Where: Chopta (in Rudraprayag distt of Uttarakhand)
When: 30-31 Dec 2006

As the new year is approaching, it reminds me of the last year’s NEW YEAR SPECIAL trip to Chopta in Uttarakhand. Though it would be too late to blog about that trip, but the fresh memories strongly urge me to do so.

The idea of tripping out to Chopta was evolved in few hours when 3 of us friends were thinking to freak out. And we finally ended up with Chopta as our New Year Destination.

It was dark by the time we reached Chopta struggling through the snowy road enroute. We inspected the place to find the accommodation options available and could only find one small single room accommodation available as this place normally remains closed during winters because of heavy snowfall and no tourist inflow; freakers like us are an exception to this however. This room was managed by the only dhaba owner we found open there in Chopta.

The dinner amidst chilling cold winter winds and burning wood was even better than dining in a hi-class hotel. The paranthas and aalo-matar sabji were delicious and sufficient enough to feed our hunger.

Early next morning we had to trek 3 km uphill to Tungnath and Chandrashila. We easily located snow flakes in Chopta but we wanted more thrill and adventure. The trek wasn’t an easy one and I just loved that – the small trek through the dense forest. While we took a sharp turn, we were excited and thrilled to see the snow field ahead…the trek ahead was covered with snow with some marks that could guide us through the trek. I had never seen this much of snow before! It was challenging to walk through the snowy treks and take shortcuts to make our trek shorter. The Himalayan view on the other side was equally breathtaking and I wished to stay starring the Himalayas.

The trek to Tungnath is full of Buransh (Rhododendron) forest. A visit to Tungnath during March-April will witness the red and pink beauty of the Buransh (Rhododendron) flowers which happens to be the State Flower of Uttarakhand.

Our winter visit to Tungath gave us even wonderful experience. The trek was completely flooded with snow and I could easily hide myself knee down into it. Though the temple doors were closed for winter but we could easily feel the presence of almighty at such a higher altitude of around 3500 mtrs.

The temple at Tungath is dedicated to Lord Shiva and it is the second kedar amongst the Panch-Kedar where Lord Shiva’s arm (“Tung” meaning arm) is worshipped. It is believed that Lord Shiva’s arm appeared here while he tried to hide himself from the Pandavas in the form of a bull. The other temples dedicated to Parvati and Ganesha can also be spotted here.

Chandrashila is another 2 kms from Tungnath which is an uphill climb. The complete trek from Tungnath to Chandrashila was flooded with snow and we couldn’t spot the way to reach there. So we decided to take our own way and discover alternate route to reach there – the only option was to climb uphill in the snow with your feet buried deep into snow up till knees. It was really difficult to move into snow and make the way. My shoes were not prepared to be buried into snow but I had to move on. The other gave up and turned back and insisted me to come back too. But I has committed myself not to give up so I had to move alone. The toes getting frozen and chilling wind couldn’t change my mind. After almost 2 hours of struggle, I finally made my way to Chandrashila and the very view of snow clad Himalayas from Chandrashila top was another pleasant surprise to me. I was all alone at an altitude of 4000 mtrs taking to the blowing wind and the splendid Hiamalayan beauty. Chandrashila offers a 360 degree view of the Himalayan range including Nanda Devi, Trishul and Chaukhamba peak.

Getting There
Chopta is somewhere around 450 kms from Delhi via Ghaziabad, Meerut, Roorkee, Haridwar, Rishikesh, Devprayag, Srinagar and Rudraprayag. You have to take the Kedarnath highway from Rudraprayag to reach Chopta.

Recommended websites for more info about Chopta:

a. eUttaranchal – Chopta Travel Guide

b. Chopta.in

Popularity: 42% [?]

After consolidation in the Indian aviation industry, it is the turn of online travel intermediaries to get on with the same.
20 Dec 2007

According to leading financial daily The Economic Times, Travelguru is acquiring Delhi-based B2B hotel portal Desiya for $25 million (around Rs 100 crore). Travelguru is also scouting for an offline travel player, it added.

“Desiya will run as independent subsidiary of Travelguru,” Ashwin Damera, CEO and co-founder, Travelguru told the publication. “Next year we will break-even with a turnover of $80 million. Around 90% of our revenue comes from hotel bookings unlike other websites where major chunk of the transactions are for air-tickets,” said Damera.

Travelguru and Desiya will be completed by January, technology integration will take around four months. By end of this fiscal Travelguru has projected a turnover of $42 million.

During EyeforTravel’s second conference in Mumbai this year, concerns related to functioning of OTAs were quite obvious. Questions were raised about the viability of so many players, about VC funding and how can OTAs focus on `cash flows’.

Travelocity’s MD in India Himanshu Singh had then shared: “Publicly available data suggests that the top three OTAs in India are spending in excess of USD1 million a month on marketing, and we see consumer cash back offers touching 50%. This coupled with high fixed costs and growing competition will definitely put pressure on existing players.”

Source: www.economictimes.com

Popularity: 13% [?]

Bangalore | 18 Dec 2007

HolidayIQ, India’s popular holiday planning website, has been selected by Google, the global leader in the internet search business, to provide user generated content, specifically hotel reviews and hotel photographs to Google’s India local search.

HolidayIQ and Google have entered into an agreement in which content from Holiday-IQ’s hotel, resorts, home-stays & other accommodation database (user reviews and photos of all kinds of Indian travel accommodation) will be made available in Google’s local search. This service is expected to go live in early 2008.

Local search is like a “yellow pages” directory moving to the internet. It is a service that lets users search businesses in a particular city (place).

It allows you to query across the entire web and retrieve results that match the subject you are interested in and which are also relevant to a particular geographic area that you specify.

It can be accessed at http://local.google.co.in. HolidayIQ.com is owned by Leisure & Lifestyle Information Services (, India’s first travel media company. Earlier this year, HolidayIQ received a significant minority investment from Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd, the holding company of the Times of India Group, the largest media organisation in India.

News Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Popularity: 20% [?]

17 Dec 2007

When the going gets Tough,
The tough gets going

Popularity: 9% [?]

Where: Nainital
When: 23 Nov 2007

I was in Haldwani to attend the reception party of one of my friend. I took this opportunity to revisit Nainital and re-live the past memories and captures the beauty of Nainital in my camera.

The Taxi from Haldwani took me to Nainital in less than an hour. Walking through the chilling mall road along the bank of Naini lake recalled every single memory of my last visit to Nainital. Instead of the boat ride and rope way trip, I decided to take a horse ride this time taking through Lover’s Point, Land’s End view, Tiffin Top and the Lake View point. While Land’s End point offers a majestic view of Khurpatal, the Tiffin Top is a major picnic spot and Lake View point offers a perfect view of the Naini Lake, Mallital and Tallital.

The horse ride was not as easy as I thought it should be. In fact the initial part of the horse ride was rather fearing to me though I enjoyed the later part. I decided to descend on foot from the Lake View point on the kuccha rasta meeting Mallital at the Tibetan market.

Nainital is famous for the candle works and the scented aromatic candles in various shapes, colours and sizes. A visit to few of the candle shops left me surprised with thousands of candles. I choose a few aromatic candles to decorate my living room.

Popularity: 15% [?]