It was long back, when I was watching a Google keynote I heard Photosphere. It drew my attention and listened to the detail of what it had to offer and I was instantly hooked on to it.
It amazed me that one can photograph the surrounding around, yes all around 360°, save it as a single photograph and view it too. Yes, you read correctly 360°, that includes front, back, right, left, up and down, all of it.
That Google Keynote, triggered my passion for it and I searched (Googled) and researched as to how I could get my hands on it. I learned the tricks of rooting my Android phone and upgrading the OS so that I could install the Google Camera application that could capture the #Photosphere.
That app is still available on Google Camera and StreeView by Google. For those who want to have a look at the application in work, here is the link
With time single click photo cameras have made way to the consumers. and they have come a long way. They enable a user to capture the entire sphere, yes 360 in one click.
All single click camera have at two camera sensors with fisheye lens that cover a wide range of over 180°.
More than 180° is required so as to have an overlap or areas that are similar and can be stiched
360 photos can even be click on single lens cameras, but they require panning the entire area with steady camera position and the stitching with a stitching software like Hugin or PtGUI. It is a longer process, but the results and quality is amazing.
Now, Virtual tours is making it way into the markets. People can visit the place online before visiting it. Or Virtual Tourism as in Street View by Google.
It has help the Real Estate and the Hospitality industries the most and a Virtual Tour can offer an experience and give the prospects a head start of what to expect.
There are a number of Virtual Tour providers around the world. I am started late, better late than never. And I am excited to have created my first quality Virtual Tour.
We woke up early and got ready, then we packed our bags. We met the owner of the property, who asked for our feedback improvements. He even offered us morning coffee. After clicking some photos, we loaded the car with our luggage. Now the luggage was so much that we had to fit it in the leg spaces.
We headed straight to Periyar Medows for buffet breakfast. At 10:02 AM After a stomach full breakfast we started our journey back to Bangalore. We topped fuel at the HP Petrol Bunk (10:12 AM) and moved forward. At 10:18 AM, we were in Tamil Nadu. Kumily is along the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border. We realised this when we crossed the Tamil Nadu side check post within a minute. After moving a few kilometres we came across a water fall that had huge force, just the sound of water was so powerful.
As we travelled to Theni, the road was in very good condition, except the patches on by pass of villages or towns. The condition of the by passes was very bad with lots of pot holes. We crossed Theni (12:12 PM) and quickly moved towards Dindigul, we were planning to have lunch at Dindigul by-pass. We reached the NH-7 on the Dindigul by-pass (1:25 PM). We search nearby for a good eat out, but couldn't find so we moved ahead. We noticed sign boards for Hotel Aarthi (1:47 PM), Vegetarian Restaurant, we decided to go there. It was a very busy place. All transport vehicles stopped here buses, cars, cabs. One person could speak in Hindi :), he helped us to place a food order. The food was not that great and then had an ice cream and moved on. We passed Karur (3:14 PM), the long Kaveri river bridge (3:27 PM), Salem (4:21 PM). At Kadayampatti (4:52 PM) we had coffee at a road side restaurant. I got behind the wheels after that break. We crossed Dharampuri (5:54 PM) and reached Krishnagiri (6:28 PM). We crossed Hosur around 7 PM refuelled and reached Bommansandra, Karnataka (7:48 PM). We reached KR Layout on the Outer Ring Road JP Nagar 6 Phase (8:38 PM).
We had a reunion with Amit and Sejal at Hotel Nandhani for a dinner. In our group separation and collation are done with food :D. After dinner we had the cold magai paan and we headed to Amit's house.
Friday, 3 October 2014
It was Dasera time, since all the long travel was done we woke up by 7 AM. Amit and Sejal are always up early in the morning and the kitchen was already at work. We had tea and then planned our day out. First the Dusera pooja, a visit to Amit's client, Amit is a architect, a good one, we planned for a visit to Bannergatta Wildlife sanctuary in Bangalore. After a week we had a good homely cooked breakfast. After bath and doing Dasera pooja of the idols, cars and bike, Amit and I left to meet his client while the ladies were getting ready.
We returned to Amit's home and left for Bannergatta Wifdlife Sanctuary at 12:15 PM. On the way, we had lunch at Kebab Magic, we ate tasty tandoori chicken, biryani, kebabs and the special grape juice. We were so engrossed in dining that we lost track of time and spent more than an hour for lunch.
We reached Bannergatta Wildlife Sanctuary at 3:32 PM. It being a Dusera holiday, there was lots of rush. Bannergatta is famous for its Safari and Zoo. One can see lions, tigers, bears from close quarters in the safari rides. The other part is a zoo enclosure where there are caged animals and birds. We approached the booking counter only to find long queue. On inquiring we learnt that the last safari ride is at 4:30 PM. Since we reached there late we decided on skipping the safari and only visiting the zoo. In queue for 15 minutes we got the tickets. On entering we noticed a long queue for the safari, we wondered how are they going to get the ride before 4:30 PM, anyway we proceeded to the zoo. Keyaa enjoyed seeing the animals from such close up and that was a big satisfaction.
The Zoo closes at 6 PM, we returned home at 6:45 PM. Meanwhile Raj made plans for us and invited us for dinner. Raj is one person who loves feasting and is always at it. We reached Raj's home at 9 PM, had a long discussion about the trip. We had some lovely Mutton and after dinner some ice cream. That made all very lazy as it had been a very foodie day. I was so sleepy that I struggle to keep my eyes open. We returned at Amit's place and slept drop dead.
Saturday, 4 October 2014
On the last day, we had nothing planned except for packing up the bags and waiting for the cab. We finished with packing our luggage and had Nidhi's friend Vinayak, along with his wife Aparna visit us. After they left, we had an early lunch, At 12:45 PM we got into the cab for Airport. We reached the Airport in an hour and then quickly checked in the luggage and proceeded to the security check and boarding area. At 3:08 PM we boarded the flight. The flight took off at 3:25 PM and reached Mumbai on time at 4:55 PM. I booked a private radio taxi at the airport and reached home back at 6:35 PM.
This is my fist travelogue. All the times mentioned were as per location history logs from my Google Maps history location and some are from the photos clicked using my Camera or Mobile.
Abad Copper Castle, is an old hotel property built on the mountain slope. It is below the road level and one has to drive down the slope. The hotel parking is a bit difficult along the hotel building as there is less space to manoeuvre. The Reception, Entertainment and the hotel area is at the top level. There are four floors below the top floor. One has to walk down the stairs to go to the rooms as there are no lifts. The rooms are good and spacious. The best thing about the location is that it's peaceful. The sound of water flowing down the river and the chirping of the birds in the mornings during the day has a calming effect.
The Next day, I woke up early at 6 AM due to my daily habit. I tried to go back into the bed as it was nice n cold, but I couldn't get any sleep. I decided to explore the place and click some photographs. I quickly got ready and moved out. While photographing I realised I shouldn't have left the lenses back in the room. I asked my wife to get it when she comes. Later my wife too joined me. We enjoyed the beautiful place.
I moved up to a road and had one of the most beautiful scenery that made me feel I am on the top of the world.
The canvas/ views changes very quickly as the day passes by. Everyone else woke up at ease by around 8 AM, then we had buffet breakfast in the restaurant. We had decided that we would be relaxing more on this trip so everyone was lazy. We left for our sightseeing at 11:24 AM. The first place we decided to meet was the Flower Garden-Elephant Park-Mattupetty Dam. The flower garden was a nice experience with a varieties of flowers. We clicked lots of photographs over there.
After spending an hour an half we head back to Munnar for lunch at Rapsy Restaurant. This seems to be the most visited restaurant especially by foreign nationals. The food was okeish. But laminated hand written appreciation papers by many foreigners is displayed on all the walls. This is more of a marketing that really works. Even Rapsy restaurant is the first in the Google listings. With lunch done we moved towards Muttupetty Dam. On the way there is a Photo Point and Elephant Park.
We moved ahead to Mutupetty Dam, but there was traffic jam on the dam, we waited for it to clean and reached the boating area where we purchased tickets for speed boat ride in the lake. After waiting in the queue we took the speed boat ride. We were lucky to spot wild elephants in the jungles from the waters and some beautiful cloud cover the Dam. Overall the speed boat ride was fun and everyone enjoyed.
After the boat ride we had coffee and snack. The wait period at the speed boat queue was too long and by the time we were done with it, it was close to 5 PM. Here we made a sensible decision to return back to the hotel. At the hotel we relaxed got fresh and headed back to Munnar for some shopping. We explored the small Munnar town which had lots of home made chocolate shops. Seeing this we decided testing some and buying if we liked it. We also purchased some spices and tea. Since we had Thekkady, which is also famous for the spices we bought spices in small quantities.
We returned to the hotel, had dinner and inquired the best route the Thekkady. The receptionist suggested route a bit longer but very scenic.
Tuesday, 30 September 2014
Just travel to Thekkady was on the agenda. A short distance of 90 kms from our hotel. However after the suggestion by the hotel reception we decided to take the longer route via Devikulam, Lockheart Gap, Amit had shouted repeatedly to visit Lockheart Gap. We had to do it for him.
Everyone was just lazy to wake up, even I woke at 7 AM but went back to sleep to only get out of bed at 8 AM.
The weather was cloudy. Once up we pushed ourselves to the restaurant for the breakfast (9:00 AM). There were very few people in the restaurant. Most of the guest had either checked out in the early hours owing to the local taxi strike in Kerala or gone on site seeing.
Isn't it a wonder, people go to places like Munnar just to relax. "At least that is what they have in their mind when they are leaving home". Upon reaching the place, they are busy/in hurry to visit the many places around the place. Where is the relaxation? We had thought on the same and decided, to ease and make it a real relaxation trip
We checked out of the Hotel at 10:30 AM. When we opened the book of our car, we were in for a surprise. The spices we bought a day earlier had attracted a mouse who had damaged a few of the spices. That made the ladies a bit sad and worried but I suggested more shopping in Thekkady. Shopping makes the ladies forget the immediate sadness. We loaded our car and set pedal 11:57 AM. Raj took the driving seat and I the Google MapsBai. We moved through Munnar town, thanks to Google Bai to guide through the town. We were on the road immediately 11:08 AM. We stopped in Devikulam at a restaurant and since it was close to noon, we decided to have an early lunch 11:42 AM.
An hour was spent for lunch, 12:40 PM we were on wheels. After about 10-15 minutes Raj was with an exclamation "Wow!" . As I was looking into the Google Map I looked up and I was "Wow! Amazing" . On Tuesday, 30 September 2014, 12:53 PM, we were experiencing paradise. The view was so beautiful and the air was so fresh. We stopped clicked a lot of photos and move some distance ahead to click few more photos in the tea plantations.
Lockheart Valley: The Green Tea Plantations leading up to the dark Rock Mountain crowned with white and grey clouds under the blue sky
We moved on at 1:24 PM till be moved to a Lockheart Gap, after travelling a while we pit stop at the National Park viewpoint. A few shacks have been built, they offer snacks. We spent another half an hour over here drank water from the mountains.
Driving just ahead we reached the Chinnakanel Water Falls
We drove down the mountains in the pleasant weather. We crossed the view of the Anayirankal Reservoir. Once we were down the mountains what started was a continuous spice plantations all along the road. With the windows down we smelled the strong spice odour.
At 3:13 PM, we stopped at Chathurangaparaand I took over the driving seat. Then we had a confusion at around 4:10 PM, we took a right as directed but 5 minutes into the drive the road was not good and we had a very bad feel that we must be lost. Google show a road, but we were not pleased. We returned, Google re-routed. On the way back we saw a unique gardening with egg shells and we were at the diversion at 4:22 PM
Then all along the way it was just Google guiding us and sometimes, we made Google re-route as the roads didn't appear in good shape. It was thus a smooth ride and we reached Kumily at 5:22 PM. We got to our Homestay "Green Court Cottages" at 5:30 PM and checked into our rooms.
Green Court Cottage is a homestay. The property is located very close to the Periyar Tiger Reserve. It is managed by a Kerala Christian family. When we reached the approach road to the place was in very bad shape with the rains worsening the condition. However the road was repaired, hopefully it would be in good condition. Green Court Cottage is a property with around 15 rooms. The rooms are big with wooden word all around. Each room has a portico with chairs. Cleanliness was a mixed thing over here, The floors were clean, however the toilets did have spider webs all around. Even the lighting was not in good shape, some points were not have bulb or the bulbs were fused. These were all because of lack in attention to details. We did give a feedback to the owner on what needs to be improved when we checked out. Being a homestay, full fledged serve cannot be expected. The place though has a wow feel to it. Only the minor things need to be taken care as they can cause irritation to the customers.
Another important point about the hotels in Kumily near the tiger reserve. During the evenings there are lots of mosquitoes, hence it is recommended to keep the hotel room doors and windows closed and make use of mosquito repellent vaporisers. The weather is warm and if you are coming from Munnar it's hot.
In the evening, we roamed the Kumily market, shopped for Kerala traditional sarees. We had our dinner at the Lakeview Inn Restaurant, we were not happy with the meal. One point I noted all around Kerala, all recipes have extra spices specially pepper.
Wednesday, 1 October 2014
We planned to pay a visit to the Periyar Tiger Reservoir and go on the famous boat ride in the Periyar Lake. The first boat ride starts at 7:30 AM and the ticket counter opens at 6 AM. However, people start queuing from as early as 5:30 AM. Now with the relaxation vacation that we were on we decided to take the second ride at 9 AM. In the morning we explored our Green Court, behind our rooms there was a spice plantation with path paved to the other rooms and the owner's residence. We went to the Reserve at 7:29 AM and stood in the long queue after parking our car a kilometre away form the lake. The queue was unnecessarily long because of a notice which said 2 tickets per person. When the ticket counter opened the security asked only one person to stand in the queue. Each person was asked to fill the details of the people going on the boat ride. We didn't have a pen as we never expected to be filling forms, we borrowed a pen filled the forms while in the queue, even managed to by pass a few ahead as they were busy filling the forms ;). We got tickets on the top deck at one corner and even a pass for the camera by 8:25 AM we were with the tickets. We had breakfast at the untidy joint close to the lake. One security guard approached me while I was in the queue to collect coupons and asked me to go to a better place near the parking. with around 45 minutes and the ladies not willing to walk we decided to have our breakfast at the same joint.
At the time of boarding there was a huge rush at the gate to get on to the boats. The security intervened and correctly allowed people after seeing their tickets. We were on to our boat quickly and to the upper deck but had a family sitting on our seats. We showed his tickets which mentioned open with the same seat numbers. We inquired and informed him. He refuted and then himself went to check. Upon conforming he proceeded to his seats. Luckily for us some tourists on the seats had skipped the boat ride, we could use that seats too. It is compulsory for everyone taking the boat ride to wear the safety jackets. After the boat tragedy the tourism department seems to have tighten the safety for the boat ride, a positive improvement.
The boat ride is an one and half hour ride over the waters of the Periyar Lake. The lake is surrounded by the Tiger Reserve. One can spot wild animals on the banks of the lake and the is the main attraction of the boat ride. However spotting wild animals is all "Luck by Chance". We spotted few herds of sambar deer, wild dogs (Dhol), wild boars, black monkeys and a hugely built bison. We all also spotted a lot of birds. Our luck with spotting animals exhausted with this much. I wish the motor sound of the boats was properly dampened, it scares away animals. I guess the luckier ones spot elephants and the luckiest will spot a tiger. I haven't read anyone spotting a tiger during the boat ride. The ride bar the motor sound is good one time activity and provides some nice views of the forests and the KTDC Periyar Lake Palace. Our boat got to the dock of the Lake Palace to drop off some of the staff and that is as muck close we could get to it.
After the boat ride we clicked lots of photos on the lake shore and continued till the security had to request us to move out of the lake area (11:29 AM) and walked to the parking.
At 12 PM we left the reserve. With a very light breakfast we looked out for a place for lunch, but after inquiring at a couple of place we found out that it was too early. We decided on Abad's Woods-n-Spice and had to wait for a while before the lunch was ready. Abad resorts are very good properties, it gives a good feel.
After a nice lunch we headed by to Green Court Cottages, we were really tired, so we freshened and slept off. We were supposed to go to the Kariyali and Kathakali in the evening, since we over slept :( we had missed the times. We then decided to shop for spices and chocolates. We had evening snacks at the close by restaurant Periyar Medows. We then shopped for spices and chocolates in the Kumily market. We were so engrossed in shopped the it was late 10 PM and restaurants kitchens were closed.
We found Hotel Althaf a small restaurant just beside Hotel Sandra. The food at the place was amazing. I just admired the owner, he is a very honest hard working man, he was taking the food orders and managing everything even at the closing hours he was full of energy. He insisted that we try King Fish, which we did and loved it. Even though the hotel is not the posh the food is good a very recommended place. It is the only place where we were served onions and lemon :). With the dinner our Kerala trip had come to an end. The sky had opened up, it was raining. We headed to the hotel and went straight to sleep.
