soumitra_biswas's blog
Heavenly Havelock
We had just settled in for a leisurely dinner at Megapode Retreat, Port Blair and the local travel agent dropped a bombshell…we are booked for the trip to Havelock Island next morning. The travel agent was quite firm, “Sir, the ferry leaves at 6.30 sharp…my car will fetch you all at six o’clock from the hotel lobby”. It was quite a disturbing thought…getting up by 5.00 in the morning. Considering we just landed at Port Blair the same day by a flight, which had left Kolkata at an ungodly hour of 5.00 AM, we almost hated the idea!
A Gateway to the West
Jefferson National Expansion Memorial or the great ‘Gateway Arch’ located at St. Louis, Missouri is aptly called America’s gateway to the west. I had visited St. Louis for presenting a paper in a conference in October 2006. And not to miss out the city’s great icon, the Arch, I headed there on a bright sunny morning after the conference.
Scintillating Cyprus
I had an opportunity to visit Cyprus, the pearl of Mediterranean, in May 2002. That was for presenting a paper in an international conference, hosted jointly by the Commonwealth Science & Technology Secretariat and WAITRO. After a change of flights in Dubai I landed in Larnaca, the international port of entry for Cyprus. I headed for Paphos, a resort town in the western part of Cyprus and host city for the conference. The drive along the southern coast of the island was breathtaking with the azure blue Mediterranean Sea keeping company all along!
Footloose in London
London was at its glorious best as we touched down at Heathrow in an April afternoon by Air India’s AI-111 from Delhi. Our gang of four comprising Rakesh, the honcho from Indian Oil with a mischievous smile, Rintu, the lady with lyrical giggles from IIT-Kharagpur, my colleague, Naveen and myself proceeded for the immigration.
Chock-a-Block at Chatuchak
Shopping, like whisky has been a true blue mood elevator for most of the people. So how do you gauge the mood of the vast populace swooping down in the weekends to a seemingly unending market with almost anything & everything on offer? We are talking about Chatuchak in Bangkok, the largest weekend market in the world and the mood out there is simply festive. A huge shopping extravaganza with 15,000 stalls spanning across 35 acres and 200,000 to 300,000 daily visitors on an average, this would certainly take your breath away!
An Inveterate Traveller
Towards the end of our month-long sojourn in Brazil, courtesy the Group Study Exchange Programme of Rotary International, we came to a small city, Sao Jose do Rio Prato, St. Joseph of the Black River. We had crisscrossed Sao Paulo state, starting our journey from the megapolis, Sao Paulo, we travelled to tiny habitations like Fernandopolis, Jales, Cafelandia... We had helicopter rides, river cruises and numerous visits to schools, hospitals and small factories.
By God’s Grace
On a lazy afternoon as I was idly rummaging through some papers at my office, a long distance phone call woke me up!
Post from Pondicherry
The catch line of the tourism ad was enticing indeed – ‘Give time a break’! For harried souls like us, it was an invitation to eternal bliss. So as the kids ‘called it a day’ for their annual exams, we headed straight to Pondicherry, fondly called Pondy and now more authentically, Puducherry – take your pick!
