(This is an unedited, true account of courage exhibited by the staff of Mahindra Holidays at the Zest Big Beach resort, Puducherry which was almost ravaged by Cyclone Thane that hit the shores of Tamil Nadu recently. Written by Mr. Rajesh Shah, a member.)

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This message is for all the teams of Mahindra Holidays and Zest including to the Chairman – Mr. Anand Mahindra

My family and I were among the few guests who were in Zest Big Beach Puducherry on the night of 29th December, 2011

I would like to thank the EXCELLENT STAFF of ZEST PUDUCHERRY for their excellent beyond Human efforts to all the guests who where in Zest Puducherry on 29th Night, 2011 the night when Cyclone Thane hit Puducherry.

1. The staff was so good that they took effort in the storm to go room to room to check the guests even though it was nearly impossible to walk in that wind force – more importantly the Tin roof sheets were flying around like knives in the air travelling at high speeds.

2. The staff got food to every room in that storm.

3.  They cleared all rooms on the 1st floors and managed to house many guests in ground floor rooms with the help of many guests in ground floor rooms and in the banquet halls which was created into a shelter.

4. The Chefs and catering staff served food and drinks non stop to all the guests in the Banquets which was truly commendable.

5. Even in these hard moments the Magician took all the kids around him and was showing them tricks for them not to fear the cyclone.

6. At 11.00 AM in the morning after the Storm passed but still in difficult conditions more than 25 ~ 30 staff of Big Beach Zest (and i was told even an HR manager was with them doing this) and few guests took to the roads and started clearing the roads with what ever tools were available with them. I think these people were the key to so many guests being able to leave Zest before night fall and these people need special applauds and appreciation.

7. I was one of the guest who was on the road clearing the trees, pulling ropes and taking pictures and the conditions – high wind force and heavy rains were making the conditions very bad to even stand on the road with umbrella’s but the staff were so much focused that they worked in these unbelievable conditions.

We as guests had a motive to work and clear the roads so that we could go home but to see the motivation of the staff of Zest Big Beach to ensure that happened was absolutely fantastic. In heavy rains and winds they cut trees, pulled trees aside, entered pools of water without fear of snakes / inspects, climbed atop transformers, removed electrical wires and transformers in the side to make way for vehicles to pass.

I truly hope that in the wake of this event ALL THE STAFF OF ZEST BIG BEACH Puduchery are truly rewarded for their efforts and none are laid off due to the reconstruction efforts of this resort. These people

Another suggestion would be to replace the TIN ROOF Sheets with Solid Roofs.

Thanks & Regards

Rajesh Shah
Member

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 Corbett national park is named after Jim Corbett, (the Indian-born British hunter, who later turned into a wildlife conservationist) who played an important role in establishing it.

Courtesy Arun Bhat - paintedstork.com

The Jim Corbett National park is a sanctuary for the critically endangered Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris bengalensis).

Tiger - Corbett. Copyright FlickR Candle Tree

Abundant in flora and fauna, the Corbett National park is ecologically diverse, with around 480 different species of plants.

Rich in Flaura and Fauna - Source FlickR netlancer2006

The Jim Corbett national park is situated in the Nainital district of Uttarakhand, and experiences temperature in the range of 5 degrees to 30 degrees celcius (in summer).

Misty Corbett - Source FlickR - Eileen Delhi

The area also experiences light to heavy rainfall during the monsoons.

Hills of the Kumaon - Corbett. Source: FlickR Rocky aka Rakesh Barua

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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