Arvind Kamath Blog on Travel and Leisure

Travel Tale – Europe My dream of visiting almost all the Western European countries in 13 days was fulfilled when I successfully completed this tour on Tuesday 7th November. I had earlier seen European cities viz. London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt but this tour gave me an opportunity to see all the other leading European cities like Paris, Brussels, Cologne, Rotterdam, Lucerne, Innsbruck, Rome, Milan, Venice, Florence and compare them. My journey started with a quick tour of London covering Madamme Tussaud’s wax museum, the House of Parliament, Tower bridge, Big Ben and Buckingham Palace. Famous for unpredictable weather, London did not provide good photo opportunity due to mild showers. We started for Paris in the evening by Eurostar. The journey through English Channel took us just 200 minutes to reach Paris. Paris was all glitter and charm and is known for its famous night life. The city of rich and famous also offers gastronomic delight, with some of the best cuisine in the world. Th...

Sri Lanka. The name conjures up images of a war torn country, poor country, “what is there to see in that country” and so on… When I planned to visit Sri Lanka, I was met with some opposition from my family members but ultimately I was able to convince not just my wife and kid but also my parents, who agreed to be part of this journey. But this country can throw up a surprise if you visit this place with less expectations of a great holiday destination. From the time we stepped into the Bandaranayake International Airport at Colombo on the afternoon of 28th December till we entered this airport again to leave for India on 2nd January, we were really enchanted by this beautiful Island and its truly lovely people. The flight from Chennai to Colombo takes just over an hour. The view from the aircraft is really breath taking especially when the plane glides through the Indian Ocean and the beautiful lagoon to land at Colombo. Don’t miss the tip of Sri Lanka. The first impression we get of ...

This was my first visit to Bhubaneshwar, the Temple City of India and was very apprehensive before landing here since I had heard lot of stories about this place – both good and bad. From the aircraft the city looked flooded due to incessant rainfall since last couple of weeks but looked neat and compact with a small town look. Bhubaneshwar airport is small but well maintained. I was greeted by a board that read “ Infosys welcomes ARBINDH KAMATA” . My name was already translated to Oriya language by the friendly cab driver J The drive to airport to Infosys campus (about 20 kms) took just 25 minutes with no traffic jam. The roads are wide and well maintained with good amount of greenery all around. Being a travel freak, I made the team miss the Saturday afternoon siesta. We set off for local sight seeing starting with the main temple – Lingaraj temple. We were already warned about the priests who pester a lot and make you pay “dakshina” forcefully. The ancient temple houses the Shiva Li...