Yahoo! Maps provides driving directions for Indian roads. This is a major accomplishment in my opinion giving the complex network of roads that we have in India.

Given below is the driving directions from the Bangalore HAL Airport to MG Road. Quite impressive I might say. Click on the image to get the Yahoo! Maps page for the same.

From Yahoo’s site:

In India, we drive a little differently. We drive on the left. Or the right, if the left is occupied. We also give directions a little differently. “Third right after the big banyan tree on your left” might leave many bemused, but is guaranteed to lead the lost, out here.

We’ll tell you directions with landmarks to watch out for while taking turns. We’ll also tell you how many turns come before the one you have to make. So, go and take this feature out for a test drive and tell us what you think. If you, like us, spend a good portion of our lives arguing with auto rickshaw drivers on the correct fare, then you’ll be pleased to see the auto fare calculation along with the driving directions. Enough said. Time for you to take a serious look at making http://in.maps.yahoo.com/Kargil%20to%20Kanyakumari, this trip. 115 steps on the map, but a journey of a lifetime.

Some slick things that you may notice:

• Directions for all of India (well, wherever we have data) and wherever US Maps works.
• Auto rickshaw fares ( A three wheeler Cab that we use to commute )
• Directions in SMS/Text ( You’ve heard that a lot of people in India have mobiles, right? )
• One search box and hence multi way points ( such as this one http://in.maps.yahoo.com/#?addr=delhi%20to%20bombay%20to%20bangalore )

I got the opportunity to travel again to Coorg this weekend. Coorg is about 230km from Bangalore and takes about 6hrs to get there if you’re traveling in a bus. By car, it shouldn’t take more than 4-5hrs in my opinion. Coorg is also known as the Scotland of India.

From Wikipedia:

Kodagu is a district of Karnataka state in southern India. It is often called by the anglicised name of Coorg. It occupies about 4,100 km in the Western Ghats of southwestern Karnataka. It has a population of 548,561 as of 2001, 13.74% of which is urbanised. It is bordered by Dakshina Kannada to the northwest, Hassan District to the north, Mysore District to the east, Kannur District of Kerala state to the southwest and Wayanad district of Kerala to the south. The district headquarters is located at Madikeri.

This was an “adventure holiday” with boating, trekking, and a night drive in a jeep in pitch darkness thrown in for good measure.

We were a group of 20 and stayed at “Base Camp 1″ of Jungle Mount Adventures, close to Virajpet.

Day 1 (Saturday) was more of a chilled-out day with leisurely boating and multiple rounds of cricket played. Can you think of anyone scoring 12 runs in 6 overs (a team of 7 a-side), and defending it! Well…that’s how good we were at cricket

In the evening, we had a camp fire with drinks flowing all around. Just prior to the camp fire, we had an awesome experience of taking a drive in an open jump, standing at the back with Sagar (the owner of the camp), ripping the jeep at high speeds up the hill with all lights turned off. And yes, there were no street lights, so he was driving in pitch darkness. The was an unbelievable experience. It beat the hell out of all roller coaster rides I took at Six Flags Magic Mountain at Los Angeles.

Day 2 (Sunday), we had more boating!! We also, went to the Chelavara Waterfalls. This being the rainy season, the waterfall was a sight to see. We also did trekking up a hill for about an hour.

More photographs from this trip is available at Coorg - The Scotland of India.

Sunday evening, we packed our bags and headed back to Bangalore. This was 2 days of great fun for all.

For those planning a weekend gateway from Bangalore, visit Coorg, if you haven’t done so already. For a list of hotels in and around Coorg, visit HolidayIQ.com. If you’re interested in staying at the Jungle Mount Adventure Camp, do drop a comment below and I’ll send you the contact details.

I recently gave Google Earth another try for locating places in Bangalore. Was I surprised!! The new version of Google Earth has fairly accurate road maps and landmarks highlighted for Bangalore.

It was such an ease to find places. Just type in the name of the road, and presto, it’ll show you the location.How you get there is still left to you! I don’t think any software can help track the number of times roads in Bangalore are converted from one-way’s to bi-directional traffic. But, nonetheless, it was of great help finding locations in Bangalore using Google Earth.

While writing this note, I checked on other major cities and found road maps available for them as well.

So, next time you have to visit a place you don’t know how to get to, use Google Earth.

Our lives depend on Google these days

I used a website called arzoo.com to book an airline ticket once and I’m starting to regret it. I thought they had good values, and ethics, but it looks like they have none. The annoying number of SMS (text message) spam that they send is quite ridiculous.

In the last 2 days alone, I’ve got over 30 messages from them and it just doesn’t stop.

What the f**k? Do these guys want to gain customers or lose existing ones? I’m absolutely pissed at this. Several emails to them have gone unanswered. Just goes on to show how good their “customer support” is. Eh! Did I use customer support. They have “customer spammers” I guess.

I for sure am never going to use that website again; and my advice would be the same for you, unless you like getting spammed.

Arzoo.com….you suck.

EDIT: I just received this email from them:

We have sent the promo offer to our existing user database. There has been a system malfunction. We have already taken you off the list. However due the malfunction, you would have still got the sms. We assure you that you will not receive any more sms from tommorow onwards.

Cheerz,

Sameer Patil

I just don’t buy what they are saying; and he wants me to cheer up.!!! Use your judgment before you ever think of buying a ticket from them.

If you’re planning a holiday in some location in India and have been on the lookout for some good resorts or hotels to book, look no further than HolidayIQ. HolidayIQ is a community driven website which provides you with some wonderful real world inputs on various hotels and resorts across India. In fact, its not restricted to India alone. HolidayIQ is a global website covering various countries, but their Indian database is quite remarkable.

 You’ll find no marketing gimmicks from the hotels but real feedback from holiday vacationers that visited those places. If you like the place, just click on a button and let HolidayIQ deliver a package just for you…

I’ve been using their site for a long long time to decide on which places to book when I go on holidays.

Looking for that great dining place and don’t know how to go about making a reservation?

If you’re in one of the Metros in India, look no further than Burrp! Its a wonderful directory that all foodies will love. Not only do you get the contact details but also reviews by others who have visited the place.

Oh! Not to forget…The site is quite Web 2.0′ish.

Munnar is a hill resort at an altitude of 6000ft in Kerala.

Its got unending tea plantations and it untouched by modern day commercialization. Its a lovely place to visit for a relaxing holiday.

I visited Munnar during the rainy season and you get to see numerous small and large waterfalls which are simply amazing! If you do happen to visit Munnar, do try to stay in a Tea Plantation, its the best way to get up close and personal with nature.

Some photographs for you to enjoy:
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It seems to be the season for Indian Search Engines!!

I’ve come across another search engine, called AskLaila, which currently focuses on Bangalore only. Its founders have a fair deal of IT experience behind them.

The search engine has similarities with Guruji, which was reviewed earlier. You can specify what you’re looking for and pops comes the results with address, phone number and even an open to SMS the details to your phone, all for free!

The database doesn’t seem to be quite comprehensive right now, but that can be excused since the site is still in Beta. The plans are there to expand to several Indian cities and hopefully along with that the database will get quite comprehensive.

Given the current choices of local search engines cum directory services, it looks quite promising for Bangalore at least to have all things digitized for easy search and retrieval.

Now…will someone help in getting rid of the power cuts so that all these websites can be accessed!

There is a new search engine in Town, called Guruji!

Its India specific and very promising. I tried locating a few restaurants in Bangalore, and the results were bang on target. I then tried searching for my car’s service station since the car is due for a service. It failed on this search!:-(

The interface has an uncanny resemblance to Google though!!

Its got support for Indian languages and if they continue to build on their platform, I think its got a very bright future. Check it out…

 

I came across to very nice sites that people staying or traveling in India can fully make use of:

• MapMyIndia gives driving directions within two locations in India on the lines of MapQuest. So for the next weekend getaway you plan, you can get your travel directions from this website with ease. The site could do with some usability improvements, but its something we missed all this while in India.

• So, lets say you’re in Bangalore for a moment…but you are not familiar with the city. How do you find that restaurant or pub that you’ve heard so much about! Try OnYoMo. Currently available for a few cities in India, you can search for a host of things on the site, including restaurants, movie halls, shopping, laundry services, etc! The best part is that they have a WAP enabled website as well. This will enable you to search using your cell phone.

Two awesome sites that hold a lot of promise!