FarInto Blog

2012-08-24

Bang Bang Barcelona in Manali

We’ve always just popped by Manali. It’s either been a pit stop to drive on to Leh or it’s been a diversion on the way back from Gusheni when all other roads were jammed. It’s never been a place we actually planned to go - for a real holiday! But this time, I was doing the planning. And I’ve always wanted to experience Manali. Not just hurry past the market to pick up my quota of fresh apricot oil, but to actually amble across to the Hidamba Mandir, take a dip in front of the powerful Devi, ask for the impossible, buy some fake Northwest jackets on the way back and eat ginger cake at one of the many German Bakeries there which have nothing German about them whatsoever!

We did all of that - and more! My little 13-month old has just begun to walk and it was fun watching her trying to make her way uphill from Casa Bella Vista - our stay for the three nights we spent there. It’s an all-wood, green ivy covered series of cottages built on top of a hill and managed by a vibrant Spanish lady, Martha and her husband Giri. It had all the three Cs in my book to make it the perfect place - comfort, cleanliness and cuisine. Especially the cuisine! Mediterranean food, salads, calzone, finger-licking thin crust oven baked pizzas, pasta - and oh goodness, you’d have to stay there longer to explore the menu any further!

To explore Manali, you need to be innately lazy. If you’re one of those hurry-hurry-need-to-see-everything type of a person, you’ll be a real bore for those around. Manali has to be inhaled (and there’s lots to inhale!!), imbibed, and often inured. From the messy, filthy, main market area to the magical winding back roads lined with apple orchards on the left bank, there’s a lot to explore. Thankfully we never went to Rohtang at all - I never understood why people would make their way to a no-oxygen zone (well almost) littered with black filthy snow only to get caught in a bad traffic jam on the way back. Nope, we didn’t do that. We went to Solang instead. Did a zipline across a valley enroute (Rs. 350 in season and Rs. 200 off season), went up the freshly minted French-made cable car to 10,000 feet, kissed the clouds, had chai and ambled back.

The word “amble” is key to enjoying Manali. Amble across to Johnson’s Cafe for breakfast (waffles and cream, and then a side of crepes:-), amble across to Chopsticks for a Thupka lunch (Tibetan soup for the uninitiated) and don’t move a muscle from Casa Bella Vista (if you’re staying there) for dinner, because there’s Bang Bang Barcelona - the spiciest, chilliest pizza this part of the universe just waiting to be devoured! And if you’ve still got some energy left, amble across to The Club on the right bank for a rave party without noise - yes, you heard that right. Three DJs play their choice of music, you plug in with a set of headphones, choose any of the three tracks your heart desires and …amble!

2012-08-14

Indie Travel Series, Part 2: Finding The (Relatively) Unexplored

It’s understandable how people can fall into the beaten path of travel when planning a trip: it’s easier, faster, less intimidating. And over time, that less-resistant path, the one often called “tourism”, has only grown exponentially popular: after all, if a friend of a friend recommends Hotel X in the popular city of Y, it surely must be worth visiting, predator-like t-shirt vendors, inflated prices, and all.

For those independent-minded types who seek a different travel experience—one that’s defined by what you, the traveler, are seeking—FarInto has come to the rescue. Founded in early 2012 and still in beta development mode, the tiny startup has already gained attention for its experience-based take on travel. Functioning essentially like a social network for travelers, FarInto seeks to connect those planning their next non-touristy trip with others who’ve already been, all while making trip planning easier. For example, a member could post about a recent trip involving backpacking and camping from the Sarchu region in the Himalayas to the Keylong region (also in the northern tip of India, close to Nepal). Any interested members would then be able to inquire and discuss the details involved in the travel, much like a network of friends. Similarly, members could post inquiries about any recommended trips in certain areas, spurring a discussion that eventually leads to an actual trip.

Read more at Keenhaven

Source: keenhaven.com

2012-07-29

FarInto Thar Desert

Source: farinto.com

2012-07-28

Journey towards launch

One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.

– Henry Miller

In the last two months since our early alpha launch in April, we have made some interesting discoveries, about the traveler and about travel itself. A lot of our assumptions were right, and some were wrong - but most importantly, the process has made us dig deeper into our core motivations for travel.

#1: Travel is about discovery, both offline and online.

Anyone who has ever been bit by the travel bug would know what I am talking about here: we trudge along our days eating, sleeping, working, reading, but then every once so often, something would rouse that bug, perhaps that shared photograph on facebook, or that article about untouched white-sand beaches of Sri Lanka, and soon would ensue dreams of the next experience. The trick to understanding that trigger is through understanding the traveler herself.

#2: Content, content, content, and more so in travel space.

Recently, we met up with a friend (and investor to one of my previous startups) in his Pune office, and had a long chat about the potential of FarInto. One of the discussion points was our future approach to content - and he made a most memorable comment: FarInto intrinsically speaks of ‘far’ (width) and ‘into’ (depth) of travel (and of travel content) - and that is what we aim to be in the travel space.

#3: When you ask someone to spend money, make sure they trust you first.

In the last one month, we have tested the waters with bookings. Every single booking experience has taught us something, but the most important learning was just the revisiting of a fact of life - to build trust at every single step before any transaction takes place.

How does trust develop? First and foremost, we feel that it comes through authenticity and transparency. The user should find the information presented as is, and that there is complete transparency around it - be it about the trip, or the offering, or pricing, whatever it may be. Secondly, working with the user to make their experience awesome. We have been following a well-defined criteria in figuring out which specific operators to work with - and that has already helped in connecting the user with the best operator for a particular trip. Thirdly, a human voice at the end of the line…

We can go on and on about this one. After all, this is where we aim to solve one of the biggest pain point travelers have today.

#4: Talk travel. Will travel.

Every travel town in this world has that Kunzum Cafe of its own where travelers and tourists lounge about and discuss their adventures of the day or the week. Stories propagate, experiences are discussed, and eventually the stories end up becoming so enticing that one just cannot help but get on the same trip. This is an intrinsic part of travel, both offline and online. Yesterday, we rolled out Facebook Commenting integration to enable seamless conversations, and will be putting out a number of new features in the coming future around getting travelers to discuss and connect.

There are many more lessons we have soaked in, but its best to stop here and get back to building the platform again (or getting some sleep!). We are on a journey towards creating something new, and as from Miller’s quote, it will eventually result in a new way of seeing things.

Source: farinto.com

2012-07-27

Hooking into travel buzz around the web

Early on in FarInto, we realized that if we were to unearth the real experiences that travelers chatter about, we would need to find a way to hook into the traveler conversations across the web, somehow figure out a method by which we can listen when an interesting experience is shared.

During travel, its easier for the traveler - you head to any travel cafe, and you hear interesting stories. Eventually, over thousands of coffee or beer sips, you would eventually learn of all the interesting experiences someone or the other has gone through.

The problem becomes a magnitude harder when you are not traveling - its hard to tap into the interesting places people are visiting, and a simple google search would reveal the sheer volume of information one needs to soak in before they find that needle (err, gem) in the haystack.

In the last few weeks, we have been hard at work taking a stab at this problem - our goal is to unearth the best out there, and it was necessary for us to create a system that can ‘listen’, even when we are not.

The aha moment came a few days ago, when our simple experiments led to fruition - through a mix of open-source technologies built around geolocation, feed aggregation, real-time conversation streams, and throwing in a bit of custom NLP and text analysis in with that - we have built a system that’s now starting to tells us of interesting places travelers are talking about. Its a start, but the results look promising already.

There was only one problem - now it wasn’t the dearth, but the deluge of data. Quickly we added a few more tools that would take out the ‘spam marketing’ chatter that were seeping through our filter, and leave us with mostly the authentic ones. Also, we added a simple interface to allow some human moderation to make sure that only the best sources are highlighted.

Yesterday, we started testing waters with what we had built, we were amazed by the wealth of experiences it started revealing. Mind you, all of us at FarInto are avid travelers and we generally pride ourselves in knowing of the nooks and crannies of the India and S.E. Asia. Yet, when these incredible experiences emerged, we were awed.

Here are some of them - judge for yourself:

More coming soon as we are busy at work towards a wider launch, but its becoming harder to keep the temptation to travel at bay!

Source: farinto.com

2012-06-30

Kasar Devi - where the pine trees speak

The drive from Delhi takes you around 7 hours – if you start off really early in the morning. Our plan was to load up and leave by 5 AM. But with four children in tow – a one-year old and three 4-legged ones of sundry ages, that’s hardly a possibility. By the time we left at 9 AM, with our two mountain bikes firmly strapped on the back of our car and all the children bundled in, we crashed straight into the Delhi-Noida-Ghaziabad office traffic and it took us 2 ½ hours to negotiate through the mess in erstwhile Mayavati land.

The highway to Almora isn’t anywhere close to what we’ve begun to expect – spoilt as we are with the Delhi-Jaipur and Delhi-Chandigarh expressways. It’s a simple two lane highway on either side, that becomes one-lane fairly often – often enough not to presume that a bus won’t come barrelling down what you considered “your side” of the road! There’s a Bikanerwala on the way, nearing Gajraula, which is a good place to stop over for lunch. Super clean and with an eclectic veggie menu ranging from chaat to dosa to Chinese and pasta, you got to be a real picky eater not to get what your stomach desires.

Tired of the flat landscape and impatient to see the mountains, my three 4-legged ones and I had our heads stuck out of the window – and then, as soon as we passed Haldwani main town, there they were! The mountains, silhouetted against the grey blue sky! By evening we’d reached Bhim Tal, and after an eight hour drive it was tempting to stay over at one of the hotels facing the Bhim Tal lake and just chill. We decided to strive on though, and hit Almora town at dusk. Like any other hill town in India, Almora has a central market that’s bustling with activity, a bus stand where the entire town seems to have gathered, and a German Bakery. Huh?Well, it’s like this. Where there are hills in North India, there are Israelis (read Manali, Dharamsala, Dhanaulti yadda yadda yadda), and where there are Israelis, a German Bakery isn’t far behind. It’s never “German” though, and besides bread and sundry “patice” you don’t get much else. But it’s always there. Intriguing.

Kasar Devi is another 30 min drive from Almora market. If any of the locals tell you it’s “just 5 min away” – they’re clueless! We were staying at a friend’s place – a beautiful colonial style bungalow tucked away off the main road and facing a meadow of pine trees that swished in the wind - almost like they were saying “hello there!”. Picture post card like. It was quite warm for the hills – unexpectedly so, since the cottage had no fans! And the Kasar Devi mosquito – they’re huge! Like one of the locals said, huge and dumb, because they come buzzing straight into your face thinking you can’t see them.

Mohan’s Cafe, about 10 min drive away was our retreat for food. It’s dominated by Israelis which explains the boxes of Tahina that were on display in the front store. They also have an internet cafe there – so you can munch on your tuna pizza and send your emails at the same time. Just get off from the main road and there are some amazing trekking and mountain bike tracks – we did a 6 km stint to Balta village on a super hot day, but a brilliant ride – gave the good ‘ol Firefox bikes a good drubbing. The Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary is just 30 km away and if you’re really adventurous, you can bike the whole road uphill. I wasn’t. I preferred to bike it all the way down – so much easier on the quads!

On our last day there, we popped in at Kalmatia Sangam Himalay Resort. Serenity personified. The super helpful staff took us around the estate, showed us the rooms and gave us some tea. I loved the lotus pond at the reception, the armchair swing in front of one of the cottages – all named after Himalayan birds, the sneak peak of the Himalayas that promises something special on a clear day – loved everything about the place! Definitely coming back.

My top 5 things to do at Kasar Devi:

Trek, walk, just move those legs – lots of lovely routes close by.
Bike – you cover more ground that way and get to see more of the place.
Visit Kalmatia Sangam – to know why, you’ve got to have read the above.
Eat pahari mutton at the local restaurant.
Leave the local bhutia pooches alone – not the super friendly variety.

2012-06-08

Packing in 45 deg Celcius for -5 deg!

You look at the big down jacket and you wonder…gosh I won’t possibly wear that!! Big mistake. Packing for the cold climes while you’re reeling under a heatstroke requires some imagination …and some role play. My top 5 recommendations:

While you pack, switch on the AC - colder the better. If you’re shivering under its icy blast, you’ve got it right.
Ditch the heavy sweaters knitted by grandma. They’re useless once the mercury dips below 5 degrees and just take up space in your bag. Go for fleece, down, and thermals.
Never dismiss those woolen socks thinking “gosh, I’ll never wear these!” You will. You just can’t imagine it right now when the mercury outside is going through the roof.
Beg, borrow, steal Uggs. These are boots from down under - made of sheepskin. Look ugh - definitely not right up there where style is concerned, but keep you awesomely warm and dry!
Follow the golden rule - keep the extremities warm. This includes head, ears, nose, toes and finger tips. With me - as long as my ears and toes are warm, I say bring on the chill! Laugh all you like about the Bongs and their monkey caps. The official name is Balaclava. It keeps your ears warm - those muff types are useless.

2012-06-04

You get there…only if the mountains call

I’ve tried going to Leh twice. The first time, we drove from Delhi to Manali and onwards. I’ve done the Pacific Coast Highway 1 (PCH 1) in the US - supposedly one of the best routes ever. With the sea on one side and the mountains on the other, it is really an awesome drive. But trust me when I tell you, it’s nothing compared to the Manali to Leh route. The unusual rock formations in different shades of brown and and grey, the landscape, the crystal blue sky…it’s almost unreal. I never reached Leh though. Got stuck at Pang plateau just outside of Leh for two nights. Some local trouble ensured that Leh was shut down and no cars were allowed to pass. At 14,000 feet, Pang was not exactly the best place to spend the night and some of my friends started to get ill after the second night. The decision to head back was taken and we went on to spend an amazing holiday at Raju Bharti’s Cottage in Gushaini.

The second time I went, I decided to fly in straight to Leh. Even before I could fully acclimatize, I flew back to Delhi - in less than 24 hours, because of a family emergency. Sitting at the airport, grouchy and low, I narrated my story to an old Ladakhi gentleman, about never having really seen Leh. He nodded his head wisely and said: “you will get there only if the mountains call!” I’m still waiting for that call!

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Endless cups of masala tea

Early morning, I am deep in snooze after long night of site maintenance work, and the phone starts ringing. Cursing under my breath, I drag myself out of bed to grab the phone. Turns out, the call is from our Mr. Data, who has graciously landed up in Pune for a few days of jamming session on next phase of data growth. He had reminded me of his travel date, but it had slipped my mind in the madness of DNS changes, tricky maintenance queries on production database, and fixing the broken CDN links for some images.

In an hour, I am on my way to Pune from Mumbai, the only guy in the bus tapping away on a laptop with an apple logo connected to the internet with a blinking Tata Photon+ internet stick. Most of the Pune-Mumbai A/C Volvo buses are actually very comfortable, with a functional power sockets and an amicable crowd. As the Lonavla gorgeous landscape streaks by, I start hacking out bits of the completely refreshed ‘Activity’ page, which is poised to release in less than three weeks.

In Pune, as I head towards Kalyani Nagar through Koregaon Park, I get reminded of the gorgeous few years of Mixercast in early 2006 - we had setup the entire company from ground up, from an idea sketched out on a powerpoint PPT, to a functioning platform and an incredible team, all within eight months, with a lot of sleepless nights thrown in. Do we keep returning to startups purely to repeat the early days of mad creativity?

Our conversations start over warm cups of homemade darjeeling tea and bengali style vegetable chop, few sheets of white drawing paper, and a tricky puzzle to crack. As with any online model that tries to weave its way into a real-world interaction, the challenge is to provide a seamless transition that adds to the currently functioning models, and not detract from it. Heated debates follow, systems are reviewed, scratches and circles are made on the white sheets, and before we had even noticed, it was lunch time. Our founder’s concerned family calm us down, force us to eat a civilised bengali lunch with them before we proceed further.

Over the course of the day, we go through a bunch of open source shopping carts / payment processing systems (such as Magento, Satchmo, LFS), converse with a few operators from Kerala for a volume booking request we had received, discuss strategies around understanding a tour operator’s profile better, and are just about to close for the day, when we realise that a buggy featured listing had brought down our homepage —- cached version of the page was being served to a few users, but the rest were seeing errors. As we scramble to do a quick diagnosis, and just about when I think I would push the fix, power goes out.

During the summers, in any city apart from Mumbai and Delhi, power cuts are more certain than death and taxes, and we jack in the Tata Photon+ 3G data connection, an invaluable tool for anyone in need of constant connectivity from anywhere in the country. The errors turn out to be due to an error in the CDN cache - which is easily fixed. In the process, to make sure that we get alerts right-away after any downtime, we add a few more rules to Pingdom (http://www.pingdom.com), and set up better nagios alerts.

Its past midnight when we finally close. There are investor meetings, operator meetings, fixes to be made to the sitemap, and a whole bunch of data import to be done tomorrow. You sometimes forget its work when it mixes with play, and there’s fun in play.

So we carry on… with endless supply of masala tea.

2012-06-02

Livemint: Be a different tourist

Livemint covered us today. :)

Think of it as a network of avid travellers pooling their experiences into a reservoir whose content can be tapped at the click of a button. It allows you to ask questions, respond to others’ queries and access a list of recognized travel operators who can then help you plan your trip: all via your Facebook login, making your activity visible and thus avoiding the trap of the anonymous portal, which cannot always be trusted.