Curious Boho

The road to Dhanushkodi A long weekend is a very inviting option to go somewhere and 15th August, Independence day was approaching soon (not this year, last year,#StayhomeStaysafe in 2020). Bharath (The Husband) had been on a boys trip to Rameswaram and Kanyakumari the previous year and I had seen pics of Dhanushkodi and was itching to go there. So when we were looking for options in the middle of monsoon season, this popped up with him saying, "Let's go to Dhanushkodi.. I want to eat fish (making the fish symbol with his hands)". I am a vegetarian, so with a facepalm (and concealed excitement) we set about planning.  We had about 4 days in hand and hence decided to just visit Rameswaram and Dhanushkodi. Why these two places? The temple town of Rameswaram is situated on Pamban island connected to Indian mainland by the famous Pamban bridge. As per Ramayan, a bridge was built by Hanuman to Srilanka to rescue Sita. Rameswaram is one of the Char Dhams (holy pilgrimage sites)...

Sunrise at Angkor Wat Back in Sept 2016 my husband and I were wondering.. Year-end holidays approaching.. Where to next? I had once told him that I wanted to see the the three major civilizations or the reigns across the world - Angkor city, Egypt and Machu Pichu. That's when we decided, let's start from the East! With that started the planning of a 10day trip across Cambodia and Vietnam. The entire trip did not need much planning and we also wanted to take things as they come. Starting with Flight bookings - Bangalore- Siem Reap- Hanoi-Bangalore - Done! Hotel bookings in the respective cities and applied for E-Visa for Vietnam; USD was the currency in Cambodia and yes, stock up on some food! We were all set! We landed in Siem Reap and within 10mins of deplaning, we were greeted by a very warm immigration officer #rarefind and had gotten our Visa on Arrival through an extremely smooth and structured process - Impressive! We headed straight to our Hotel - Siddharta - a quaint bo...

After our adventure at Petra we set off on the 2 hour drive towards Wadi Rum. Driving around Jordan is quite easy - roads are reasonably good, very well marked routes and directions and clearly defined speed limits.  Wadi Rum is a desert and became famous since it is the site where the movie Martian was shot. We had booked an experience here - what’s that you wonder?  A one night stay in a Martian Dome! There are many hotels which offer this experience- spend a night living inside a bubble, in the middle of a desert, looking up at the stars while you fall asleep. Amazing! We had explored 3 hotels which had good reviews, Suncity, Hasan Zawadeih camp and Bubble Luxotel. These Martian domes sell out months in advance. We checked about 3-4 months in advance and the Suncity and Hasan Zawaheid weren’t available on our dates. However Bubble Luxotel was and we immediately booked it.  We reached the parking of the hotel. From there we were transferred by a 4x4 through the desert t...

Rejuvenated after soaking in the Dead Sea minerals, we started our 3hour drive to Petra. The landscapes in Jordan are amazing and makes for very scenic drives. The route to Petra was a hilly one with some steep inclines with temperature dropping drastically from 21 degrees at Dead Sea to 8 degrees at Petra! Google Maps pretty much worked the entire route and took us to our hotel - Petra Sky Inn.  We reached the hotel around 2/3pm and rested for a bit and then set off towards the Petra visitor centre. The route to the visitor is extremely steep with inclination of 70 degrees and some blind turns - quite a tough drive!   We had planned to be in Petra from a Wednesday to a Friday and I was glad we had done that. Petra by Night is a tour organised by the Petra visitor centre which allows you to visit the Treasury at Petra at night; Lit by 100s of candles! This tour happens only on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. You can simply turn up at the Petra visitor centre and buy the t...