Archive for Wales

Opinion Leaders@Blogspot.com

When I started blogging, little did I think anyone other than my mom, my sister or my husband would be interested in reading about my escapades. Well, I’m a little overwhelmed today. Not only do people write to me for travel advice, people make it a point to mention me in stories where some great bloggers of the country are mentioned.

Bhairavi Jhaveri from Hindustan Times (Mumbai) featured me in an article about influential bloggers. Click here to read the article – Opinion Leaders @ Blogspot.com.

Thank you Ninja Readers for checking in regularly and not checking out as often.

Welsh Food – Eat this Beast

Best way to a man’s heart is through this stomach. That’s what they normally say. Best way to a traveler’s heart is through any free food (Well, I didn’t pay). That’s what the Backpacking rulebook says.

If there is one thing I would recommend you try in Wales, it is the grand Welsh breakfast. The first time I tried this was at Uplands Diner in Swansea. After a long morning trying to survive in the wild, eating berries and building shelters, there is nothing better than ‘All day breakfast’. Welsh Breakfast, with bacon, eggs, cockles (miniscule mussels) and laverbread (that’s fried seaweed) gives you more than the dose of grease you need, but you can always justify it under holiday indulgence.

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Tales from Wales – The Flip(side) Story

Did I tell you guys that my dream job was actually to make trailers for fantastic films. I never went to film school and no one really thought I could get there. Also, I’ve historically been trusted with a still camera, but never with a video camera. At a friend’s party a very long ago, I landed up filming the entire thing on some special mute feature, when the party had people singing for her. Apart from that, in general excitement, I can never take a video without moving around too much, making any video look like there was a mini earthquake. Recently, I learnt that its best to keep my mouth shut when I’m filming so as to actually catch what the person behind the camera is saying. So much for film making skills.

Anyway, I have just done something that I cannot believe myself. Not only have I filmed something, I have edited it too. Shot with my all new Flip camera (Mino HD), I managed to put together this silly video of my trip to Wales. Check out Tales from Wales – The Flip(Side) Story –

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bWEvb6oNQI&fs=1&hl=en_US]

If you like it enough, and you want to win yourself one of these cool Flip HD cameras, drop in a cool comment here. . If I can shoot with this camera, the chances are you’ll probably be nominated in some short film awards. Try your luck!

Wale(s) of a time…

The norm – When I travel, I lose weight.

Exception – When I travel with Visit Britain, uh-hmmmm…..3 course meals is the bare minimum.

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The Great Welsh Showdown – Day 4 – She shapes sheets out of sheep shit !

Someone once said that you haven’t really experienced a place till you get your hands dirty. Well, I took that pretty literally. Very very close to the Snowdonia region of Wales, up a winding mountain road and behind a slate mine, is a tiny little home factory that makes Sheep Poo Paper. If using your hands to mix pressure cooked, washed, dried and beaten to pulp sheep dung is not getting your hands dirty, I wonder what is.

Started about 5 years ago by 2 friends Lez and Lawrence, Sheep Poo Paper is a well thought out eco-business, that turns waste into something very useful – paper. Every sheep poos something like 1 kg of poo per day and with 4 sheep to every person in Wales, that’s 12 million sheep and that makes it 12 million kgs of poo per day. That’s 12000 tonnes of sheep poo. You need 5 tons of poo to make 1 ton of paper. Do the math! If everyone had a little Sheep Poo Paper company in their farm, everything that comes out Wales could be recycled documentation. Phenomenal!

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