My Experience to the Kedarkantha Trek !

        26th of December 2021 it was we started our trip after our group of friends decided to start the new beginning of 2022 on greater heights ( The Himalayas ).

        A true revealing experience and you may discover yourself in the process and leaving all the responsibilities behind, getting to see the beauty of nature, beautiful skies with plenty of stars we could only dream of seeing it in our hustle filled cities :)

        You feel like you've pushed yourself to the extent you would never do otherwise. With a handful of good people and a proper guide you can truly get lost in the serenity of the mother nature, getting to know the stories of people you've met in the journey coming from different backgrounds and that gives you a different perspective towards life. 

        Here's the Prayer of Serenity to remember :

God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time,
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardship as a pathway to peace;

        Here was the itinerary of our trip :

26th Dec 2021 - Flight to Delhi from Hyderabad early morning, started to Agra - The Taj Mahal.

27th Dec 2021 - Train to Haridwar from Delhi to Haridwar, afternoon left to Rishikesh.

28th Dec 2021 - Stay in Rishikesh cottage and left to Dehradun.

29th Dec 2021 - Dehradun - Kedarkantha trek started :  Journey to Sankri Village

30th Dec 2021 - Started from Sankri Village to Juda ka Talaab

31st Dec 2021 - Juda ka Talaab to Kedarkantha Base Camp

1st Jan 2022 -   Started the trek to the Kedarkantha Summit and back to Sankri.

2nd Jan 2022 - Started from Sankri to Dehradun, Dehradun to Delhi

3rd Jan 2022 - Delhi to Hyderabad

            Stay tuned on this post as I'll post the pictures of the trip as I share my experience and update you of any measure to take in case you are interested in taking this leap.

Love you,

Thanks,

Punith Raj Murarikar

 

My experience on unintended function visit

        As they say, "Begaani Shaadi mein Abdullah Deewana", I think you are familiar with this if you are from Indian background.

        Similar thing I had to face in the reception function of my wife's far relative, I had no intention to attend but visited on my family's request.

             I've faced such an embarrassment, here's the story :-

        While going to the function we hired a Ola cab and requested him to wait for easy return. He requested for the current amount to be cleared soon and we did thinking that he would wait for us. But he left without notice. Now that I look back at the situation, lesson I've learnt is that "Never pay full amount to labor when you have to get your work completed". 

हमेशा पैसे पूरे न दे, उनको टेंगा के रखे वरना वह अपना काम अधूरा छोड़ सकते है|

         This is what I've learnt and never trust people, you might be a good person but never expect that person you are doing business with is a good person. Always have a contract in place to make sure everything goes well and as expected.

         Coming along with a far relative and let him drop us to our home from the function also added up to my embarrassment as there were cabs booked but were reluctant to drop. Lost trust on cab services like Uber and Ola, worst services and drivers. One request to these selfish a**holes, never do that in case of an emergency, please at least respect that.

Thanks for being with me !! 

Cheers,

Punith Raj Murarikar.

My Travel : Trip to Bhutan - The Land of Thunder Dragons ( Part - 1 )

Hey There!

It was Dec 27 2018, we started our spectacular journey to one of the most amazing countries in the world - Bhutan. I was very fortunate to happen to visit this wonderful place. Three college friends decided to spend our New year together among some strangers in a stranger country!
         Journey started from Rajiv Gandhi International Airport - Hyderabad to Bagdogra Airport - West Bengal where we were asked to stay for a day and the journey to the land of thunder dragon begun!!
         We traveled from Bagdogra to Bhutan through bus and the Government over there is very supportive towards Indians because of the good friendship and sharing between the two countries. We reached Bhutan Gate ( clicked a few pictures ). It was astounding to see a few steps away and we are in another country. Here are few pics :

On the way to Bagdogra - West Bengal, captured a few moments on the flight and the view was spectacular - ( Above the clouds ...!). 

 The night we reached the immigration office - we happened to visit a beautiful monastery and a nice restaurant where i tried some delicious local cuisine and it matched our expectations.

Their world is completely organised and their beautiful homes are all of the same shape ( square ) with an extended roof and this happens to be their culture and it all looked very elegant.

En - route Bhutan :

 

One of the thing i am also fond of this beautiful country is : Unlike GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is known to be measured as the standard of living in one's state, GNH is used as the standard in Bhutan which means - Gross National Happiness and they nurture their society, preserve the culture for generations to come, Medical facilities are free of cost ( beared by the govt. ) etc. It's also known as the Kingdom of happiness.

Bhutan constitution mandates that  at least 60% should be in forest cover for all the time to come, currently the forest cover is 71% which is phenomenal as it is also trying to nurture the world with it's stringent green policies and can be a role model to many nations aspiring to do their bit towards conserving environment.

Next trip - we happened to visit Dordenma statue - Biggest Buddha statue in Bhutan - Thimphu. Here are few snapshots :

Be always Grateful !!

Hello !

I would like to share with you about a terrible dream i had today morning ( 16 May 2020 ). It goes this way :

We were travelling in Indian Marine Cruise and everyone was very happy enjoying the ocean breeze and hospitality. Suddenly we see that there was an attack on the cruise. Few people intruded the cruise with weapons in silence and all we could do was try to escape and it resembled the 24/7 type attack and i started crying in the dream thinking that my brothers were still stranded in the cruise. 

Ohh ! Thanked god it was just a dream.

        

        This reminds me that to be always grounded and treat everyone with courtesy as nobody can interpret what can happen in the very next moment. Always be grateful for the family support you have and to god who have everything in balance.

Thank you so much Lord!!

My Travel : London Diaries

It was April 2018  when i got an opportunity to visit London, UK on official purpose and this was the first time ever i caught a flight and traveled all over to London from Hyderabad ( Rajiv Gandhi International Airport ). It was a hopping journey ( Hyderabad to Mumbai ) and then ( Mumbai to London ) with the stay duration in Mumbai airport was 8 hrs. It was quite a time and i was nervous on boarding the flight for first time and that too for such a long journey. After my arrival at Heathrow International Airport, UK, I was kind of worried how i would reach my Hotel but then i realized I've already added my International Credit card to the Uber and asked local policeman if he could help me with Wifi and as i connected, i managed to book an Uber cab, boarded and reached my destination hotel - DoubleTree Hilton.

First five days - we got up early, had breakfast in hotel and went for our business meetings, On fifth day - Friday normally people show up in bigger organisations in smaller number ;). This was the time when our client insisted to go out in the afternoon for a beer ( Apple Cider ) and had an awesome time, the same night we were invited to dinner in Central London had an awful dinner with drinks and dinner.

During these days - we've got some time to move out of office for some good view and fresh air. Here are few pics :

Every day we had to go hit some new restaurant to have different cuisines, few glimpses :

It was Friday night and few glimpses of that night dinner in Central London with our clients :

The very next day - on Saturday, we planned to explore London, we first visited Westfield - White city and then we moved for Westminster Bridge where we took a ferry ride on Thames river and explored different parts of London, ending the trip with Buckingham palace, parks and dinner at Dishoom restaurant ( Indian restaurant ). Here are few pics :

Thank you !!