All images courtesy of Sundeep Kumar. When I first visited Sri Lanka at the invitation of Jetwing Hotels in February 2020, just before the pandemic hit and turned the world upside down, my wife and I stayed at the iconic Lighthouse Hotel in Galle. It is one of those places that sticks in one’s memory,…
In the rich and varied history of the Indian subcontinent stretching back millennia, few of the empires, kingdoms, and ruling classes that populated its pages ventured overseas. Perhaps it was because of the vast size of the subcontinent, which offered immense opportunities domestically for exploration, conquest, and commerce, without the need to venture very far.…
Being fortunate enough to have gone to Princeton University whose mascot is the tiger, I am proud of being a Tiger alumnus, but I’ve never seen the animal in the wild. A timely invitation to visit Bagh Villas, a luxury jungle camp on the edge of Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh, gave me a…
Meghalaya prides itself as a place where people live at one with nature and probably the most powerful example of that is the amazing phenomenon of the living root bridge. These bridges created out of the secondary roots of the rubber fig tree by Khasi villagers have to be seen to be believed: they are like something…
Fire, as an element, runs right through the heart of Azerbaijan’s very being. The name itself comes from the Persian words, azer, which means “fire” and baygan, which means “protector’’ and tongues of flame in the form of a shield are prominently displayed at the centre of the national emblem. How did fire come to be so…
The twin beams of the Innova picked out the narrow concrete road as it snaked its way to the top of the hill in this far western corner of Karnataka. As we rounded a final bend, our destination came into view, like a ghostly haunted mansion, with the chill wind dispersed the gathering mountain mist…
In late 2020 when Covid was at its awful height, I bailed out and traded Gurgaon for Goa for six months. It was the single best move I made during the entire two years of the pandemic. I made lots of new friends, I discovered Goa from the inside out as a tourist-resident and I…
Being fortunate enough to be married into a pahadi family for the last 35 years, I get to spend a lot of time in my beloved Himalayas. My in-laws have orchards in Kotgarh, the apple-growing belt spread high above the right bank of the Sutlej, about three hours northeast of Shimla and on the way…
For the last two years, COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on the travel and hospitality industry. And travel writers like I have been on the thinnest end of the wedge. So, when I got an invite to travel to Thailand in February, it was like a lifebuoy being thrown to a drowning man and I grabbed…
In the lexicon of great Himalayan treks in Nepal, ABC comes before EBC in the alphabetic sense. Not surprisingly though, the iconic Everest Base Camp trek is at the top of everyone’s wish list. This doesn’t mean that the Annapurna Base Camp trek is without attractions and charms. Sure, it is shorter in length (five…
