Gaming Nostalgia: My Journey Through Classic Video Games

I used to enjoy playing computer games so much that I would occasionally become addicted for a brief period, only to grow bored and move on to the next one. In the interim, more serious matters like studies, jobs, and exams often provided the necessary distractions to overcome my gaming addiction. There was a time in my life when I aspired to design and build computer games, but unfortunately, that dream never came to fruition. Recently, I decided to introspect and reminisce about the games I've played, leading me to compile the following list. These are the games I spent a significant amount of time playing, and I managed to complete most of them.

Racing Games:

Road Rash: This motorcycle combat racing game series allowed players to engage in illegal street races, battling opponents with melee weapons while racing to the finish line.

This was the first desktop game I ever played, courtesy of my friend Keerthi. It was on his desktop, the first one in our hostel among our batch. We used to take turns playing it, and I still remember Sheriff Rhonda, who used to chase us. The most fun part was kicking other riders and hitting them while racing.

Need for Speed (NFS): Known for its high-speed races, vehicle customization, and engaging storylines. 

This game series was an upgrade from Road Rash for us, with better graphics and maps. The best part was the various camera angles and the slow-motion view you'd get when you crashed.

Asphalt: This racing game series was characterized by fast-paced arcade-style gameplay, stunning graphics, and a wide range of cars and tracks. It's available on mobile platforms and offers various game modes.

Action-Adventure Games:

Urban Chaos: In this third-person action-adventure game, players assumed the role of a police officer in a crime-infested city, engaging in combat, solving crimes, and restoring order. 

We often played this game as a group, with most of us watching while one person played. Meghamsh and Keerthi were usually the ones playing, and they were incredibly accurate in shooting and quick in their reactions. The rest of us would cheer and offer ideas.

Tomb Raider: This iconic action-adventure series featured Lara Croft, an adventurer exploring ancient tombs and solving puzzles. 

I was the only one addicted to this game to the extent that I'd visit the campus computer lab just to check online walkthroughs shared by players from around the world.

Max Payne: Known for its dark narrative and "bullet time" gameplay mechanic, which allowed players to slow down time during gunfights, this third-person shooter provided intense adrenaline-pumping action. 

I still remember the iconic side jump and shooting on the fly.

Role-Playing Games (RPGs):

Diablo: An action role-playing hack-and-slash game set in a dark fantasy world. Players traversed dungeons, battled monsters, and collected loot to improve their characters. 

My friends from IIT still make fun of me for playing this game for 30 hours straight, even falling asleep while playing it. Thanks to Bhargav, it was his system on which I played this game.

Real-Time Strategy (RTS) Games:

Age of Empires: This classic real-time strategy game series allowed players to build and manage civilizations from different historical periods, involving resource management, military strategy, and diplomacy. 

I introduced this game to my colleagues in TCS when I was in Saudi, and it became our savior from the boredom of living there. We often played in multiplayer mode, with Sridhar Talatam and me teaming up to crush our opponents with cunning strategies.

Caesar: A city-building strategy game set in ancient Rome, where players acted as Roman governors building and managing cities. The game threw curveballs when you least expected them.

Simulation Games:

FarmVille: This popular social simulation and farming game allowed players to cultivate and manage virtual farms. It gained widespread popularity on social media platforms.

Open-World and Sandbox Games:

Grand Theft Auto (GTA): An open-world action-adventure game known for its freedom of gameplay. Players could explore expansive cities, engage in missions, and often indulge in illegal activities. 

This game needs no introduction; it's a fantasy game where you can break the law and experience the life of a gangster.

First-Person Shooter (FPS) Games:

Half-Life: A critically acclaimed first-person shooter known for its immersive storytelling and innovative gameplay, which involved combat against various alien creatures.

Rainbow Six: A tactical shooter game emphasizing team-based strategies and counter-terrorism operations. 

This game sometimes had so many keyboard controls that it required 2-3 people to help the player. I still remember the incident when Kalyan (Pichuk) was playing a level where the objective was to kill terrorists with hostages. If the terrorists suspected your presence, they'd trigger an alarm, resulting in the hostages' deaths. After multiple attempts, Pichuk almost reached the spot, and the next moment, I casually mentioned, "What if the terrorists realize you're there?" That was all it took—the terrorists in the game heard me, and the alarm went off. Everyone in the room yelled at me. I was infamous for my iron tongue that whenever I said something bad, for sure happened :D

Delta Force: A first-person shooter game series focusing on military operations and strategic gameplay, often featuring large maps and emphasizing stealth and precision.

Counter-Strike: A popular first-person shooter game known for its competitive multiplayer gameplay, involving terrorist and counter-terrorist teams in objective-based missions.

Battle Royale Games:

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG): A popular battle royale game where players competed to be the last one standing on an ever-shrinking map. It involved intense combat and strategic gameplay.

Unfortunately, this game is now banned. I used to play it on my Poco-F1 phone, which got stolen on the Mumbai local train.

Even as I drafted this post, I relived those moments when I played these games. In the future, I am determined to design a game and hopefully release it to mainstream audiences. As a player, I know what elements give me a rush and keep me engaged in a game. Do let me know of any ideas and any of your experiences with the games I have shared above.

Shoppers Stop Perfect Look

While I was casually browsing through indiblogger checking on what all happenend all these years of my disconnect with it, this contest banner popped up which on any other day I wouldnt have bothered to check upon.

But this thing caught the attention of my wife, who was reading a book sitting next to me. Immediately she pounced on me, pulled the lappy to see what the contest was and threatened me to win the contest and buy those products which I shall be putting up for the contest.

So here goes...the SS perfect look for the festival season..

All of the below products are selected solely by my better-half..honestly I have little knowledge in anyone of those...(you may click the links for more details)

Read More by clicking

OPL Strategy

That is the word I coined for my new strategy on weight loss.

 

Lately I have realised that I have put on lots of weight. Most of my pants aren’t fitting me, the worst part being those I got stitched six month back are also not fitting me:O.

 

 

 

 

 

I was like this a year back

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Current situation

 

 

 

 

If it continues at this rate then this will be in future…optimistically in may be 6 months from now.

 

So I have decided that I should act immediately, at least to make use of those slim fit shirts and designer wear pants.

OPL stands for One part Less. Basically I cut down my food intake by one part.
For ex: For breakfast, I now take only 4 idles compared to 5 before..like wise I cut down everything I take by one part.



It's a simple strategy to start with before going on to a stricter diet regime [Read this post How to cut down 10 kgs in 2 months]

Nobody is perfect

Knowing our weakness is just not enough, we should strive hard towards improvement. We should try to be among the best.

Office exercises to avoid sleep

 

 

I like this technique.

 

 

 

 

 

 

                      For more techniques you may refer to this blog, from where I snipped it :)

Standing Alone

Ablution - A Quarterly ceremony

                                                  

These silly ones bathe only once in 3 months.

Their ears are so strong!



The Bunny hates water!



This stag is scared

 

 



The detective puppy

The happy soul!


 

Photos taken using S3.
Sundays are wasted by all these household chores :|

Friendly Request on FB

A request can get violent over time..:)

This post comes right at the moment..when Google..decided to purge the blog from cache as well...so telling am still there..wondering if any one is still reading this :)

Anjaana Anjaani

Dream - a cure

The last few days my mind has been totally enclosed...it so felt like I have forgotten everything in my life..I had just memories of the last 3 months and literally couldnt remember what happened before that....whatever I think of..whatever I dreamt of..it was constrained to all that I had gone through the last 3 months..

Amidst this internal chaos...I had met with a road accident a 2 weeks back..in an absent minded state was driving my bike..could have been fatal.. but GOD has been kind to me..I've managed with few bruises n blood clots,dint bother me much..somehow the mental pain has takenover the physical pain...

Last night I had a dream in which I was in my 12th class..it really helped me refresh my memories..the grind I went through preparing for IIT...the tension..the passion..the strength..the kick in life..the zeal to prove my myself...at that tender age I used to feel that I was born to prove something..do big things..
Really wondering how weaker I've ecome now...not anymore... should thank my sub-conscious mind to have stored those memories and brought back exactly the moment when I really needed it...

Now I say... even this day has to go..

Yours lovingly

I bought this for my niece
I like the camel tied to the letter 'l' :)

Blog Update

It's my sister birthday today so I called her up and then talked to my nephew and nieces. And as usual I've recorded the short phone conversation. It is in Telugu.Kindly bear with the weird sounds :P

Apart from that, Readers, you might not have observed this, I have modified my blog's look and feel. To add a little professional touch I have created 3 new tab pages.
About Blog : A lot of people have been asking me some questions like "Why do you blog?", "What do you write on?", "Why that url?" , "Why the title? Unknown? caption?"
So I hope now the About Blog page answers it all.
Feeds : People who would like to subscribe to my blog feeds can do it here.
Also I've added the About Me, which is my autobiography in one page.

My calendar for the day

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.....
and now if that all work is only meetings then it makes him a lunatic

Thank God it's Raksha Bandhan

Today early in the morning I got a call (ISD) from my sister. For a second I was scared if something was wrong and was praying GOD for it not to be.

Then I get the wishes.."Happy Raksha Bandhan" ..phew~ was my expression..

I didnt know that it was Raksha Bandhan..for GOD sake am in this gulf land....no idea on whats happening there in India. Forget festivals, I sometimes get confused on days too..it's friday-saturday weekend here.

Coming to Raksha Bandhan, earlier it was a festival celebrated mostly in northern India but now it is equally prevalent in southern India. I've seen rakhis sold in villages down south also.

This proves that festivals like these which signifies love & care among  people will always be embraced by every religion and region.

In the evening I called up my sis as I felt like talking to my nephew and twin nieces. I am attaching the audio of the short conversation here ->
My Nephew & Nieces
(It's in my mother tongue - telugu) I am sure they would be proud of their uncle when they grow up.
PS: Please bear with my loud voice, I was sitting in my hall and you get the echo.

My dream is to fly over the rainbow, so high

I like this song . You may find the original one here. Yves La Rock

When I was a kid, like most of us, I used to look high up in the sky at aeroplanes and wonder when I would get to fly in a plane and when I would get to travel to other countries.

Used to dream of flying in plane, served unlimited chocolates by hot air-hostesses, flanked by clouds on both the sides of the plane, look down at houses and lilliputs through the window......

Little did I know that air travel is not all hassle free thing.

As of today I can say I am a frequent flier, but not of any particular airline.

 

Just for the numbers sake, I took around 60 flights so far starting from the first one in 2003( Anil,Meghamsh,Anurag,Keerthi & Bhargav should remember this for pushing me into the plane as I was sick then). And I've seen about 6% of the globe and been to around 18 countries.

Now coming to the interesting part, some of the incidents I faced. I can bet I've experienced all types of issues with air travel except to the fatal ones (touchwood)!. Some are to be blamed on me also.

Flight delay and wait at airports.

Itinerary:- Hyderabad->Chennai->Muscat->Riyadh.

This was in the year 2006 when I was going to Saudi for my onsite project at Riyadh. A direct flight generally takes 4hrs(Emirates). But the great TCS booked me this long itinerary just to show off their loyalty towards Gulf Air(cheap flight). My luggage was a huge suitcase, 1 backpack and a laptop bag. This was my first time going out of the country and was going alone as the other person who was supposed to travel with me dropped out at the last moment. And that too it was to gulf land so there were butterflies in my stomach. Took a Kingfisher airline at Hyderabad Begumpet airport to Chennai and reached at around 8pm. My next flight was at 4am. I sat there in airport watching at people moving in and out, for me every minute was like an hour. That was one of the most boring moments in my life. I sat till around 10pm cursing TCS everynow and then, then comes the nature call.. I had to relieve myself urgently..had this whole luggage in front of me and cant leave it also...kept holding it for long time and when I realised I cannot any more I took the trolley kept my luggage on it and pushed it till the toilet, then I discover the toilet is so narrow cant take the trolley inside.. I looked around desperately..at one moment I thought I will leave it there..but somehow dint, I thought of asking someone to watch my luggage and was looking for reliable people around....then suddenly I spotted a cloak room far outside the airport..phew~..I went out showed the security the eticket.. dumped my luggage in the cloak room..kept my lappy with me..obviously...felt relieved....thanked GOD for saving me :)..the flight was delayed by 3hrs..it took off at 7am..was awake all the time..after reaching Muscat again there was delay with the next flight..around 6hrs. Finally when I reached Riyadh..I realised it took me 30hrs to reach that place.

Note:- Never ever board a Gulf Air flight. It's worse than a red bus(literally). All kind of mass and cheap people board the flight. By cheap I dont mean the people are poor. They behave insanely. Trying to touch the airhostess, throw the food stuff down, keep the used plates along the passage,fight with airhostess for an extra drink..etc..

Sleeping in airport

Itinerary:- Kolkata->Hyderabad

This was in the year 2008 when I was in my first year in IIM Calcutta, I was coming home to Hyderabad. I booked the Kingfisher flight which was at morning 6:50am. The airport is 50kms away from the campus, so we generally leave around 4am by taxi. Since I was traveling alone I dint want to take chance so I kept awake the whole night, at around 3 am called the taxiwalla, and reached the airport around 5am. Got my boarding pass and the security check was also done. The area near the gate was crowded with people waiting to board. I saw there was still 1hr time for boarding. I somehow managed to get a seat. Was looking at the clock..and in no time I was in dreams..I heard an announcement that the flight was delayed by 15mins. To this day also am not sure if it was in my dream or in real. So then I thought, ok I can sleep for some more time.....

After a long time...I woke up from my deep sleep and it was the pin drop silence which disturbed me..... There was no one around me...Then I remembered that I had a flight to take. I dint find the kingfisher flight in the charts also...ran to one kingfisher crew asked him about the flight. That man said the flight already left and I could see the frustration in his face, he yelled at me asking where I was all the time when the announcements were going on. I said "I was sleeping here(pointing at the seat)" and asked them how could they miss me. Then there was another crew member with a sorry face. I asked them, "now what? Can I get another flight immediately?"...At that moment..there was one girl(Kingfisher crew) standing at that gate.. shouting at me to run fast.. I ran fast towards the gate..then she told me get into the bus immediately..she ticked on my boarding pass..and I jumped into the bus..It dropped me next to the Kingfisher flight and left..... I was a like lilliput standing all alone next to this giant airbus plane.... Then after 5mins arrived the stairs, the captain opened the door for me. It was one embarrassing moment for me. I just avoided everyone staring at me.....could see some awkward faces...and murmurs..aaah wwoo...I just sat at my seat..slept till the breakfast arrived..and in no time we reached hyderabad..and even till then..I couldn't believe that I actually managed to take the flight.

Ok the story is not yet over...

I feel sick!

It's my 2nd weekend here, and is no different in terms of boredom when compared to the 1st but increased frustration levels thanks to my ill health. I am suffering from cold and fever and I've no mood to do anything in life. Today with great difficulty I had bread and maggi as breakfast n lunch.


I need some rest, not that I slogged the whole week. All I did was attending meetings.


I look worse than the image above...

Home alone in Doha

I am back to my solitude..and ya that's when I remember my alter-ego, the unknown (aparichithudu).
Its been 3 days here in the gulf land. I am in Doha, capital city of Qatar.
For a change there were no hassles this time during the whole journey.
It's my first weekend here and I am so bored. It is almost half the boiling point outside so cant dare to get out.
I am all alone in this 2BHK flat as my other roommate has gone to India to get his visa renewed. The unsecured wifi which we shamelessly steal also connects intermittently. And naturally even though you have some pending work at office it doesnt appeal much to work on weekends.


Thanks to the pirates, got to watch 'Tere Bin Laden' and 'Kattha Meetha' online. Both were not that funny as I expected to be. But TBL was better. In Kattha Meetha I felt, the stupidity part of Akshay was dragged to much. Trisha's character was crappy. It was like any another supporting actor and not a lead role. It wasn't that impactful.


Owing to my joblessness I say(but some say narcissism) I kept myself busy with self photography.
Here are my faces with different moods.
Weak-hearted ones should strictly avoid.
Children are supposed to browse under parental guidance.

Scary faces


It is not my homesickness but this time I want to go back to India soon. I've some plans for future , If all goes well InshaAllah I will be back in 2months.

25 random things about me...

I was tagged by many to write 25 random things about me...well to get rid of my writer's block..I will give it a try
In this one I'm going to reveal the darker side of me as well..so read it with a broad mind..and don’t jump into any conclusions.......cos I'm good :)

1)I'm an Aquarian


2)I am an egoist, but I try to be as modest as possible. I don't expect to be treated as special one..and be a cynosure ... but if some one acts smart in front of me taking advantage of my modesty I get really bad.

3)I am a GOD fearing person. Every day I get up, the first thing I do is look at the photo of GOD. I do pray whenever I visit some temple. My prayer is very short. I do it in my mother tongue, " Swamy ma amma nannu nu eppudu santhosha pettali" and thats it there ends the prayer. If I have to wait longer I repeat the same thing.


5)I believe am a strong willed person. I don't like to give up on anything. I will fail but not give up. That is one reason that made me discover the long distance athlete in me. Readers, I was the 2nd best long distance runner of my college.

6)I involve myself in many activities. I play football & hockey, and did play both in my under grad and even now. I'm part of the cultural events organizing teams. I'm part of many interest groups like trading,networking,adventuring etc.

7) I'm very well connected with people over net. I use orkut, linkedin, facebook, twitter, blip,youtube, blogger, digg, interscope and bloglog.

8)I'm very shy when it comes to talking to girls. I was never lucky in having a girl friend


9)In all the testimonials I got... ppl say that I have a good sense of humor, so I believe that..


10)Currently I'm in Bangalore and I miss my bike, speakers....

11)I have this hidden desire of becoming an actor..don't mind even if it's a villain or a supporting actor..:)

12)By the time I turn 40 I would like to set up an empire...a conglomerate of companies..yes obviously not alone..with some of my bestest friends...will drag them in.. :)

13)I lost 6 lakhs in one trade last year...took sometime to recover from the shock...from then I hardly did any trading. A big lesson learnt the harder way.

14)If all went well I would have made 12 lakhs out of it. I had a plan to set up a water bottling plant along with my friend with an initial investment of 50 lakhs.

15)I can speak Telugu, Hindi, English very fluently. Understand Tamil and speak a little. Can speak a little of Arabic and French. Currently learning Kannada and Bengali.I did a course in Japanese

16)I'm always ready to give free fundaes to anyone. I know there are a lot of people out there who have been victimised by my unsolicited tips/suggestions/ideas/advice


17)I once said that I'm secular by heart. Let me tell this. I used to love the Namaz(Salath) read out when I was there in Saudi. And many times I used to recite along with it.

18)I have this weakness, which is getting worse. I can't explain things in crisp. I'm so used to writing the long globe answers that I end up writing too much for even the silliest of the questions.

19)Don't even dare to ask me the story of the movie I watched. I will narrate the whole screenplay for u giving u the actual feel of the movie. I can't help it. I can't even cut it short.

20)I don't like to drink tea, coffee, milk and any fizz.

21)My academic interests are Mathematics, Statistics, Economics(lately discovered) and Finance.

22)My other interests are traveling, social networking, blogging, playing computer games and sketching.

23)In Hollywood I find Kiera Knightley and Scarlett Johansson very beautiful, In Tollywood I like Charmy :D..just recently..



24)Of the books I read some books which I really liked were Iacocca and Wings of Fire

25)Some movies which I can watch again and again without getting bored are Life is beautiful, Shawshank Redemption, Pursuit of Happyness, Sarfarosh…






Huh!.. 25 is too small a number to write about me. I wrote them randomly and there is no logical flow of the points.


Note:- I've no intentions to steal the images, infact I've used the links giving credit to the owners of the images. If any of the creators have any issue please let me know I'll remove the image.

The party at Darjeeling

All of us were high :)..yea at 6900ft above sea level

The Trip to North East - Part II

After the long 1st part now comes the 2nd part, I've no idea how long this one would be.

So after the adventurous trip from darjeeling we finally reached Gangtok. We checked into this hotel called Shonali international. A 3 bedroom suite costed us around 450 bucks..Now the 3 bedroom is not a room with 3 beds..But a bed which is large enough to accommodate 3 normal sized people...so our soham was obvious left over. He got a special bed. The worst part was there was water problem all over Gangtok. It was the 3rd day they were facing that problem. The hotel service people were kind enough to get water in buckets for us whenever we asked for. Another strange thing about Gangtok is that the city sleeps early. By 8:30pm all shops and hotels close down. We went out at 9pm and there were hardly any hotels. There was one hotel called Bayul which was open at that time with no customers in it. We were happy to find it open and went in and sat there. The lone server gave us a menu and asked what we would like to order. Whatever we asked for he said it wasn’t available..finally we asked him to get whatever he has.. for that he said he just had 2plate chicken and no rotis... we got pissed and left that hotel...and then went further..finally we found a hotel called Tashi Delek restaurant. This one is big and has an open air restro also. We got something there but it was not upto our satisfaction levels. By the way Tashi Delek is "Namaste" in Sikkimese.

While coming back to our hotel we took a taxi, thats when we met this person Dhava(Dhaba). He is a very active person. He told he would arrange for our Nathula and Lachung trip, initially we were a little sceptical about the guy so we didn’t pay him any money but later we realised that this guy is a gentle soul. Infact most of the Sikkimese people are very cordial. They respect the tourists because tourism is their daily bread and butter. So you can trust any Sikkimese person. The next day we left to Lachung which is around 150kms from Gangtok. The trip costed us 800 per head. This is because it's off peak season else it could go up till 2000.

The way to Lachung is one of the worst ghat roads I've ever seen. There were even quite a few of breathtaking moments while going. You see warnings about shooting stones and landslides. The road is narrow and it is a 2 way road. The driver of our cab was Mr. Dhrubha. He is one arrogant rash driver. He doesnt like following any vehicle..He will do anything to overtake that vehicle. So just imagine with all this it was one hell of a ride to Lachung.

The first stop was at “Seven sister falls”. Its called so cos the waterfall before touching the ground hits seven rocks and changes its course. We stayed for sometime and took some pics.


The waterfalls in background



Then we moved on to a place called Rang Rang, where we had our lunch in a hotel. We got nice dal and fish curry there. This food was also included in the package.



The next stop was some waterfalls I don’t remember the name, If some one knows the name of this waterfalls please to update me. We took some pics there, I almost broke my bones. I slipped on a rock but was lucky to get away with just some scratches. Then we moved on.



We were getting closer to the mountains covered with ice. It was getting colder and dark. We stopped at another water falls. This one is the scariest waterfall I've ever seen in whole of life time. It falls from a great height. The height of which is not mentioned anywhere. This waterfall is called Amitabh falls for the obvious reasons. The water there was so cold that I was shivering inspite of wearing 2 shirts and a jacket over that.


You can see me in the pic..


A full size photo of Amitabh falls

At around 6pm we finally reached Lachung where we checked into a small hotel. By then it was pitch dark over there and there were no street lights but still we decided to check out the village. We walked for quite a long distance, The following pic shows the wooden houses in the village.


Can you see a kid posing for the photo

The next day morning we left to the place called Yumthang, where you get to do skiing but to our disappointment the way to Yumthang was blocked because of an avalanche. So we stopped 7kms before Yumthang and played with ice over there. We were disappointed with the trip because we couldnt do the skiing which was the main reason for coming to the place.


Snowman

We left to Gangtok that afternoon around 2pm. In the mid way there was some landslide and all the vehicles were stuck up on either side of the road. It took around 4hrs for the whole thing to clear up. The BRO came and cleared it using bull dozers and dynamites. We explored the hilly village in mean time.


The Landslide

Finally we reached Gangtok at around 9pm. By then our hero Dhava was ready with all processing for Nathula. Dear readers for Nathula you need to get permits done a day before and it’s better you get it from some travel agent. We checked into another hotel called Viewpoint hotel. This hotel costed us 550 per day and even in this theres one large bed and an extra bed. I chose the extra bed :). We then planned to go to casino but the hotel wala was very strict he told that he would close the gate of the hotel at 10:30 and after that even if some one bangs the gate no one would open, he even told us to check out if we want to go out. So we gave up the idea of Casino. That night me and Soham tried weed :) I dint get high with it may be cos of the quality of the weed. This is the first time I tried and probably the last time also.

The next day we got up around 8, and got ready for the Nathula trip.
The driver of this cab was Sunil. Along with us there were 2 families. A couple sat in the front seat. The second family was a Rajasthani family consisting of mom, dad and 2 sons. They were so excited that we were from IIM Calcutta :). They asked us to guide their son, Most of the time I was silent but my friends Soham and Swadheen were active in giving free fundaes :). Somehow the discussion went on about girls. Thats when the lady told that girls in Darjeeling are so beautiful for which 3 of us concurred but our ultra pseud Kalyan refuted saying girls in Europe are beautiful. There was a pin drop silence after that then I again broke the silence saying I am a desi and I like only desi stuff ;)

We reached Nathula at around 11pm. It is at 14000 feet above sea level and cold and windy. My hands shivered even after wearing gloves. I couldnt click the camera properly, It was that bad. We went close to the gate,which was electrified, and took pics. The Chinese rang a siren and warned us. Our Accountant was shouted by Chinese military people personally when he stepped on the barbed wire.


That's where we were warned by Chinese


Look at the Chinese army man looking at my friend's feet.

After this we left to another point called Baba Harbhajan Singh Mandir. It was constructed in memory of a person named Harbhajan singh who was in army and died during his service. It seems after his death he appeared in dreams of people in army and warned them of all impending dangers like avalanches, attacks etc. The army people are staunch believers of him and whoever passes by that route stop in front of it and leave only after offering prayers.


Baba Harbhajan Singh Mandir

We bought some souvenirs there. Then we left to Tsomgo lake a video of which I already uploaded. In simple words it's heaven on earth. For a beautiful description do check the video. We took a yak ride there. The Yak on which I sat was called Jack.


Tsomgo Lake

Then we went to Sherbathang market where we bought some more souvenirs and had our lunch( wai wai and chowmin).


Hot Hot Wai Wai


We then left to Gangtok and reached there around 8pm. We requested the hotel wala to keep the gate open atleast for that one time for us. He was very strict over that but after repeated request he told he will keep it open till 11:30pm and will close the very next minute. We thought something was better than nothing and left to the Casino. It was a nice experience there. We initially lost our money in roulette but later with some strategy made up for all the loss, We then left the place and while coming out we met 2 of our friends who were coming to the Casino, we again went back to Casino accompanying them. This time we made losses again but were not confident enough so left. Finally it was not worth it :(

We went back to hotel at around 10:30pm itself. We talked to Dhava about our plan for the last day. We wanted to cover the Rumtek monastery, Lingdum monastery and Teestha water rafting.

The next day we checked out the hotel at around 9am and got into the taxi. The driver of the taxi was Subash who was again very cooperative; He drove really fast for us so that we could cover all those places. We were running out of time cos we had the Calcutta train to catch on that day evening at Siliguri. We first went to this place called Banjhakhri falls, this is the worst place and I dont suggest anyone to visit this place. I think may be kids in KG may enjoy that place else it’s not worth it.

After that we went to Lingdum monastery. It was big and very peaceful.


You are supposed to roll that and chant this mantra "Om Mani Padme Hung"

Then we left for Rumtek monastery. This monastery is one of the most visited monsateries in Asia. A lot of Bhutanese visit this place. Theres a small book shop cum canteen to the right side in the monastery owned by one cute lady. She told she is from Kharaghpur. We bought the Buddhist incense sticks over there. Then we visited a Tibet curio, you get all antique stuff there, outside the monastery. The owner of the shop is Ms. Siring an old lady. We bought a lot of goodies there.


Rumtek Monastery

We skipped our lunch to do the rafting as we running out of time. The place where we do rafting is Millie. The rafting thing costed us 1400 Rs and a 100 more for photography. It was a nice experience rafting. We did for almost 8kms. The wind was very strong and it was difficult rowing there. We even got into the river and swimming for sometime. Then after rowing for 8kms we finally reached our destination. We were shameless to change our dress on the main road though there was changing room just to save 15 bucks ;)


After we were done with the rowing

We then left to New Jalpai Guri by our taxi. Thats it.. This is how our trip to North East ended. It was an awesome experience and I would like to suggest all my readers to try visiting North East atleast once in your lifetime :)

Things to keep in mind
1) Keep winter clothing when you are visiting North-East
2) Vaseline, Boroplus are must
3) Sikkimese people are very courteous
4) Kolkata mobiles are not roaming in Sikkim