Life Inspires

Set in the sleepy little village of Dhanachuli in Kumaun, Uttarakhand, Te Aroha , with its yellow roofs, stands out. With tastefully done interiors and beautiful landscaping, the resort is different from any other resort I have visited so far -- and in more ways than one. Let us start with the name "Te Aroha". It means "the mountain of love" or "the loved one". And when you meet the man behind the resort, Sumant Batra , you fully appreciate why he chose this name.  More than business, Te Aroha is his passion. Each corner of the resort echoes this, and you can see how much love he has put into chalking out minutest of the details. The resort is named after the mountain of the same name in New Zealand. Click here to read the complete legend behind the name. Sumant was generous enough to invite some bloggers to Te Aroha for a bloggers meet this month. We stayed there from October 4 to October 6, 2013. During these three days, we got ample opportunity to...

Many of us have read travelogues by Bill Bryson ('Down Under' about Australia is my personal favorite) and William Dalrymple ('The City of Djinns' about Delhi has won a million Indian hearts). No doubt these are extremely well written and very well-researched travelogues. I love Bill Bryson's wit as much as I appreciate William Dalrymple's depth. But this article is not about them. This blog post is about those short travel posts that appear on various blogs adding to a wealth of authentic information available about travel destinations worldwide. I have come to trust these blog posts more than I trust travel agents, 'Places to see' posts on tourism websites, and, I am sorry to say, even the painstakingly compiled travel guides published by reputable travel companies. How many times have you visited a place at a popular tourist destination and been completely disappointed by it? Or you have missed going to a beautiful, 'must visit' place because...