Travel blogs

Waiting for Top 100 couple to be announced for 'The Great Driving Challenge'

2009-07-17T11:51:00.000-07:00

After 2 weeks of work on application, asking everyone (friends/relatives/colleagues) for votes we can now try to relax (although we are excited, full of nervous energy and biting our nails to know about the top 100 couples) as 'The Great Driving Challenge' has reached the jury stage.

Thanks to TGDC, we got in touch with some of the friends/ex-colleagues after a long time. Also got a chance to upload some of the travelogues from our past trip which were existing only in our computers.

Hoping that 100 most deserving candidates will get shortlisted and those not shortlisted will continue the passion and fire for travel/adventure going. After all life doesn't stop here, it still continues with its own challenges.

Alwar-Delhi-Kasauli-Chail-Kufri-Shimla-Chandigarh trip

2009-07-14T12:14:00.000-07:00

The first trip we did together after our wedding was our honeymoon and guess what, we decided to drive from Alwar to Kasauli, Chail, Kufri, Shimla, Chandigarh. We did took a driver with us just to keep both set of parents happy but actual idea was to drive on own.

The route we took was Alwar-Delhi-Panipat-Karnal-Ambala-Kalka-Dharampur-Kasauli. We thought of deciding for other places after reaching Kasauli. The idea was to spend more time in small places like Kasauli, Chail and Kufri and go to Shimla only for a day. We wanted to avoid the mad crowd at any cost. The idea of honeymoon trip was to just relax at hotel instead of doing lot of sightseeing.

Day 1:

We started in morning for Kasauli, the idea was to reach Kasauli by evening. We crossed Delhi, stopped for lunch on a road side dhaba on highway and continued our journey. We crossed cities like Karnal, Dharampur etc on the way and reached Kasauli. We looked around 3-4 hotels and selected one to stay. We had planned to stay in Kasauli for just one day. Since we were tired due to journey, we had early dinner and went to bed.

Day 2:

We had early breakfast in hotel and then moved out of hotel to have a look around Kasauli. First we went to Hanuman Mandir atop the 300 m high hillock, called Manki Point (locals call it Monkey Point ). We had heard that on a clear day one can get views of nearby cities like Chandigarh but that day it was little hazy. We spend some time there and then started back. We then reached one of the most happening place in Kasauli which is the junction of Upper and Lower Malls. Both of these are markets with shops selling daily commodities and souvenirs for tourists. We had lunch at one of the local restaurants selling local fast food at The Lower Mall. We then roamed around a bit in Kasauli and then came back to hotel. We left from there for Chail in evening. We reached Chail by 8.30 pm and checked-in into the hotel. We ordered food from room service and decided to rest.

Day 3:

We woke at leisure in morning as we had decided to just rest and do nothing in morning. We had our lunch at hotel and then decided to see the Chail Palace. This palace was built in 1891 and is set in approximately 75 acres (300,000 m2) and has a truly regal setting with spectacular views. After seeing the palace, we went to see the Chail Cricket Ground. This ground is surrounded by thick forests of deodar and it is the highest cricket ground in the world. Built in 1893 this ground located at an altitude of 2,144 m is also used as polo ground. We then came back to hotel and just relaxed there.

Day 4:

This day we just relaxed in hotel. We only went twice for walk around the hotel and rest of the day relaxed in hotel. There was nice view from room balcony so spent some time there also.

Day 5:

We started for Kufri after having our breakfast in hotel. We reached Kufri and directly went to the main attraction of the town that is the pond called as 'Kufer', and the reason behind the name of the town. We then went to the Indira Tourist Park in Kufri, whose main attraction is the view of the panoramic vista of the landscape. We then came to our checked-in and decided to rest for the day.

Day 6:

After having breakfast we went to the Mahasu Peak- the highest peak in Kufri. We were able to see some nice views from here. We then went to Naldehra hill station. The most famous attraction of Naldehra hill station is the 18 - hole golf course that is considered to be the most challenging golf course.

Day 7:

We decided to go to Shimla just for day and hence started early from Kufri. We reached Shimla and saw places like Tara devi temple, Shimla state museum. We then came to famous mall road, 'The Mall'. We had our lunch here and also did some shopping for everyone at home. We then started for Chandiragh, as we were supposed to meet one of our friends there. We reached Chandigarh around 7.00 pm in evening and checked-in the hotel.

Day 8:

Our friend came to meet us in morning; we had breakfast together and then went to see places like Rock Garden, Suhana Lake and Rose Garden. This consumed most of our day and we back to hotel tired. Our plan was to leave early in morning for Alwar.

Day 9:

After breakfast we started our journey back to Alwar via Delhi and reached Alwar in the evening.

I hope you guys enjoyed reading the blog. I have put some photos from the trip here for you to see.

Bangalore-Hogenakkal trip

2009-07-12T11:33:00.000-07:00

Route taken: Home -Hosur-Krishnagiri-Dharampuri-Hogenakkal and coming back was also in same route in reverse direction.

This is a day trip we did to Hogenakkal as we had heard a lot about it. On 29^th December we got up early and finished our bath and other chores and were ready to leave by 8.00 am. The idea was to avoid the mad traffic o hosur road going towards electronic city as it was a working day. The idea was to reach Hogenakkal by 12.00 pm stay there up to 4.00 and then start the return journey. We crossed Hosur over bridge and continued our journey toward Krishnagiri.

The good was really good and we were almost touching 100-110 in my Ford Ikon Flair. I guess even my car was happy to reach such speeds after travelling at snail’s pace in the Bangalore city. We reached Dharampuri around 11.30 am and decided to have a brunch there so turn right turn toward the city. After having a brunch in Dharampuri, we started our journey to Hogenakkal. The distance to Hogenakkal from this place was around 50 kms. It is a straight drive even though you get many circles in between one has to keep on going straight. The road was good and we covered the distance within 45 minutes.

We entered Hogenakkal and parked our car in the TNTDC compound. The coracle person caught up with me at the entrance itself. The coracle person informed that he will charge Rs.400 for a full coracle ride. After negotiating with him, he agreed to take 300 for the full trip in coracle.

During the starting of coracle ride, the person asked us whether we want to go under the water falls to get wet or not. Since Aarav was there with us, we told no to him. But we saw many people getting wet by the falling water and enjoying the nice experience. The guy then took us to an island where lots of other people were also playing around in river. It’s a 15 minutes nice ride in coracle. We all enjoyed very much seeing falls, ride in coracle (by keeping the hands in water and playing) and playing in river. After playing in river for some time we started from that place (island) around 4.15 pm. Again a ride in coracle for around 15 minutes and we were back where we boarded the coracle. Once person was selling fresh pineapple and cucumber so we ate them to cool us off.

We came back to parking place and started the return journey. Again we traveled at good speed and were able to cover the distance quite fast. We stopped at one of the newly constructed Jain temple near Electronics city. After starting from there we ran into the mad traffic from Electronics city and it took us around 45 minutes to reach Silk board junction. Overall it was a good trip and here are some of the pictures taken during our trip. Hope you enjoyed reading the travel blog.

Bangalore->Ooty->Wellington->Coonor

2009-07-12T05:28:00.000-07:00

This was a trip done to welcome New Year with our friend who at that time was doing a course at 'The Defense Services Staff College', Wellington. We drove from Bangalore to Wellington and stayed at The Defense Services Staff College. We then traveled to Ooty and Coonoor from there for the sightseeing.

The route that we took was Bangalore – Mysore – Masinagudi i.e. Mudumalai Wild life sanctuary – Ooty – Wellington – Coonoor. It is about 290 kms and takes 7 hrs to reach if you drive non – stop with minimal number of breaks.

31^st Dec:
We left from Bangalore in the morning around 9. We drove on the Bangalore – Mysore highway and stopped at Kamat for our breakfast. We had a heavy breakfast and we decided to zip it to Ooty. We next stopped at the check post outside the national park. After signing in at the National park entrance in a register, we rolled down the windows and start driving. The drive through jungle was nice as there were very few vehicles and we were able to see peacock, bison, langur and deer. Aarav was really happy to all those animals. It was nice to see these animals in their natural habitats, than in the confines of a zoo.

We drive straight, entered Masinagudi town, and we know we are just getting close to Nilgiris hills. We stopped here for our lunch and continued our journey after having lunch. I have read on various web sites that after Masinagudi there are about 36 hair pin bends. The drive on the curves was smooth and in no time, we had completed the ghat section. The view outside was really nice and I’ve captured some of that in the pictures below.

Ooty was just a few kilometers away now. The road was good, mountainous, and the smell of fresh air was captivating. I had a very bad experience in Ooty on my last trip and I knew that Ooty is very dusty, noisy and crowded city. I am glad that we had friends in Wellington and we were not supposed to stay in Ooty.

We drove ahead to Wellington. Wellington is about 18 kms beyond Ooty. It is an army cantonment, and the British army regiment has been here for a long time. Our friend met us at a designated place and we followed him to his house in Wellington. We had good evening snacks of bread rolls, cutlets with hot cup of tea. Since it was 31^st and we had to attend a New Year party at ‘Wellington Gymkhana club’, we decided to go the army rest house where we were supposed to stay and decided to get ready for the party. Our friend dropped us at the rest house and we decided to meet again at 8.30 pm.

We again met at 8.30 pm and went to ‘Wellington Gymkhana club’ for the party. The party was grand as expected since we all knew that army people celebrate everything style. There was a good choice of drinks, foods and a dance floor was also there. We drank, ate and danced there till 1.00 am in morning and by the time we left back for rest house we were dead tired. It was quite cold and we all had to use double blankets while sleeping. Unfortunately, we forgot to take our camera to party and hence I don’t have any photos to share.

1st Jan:
We had 1.5 days at Wellington. We wanted to visit Ooty on our return journey so on first day we decided to go to Coonoor and see a bit of Wellington.

Wellington is an army town; our friend told us that most of movie Roja was shot here. The army maintains the town very well and it is called Zero garbage town. It is hard to find any garbage, papers or plastic anywhere and it is spotlessly clean.

After having breakfast at the army rest house, we decided to drive through Wellington to get a hang of the place, and then proceed to Coonoor to see the tea estates. I had earlier seen some of tea states during my trip to north east so just wanted to see how these one were different. As soon as we reached an intersection at Connoor many people came running to the car. They were the local guides and a trip of tea estate for Rs. 50 looked like a good bargain.

So, the guide then joined us in the car. He took us straight to a local tea garden. There the caretaker took us through the tea making process in the factory. Later he explained various facts about the tea tree. For ex, he told that average life of a tea tree is 100 year. The price of a tea estate depends on the age of tea trees there. He also explained what part of tea is plucked to make tea. It was really nice to know about all this.

He then took us to the tea shop at the tea factor where we got to taste different kinds of teas. We bought some tea and condiments from there. On the way back, the guide showed us some of the places where few of Hindi movies have been shot. We then came to ‘Sims Park’ in Coonoor and spent some time there. After this we decided to have our lunch that was serving a rajasthani thali. The food was good and simple.

Since there was still lot of time we decided to go to Doddabetta, the highest point in South India in the Western Ghats / Nilagiri hills. We spent some time there, had some fresh fruits and came back to Wellington. We came to guest house, got fresh and again went to our friend’s place for dinner. Our friends had arranged a very nice dinner for us and we spent some time there chatting with them. We came back our guest house around 11.30 pm as we all were quite tired.

2^nd Jan:

We had decided to leave next morning after breakfast. Our friend came to meet us and after spending some time with them, we decide to start our journey. We then reached Ooty and saw the Ooty lake and the botanical garden. Our friend had told us about 2 leather shops so went there also to buy some leather items. We got some good bargains on hand bags so we bought 2 of them.

We then started our return journey to Bangalore. This time we decided to come through Gudalur as I had heard that this route is very scenic. The route was really scenic and we stopped on the way to see ‘Pykara Lake’. The lake was really good and nicely maintained. We also stopped at various places wherever noticed nice views. We stopped at Gudalur for lunch and after lunch continued our journey. We reached back Bangalore around 10.30 pm in the night.

Bangalore-Mysore-Upper Barapolae trip for white water rafting

2009-07-11T10:43:00.001-07:00

This was weekend trip that we did with a group of our friends. There were 2 reasons to do this trip, one was to meet new born son of our friend in Mysore and another was to do white water rafting at Barapolae, South Coorg. I totally agree to below mentioned wise words of 'Mark Twain' and hence decided to go for white water rafting as soon as I came to know about it.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." -- Mark Twain

Day 1:

It was a group of 8 adults and 4 kids hence we decided to take 2 cars. We had planned to leave Bangalore early on Friday evening but by the time we met the other car at 'Wonder La', it was already 7.00 pm. We then started our trip by adjusting people in 2 cars and stopped at 'Kamat Lok Ruchi' for dinner. We had a sumptous dinner at 'Kamat Lok Ruchi' and then we drove nonstop to Mysore. We again got separated in 2 groups after reaching Mysore as we were staying at 2 different places. We went to one of our friends relatives and after a long chat session slept quite late in the night.

Day 2:

Since we slept late at night, it was really difficult to wake up early in the morning even though we had decided to leave early in morning. You can see the same in the photo below. It also took some time to synchronize everyone and get ready. Finally after breakfast, we were able to leave the house at 9.30 am. We met other car at a meeting point and continued to the place where we were supposed to meet the rafting organizers. We met the rafting organizers at the meeting point and started following them to Barapolae, South Coorg. The route to Barapolae, South Coorg was through Nagarhole national park and we had to make at the entrance of park. We were able to see lots of animals on the way like deer, bison etc.

We reached the base camp for rafting around 1.00 pm and directly went for lunch. It was a buffet lunch arranged by the rafting organizers. After lunch we started for the place where we were supposed to do the rafting. The weather was really good with a slight rain drizzle all along the way.

The entire rafting session lasts about 3 hours. This includes a mandatory training session for all rafters. Rafters are first familiarized with the rafting equipment and taught paddling and safety/rescue techniques. Every rafter has to go overboard and is rescued by his team mates; this makes people comfortable with water and also ensures all the rafters have practice of rescue techniques. At the end of the training session every rafter would have learned the proper use of the equipment and also the various commands that need to be followed. If any of the rafters are not comfortable with water or with the effort, the guides will stop them. After the training was done, we did rafting through 4 good rapids in our trip of Class 3 +. You can see all that in the photos attached below.

The wives who didn't join us for rafting were busy doing what you see in photos below. Arti would have definitely joined but was not able to do so since she was carrying Aarav at that time.

After the rafting was done we drove back through beautiful Tea plantations to the starting point in our vehicles. We then changed and refreshed with a hot tea / coffee and steaming soup. After this we started our back journey to Mysore. We reached Mysore around 10.30 pm, had our dinner at a restaurant and went back to place where we were staying. Since all were tired, we went to sleep as soon as we crashed on the bed.

Day 3:

We woke up really late as there were no plans for Sunday. The only plan was to go to our friend's place to meet his new born son and join them for lunch. We left for their place around 11.00 am and were able to spend 3-4 hours with our friend's new born soon. After having a sumptuous home made lunch, we came back to place where we were staying and packed our stuff to start the return journey to Bangalore. We bought local delicacy 'Mysore Pak' and started the return journey to Bangalore. It was raining a lot on the return journey and we stopped at Coffee day in Maddur to have a quick coffee and bite. We reached home around 10.30 pm after a wonderful weekend trip.

Here is some info about the barapole:

The Upper Barapole River drains the eastern flanks of Brahmagiri Ghats. A catchment area of enormous rainfall during the south west monsoon, which provides run off into the upper stretches of the Barapole River, known as Kithu Kakathu.

After a 4 km calm section the river then drops through several kilometres of class 3, 4 and even class 5 rapids before it enters Brahmagiri Wildlife Sanctuary plummeting over a 120 feet falls.

Bangalore-KushalNagar-NisargDhama-Madikeri trip

2009-07-11T05:25:00.000-07:00

This was weekend trip that we did with our friends Rajeev and Vidhya to take a de-stressing break from the routine life. Since it was weekend we could not find any hotel in Madikeri as there was some conference and most of them were booked. We then searched through the site for home stays and were able to find 'Forest Flower' in Sunticoppa. This one was nestled amidst the enchanting hill overlooking a coffee estate. We all liked it and hence did the advance booking for 2 days.

Day 1:

We had decided to leave early around 5.00 am from Bangalore but it was 6.00 am by the time we started. We basically wanted to avoid the Bangalore-Mysore traffic to reach Kushal Nagar on time. The early morning drive through the Mysore high way was really nice and we stopped at Ramanagaram to fill the car tank. There were lots of other vehicles leaving Bangalore that morning.

The route that we took was
1. Took the Bangalore-Mysore highway.
2. Reached Sri Rangapattnam (Bangalore –> Ramanagaram –> Channapatna –> Maddur –> Mandya –> Srirangapatnam)
3. Took the diversion to right after about 10 or 12 kms from Srirangapattnam

We stopped at one small restaurant on the way to have our breakfast. After breakfast we continued on this road and reached the Tibetan camp at Bylekuppe. It was a nice place and is supposed to be the largest Tibetian settlement in India. We saw many tibetians roaming around the entire area, it felt as if we have come to a different country all together. We then saw the Golden temple which was grand, artistic and mysterious. There were many monks doing something or other around the temple.

We then continued on our way and stopped at Nisargadhama. Nisarga Dhama is place where the river Kaveri forks and rejoins to create a small island with bamboo forest. People have to go through a hanging bridge to cross Cauvery on the way to Nisargadhama. We did the elephant ride there, climbed on the bamboo houses, fed the deers and played around in water for sometime. By doing this we all got very hungry so we came back to Kushalnagar and had our lunch there.

After lunch we drove to Sunticoppa where our home stay was located. The home stay was inside a coffee estate along with other plantations. The weather was really cool there due to the plantations and it did had a soothing effect on us after all driving and traveling. We decided to just laze around in the home stay for rest of the day. We just took a walk around the estate in evening and then had a delicious Coorgi dinner with traditional dishes and chatted for a while.

Day 2:

After Break fast, we left the home stay around 9 AM to go to Abby falls. There was lot of scenery around on the way to the falls. We then continued for Bhagamandala. The road to Bhagamandala from Madikeri was quite good apart from few patches and the scenery is awesome. Bhagamandala is a sangam where three river confluence and is a sacred place for Hindus. We visted the temple and after sometime started for Talacauvery. The view till talacauvery was really nice and we saw lots of shops with honey and other local made products. We decided to relax there for some time and then came back to madikeri town for a late lunch. After lunch we spent some time at rajah's seat and then came back to the home stay.

Day 3:
After breakfast we started our journey to reach Dubare Elephant Camp. We took the boat ride to the camp which was great. We also got a chance to feed and give bath to the elephant. This was real fun and we all enjoyed feeding big raagi balls to elephants. After doing all this we just relaxed there with our feet in water. This experience was really rejuvenating and we all felt totally relaxed. We then took the boat ride back and had our lunch there. After lunch we started back and decided to go to Harangi dam. After parking the vehicles at the base of the dam, we climbed a large flight of steps to reach the top. It's an impressive structure built for irrigation but it was quite hot in the day. But there were 2 big ice cream shops at the entrance of dam, so we had ice creams to cool ourselves. After ice cream we started our back journey to Bangalore.

Niagra Falls Trip

2009-07-08T11:40:00.001-07:00

I am back with another Travelogue about my trip to “Niagara Falls”. Since it is summer time here, people told me that it is the best time to go and see Niagara. After seeing Niagara Falls, I can say it was really a wonderful experience.

I started at 3 pm on Thursday evening for Peoria. I was supposed to meet Vivek there and from there we were supposed to go to Detroit to meet other friends who were going to join us for the trip. I drove for 280 miles and reached Peoria around 7 pm on Thursday evening. Vivek was waiting for me and as soon as I reached he started cooking dinner for both of us. We had a nice dinner of Chilly Paneer and Parathas at Vivek’s place and after dinner we started for Detroit around 9.30 pm in the night. The distance from Peoria to Detroit is around 400 miles and we knew that it will be around 7 hrs drive. We got a Ford Taurus on rent this time and it was a new car. Soon we were cruising on the highway with some good Hindi music. We reached Detroit around 4 am in the morning and went to vivek’s friend place. 3 more vivek’s friends were supposed to join us from there. Soon all of us got ready and after having a nice tea with Biscuits we started for Niagara Falls around 7 am on Friday morning. The distance from Detroit to Niagara Falls is around 400 miles and it was going to be another 6-7 hrs drive.

We again started to cruise on another highway to Niagara Falls. We stopped at a Rest area in between to have our breakfast .Around 2 Pm we reached Niagara Falls.

Soon we Found out an Indian restaurant and went in there for our lunch. The lunch was really good and we enjoyed it a lot. After the lunch we went to the place from where we can see the Niagara Falls.

One of the most interesting facts about the Niagara Falls is that on one side of falls is US and on another side is Canada. There is only a bridge separating the 2 countries. The other one is that the there are 2 Falls in Niagara, one is called the “American Fall” and the another is “Horse Shoe Fall” .The “American Fall” is the smaller one and only 10% of water falls from here whereas the “Horse Shoe Fall” is the one you see in the photographs and 90% of water falls from there . It has got its name because its shape is same as that of Horse Shoe and it is really BIG.

We decided to take a ride called “Maid in the Mist” after reaching there. This is a ride in a big boat, which they take right up to the place where the Horse Shoe falls come down. Because of the high speed winds, water is everywhere around you like mist and hence the name “Maid in the Mist “.It was a wonderful experience to see the falls from so near. The amount of water coming down is enormous and I wonder where that water is coming from! They provided us with a rain coat but we did not use it and decided to get wet in the mist which was all around us.

After finishing the ride we climbed some stairs and came to a place which was near to “American Falls”. The haziness which you see in the photo above is because of the water falling and the Mist. It was all water and mist around us.

After standing there for a while we took the elevator to come up and came to the observation deck near the falls .From here you can actually see the falls in their full glory. From this place you can also see the building of the Canadian town. The buildings which you see behind us in the photo below are actually in the Canada, you can also see the bridge connecting US and Canada. So you can imagine how near it is.

After taking some more photos and rest we started to walk for the place from where we can take another ride which is known as “Cave in the Winds”. In this ride they take you down in an elevator to the place where the water from American falls is actually falling. They have a platform built and you can stand there for as long as you want and get wet. So we took the tickets and went down the elevator. They took us to the platform which is built at the just near the place where the water is falling. Once we reached there it was water and the mist everywhere .Even after wearing a raincoat we all were drenched in water .It was really a wonderful experience and we stood there for more than 10 minutes oblivious of everything around us. The haziness behind us in the photograph is all water and mist. We could not take more photos as we were afraid that water will get inside the Camera.

The feeling you get after getting wet in the water and mist all around you is heavenly. I did not felt like going back but after spending some more time we decided to go back. After coming back we took coffee and just sat down to relax. It was around 7 pm at that time and we were thinking what to do next.

One more thing, in winters all this water gets converted to ice and we heard that people come there to Ski. The platform on which we stood to get wet is also built new every year. They remove it in the winter season and build it again in summers.

Our earlier plan was to stay for night near Niagara Falls and then start for Detroit in morning. But we thought that there is no point in staying for night as next day will be wasted in driving only. So we decided to start from there around 9 pm so that we can reach Detroit around 3 pm, have some sleep and then Saturday we can go to some other place.

Chicago Trip

2009-07-08T11:29:00.000-07:00

We started from Des Moines on Friday evening around 3 pm on Interstate Highway I-80(I tried to get the name of highway in picture but it is not clear.).My friend Vivek had already mailed us the way and we got it from Yahoo also.

Since we were going to drive first time on the interstate highway we were little conscious but once we drove for some miles we became more confident. If you drive within the speed limits and follow the lane discipline it is really nice to drive on US highways.

On the way we took a wrong turn by mistake but we realized it soon and so we stopped at a Gas Station. We had a cold drink there and we asked the person there about the way. He told us the way to merge back again in the way and so we were back on the track. Around 7 pm we reached a rest area (A rest area is a place to take a break and refresh you in a long drive. There are lots of rest area along side the Highway after every few miles.) where my friend Vivek was supposed to come and meet us. While waiting for vivek we took some pictures around that rest area.

Vivek came there around 7.20 and we started for his place. Once we reached his place we kept our things there and decided to go Peoria Downtown. After reaching downtown we roamed there a bit and decided to have our dinner at a Restaurant. The restaurant was very near to a river side and you can see a big boat behind me in the photo. After having a good dinner we came back to Vivek’s place.

After coming back to Vivek’s place we saw some Hindi channels on cable TV after a long time. After that we went to sleep as we had decided to leave early morning next day for Chicago.

Saturday Morning we got up around 7.30 am. We got ready and had our breakfast there only. From Vivek’s place we went to the place in the downtown where we were supposed to pick up the car vivek had rented. We took the car key from that person, parked our car there and started for Chicago around 10 am in the morning. He gave us a good car and it was a red color car named Grand Prix from Pontiac. We drove for around 2.5 hrs and around 12.30 we entered Chicago. As soon as we entered Chicago we saw the tallest building in the United States. This is the 2^nd tallest building in the world after those towers in Malaysia.

Around 1.30 pm we reached the Downtown and started searching for the Parking. We parked our car at a multistory parking. From there we started walking and went to a place called “Navy Pier”. This is the place from where you can get the River Cruise in a boat which takes you all around the downtown. Chicago downtown is situated all around the Chicago River and the river runs all through the downtown. So you can travel by road or by a boat. We had our lunch at McDonald’s in Navy Pier .

After lunch we decided to take the boat cruise as it is a 1 hr tour all around the downtown and they tell about the architecture details and History of almost all sky crappers in the Chicago Downtown. Chicago is also known as the City of Architecture. Our guide was good and she told us a lot of interesting things associated with all those tall buildings. She also told us that the Chicago river in beginning used to flow in the opposite direction .But as it was polluting the Michigan Lake which is the source of drinking water to Chicago it was decided to change its direction of flow. After 8 years of hard work the flow of river was reversed and now it flows in the opposite direction. One more interesting thing is also worth mentioning here, all the bridges in Chicago which are over the river can be folded when required.

Once the river cruise was over we decided to walk in the downtown. We came out of Navy pier and started walking in the downtown .We went to a place called Michigan Avenue and we saw all big shopping stores there. Photos below explain what all we saw while walking around the downtown.

After walking for around 3-3.5 hrs we were dead tired and decided to leave the downtown and go to a street which is known as “Indian Street” in Chicago. We took our car from parking and started towards the “Indian Street”. Once we reached the Indian Street it was really great. We felt like we are walking in some city of India .So many Indians and Indian store, shops and restaurants were there. We heard lots of Indian talking in Hindi, Gujrati, Punjabi and all other Indian languages. We bought some grocery items which we almost 1/3^rd of the price we get here in Des Moines. After walking on that street for around 1 hr we decided to have our dinner in a restaurant called “Sher-e-Punjab”. It was really a good dinner and all 3 of us enjoyed it a lot.

After having the dinner we again walked on the Indian street for sometime and then we decided to leave for Peoria. We decided that we will take a drive around downtown so that we can see how those sky crappers look with all lights on in night.

After taking a round of downtown we decided to go back to Peoria around 9.45 pm in the night. We reached Peoria around 12.15 am in the night, left the rented car at the place we took it from and came back to Vivek’s place in our car around 1 am in the morning. We talked for some time and around 2 am we decided to sleep. We got up around 11 am on Sunday morning and after getting fresh started cooking breakfast. We again watched some Indian channels like Sony and Zee TV and had our breakfast. We spent some more time talking and watching the television. Around 2 pm we decided to cook a light lunch so that after having it we can start back for Des Moines around 4 pm.

Around 4 we decided that its time to leave for Des Moines. We started from Vivek’s place around 4 pm and drove back to Des Moines. We reached back Des Moines around 8.30 pm in the night.

So this is a brief travelogue of our trip to Peoria and Chicago .Hope you people will like it .Please let me know your comment soon.