Raju's Wanderings

 After the airlines had announced resumption of domestic flights in India (COVID-19 restrictions lifted), I had the opportunity to go to Brahmatal. The Indigo flight was en route Lucknow to Dehradun.  Everyone is wearing masks because of COVID. We reached on December 24 evening and rested for the night at Duggal Home Stay. On December 25, we took a Tempo Traveler bus early in the morning (supposed to be 7 but got delayed to 8) that got nine of us to Lohajung in the evening. The stay was actually at Wan, slightly ahead of Lohajung.  We returned to Lohajung on December 26 morning by the bus and began our trek to BekalTal at around 11 am. Bekaltal is a small pond about 20 feet across, at an altitude of 2900 m, about 5 kms and an ascent of about 700 meters from Lohajung. We reached there at 3 pm and rested for the day in our tents and sleeping bags. The next day, December 27, was Brahmatal Lake, that was about 3400 m high, and 6 kms away from Bekaltal, an ascent of  abou...

Kandy is one of the major cities enroute to Colombo from Nuwara Eliya and lies in the Central Province of Sri Lanka. It was the capital of Sri Lanka prior to Colombo. The city of Kandy seen from Bhairavakonda Vihara. We reached Kandy early in the morning at 4 AM. Our hostel turned down our late reservation made at 11 PM the previous night, and we kept looking around for a place to sleep for a few hours till 5:30 AM.  The reason we need a few hours of sleep was that we had spent the previous night sitting in a very fast bus from Ella, being buffetted from side to side in the hilly ghat section, braced against handles, seats, continuously operating thigh and leg muscles, unable to sleep a wink!    Krishna Dosai in Kandy is a great place to have breakfast, with a familiar South Indian dosa, idli, upma and wada. Kandy City House where we stayed. It is a very cheap hostel, while clean enough. It was quite hot because there was no ceiling fan. A very ti...