About 100kms of good roads from Bangalore on NH209 and a last stretch of rugged terrain (about 5kms), Georgia Sunshine is close to Talakad & Shivanasamudram- Ganganachukki (bluff) and Barachukki falls. It is a small cozy resort, passionately run by the couple, Georgia and Leonard. Just about 10 rooms spread out yet within a close reach to the central area. The rooms are tidy and well kept. Aashira was delighted to find kids’ bunker beds in the room!

The central area is tastefully done with some lovely artifacts and collectibles. The couple cook themself and it shows up in every lip smacking meal. (The last day breakfast, we guess they got some of it from outside which was a bit of a downer). Though they don’t advertise it on their website, they are pet friendly (and child friendly). They have about 9 dogs, all so well behaved that Aashira was petting them without hesitation! There are also ducks, rabbits, and pigeons.

Ideal destination for those with young children or in the look out for a quiet spot with abundant open space & fresh air.

Based on this and other learning experiences, Malaysia was not really handpicked though it was on top of the wish list. The trigger came from a zero-priced (genuinely zero priced) ticket sale by AirAsia in November 2010. Some smart & quick moves sowed the seeds of this vacation to Malaysia. Another post will follow soon on the details and internals of the deal clincher. So it was a 9 month countdown to the vacation!

As the d-day in Aug 2011 approached, Aashira’s severe throat infection almost jeopardized the trip. To our delight, she recovered just a day before the travel date. At the airport, check in with AirAsia and other formalities are simple & smooth but for a little hiccup with baggage overweight. Aashira arrested in a small area for 4 hours in the flight was easier that we imagined (or probably we were over-prepared). At Kuala Lumpur, AirAsia almost exclusively uses the low-cost terminal. The setup is impressive and success of the low cost airline is visible. (In India, we attribute the air travel revolution to Capt Gopinath & his Air Deccan. However, Air Deccan had service quality issues & always lost money and continues to do so post its acquisition. On the contrary, AirAsia has not only revolutionised low cost air travel but also maintained high standards of service and is a profitable business.). The long walk of nearly 2 kms from the aircraft to the immigration counters without Aashira’s stroller was not the great experience. Passage thru India, the Indian restaurant helped us many times in the trip to secure Aashira’s specific food needs. For sleep, we booked the only hotel near the terminal - Tune Hotels (another venture by Air Asia’s Tony Ferdanes). So small was the room (100 sq ft!), Aashira had more space in the flight then in this room!

The next day, we hopped on to another AirAsia flight to the islands of Langkawi, 1 hour north east of KL. At Langkawi, we rented a self-drive car. I love to drive but never had the opportunity to drive outside India. This was one of the highlights of the trip. The drive to the Berjaya Resort gave the first picturesque views of this beautiful island. En route, a monitor lizard in the middle of the road welcomed us. At check in, the upgrade to sea view room brought in broad smiles among the 2 of us. Berjaya is made luxurious & comfortable but has to manage 450 individual accommodations spanning a massive area and steep terrain. This makes the resort operations run like a machine, losing out on the personal touch & lack of flexibility. Among only adults or even grownup children, we may not have felt but with Aashira it was sometimes a challenge to get the staff to met our off-the-book yet basic requests. Aashira had a good time in the pool but was not a great fan of the beaches. Guess she did not enjoy the feeling of the sand sticking to her!

The 500 sq km island is duty-free (you know what it means :) & consists of many man-made attractions (including water sports & yacht marinas) to keep visitors busy apart of its lovely beaches & fauna. The 2.2km Langkawi Cable Car with the steepest gradient of 42 degs, the Seven Hills waterfalls & Aquarium were good fun. The last night dinner at the Telaga harbour was memorable, more so since we discovered it by chance. Apart from Malay cuisine, we found pretty good Japanese food & well-made pizzas. We missed a drive to the supposedly lovely hidden beaches in the north west coast around the Tangung Rhu area. Never mind, we will make it again soon.

After 4 days in Langkawi, we flew back to KL for the next 3 days. We stayed in Novotel. Aashira missed the balcony but the enjoyed the view of sky scrapers especially the majestic Petronas twin towers. We were lucky to get the limited tickets (800 per day) to go up Petronas without much effort. The next time we would try to make it to the top most point of the tower for which tickets are very few (200 per day) and harder to find! The planning of the Petronas towers and area around it (referred to as KLCC i.e KL City Centre) is interesting and a good case study for India to learn how to take up an integrated and not piece-meal approach to town planning & infrastructure development. The KL Bird Park is colorful with huge birds within a massive area covered by one huge net spanning the whole park. I don’t know how animal rights consider it but we felt it was far better than cages. The photos & videos speak for the experience. Street food (satay, soup noodles, fried stuff, boiled chest nuts, barley water to name a few) & shopping areas in China Town & Jalan Alor in Bukit Bintang are an experience. Aashira enjoyed the monorail journeys. She was relieved to have rice, sambar & rasam every day & night, courtesy Saravana Bhavan while we were delighted with Japanese food (Ramen, Okonomiyaki, Curry Rice)!

KL is not duty-free (you know what it means :). Experience with people was a mixed bag - some kind & helpful while others not. Traffic is disciplined & follows lanes. Metro and monorails are quick but coverage is not extensive. Taxi by meter is inexpensive but not easy to get them to use the meter! Found Incredible India ads in a few streets.

Return was smooth but the 2 hour commute to home from Bangalore airport was selamat datang (welcome) to India!

Photos @ Picasa

Get in touch with me to assist you to plan a vacation to Malaysia

(If you are the kind of person who likes to secure multiple offers, picture the above multiple times! :)

Next step is tough and important- to make the decision, to take the plunge or hang on.

Here is one idea to help your decision making toolkit- Make a request to speak to your future line manager/boss in the company. If not the manager, as close you can get to somebody senior in the business unit. Many times, it is the interviewer. Most companies do not have a standard procedure to facilitate such a discussion. So expect resistance, ignorance etc by the HR recruiter. Insist, if request doesn’t work.

Resort to simple, open-ended and honest questions about the role and future opportunities. Do not hesitate to ask about his/her experience in the company. Don’t probe or investigate.

Why and how does all this help? New job, new organization are career opportunities, at the same time are risky too. A right move can catapult you to a higher league and on a fast lane to meet your goals. A wrong move can set you behind by a few months, if not years.

Such a conversation helps mitigate the risk to some extent by providing-
-Insight into the job content
-Sense of the company values
-Subtle unwritten commitment from the company

Further, it creates a situation for the company to “market” itself and the position.

So, what people do in a elevator during those few seconds or minutes-

• Count the days to go for the next weekend
• Calculate the hours of sleep last night
• Admire the wedding/engagement ring
• Satisfy cravings of digging nose and biting nails
• Set your hairs, count white hairs
• Kill mosquitoes
• Use shiner for the shoes or simply wipe on the back of the trousers
• Are finger nails ready for the chop?
• Check socks in both legs are of the same color
• Count the number of tooth cavities
• Last but not the least, watch others do the antics!

If this sounds fun, take this survey based on these antics (you can suggest your own too) and contribute to the study on elevator antics!

However, how much information did you grasp about the other participants? Can you recall enough, to strike a conversation the next time you meet one of them in the break room or the lift? Did you utilize the opportunity to expand your network?

If answer is “No”, think think think… Why? Is it because you spent the time preparing your own little (impressive) story, and then tweaking it as somebody took away your plan? And in the progress forgot to “listen”!

If true, here is a simple idea- be the first or early few to walk up and do your part. Walking up to the front, sooner than later helps in 2 ways -

• You can listen and absorb what others have to say
• You exemplify proactive attitude

On the other hand, if you are organising the event, consider the alternative suggestion in point #5,6 of  ”How to organize a retreat“ by Seth Godin.

2. The Srilankan tourism organization’s website is rich in content and more important, well classified making it a good starting point.

3. Autos are called Trishaws. They have no meters hence need to pre-negotiate the price. (If you thought “chennai”, yes, you got it). However, if you plan in advance you can call & book an auto which would be metered.

4. Local cuisine can be described as “Tamil Nadu type-dishes made in Kerala style“. Folks from Andhra Pradesh will enjoy the level of spice and others, be warned!

5. Colombo seems to have some “connect” to Japanese food. We found elaborate Japanese fare in breakfast every day at Cinnamon Grand hotel.

6. Tamil is not widely spoken in Colombo and further south as I had presumed. If you know Tamil and believe you can understand Sinhala, forget it.

7. Streets of Colombo are dominant with “large” vehicles - SUV, MUVs, Pickups. Toyota, Nissan & Mitshubitshi seems to be the majority. Our taxis were indirectly booked from Jet Wings travels - Both drivers were very good. Infact, I intend to keep in touch with one of them.

8. It cheap to shop for good branded clothes and accessories at House of Fashion in Colombo.

We covered only a bare minimum of the country (Bentota & Colombo) in this trip. More remains to be seen in the coming years when Aashira grows and allows us more “active” time in the day. Photos @ Facebook & Picasa

My recent post on Facebook: Any travel agent or guide or book would indicate, srilanka weather is worse in oct(rains) & season begins nov! vested interest or sheer cliched thoughts, its never possible to label that way. if u don’t know anybody at the destination, simply ring a hotel, be nice and enquire the reception.

Get in touch with me to assist you to plan a vacation to SriLanka.

Aashira will start play school mid-2011 if all goes well i.e me and Ashu pass the interview! OK, it’s not so bad :)

As always, enjoyed the planning stage and the run up- exploring history, destinations, weather, cuisine, transport moods and other local demographics. Travel and vacations with a tiny tot was new dimension this time. This meant the vacation was longer and slow paced. In retrospect, this proved great since it let us relax and unwind.

The little over 1 hour Srilankan Airlines flight was before time at the Bandaranaike International Airport (35kms from Colombo). Good service but don’t expect to be pampered. Visa was simple and quick. Indian Rupees is not fully convertible and Srilankan Rupees (LKR) is closed, hence one needs to carry $ or £ and convert to LKR at the airport. Visit the tourism office at the exit to pick maps and brochures. The terminal is comparable to the new airports here. The pickup/dropoff area outside was smaller but served the purpose. Our pre-booked taxi driver held the placard that read “Rajive”!

After a night stay in Ramada Katunayake hotel, the next day we left to Bentota (pronounced Benthota), 60kms south of Colombo along the coast on Galle Road (pronounced Gool). Good road sans speed breakers (not even 1!) was smooth but not fast due to intermittent signals and continuous habitation. Vivanta by Taj in Bentota checked us into a nice ocean view room. The next 4 days were a bliss lazing around the beach, pool, bar and restaurants. Contrary to typical forecast for October, weather was just right. Service was excellent but food was mediocre. Thanks to my cousin Anand’s photography suggestions, I was lost fiddling with the camera. So much so, I didn’t do the water ski course that I was looking forward to! Taj’s inroom dining concept, watching the river meet the ocean, holding on to baby croc and turtles, the rare albino turtle were other highlights in Bentota. Interactions with Nandana, owner of restaurant Diya Sisila (Rated No 1 in TripAdvisor for every reason. A must visit) were interesting and insightful.

Bentota to Colombo return was with a different driver, Rohan. Smart and impressively knowledgeable guy. At Colombo, we stayed 2 days in Cinnamon Grand. The hotel had an unbelievably huge lobby- easily about a lakh sq feet area! Always busy and vibrant. Though disappointing with child friendly facilities (they gave baby playpen as a baby cot!), food was good and fairly priced relative to Taj in Bentota. Not sure why but Colombo has more authentic Japanese restaurants than Bangalore. We did not spare them :). Shopping at House of Fashion was an experience- Branded garments at cheap prices. (Details on this in person).

Thus ended a relaxed & happy vacation. We gave a miss to the popular cultural and historical destinations, holding off until the next visit to the island when Aashira is a grownup.

Photos @ Facebook & Picasa.

Get in touch with me to assist you to plan a vacation to Srilanka.

If you are in such a state of mind, Pause! The situation calls for review of your activities and here is a simple guide. List all your activities & for every activity make the below assessment:

1. Are you adding value to the underlying motive by performing this activity? -

• If Yes, proceed to Step 2
• If No, mark this activity for elimination. Move to the next activity and begin with Step 1.

2. Is the process of performing this activity consistent & the output measurable?

• If No, process to Step 3
• If Yes, mark this activity as a candidate for delegation. Move to the next activity and begin with Step 1.

3. Mark this activity as a candidate for retention. (The most challenging of activities will make it to this level. This plays a key role to get back on the path of a motivated & happy work life)

All the activities are now in 3 buckets - Eliminate, Delegate & Retain. Initiate discussion with your boss. Begin by showing the list of activities.

• Assure dedicated efforts & quality results for the activities in the Retain bucket and show preparedness to take on more.
• Emphasize on continued ownership of activities in the Delegate bucket though you would want to delegate it to a able member in the team
• Focus on past achievements in the Eliminate bucket & make a case for elimination.

• Bad.
• Good but…
• Excellent but…

Bad. is read as “bad period”! Simply incapable. You are plain unlucky. 0% brain, 50% mind, heart is immaterial.

Good but… are capable humans, good at heart. However, lack the might, strength to hold up. Expect being letdown. 100% brain, 50% mind, 100% heart.

Excellent but… are a gift. Thank your gods. The “but” factor is when “At times (not always) in complex situations, you present a logical case with every angle dealt with to conclude Option 2 is appropriate. Boss decides it is Option 1 without much explanation other than a long pause and gaze at you“. What happened? He is generally very good but at times, why does he do this? Understand the “but” factor- Boss received a signal from the mind bank of wisdom and judgment. Recognise this as the power of intuition and the ability to work with emotional intelligence. Learn the art. 100% brain, 100% mind, 100% heart.
(Keep a tab on such instances and note the times boss’ intuition proved incorrect. You may not be able to do much to change your boss but it will help improve your self-confidence & intuition)

Cartoon by John de Pillis