It was my dream to send my parents for a wonderful trip to the mystical mountains of Kashmir valley. I was planning for quite sometime now and this year seemed to be the right time since I had saved some money for their vacation. In July, I booked flights from New Delhi-Srinagar and back for my parents for the 22nd of Sep'14 and 29th of Sep'14 respectively. The tickets cost INR 8500 as Spicejet and Indigo had announced a monsoon season offer for its customers.  I booked the tickets through Goibibo since it seemed to be the easiest and the most convenient for me instead of going through the different websites of the service providers. I was really very excited and looking forward for their trip in this season. But the things did not turn out that well and God's fury embarked upon the 'heaven on earth' through massive floods in the valley leaving over hundreds dead and lakhs homeless. I discussed the situation with my parents and called goibibo for the cancellation of tickets. To my utter dismay, the cancellation process was very time consuming and moreover the representative on phone was rude to the tees. The worst was not over yet. Although it was a natural calamity due to which I had to cancel the tickets, there was INR 1500 for each passenger and INR 1500 for each leg deducted from the refund leaving only INR 2500. And on top of all this even goibibo deducted their own cancellation charges of INR 1000 and their convenience fee mounting to around INR 500 which only left INR 996 as the refund to be credited back to my account.

Although I happened to cancel the tickets way before the departure, there was no consideration taken either by the aviation companies or the travel agency. My only concern is if railways have the ability to refund the money based on the cancellation dates, why cannot an aviation industry have the same norms? And moreover in special cases the private companies too should be considerate enough for its customers. I will certainly raise this issue with the appropriate authorities of India so that some corrective steps can be taken in putting a stop to these irrational policies. Until then my advise to all of you would be to be careful and prefer travelling through the Indian Railways. At least your hard earned money would not be lost the way mine is.

It's been over 8 years that I visited the holy shrine of Mata Vaishno Devi in Katra, Jammu and Kashmir.I
along with my family and friends planned a journey for the month of April to avoid the cold winter breeze. My dad hired an Innova for our journey till Katra. It took us more than 7 hours to reach our destination, post which we marched on foot after a bit of rest in a nearby hotel. I must admit the walk took a toll on us as we started for the 14 km never ending steep steps towards the temple. Whenever we reached a turn, like a mirage, it seemed the temple was just a few minutes away but it took us good 2-3 hours to reach the gate of one of the most worshiped pilgrimages of the country on foot. On our way we took a bit of rest here and there since we had a few old aged people with us. I saw many devotees literally crawling and walking on foot without any shoes on the rocky path shouting 'Jai Mata Di' on top of their voice. I was both amazed and touched to see their devotion towards the Mother Goddess. As we reached the temple premises, we saw a long queue outside the gate of the temple mounting to thousands of darshanarthi (devout). Luckily, my dad had VVIP passes for the entry and within a few minutes we were escorted towards another entry for a holistic view of the Devi. After
paying homage to the mother we started back for Katra. The journey back was more tiring since we had not rested or eaten anything for almost a day but our inner strength by God's grace kept rising and nothing could stop us. We stopped feeling the cold breeze, hunger, thirst, body pain, all the vices, all the agony seemed to have vanished after witnessing the holy Pind of Mata Vaishno Devi. Somehow we managed our way back to the hotel and immediately headed towards home since we had no time to rest because of professional leaves crunch for most of the companions in the trip.

Pangot is a very small village 15 km away from Nainital into the wilderness of nature. It is home to about 150-200 species of birds and is a beautiful destination for all the jungle and hill lovers. I would rather consider myself lucky to have been able to discover and visit this beatific place in 'Dev Bhoomi'. It was an unforgettable experience with the best of nature from the 370 km Himalayan range to the variety of bird species to the amazing rainy season of the hills of Uttarakhand. I spend 3 nights and 4 days in Pangot and I am all excited to share my everyday experience with you.

Planning an excursion has always been a herculian task for me. First reason being that travelling is not my cup of tea and the second is even if I agree to travel I am the last person to decide the place because of my fickle-mind. Although I enjoy visting new places, but to be frank, I literally find ways of avoiding a journey. For me it is the toughest whether with or without company. I remember when I was a kid my mom used to take me to Dehradun, at my paternal and maternal relatives place. We used to travel by bus, since there were no trains/flights available for the route. The bus used to take about six hours to reach our destination and my face used to have a stable frown throughout the journey. Somewhat lately, I have been able to get used to travelling by car and train. Thanks to the frequent trips I had to take to my hometown. Still I do undergo the initial hitch while travelling specially by bus or flight.

There are a number of places I have travelled to in my childhood. From Dev Bhoomi to the Pink City to the City of Joy and many more. My dad took me to various places in my school vacations all over the country including Mcleodganj, Dharamshala, Palampur, Baijnath, Kangra valley, Dhauladhar range, Shimla, Kufri, Chail, Katra, Udaipur, Jaipur, Mount Abu, Ajmer, Pushkar and Kolkata to name a few. All the trips were full of fun and frolic with our family friends and relatives. I also happened to be a part of a school trip to Kasauli, which was just an hours journey. The food that we were served was horrible but I had a great time trekking with my school mates in the chilled winters of the Shivalik range. I have been to Himachal a number of times and been lucky enough to enjoy the snow but I am yet to cherish the heavenly experience of snowfall. My last long trip was to Kerala, God's own country. I visited Nelliyampathy range, Kochi, Allapuzha (Allepey) beach, lighthouse and the great water falls of Vazhchal. Although my health was not in our favour, due to change in climate and food habits, it was an experience of a lifetime. I thoroughly enjoyed the various cuisines and the natural greenery of this beautiful state of our country.

Travelling is a great way to release the everyday tension and stress, however one should plan and research extensively before starting a travel or trip especially to an unknown place. Few important things to keep in hand would be: A map or GPS navigator, vehicle check-up incase travelling on your own, hard cash for emergency, water, food, medicines, a basic knowledge of the area being travelled to and lastly, one should prefer to travel in groups in case of a remote area. Remember it is always better to be cautious and with the increasing number of crimes, it is a must. My upcoming list of expedition for the next few years comprises of Leh-Ladakh, Srinagar, Lakshwadeep, Gujarat and Sikkim. Leh-Ladakh would be a road trip to watch out for because of its serene, exotic, natural beauty which is claimed by few to be even better than Srinagar, the heaven on Earth. Lakshwadeep would be my choice for scuba-diving and underwater experience and Gujarat for its ancient architecture, the salt marsh(Rann of Kutch) and the beautiful beaches. Sikkim would be my first step towards the north-east of India.

I do hope that I am able to materialise the excursions planned by me so far and I will definitely come up with more articles to share my travel experience in the future with you.

This is a two-year-old story that I am sharing with you today. It is about the unplanned trip that was decided upon in just seconds after missing the bus to the planned one. Confused? No, Yes. Okay let me be more specific. So there was a weekend trip planned by us to Nainital in the month of June, of course the weather compelled us to opt for a hill station at that time. We got ready early in the morning to catch the earliest bus from ISBT realizing on our way that we never looked up the bus schedule before starting. Nevertheless, we reached the bus stand and frantically started inquiring for the AC bus to our destination. To our dismay, all the buses to Nainital were pre-booked and the next bus was about 2-3 hours later. As we were pondering over what to do, I heard a conductor shouting "Jaipur, Jaipur". We immediately ran for the Jaipur bus, and got our tickets done. It was a Non-AC, general, Rajasthan Roadways bus but we were happy since we could finally start our getaway, though an unplanned one. It was not a comfortable journey because of the weather and the unwanted crowd and our desperation to reach Jaipur was increasing with every stoppage. On our way I realized that we had no hotel booking for our stay in the Pink City. I immediately dialed my father since he was the only one who could have managed the situation well and we got a room booked for us at a guest house.

I took the new Chandigarh-New Delhi Shatabdi on my way back. To my dismay the experience was not as good as my previous experiences of travelling in train. The train announcement was so low that it was hardly audible. Moreover, the train waited for 60 mins outside the New Delhi station and although the arrival time was 3:20 we made it at 4:00. I was for a moment pleasantly surprised when our train reached Subzi Mandi at 2:55 which is hardly 10 mins from the New Delhi station. On top of all this, the ticket was checked twice by two different ticket checkers.