The Lavasa Trip [UBC Post 28]

We decided to go to Lavasa [India’s planned hill city near Pune]for little one’s birthday. We wanted to go out-of-town but did not want to spend too much time on the road. Lavasa sounded perfect. After the whole birthday cake mishap and what with baking happening till the last moment; we finally started for Lavasa at 1 pm [as against 10 am].

Lavasa is at about 70 kms from my place. And it took us around 2 hours to reach the hotel. When we go for long trips, I and the sonny boy sit on the back seat because it provides ample space for him to play, sleep or just jump around. The space between the seats is packed with a mattress. We throw in a few cushions, some soft toys, a few books and we are good to go. Of course, he tries to go to the front seat but I manage to stop him somehow.

The moment we started for Lavasa, it was raining in Pune. It rained almost throughout our journey. We enjoyed the beautiful, romantic showers during our journey. The toddler slept for some time just when we were about to enter Lavasa, and would not lie down on the seat, so I carried him on one shoulder and clicked a few pictures from my left hand. I am a complete photo-person that way :-)

Image courtesy: tripadvisor.in

Somehow we managed to locate our hotel, amid fog and heavy rains. We stayed at Hotel The Waterfront Shaw. We had done some research before going, on Tripadvisor. And as suggested, we opted for a Promenade facing apartment suite, but as one of them pointed out, it didn’t matter. It was raining all the time, so we barely stepped out in the so-called balconies.

The apartment suite was very good, for a couple. There were a few things not suitable with a kid around. All electrical points were low. Turning switches on and off was my toddler’s idea of fun throughout our stay. We had to be on our toes all the time to switch them off. There were heavy, glass-top lamps. We removed the table lamp safely into the kitchen shelf, but we had to be extremely watchful for the floor lamp. It was dangerous.

Everything had glass. The centre table and dining table tops were glass. The cutlery was all glass. The lamps had glass. We eventually asked to remove the centre table.

The main door had no locking mechanism which a toddler could not open. He would keep opening the door and we had to be constantly around him. Many times he would wear our shoes and say bye-bye and walk out. It looked very cute, in retrospect.

I loved the suite. It had a microwave, tea-maker, induction plate, mini-fridge, hair drier and iron. There were quite a few options in restaurants / cuisines. We tried Chor Bizarre [North Indian] and All American Diner [American] at Waterfront Shaw. I tried Chor Bizarre only because of all the recommendations on the net but I liked All American Diner more, in terms of ambience and food [which depends on your personal taste]. We also tried lunch buffet in Zodiac [multi-cuisine] at Hotel Fortune Select, which was okay. 

Chor Bizarre
Image courtesy:waterfrontshaw.com

We ordered in our room a couple of times because sometimes the little one did not like anything at a restaurant, so we had to leave pretty quickly. They took last food order at 10.30 pm. Once we had to request to take order at 10.40 pm after we came back from Chor Bizarre. Nothing appealed to the toddler there. I feel that food must be available round the clock, atleast a few things like sandwiches.

All American Diner
Image courtesy: tripadvisor.in

The breakfast was included in our package, which was a buffet. I always look forward to the breakfasts in such trips. Most of the times there is a mix of Indian and European breakfast options. But I did not like the breakfast spread here - too few options. 

We could not try Water Sports or Nature Trail or even the Toy Train ride. But everything said and done, I think we had a good time. I would have loved to walk around this beautiful township but the rains never stopped. Lavasa is styled as a quaint European town but it will take a few years to reach there. A lot of construction work is going on. If you are looking for a quiet time, with or without your partner; go to Lavasa. It is beautiful.

June Photo A Day : Day 22: Enjoying Life

Vacations are certainly the best form of enjoying life, when you can just let the world go by, when you can relax for a while without needing to go anywhere. Our trips are like that. We never plan the itinerary. We just do what we feel like. 

This picture is from our trip to Udaipur at the beautiful Hotel Rampratap Palace. It has been one of our best trips, and an amazing heritage hotel experience. Udaipur was a quaint little city, just perfect for a 2-day trip on our 2nd Anniversary.  

Trip to the romantic city - Udaipur

Since I am on to travelogues, here’s a quick round-up on my trip to Udaipur recently. Udaipur is a quaint, little town in Rajasthan – no crowd, beautiful palaces, heritage hotels, no traffic, not too many places to go….what else can you ask for on a holiday!
Usually, people want to check out as many places in and around the city as possible; but we don’t get into that maddening urge to see anything and everything. A holiday is a holiday, so the most important thing is to slow down the pace, just go wherever you feel like, no plans, no hundred places to see. As a rule, we neither plan, nor attempt to check out all the ‘popular’ tourist places. We shortlist 2-3 places and take our time to go around those only.
Day 1We selected the hotel on our own. Just visited a couple of sites, read a few reviews and zeroed in on The Rampratap Palace, and it really looks exactly like it does in the pictures. It is a beautiful heritage hotel with excellent service, and just 25 rooms so there are never too many people around. I fell in love with this hotel, the moment I saw it. The structure is completely reminiscent of the old times, and the framed pictures of maharajahs, old advertisements, etc add to the aura.

We got a room in the first floor, which also had a quite decent balcony overlooking the road. Just outside our room, was the tiny restaurant that served breakfasts in the mornings – Continental and Indian. Outside the restaurants were lounging garden chairs and little lanterns. Right next to I,t was the hotel’s in-house shop of local items and also a spa. The spiralling stairs led to an open and spacious terrace, which had a fabulous view of around the hotel.

The first day, we hired a cab and selected a few places closer to our Hotel like Nehru park, Saheliyon ki baadi, which, everything said and done, are all parks. There is nothing to ‘see’ as such in these places, so we decided no more parks, and we straightaway went to the beautiful ‘City Palace’. What to say about this beautiful place, it just takes you back to many centuries ago. The Palace is huge and cameras are not allowed inside. We got a guide with us, so that he could tell us about the story around that palace. Apparently, a lot of movies or parts of movies have been shot in this palace like Guide, Hum Saath Saath Hain, a song from Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar Ke, etc, etc. There are old weapons too stacked in a room. Read all about City Palace here.

The Palace keeps hosting a lot of events and marriages. In fact, Udaipur had been in news for hosting Raveena Tandon’s marriage and Vikram Chatwal’s marriage. Now who’s Vikram Chatwal?! That’s the reason, I say, read PEOPLE or Page 3 more often, guys!
Well, anyways, I was so drawn to the place that I wanted to buy a book on the City Palace, and luckily there was a little shop within the palace. I bought a book called “Udaipur”. It has everything told by the guide to us and a lot of information about the city as well – about its festivals, generations of maharajas, etc.

That day we did a little bit of shopping in the local market and bought the usual batik print dress material, kurtas and the jaipuri razaai!

Our Hotel had a beautiful restaurant, located across the road. The hotel had their own collection of vintage cars on display. The combination of candle-lights, cool breeze, the heritage hotel in the background, made an extremely romantic setting. It was one of such moments, when you don’t think about anything and the moment stands still, which you would want to hold on in your memories forever!

Day 2
The second day, we visited the “Aapni Dhaani” , which is on the same platform as “Chowki Dhaani” and encapsulates games, culture and food of Rajasthan.
We also did a little bit of shopping of the rajasthani mojris. I bought 2 footwears – 1 in reddish leather and the other is quite colourful, but haven’t had chance to wear any of those in last so many days!
There is a Monsoon Palace at Sajjangarh, which is in the outskirts of Udaipur. It is not as big as the City Palace but is frequented by tourists to catch the mesmerising sunrises and sunsets!
There is a small cafeteria there to take a break while coming back to the city after watching the sunset.
Dinner again was at the beautiful restaurant of Rampratap hotel!
Day 3
We had an early morning flight for home. The airport is quite nice at Udaipur and not too many people boarding from there. We saw Dia Mirza, Priti Janghiani, Prachi Desai, Shweta Kwatra and Manav Gohil coming in to board the same flight for Mumbai. Apparently, there was some event the previous night.
It usually happens to me that whenever I see any celebrity (so to say), I don’t know what to do. I feel like staring at the person but feel embarrassed to do so! So, we checked in with all of them, without trying to stare too hard at them.

Overall, the trip was short yet memorable. Though a popular tourist place, yet Udaipur is still not such a hot spot. The quiet, little, laid back town is just the right place to spend some peaceful time. Hope I do get an opportunity to go back there again!

On a special journey called Life

I just realized how under-traveled I am! I have not even seen India completely, forget about abroad. My first real tour was when I was in class sixth; we went to Agra, Mathura, Vrindavan, Lucknow, Delhi, Shimla, Chandigarh and Delhi. I was quite young then but I remember everything clearly. Undoubtedly, I loved Shimla, the best. I just love mountains. I remember there were so many monkeys when we were going up to see this temple called Jhakhu Mandir in Shimla. It is supposed to be the highest peek there, and the view was lovely from the top. I remember the Rock Garden of Chandigarh, I remember that wonderful park at Pinjaur, I remember the person sitting outside the Qutub Minar with a huge snake, I remember the bada and chhota Imambada of Lucknow, I remember the Mall road of Shimla, I remember Columbus of Appu Ghar; yet I feel every city has so much to see that covering so many cities in 15 days is the same as not seeing them at all. I had been on this tour with my parents, my grand-parents and my brother. Our second tour was down South. We saw Chennai, Mysore, Bangalore, Tirupati, Ooty and Coonnoor. I just loved Ooty and Coonnoor too much. They were heavenly. It is something to do with Hill stations. It was lovely. I went with my parents to all these wonderful places. I remember the Tea and Coffee gardens of Ooty, the zero-visibility foggy roads of Coonnoor, the unpolluted Tirupati, the amazing Mysore palace and a bit of Bangalore. I discovered Bangalore more when I stayed there for sometime. Well, to think of it, I have not been that unlucky after all. I have had the privilege of staying in three Metros – Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai. Can you beat this? Well, to go slightly off-track, city exposure did wonders for my self-confidence. I used to be over-awed by city life. I always had this feeling how would I adjust? In fact, it all started with moving out of home for my Graduation. I had the first brush with freedom and independent life. It was my first journey out of home alone. Those three years prepared me for life ahead. Of course, there was much more to come. Post graduation, I moved to Chennai to stay with my brother. Those 6 months were amazing. Nobody really likes Chennai. I mean people from other parts of India. They would prefer other places to Chennai, any given day. I liked Chennai. It was kind of conservative yet a metro. It is much cheaper than any other Metro and if you love South Indian food, you don’t need to look beyond! My next destination was Bangalore. I did not really see the entire Bangalore but the fact that I used to move around alone, taught me several things. Bangalore, for me, is all about Udupi restaurants, cyber cafes and several hopes and dreams. I was preparing for CAT at that time. I really learnt using internet in this place. In fact, I stayed all alone in Bangalore for 15 days. It was scary initially. What if I needed something in the middle of the night? I knew nobody there, absolutely nobody! It was from Bangalore that I did my first long distance train journey alone. I learnt all the now-seeming simple things like doing reservations in train or making a demand draft. Yeah! Joining IMDR in Pune really made me a metropolitan at heart. I used to be overwhelmed by even Pune earlier. But now it seems like a second home. It’s nice and relaxed. I think life is nowhere even close to what it is here. Chilled Out! Its here that I had the real campus life experience—my first late nights, first instance of being on my own, my first Scooty, this Blog, my first visit to a real disc, my first Film Festival and many more firsts. I loved every bit of it. When college days came to an end and I landed in dream job in Mumbai, I could not have asked for more. But, well, I never really liked Mumbai. I don’t know why. Today I regret only one thing. I did not SEE Mumbai properly. It is an amazing city, whatever I might say. There is always one thing or the other happening (and I am not talking about Bomb blasts and Flood). I did not see Prithvi Theatres, I could not check out the Strand Book Sale, I missed out on “Class of 84”, I could not go to King’s Circle for Books, I did not see Colaba flea market and so many things. But I chose to move out, so I am not really complaining. But yeah, it all boils down to What next? The latest trip was to, well, Life’s finest Abode! Yes, the Aamby valley. It was a heavenly experience. The peace, the tranquility, the unabused atmosphere, everything about Aamby valley is such that you would want to get in a cozy cottage and spend some days of sanctity, away from the hustle and bustle of crowd. Well, I was sure lucky to be there. Everything said and done, I still think I am highly under-traveled. I want to travel more, see all the beautiful and amazing places—in India and then abroad. That’s what life is all about. Isn’t it? After all, life is a journey in itself.