Summer 2023

 After returning back from Singapore, the very next day I decided to start my summer road trip. 

10-June-2023 We left after lunch with the goal of staying the night in Hyderabad. We stopped at McDonalds near Bengaluru airport to grab a takeaway lunch. After this we continued driving till Cafe Coffee Day 50 kilometers after Ananthpur. We arrive here at 6:05 PM.

After a small coffee and toilet break, we continued driving till Hyderabad. We had booked Hyatt in Gachibowli and stayed there for the night. A very strange incident happened in this hotel. The reception staff saw a camera in my hand and claimed that I cannot take the camera to my room and will have to deposit it with them. Of course, after some shouting, they let me take the camera to my room. But for this reason, I have decided to not book them anymore.

11-June-2023 We checked out from the hotel after our breakfast and continued towards Bhopal. We did pretty much non-stop drive for 5-6 hours and stopped at Vittal Kamath near Hinghanghat. This place is not great, but we had our kind of lunch there.

After this we again continued pretty much non-stop till Bhopal.

Next few days were spent in Bhopal in taking care of some stuff.

15-June-2023 We needed to visit my village which is in Sitapur district in UP. We started from Bhopal around 9 AM. 

We had packed lunch, so we stopped at the roadside and had our lunch and then continued till we crossed Kanpur. We stopped somewhere on Kanpur Lucknow Road for a small tea break and then continued till we reached our hotel in Lucknow.

We retired for the day. 

16-June-2023 The next day, we started after breakfast towards Sitapur. We reached our village around 12:30 PM. We stayed there till 6:20 PM and then returned back to Lucknow.

17-June-2023 Next day, we started back towards Bhopal. rather than going from Kanpur, we decided to drive towards Agra expressway and joined Bundelkhand expressway at Etawah. I found this road to be a better option rather than dealing with the current mess of Lucknow Kanpur Road.

18-June-2023 We left Bhopal to go to Noida. Took the usual road of going towards Guna, Gwalior, Agra. Started from Bhopal at 8:00 AM. Reached K2 Square Highway Treat near Guna at 10:20 AM. Had my breakfast there. It is a pretty good place to stop. 

After that continued towards Noida, After around six hours of drive, stopped at the food street on Yamuna Expressway. Had a small coffee break. Finally arrived in Noida at 7:15 PM.

Stayed in Noida till 22nd. Started on the reverse journey on 22nd June.

22-June-2023 Started at 7:15 AM, stopped at the fuel station on Yamuna Expressway and had a coffee break in Starbucks. After that short coffee break, continued on YEW, crossed Agra and stopped on a dhaba after gwalior. After a lunch break, continued towards guna and stopped at same K2 Square Highway Treat. Finally arrived back in Bhopal around 7:30 PM.

30-June-2023 Started from Bhopal for the final return journey to Bengaluru. Left Bhopal at 6:00 AM. Stopped at Hotel Meghna and Restaurant near Betul around 9:00 AM. This place is very close to where the four lane starts. 

Around 3:20 PM stopped at Sardar Ji Family Dhaba to have some lunch. Finally arrived in Hotel Oakwood at 7:20 PM.

01-July-2023 Checked out the hotel after the lunch and continued towards Bengaluru. Around 4:30 PM near Kurnool stopped at Hyderabad Chefs for a small break. At 6:10 PM, arrived in cafe coffee day and had a small break there. 

After the break in CCD, continued driving and arrived at home at 11:45 PM just before midnight.

Singapore - June 2023

 02-June-2023

We visited Singapore in the month of June 2023. We had been to Singapore almost 10 years ago and we decided to visit again. Our flight was departing from Bengaluru airport around 11 PM and we arrived in airport at 8:30 PM.

We arrived in Changi Airport early morning around 6:45 AM. After completing immigration formalities, we decided to first visit Jewel which is easily accessible from the airport terminal through and monorail. We did take a local SIM card from the terminal before leaving the place.

Jewel doesn't open very early. We walked around the place and around 10 AM some of the shops opened so we decided to have our breakfast here before leaving the place. We had booked Holiday Inn near Clarke Quay. We decided to just take the metro to go to hotel. 

If you are 3-4 people then taking metro is not always the cheapest option. The best approach is to have one of the local ride sharing apps. The only issue we found that these apps did not accept forex card so we had to use our India credit cards or get some cash.

We rested in hotel for few hours since our night was completely spend in flight and we did not get much sleep.

In the night we decided to visit the area around Marina Bay Sands.

After spending time at Gardens by the bay, we took a metro to go to Little India to find some food there. After that we took the metro back to our hotel and retired for the day.

04-June-2023 This day we had planned to visit the areas around Bird Paradise and Night Safari. Bird paradise, even though like a zoo, is pretty well designed and is a good place to visit. I would not confuse it with a proper bird sanctuary where birds come on their own but it still is worth it. There is a pretty good show also which happens every half an hour so one should not miss it.

After bird paradise, we had booked tickets for night safari. This is not that great but since it is close by to Bird Paradise and it is at night when pretty much everything else closes. one can visit it.

The night safari finished around 10:00 PM and we took a cab back to hotel. The cab fares were around 40 SGD either way, but we were six people, and we booked a six-seater cab so it came out pretty much same price as taking metro.

05-June-2023 This was the day to checkout from mainland and check into Hotel Village in Sentosa. The resort check-ins are generally around 1PM, so we decided to checkout from Holiday Inn and leave our luggage with the hotel there and visit Marina Bay Sands again for some of the places that we had missed visiting on the first day.

We visited Merlion, Art Museum and bunch of other places before walking to Nalan restaurant near Singapore city hall. They had good Indian food. After lunch, we went back to Holiday Inn and picked our luggage and left for Sentosa.

We arrived in Hotel Village around 8 PM and checked in. There is a very good Indian Hotel Royal Taj just outside the hotel. The only issue is that they open at lunch and dinner time. So if you are a vegetarian, the breakfast becomes huge problem in Hotel Village. 

We had our dinner in Hotel Royal Taj and retired for the day.

06-June-2023 This was the day for universal studio. We got ready, had our breakfast and were in Universal studio. We spent pretty much whole day in multiple rides. A point to note, if you intend to do Jurrasic Park ride, keep a change of clothes because there is a good chance you would get wet and your shoes will also get wet.

It was evening when we got out but we decided to try to reach the Wings of Time show since we had no other slot available. We reached on time and were able to see the show.

After the show, we came back to the hotel and retired for the day. 

07-June-2023 The next day we got ready and decided to do Skyline Luge the first things in the morning. After skyline luge, we took a round trip in Cable car. It offers a good view of whole Singapore. Then we checked out from Hotel Village and checked into Hotel Shangri-La Rasa Sentosa. For vegetarians like us, this is a much better hotel because there is a full-fledged vegan restaurant and the breakfast spread always has decent south Indian stuff.

08-June-2023 We had couple of more important things to visit on this day. After our breakfast, we went to S.E.A Aquarium. This is probably one of the best aquariums that I have seen. After the aquarium, we went back to our hotel.

09-June-2023 This was the last day in Singapore. Our flight was late in the evening. So as usual, we checked out and left our luggage at hotel. Then we decided to visit Madam Tussads. This place is not that great. I will visit it only if I have time. If you have time to spare, it is a must visit.

After finishing up with Madam Tussads, We went back to hotel, collected our luggage and reached airport. Singapore airport immigration exit is pretty smooth. There is a automated process so you don't even have to talk to a person. 

We arrived in Bengaluru around 10:30 PM. As usual we had our dinner at airport and then left for home.

Trip to Kabini, Connoor, Valparai

02-May-2023

Me and a couple of friends wanted to visit some places in and around Bengaluru, so we decide to start our short trip by driving down to Jungle Lodges and Resorts, Kabini River Lodge. The plan was to stay there for a night, go for couple of safaris and then continue.

We left Bengaluru around 6:00 AM and decided to make a halt at Somanathpura temple before continuing to Kabini.

Somanathpura is a Hoysala style temple and is in pretty good shape. We spent around an hour and half here before continuing on.

We continued on towards Kabini which was our next stop. We arrived in Kabini at around 1PM. We rested for some time and then went for our evening safari.

Jungle Lodges and Resorts Kabini is a pretty good property to stay here. Also if you want to do a jeep safari, they are the agency through which you have to go. If you are staying at other properties in Kabini, you would still have to go there for your Jeep safari.

We had planned on doing two safaris, one was on 2nd evening and the other was on 3rd morning. Our safaris were pretty good. We had a good sighting of leopard and some very good sightings of elephant herds. 

03-May-2023 After finishing the safari in the morning, we checked out and left Jungle Lodges and Resorts towards Coonoor. We stopped at Gundlupete for a quick lunch in a restaurant named Hotel Sri Guruprasad. The place was average.

We arrived in Coonoor around 5:30 PM and had booked our stay at Tea Nest. This was a bungalow in tea estate. It was pretty good accommodation.

We drove back to the town and had our dinner at 180Mciver. The place was horrible and was not worth the money.

04-May-2023 We got up in the morning and our plan was to drive to Sims Park where we spent almost an hour. We returned back to our hotel, got ready, checked out and were on our way to the next destination.

We stopped over in Coimbatore for lunch. We had heard great things about Annapoorna but by mistake we ended up in their outlet in Prozone Mall in Coimbatore. The food was not exception but ok. We had our lunch and then continued on towards Valparai.

The drive to Valparai is exceptional. The 40 odd hair pin bends make this drive great. The only issue was that there is no way one can stop on this segment of the road. In any case, we continued and arrived in Valparai around 4:15 PM. We had booked Sinne Dorai Bungalow for our stay.

We stayed here for two nights. The place is fantastic, and food was great. We also did a night drive through the estate and saw many animals in the estate.

06-May-2023 We checked out from Valparai and started our return journey to Bengaluru. We stopped over at Tiruppur to buy some clothes and then continued towards Bengaluru. We finally arrived in Bengaluru at 8:00 PM.