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

The Blue Country resort, Panchgani - Club Mahindra affiliate

In October my parents had to go to Mumbai. We planned a short trip for them to Panchgani. The stay was at The Blue Country resort.

In my mother's words "Panchgani is a beautiful hill resort not far from Mumbai. The Pune expressway is the best route to take. Once you reach Panchgani the sign boards that you expect of the Blue Country resort are missing. One has to keep asking at the crossroads. A sign board at the crossroads would be very helpful. The steps down from the reception were cumbersome, esp for senior citizens. The swimming pool was great, accessible from all the rooms. The Gujarati food was good at the resort. In October we did not get strawberries but we got custard apples which were delicious. Mahableshwar is one hour from Panchgani. The tableland is a good place to visit."
My parents had a great time at the resort.

Caught in the Making - Club Mahindra resort at Corbett

While roaming on the streets of Paris in the summer of 2004, we had just been on top of the Eiffel tower, having arrived the same day by coach from Germany, Shaleen and I had been both dumbstruck by a large framed photograph of Eiffel tower built just half way up. It was kept in the show window of an expensive store dealing mostly in rare photographs. That particular photograph had been very heavily priced. Till then the very idea of a photograph of a half built building had seemed repulsive to me. Looking at that photo we marvelled at the uniqueness of it, frozen in time.
It was this photo which came to my mind when on 29th March while walking along the river just beyond the Wood castle resort, we came across the under construction Club Mahindra resort. The whole family got excited and we decided to go have a look inside. This resort is probably scheduled to start in May this year.



As we roamed over the place one of the staff came forward and showed us the rooms from inside as well. One fully furnished room was locked and another almost done one could be seen from the window.

I realized that our search for a good resort for future stays in Corbett ended right here. With a Club Mahindra stay a great holiday is almost a foregone conclusion.
People interested in Club Mahindra can weigh their options here.
A site selling and buying used Club Mahindra memberships

Dancing waters, Naukuchiatal - Club Mahindra resort

This time of the year is a good time to take a break for parents of children studying in La Marts, as it is the only school whose session starts so early. While the rest of the schools have exams we can chill out during Holi Holidays. Many years back it was Reshu who enlightened us with the idea of taking a short break at this time of the year.
Thanks to Club Mahindra this year we had a ball. A great time with friends.
We started from Corbett after breakfast for Naukuchiatal. We went via Haldwani, it took us almost three hours to reach there, Dancing waters, Naukuchiatal. It is a school converted to a resort. The restaurant and activity centre are on the second floor. It would be wise to ask the management to reserve lake-side facing rooms to make the stay delightful.
We had a sumptuous lunch and then waited for Anupam and Shubhra and kids to join us.
In the evening we decided to walk down to the lake but half way down, it became too dark to continue so we came back and enjoyed the dinner spread.

Corbett Hideway

We stayed for just one night at Corbett Hideway

on the 9th of March'09.It was a lovely resort. As I have mentioned before the food at Jim's Grill was great. The waterfall area was especially beautiful. In the daytime it was quite warm even in the month of March and the waterfall area was like a cool haven.

Binsar - the valley and the Bird Sanctuary

Binsar has become our favourite haunt in the Kumaon hills, thanks to the excellent resort which Club Mahindra has in the valley about 20km from the bird sanctuary. We have already visited the place four times and seen all the attractions around the resort. This time we stayed mostly in the resort itself and just went on small trek to the villa where Club Mahindra is adding some log huts in the future

Goa - Club Mahindra Varca Beach Dec 2006

In December we went to Goa to celebrate the new year. It was a much looked forward to vacation with a stopover at Mumbai at my Maasi's place. We stayed at Club Mahindra Varca beach resort. Our room was in the main building initially, it had its own advantages. The activity centre was close by and both our children had a good time over there. The 'waterfields' quite literally are great in the resort. And then further on we could just walk upto the beach.

The beach was clean and had quite a few sporting activities as well. We tried a hand at parasailing , waterscooting and went for a dolphin cruise to spot Dolphins.

The transport from the resort was a problem with the taxi union acting smart and charging exorbitantly for sightseeing for the rest of Goa. We hired two two wheelers on our penultimate day and rode into Panjim with a child on each of our bikes. That was a stupid thing to do actually and we also paid a fine at one of the crossings for being an a non taxi bike. It seemed that the crossing was a favourite place for the cops to catch unsuspecting tourists.
New year was ushered in walking along the beach. And enjoying a magnificent display of fireworks by our resort and the neighbouring one.