bushahr times tiffinbox starts blogging!

The agenda
A group of 5 people set out to experience the desolate topography of North Sikkim. High on list is visiting the blue waters of Gurudongmar Lake, driving through the uninhabited Yumthang valley, and chilling under the winter sun at Lachen and Lachung, two main villages of North Sikkim. If the word count of the [...]

I was sold on Chitkul more than two years back. And I have tried to sell it ever since. To whoever has 4 days or more, and is willing to travel. I, in all my sincerity, urge them to fit in another one and half hours into their bone-jangling 10-hour journey time starting from Shimla. [...]

And to be more specific: travelling in the Himalayas.
When I first received THE call from WWF offering us a project to design a brochure on the topic of high altitude wetlands, I almost dropped the phone. Similar waves of pleasure gently hit us repeatedly through the next 2 months to its completion. The [...]

When we went to Sikkim, we didn’t really have a plan in mind concerning ‘things to do’. We had to use up our semester-end break, so thought of going someplace far off. Sikkim was a good choice as one of our group members had to ‘mandatorily’ visit his home in Calcutta for at least a [...]

“When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money.” — Susan Heller
So, THAT is what I have been doing wrong!
Taking off from i-sol’s earlier post about planning before a holiday (he himself has confessed that I am one of the subjects [...]

“The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought,” said Sun Tzu in Art of War.
In my earlier post, I had written about how the intrepid traveler prepares for each trip like a general for a war. I am willing to lay my neck on the line [...]

There is this old chestnut about George Mallory. When someone asked him why he wanted to climb  Mt Everest, he replied, “Because it is there.”
Mallory was the forerunner of the intrepid traveler or Homo Intrepidus Traveleris. Resolute, determined to reach the destination by hook or crook or hitch hiking, she prepares for every trip like [...]

List of provisions stacked for the trip to Tsomo-riri (3 days/ taxi/ 4 people + 1 driver)
Trip dates: 27, 28, 29 June 2007
The bill dated 26th of June 2007 was supposed to feed 5 people for 3 days. Of those 5 people, 4 brains were put into preparing this list. And the best of our [...]

How about this for a stunning statistic? Indian railways: 2,16,717 wagons, 39,236 coaches, 14,444 daily trains, more than a million tonnes of freight everyday and 14 million passengers everyday covering 6,856 stations daily! (The stats)
Now, to come back to this post, I probably take, say, six train journeys a year, which makes 12 return train journeys… that [...]