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WTF ? This is funny, but I find it hard to digest that are so perfectly systematic and synchronous on their job. Can’t imagine something like this in India in the next 100 years for sure.

Those of you who might have visited it already are lucky. Those of you who haven’t yet – clever.

If you’re planning to visit this place soon, this post is going to be a spoiler, suspense killer.

First off, I want to congratulate the man who “formulated” this idea of scary house. My clever guess is that this is the same guy who owns the gaming station in the floor above. How did I guess it ? Read on…

The scary house is of course scary. But it might not be the scare tactics that you’d expect at a multiplex/amusement park. Its the same thing as going “ayyo” when someone jumps in front of you around the corner of your house. But a scare is a scare right ?

There is no animatronics / electronic devices / sound effects what so ever that you have heard of in Disney Land or some amusement park. The whole show is run by four-five chaps who plays the ticket guy, scare monsters, sound effects guy and all that. There is a dwarf too, who’s defenitely going to scare you. (Tip: He sits at different places on different days to keep the random thing going. So don’t expect him at the same place twice.)

In fact, the owner of this “Scary house” (as I told you earlier) could be the same guy who owns the game station near by. The reason is that, while he started the game station, with all the gaming devices, he had to pay the highest bill and to counter it, he started the scary house with no lights on. Clever guy.

That’s why I think he’s a genius. He saves on electricity, no production cost,and a marginal maintenance cost. Wonderful idea.

So if you want to get scared, head to the scary house. If you don’t want to, and thinks this kinda stuff is silly, try setting up a home-scary house right in your home, may be when the power-cuts are on. Would be a better scare.

May be its a southie thing, but Masala Dosas and Madras style filter coffee is for ever refreshing and an anytime favorite of mine. And my search for the typical southie Masala Dosas end at Gokul Oottupura restaurant at Kadavanthra.

A little pushed away from the main road and the hazzle and buzzle, situated at  the beginning tip of Kadavanthra – Kaloor road, this restaurant is a different experience altogether. It’s pure delight at Gokul because apart from the quality food, the ambience at this place is very soothing and turns on your comfy switch in an instant.

With a typical tea-shop like interiors there’s lot of space and energy. Wooden benches and tables welcome you, unlike the cushioned ones at most other restaurants. Reminds me of the typical Kerala style nair tea-shops. There’s also wall paintings/murals done with an ethnic yet minimalistic touch and some soothing lightning.

And of course the most important part is the quality food. Very clean and tasty food that you can see getting prepared yourself in the open kitchen. Quite humbly this is the best I have tasted in the entire cochin, when it comes to vegetarian food. And its also remarkable that price tag won’t leave a hole in your pocket. Very reasonable pricing for the quality they offer.

If you happen to visit Cochin, and is looking for some nice vegetarian restaurant, step in confidently to Gokul Oottupura. My guarantee !

Kochi was always a preferred destination among friends and family when it came to shopping and hanging out. But clearly, there was the metro life missing at Kochi which is/was surprising. There was only the Bay Pride, marine drive or the Esplanade near convent junction when it came to malls. Well, even they weren’t malls at all.

But now, there’s a brand new mall that’s launched near Bypass junction, the Oberon mall, Kochi. Which I think is the best thing that has happened in the city as far as development is concerned. This one is huge with four-five floors and exclusive shops complete with food court and all that jazz. I happen to visit the place and here are a few snaps.

The mall is only partially occupied right now as only Reliance’s outlets have started with a Reliance Time Out shop which is more like the “Landmark” in Chennai and a Shoe store from them again. A large part is under construction and the grape wine tells me that the top floors is being occupied by Dileep the movie actor, where he is planning a food court. And there are a lot more that is getting ready – a KFC joint, a game station (woohoo), and a lot more.

The whole mall looks more or less like the Chennai City center minus the movies so I’m happy that it’s here. And one really great thing is that it has a well planned parking lot which is THE BEST thing that can happen to a mall in Cochin. You know that in cochin if there’s something that’s got everyone frustrated – that’s the parking space.

Well, do visit the place and see what you find.

(Psst…there’s an even more bigger one coming up at Edapally, Cochin from the Lulu group where there’ll be multiplexes too. Looking forward to it)

Pondicherry, or “Pondy” as affectionately she’s called, have been at the top of queue, when it came to deciding quick vacations for me. It beat Alleppey boat house, and Hyderabad Film city with a narrow margin and shorter distance . She was closer to Chennai and more attractive to me than any other spot since that would give me more distance to drive my car – yea what a silly reason but that was it. For those of you who didn’t know, I’m an enthusiast of long distance drives.

So yea, Pondy was like a quick visit, short distance, small place, shorter roads, small beach, less crowd and lot of free space. I somehow couldn’t understand the Pondicherry tourism tagline – Give time a break ! Well, I did give time a break, but it should’ve been a short break.

To be honest, Pondy is not the place to be if you are looking for fascination, or adventures and big surprises. It’s a small clean and cute place with lot of space, good people, a different culture, a good beach, well kept roads, some traffic, some sun and a taste of goa ! Yea, everything is so miniature about it, yet so nice.

The roads at Pondy are very narrow and half part of it is covered by two wheeler parking.

Three things I noticed at Pondy were cycles, people wearing trousers and foreigners (more towards the middle/old aged).

There are not lot of places to see but a few quick visits to Aurobindo Ashram, Museum and the nearby places is a good choice. The only place you have to visit for sure is the Matri Mandir. Make sure that you book for the inside entry if you want one. Or else you’ll have to see it from a distance and get the hell out of there for the scorching sun!

Where to stay in Pondicherry?

There are lot of cheap places available there and you can get everyone who visited Pondy saying that there are shared accommodation and paying guests too available.

But my recommendation is, if you want to enjoy the beach and after a quick run through the place and chill out with some beer , there’s this superb hotel called the Promenade at the beach. What’s so special about it?

It faces the sea. Take Room No.17 on the first floor and you’ll have extra large full size windows opening to the beach and you have the sunrise, moonlight and all that scenery right from your bed. Believe me the hotel was just awesome, just for it’s scenic beauty.

Regarding the cost, it’s a bit on the higher side, but worth it , I’d say. Per day it’s INR 6,000 with axes, oops taxes. And you get access to the pool, a complimentary breakfast, alchohol supply (not cheap better buy it from outside) and some massage parlour access.

Overall, what I felt is that Pondy is the place for people who wants to run away from the crowd, have a little break, and settle back in the beach (may be in the Promenade facing sea) with some beer and chill out the day..but also keep in mind this is definitely not Goa !

Today morning I woke up to see this strange video on the news channels. The blurry image of an UFO in the skies of Mexico. It looked very strange and different from the normal images of a UFO, which are most of the times, circular in shape and hovers around. This one was more like the witch on broom image we’ve read stories of in school. There was a long enough rod like structure and an image with a “long cap” sitting on it or so it looked like.

There were more than 40 witnesses of the same phenomena and the UFO club of mexico had video taped it.

Now more than 70% of the UFO videos seen so far are fake, but how about this one?

The video was shown to a local astronomer and she claimed that the video proved nothing. No ET nothing at all, it’s someones invention.

Well, looking at the path and movement of the object, it looks like that it is moving in a straight path like a wire or so. But the only point that contradicts it is that more than 40 people have witnessed this object the same time. Also, there were some interesting testimonies from the local police.

Two of them claimed that they saw a creature near the cemetry over which the object was hovering. It had long cap, was dark skinned and had long claws. Now, that is interesting. Could this be “Selective Perception”? No idea.

Meanwhile, this town of Mexico is famous for UFO sightings and there have been couple of them in the recent years.

I’m no good at UFO studies, but is equally amazed as you are. Watch out the skies.