December 2013 • `100

A K S H AY KU M A R S H O OJ I T S I R C A R STY L I S H STAY S I N S R I L A N KA

INDIA’S NO. 1 TRAVEL MAGAZINE

8 904150 800003 21

Pasang Sonam Tso lake, near

the Indo-Tibetan border, Mechuka

WINTERPerfect

BreaksMechuka: Arunachal’s next frontier | Pollachi | Water House, Jaipur | Savoy, Mussoorie

10 NICE NEW HAUNTS &FESTIVE BREAKS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

+

AUSTRALIAMOVEABLE FEAST

SOMEWHERE ELSE?

Vrindavan

ContentsV O L U M E 1 3I S S U E 1 2 DECEMBER 2013

Bullock cart ride at Shenbaga Vilaasam

JYO

TH

Y K

AR

AT

YE

AR

-EN

D B

RE

AK

S

108

72

100

62

116

8288

10 WINTER HAUNTS by Parvati M. Krishnan

AMSTERDAM by Venky Vembu

FESTIVE BREAKS by Bibek Bhattacharya

POLLACHI by Lalitha Sridhar

MUSSOORIE by Trisha Gupta

JAIPUR by Karuna Ezara Parikh

MECHUKA by Sanjiv Valsan

CONTENTS

Ghost of Shahjahanabad

page 140

56

42122

30

GEARBOX34

December 2013 • `100

A K S H AY KU M A R S H O OJ I T S I R C A R STY L I S H STAY S I N S R I L A N KA

INDIA’S NO. 1 TRAVEL MAGAZINE

8 904150 800003 21

Pasang Sonam Tso lake, near

the Indo-Tibetan border, Mechuka

WINTERWINTNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN EPerfect

WIIIIIIIIIIIINTNTNNTNTNTNTNTNNTNNTNNTNNNTNTNNNNTNTEEEBreaksMechuka: Arunachal’s next frontier | Pollachi | Water House, Jaipur | Savoy, Mussoorie

10 NICE NEW HAUNTS &FESTIVE BREAKS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

+

AUSTRALIAMOVEABLE FEAST

SOMEWHERE ELSE?

Vrindavan

Regulars6 INSIDER

8 LETTERS

12 ASK MARCO

18 NSEW

38 GO NOW

42 HOTELS

140 BACK OF THE BOOK

MANAGING EDITOR

AMIT DIXIT

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

BISHWADEEP MOITRA

DEPUTY EDITORVENKY VEMBU

CONSULTING EDITORLALITHA SRIDHAR

SENIOR EDITORSBIBEK BHATTACHARYA,

PARVATI M. KRISHNAN

ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITORSHRUTI SINGH

STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERPUNEET K. PALIWAL

DESIGN CONSULTANTASHISH ROZARIO

DESIGNER

GULSHAN SHARMA

PRODUCTION ASSISTANTKULDEEP KALIA

EDITORIAL SECRETARYSURESH K.P.

LIBRARIAN

ALKA GUPTA

BUSINESS OFFICE PRESIDENT

INDRANIL ROY

CFO

VINODKUMAR PANICKER

ADVERTISEMENTSGENERAL MANAGERS

SWASTIK BANERJEE

KABIR KHATTAR (Corporate)

REGIONAL MANAGERS

ANTHONY JOSEPH (Bangalore),

MEGHA MISHRA

MANAGER ANKEET R BHAYANI

DEPUTY MANAGERS

LATHA SWAMINATHAN (Chennai)

KAUSTAV MITRA, SUDHESH KUMAR

ASST. MANAGERS

SUBHAM DE, SHABINA JAFRI

BRAND & MARKETINGSHRUTIKA DEWAN

CIRCULATIONNATIONAL HEAD L AROKIA RAJ (CIRCULATION)

GENERAL MANAGER

B.S. JOHAR (Subs.)

ASST. GENERAL MANAGERSANINDYA BANERJEE (West),

G. RAMESH (South)

ZONAL SALES MANAGER VINOD KUMAR (North)

MANAGER VINOD JOSHI

DEPUTY MANAGER SHEKHAR SUVARNA

PRODUCTIONCHIEF MANAGERSHASHANK DIXIT

SENIOR MANAGERSDESHRAJ JASWAL,

SHEKHAR KUMAR PANDEY

ACCOUNTSSR. GENERAL MANAGER (F&A) SATISH RAGHAVAN

COMPANY SECRETARY PRADEEP SINGH

MANAGERDIWAN SINGH BISHT

ADMINISTRATIONASST. GENERAL MANAGERRAJENDRA KURUP

HEAD OFFICE AB-10, S.J. Enclave, New Delhi 110029 Tel: 33505500; Fax: 26191420Customer care helpline: 011-33505653e-mail: outlook@outlookindia.comFor subscription helpline: yourhelpline@outlookindia.com

OTHER OFFICES MUMBAI Tel: 33545000; Fax: 33545100KOLKATA Tel: 33545400; Fax: 22823593 CHENNAI Tel: 33506300; Fax: 28582250 BENGALURU Tel: 33236100; Fax: 25582810 HYDERABAD Tel: 23371144; Fax: 23375676Printed and published by Vinodkumar Madhavan Panicker on behalf of Outlook Publishing (India) Private Limited. Editor: Amit Dixit. Printed at International Print-O-Pac Limited, C4-C11, Phase II Noida, and published from AB-10 Safdarjung Enclave, New Delhi 110029.

Released on 01-12-2013

EDITORIAL CHAIRMAN: VINOD MEHTA

Total no. of pages 154 + Covers Cover photograph: SANJIV VALSAN

Features56 VRINDAVAN by Venky Vembu

122 AUSTRALIA by Anuradha Roy

18 OUTLOOK TRAVELLER DECEMBER 2013

NORTH SOUTH EAST WESTE D I T E D B Y P A R VAT I M . K R I S H N A N

A visitor at the London Science Museum’s Large Hadron Collider exhibition

OUTLOOK TRAVELLER DECEMBER 2013 19

AFP

Rarely does pure science

captivate public imagination

as completely as CERN’s

incredible Large Hadron

Collider, which lies buried

deep under the Franco-Swiss

border not far from Geneva,

the result of multi-disciplin-

ary and multinational efforts of ten

thousand scientists and engineers in

mankind’s ambitious quest to under-

stand the fundamental building blocks

of our universe. Essentially, the LHC

was designed to collide giant particles

under extremes of temperature, vacuum

and energy not seen since the Big Bang

some 13.7 million years ago. Now, Lon-

don’s Science Museum invites visitors

to step into an immersive experience

of the ‘world’s greatest experiment’.

Designers and FX specialists have col-

laborated to combine theatre, video and

sound art with real artefacts from CERN

to present a stunning walk-through

of the legendary particle physics lab.

Here’s the chance to meet engineers,

stand at the heart of a collision, uncover

the Higgs boson and mysterious dark

matter, explore LHC’s 27km collider,

tunnels and cathedral-sized detector

caverns, and thus come closer to the

magic of the subatomic world (on till

May 6 2014; sciencemuseum.org.uk).

L O N D O N

POPULAR SCIENCE

20 SOUVENIR 22 AVIATION 26 THE WORLD’S MOST

EXPENSIVE WINE 28 SHOOJIT SIRCAR 30 JUST BACK

32 THE PROFESSIONAL 34 GEARBOX

62 OUTLOOK TRAVELLER OCTOBER 2010

COVER STORY POLLACHI

leepingeauty

OUTLOOK TRAVELLER DECEMBER 2013 63

SHENBAGA VILAASAM CELEBRATES POLLACHI’S RURAL BOUNTIES WITH A RARE GRACE. LALITHA SRIDHAR FINDS IT DELIGHTFULLY RELUCTANT TO BE A HOTEL. PHOTOGRAPHS BY JYOTHY KARAT

The homely interiors of

Shenbaga Vilaasam

The blue-tinted Nilgiris are hazy on the hori-zon. Coconut groves and large fields of corn, maize and groundnut

give way to gnarled trees that shade a dirt track. A low-slung homestead, deceptively humble, is framed by the nurturing foliage. The driveway is a shy curve within a compound entered through a bare arch. There is no gate, imposing or otherwise. We are welcomed with an aarti to the wayside Ganesha, the little shrine decked in coral-pink oleander. The goose pond is a mud bund. A square of darkly mossy water has leaves instead of lilies; its pergola is a roughly hewn mandapam. And by the portico is another profu-sion of untrimmed trees, most exuber-ant among them a blooming cannon-ball (but nagalingam sounds so much better, no?). A branch brushes the car .

This looks nothing like a hotel, the first thought strikes me, and my anticipation turns keen. I am not to be disappointed. Shenbaga Vilaasam is old-worldly and self-assured without being august. It is, actually, irresistibly homely. But no ordinary residence, this. The partly colonial, partly Tamil mansion was built as a farm getaway for Zamindarini Maruthapushpam Amman at the turn of the 20th century, so that she might escape the rigours of her duties at the family’s palace nearby. Shenbagam is champak, the intensely fragrant flower the colour of saffron in milk (and sometimes just milk). It has a special significance in Samathur, a thriving agrarian hamlet in the out-skirts of Pollachi, where we are now. The presiding deity is goddess Shen-bagavalli Amman, a lovely 750-year-old temple that we visit late that evening. The industrialised affluence of Coim-batore is less than 60km and more than a world away. Yet, Shenbaga Vilaasam wears its history with the same ease as the fresh blossoms strung simply over her doorways.

I couldn’t get enough of it. Oil lamps twinkle and the rice-paste kolams drawn in welcome are still wet when