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This is the final post in my mini series on visit to Tanjore – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 & Part 4.
After our visits to must go places in Tanjore – the Palace and Museum the next day after the wedding we went to another popular destination which is the PunnaiNallur Mariamman temple which is 5Kms from Tanjore. It is always crowded, we could get darshan in about 1 hour or so.
Just like in every other temple in India you have shops selling everything for Pooja (Coconuts, Flowers, Turmeric, Kumkum, BeetleNuts, Banana), Pictures of the main deity, cool drinks and biscuits.
Our final destination was to shopping area in Tanjore around Anna Salai.
The below photos were taken near shops in Burma Bazaar, near Abraham Pandither Road & Jupiter theatre in Thanjavur.
When we went there was a book fair happening in the historic Sri Besant Lodge in Tanjore.
This is the fourth part in my series on my visit to Tanjore in January 2012 – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. I am writing about my visit to the historic Tanjore Big Temple – Brihadisvara Temple. This is a living temple with poojas being offered daily for last thousand years.
We went to the temple in the evening few hours before sunset and could get some lovely photos taken.
In the evening sunset light the 216 feet tall tower was so beautiful and breath-taking.
We went inside and had a good darshan at the main sanctum-Santorum (no photos allowed there). The below lingam is one of the many in the complex.
You will find many old scriptures in Tamil all around the temple complex
Finally by the time we came out it was night time and there was buzzing activity in the night bazaar setup opposite the temple complex.
You can see the entire set of photographs I took of Big Temple here (these were taken before my Photography training, so many will not make the cut for clean pro version)
This is sequel to my visit to Thanjavur Palace.
Inside the Tanjore palace apart from the main Art Musuem you can see few other places of interest. There is Saraswathi Mahal Library, Serfoji’s Memorial Hall Musuem, Mahratta Dharbar Hall & Royal Museum. Each of these are maintained by different parties – ASI / Tamil Nadu Government, The Descendants of Serfoji and so you need to buy over half-a-dozen tickets. Each of these tickets costs between Re.1 to Re.20, if they combine it and make it a single entry it will make it easy for tourists.
Saraswathi Mahal Library is one of the main attractions here. The Library contains books collected from the period of Nayaks in 1535 A.D. and enhanced during King Serfoji II during 1798 A.D. The books collection exceeds over 60,000 and many rare European language books are present here. I found it interesting to find on display pages from a book titled Chinese prisoner tortures – unbelievable and inhuman.
The next stop was the Royal Museum which houses some utensils, elephant bells, turbans (head gear) and weapons used in the olden days.
The next was Serfoji’s Memorial Hall Musuem. The path to the place is poorly maintained, vegetation’s grown all around threatening the survival of the palace.
Inside the museum there is not much of interest in display, other than old furniture’s, coins and daily use items.
There was a sign saying path to secret passage subway, we walked down few steps and found the place to be not lit at all with all kinds of sounds coming from beneath. Not wishing to go further and encounter bats or rats we retraced our path back.
The last stop was the Mahratta Dharbar Hall (assembly hall). I couldn’t help comparing with the Dharbar Hall I have seen in Mysore Palace or Jaipur palace – both being maintained in fine condition compared to this.
Overall the trip to Tanjore palace was interesting and useful to get a feel of history in this part of my India. You can see the full set of photographs I took from here.
This is follow-up to my earlier post – Part 1.
On the first day of our visit to Tanjore after morning breakfast we went to Thanjavur Palace. It was good we had over half-a-day to spend in the palace visit, for you to appreciate the artefacts and history you need to go around without rush. And for us taking photographs took quite a bit of time as well.
After you enter the main courtyard of the palace which is now an Art Musuem maintained by Archaeological society of India you are welcomed by hundreds of statues and sculptures which were unearthed by researches over the centuries in this part of Tamil Nadu. Most of them had names plates for you to understand but there was no guide or information to explain more about the palace and the displayed artefacts.
Just like in Chennai’s Egmore Museum I saw many fine bronze statues of Nataraja and other gods in display at the museum here.
There were many winding steps you can take to climb the tower to the top (about six levels I think)
And from the top you get wonderful view of the surroundings and city, you can see the Big Temple as well:
There were many boards warning not to damage or write on walls of the tower insides, but few seem to care about it. I felt pain seeing many scribbling’s all across the walls of what is a national historic treasure. It is believed that growth in Literacy and Economy will make a population and culture respect and protect its history but that seems to be not true in India. We seem to have a blatant disregard in preserving.
See the sorry state of maintenance of the walls and structures (see in the right of the picture below) in many places around the palace.
At the first level they have kept a display of skeleton of a 92 feet Whale that washed ashore near tranquebar in 1955. It is displayed in poor condition. Other than occupying an empty hall it doesn’t fit into the theme of the other displays and the place.
You can see all the photos I took from here and here is a blog post by Richard Clarke who has posted some fine photographs of Thanjavur Palace.
This January (2012) for a co-workers wedding I visited Thanjavur (Tanjore) along with my good friend E.Ravi. We travelled from Chennai to Thanjavur by Rock Fort Express night train leaving Chennai Egmore at 22:30 and reaching Thanjavur the next day morning around 6:30.
Since we had booked for this nearly 70 days back we could get berths in First AC, which was comfortable with wide berths and clean toilets – there were indicators in the coupe for occupancy of toilets (seen below).
The coupe even had a sign listing of items and services provided in First AC Coaches (seen below).
It is always fun to get down when the train does an unscheduled stop for few minutes in some tiny railway station or fields, like this one in Alakkudi.
I even got a chance to take this photograph during the Alakkudi stop in front of a rice field (Thanjavur is called the Rice granary of Tamil Nadu).
I have written many times about how I prefer Shatabdi train for travel between Chennai & Bangalore, so I will not tire you again on that.
Today I had to go to Bangalore for Microsoft TechEd India 2012, I was not speaking this time so no need to go the day before for rehearsals. Being a Wednesday there was no Shatabdi in the morning and if I take the evening one I will miss Day 1 of TechEd entirely. So I decided to try the new luxury bus from Olivea (the same group that now owns Nilgris supermarkets). The one way ticket (discounted) costed about Rs.1700, includes on-board breakfast, individual video, premium seats, wash room – though the last one is least thought of while booking, makes a lot of difference for a comfortable travel. From Chennai the bus leaves at 7AM, boarding was from Hotel Radha Regent at Inner Ring Road (near MMDA Bus terminus). The lounge at Radha Regent was comfortable and they give you complimentary coffee/tea. Since I had reached there at 6AM itself I decided to go for a tasty breakfast (additional charges by the Hotel).
The bus had only 50% of seats occupied out of the 21 seats.
First the nice things:
- The seats were pretty comfortable & were of nice width (Aircraft business class like)
- Individual Video screen with selection of Movies
- Bouquet of live television channels, thanks to DISH Satellite DTH
- On-board Breakfast (Idlies, Upma, Sambar were all piping hot; Chutney & Flavoured yogurt)
- The ride was without much bumps, thanks to the modern suspension
The things that were poor:
- The interiors were looking old, dull; poor maintenance I suppose
- Though the seats were comfortable, the tray in front was badly designed. You have to hold the food plates in old hand, otherwise it will fall down immediately
- The wash room was dimly lit, not designed for a bus so it was hardly usable due to jerks, poor plumbing & bad odour – even after several hours of journey I can’t the get stinking smell out of my mind
- They advertised Wi-Fi, but I couldn’t find any SSID nor any information was provided for that
- Apart from a water bottle, breakfast, they served “Fanta” in open paper cups (could have given a canned juice). No coffee or tea was offered
- For some reasons I felt a little nauseating (may be due to two breakfasts or due to the frequent lane changes & the churn in stomach because of that) during the whole ride
- The video entertainment system was complicated, too many controls, two wired remote & bad audio
The last thing that was bad was the drop point in Bangalore being at HSR Layout (Outer Ring Road) in their own office. No transportation was available there (no taxi, no autorickshaw), your choice was limited to someone picking you up or calling a call-taxi (which the receptionist did promptly).
In summary, the luxury bus with a lounge service was great ideas but poor execution. A missed (business) opportunity like many other things in today’s India.
Travelling to Bangalore from Chennai has been one of the easiest by flight before 2001 and the resulted tight Airport securities. In those days, I have done many morning-evening same day return trips leaving home at 5:30AM and coming back home at 8PM. As Bangalore’s traffic grew exponentially and the change to the new Bengaluru International Airport happened, it made these trips difficult. It takes you to travel from Airport to City (or other way) about 2 hours even by Vayu Vajra buses, which I like.
Today for a business meeting around 12PM, I travelled by Shathapthi Express (Train 2007) from Chennai that reached Bangalore at 10.55AM and returned back by Shathapthi (Train 2008) that left Bangalore city at 4:20PM. The journey was comfortable with food being served more than a full-service Airline all throughout the 5 hour journey. The coaches & toilets were clean, ride was smooth & seats comfortable. This is my third or fourth travel by Shathapthi to Bangalore & highly recommend it for travelling in this sector.
During the return ride from Bangalore to Chennai, I watched the movie “The Help” in my MacBook Air, I love train journey just for this luxury, no need to shutdown during take offs and landings & you can charge your laptop without being in Business class.
While boarding in Bangalore City, I strolled into a small Railway Museum displaying olden days Railway equipment & tools. This is a good attempt by South Western Railways, most stations should have one to encourage kids to learn about history and design for future. Its a free entry, nothing kept here is fragile or expensive but still there were two railway staff manning the museum – proving Indian Railways tradition.
 
Every time I go to Bangalore City station and walk down between the platforms in the subway I feel like taking it a photograph – I like that long subway, it gives a feeling of exploration.
Lastly, this bright red coach painted with Mysore Sandal soap advertisement was looking so beautiful on the tracks that I immediately clicked it. I wish they paint all train coaches with more of these bright colours and nice pictures.
Last month I went to Taipei for a business trip of two days. Though I have gone many times to Hong Kong, this was my first visit to Republic of China (a.k.a Taiwan, RoC is the official name of the country). I travelled by Thai Airways, from Chennai via Bangkok to Taipei, roughly about 3:30 Hours each sector.
VISA fiasco
Before the travel I checked out the Taiwanese Ministry of foreign affairs website and learnt that travellers to Taiwan with Indian Passport and a valid VISA to US or UK don’t need an explicit Taiwan VISA. My travel agent who didn’t know about this rule confirmed this after checking and I double checked with Taiwanese embassy in Delhi by phone as well. What they didn’t say is that I needed to visit Taiwanese Immigration website and obtain a self-service Authorization Certificate and carry the printout. Because of this when I landed in Taipei I was sent back to Thai Airways gate by the Immigration official. Fortunately the Supervisor in Immigration gave me a sample printout of Authorization Certificate which I showed to Thai Airways staff, who after a brief confusion did the registration for me and got the printout. Finally I was allowed to clear immigration. Please be warned that Taiwan doesn’t have VISA on Arrival for any nationals other than Hong Kong and Macau. Later in the hotel when I visited the Immigration Website it had spelled this out clearly “The nationals of India, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, who also possess a valid visa or permanent resident certificate issued by U.S.A., Canada, Japan, U.K., Schengen Convention countries, Australia or New Zealand, are eligible for the visa exemption program, which permits a duration of stay up to 30 days. Those who meet the above qualification and have never been employed in Taiwan as blue-collar workers have to apply to the “Advance Online Registration System for the Visitors of Nationals from Five Southeast Asian Countries to Taiwan” of the R.O.C. National Immigration Agency (website:https://nas.immigration.gov.tw/nase) for an "Authorization Certificate" before coming to Taiwan. After completion, the printed-out Certificate can be used by the foreign visitor for boarding the airplane and the immigration inspection”
Sight Seeing
I reached my Hotel in Taipei on a Wednesday morning and had rest of the day free to myself, the meetings were happening only the next day. There are not many places in Taipei city to see, I narrowed my choice to either Taipei 101 (the world’s second tallest building that I have seen in Discovery channel as a construction marvel) and to National Palace Museum. On the day I was in Taipei it was cloudy and drizzling, so I decided to go to Taipei 101. Even within Taipei 101 there is not much for you to see, a big mall – where there were only designer shops which I couldn’t even afford to window shop & a super market. I went to buy ticket to the ride up for the viewing gallery on top, but the girl in the counter warned me that I can hardly see anything on a day like this and whether I am sure I want to pay NTD 450 for this. I decided to go with her advice and skipped the observation deck.
(a fine supermarket inside Taipei 101)
I found almost all the electronic, even those by Taiwanese OEMs like Asus or HTC to be expensive in Taiwan than in USA or even India.
(The above ultrabook ASUS Zenbook X31E costs NTD 38,900 ~ USD 1313 seems to be expensive than buying it in USA)
A lake is there in an area called Xindian where there was a beautiful park, bridge, food stalls and boating activities.
Commute
Remember that in Taipei very little “English” is used, it is almost entirely in Chinese. So for you to travel from Airport to Hotel by Taxi, it is a good idea (as my hosts advised me earlier) to carry your Hotel Name printed in Chinese characters. That is what I did and after using it few times, I realized how important it was, there is no way I could have made anyone understand the English name of my hotel (as only the Chinese name is used everywhere). I even travelled by Taipei Metro (called commonly as MRT) to return from Taipei 101 to my hotel, it was quite convenient and efficient. You can buy a one-way ticket (they give you a pre-paid token) from the Information counter (to whom you can show the same Chinese character printout of the location) and rest is same as in any other Metro (like in Singapore or Hong Kong). The difference in Taipei Metro station and train is that everything is in Chinese only, only the Station names are in English, with which you can manage to travel just like I did on my first attempt, even managing to switch two lines during my travel. Like Japan there were marked queuing for boarding trains which were followed.
Vegetarian Food
In general vegetarian food is not common in Taipei, but you can find them with a little effort. The challenge is the language and communicating this to the waiter. The hotel were I was booked (I wrote to them in advance by email) arranged me vegetarian lunch on arrival. My host took me to a fine dining Chinese restaurant for dinner and they manage to get me tasty vegetarian food including a Bamboo Root Dish that I tasted for the first time.
 
(In the first photo on the left you see a dish made from Bitter Melon, in the second photo is a Radish soup they served at the end of lunch)
The full photo album of my trip is here.
While on transit in Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok I saw this beautiful sculpture on Scene of the churning of the Milk Ocean – which is an important event in Hindu mythology enacted by Lord Vishnu. I had seen the resemblance to same beliefs and epics of India (Hinduism) followed in Thailand during my first trip there in 1999. Here are the photos (with links to more) of the sculpture that I took with my iPhone4.
World over Microsoft conducts lots and lots of events every year. Their flagship events are two – Professional Developer Conference a.k.a. PDC (this is where they announce the next big thing like .NET, Windows 2000, Longhorn, Windows Azure and so on) and Tech Ed (this is more hands-on current technologies for IT Professionals with some Developer content) happening almost every year in USA and then replicated across the world. About five years back in 2006, they announced a new event by name “Mix” which for the first time tried to bring 3 stakeholders into one event – Business Managers, Designers & Developers. It was started to promote Web development and Microsoft’s new designer tools family Microsoft Expression. This was the first Microsoft event where you got to hear Microsoft’s competitors like Yahoo! & Amazon (Microsoft wasn’t in cloud yet in 2006), which I found to be quite useful to get a sense of where Web technologies are going in general. And the lunch-table discussions I had with such a variety of audience were very interesting.
 
As a Microsoft Regional Director from 1999 and as a Microsoft Partner for many years, these events have become annual fixtures in my calendar.With the new “Build” event that happened last year (instead of a PDC) where they announced Windows 8, it was clear the existing Microsoft events landscape was changing. And indeed it has changed. First casualty was PDC and today they officially acknowledged that there will be no Mix in 2012. Though I feel sad for an event that offered variety and fun, in the last few years unfortunately Mix was made into yet another Developer event by Microsoft. So it was time the event got killed and merged into a unified better event.
In this moment of our prayers for “Mix” and for its soul to R.I.P I I will like to look back at some of the moments I have experienced around this event.
Mix ‘06
Bill Gates announced and kicked off the very first Mix at the Venetian, Las Vegas. The big announcement was WPF/E (which became Silverlight later) and demonstration of it on a Nokia phone which never got released.
Mix06 was my second or third trip to Vegas so I didn’t understand well on how lodging in Vegas works. I ended up blowing money (literally) by booking a $400/Night (concessional rate for attendees!) room at the venue itself (Venetian).
Mix ‘07
This event was all about Silverlight!. I am sure most of us .NET enthusiasts remember the demo where Silverlight in a browser with C# code-behind winning over Java Script in a game of chess. Looking back (from a world of Node.JS & Chakra) I was not sure on what we were smoking back then in May 2007.
I found the BBC Radio 1 and Windows Live Messenger social co-browsing (called Messenger activity then) & sharing to be quite cool. Unfortunately it never got released outside UK (just like most of the good stuffs from BBC which are available only to UK Residents due to a antiquated theory of UK Tax payer funding).
What got me thinking was a quote made by “The Economist” Publisher Mr.Andrew Rashbass on a panel discussion (which alone was worth my travel to the US from India). The quote was on how Portable Reader devices replacing paper. Andrew said “it will not happen in short-term, not in mid-term and definitely not in long-term and that BillG can use one, but no one else will use it”
I think this year Microsoft started to highlight that Mix was a “72 Hour conversation”, a tag line I liked & which I consider to have captured the essence of what Mix ‘06 and Mix ‘07 were. The evening party on one of the days was fun and colourful.
After blowing my money staying in Venetian, I realized how lodging works in Vegas – you can get rooms from $40 to $1 Million per night, it all depends on what you are looking for. From this year, I was booking myself a room at $40 in the Stratosphere Hotel. Although it is on the other end of the Strip, it was a good 30 minutes walk in the evening after you finish your dinner near by to Venetian like in the Food court at The Capital Grille.
Mix ‘08
This year the keynote was by Ray Ozzie who outlined Microsoft’s investment in IE and Silverlight, Web Slices and more. Lots of demos this year.
Then it was Dean Hachamovitch talking about how great IE 8.0 was (do you remember this IE?)
Lot of coverage about live streaming capabilities of Silverlight during the then upcoming Beijing Olympics
My fellow RD Scott Stanfield’s company Vertigo demoing the “Hard Rock” app they have build using Silverlight and Deep-Zoom technology.
Coca-Cola sponsored UEFA Euro 2008 & Windows Live Messenger community (what was that I don’t remember other than the photograph below?)
On the corridors of the show, I gave an audio interview to Scott Hanselman on Outsourcing (the hot topic then because of a Presidential Election year in USA).
Mix ‘09, 10, 11
Due to the onslaught of recession, travel budget constraints and thanks to great live streaming of the Keynotes by Microsoft, the next three years I decided to watch it from Home, only trouble being the need to have loads of coffee to keep me awake through the Night in India. I didn’t miss out the individual talks either – all the session videos were made available from Channel9 for download in few days of the event getting over.
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