The yummy things I cooked

October was a month full of cooking yummy food and eating loads of yummy food. I want home..twice, the 1st time as part of my yearly break during Durga Puja and 2nd time for official work. Each time I ended up carrying back tons of veggies, I always get veggies back whenever I go home I end up buying almost all kinds of veggies available at Nagamapal keithel from maroi nakuppi to maroi napakpi to cauliflower to thambou to ou morok. I love to buy veggies at the Nagamapal keithel but the most annoying part abt buying veggies is the dirt and garbbage piled up near the keithel. When I was home I invited my fren "A" and her Husband "G" for lunch and ended up cooking the most yummy meitei style chicken after the one at D's place...was I happy??? oh yeah I was super happy.....I always thought I can't cook meitei style chicken but I was wrong! with the right ingredients and an iron kadhai I can sure cook yummiest meitei style chicken. The cook in me tried different things this month and the most succesful in all my attempts was the "maroi nakuppi paknam", I had never tried making paknam but always wanted to, the problem with making it was the availability of turmeric leaves but this time I managed to get one during one of my field visits and with lil help from "A" I got the recipe right and bingo...my paknam turned out to be as good as that of my mom's. I do plan to make paknam next time I visit home and surprise mom with my recipe of a very popular meitei dish.

Mumbai unlimted

I love going to Mumbai, it still remains my fav city in India. I love the feeling of "alone" in a crowd...I like the train ride to VT station and chilling at Colaba, I miss sitting at Bandra Bandstand and enjoy the breeze and not minding the famous Mumbai city stink, I absolutely miss shopping for good and very affordable (read cheap)sandals at Linking road...I miss the vada pav and bhurji pav and despite the humidity and everything else I still love going back to Mumbai.I went to Mumbai after 2 and half yrs, the last time I was there was during an Alumni meet. The campus was similar and familiar, many things have changed in the past 2 and half years except for the same white washed campus roads with birds dropping a new 7 storey building has come up in the campus, the DH has become like fish market and I see students everywhere.When I was in Mumbai I had never visited the Shiddhi Vinayak Temple, this time for the first time I saw the Shiddhi Vinayak Temple and its a fav. among Bollywood stars. I saw the Bandra-World sea link also that's was cool, I took the pic. from a distance. I shopped for sandals and accessories from Linking road and missed my student days I took a cab and not bus to Linking road not because I could afford it but because I had no idea abt the bus route.I saw a crowd dancing with madness before immersion of an idol. Mumbai has alot to offer for travellers and places like Bandra, Colaba are the best place to shop. These places fits every ones budget and style, I bought a sandal which was exact copy of a sandal I had seen in Paris the difference...was the price in Paris it was priced 50 euro and here its 250 bucks...I love to shop in Linking road. I enjoyed my two day visit to Mumbai and would love to go back again.

Travel plans

For the past 4 years I have been travelling like crazy. I travel almost every month and sometimes I travel to 3 different cities and very recently 6 countries in a months. I love to travel and never get tired travelling...I am travelling again next week and this time its a purely personal trip I going to Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Baroda and Ahmedabad, most of my frens think I am crazy travelling so much but what to do I feel m lossing out on something.....whenever I get an chance to travel I never back out...even if its a trip to Dhalai dist. or the most interior place in North Tripura my running shoes are always ready and packed...I return from one trip and plan another...that's me and I love this part of me.

Hyderabad - (Chinese) Pearl City

Hyderabad is known for its pearls and now country's first airport developed in PPP model. When we landed in Hyderabad I was super impressed with the airport,it reminded me of the Frankfurt Airport. It was super clean and very, very swanky . The last time I was in Hyderabad I couldn't buy pearls and was very unhappy with myself but this time I bought loads of pearls. I did a lot of google search and asked frens abt shops and places to buy pearls from, one place suggested was "Jagdamba Pearls" and few more. The Hyderabadi pearls it turns out are all from China, so technically its not Hyderabadi Pearls but Hyderabadi Chinese Pearls, I always thought AP mei people must be doing commercial farming of pearls ....only to realize that in today's time everything and anything is made in china....which includes the the India mei world famous Hyderabad pearls. The resort I stayed at Hyderabad was nice "Golkanda Spa's and Resort" the room was very spacious and well designed, food was awesome the first day I had my fav. Biryani and for 3 more days I had the most spicy south indian food, everyone else was complaning abt the food and the level of spice index but I loved the spicy sambhar, spicy rasam and spicy chicken curry. The resort was very beautiful only I couldn't find time to explore and chill, maybe some other time, I'll be back not for work but to chill and relax.

Switzerland The best of all (17th-18th July)

One word to describe my 3rd day and 2nd day of tour in Switzerland "Train" yeah all I did was travelled in train. From Gare Cornavin (Gare is Station in French) I went to Montreax and I took the Golden Panoramic express, this was a special train or to put it correctly it was a Luxury Train, between Montreax and Zweisimmen to view the breath taking view, the best part abt the train was half of the roof was in glass giving a better view. I was really happy that I decided to take this train, the view was too beautiful to express in words. I took so many pictures. I wished I was not travelling alone, Switzerland is not the place to go alone, one should go with his/her partner, its very romantic and now I know why people talk so much abt Switzerland as holiday destination, all their services are very tourist centric.Like the Golden Panoramic train, their were other trains also their was a chocolate express and more trains between beautiful locations.

The train reached Zwesimmen 45 mins late but I was not complaining and noone else was either , everyone was enjoying the beautiful view and July being a holiday season everyone on the train was in no hurry to reach aother destination. The 45 mins delay gave me time to explore the village before boarding another train to Spiez, the village was quite beautiful...for that matter everything in Switzerland was beautiful, the village cottage with flowers in each window and the scenic view of every place was just too beautiful to capture in any Camera or express in words .The train to Speiz was on time, I met alot of people in train who were travelling mostly in groups most Americans and Aseans. I was sitting next to an Australian and we generally started talking, they were surprised to know I am travelling alone and we debated on who's the greatest cricketer he knew Sachin Tendulkar and couple of other Indian cricketer. From Speiz I took another train to go to Interlaken OST, I was planning to go to Lake Thun from Interlaken but since my train got delayed for 45 mins I couldn't go till Lake Thun, next to the Interlaken OST station was a river, I ventured out for abt 30 mins and that place was too beaitiful to be true. The river was so blue that I thought maybe they have added some color to the river lol, the 30 mins I spent there was worth every second, it was a very chilled out kind of place, for a moment I thought that if Interlaken is so beautiful then how beautiful Lake Thun must be...point hai nah. If I had more then I would have definitely stayed longer, at Interlaken I had the most yummy icecream I ever had, the biggest cone and conbination of two icecream scope...yeah thast me and in my most happy mode I overeat and over spend.

I just didn't felt like leaving Interlaken but I had to head back to Geneve and took a train till Bern from Interlaken and for the first time since I landed in Frankfurt I wished for the train that was late but sadly it was not, it was dot on time. The flexi pass I had, allowed me to travel in all the trains from Bern to Geneve. The 2nd day of my tour was mostly spend in train but I had no complains...non at all. The delay of 45 mins was something I didn't mind and even though I couldn't visit Lake Thun, their's always a next time and I know that next time will come very soon... Switzerland has loads to offer for everyone and this is one country I would like to spend all my holidays and next time I will not be alone.

Switzerland -The best of all (15th-16th July)

To live a dream is what most of us want and my trip to Switzerland was one for me. Switzerland for me was a beautiful location where all our bollywood stars go to shoot songs...a place where RICH people go for honeymoon...a country of chocolates and a dream destination till 15th of July...I had got the best of deal to visit switzerland from Germany my entire return train journey was 79 euros...a deal everyone of us will dream of...I was super excited abt the trip but nearly missed the train...but thanks to the ontime departure or the tram I reached the Bielefeld Hbf just on time 3 mins before departure...the journey was Bielefeld-Mannheim-Basel-Geneve. The journey from Mannheim to Basel was long but very beautiful passing so many tunnels and the vineyards on both sides was just so beautiful and some views were truly breath taking. I reached the Geneve main station Cornovin on time, I had no clue how to buy the bus ticket so I asked an old gentleman how to buy a ticket, he was very kind and showed me how to buy and gave me 3 CHF ...I kept asking him to take euro form me but he refused....that was really sweet of him and he was Turkish he told me. AB's mom (my host at Geneve) had given be proper direction on how to reach there place. I got the information right and reached on time, the house was loacted at beautiful location with a view of Lake Geneve, I had a huge room to myself . Everything abt Switzerland was beautiful even the grass....Geneve was like any other big city of Europe but the other places I visited in Switzerland was non like the places I visited earlier.Thanks to my fren AB''s parents my trip was planned and aunty had got me these flexi passes (these passes doesn't come cheap but uncle being an Ambassador got me these passes at very very affordable price..jai ho uncle and aunty) , the best part part these flexi passes was it could be used in all the trains including the luxury trains and discounts on many more tickets. The 2nd day of visit I went to Mt. Titlis from Geneve I took a train till Luzern and from Luzren to Engelberg and from Engelberg to Mt. Titlis by cable car and the famous Roatair cable car. The train from Luzern to Engelberg was too cool, it was a mountain climbing train...I was a bit scared at the begning but after sometime I was back to my normal excited and happy self.I took so many pictures and for the first time I realize that 2 GB memory chip is very less...for meh!in my excitment I was taking so many pictures and making video clip that I forgot my camera has limited memory storage haha.From Engelberg I went till the Cable way point and bought the ticket to go till top of Mt. Titlis, thanks to my flexi passes I got 50% discount on my ticket so insteda of 82 CHF i paid only 41 CHF...that momemt I felt ke zindagi mei aur kya chahyeh..discount pe discount.

Unlike the cable car I had travelled last year here in India at Timber Trail resort, Parwano this one was smaller and climbed steeper heights, some people were tracking and from above I saw the breathtaking beautiful valley, the site was amazingly beautiful and I was more than happy that I came to Engelberg, Mt Titlis. I met a group of people of Delhi who were also travelling, infact most toursit were Indians. Once I reached Trubsee, my excitment knew no bound....that place was part of a glacier and their were show everywhere, for the first time in my life I saw real snow...hahaha...other fellow toursit went gaga over the scene...everybody was busy taking pictures and that moment I missed my fren "A" alot....I thought if we would have been travelling together then hum dono pata nahi kitna sara photo khechte...from Trubsee the Roatair cable car took us to Mt. Titlis.

I spent abt 1 hr at Mt. Titlis and bought some souvenir's like coffee mug, key ring and postcards. I saw a lot of Indian's esp. Gujju's and the best was at the restaurant they were serving Indian food, palik panner, dal, rice, chappati, papad...hahaha I was truly amazed. Even in the souvenir shop they had written in Hindi that "Hum euro coin nahi lete sirf note lete hai". Their was an Indian cafe I saw when I came down and they were selling all Indian fast food...I couldn't stop myself from having a masala chai....After I came down to Engelberg I explored the place...took some pictures and just roamed around the place. It was relaxing and refreshing....the Mt. Titlis trip turned out really cool and I enjoyed every moment and this was truly one of the best places I ever visited in life....I was sure living my dream.