Thanks everybody. We’ve been overwhelmed with responses from the contest inspite of the short duration of the contest, and we’ve got some great submissions in the process.

My Trip of a Lifetime - the Travelogue Contest

The Results of the “My Trip of a Lifetime” contest are out!

Here are the winners, who win an all expenses paid trip to Mashobra (Shimla)!

1. Kanchuki Sarma

2. Radha Rangarajan

3. Kongkona S.

…and here are the consolation prize winners, who win a handy travel bag/laptop bag + 2 travel books (for e.g. African Diary by Bill Bryson and Teach yourself digital photography by Bargh Peter)

1. Zishaan Hayath

2. Ashish Mantri

3. Charukesi Ramadurai

4. Fabiola Jacob

5. Jyothi Shyamsunder

6. Sanjay Sivadas

7. Vamsee

All the winning posts will be put up on Clay in the weeks to come. Congratulations to the winners once again, and thank you all for the participation.

Clay updates are now available on Twitter! Whenever a new story or article is posted in Clay, a twitter update will be available. The twitter updates are on http://twitter.com/clubmahindra

The Old Patagonian Express (1979) is a written account of a journey taken by novelist Paul Theroux. Starting out from his home town in Massachusetts, via Boston and Chicago, Theroux travels by train across the North American plains to Laredo, Texas.

He then crosses the border and takes a train south through Mexico to Veracruz where he meets a woman looking for a her long-lost lover. He then takes the the train south into Guatemala and then El Salvador where he goes to a soccer match and is amazed by the violence. He then flies to Costa Rica where the takes the train to Limon and Puntarenas. He ended his transit of Central America in Panama where takes the short train ride across the isthmus. He then proceeds to Colombia and then over the Andes and finally reaches the cold, bare heart of Patagonia, the small town of Esquel. He endures harsh climates, including the extreme altitude of Peru and the Bolivian Plateau, meets the famous author Jorge Luis Borges in Buenos Aires and is reunited with long lost family in Ecuador.

Angkor Wat, is a temple complex at Angkor, Cambodia, built by King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city.

The Magnificent Angkor Wat

Source aishifuPix

Angkor is a vernacular form of the Khmer word Nokor which is a corruption of the Sanskrit word Nagara, while wat is the Khmer word for temple. Prior to this time the temple was known as Preah Pisnulok, after the posthumous title of its founder,Suryavarman II.

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The bloggers trip arranged by Club Mahindra is an annual event where we take a select list of travel bloggers to a location where we have our resort, and explore locations around it. Last year the trip was to Coorg, this year we made the trip to Binsar(Uttarakhand), a beautiful, quiet and wild Himalayan destination with rich natural surroundings.

The travelers to the Binsar trip included Kiruba Shankar (popular blogger and columnist), Arun Bhat (prolific travel blogger and photographer), Prashanth (another popular travel blogger), Ruchika Vyas (travel writer), Shrinidhi Hande (blogger and travel enthusiast) and yours truly.

After convening to the Delhi airport from Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai we had to rush to the Sarai Rohilla railway station and had an interesting twist (read Kiruba’s and my account) along the way. We departed at around 10 PM to Kathgodam via the Ranikhet express, and arrived early in the morning at around 5 AM.

From Kathgodam we made a short detour to our newly opened resort in Naukuchiatal (lake of nine corners, is perenially sourced by an underground spring), which is set amidst lush green surroundings, and is tranquil. Unlike Nainital, this place is devoid of too many tourists and makes for an ideal location to vacation.

A view of Naukuchiatal from the resort

Room view of the Club Mahindra “Dancing Waters” resort, Naukuchiatal

After freshening up and breakfast, we continued to Binsar. The scenery along the way was equally breathtaking, and we stopped at a few places just to absorb the sights, sounds and smells of these wonderful locations.

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Clay is an acronym for Club Mahindra And You!. As with the literal meaning, it is shaped and moulded only by the collective imagination of the contributors.

Who can contribute?
Anybody can, after all the Y in Clay is You! If you have a flair for writing or photography, and your content is in the domain of travel, holidaying, vacation (or even food, culture and heritage), you are ready to write for Clay.

What more?
There are benefits of being a regular contributor, or having a fantastic contribution. In the next 6 months, we plan to compile a list of some of the best contributions and publish it as a book!. As a regular contributor, you will also stand a chance to be invited for training camps, special events or travel trips.

So what now?
To contribute or for feedback/queries on how to contribute, write to Clay@clubmahindra.com

It was thought that an organization has to gradually graduate from the bottom line concept to triple bottom line concept.
Triple bottom line implies that an organization besides generating profits should also contribute to society and environment.

CHEERS  stand for Contributing to Health Environment and Education to Re-vitalize the Society. Under this program Mahindra Holidays undertakes activities involving member to that contribute to betterment of society and environment. These activities are aimed at giving an enhanced and meaningful experience to the members.

CHEERS is a concept where Club Mahindra members are involved in activities directly or indirectly contributing to society. One of the CHEERS activities was to support an orphanage near our resort. A trip to an orphanage along with members invoked unprecedented response. Another initiative under CHEERS is to support local artisans and craftsmen. Mahindra Holidays resorts has a souvenir shop, under CHEERS initiative, and a dedicated space has been allocated for selling locally made goods.

CHEERS, as was aimed has brought cheers to the smile of the lesser privileged and an unique emotive experience to members.