Thailand and Laos - Part 2

Continued from Part-1

We left the city the next morning to go to Vang Vieng. It was a 3hrs ride in a tempo traveller to the party town of Laos. In India tempo travelers have 2+1 seat layout and these had an extra foldable seat in the path in between to add another person.  We checked into the hostel at around 1:30pm and left for tubing. Tubing is like the lazy river in the water park except that the river is not that lazy and you have different start and end points. You rent a tube and get into the river. The flowing river takes you through the scenic mountains and greenery. After going some distance some guy from the shore throws a rope at you and pulls you to the river bank. This is where the party happens. Singing, dancing, football, basketball and lot more activities. Not to forget beer and food if that is what you are there for. There are 3 such places on the tubing route. While people get souvenirs from their trip, our friend Vikram has an art of losing things. He donated his spectacles to the river during tubing. We came back at around 8pm and freshened up. There are 3 pubs/disco in this town and you can do pub hopping if you are interested. Here we met a guy from Brazil who had come alone on the trip. He was one of the very few guys who was on a short trip. Yes, 9days is a short trip by backpacking standards. Everyone else we met on the trip had plans of 3-6 months covering at least 4 countries. 

Thailand and Laos - Part 1

After 4 months of planning that involved several email conversations and meetups, we finally completed our two nation trip covering Thailand and Laos.

During my engineering days, I used to check for long weekends and linking holidays so that I could take a long vacation and go home. I still do that and I observed that taking a 3 day leave can get me a 9 day vacation. But since I stay with family now, I could travel elsewhere in those 9 days. So 3 of us discussed about it and Vikram pointed to us that we could go on a  Thailand and Laos trip. His friend had planned the trip but did not go on the trip. We agreed upon it and applied for leaves in office. We booked flight tickets 3 months before the trip date because the tickets were cheap then. We booked beds in backpackers hostel dorm and also applied for a Thailand visa. Visa on arrival was available, but we did not want to waste time (we ended up wasting a lot of time during  the trip anyways).

Heritage Winery - Wine and Dine

My friends and I decided to explore something new every month in January 2014. So far all we were able to do was to cover a lot of restaurants in various parts of Bangalore. We tried something different last week when we did the Madhugiri Trek. This week we decided to take a road trip to Mysore road and visit the Heritage Winery. To reach this place you can drive upto Chanappatna that is around 50kms from Kengeri. Once you pass Chanappatna keep an eye out for the signboards on the left.

Comic Con Bangalore

The first episode of The Big Bang Theory - Season 8 aired today. This show has introduced me to the fun side of science and Penny ( Penny > Science ). Every season has one episode dedicated to Comic Con. It was fun watching those episodes and also made me wish to be a part of that event.

Conquering Madhugiri Fort!!

Bike trips are always exciting but sadly I don't get to do it very often. The last time I went on a bike trip was to Coorg in 2012 (Clutch Breaks and Gears). Off late use of the 'M' word has increased in my family and it made me realize that there are so many things that still needs to be done before I get a +1. It so happens that most of my friends are facing the same situation. So a few months back we started planning various things but anything hardly worked out. So as things work out, you guys can see more and more posts being written in this blog (no, not a threat). 

[ PS: Click on the pics to see the full resolution pictures]

The Green Train Route

Phew! A long time since I went on a vacation. Been doing the one day trips but not a long vacation. I have reached the stage where I call my visits to native (Udupi) as a trip and a well deserved vacation. Its been sometime since the day train from Bangalore to Mangalore has started and this route is popularly known as the Green Trek Route. The trek from Sakleshpur to Subramanya was 'the' trek to do. However due to the risky nature of the route, the trek has been banned. So I did the next best thing to experience the route - take the train ride. (Well people who know me would know that I wouldnt have done the trek anyways. I cannot walk 3kms without taking atleast 4 breaks in between *sigh*). 

[ You can click on the pics to get a full resolution view ]

One day trips around Bangalore!

It has been a while since I explored new places. The last time I traveled was during the Gokarna-Goa-Dandeli trip in December 2013. This year I did not get a chance to go on a holiday but I did manage to visit a few new places around Bangalore. As a coincidence I had written a similar post during the same time last year (A day outing - Bike, Roads and Food). So here are the places I visited in the last 4 weeks.