ADHVAGATI

Recently, a relative who traveled to Puducherri , decided to drop by the Alamparai Fort on her way back to Chennai, having heard of the place from me sometime ago. But the report of her trip was dismal ! She sounded cheated ! And after seeing her pictures, I was dismayed too. In place of the somewhat respectable remnant of a fort that I had visited a few times ( the last visit in 2003), stood broken stumps of brickwork and crumbled walls. The only part that looked halfway recognisable was the inner stairway . To begin with, the remains that had survived to this century were not all that strong and majestic , as the fort was not of stone, but of brick and mortar. At best, it was in a state of precarious preservation. Came the Tsunami and chunks of the fort got washed away in a jiffy. And then, the torrential rains (of this season and the last ) seem to have knocked down a few more weathered structures. What remains now, apparently, are sad heaps of wet rubble . Unfortunate...

Yesterday, I received a forwarded mail with pictures showing Venice inundated by the recent flood , almost turned into an Atlantis Theme Park ! I remembered our own visit to Venice and our dread at just such a prospect ! The water level was pretty close to lapping over the stone avenues when we arrived at the San Marco water taxi jetty. We later learnt that we had escaped an episode of 'aqua alta' ( High Water) by just two days. Aqua Alta flooding is a periodic phenomenon that leaves major portions of this beautiful historic city submerged knee deep in tidal backlash for short intervals. Not that this discourages Tourists swarming in ! Come Hell or High Water, excited gaggles of camera toting visitors overrun Venice throughout the year, wearing rubber boots when necessary. If you can capture a quiet corner all for yourself, consider yourself fortunate ! Our visit was just a daylong trip . Chugged in by the early morning train and took the last one out. A fully...

Its one of the getaways one never tires of. Whenever the extended family gets together for a mini holiday in the hometown, there's usually a daylong trip rustled up at short notice. Someplace within the 50km. range. If its not peak summer, the choice is usually Kere Thonnur ( or Thondanoor Eri), a huge Fresh Water reservoir in Mandya District, about 45 Kms. from Mysore. The water in this lake is crystal clear and has given rise to a legend that a string of pearls worn by a visiting Sultan, accidently fell into the lake, but could be seen clearly , lying deep at the bottom ! Whereupon, it is believed, the Sultan named the place "Moti Talab". The unique feature of the lake is that it has never dried up fully even once , from the time it was built in the 12th Century. The outflow from the reservoir is fashioned into an artificial waterfall, a sandy patch (beautified with a gazebo) serves as a Beach for picknicing and rides are offered in boats and c...

Its the Dalai Lama' s 75th. Birthday. I heard that Bylaguppe is having a big do. Reportedly, 45,000 Tibetans live there now ! This number amazes me. I remember the early days of the Bylaguppe Refugee Settlement near Kushalnagar. The refugees from Tibet had started coming to India around 1960 and the government settled them in camps in Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh. In our state, a hilly tract with wet deciduous forest belonging to the Western Ghats ecosphere, 250 Kms. from Bangalore on the Mysore-Madikeri route, was sanctioned for their colony ( I learnt from my father that some local landholders had made a noise about this allocation because they had been denied permission to develop plantations there and couldn't digest the fact that all that coveted land was going to charity !). The very first time I visited the place, it was all misty hills, rolling grasslands and lush woods which to a child's eye looked like a " foreign hill station...

Was surprised to learn that Istanbul is the Fifth Largest "City Proper" in the world. ( First is , of course, Shanghai ; Second and Fourth ? Mumbai and Delhi !). It was a surprise because we saw no sign of its vastness or population as we drove to the hotel from Sabiha Gokcen Airport. ( The airport is named for the first female combat pilot in the world) . Even the sightseeing tours on the first two days were confined to the Sultanahmet area, where the hotel was situated, so it dint feel any more vast than our Bengaluru ! But we started appreciating its ranking only when we went on the Bosphorus Cruise and the guide gave us a complete geography education about the historic city which was traditionally called Thrace on the European bank and Anatolia on its Eastern bank. Not many metros can boast of straddling two continents ! When one crosses one of the bridges over the river, one gets from Avrupa ( Europe) to Asya ( Asia) in just under 15 mins. And there are chee...

It was more Moonscape or Mars-scape than landscape. In any case , it certainly looked nothing like the lush green meadows and apricot groves we had passed by, just half an hour ago. Under a severely bright blue sky, the terrain was all grey, offwhite, pink and brown. Against a backdrop of weirdly folded hill ranges, battalions of giant anthills rose up, filling the whole valley . It looked like a scene straight out of ....... "Star Wars !" Declared the Guide proudly ! " Parts of the epic movie were shot here !" No wonder ! But the location that served as the canvas for a futuristic sci-fi movie is actually millions of eons old. All those "ant hills ", commonly called Fairy Chimneys ( technically called Hoodoos) , are the handiwork of Nature who used only wind and melted snow patiently for ages to sculpt fantastic shapes out of the prodigious quantities of TUFF ( soft rock of compacted Volcanic ash, sand and gravel ) thrown up by the ancient volca...

IZMIR is the second largest port in Turkey after Istanbul and is considered one of Turkey's most vibrant cities because of its dynamism and progressive values, that include female empowerment . Throughout its history, it has attracted various kinds of foreign influx and has absorbed multifarious influences to create for itself a pan european character. Appropriately, its logo proclaims :"Rediscover Life". The old Greek name for Izmir Province was SMYRNA . Yes, the same place where Homer was born. We did not visit places related to medieval history in this province, but headed straight to Ephesus of The Classical Period. Camp: Kusadasi. It is a resort town, with buildings that look like freshly painted doll houses and smooth narrow roads running up and down in steep gradients along prettily done up pavements.( Hotel : Dabaklar . unusual location : bang in the middle of a green produce market , abutting the bus station! Interior ambience and amenities : quite OK.) The anc...