Indian Hill Railways – Darjeeling

BBC

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The Great Indian Railways

National Geographic

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India has launched a rival to Google Earth, the search engine’s hugely popular satellite imagery service.

The online tool, dubbed Bhuvan (Sanskrit for Earth), has been developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro). Its debut comes as India redoubles its efforts to reap profits from its 45-year-old state-sponsored space programme, criticised by some as a drain on a country where 700 million people live on $US2 a day or less.

The new site also follows in the slipstream of the country’s first moon probe, Chandrayaan-1, which successfully reached the lunar surface last November.

Bhuvan uses a network of Indian satellites to create a high-resolution, birds-eye view of India that is accessible at no cost online and will compete with Google Earth.

Original full report

Zune HD!

Today, Microsoft announced that its users will now also be able to import their updates from 20 additional partners, including Digg, Last.fm, SmugMug, and Facebook. In addition, users will soon be able to invite their friends on MySpace, Hi5, and Tagged to join their Windows Live network.

read more | digg story

Summer holidays. Nothing much to do.  Just loitering around in the hostels. Decided to backpack somewhere.  Chose Malaysia.  Did research.  Browsed various websites.  Read various books.  Estimated expenses.  All set!

Day 1

Upon crossing the causeway, we had to get down again for the immigration check at the Malaysian side. The relatively slow process of immigration clearance at the Malaysian side was quite evident.  Upon clearing the immigration process, we headed to the bus stop. Note that there is no designated bus stop at the exit of the Malaysian immigration building. We were just waiting where a group of people were waiting assuming they were waiting for 170. In fact, apart from 170 other private operators do pick up people from there.

Reached Johor Bahru Terminus around 11 pm.

Our initial plan was to go to Malacca (Melaka) from Johor Bahru. Since we were not aware of the bus timings, we missed all the buses to Malacca (Melaka). So, we decided to go to KL instead and we went to the Transnasional (National Interstate Bus operator) Office to check what are the available bus services. Meanwhile, the bus conductors starting following us and asking to take their bus service. Since Transnasional didn’t have enough tickets for the earliest bus, we had to choose those private operators.

After 15 to 20 minutes of haggling with those pegging conductors, we decided to go for an operator who claimed and promised that the bus will leave at 12 midnight. After bargaining, we had to pay 24 Malaysian Ringitts (11 SGD approx) for the ride from JB to KL. The bus was of a decent standard in terms of comfort level when compared to those in India. The bus had seats bigger than those in budget airlines’ planes; only 3 seats in a row, air-conditioned, good leg room.

Well, now we were all set to go to KL which was no way in our initial plan for Day 1. What a fantastic start for our first backpacking tour to Malaysia?!

Day 2

After a somewhat comfortable ride, we reached KL around 5:30 am.  The bus terminated at Puduraya Bus terminus. As usual, taxi drivers were waiting at the doors of the bus to pick up passengers.  There are numerous hostels and lodges around the area. The ones close to the bus terminus are tiny in size for the money they demand.

We walked towards china-town which is within few 100 meters, probably a km from the bus terminus, in search of this lonely planet suggested backpackers’ hostel. Usually the ones recommended by lonely planet gets filled up and are hard to get, unless booked early. As expected, there were no rooms left. Sigh!! There were quite a number of hostels and lodges along the same road and parallel roads.

Since the check-in time was 2 PM, we decided to go somewhere before we check-in. The first place that came to our mind were the Petronas Towers. Public can visit Petronas Towers and go to the bridge that connects the two towers. The bridge is located at 30-something floor. There is usually a long queue to visit the bridge. So we decided to go there as early as possible in order to come out early.

We walked to Pasar-Seni MRT station from Chinatown. MRT starts operating only around 6 am. So we had to wait outside the MRT station to take the first train.  When compared to Singapore, public toilets are not of a standard.  If you are looking for those clean and sparkling rest-rooms, then you might find it hard to use the public toilets. Ironically, even those pay-per-use toilets operate only from 6 am.

We had to buy a temporary card ticket to KLCC MRT Stop. Note that KL’s train system is divided into different lines and each line has its own card and the card bought in one line can’t be used in another. So, you will have to get down in an interchange and get a new card for the other line. Fortunately, we didn’t have to get two different tickets as Pasarseni and KLCC are in the same line.

Upon getting down at KLCC, we headed to the Petronas Towers and “joined” the queue to enter the bridge. People had already started forming a queue even before we reached there. Anyways, it didn’t make a big difference as we were in the first 10 or 15. As time passed, the queue started growing rapidly.

The counter was open at 7 am and we were in the first batch that went in. After a briefing session (seen with 3D glasses), we headed to the bridge and had a view of the surrounding. I wish the bridge had been somewhere in the top 20 floors, which would be more fascinating.

Then, we went to the adjoining Suria KLCC Shopping Center. Though the shopping center was very similar to those you get to see in Singapore, it was good by Malaysian standards.  By the time we finished taking snaps in and around the Petronas Towers, it was around 12 noon. So, we decided to have lunch before moving on. Malaysia has a significant number of people of Indian origin. Hence, there would not be much of a problem getting Indian Food. We had a sumptuous lunch at the food court at Suria KLCC.

Then, we returned back to Pasarseni and tried our luck at a Chinese hotel (Hotel Lok Ann), just at the end of Pickering Street (at the heart of Chinatown). Though the outlook of hotel was quite old, the rooms were spacious and decent. The room had neat beds, 70s’ styled court-hanger and an acceptably clean toilet. A triple-bed room cost us 70 Ringitts/day.

The moment we checked in, it started raining and became heavier as time progressed. Hence we waited at the ground floor of the hotel for the rain to reduce. After running out of patience, we ran into Pickering Street, which was sheltered. By the time we finished loitering around Pickering Street, the rain subdued and we started our tour to the other parts of Chinatown, Little India and KL central by walk following the lonely planet suggested route. Areas covered were Chinatown, Pasarseni, Little India (Masjid India) and Merdaka Square.

Later we went to the KL Tower after walking through various parts of Little India and KL central. Getting to KL Tower will be hell of a problem by walk if you are not sure where the entrance is. We walked around KL Tower for more than an hour before finally finding the foot of the tower. We had to walk into an dull-lighted street and then into a shopping center.  As suggested by a person there, we went to the 6^th level and took the other exit of the floor and walked for few more meters, before reaching the jetty.  We took the shuttle service to the 1^st floor of the tower. The entrance ticket is 20 Ringitts. There are restaurants as well in the tower. We were guided to take the lift (the fastest I have ever taken) to the viewing deck. Though we could only get a glimpse of KL’s glittering lights, the view was fantastic. We were given gadgets (with headphones) using which we can know more about KL. After taking few snaps, we headed to the ground floor and walked our way out of the tower.

It was time for dinner and we came across an Indian restaurant while talking a walk through the parts of KL which was heavily populated by pubs.  Then we hit the trains and we were back to our rooms for a well-deserved good night’s rest.

Day 3

An early day was on cards and we started as early as possible to finish viewing Batu caves before noon in order to check out. From Pasarseni market, we took a public bus to Batu Caves which cost us a couple of Ringitts.

After spending 15 to 20 minutes at the bottom of the caves, we went inside the caves and surprisingly, someone had poojas and were distributing chakarai pongal and vadai. We spent around an hour at the caves before hitting one of the restaurants at the foot hill to have our breakfast.

We returned to china town and checked out our rooms.  We walked to Puduraya Bus terminus to catch a bus to Cameron Highlands. We were unaware that the last bus to Cameron Highlands was at 3:30 pm. When we were at the bus terminus, it was around 4 pm. We had to make yet another change to our tour plan. After much discussion, we decided to go to Malacca, which was only 2 hrs from KL by bus.

Since we had to get a ticket at the last moment, we didn’t have much of an option but had to take the only operator which had tickets. Hence, we had to take Damai transports. We bought the ticket for the 6 pm bus. As expected, the bus left late by just 2 hours and 30 mins. We were stuck at the stuffy Puduraya Bus terminus building. Meanwhile, we read more about Malacca.

We reached Malacca around 10:30 PM. Then, we took a local bus to the town. Again, we were lucky to get a spacious and decent room for 60 Ringitts. Upon checking-in, we started walking around looking for a nice place to have dinner. Unfortunately, none of the food shops were open. The only place we could go at that point of time was Pizza Hut. We had dinner at Pizza hut and headed back to our rooms after visiting the Jonker Walk, for yet another well-deserved night’s rest.

Day 4

I was really impressed with Malacca’s china town at first sight. This place is unique with beautiful thatched houses and small roads. It is a concise example for a small, historical and relaxed town.

We took another walking tour of Malacca. This time around we visited the entire china town district, Christ church, the sultanate palace and all the various museums in the surroundings. By noon, we managed to finish sight-seeing and we headed to an Indian Restaurant for lunch. We had full-meals and headed back to our rooms for checking out.

The bus to Malacca terminus does not go in two directions. It goes in a loop, starts and stops at the terminus. So we took the bus near the Christ church and the bus took more than 1 hour to reach terminus which took only 10 minutes from the terminus to Chinatown. We ended up getting a glimpse of the entire Malacca city (unintentionally) as the bus went to every corner of the city before reaching the terminus.

We reached the bus terminus and bought tickets to KL. The main drawback with the bus system in Malaysia is that (1) not many buses operate at night time and (2) wherever you go, you will have to come to KL to go to another place.

We reached Puduraya late in the evening around 7:30 pm. We couldn’t get a room nearby despite visiting quite a number of hotels. So we decided to try Pudu Hostel. Well, I have to say, this is probably the worst place to stay in and around the area. The rooms were basically air-conditioned cells with no windows and ventilation. The rooms were only 10X5 and 3 of us had to stay in the very same “cell” in the bumper beds. Moreover, we had to use the common toilets as the rooms don’t come with attached toilets.

We had dinner at Ganesha Bavan, just beside the Pudu Hostel. The food was good and very much affordable. A standard south-indian meal cost us 4 ringitts.

We returned back to our jail cells to ensure we have an early Day 5.

Day 5

We took the first bus to Cameron Highlands after having breakfast at Ganesha Bavan.  We reached Cameron Highlands around 11 am after a curvy ride through the highlands. The weather was fantastic with mild sunshine.  We then had to decide where to stay quickly as the hotel representatives/sales men were at the bus terminus distributing pamphlets about their hotels and canvassing. One good thing is that they run a free shuttle service between the terminus and the hotel (only for the first time).

After spending a night in a cell, we got a decent room for 60 Ringgits.

As going around Cameron highlands is of a problem, we took a guided tour to various parts of Cameron highlands. The tour cost us 20 Ringgits per person and we visited strawberry farms, orchid gardens, rose gardens, boh tea estate and few other places. During our tour, it started raining and made our trip a bit troublesome. Though we managed to sneak in “real” and fresh strawberry ice-creams at the strawberry farms.

We reached our hotel in the evening and took a stroll around the area by walk.  Walked into a restaurant for dinner which was highly rated by lonely planet, but unfortunately the food was horrible and I ended up eating pretty much nothing. These are expected if you are a vegetarian like me.  Headed back to the hotel and the weather was just perfect for a tight sleep.

Day 6

Since we took a guided tour yesterday, we decided to go on our own to Gunung Brinchang, the highest point in the highlands.  We took a cab from a nearby taxi-stand and went to the top most point of the highlands.  I had imagined a breadth-taking view of the highlands as portrayed by the photos, but the reality was, it was foggy and we couldn’t see anything beyond 10 meters at the peak.

After spending some time, we started walking back to the base, which was 9 km down the hill.  On our way back, we came through a number of tea estates and had an opportunity to spend some time at the estates. This was possible only because of the reason that we walked our way down. Then, we took a local public bus back to our hotel which cost only a few ringgits.

While my friends headed to McDonalds to have a quick lunch, I went to an Indian restaurant and had a spicy north-Indian dinner.  After checking out from the hotel, we had to wait for hours together at the bus terminus as the bus to KL was late. Roughly we spent 2 hours waiting for the bus and another hour before we started from Cameron Highlands to KL.

We reached KL in the late evening and checked in at the very same Chinese hotel we stayed on Day 2.  Then, we reserved tickets for Genting and did some shopping at Pickering Street before we headed back to our rooms.

Day 7

We took the 8 am bus to Genting Highlands from Puduraya Bus terminus. The ticket cost (9 Ringitts) included the bus drive to Genting and the cable car ride from the bottom to the top of the highlands.  After a 45 minutes bus ride, we reached the base of Genting Highlands. We took the cable car to the top of the highlands. The cable car is supposedly the longest in Asia (at least) and the view from the cable car was breadth-taking as it went through the lush green highlands.

After loitering around the shopping center, we went to the theme park and the casino.  After a day there, we returned back to KL, checked out and took a bus back to Singapore.

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