Explore Pathanamthitta

Pathanamthitta district:

Attractions around:

1. Sabarimala Temple
2. Gavi
3. Perunthenaruvi Water Falls
4. Aranmula
5. Aruvikuzhy Waterfalls
6. Mannadi Adoor
7. Kakki Reservoir
8. Konni Adavi Eco-Tourism
9. Konni Elephant Cage
10. Kadamanitta
11. Pandalam Palace
12. Niranam church
13. Kaviyoor Mahadeva Temple
14. Manjinikkara Church
15. Parumala Church
16. Pamba River

Read More

Districts Of Kerala

Kerala is divided into 14 districts based on their geographical , cultural and historical importance. These are generally clubbed under 3 groups,

1. North Kerala Districts

   This is generally referred as 'The Malabar region'
   Districts:
   
   1. Kasaragod
      Official Website: http://kasargod.nic.in/
      District Headquarters: Kasaragod
   2. Kannur
      Official Website: http://kannur.nic.in/
      District Headquarters: Kannur
   3. Kozhikode
      Official Website: http://kozhikode.nic.in/
      District Headquarters: Kozhikode
   4. Wayanad
      Official Website: http://wayanad.nic.in/
      District Headquarters: Kalpetta
   5. Malappuram
      Official Website: http://malappuram.nic.in/
      District Headquarters: Malappuram

2. Central Kerala Districts

   This is generally referred as 'The Kochi region'
   Districts:
   
   1. Idukki
      Official Website: http://idukki.nic.in/
      District Headquarters:Painavu
   2. Ernakulam
      Official Website: http://ernakulam.nic.in/
      District Headquarters: Kakkanad
   3. Thrissur
      Official Website: http://thrissur.nic.in/
      District Headquarters: Thrissur
   4. Palakkad
      Official Website: http://palakkad.nic.in/
      District Headquarters: Palakkad

3. South Kerala Districts

   This is generally referred as 'The Travancore region'
   Districts:
   
   1. Kottayam
      Official Website: http://kottayam.nic.in/
      District Headquarters: Kottayam
   2. Pathanamthitta
      Official Website: http://pathanamthitta.nic.in/
      District Headquarters: Pathanamthitta
   3. Alappuzha
      Official Website: http://alappuzha.nic.in
      District Headquarters: Alappuzha
   4. Kollam
      Official Website: http://www.kollam.nic.in/
      District Headquarters: Kollam
   5. Thiruvananthapuram
      Official Website: http://trivandrum.gov.in/
      District Headquarters: Thiruvananthapuram

Read More

Banasura Trek

Banasura Peak :

• Second tallest mountain in Wayanad
• Banasura Hill stands high at an altitude of 2073 meters above sea level
• At the foot hills lies Banasura Sagar Dam, Asia's second largest earth dam and the largest in India.

Read More

Vinobaji Sreemoolam Nagar Residents Association (VSNRA)

A residential locality in the center of Adoor town. The residents of the Vinobaji Road and Sreemoolam Nagar joined hands together to form this association. As of today there are around 96 registered in the association. All the best  to VSNRA and its members.

Read More

Trek to Nine Hills

We started close to here from the river bed,

Read More

Run two different Skype accounts from same computer

If you have installed Skype and already logged in, second time when you click the Skype icon the already logged in application will launch. if you wish to log in to another account, follow these steps,

1. Locate the skype installed folder. usually it will be "C:\Program Files\Skype\Phone\skype.exe" or something similar.
   If you cant find the location where skype is installed right click on the Skype icon, then go to properties and find target. This will open the folder where Skype is installed.
2. In the Run window, enter the following command  including the quotes and then press OK
   "C:\Program Files\Skype\Phone\skype.exe"  /secondary

Thats it you get another Skype with the login screen.

Read More

Reaching Gavi

By Road

28 Kms from Vandiperiyar
40 Kms from Thekkady / Kumily

By Rail

120 Kms from Kottayam Railway Staion  ( KTYM )
165 Kms from Eranakulam Railway Staion ( ERN / ERS )
175 Kms from Madurai Railway Staion  ( MDU / MES )
100 Kms from Theni Railway Station ( TENI )

By Air

170 Kms from Nedumbassery Airport Ernakulam
250 Kms from  Trivandrum International Airport
190 Kms from Madurai Airport


*All distance approximately calculated 
*Before travelling to Gavi , get your forest entry permission

Get directions using google maps : http://goo.gl/tXJixV

Gavi Lake

Read More

Pathanamthitta - Gavi - Kumily on KSRTC Bus

The best and the economic way to reach Gavi is through the bus service run by KSRTC ( Kerala State Road Transport Corporation ). KSRTC runs 2 ordinary bus services daily between Kumily and Pathanamthitta. 2 schedules from both the KSRTC depots.  The majority part of the route passes through the thick forests and hilly terrains  of Periyar Tiger Reserve. Wild life sightings are regular, especially elephants. The service passes through  chittar, Seethathodu, Angamuzhi, Kakki Dam, Anathodu Dam, Pamba Dam, Gavi, Vallakadavu and Vandiperiyar.

Read More

Filtering emails using dot sign

Continuation to Filtering emails using plus sign

This time another gmail address trick which i came to knew yesterday, here its with an example,
Lets take an gmail address a abcdefg@gmail.com ,
so the gyan I got from a friend who read the earlier post is that  emails sent to any of the following email addresses will be forwarded to your inbox.

Read More

Ramadevara Betta - Tumkur

Ramadevara Betta lies near the Bangalore-Tumkur road/rail line near Kyatsandra .The hill can be accessed from various sides of Kyatsandra , most popular and clear approach is through the famous Siddaganga Mutt.The top of the hill is a huge rock with views of the surrounding towns including Tumkur. if you cant find the proper route you may end up at the base of the hige rock, so be careful while trekking up in finding clear path and ascend the rock through the slopes.Theres a pond/lake with lotus in the top, but cannot be used for drinking purposes, so carry enough water from the mutt before you start. 

Siddaganga Matha in Kyatsandra is a charitable institution providing education,boarding and stay for children acroos Karnataka. Ask any one and they will be happy to show you the path to Mutt.If you are not sure of the trail to the peak, ask any of the High school kid in the mutt and they will be happy to take you to the top.From the mutta follow the concrete road till the small lake where you will find a small cave kind of structure in your left. From there take the trail going left to the top.
There are lot of small caves, temples, some fort structures and huge boulders to satisfy your adventurous needs.If you want to stay there, Siddaganga mutt can be an option.

Kyatsandra  is famous for its  thatte idly  which is made in a plate and its delicious, try in hotel Pavithra.

Height: Close to 1200 meters
Distance: 60+Kms from Bangalore
Nearest Town: Kyatsandra
Nearest railway station: Kyatsandra, but only few of the passenger trains stops there
                       : Other option is reaching Tumkur and taking local trasport.
Bus: Often buses which plies between Bangalore-Tumkur and return, get down at Kyatsandra

Some random picture,

Read More

Filtering emails using plus sign

Gmail allows you to add a plus sign ("+") followed by text or numbers in your email address. That is, you'll receive all emails sent to uniquemail+filtertext@gmail.com in your inbox. For example, use uniquemail+travel@gmail.com to register for travel related mails. Can create n number of filter emails like this.

Read More

What is a treknic?

It was  2 years before when I started volunteering with Bangalore ASCENDers , many new comers wanted to do trekking but not the hard ones...  then the idea of  Trek Cum Picnic came in. It includes bit of trekking and bit of site seeing... bit of relaxation and bit of toughness... tough it was widely accepted by many and good response...  There were few events with the title starting with  Trek Cum Picnic to....

Dont know how the word was formed either might have struck to mind from some where or slowly the Trek Cum Picnic transformed to the word Treknic .

Read More

Unix Timestamp and January 1, 1970

While coding in PHP and Open Source Technologies i always used to see this date -'January 1, 1970'. Always wondered what could be the reason this date has been set as default, and some research and reading this is what I understood.

Read More

Google Talk Multi Instance

How will you login to to google accounts at same time from same machine? May be can use two browsers..

Again what if we want to use Gtalk to chat and at same time use two accounts, It happened to me 1 year ago when i was in my home and logged into Gtalk in my personnal gmail account. For some purpose I needed to chat with my senior at office and wanted to open one more instance of the chat but it was opening only one instance. Didn't find any solution to chat with my senior and continued a browser based chat.

Read More

Locate PHP configuration file

Locate your php.ini location

1.Create a new file say version.php
2.Type in the code
    <?php
        echo phpinfo();
    ?>
3.Save the file.
4.Upload to your web server and access the same file using the web url.
5.Check for 'Loaded Configuration File'  section and you will see the location where php.ini is saved.

Read More

Sunrise from Home - Adoor

In native(Adoor) for a weekend leave.. ya for a week after long time. Had been to the terrace many times and was not much different this time too when i climbed the ladder in terrace to reach near the Water tank.
My cousin was scolding me, his concern was if I fell down and getting injured as its little riskier to climb, and after 2 days it was my engagement. I was enjoying the views from there,  I could see some small mountains far(I think some plantations near Kodumon / Ezhamkulam ).I could also see Vijaylaksmi Silks, Adoor.

Suddenly something came to mind, how would be the sunrise from this spot? never been at this spot early morning. Decided to climb there along with Camera next day. It was 6:30 AM and I climbed the ladder again., initially only clear sky was visible and little dark...
Suddenly he came out ya the Sun... the coconut tree and some trees from my neighboring houses made me to take some silhouette photos..

Posting it here..

Read More

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2013

 Lot of short messages, emails, calls and direct wishes from friends, relatives, colleagues and strangers i road.. 3 words and a smile - "Happy New Year".
its nice feeling. But this year among many strangers 2 strangers wished me which gave much happiness to me than others.

As usual I was walking y to home from office through MG road and brigade Road. Compared to previous years this year media and police forces where more than the public, may be due to the recent Delhi incident. I was at brigade junction getting wished and wishing  for new year. Saw a police officer in duty busy managing the traffic, went to him and told "Happy New Year sir", he wished back and shake hand. Then he added- "What new year sir, cant spend time with my family, kids will be waiting.. got duty till 3.00AM".
He is loosing something to make us celebrate new year smoothly and his wish to me made me more happy.

Read More

Paithalmala Trek

Paithalmala also called Vaithalmala is a hill with an altitude of 1300+  meters located in Kannur district of Kerala.
Nearest Railway Statuion: Payyanur or Kannur
Bus: buses are available from Kannur and payyannur to Kudiyanmala and Kappimala. From there take a jeep drive to starting point of the trek.

From Bangalore: Bangalore - Mysore - Virajpet - Iritty - Kudiyanmala - Paithalmala

Best Season: Post monsoon when the grass lands are green. Monsoons one can trek but beware of leaches.

Note: If you are not sure of trekking trail don't venture here as you may get lost in the vast coorg forests and its difficult to find the way back.

Paithalmala  borders the forests of Coorg and is an extension to the vast forests of Kodagu hills. The hills is mainly grass lands with few shola forests in between. Half the hills are encroached and converted to estates / resorts etc. There are some private resorts there and recently there had been an inaguration of a Government guest house  handled DTPC, Kannur. But its not yet functional, soon they may open it for public.
Its an upcoming tourist destination in Kannur.

At the top there are few trails to walk along the ridges and few view points created to promote tourism. Carry your food. Carry water depending on the season you are going.

There are 2 trekking routes to the peak, one from Pottenplave and another from Kappimala. Trekking from Pottenplave is much easier as the intial climbs you can cover in some private vehicles/auto/jeeps tought the road is little steep at some places.

There are lot of seasonal waterfalls  which becomes active in monsoons. En route to the peak take a deviation from the road theirs a layer of waterfalls (only in monsoons and post monsoons), just check with localities to get route to that.. enjoy them from the safer side as they are some risky places.

Some pictures from a monsoon trek,

Read More

Disposable Emails

Now a days most of the forums asks for user verification/validation through emails.

How will you trust the authenticity of the site, will they spam my inbox, will they sell my email address to third party?

Don't worry... there's something called disposable emails. Get some random email ids which lasts for a small time duration.
On visiting the site you will be given a temporary email id (some junk email)  and a mail box which you can for use any purpose... there will be a life time given for that email ids, some sites gives 10 minutes, some 60 minutes etc. You can even extend the life time in some of the sites.
During this life time you can get messages to your inbox, reply to the messages.

Read More

Stop naming wild animals

Wild animals.. they belong to the wild and they live their life there, stop treating them like your pets and naming them. When ever i travel to the forest bordered villages or talking to photographers all mention some names referring tigers, elephants , deers etc...  maniyan, chemban, ganeshan , sweety,  sundari, harini etc etc...   May be they are showing their affection/love by naming them and calling them, but doesnt they belong to the wild? Leave them in wild and stop treating them like your pets...  In zoos they name them but in wild they belong to  wild and its a very bad thing to name them I feel...

Read More