Anuradha Sridharan

 During our recent trip to Chennai, we visited the historical town of Mahabalipuram. While googling for the places to visit, I stumbled upon "Apollo bookstore". It was around 11 AM when I walked down the road that has many cafes, gift shops, and boutique stores. An elderly man was cleaning the front side of the bookstore with the shutters closed. I asked him, "When will the shop open?". He requested me to wait for a couple of minutes as he opened and cleared a few items for me to enter. He also placed a small bench for me to sit and browse the pile of books stacked up on the floor. I spent the next 30 minutes, browsing through his collection of various books. While billing, I had a short conversation with him in Tamil. Here's how it went: Apollo Store Owner Mr Kumaresan (AK): "Sorry madam. there's so much dust. I haven't cleaned the shop in the last few days. I didn't even arrange the second-hand books neatly. I just stashed them in heaps" ...

 Have you ever experienced this? You wake up in the morning after a good night's sleep and your mind feels blank. It takes a while for you to realize what day it is and what's the plan for today. You had a terrible round of migraine for hours. You recover from it after a long day and the next morning, your mind is so empty. It feels like your brain underwent a deep cleansing process. You had been on a vacation where you were disconnected from your devices and you enjoyed the whole trip, being in the present. When you come back to your regular day, your mind feels empty - no agenda, no to-do lists come to your mind. "Vacation hangover", it might be called. This emptiness leads to a feeling of a blank slate where you experience natural, slow and deep breaths. Your mind loves this state and wants to continue in it for longer. It doesn't want to be rushed, it doesn't want to restart long to-do lists, it just wants to BE. According to the Yogic philosophy, Akaash/e...

 A proper vacation after almost 3 years. Our last holiday was a 5-day trip to Yercaud back in Nov 2019. Although we did a couple of 3-day trips to Chikmagalur (Mar 2020) and Mysore (Dec 2021), they were too short to be called a "vacation"! While K and I were planning for a vacation, I was pretty sure that I wanted to go to a new place - one that we have never visited before. Hampi had been on my wish list for a long time. We confirmed our homestay bookings, made a list of places to visit (and eat), packed our bags, and boarded our pets in a pet boarding center. Life has changed so much in the last 3 years, that I did feel a pang of hesitation to step out of our comfort zone (home, routine, home food, pets, and other arrangements). But I do miss the value of experiences that travel brings in. So glad we proceeded with our trip, even with a little trepidation in the back of our minds. Day 1 We left our home around 5:30 AM, took the NICE road, and stopped for a quick breakfast a...

  Many years back, my husband K and I attended a 4-day "Art of Living" course. One of the phrases that the instructor mentioned is clearly etched in my memory - " Expectations reduce joy, Surprises increase joy ". When I enrolled for the 2-day weekend farm visit organized by Bhoomi College in their Gumalapura organic farm, I absolutely had no expectations. All I wanted was a break from the usual weekend routine. It was such a memorable experience for our whole family. If you love nature, farms, fresh air and interaction with good set of people, I'd highly recommend you enroll for this weekend programme. Yes, get surprised like us. It will be a unique experience for the kids as well as city-bred adults. Don't read the finer details mentioned below. I'm jotting down here, so I can revisit the experience through my own words years later. Even if I go there again, I may or may not feel the same joy I felt while returning home on Sunday evening...

Now that year 2016 is coming to an end, I'm wrapping up a few posts that are in my drafts for a few months now! One such post is this travelogue. Having visited this place in 2008 when hubby dear and I were a couple, we decided to visit Marari Beach again, now as parents along with our little girl D :-) D loves beaches and whenever we visit Chennai, she ensures we do the trip to Besant Nagar beach :-) So it wasn't a hard decision to narrow down a place when we were planning our holiday. Being the off-season, we got a good deal at the resort and booked the flight tickets as well. We took the morning flight to Cochin and then boarded a cab to reach the resort. The just-subsided monsoon rains had painted a lovely, green picture around Kerala. The refreshing tender coconut water as a welcome drink felt so good after the long drive. After the check-in procedure, we headed to our room. As with any CGH Earth property, it was a neatly done, spacious room with all the essentials...

It's been more than 7 months since we took a trip outside Bangalore. That's so unlike me! Many changes in these past few months led us to settle into a routine. Now with one more change ahead of me, I felt it's high time we break out of this routine and head somewhere, up the mountains. Once, I was having a conversation with a friend. She asked me, "Are you a mountains person or a sea person? I'm a total sea person. Any holiday, I'll head to the beaches. What about you?". I quickly responded, "I'm a mountains person always. Mountains and I share a special bond. They make me come alive. I'm so relaxed and at peace when I'm surrounded by hills, greenery, forests etc". So when I plan a vacation, I always look for places surrounded by mountains. I had narrowed down on Chikmagalur and Sakleshpur. We had already drove to Chikmagalur (although way back in 2009). This place Mugilu came up a couple of times in my social media feed. What a...

This post has been pending in my drafts for the past 7 months now. As the year 2015 comes to a close, it's high time I wrap this up and publish it. Thanks to my ex-employer, my family and I got to visit one of the gorgeous places in India last April. Though I was apprehensive traveling with a 3 year old, my boss was highly encouraging and we decided to take the plunge. It was D's first time traveling in an airplane and also by train. Tickets booked, warm clothing purchased and bags packed. We were so excited and a little anxious about how we will manage. Being a workation, the plan was that I would be working with my team during the working hours (9 to 3) and hubby dear would take care of D during that time. He was fully prepared with her books, puzzles and her favorite DVDs. The workation part is well-covered here , so I will share about what we did as a family outside the working hours in this beautiful little town near Dharamshala. Contrary to what we thought, D was at he...

Having been born and brought up in Tamilnadu, my friends found it strange when I told them that I had never been to Pondicherry. " You must go, Anu. You'll love it ", one of them recommended during an evening chai meetup. When hubby suggested that we go for a long drive to celebrate our wedding anniversary, I knew exactly where to go. Cleartrip somehow got a peek into our "offline" conversations and sent a hotels flash sale email on the very same day :-) We got a great deal in one of the CGH Earth Properties at Pondy, Maison Perumal . Day 1 A light drizzle greeted us early morning and we left Bangalore around 5:45 AM and drove straight to Vellore - the route that has become very familiar thanks to our Chennai trips. We took a short detour inside Vellore to have breakfast at our most favorite place - Saravana Bhavan. Loaded ourselves with some amazing dosas, yummy pongal and refreshing filter coffee. After Vellore, we took a right turn towards Arcot (route SH5...

I have written travelogues for all the trips that I have ever taken since I started this blog. For some reason, the Ooty trip of last year got missed out. Being a stickler for finishing projects, this has been in my to-do list for a while. What better time than now to reflect about this trip! It all started with a casual conversation with my dad when he was visiting me in May last year. He casually mentioned that it's been 19 years since he had visited Ooty. When I was a kid, my dad used to frequently take us to Ooty during summer holidays. I might have done atleast 5 trips with him earlier. So I started planning the trip with my husband, booked a hotel and packed. The night before our trip, I had a spark to check if I could book the tickets for the Ooty heritage train in advance. I quickly looked up IRCTC and was pleasantly surprised that you can reserve tickets for the "kutti" train. I booked a trip from Ooty to Coonoor and was very excited about the train journey more...

Except for Yercaud, I had visited all hill stations in Tamilnadu and Kerala earlier. Thanks to Holi weekend, we quickly planned for a trip to Yercaud. It is around 230 kms from Bangalore that took us a little over 4 hours. The drive was pleasant and smooth. We took a breakfast break at A2B in Krishnagiri and drove straight towards Salem. The directions from Salem were very clear and navigating the 20 hairpin bends were exciting. One could feel the gradual shift in temperature as we climbed up the hills. I was pleasantly surprised to experience a cool weather at Yercaud, given that around the same time in Ooty it was extremely hot last year. We checked-in to our room in Hotel Shevaroys . We had booked a rose room which was clean, hygienic and comfortable. After resting for some time, we headed out to lunch at their multi-cuisine restaurant. Opted for a sumptuous South Indian thali which thankfully, my 3 year old also liked it. We came back to our room and slept like logs for 3 hours....

Alert: Wrapping up old drafts. So you might hear stories that happened long time ago (okay, not so long! A few months back to be precise) I love to travel more often that I actually do. When the opportunity presented itself, we planned a nice trip and it was fun and memorable. Hubby dear is into some serious running this year and one of his goals was to run the 10K in Cauvery Trail Marathon in Srirangapatna. Since the run was scheduled on a Saturday, we decided to leave from Bangalore on a Friday afternoon and return on Sunday - ah, a perfect weekend !! We got a good deal in Ginger Hotels, Mysore through Cleartrip and we grabbed a 2 night stay. Hubby entrusted me to come up with a plan for 2 days in and around Mysore. Trip planning is something I just love to do for hours - browsing through blogs and websites. We started off from our home around 3 PM and hit Mysore road quickly. Stopped for a snack break in Kamat near Channapatna and then continued on our drive. The rains sta...

The only vacation we took this year was a trip to Coorg in early Sept. Finally I managed to pen down my experiences. Husband and I had been planning for a vacation for quite some time since it's been 3 years since our last one at Swaswara . We wanted to go to a place which is toddler friendly in terms of food, space and distance from Bangalore. D is 2 years now and she loves being outdoors. We enquired a few places in Kerala but the thought of taking a flight or a train was scary with D screaming within a few minutes after we board a flight/train. So we decided to go for a drive nearby which is not more than 5 - 6 hours. We had earlier went to Mysore and it was comfortable, driving down with a toddler. We called up Orange County and bookings were done for a 3 night package. Since I had mentioned to them that this is our wedding anniversary special trip, they wanted to make it special. The day before our trip, we were packing our things and D was quite curious and interested t...

It feels like a dream. We returned from a magical vacation to a serene, beautiful place named Swaswara . In performance appraisals, you would have come across the term "Exceeds expectations". This place has definitely surpassed the high expectations that we had set before the vacation. Our idea of a vacation this time was to just take time out for ourselves and spend more time together in a quiet place, away from city life. Having been to Coconut Lagoon , Spice Village and Marari Beach resorts, we have become a loyal customer of CGH Earth properties. The perfect locations, sumptuous food and lots of activity within their property makes the trips so memorable that you keep revisiting those memories. When we were browsing through their site, we stumbled upon Swaswara and found to be a unique resort by itself. Being the off season, we got a very sweet deal for our 5 day stay. After working out the logistics, we knew the trip is going to be excellent. We took the early mornin...

 My previous trip to Madikeri/Coorg 2 years ago was mainly due to the fact that we wanted to go on a drive some place over the weekend. But when hubby put forth the idea of a long break, Coorg came to our minds instantly. The main purpose of this trip was just to do nothing. What better place than Linger which claims the same phrase as their tag line - "DO NOTHING"! While hubby decided to stay there for 5 nights, I planned to join him a little later since I didn't want to exhaust all my leave days on this trip (we followed it with another amazing trip, watch out for the next post!). Having booked a KSRTC to Bhagamandala, the challenge was to figure out where the Mysore Road Satellite bus station was. It turned out to be an easy task and I reached the bus stand 2 hours earlier than the departure time. The clean bus station with good seating facility and the few magazines that I picked up from the nearby stall helped me pass the 2 hours quickly. The bus reached my dest...

2010 seems to be zooming past at a speed which I'm trying to comprehend. With 5 months already gone in a jiffy, I wonder how the time had flown by. Being a person who loves to travel, it didn't take me too long to figure out that I haven't traveled anywhere for leisure in these 5 months. So hubby and I decided to drive down to Wayanad in the last weekend of May. Although we had visited Wayanad in 2007 ( Vythiri to be specific), we didn't go around anywhere, thanks to the monsoons. After a quick browsing through the review sites, we finalized our stay with Thirunelli Agraharam cottages. The owner of the cottages, Mr.Sebastian had sent us a detailed route from Bangalore which was very helpful. Getting up early on a Saturday morning could have only been made possible, if we are traveling somewhere. It was a smooth drive on Mysore Road and we stopped for breakfast at Kamat (where else!!). After Srirangapatna, the route got exciting as we had to find our way to Hunsur. T...