Aniruddha's Blog

I visited Kerala during the Dassara holidays with my family. We first stopped at Kochi, where we stayed for  two days. On the second day of our trip, we went to old Kochi and saw the famous Chinese fishing nets. We had also planned to visit Vasco Da Gama’s house in Fort Kochi, which is located close  to the  fishing nets. However we missed the place and we  realised we had seen it only after we returned to the hotel! (Did you know that the Chinese fishing nets are found only in Kochi and China?)  The next day we left for a place near Thekkady, on the way we visited a small historical town called Kalady. It is historical, as Adi Shankracharya, the great Advaita philosopher, was born here.  The house that he lived in, now the Mutt, is on the banks of river Poorna (also known as Periyar). Shankracharya left home at a very young age to become a sanyasi. He travelled around India to spread knowledge about Advaita philosophy. His mother Aryammba also died i...

The car was started in 1947.   Maurice Wilks, the chief designer at Rover ,    took his old jeep to Anglesey, where he had a farm and began redesign of the jeep. He used simple body panels made out of light weight alloy this made them lighter and less expensive. Wilks started building them for the army and thus, the first few jeeps came out in green.  The company originally came up with a 2.5L 4 cylinder . 300TDi till 2006. Later they brought a 2.8L TGV this gave more power.  These cars were originally built in their farm house due to this they used to test them in open fields. The Range Rover brand was launched in 1970.  Land Rover reached the landmark of 1 Million vehicles in the year 1976. The Rover company was bought by British Aerospace in the year 1988 and sold it to BMW in the year 1994. There were a series of product launches under BMW such as Defender, Discovery,  remodeled  Range Rover, and Freelander. BMW sold Land Rover to Ford m...

The production of the first Land Cruiser was in 1951. During this period there were 40 different series. The Land Cruiser comes with an option off hardtop, convertible, station wagon, multi utility truck. According to reports, in 1941 Philippines was occupied by the Japanese military. Here the Japanese found an old Bantam Mk II jeep, and promptly brought it back to Japan. The Japanese military authorities commanded Toyota to make a similar vehicle, but to not model the appearance on the American Jeep. The prototype was called the Model AK and was formally adopted by The Japanese Imperial Army as the Yon-Shiki Kogata Kamotsu-Sha type aa(4 compact cargo-truck). Its main rivals were Pajero, Land Rover Discovery, Nissan Patrol and Jeep. Till date there has been 55editions. The land cruiser I like is the series 70 it has a 4.5LVD-FTV turbo diesel V8.

I visited Hampi in the month of July, 2013. Hampi was a famous city during the rule of king Krishnadevaraya.  We drove to Hampi with my uncle, aunt, and cousin Sahana. It is a six hour drive to Hospet from Bangalore. You have to stay in Hospet, as there are no hotels in Hampi, as it is a small historic town 10-15 minutes away from Hospet. We stayed in a hotel called Malligi. It is a three star hotel and is a really good place to stay in. We visited a bear sanctuary called Daroji National Park, on the same day we arrived in Hospet. The road leading us to the view point at the National Park involved a bit of off- roading. We waited for a long time to spot a sloth bear and finally my cousin sister spotted one! They take a lot of time to come out of their caves. Now   we know why they are called sloth bears! The next day we went to the Virupaksha temple. From the temple, we walked through the Hampi Market. We went on a coracle ride across the river Tungabhadra. The bo...

We visited Crater Lake,  in the month of May 2014 our way back from Seattle. After a long drive (actually Deepak Uncle was driving and I was enjoying back seat driving with on and off cat naps), we decided to take a break in Roseburg town in the state of Oregon . The place where we stayed allowed pets as well. For a moment I was surprised and it took some time for me to realize that even human beings are allowed to stay with their pets!  We also happened to interact with a Harley biker who was moving from Portland to somewhere close to Roseburg.  The drive to Crater Lake was just mind blowing! As we started our drive, we were informed by a local store owner that the North entrance to the Lake was closed.  The winding roads to Crater Lake took us through many waterfalls. We stopped over at  the Tokette and the Watson falls. To view these falls, we had to hike up a few miles. But let me tell you it is worth the effort (I have pictures of these falls for you)...

Point Reyes is a light house located in northern California, in Marin County in the United States of America. It is named after a sea farer,  Sir Francis Drake whose ship called Golden Hinde  landed  here in 1579.  Point Reyes  lends its name to the town of Point Reyes Station, California.It was built in early 1900. During the construction of the  light house several rocks had to be blasted.  The light house proved a saviour to many ships travelling around this coast, as it is one of the windiest and foggiest parts of the West Coast of United States.  Originally the  lamp at the light house used to be run on  lard oil (oil extracted from animal fat).Earlier, there used to be at least two men to turn on the light. Authorities then  changed it to an electric light. At present, the light is automated and it is a Light Emitting Diodes (LED). The range of this light is nearly 20 miles (40 km). It is extremely windy around Point Reyes Li...