Mapro farm says it like it is about chocolates!

Anna in Mumbai

Prep work at the grounds as hundreds await Anna to show up. Traffic also far well managed. Anna should be coming in an hour or so.

V

Christchurch town centre.

As they recover from the earthquake, Christchurch town centre has been reopened temporarily inside cool and colorful containers.

Crazy!

Do you see the mountains at the back?
That is only a part of a famous walking track called Kepler track. Most people take 3-4 days to walk the track which is 67 kms. Once a Year a organize a challenge to see who can do it the fastest. The best time every year is around 4.5 hours. Yeah you read that right. Hours.

Marathons are kiddie stuff compared to this :)

Cool painting in puzzle world

One of the paintings in the puzzle world. Is it fantasy painting or a children's dorm?

The following face

Even though you cannot tell, this face is carved inwards not outward as it appears on the pic - although it was impossible to take a pic of it showing the inward carving.

The hall of following faces.

This was insanely cool. The faces literally follow you as you move around. And yes, it really is better than the Monalisa painting- which in my opinion is the biggest marketing scam in the world.

Puzzling world in Wanaka

Very cool place. Amazing illusions and puzzles!

More queenstown valley!

From the crown range drive. Lovely weather. Taken few days ago on our way to paraglide!

NZ people have a sense of humor about everything. Even road signs. There was one just before a hill titled: "test brakes now!"

Finally! Indian food! I missed you!!!

I wish more restaurants had realistic times like this :)

Sundial!

Although I think the time was probably not correct. It was 12:30 when we came upon this!

Coffee before the doubtful sound cruise.

And the ever present mountain+lake view :)

Deer farm?

I need to research this but it looks like they have deer farms here!

En route to Te Anau

En route to te anau

Queenstown from up above

Panoramic view from the hotel

Trying to shoot a panorama on my iPhone! Came out well I think!

Celebrating the jump!

Next up, skydiving from 18,000 feet :)

Another room with a view!

So I just jumped from that into the river below!

Paragliding!

Doing this tomorrow! If I survive th bungy jump today that is!

NZ is big on Green

They definitely have their priorities straight. The maximum time spent at immigration was to ensure we werent bringing in pests or food that could harm the environment in some way.

Not the usual nonsense about explosives etc. refreshing.

Every establishment and service in new Zealand is rated on of course the quality of service but also the level of ecological friendliness.

Seen here is a Prius which is used as a taxi.

So true!

Wine cave

This is where the wines are stored in the winery.

Apparently this is the only cave in new Zealand.

400+ barrels. Each barrel is about 300+ bottles of wine.

The southern most winery in the world

Gibbston Vineyard

Wine was OK OK. The tour was good though

Breakfast!

I could get used this view every morning :)

The beautiful lake tekapo

The Lighthouse!

There was another one 30kms uphill. But that pic is for another day!

Akaroa town from top

iMMORTAL

Dear Steve,

For many, you are a legend, a visionary, an innovator, and dare I say, a god. For me, you are all of that and more, so much more. Your vision, your passion and your commitment to never settle for anything less than the extraordinary inspired me to strive for better in my life - personal and professional, to challenge the status quo and to always always seek perfection in everything I now do.

Thank you for showing me that it is OK to follow your heart - no matter how absurd it may sound or appear, that there is always a better way as long as you seek it, that it's more important to build something great than chase the next pay cheque and that if there is anything worth doing, it is worth doing so well, that it becomes the gold standard.

Even today, the reports of your death are greatly exaggerated. You live on in our hearts through your products, your ideas, your spirit and your vision that truly changed the world (and me) for the better.

Thank you, for everything.

The Laughing Heart

The new Levi's go forth ad has some incredible poetry - even though the audio might make it difficult to understand it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT16DcHcjRA

Your life is your life
Don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
Be on the watch. There are ways out.
There is a light somewhere.
It may not be much light but it beats the darkness.
Be on the watch.

The gods will offer you chances.
Know them. take them.
You can’t beat death but
You can beat death in life, sometimes.
And the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
 

Your life is your life.
Know it while you have it.
You are marvelous
The gods wait to delight in you.

                                               - The Laughing Heart, Charles Bukowski

This is why I dislike "gourmet" food

Looks fancy and colourful but this "appetiser" just killed my appetite. Keep it simple you chefs out there. When we are hungry we prefer edible over pretentious. Thank you.
V

Onwards to San Diego

Los Angeles looks interesting but awfully dirty. Next weekend shall be spent exploring this place some more.

Right now, off to San Diego and then Dallas in the evening!

Delayed flight

So I'm gonna chill some more :)

Lazy statues

In Kerala, even the statues are lazy !

Treasure hunt

First part of the day spent treasure hunting and 2nd part mostly spent on the backwaters!

Breakfast view

Very very awesome breakfast area. The view will make u forget the excellent food spread!

In the houseboat

Taking a few hours ride in a boat on the lovely backwaters. Definitely a multi-day activity for which I will return soon !!

Team building!

Solve riddles, find clues, get bike parts and build a cycle. 

Then, race the cycle you built!

---

Sent from my iPhone 

Celebrating the success of LTE

And also ofcourse the awesome work we did in 2010!!

Team exercise

Solve riddles, find clues, get bike parts and build a cycle. 

Then, race the cycle you built!

Infinity pool!

Awesome hotel this leela. I have to come back here in cooler climes! Awesome awesome view !!

Switching to the Mac: Part II

Well, the summary of the first half of my experiment it is that Mac OS is simply not ready to be integrated into a predominantly Microsoft Exchange led office environment, and frankly, it isn't Apple's fault, it is Microsoft's and no, I don't mean this as a fan boy.

The reason it is not ready is one and only - Microsoft Outlook, an application that is quite frankly the cornerstone of all things office as it seamlessly integrates email, calendar and live meetings (conf calls) which are basically 3 of the MOST used functions inside a business environment.

Having found Apple's Mail and calendar apps to be woefully inadequate, I was quite excited to see that Microsoft was releasing office 2011 with the first ever Mac version for Outlook. But unfortunately, the outlook version is largely unusable. Let me illustrate a few 'issues'

1. Just general email download is EXCRUCIATINGLY slow. It can take upto 15 minutes to download 1MB attachments. Downloading them via webmail takes about 4 seconds.

2. Calendaring: Inability to see multiple calendars at once is a pain. We have a ton of shared calendars for travel, holidays, company events etc and not being able to see them separately and/or individually is a real pain.

3. Live Meeting: There is NO live meeting plug-in for Outlook 2011 which basically means that I cannot setup conference calls with people - a more than regular feature when synching across global teams. Ughh.

4. Sent items: This is the MOST stupid implementation of sent items ever. When sending an email from inside outlook 2011, the email does not automatically move to the sent items, but it is RE-DOWNLOADED from the sent items on the server! This means that if u are on a slow connection, you have to first bear the pain of uploading a large prezo and then wait for it to painfully download on the sent items folder.

These are just some of the MANY MANY issues but while others i can live with, these are just deal breakers for me and even though I paid a stupendously reduced $9 for office, I am feeling it is not even worth THAT.

And here is the worst part - if this was Apple's fault, Microsoft could wash its hands and walk away, but it is not. It is entirely Microsoft's problem because Outlook is made by microsoft as is the Exchange server 2010 so the integration between the 2 should be flawless.

With that said, I have to sadly conclude that integrating the Mac into a predominantly exchange centric environment is largely a failure and until Outlook gets fixed, or Apple upgrades the Mail app to compete, I cannot shutdown my Win 7 notebook for good.

Stay tuned for an update on moving from my blackberry to the iPhone 4.

Preaup

Built by rajendra varman in tenth century. Built of bricks.

Siem reap region has a strong Buddhist and hindu influence and ha many temples dedicate to buddha and many indian gods. Shiva is ofcourse the local fav.

The region has 512 temples and Angkor wat area alone has 255!

Banteay srei

Temple of the women. Called because the locals compare the intricate carvings with the beauty of the woman.

Otherwise known as isvarahpura. Dedicated to shiva, brahma and Vishnu. Shiva is a very popular god here. Temple was built in the tenth century but was broken by the Thai and a forest fire.

Roadside dhaba

More countryside

Cambodia country side

Looks a lot like india. Roads are like any roads in northern india. Patchy and with 2 wheelers and cattle.