• TravelWithACouple Ravenscraig Guest House
    Food - Homestays - People

    Ravenscraig Guest House @Aviemore: A Warm Highland Welcome Awaits

    April 16, 2024 - By 

    All of Scotland is too enticing but we had only limited days. To our luck, we chose (after much research) to explore Cairngorms mountains with Aviemore as the base. Different types of stay options are listed in the Official Visitor Guide to the Cairngorms National Park, and we zeroed in on Ravenscraig Guest House, easily walkable from the Aviemore railway station. Brilliant choice it turned out to be! Ravenscraig Guest House website says “A Warm Highland Welcome Awaits.” It certainly was! Hosted by Helena and Scott, Ravenscraig Guest House is a well renovated house, originally built in 1903. The main…

  • Kintamani, Bali, Indonesia, TravelWithacouple
    Flora - Food - Places

    A Farm Worth a Visit @Kintamani, Bali

    October 7, 2014 - By 

    Agritourism, farm tourism, and the likes have become gimmicks to mislead the unsuspecting tourists to pay money and view someone’s mediocre farm. The loot is usually shared with the driver who takes the tourists there. A driver from Kerala shared this secret with us, who said tourists who throng Munnar are often preys to this scam. So we were skeptical of visiting one of the agritourism centres on our way back from the Mount Batur trek at Kintamani to Ubud, Bali. Our co-passengers in the vehicle were from Canada, and they were keen to visit a farm as well as…

  • Greenleaf Restaurant, Kottayam, Kerala
    Food - People

    “You Are Most Welcome to Visit Our Kitchen”

    August 18, 2014 - By 

    Have you ever been welcomed in a restaurant by a board that says “You are most welcome to visit our kitchen”? Perhaps, never. However, the Green Leafís restaurant in Kottayam, Kerala, is proud to welcome you to its kitchen. And the entry is not just restricted to the kitchen. The neatly maintained storeroom also is open to the curious diners. Not a fancy or fine-dining one, but Green Leafís serves hygienic food, prepared using quality materials. After a tasty dinner, we decided to accept the invitation to visit the kitchen. Seeing our interest, the owner Mr Biju came forward and…

  • Jupuri Ghar, Kaziranga
    Birdwatching - Flora - Food - Hotels - Places - Sanctuaries

    stay @Jupuri Ghar

    August 9, 2013 - By 

    During our travels, more often than not we have seen that the state tourism resorts/hotels tend to be the best place to stay—they get the advantage of being an early mover and hence access to a prime location in the area. Though often not so luxurious or fancy, they tend to be very spacious—rooms as well as the property. Jupuri Ghar by Assam Tourism at Kaziranga too lived up to this promise. Tucked behind a small tea estate and abutting the forest is Jupuri Ghar with its 8 cottages and a nice restaurant. The cottages are laid around a central…

  • Arts & Culture - Food - Fun - History - Places

    Goa Carnaval 2013: Fun, food, and Much More

    January 30, 2013 - By 

    Goa Carnaval 2013 is almost here! The 4 days of fun, frolic and, feast is set to open on February 9 and will last until February 12. But for foodies and cultural buffs, celebrations begin a day earlier. Food & Cultural Festival, to be held parallelly with the Carnaval (Portuguese for carnival), is slated to be from February 8. Goa is known mostly for its beaches. All these years, tourism as well as all celebrations happened in and around beaches. But this time, there is going to be a conscious effort by the department of tourism to remove the focus from the beaches and…

  • Food - Fun - Hotels

    The Dosa Effect

    January 29, 2012 - By 

    The Dosa Effect is not as profound or complicated as those in the science—the Doppler Effect, Raman Effect, Faraday Effect and the like. The Dosa Effect is simply the impact Dosa lovers can create on your website traffic. We wrote about the Pai Thattukada of Cochin and its famous 36 varieties of dosas. Pai Thattukada is a famous eatery in Kochi (Cochin) for the past few decades. Of the 36 special dosas they make, one of them is called the Thattil Kutty dosa. We don’t know whether this is a unique recipe or this is available in other eateries as…

  • Food - Heritage - History - Hotels - Places

    Ragusa – Welcome to Sicily

    December 11, 2011 - By 

    An old Italian lady who speaks only Italian, a young Italian settled in Switzerland who could speak English and an Indian couple.  All in a small town in Sicily, at an almost-deserted bus terminus. A rain-drenched evening that welcomed darkness without embracing twilight. We started experiencing the warmth of Italian hospitality right after we got down at the upper Ragusa bus terminal. We had booked a hotel at Ragusa Ibla, the old city. The untimely rain meant we had to find shelter in a small shed at the terminal. We asked a lady for directions to the hotel but she…

  • Pai Brothers Thattukada
    Food - People - Places

    Dosas. Only 36 Varieties Available

    January 16, 2011 - By 

    What do ‘Volvo’, ‘Bheeman’, ‘Paper egg butter’, ‘Navanandana’, ‘Duck Lasoon’ and ‘Ruby Pai’ have in common ? Seemingly unrelated? Not until you visit the famed ‘Pai Brothers Thattukada’ in Cochin (Kochi or Ernakulam). These all different dosas among the fast food joint’s 36 varieties of dosas. The only place in the world one can get such varied types of dosas. Spending the New Year night away from home meant more travels for us in 2010. Without planning for it, in 2011 New Year also we were not at our home. Hopefully this year also, we will be footloose. The first…

  • Rushikonda Beach Vizag
    Food - Hotels - Places

    Four Days in Andhra and No Andhra Food in Sight

    January 16, 2011 - By 

    When travel turns to be an ‘industry’, it comes with all the perils of standardisation. ‘One-day package’, ‘two-day package’ with a set list of things to see and do. Hotel staff rarely knows places other than these. Most taxi drivers insist there are no other interesting places. Not to mention the standardised Punjabi menu most restaurants offer. After returning from Araku valley to Vizag city, our choice of Rushikonda beach resort turned out to be a good. On a hillock overlooking the beach, this APTDC resort offers comfortable stay. We had figured out a few places in and around Vizag…

  • Food - Places

    Himalayan Safari Tales #2 – Srinagar: The Calmness That Belies All

    August 8, 2010 - By 

    For a valley city whose name symbolizes wealth and abundance, peace certainly was in not in abundance. Decades of strife, uncertainty, and violence perhaps has taken its toll. The calm and serene Dal lake perhaps belies all. The quite witness. Taking care of hundreds of families who are dependent on it. Colorful shikaras silently offering rides for the travelers. The shikaras, the house boats and the trade are still the main source of income. Dal lake lies in the catchment area in the Zabarwan mountain valley, which surrounds the lake on three sides and is a part of a natural…

  • Arts & Culture - Food - Fun

    Christmas Cake: A Heady Mix of Dry Fruits, Innocence, Wonder, and Laughter

    November 17, 2009 - By 

    It’s already jingle bells time at the ITC Grand Central! Last week was the ‘cake mixing ceremony’ – mixing loads of dry fruits with spices, honey, and fruit extracts. The mix is let to ferment for a month or so, for baking those delicious plum cakes for Christmas. This year, the students of Akanksha Lower Parel Centre were invited for the cake mixing ceremony at the ITC Grand Central, Parel, Mumbai. Saroj maestro Ustad Amjad Ali Khan and his sons were the celebrity guests for the event.The kids were so thrilled and charged up that they managed to convince their…

  • Food - Places

    An Authentic Maharashtrain Fare

    November 12, 2009 - By 

    Food cooked and served by women always has that special taste. We experienced this at Hotel Amantran at Solapur. The restaurant at Hotel Srikamal International where we stayed was undergoing renovation. The hotel manager gave directions for some good Maharashtrain fare and a certain Hotel Kamath for the typical Shetty food. We chose to have a Maharashtrian dinner. When we entered the hotel, it was a pleasant surprise to see women taking orders and serving. The semi-open kitchen showed women cooking too. Only mini thali and limited meals were available. We ordered one each and relished the soft chapathis, rice,…