Trip to Mont St. Michel, France

By now we had seen most of museums/churches in and around Paris and we were on look out for a place which is not a museum or church but should something out of Wonderland.

We heard of Mont St. Michel, heard it is small island with a castle constructed in the middle covering most of Island. The Island is separated from the mainland by approximately 1 km which is covered by water 12 hours a day during the High Tide. Island is about 1 km in diameter and about 70-80 meter jutting above the ocean.

Mont St. Michel is on the north coast of France, near the border of Brittany and Normandy. It is around 320 kms west of Paris.

We decided to visit this magnificent structure and Planned for a weekend trip during first week of April. We booked tickets to Mont St. Michel and reserved a family room at Avranches, a small French village 15 kms away from Mont St. Michel. We were team of 7 members.

In order to reach Mont St. Michel we had take the high-speed TGV train from Paris's Gare Montparnasse to Rennes, the train journey was for about 3 hours and went through one of finest and magnificent scenic route with large green landscapes and green top mountains and going through numerous tunnels..

(Picture #1: TGV from Paris to Rennes)

At Rennes we had to take a bus to reach Mont St. Michel, there are frequent buses operated from Rennes to Mont St. Michel, The Bus journey was for about 1 hour duration.

When you approach the Mont St Michel from 10 kms away you would be treated with one of the truly magnificent views. You can see the hill with castle on top from a distance and as you get closer you also see the water.
(Picture #2: First View of Mont St. Michel from the Bus)
(Picture #3: Closer View of Mont St. Michel from the Bus)
For a moment, you begin to wonder how something of this magnitude, this beautiful structure is able to exist in the middle of the water.

You are allowed to visit the castle only during specific times of the day when the tide is low. This has been one of the natural forms of defense for the castle against the invading enemies and the castle is accessible only for 12 hours during the low tide to launch their attack. Apart from this natural defense the entire castle is surrounded by high walls and mountains making it one of the most impregnable structure of all times in the history.
(Picture #4: Mont St. Michel surrounded by Water except the road)


Upon entering the Mont, you begin to traverse a small avenue with shops and restaurants on both sides of the avenue. Many wonderful gifts can be found in these shops. The angle of the incline becomes a little steep as you continue up the avenue.

Some of these shops sold one of the best ice creams and I got to taste one best soft home made Vanilla Ice cream.

Later you will learn that the top of the avenue is only about 1/3 of the height you will climb to reach the top of the Mont.

As you climb the series of steps up to the castle, you think of the history of the Castle, and imagine yourself traveling back in time several hundred years back walking amongst the clergy there at the Mont

The tour of the castles starts in the cathedral at the very top and spirals down through the many levels and is very well laid out.

Once you enter the Castle, it is truly breathtaking, the wonderful architecture that dates back 100s of years. When you reach the top, the view is most wonderful and breathtaking. When we arrived, the tide was still high and water had surrounded most of castle leaving only a road to reach the Mont. However, by the time we reached the top, the tide had begun to subside fast and we were able to swamp land around which was just few hours back covered by Water.
The tide (the bay has the second fastest tides in the world) went out we were to walk around the base of the island, shooting some of magnificent photographs some of which have become wall papers on most of our desktop PCs/Lap tops.

Sitting on the very top while we treated our eyes to one most fabulous views, we lavished on the fabulous ice creams to cool down our appetite.
We spent most of the day and late evening visiting the castle and for the night we halted at Avranches, in comfortable hotel.

Next day we walked the entire length of the road leading to Mont St. Michel while capturing some of the best photos during our walk.
(Picture #5: Mont St. Michel with Low tide in my hands)

My experiences of Living in France, Paris

France has a Multi cultured, Multi religious population. One can find people from all parts of the world from African origin, Srilankans, Chinese, Indians, and people from Middle East etc.
People in non urban areas seem to be more friendly and helpful then Metro population. People in Metros lead more mechanical and busy life then there non urban counterparts.

At work it is very rare to receive an appreciation from a French; the only kind of appreciation would be if there are no complaints about your work.

Language:
French is official language of France and very small population knows English. It is advisable for people who plan to visit France for business or work to pick up few day to day words in French.

Transportation:
Traveling in France or any part of Europe is a very comfortable experience. France and especially Paris has one of the best and well connected railway system and supposed to be one of the best in the world.

Traveling to any part of Paris is through underground trains, there are 2 forms of trains operating underground one is RER and other is the Metro, Metro runs within Paris city limits and is much smaller & runs on smaller tracks and shorter stops.

RER runs in the suburbs and outskirts of Paris and has got much wider tracks and mostly double Decker type and has got longer stops. These underground trains form the network under Paris, using these trains and Metro buses we can go to any part of Paris.

And there is TGV (High speed trains) which travel longer distances and connect different regions of France. It travels at an average of 200kmph. TGVs (high speed trains), Euro star’s, Eurorails connects most of the European cities

And there is Euro line, the bus network connecting all of the European cities.

Food and Wine:
Potato is kind of staple food for French; potatoes are eaten in various forms. Boiled whole potatoes, completely mashed potato, potato fries, French fries. Other vegetarian food includes boiled carrots, beans, lettuce. In non vegetarian food Duck, Chicken, Pork and Beef are most commonly consumed meat.

French food is mostly available in the form of boiled, fried or grilled and lacks spice. And it would take a while to get adapt to the taste of French food. Vegetarians will have tough time finding food. Breakfast can be managed by Bread/Jam/Butter, croissants (Kind of plain puff), Pain au Chocolate (Kind of puffs stuffed with chocolate), juice, and milk. French lunch/Dinner often end by having a cup of coffee or tea.

Other cuisine like Italian (Pizza, Pasta), Turkish food (Doner kebab), Asian (Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese), American (McDonald's) can be readily found in most of the places in France. Indian cuisine is not very popular but can be found in most places in Paris

Cheese and Wine:
France is known for its large ranges of wines and cheeses. It seems more then 300 different types of cheese is made here and France is one of the biggest wine producing regions in world, guess most of you have heard about Champagne, Burgundy and Bordeaux. Well Champagne, Burgundy and Bordeaux are different regions in France and wine made in this place gives it the name.

Places to Visit in Paris:
Paris is one of the most popular and widely visited tourist destination in Europe. In Paris, following are the popular must visit places
- Musée de Louvre
- Eiffel tower
- Notre Dame

Louvre Museum
This is world famous museum which has a collection of the world’s most celebrated paintings like Mona Lisa, Last Supper etc. The Museum was made more famous by Dan brown with his best selling book 'Da Vinci code' and now with his book made into film, it has become all the more famous as never before. This is the place where the plot for ‘Da Vinci code’ begins with the murder of the curator unfolds into mind boggling story and climaxes by showing the location of Holy Grail. If you are a Dan brown fan and have read ‘Da Vinci code’ then never miss Louvre and not without a photograph in front of the inverted pyramids, the location of the famous most sought after Holy Grail in Da Vinci code.

Embedded is the picture of inverted pyramids at Louvre, the location of Holy Grail as per Da Vinci code

Eiffel Tower:
France, Paris is often known by Eiffel tower. No visit to Paris is complete without visiting the world famous Eiffel tower and not without the magnificent view from the top of the tower itself.
Eiffel tower has three stages. For going to top there are lifts operated at all four corners of the Tower. First the lift takes you to the 2nd stage or floor, we have to get down here and take another set of smaller lifts to go to top, as we go up the tower the tower gets thinner and the lifts also get smaller. From the top you get one of magnificent of Paris; you have to go to top just before dark so that you can get the view of Paris both during day time and night time.

One more thing about Eiffel tower is just after dark the lights on tower starts blinking for a duration of about 10mins, this happens after every 1 hour after. This gives one of the amazing views of the Eiffel tower and one that should not be missed.

The Beauty of Eiffel tower can be bested enjoyed by choosing to view at different times during the day and night. Light plays fabulous trick on the tower and it assumes different color at different times.
Embedded are few pictures of Eiffel tower and its different shades
Picture #1: Eiffel tower during the day time
Picture #2: Eiffel tower just after sunset
Picture #3: Eiffel tower with lights on
Picture #4: Eiffel tower with Blinking lights on
Other places to visit in Paris
Sacro ceur: Specialty about this church is that it has been constructed on a small mountain and it has got one of the spectacular views of the Paris city from the top, the church itself is very beautiful white structure

Luxemburg gardens: Magnificent garden, park for an evening stroll and playground for children
Pantheon: Burial place for the most famous and greatest men and women
Invalides: Napoleon’s tomb and military museum
Champs Elyeeses: One of the famous streets in France and has shopping malls, restaurants, pubs and cinema theatres on either side of streets

Other popular destinations in France
Euro Disney, Asterix Parc, Versailles, Lille, Caen, Nice, Marseille, Monaco
Mount Saint Michel, Mont Blanc in Alps
Watch out for this space for more articles about my travel experiences in other parts of France and other European locations

Kudur Rural Reach Program Short Story - Jayaprakash

Program participants: Krishna, Rajesh, Damodar, Sai Krishna, Murali, Vidhyadhar, Vinayak, Jayaprakash, Somashekar, Saritha, Shubha, Mridula, Gurunath, Sanjay, Krishna, Shreenidhi

The trip schedule and agenda for the Kudur Rural Reach Program was well planned and informed to all the parties by E & R department.

Then it all started on cool Saturday morning (22-July-05). The Bus took off from Infy Campus with all the computers, books, pens required for the program loaded in its booty. Bus left the campus at around 7:30am with everyone getting a missed call. It followed the route from INFY CAMPUS ->Raghavendra Math->Silk board->Devegowda petrol bunk Banashankari bus stop-> Vijaynagar Main Rd->Jalahalli cross, stopping only to pick up the E&R executives. Jalahalli cross was the last stop for the pickup and then we stopped only once on the city outskirts of city for having Break fast.

Break fast was packed Idli, vadas from Adiga’s supplemented with gulkan ban. Breakfast tasted really good, Somehow I have always found that Idlis taste yummy when we are on trip and Gulkan bun was really excellent. After breakfast everybody had a gulp of water and we started of on our onward journey to Kudur grama 60 kms aways from Bangalore.

The journery to Kudur itself was fun filled; it started of with everybody giving 2 mins introduction about themselves. We were all around 16 in number. Rajesh entertained the crowd with his good old kananda songs, jana padha geetaygalu, Murali and everybody joined with their bit of talent in singing. All this while the bus was on the move and either side one could treat their eyes with the green trees, the black/brown mountains, the well cultivated lands, and some cultivated lands still dry and waiting on monsoon rains to quench it with water. The fresh air was blowing on our faces and the air was so fresh filled with aroma of country side, I guess Murali also joked about the air being so fresh that is not good for our health. On our we also saw a mountain engulfed in clouds which almost resembled like a volcano J this was one of the most captivating sights.

We reached Kudur grama round 11:00pm. It was a small, sweet and quite village away from hustle, bustle of the City. The main source of income seemed to come from handlooms and agriculture. The Government Middle school had around 300+ kids. As soon we reached the school we were allocated 4 rooms for the Rural Reach program. We set up one room for introductory presentation and other 3 rooms for setting up 10 computers for practical session.

For introductory presentation all the village heads, school heads, school teachers & around 100 schools were present. It started with Head Master’s welcome address, followed by a prayer from a school teacher. Then Vinayak from Infosys Team provided brief explanation about the objective of the Rural Reach Program.
“Rural reach programme is a one day programme to students of classes 5, 6 and 7 in rural area schools delivering the very basics and needs of computer and give them practical hands on session on computers. The students are given a day to see, touch and explore a computer and its peripheral. This program only sows the seed and it is responsibility of the school officials to take care and grow it into a big computer”

The 300+ kids were divided into 3 batches and each batch were given a presentation in Kannada about the computer, its components, working, uses and step to gain more knowledge. Looking at the enthusiast children listening and questioning was a treat to eyes and ears. Answering there simple basic curious question was really fun to the Presenters. Kids enjoyed the show and most of them volunteered to read the contents from the PPT.

After the presentation the kids were divided into batches of 7 each for the practical session. In the practical session we showed the different parts of computer, most of them were keen and curious to touch different computer parts. They were shown how to use Word, Excel, calculator and Paint. And as usual MS-Paint was successful in captivating their attention.

At round 2pm we came to the end of our programme and kids ran away to grab their share of sweets. Kids were also given Notebook, Pen and a book on computers written by Sudha Murthy and then it was lunch time for kids bringing to an end a memorable day for the kids. I am sure in the coming days most of them would be talking about computers and at least 50% would be inspired to know more computers and thus achieving objective of the RRP.

We then started packing/loading the computers back into the bus. Then started the group photo sessions followed by lunch organized by school officials. For lunch we were served with Puliyogare, Avalakki masaru, Rice and huli which all tasted extra fabulous and satisfied our hunger.

We then had a walk towards a Tender coconut groove. Here we were introduced to tastiest fresh tender coconuts; we all dived upon the coconut like hungry bees starved for the nectar, sucking the sweet liquid to quench our thirst. It never ceases to amaze me of how the coconut tree manages to convert our polluted water into such a holy life saving liquid. After empty nearly 2 dozen coconuts we traced back to the school, on the way spent few mins playing cuckoo with kids, the kids were very enthusiastic in showing of their talents in front of us (aliens). That was end of our stint at Kudur, we then boarded the bus eagerly for our return journey back to our Big Bang hustle bustle Bangalore.

On the way back in the bus, we were again entertained by Dance from Rajesh & Krishna. Rajesh turned out to be real crowd entertainer bringing waves of laughter from the crowd. It had started raining by then; the village side looked greener than never before. The cool breeze mixed with rain droplet blew fresh on our faces. The aroma from breeze was a welcome relief to our tired lungs. It was still raining when we reached Bangalore around 6:00pm.
This brings to the end of the most memorable trip and the Kudur Rural Reach Program

Trip to Mount Bonnell

Mount Bonnell
3800 Mount Bonnell Road
Austin, Texas

This weekend (Feb 15 2003) we (Jayaprakash & Prashanth Hallur) had been to Mount Bonnell located in Austin, Texas, U.S, a natural paradise on earth. As the name indicates Mount bonnell is a place in the mountains. From atop Mount Bonnell you could see the river (Colorado River) winding through the Hill Country. It is supposed to be over 700 feet above sea level, a natural limestone formation standing about 200 feet above the surrounding area.

The Drive to Mount bonnell itself was very exciting, the drive started from our suite in the heart of the city with highways and flyovers surrounding it. We left our suite around 3:00pm, we had the Austin Map to guide us, and it is around 20 mins drive to Mount Bonnell. After around 10 mins of driving through the Austin weekend traffic, we hit the road leading to the Mt Bonnell; the traffic and straight roads gave way to dense vegetation and winding roads.

We used to have the glimpse of the green tree topped mountains now and then, at one point when we turned a winding road, instantly the steep mountain covered with ever green trees loomed in front of us, there were houses constructed cunningly on the ledges of this mountain, just the place for any nature lover. As the winding road led into mountains the view got better and better, we were climbing the mountain now, as we turned another winding road, we got a glimpse of gleaming water, now we were around 200 feet above the surrounding area.

At one point, the vegetation on the right side cleared and we could see the river almost 200 feet below us and on the left side was the green mountain with houses hanging here and there. We parked our car and climbed the final 10mts to the side of the mountain, as we reached the side we saw one the magnificent views of the lifetime, believe me guys if I say it is a natural paradise on earth, I won't be wrong, no words can describe the view better, and Let me try my best to put the view in words.

View Description: "On my right was the mountain rising above me with wooden houses on the ledges, 200 feet below us was the flowing river, on either side of the river were houses, they were like palaces, the houses was so magnificently constructed, every house had a Pier leading into the river, on the far side of the river was a hanging bridge and behind the houses was again the steep tree covered mountains ................ that is all my eyes could capture"

For a second I felt god has betrayed me by providing only two eyes. For the first time I believed what we studied in our history books that the "Civilization starts on the river side".

As we trekked along the mountainside, the view never ended it only got better; it never stopped to loose our attention. There was one house on the river side that caught our attention, the story about this house is that it belongs to a World Cyclist champion, and it seems that at point in his career he broke his leg in an accident, but that didn't stop him from cycling, he practiced hard again and went on win the World Championship for the second time, an inspiring story at an inspiring place.

We reached the Top point on the Mountain side, from here we could see the Downtown Austin (The state capitol, The football stadium and other sky scrappers), the river, the houses on either side of the river, the bridge, mountains on either side of the river, the view for breath taking...You have to see it to believe it, words are betraying me.

After spending some time we walked back the way we came treating our eyes with the view again. All along the path we have tried to capture the view in our camera, hoping to show you guys some day, guys that ends our trip to Mount bonnell.