The Untourists The Untourists - Discovering the beautiful world we live in. The British Colonisers had a tough time dealing with India’s hot summers. They constantly looked out for summer getaways in cooler locations, and created a concept unique to India: Hill Stations. These were ideal sleepy little villages, located atop hills which had moderate temperatures in summers. Over a period of time, these hill stations became very popular with local Indian tourists trying to beat the heat as well. Mahabaleshwar is one such hill station in the state of Maharashtra. Located on the Western Ghats rang ..read more

The Untourists The Untourists - Discovering the beautiful world we live in. Road tripping? How shall we get there? And out comes a favourite maps app, and we blindly take whatever route the app suggests. But the app has zero feelings and the routes suggested are just part of a larger “algorithm”, which probably consists of how many people use that route to get somewhere. This is not helpful. In fact it is often, very often, very painful. A pain exacerbated by data, validated by a huge number of maps-app driven delivery folk riding two wheelers. But real road tripping is about the road itself ..read more

The Untourists The Untourists - Discovering the beautiful world we live in. People keep asking me, “I am in Mumbai this weekend, what are the places near me, where can I go?”. This is not generally the kind of article we would write, but here we are. Where CAN one go? Well, wherever there is peace and fewer crowds, good ambience, a nice place to stay and good food. Like every city, Mumbai has plenty around it for visiting. And I shall not mention the overdone Lonavala/Khandala. For starters one can try Kamshet. A small village around 110km from Mumbai, Kamshet is located next to Indrayani Rive ..read more

The Untourists The Untourists - Discovering the beautiful world we live in. About 500km Mumbai, on the banks of the mighty river Narmada, lies the old city of Maheshwar. Many historians identify Maheshwar as the ancient town of Mahishmati. It is believed Maheshwar was build on the ancient city of Somvanshya Shastrarjun Kshatriya and was the capital of the King Kartavirya Arjun, who is mentioned in the Sanskrit Epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. Much later, it became the capital of the Maratha Kings, the Holkars. Maratha Queen Ahilya Bai Holkar (1725-1795) took over the reigns of Maheshwar after h ..read more

The Untourists The Untourists - Discovering the beautiful world we live in. I had always dismissed Mount Abu as a crowded, touristy destination and it it was never on our travel radar. Until one day, a research led us deep into this ‘hill station’ and we were pleasantly surprised. Mount Abu is a ‘hill station’ on the Aravalli range of mountains. The Aravallis are amongst the oldest mountains in the world. Being at a high altitude, and perhaps in a favourable windward location vis-a-vis the distant Himalayas, Mount Abu gets very cold in the winters. Very cold. People have reported a thin layer ..read more

The Untourists The Untourists - Discovering the beautiful world we live in. Travel creates memories, and sitting home in this lockdown all we can do is revisit the memories. Over the last 10 plus years, I realised we have covered more than 100,000 kms, road tripping across North and South India. A whole lot of it was related to work, where we decided it best to drive, to add some pleasure to the work. We have road tripped from Mumbai all the way to Spiti Valley in Himachal Pradesh in the North. In the South we have driven as far away as Point Calimere, in Tamil Nadu. If the call and guilt of w ..read more

The Untourists The Untourists - Discovering the beautiful world we live in. Sometime in 2009, we were driving through rural Maharashtra searching for a location for a film shoot. Near Satara, along an unknown hill road, we noticed large patches full of yellow wildflowers. Pleasantly surprised by this phenomenon, we took photographs and moved on. Around 3/4 years later we learnt the location was Kaas Plateau and in 2010 UNESCO granted it the protected status of World Heritage Site. We had chanced upon the Kaas Plateau Valley of Flowers (also known as Kas Pathar)! For many years after that, our ..read more

The Untourists The Untourists - Discovering the beautiful world we live in. Up in the Kangra hills lies this little town of Dharamshala, also known as Little Lhasa because of the large Tibetan population. The Tibetan Government -In – Exile is based out of Dharamshala-McLeodganj. (McLeodganj is a suburb of Dharamshala.) McLedoganj lies in the Kangra District which was annexed by the British from the Sikh empire in 1850 after the Second Anglo Sikh War. Here on the slopes of the Dhauladhar Mountains lay one old ‘dharamshala’ hence the name of the new town. “McLeod Ganj was named after Sir ..read more

The Untourists The Untourists - Discovering the beautiful world we live in. Not many people may have heard of this over 300 year old festival in Anandpur Sahib, called ‘Hola Mohalla’. Celebrated on the day after Holi, it’s a crazy grand festival of the Akali Nihangs, the original warrior Sikhs, considered the personal favorites of Guru Gobind Singh. It was Guru Gobind Singh himself who had established this festival at Anandpur Sahib. It’s a day of poetry, prayers and display of martial skills, including equestrian skills which the Nihangs are so good at. I have always wanted to visi ..read more

The Untourists The Untourists - Discovering the beautiful world we live in. Our original idea was to visit Anandpur Sahib, with no further plans made. Not having found any place to stay there, we accepted the invite to a friend’s farm in Una, Himachal Pradesh and spent a good 4-5 days there, commuting to Anandpur Sahib everyday. The friends are beginning a new chapter in life at Una, indulging full time and professionally into organic and ethical farming, a vision to grow healthy food, sustainably. More on that in another post. But farm work is back breaking, and soon we wanted to take a b ..read more