The Hermitage is a homely place, for there are just 3 units available for guests – a Macchan (sort of tree house with a bathroom at ground level), a Kadaba (traditional village house with an open-air bathroom outside) and a Gota (a rural cottage with electricity and attached bathroom).

Anu travels to and loves the experience at The Hermitage, a primitive and rustic ‘resort’ near Belgaum. Plenty of pictures too.

Thejesh visits Danushkodi and shares some photographs.

Just with in a kilometers distance we started to realize that we have sea on both sides of us. This jeep was behind us.

Here is part 1
In the previous episode: After an exciting, fun-filled flight cancellation experience at the airport, Ashok and gang found themselves at the Esplanade bus stand staring at what they were told would be a Volvo. Read on…to find…

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Former DesiPundit and prominent photo-blogger Akshay Mahajan traces his journey through 2008  and tells the best of each month’s stories through his pictures.

From the Varnasi vignettes to the Hong Kong races, a rundown movie matinee in Bangalore to Saigon’s streets, Akshay’s travels are captured for posterity when he marries stunning visuals with sensitive commentary.

The sample song that you listened to; they play it at all the hours of day and night. One of the things I am looking forward on a 36 hour journey is to catch up on sleep! It is impossible with the music blaring at all hours at a volume over which I have no control.

Traveling from New Delhi to Bangalore, Mridula prefers the Karnataka Express instead of the Rajdhani Express in spite of the added six-hour difference in travel time.

Imagine a hillock, the top of which has been flattened to build a short—and it is really short at 5200 feet—runway. Imagine also that at both extremities of the runway, the edges of the hill drop away precipitously into a blue haze. And, if you have not already switched off mentally by now, imagine that the runway is not level, but slopes down from east to west, almost by 30 feet.

Rada describes the scary experience in landing at Mangalore via air.

And the image of Iran and its people has been colored by over thirty years of western press releases; an image comprising of denial of rights to females, religious intolerance, and inhumane punishments for crime. But all this was hardly apparent to me as I toured by myself for ten days across 8 cities in Iran.

Shivaji who is back from a trip to Iran writes that Iran is a must visit destination.He writes on the places visited and the people whom he met.

The beauty of going to this place early morning is that, one can expect the unexpected role-plays that nature can perform. At one point, the clouds were just above us, thinning and thickening, providing a shifting mysterious view of the landscape. Trust me there were moments when the camera lens was set for a shot but then the clouds, traveled and the entire composition was distorted.

RemainConnected drives to Nandi Hills at 4am and provides yet another example why photography should be done in the early hours of the day.

I had seen Badami in two movies- a Telugu flick and Mani Ratnam’s Guru, so I knew what to expect. The start was not dreamlike. 14 hours, 3 buses and more than 24 hours since my last bath, and the humid summer heat only made me more uncomfortable. The first place I chose to visit was the museum for obvious reasons – air conditioning, better restrooms and cold drinking water.

Harsha writes about his trip to Badami, the capital of Early Chalukyas.

Priya shares her 5 paisa gyaan on BMTC (Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation).

Vajra is a very good example of daylight robbery. These are some ’special’ buses, coloured grey to show the area of law in which they operate. They charge one-and-a-half times the usual rate, but for what? The seats are not more comfortable, the bus is not air-conditioned, and it’s not even limited-stop. Bah!