A couple of towns in UK

 

A sales conference in London gave me some time to get back to UK and travel some more. We reached a day early and I took a walk around Cranford Park close to our hotel for stretching my legs after a long flight. The next day, we mostly hung around London along the river Thames. It has been over 10 years since I last went there but most areas still looked the same. We walked past the regular tourist spots not getting into any of them but having a good picnic. Photos with the Tower Bridge will never really go out of fashion.

After the 3 day conference, we were debating on where to for a day trip. I was thinking Dover & Canterbury but one of the local's suggested Brighton instead. A lazy beach town was definitely a welcome change after 3 days at the office. A couple of trains later we got to the town and walked over to the beach. The huge observation tower on the beach is easily visible to guide anyone to the seashore and the view from the Palace Pier is refreshing. To get to the edge of the pier we needed to go through the arcade. While places were still opening as it was early in the day, we were good to just soak in the sun. When it was time for lunch we found a vegan pub called the "The World's End". Also known for its retro arcade, a number of plant based burgers had all the vegetarians in the group really happy. The evening was spent at the Royal Pavilion - a formal royal residence built with Mughal influenced architecture that has been converted into a palace museum and gardens. Watching the opulence of the previous royals with some history lessons was a nice way to wrap up the day as we then got back to London.

On the next day, the rest of the group had their flight in the evening so they went to Oxford street to wrap up some shopping, I took off to Oxford city in pursuit of more sights instead. The day was 2nd of July and interestingly it was Alice's day (the Lewis Carrol wonderland gal). As parades with balloons and costumed wonderland characters ran along the town, I tried to get my bearings on places to visit in the city. I took a guided walking tour around the city to learn about the architecture and see some Harry Potter shooting spots. I then made a quick trip to the natural history museum and finally wrapped up the day with a long walk within one of the colleges in the city. The grounds had deer and a the hostels had a pub, convincing me that if I ever continued my education, Oxford would definitely be one of my preferred choices. 

The flight next day was surprisingly smooth. Heathrow had been facing the after effects of revenge travel so everyone who left earlier had faced crazy queues and massive delays but all I had to go through was a half an hour wait outside the lounge.

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Sunrises in the new year - Doha & Pondicherry

Doha Pics

Having lost most of 2021 and many travel plans to the pandemic and its multi faceted variants, 2022 seemed to bring in some normalcy to the craziness we had seen in the past 2 years. Business travel was opening up and I needed to go to Qatar for a week of meetings and quarantines. Having spent most of the previous year locked down at home, being locked down in the Marriott was a welcome experience. Not the most uncomfortable lockup I have been. Jet lag ensured that I woke up very early and meetings ensured I slept late. The cheery on top was of course was the sea view from my hotel room. I did not manage to explore the locales much in Doha due to the still restrictive restrictions but did manage to hang around the hotel beach and look at some good artwork.

A quick week later, I landed in Pondicherry for some time off with family. Staying at the club Mahindra there is always a relaxing holiday thanks to the beach proximity from the rooms. We did manage sunrises as well. The pleasant surprise here was that they had a turtle hatchery at the beach, and Feb is the end of the season for hatching. We saw a bunch of these hop out to the sea with help from the folks in charge. They also collect the eggs at night to re-bury them in a safe area away from dogs and naive tourists who may damage them. Due to this they knew when the eggs would hatch and where to follow the 'turtlings'.

 

 Pondicherry Pics

Somnath

 
As part of a business trip, had gone down to Veraval a couple of times. Being just 6 km from Somnath, was able to to go down there twice as well. Noticed a nice spot for birding on the beach in the morning near Somnath, where pelicans, gulls, flamingos, terns and multiple waders come down to the sea.

Tranquebar - Dutch colony

The trip was a very long drive from Bangalore and back, with very little time spent there itself. We believed it was close to Pondicherry, but it is much further away. A quaint and quiet colony on the seashore with a Neemrana to stay. There are a few old building which are remnant of the earlier settlers, an old museum and a fort by the sea.

Tioman Island - Sharks and Cuttlefish

The route to Tioman from Kuala Lumpur is long and tiring to say the least. The bus journey takes about 6 hours and the ferry is on time only if the bus is late. The jetty for the ferry is about 10 minutes away so expect the cab guys to fleece you when you are in a hurry. We managed to make it to the ferry with minutes to spare but the 2 hour ferry ride in cramped spaces will definitely wake you up as people with a sea sickness discovered all around me. After a total travel time of over 9 hours, we finally reached the resort and our room, but stepped back out again for the sunset on the beach.

 The next morning was a quick boat-ride on a glass bottom boat got us close to Renggis island which was a tiny piece of land with a few terns on it, but is quite popular for dives and snorkeling. A couple of dives in the afternoon and the next day morning had fairly good visibility and minimal current so were quite comfortable. The most popular location is Renggis island, though there are multiple other nearby spots as well. We saw a couple of small wrecks but the wildlife kept us busy most of the time. The best spotting was of a cuttlefish that kept changing its colors as we followed it around, though large puffers, a couple of turtles and nudibranchs were also visible easily. I managed to snorkel around Renggis island on the last day before we left to spot 3 black tipped reef sharks. Chasing them around for 15 minutes, I was still not able to getvery close, at one point it just felt like they were taking me on a tour of the place.

We did spend an afternoon and an evening in a 4X4, going around the island as well. The thick forest has a beautiful waterfall hidden away and as we got off to see it, a monitor lizard scampered away. The other side of the island had another beach with more resorts, but the area close to the jetty was where the crowds were. The island being duty free has a few low cost souvenir shops for people to buy stuff and a marine center where people sell bread to feed the fishes. The long journey back was even more hectic on the way back as this time both the ferry and the bus were late but comfortable nonetheless as the boat this time round was a lot bigger.

 

Diving in the Maldives

The first impressions of Maldives are made from the flight while landing. A group of islands that are clearly visible as the plane descends. The tiny archipelago is sustained on tourism alone and most locals are courteous while things move quite fast. We had booked a ferry to Mathiveri about a couple of hours after scheduled landing but we were out in half an hour. The island of Malé has numerous constructions ongoing to house its dense population. All items need to be imported as the tiny islands are not capable of sustained industry. Main mode of commute across islands is ferries, and while ferries to the airport from Malé are frequent, the other trips would have to be planned in advance.

The boat service company (Atoll) had already gotten someone to receive us there and get us to the ferry. A long and bumpy boat ride later, we got to Mathiveri with the sun just setting. Mathiveri is a lazy island with one football ground where the action occurs. The scuba, snorkeling and other water sports are there as options but this is an island mostly to relax. Came across a couple of sharks, moray eels and turtles while diving but we spent most of our time lazing on the beaches watching sunrise and sunset.

 

Going to Thulsdoo required a ferry to Malé and then one to the island. We got there and realized, our rooms were booked on a nearby island and there were no ferries to take us there. So, we got another room in Thulsdoo found the pool at the terrace and the open ocean in front for a few swims. Cut short the ocean swim when I found a lionfish very close to the shore and probably almost stepped on a sea snake. The next morning as we waited for our ferry after breakfast, we saw a large school of dolphins pass by at just a few hundred meters from the shore.
 

The last stop on our trip was Mafushi. We were going to spend only an afternoon there, but the first dive was so much fun, that we decided to cut time in
Malé and postponed our boat by 12 hours to do two more dives and a snorkeling trip. The dives had multiple moray eels, turtles, black tip and white tip reef sharks, manta rays and eagle rays. While getting surface time between the dives, manage to snorkel with 3 mantas which kept circling me very closely. Unfortunately, dropped the camera out in the ocean as I climbed back after the second dive and lost all photos of the day. The afternoon snorkeling trip was much better with 7-8 turtles, a moray eel and some stormy seas to end the incredible trip. 

 

South Goa in Monsoon

 
Monsoon brings about a completely different side of Goa. South Goa on its own is a completely different place from the North side. A string of luxury hotels replace the scruffy shacks, long empty stretches of the road instead of the crowded north. The monsoon though makes the already empty streets quite desolate. Even the occasional shacks are rarely opened while the incessant rains push everyone indoors. One shack near the beach even had to be closed since the rain had almost flooded it.

Despite this, the hotels and resorts seemed quite full. The shack opposite to Club Mahindra was open and while most things on the menu took a while to prepare or were not there, the place did serve food. A long drive to fort Cabo De Rama and a drive to the beaches behind Leela - probably the fanciest hotel there was all the sight seeing we did. The fort has a nice view of the cliffs and the sea while the beach was desolate enough to let a bunch of terns just hang around there. There was a bit of panic near the fort as someone had fallen into the sea while taking selfies which meant there were helicopters in the air and cops running around. Other than that, we spent most of the time just walking around. Goa trips are normally relaxing but this was pure laziness.