Road trip to Rajasthan

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We started from Lucknow at around 8:10am for Jaipur. Though we had planned to start earlier. We had food packed, courtesy mom & dad with us so that we would not loose time for food.
The four of us enjoyed ourselves immensely, entertained by the lovely songs which were being played on Nalin, my son's iPod.
Enroute we crossed Ferozabad

We took the route via Agra. It took us around 8hrs to reach our destination and at 4:10 we had reached Hotel Ganguar

Gangtok 1st day sight seeing

In the morning we got up early and looked out from the balcony to behold a beautiful breathtaking scene. From all the three rooms, we occupied the view was fantastic.




We enjoyed tea on our balcony. And then went down for a leisurely breakfast, to the restaurant. At around 10:45am the taxi came for our one day local sightseeing in Gangtok. We got one Alto and one Wagon R for the day-trip, as SUVs are not allowed for local sightseeing in Gangtok. Our first stop was  Ganeshtok temple which wasn't far from our hotel.



After that we went to the Himalayan Zoological garden just opposite the Ganesh temple. And we really enjoyed ourselves there. It was a nice trek as well, as we walked from one huge enclosure to the other.



The red panda


The Tibetan wolf

A viewing tower which we did not climb, near the enclosure for the snow leopard.

There were refreshments available in the zoo and also toilet facilities were there at two places. Weekly off for the zoo is Thursday. The zoo is a must see.

We then proceeded to Tashi point, from where the Kanchenchunga peak is visible. As it was a cloudy day we just saw a few snow laden peaks. The children wore the local dress and we took pictures.

We had lunch at the restaurant near Tashi point. It was average fare. We had momos and chowmein and manchurian.
Next on the itinerary was a monastery, though we decided to forgo that and went on to see a waterfall.



Here Samya did some adventure activity at the waterfall.



From here we went to see the flower exhibition. It was drizzling by now. This was a lovely place to visit. The ambience was good and lovely flowers too



This photo some how misses the crowds that were present at this sightseeing point. It was really crowded. We also purchased some bulbs of these beautiful flowers.



After the flower exhibition we went for the ropeway which we could easily have missed.
The ropeway was no great experience and certainly not worth the one hour wait.



From here we went to the office of the person who was arranging this trip for us, for the balance payment and to give him the papers regarding issuance of permit for North Sikkim, photo ids etc



We requested the taxi driver to take us to the market as we had to purchase woollens for my son. The main market was closed that day, so he took us to another market, Lal Bazaar . The market was dirty but we found some good shops on the second floor. As we were short of time we shopped in a hurry. In one of the shops we left our handycam behind by mistake!!



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The Royal Demazong, Club Mahindra, Gangtok

We reached Gangtok by road from New Jalpaiguri, where we reached by rail on the Dibrugarh Rajdhani express, which goes via Lucknow, two days a week. We booked tickets from New Delhi to New Jalpaiguri and converted them to boarding from Lucknow. Return tickets were bought from Guwahati to Lucknow, boarding from New Jalpaiguri. 
I was travelling AC 1st class for the first time. The cabins were very good and we had a nice journey except that the train's engine developed some problem and had to be replaced hence our train was delayed by 2 hrs. The train which usually arrived early was delayed. We reached at 1:30pm

The road trip from the station (New Jalpaiguri to Gangtok) was around 125 km but it took us 6hrs. The road was in a bad condition and at one place, road construction activity held us back by 2hrs. Usually it takes around 4hrs to go from NJP to Gangtok, the road is not very good.

 Entrance to Sikkim

The Club Mahindra hotel in Gangtok was not seen on my map my india GPS map and neither was it correctly marked on the google map on the mobile.
We had arranged pick up from the station through Tamu travel and treks. We had to depend on the Taxi drivers. By the time we reached our destination it was 7:30pm.

Checking in to Club Mahindra was a breeze as usual. This property has been leased by Club Mahindra. Hence the hotel did not have that feel which we associate with a Club Mahindra property, but it was a comfortable stay and we enjoyed the food.

Our room

Activity centre

The activity centre was good. It had the provision of borrowing DVDs as well as books, Table Tennis and Carrom etc. Restaurant was pleasant.

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Location:Kazi Rd,Gangtok,India

Dewitt Place, Chicago

We landed in Chicago at around 4pm on 20th October 2010. The aircraft was on time. Clearing the customs did not take a lot of time. Away we were in a taxi heading towards Dewitt place our residence for the next three days. Dewitt place had elaborate arrangements to prevent unauthorized entry into the building. A room key was required to enter the building. We changed and headed out We were living next to the  John Hancock building so after we purchased a net 10 set and phone connection from Best Buy in the Hancock building only we went  up to the observatory after purchasing the Chicago city pass.  The chicago city pass covers 5 main attractions in 69$, each of them alone costing around 30$. One has 9 days to see all these attractions.

There were no queues for going up to the observatory and we went straight to the elevator and unto the 94th floor. Along with the pass we got a free coffee each at the cafe over there. We bought some snacks with the coffee and sat down to enjoy the view.        

The hotel in which we were staying was very well located. The trip advisor review written by Shaleen on Dewitt place.

Location is the best part about this place. You are right in the centre of everything. All the attractions and shopping was within walking distance or easily accessible by public transport. The place itself is average and maintenance was below average and can use a renovation. We had opted for a lake view room, however all the lake we could see was from one window only that too through the space between two buildings between the Dewitt Place and Lakeshore drive. While booking also our experience was not very good as the Hotel site did not offer booking for three nights we wanted, hence I booked it at booking.com for USD495, after a few days, while looking for one night booking for the return trip, I found that the same room was available for USD 405 at booking.com only, hence I cancelled the previous booking and booked afresh at lesser rate.

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