Club Mahindra Zest Big Beach Resort - Pondicherry

This place is 2.5 km off the Highway, Cuddalore road which is the added advantage. As soon as you take the turn, your life will change for a while as there is no traffic and honking. Just to give you the idea, one can see the dogs sleeping in the middle of the road without any worries. And that is what sets it apart. If you are coming from Pondicherry, you have to take a left turn just after the Vels restaurant or just before the Mahatma Gandhi hospital. But don’t worry about it; Zest has put enough no. of board to direct you. Even it is written at police barricades to control the traffic. I don’t think locating this property is a challenge. 

On Our route to Zest Resort

As soon as we entered, there was 1 lady who welcomed us with welcome drink and tilak. After that, we showed the booking voucher at the reception and the checkin process was quite smooth. Reception area is quite big and beautiful and right across the huge open lawn, there is sea and thus one is welcome by the cold soothing breeze from the sea.

Reception area

We asked for a room on 1^st floor and the request was readily welcomed. Coracle boat shaped sofas at reception are very comfortable. We were already impressed by the staff and the property.Then 1 lady accompanied us to our room as it was quite far away. She gave us brief overview about the resort, showed us to recreation room and makes us familiar with other places of resort like library etc.

My room 216

On our way to room

As soon as we entered in room, I was flabbergasted by its striking beauty It was surrounded by large trees from all the sides such that if you sit in balcony, you will feel like you are sitting alone somewhere in Jungle specially during night time. 

View from our room

Sea was visible from the corner of the balcony. The best thing is that the wall opposite to bed was made of glass and thus offers a good view while you are trying to sleep or when you are resting. Also, as it was surrounded by trees, so there is no question of someone gazing into your room. This point is valid with only some of the rooms. In other rooms, you have to use curtain to maintain your privacy during night time, however during day time, you can use 1 translucent curtain which will allow you to view the nature and at the same time, prevent someone from outside to look into it. This translucent white colored curtain however will not help you in night because of some laws of physics, refractions and reflections. 

Surprised by this beautiful creation by Housekeeping using towels

 Rooms are provided with all the basic amenities. Room service was good and turnaround time was really quick. There were 2 chairs, 1 sofa and 1 lounge chair; however there was no table and so most of the time; sofa was filled with clothes and other stuff that we carried. Bathroom was good however bathing and the restroom area was separated by only glass. Putting a dark curtain between them will be a good option as I have seen in many other resorts. 

If we talk about food, Buffet charges are 500 for members and 715 for non-members excluding taxes bit on a higher side. However, the spread was really impressive with plenty of options for vegeterians and non vegetarians. It reminds me of Barbeque nation which is known for its Buffet across India.I will recommend you to have buffet at least once. Food service in room is quite expensive.

Swimming Pool during evening time

Alcohol is also available but there were only premium whisky brands matching to the standards of the property. Main Bar is near the dining area and 1 small bar is also available adjoining the swimming pool to give you a liberty of enjoying the drinks in pool.

Swimming pool is well maintained and looks ultimate during night times. Swimming costumes are also available for purchase. The maximum depth is 4ft only so it is safe for children. 

 

If I talk about entertainment piece of it, there is no dearth of the activities. All the indoor and outdoor games are there. There is cricket ground, basketball court, volleyball court, badminton, table tennis, carom board, striker, Xbox 360, chess. Some people were also flying kite there. There was library, cyber cafe, CD/DVDs available. At one of the counter, there was provision for making Tatto, portrait and Mehandi like we find in malls. There is also mini Spa.

Bicycle is also available on rent to take tour of the village. 

Not only this, everyday lot of activities are arranged by Club Mahindra that will keep you engaged like nature walk, games, painting, bonfire  etc. This place offers a lot of things for children. During evening, they play a DJ till 9:30 and opened the dance floor.Even our room was far away from the DJ point, the songs were audible and this can be discomfort for some of the people especially elderly.

And Yes, The Zest Big Beach is the USP (Unique selling proposition) of this property. This is one of the best beach I have ever seen. It was very clean.

There are no water sports available here and I like this very much because that necessarily adds to chaos and disturb the peace and pace of the place. 

On our way to Zest Big beach. This is inside Club Mahindra property

While returning from the beach, I had a small conversation with the guard there who told me how the tsunami of 26^th Dec, 2004 ravaged the beach and washed away the dancing hall of the Club along with many other things. It takes 1 year to renovate the resort. The water has reached the reception. You can appreciate the seriousness once you are in the resort. He also educates us about the fact that how it inflicted severe damage on mangrove and coral reefs, forests along the Coromandel coast. He also shared how he survived. It was an interesting conversation. His love for environment was impressive even when he faced such a huge calamity. Let me come back to the point.

Reception area captured from other end

My stay in resort was hosted by Club Mahindra and I definitely recommend this place to one and all because it has something great to offer to everyone. And also, it will add value to your Pondicherry trip by exposing you to local and offbeat piece of Pondicherry and surrounding villages. 

Go there, unwind yourself, feel closer to nature, and disconnect yourself to connect with yourself.

 
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Trip to Patnitop: Jammu& Kashmir, India

Patan Da Talab

 

Patnitop is a small hill station in Udhampur district in Jammu and Kashmir. It is 130km from Jammu and is on the NH 44 that connects Kashmir valley with the rest of India via Jammu. This highway is 663Km long and run from Jalandhar in Punjab to Uri in J& K which is 18km from the line of control. 

This highway is also recognized as most strategically important road and passes through some of the most difficult terrains and also shutdown frequently due to landslides or snowfall especially in winters. 

Sorry to distract, let us come back to "Patan Da Talab." Yes Patnitop was known as “Patan Da Talab” sometime back which means Pond (bathing place) of the princess but as British people   couldn’t record the correct name of this place and captured it as Patnitop in their records and this place become popular as patnitop over a period of time. 

4^th Jan 2012

Katraha -->Patnitop -->Jammu

Why now?

 

The idea of writing this post comes to my mind because I am really missing winter this time and all the associated luxuries. This is the first time in my life that I have not witnessed winter as Presently, I am posted in Hyderabad.  

Our journey to patnitop was kicked off at 11 am from Kathara in a tempo traveller. We started quite late because we have returned from the Vaishnodevi, same day in the morning at around 5am. We took a sleep for 4 hours. We were close to group of 10 people. 

 

This was my 2^nd trip to patnitop but in a way, it is first because my last trip was in summer of 2005 and Patnitop in summer is quite different from Patnitop of winter. This time, we were welcomed by thick blankets of snow all around in patnitop. 

 

This place is really a perfect place to appreciate the beauty of mother earth. It is a very small city with small population and there are not many hotels and resorts. That is why everything looks so natural here without human intervention. 

What you see in Patnitop all around is not hotels/resorts but dense cedar and Deodar forests and greenery all around and If you happen to visit this place, then this complete place gets covered with snow turning it into white forests. The vastness of the nature is enough to make you realize that you are not more than an iota of dust on the earth. Summer is a peak season in Patnitop.

 

We reached at 3pm in Patnitop and spent 4 hours playing in snow with snow. At around 5, we saw some sunlight and it is amazing view to enjoy the heat of sun when it is really required. But, sunlight was only for 5, 10 minutes and soon it become very dark and cold. We started for our next destination, Nathatop, which is 14km from patnitop but unfortunately, the route was closed due to heavy snowfall. We then spent some more time in Patnitop. 

At such natural places, one can find very good quotations painted at different places on road about nature and its importance and that is always inspiring. I have read lot of quotations but right now, I am able to recall only one “Pollution is a tax human is paying for misusing the nature.” This place was so beautiful that returning to Jammu was a painful process. But I must say that survivals at such places are really challenging and not everyone’ cup of tea. 

 

  
There is also very famous place called Sanasar Lake 20km from patnitop but we couldn’t visit it due to time constraints. 

 

We reached at Jammu at around 10 pm soaked in memories of Patnitop and started our search for hotels. Fortunately, we easily found one good budget hotel. This is the advantage of big group that you easily get good discounts. After that, we had our dinner and then simply retired in our rooms for rest contemplating about how the day went.

Next day, we planned for local sightseeing in Jammu. I was particularly excited about visiting the famous Raghunath temple which was once attacked by the terrorists. 

You can read here about another post which is part of same trip.

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Trip to Mruguvani National park : Hyderabad

Recently, I visited Mruguvani National Park on my route back to Hyderabad from ChilkurBalajitemple. We have completed the Darshan and Parikrama at ChilkurBalaji temple by 7:30 and reached here at 8:15am after having our breakfast. 

We, me and my wife, had started really early from our Home at around 5:30 in Kondapur in Activa to Chilkur Balaji. I also came to know that Mruguvni national park also located there so, I thought to visit it also.

This board is at the entry of the park

Let me state some facts about myself before reviewing this place and upset your mood about visiting this place:

·    

• I am a nature lover, loves travelling and also kept the theme of the blog as Travelogues
• Understands that travelers are generally not very demanding instead they are flexible
• Not much is required by any destination to impress the traveler; travelers are impressed by the sheer simplicity and differences of any place

Having said all this, still I would not recommend this place to anyone unless you are a nature lover and serious Bird watcher of very topnotch quality. The point I am trying to make is that do not plan specifically for this park but you can always visit this while coming from ChilkurBalaji. I am sharing some pictures of this park which are really beautiful but can be deceptive also.

The first disappointment was that Park open at 9am which is very late by any measure for such parks.Not only this, as we entered the park, we came to know that most of the forest area is closed by the forest officials and the only area available to walk is even far far less than what is available in any city park in/outside your apartment. To give you an idea, its area is even smaller than public area of Botanical garden of the Hyderabad. 

One can enter in forest area through Safari bus which was not working from last 6 months which we came to know from some of the other enthusiasts roaming in the park. However, when I asked the management about Why Safari bus in not in operation, one old guy gives me different excuse. He told me that driver was on leave that day due to some personnel emergency. They can easily get away with such excuses when they know that same person will not come here again.

Beautiful painting at the entrance of the Museum

After roaming and enjoying the nature for half an hour, we went back to Museum but it was still closed. Watching us standing there, 1 person came and opened the lock. 

Right now, this place is serving the interests of few photographers and bloggers only who love outdoor activities and Bird watching. However, the huge potential of this park to attract the tourists can’t be ignored but this place is very badly managed. When we were leaving at 10 am, I saw some young couples entering in. I bet that this park is not even good for love making.

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Skywatch Friday - Munnar Tea Gardens, Kerala, India

This is my 3rd  entry in Skywatch Friday and I am really delighted to be the part of this as it

gives me the opportunity to see the beautiful skies across the World.

This picture is captured in Tea Gardens of Munnar, Kerala, India. If you wanted to see more pictures of Tea garden, you can click here.


To see the beautiful Skies around the world, visit Sky Watch Friday.

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