Rajesh of course believes and fiercely defends the thought that we must not travel outside India if we haven’t explored every nook and cranny of our amazing country but he could always elaborate on this once he’s back from the Lake Como, Milan, Swiss Alps sojourn (work you see…) and I would love to leave my footprint on every bit of the earth where she welcomes me and have been lucky enough to see some really exotic places - Caribbean cruises, Istanbul, Mauritius, Barcelona and Valencia to name some - (thanks to my office – and no, none of it has been work). Within India we started our travels with Kerala which both of us hadnt explored earlier. lovely tea estates and boat rides at Munnar and the beaches at Kovalam. the Bolgatty Palace hotel stay at Cochin. a Bday spent in a rickety Ambassador traversing the distance from Thekkady to Kovalam at the stately pace of 20 kmph over the pot holed roads, the memorable meal in the state run guest house on our way from Cochin to Munnar (or was it Munnar to Thekkady) in a beautiful place amidst thick forests where we waited patiently for the luch to come to table (after all we were the only guests around for a long time/distance) and then peeped tentatively into the kitchen to check if we had been forgotten - only to find that chapatis were being rolled out very painstakingly with empty beer bottles !!! unfortunately all pictures clicked of the whole trip were lost. just the quirky memories live on. then there was Tamil Nadu a couple of years back - miscalculated on the flight back and almost gave up on pondicherry but eventually discovered the fortuitous mistake and had a ball at this beautiful french-town-meets-spirituality to close a trip that went from Chennai and a family wedding to Kanyakumari, Madurai, Rameshwaram, Pondicherry and back to Delhi via Chennai. Rajasthan - Jaipur with little children and Chokhi Dhani, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer with slightly older children and the Taj Hotels at both places. Cushy cruise on the roads and in the rooms, Bikaner on the way back. Uttarpradesh - with a drive through from Delhi to Lucknow to Allahabad to Vindhyachal (a Devi siddha Peeth temple with Ganga flowing clean green slow and shallow- remembered fondly for my little son who first wouldnt get into the water for he was scared and then just refused to get out for he was having so much fun...Varanasi and the Kashi Vishwanath temple - this one was a completely meeting the Gods journey... Uttar Pradesh another time driving from Delhi to Lucknow to Dudhwa National Park and back with stoppages at small but famous temples in the area. lots of grasses, rhinos and wild elephants, deer in the distance and an unfulfilled hope of catching a glimpse of the tiger. got pictures to go for this one lots more of these - Drove a couple of times to Jammu and Vaishno Devi, to a small village near Ludhiana for a shadi, to Barnala in Punjab for yet another shadi, the most memorable moments of these trips include a confident Rajesh looking at signs in punjabi (couldnt read - only saw) and moving on (men dont ask for directions yous see - so what if gurmukhi may as well be pushto for him!!!) and of eating a langar at a Gurdwara right on the highway somewhere on the way when time and hunger struck, and food was in sight... Uttaranchal has seen us a few times - some long trips - Binsar for a week with us gracing all places from Almora to Jageshwar, Bagheshwar, Ranikhet, jungle walks and treks in quest of the leopard. another one of the Dhanualti stay in an apple orchard with no electricity and yet another day picnic from Delhi to Lansdowne(!) work wouldnt permit more so a very pregnant me and the husband with our then 2 year old son started this one at 6 am form Delhi and after having our packed lunch at Lansdowne at the snow view point and seeing the little church and the only temple came back home to Delhi by midnight. a new year at Chamba in Uttaranchal - denuded hills, the Tehri with the legend of the submerged town, the bonfires and the new year celebrations...Tirupati in the royal comfort of First Class A/C train travel for the mundan of our children...there's more - lots more but i dont quite know if the travelogue here is meant to occupy so much space....feel lucky to be able to say that i could go on for quite a while.....but then again the fun's just begun.