of Varanasi.


I had a very special experience visiting Varanasi last year when I stayed at a relatives place and they took me and my husband to a lot of special places. As always, if you have a local resident along you get to see the best places.


We went to visit the very famous Banaras Hindu University on the first day after our special breakfast choora matar (Poha with matar). The campus is lovely with a very different environment inside with that of the city. It is very calm and green inside with no hustle bustle. Post that we had food at the most famous Burger King restaurant and headed for Ganga Aarti in the evening. The was huge and at a very large scale. I was amazed to know that it was the usual daily ritual and was done so beautifully. People enjoy the lovely view of the ghaats siting on the boats, munching some lovely snacks which are usually bought before going on the boat.


Next day we visited the most famous temples and museums in the city. Though it was a really hot day but we enjoyed a lot. Overall my 2 days stay in the city was lovely and I think this place is a must visit once atleast but I would recommend winters time rather than summers and most of the activities are outdoor and summers are super hot over there.

Kasauli - A must visit

Reaching kasauli is an easy affair. It's a good n not too long drive. I recently visited the place and found it pretty nice. Having a hot cup of tea or coffee, sitting on the terrace with mountains and so much of greenery around is something that thrills me and takes me back to the hills again and again.

It is a small place, with a very small mall road as compared to other hill stations. The Mall Road has has a few eating joints, selling Maggi, omelette,  momos and other such snacks.

Before the mall road starts there is a nice small church. Just beware of the monkeys all around the church and mall road and ensure you don't leave your eateries around, else the little monkeys would not take even a minute to take that away. Apart from the church and mall road there is a sunset point and a monkey point to visit.

Kasauli regency is a nice place to stay there but a I found it a lil expensive as per the amenities they provide, but the location is really nice. Beside the hotel there is a road which leads to the mall road. It is a steep road and you need to have some stamina to walk through it but the view and the feel is awesome.

Also this hotel has a very nice concept Of headphones party which me and my friends loved. As loud music is not allowed in the hills till late at night, they organise a normal loud music party till 10 or 10.30 and later on if you wanna continue the party and dance, you can just pay a lil amount for the headphones and enjoy the silent party.

All in all I would say it is a place for 1-2 days visit, wherein one can relax and enjoy the natural beauty. 

Marvellous Mashobra

Last month we visited Mashobra, a very small town which is located a few kilometres ahead of Shimla. Its a beautiful and peaceful place, away from all the hustle bustle of a city. The weather was awesome in September, with a mix of clouds, sun and a little drizzling at times. There are very few resorts in this place. We stayed in Club Mahindra resort and had a good experience over there. Another good place to stay is Marigold resort.


The road which leads to Mashobra is not very broad and the turns are mostly blind. So one has to be very careful and slow while driving there, specially  if its raining.


Shimla and some other places like Kufri and Naldhera are very approachable from Mashobra, so one can easily plan a day trip to all these places. Make sure you are geared up with your sport shoes and some warm clothes as always there is a lot of walking on the hilly places and it tends to become colder towards the evening even if there is strong sun in the afternoon. the weather always remain unpredictable at such places.


The mall road of Shimla has a charm of its own. I have been going to Shimla since my childhood and have been there umpteen times but still I know that place is going to attract me again in future. Ofcourse one reason is also that the highway leading to Shimla is superb. On the mall road do not miss going to United coffee house which serves good food  at very affordable prices and also the Gulab Jamuns from Baljees. Else you can find all kind of fast food chains there like Dominos, Pizza hut, KFC etc.


If you want to indulge in shopping, you can find some very good vest coats and jackets there. The quality is good there. If you just want to roam around don't miss going to the ridge and indulge into some horse riding and the very famous skating rink if definitely not to be missed.