Freedom Park- Hospet

Recently, I have been to my hometown Hospet in summer holidays.My kids enjoy a lot in my hometown. Obviously,they should enjoy! Hospet city has a bunch of nature in it. The city has a dam named as Tunghabgadra which is a very big dam with eye-catching view from the top hill area.

My kids had already visited  Tunghabgadra Dam and park. Also visited the ABCD park and in T.B. Dam. This time they wanted to visit a new park. So, we googled it and came to know about Freedom Park.We visited the park with family.  We enjoyed a lot in the park . The garden is amazing, wanted to share the experience over there.

 

First of all the entrance fee is just 10 rupees per person, above 5 years of age. Now, we took the tickets and entered the park. At the entrance we were excited to see the horse ride in the park. We decided to let the kids play first and  went inside . First there was a jumping jack and a big swing just for 10 rupees each. Our kids enjoyed jumping very much.                         

Then we moved on to the car zone. It was a small area for kids with jeeps and car ride on . Kids were enjoying the drives. They charged 80 rupees per kid, looked a bit expensive.

Now, we further moved on to see other playing things for kids. We very excited to see the beautiful train. Our kids were happy to take the train ride. The train ticket was 40 rupees per person. It was reasonable.  

After that , the very excited experience was the beautiful planes, which we don't get in the fares  in our town. It reminded me of my childhood. In those days it was  very exciting to see the airplane rides. I remember in my childhood I enjoyed it in Bangalore City. I was excited to let my kids enjoy it. Obviously, they enjoyed it very much.  It has safety, kids has to climb up the stairs and enter the plane one by one. The women who operated it was also very friendly. She took care of the kids safety with fun. 

Now we moved on it was getting late and were left to see the other half of the park. This was the half area of park we covered outside the fort. Now, we entered the fort inside, very nice entrance will feel like we are in other place. We moved  inside there is lot of greenery, small waterfalls and musical fountains in the path. It is big area to walk on. After taking a round we came across the photo spot with angel structure to take photos everyone  clicked a angel photo. 

The cave is also a eye catching attraction .we entered the cave,  Inside the cave there are photos of freedom fighters inside the cave. It was a different new view and experience. Kids can run and enjoy. 

Almatti Dam Review

 We started our journey from BIJAPUR. It is 100 km from BIJAPUR. We travelled by car. The journey was very easy within no time we reached ALMATTI town. The dam is just in entrance in the ALMATTI town.  The entrance has a very big stone sculpture.  The entrance is very beautiful with greenery. We entered the dam area in car. They took a small amount for car parking. First in the entrance there was a rock garden.  We thought we will see the rock garden and went forward. There is road inside connecting the dam area. First, we thought of seeing the dam as we were excited to see the dam. Now, we entered the dam area, there was a ticket of 15 rupees per person, to enter the area and see the dam gates.

              The entrance to the dam has elephant on both the sides. Then there is a passage with the sculptures on stones and the roof. Here we found a photographer asking for photograph with family, he told us will give the photos instantly for 30 rupees each.  We took the family photo and then went down to see the gates. Now, after walking again for 10 mins we reached a big sculpture with stairs where we sat to take rest. We enjoyed our 10 mins walk in the small passage amidst the water flowing through small fountains on both the sides. But, the time we were walking on the path was at the mid noon which was very sunny. It was very hot. So, the care takers there told us you would have went the rock garden first and in evening come here. Now, also no problem you can go to rock garden and come at 6 pm here. The same ticket can be used for re-entry. But we didn’t have time so thought of seeing the gates first as it was the main point of attraction to us.

The after reaching the fountain point again we had to walk for 5 mins and finally reached the gates. It was a very beautiful scenario the huge dam, the gates, the sky looking so vast and beautiful, and ducks swimming in water.  It was a very enjoyable moment.  We climbed up the wall to see the dam from nearer. We walked on the path. After enjoying the movement as it was sunny we left soon and then walked our way back to the rock garden, which is at entrance.

We bought our tickets at the rock garden and entered it.  The garden according to its name has many things made of rock, right from entrance a man made of rock welcoming people. Then fishes made of rock in the walking path. The garden is also full of greenery along with rocks sculptures. Children will surely enjoy the huge slides made of rock, a huge dragon slide; it feels like one is sliding from the mouth of dragon. A big fish slide, from the mouth of fish. So, many swings! A train for the kids with round track to get the tour of rock garden. Kids will be left with mouth-watering games in the rock garden.  There is also a small pond of fishes in the midst of the garden. We fed the fishes some food; our kids were excited to see the group of fishes coming to catch the food. There is a small jeep service for adults along with family to see the park.😃

 

 

 

 

 

How to reach Penang Island from Butterworth economically?

Butterworth is a town in the Penang state. Penang is a very famous place for tourist attraction. Of course, Penang is very beautiful and clean city. We had been to Penang several times and love its greenery, beautiful landscape and its enchanting natural scenery. Butterworth is connected to Penang via a long bridge of approximately 13 kms. Travelling on this bridge is another great experience. Butterwort city has also many attractions for tourist including some historical places. So, there are two ways to travel to Penang from Butterworth either by road or by ferry. In this post, I am going to discuss about the water transport, i.e. the ferry from Butterworth. 

Butterworth to Penang Ferry

The taxi fare from Butterworth to Penang is very high as compared to the fare of ferry. In addition, one can enjoy the experience of travelling in ferry in the vast sea of Penang island. Isn’t it adventurous? But, you need a little patience to travel by ferry because the ferry timings are not fixed and it arrives between 30-45 minutes. You are lucky if you are the last person on the ferry when it is leaving with no need to wait and not lucky if you have just arrived and the ferry is leaving. Because, you have to wait maximum time for ferry as compared to others arriving later. Anyhow, one can pass the time browsing on mobile, as there is free wifi facility available in the waiting area. 

Fares and Timings of the Ferry

There are no fixed timings but the first and last ferry has. The first ferry departs at morning 5.20 AM and the last departs at 12.40 AM in the mid-night. The fare is very cheap, RM 1.20 for adults and RM 0.60 for kids. The other way round, while returning from Penang to Butterworth it is free of cost. It is better if you carry coins, as you need to put the coins at the entrance for the automatic gate-bar to open. This will be very useful, if the ferry is leaving and you want to get in it. No problem, if you didn’t carry coin as there is a coin exchanger just at the entrance, but if there exist a long queue you may lose the ferry. Hence, it’s advised to carry the coins. 

Benefits of Ferry

The ferry provides seating arrangement for the passengers and it is equipped with life jackets placed at racks as a safety feature. It has maximum transport of capacity of 300 people at one time. The ferry will take you to Penang in just 15 minutes. During the short span of time one can enjoy the open-air breeze from the waves, also can click beautiful scenes using camera or mobile phone. At the arrival, furthermore exciting thing is that you have reached Little India, one of the famous tourist spots. If you hire a taxi from Butterworth to Little India it will take approximately 45-60 minutes to reach with a fare around RM 80, which is nearly 80 times high compared to the the fare of ferry. Hence, one can travel economically by ferry!

The only thing that might be little perturbing is the 10-15 minute walk from Butterworth bus terminal to the Ferry point. Climbing upstairs and the long pavement may be painful for old age people.

Our Travel Experience from Nibong Tebal to Mydin-Bukit Mertajam

Mydin is a wholesale market in Malaysia. Many people love to shop in Mydin due to the reasonable rates offered by them with the comfortable environment of a shopping mall. Mydin malls are fully air-conditioned, which are most needed in Malaysia, because of the extreme hot temperature.  The timings of the shopping mall are also friendly, with long time duration allowing the customers to shop at their convenient time starting from 8 AM in the morning till 11 PM in the night. Don't you think it’s a good range of time duration for the customers to shop? Mydin with its number of branches in Malaysia has opened its new branch in Bukit Mertajam, a town in Penang state.

Now, how can you reach Mydin from Nibong Tebal?

Nibong Tebal is another town in Penang state. It is famous among tourists and also loved to be discovered by foreigners. Here, one can find many Indian shops selling Indian clothing, Indian sweets, Indian cosmetics and so on.

Though the town has a small bus stand but it still connects to places like Penang Sentral, Bukit Mertajam and few villages in the route. These buses are available at a frequency of every 15 to 30 minutes and are named as Rapid Penang Bus. So, to go to Mydin (Bukit Mertajam), one has to take the bus going to Penang Sentral. You may be confused why not the bus going to Bukit Mertajam? This is because the bus going to Bukit Mertajam enters the town whereas the shopping mall is in the outskirts of the town, which comes in the route leading to Penang Sentral. Most important thing to be noted is the Bus number 801 goes to Penang Sentral(Butterworth) from Nibong Tebal. The fare is RM 3.40

•  How to reach Penang Island from Butterworth?

Our Journey

Few days back, we went to the Mydin shopping mall by bus. We enjoyed the journey with beautiful view through the bus. But, the driver disappointed us by not stopping the bus at the bus stop situated at Mydin,  until we pressed the request stop button, at the next stop. However after a small walk of 300 meters, we reached the Mydin Mall and were excited to see the Kapiton restaurant in the food court of Mydin, which is situated in the entrance of Mydin. The restaurant has all delicious Indian dishes prepared in Indian traditional style from chicken Biryani to Tandoori and many more recipes. We had the lunch and then entered to see the two storey building offering shops at both the levels. We were more excited when we saw the game centre for kids. They have a big game station at the second floor. And on the opposite side there is the kids favorite, balloons play station. Where kids can hop, jump, enjoy without hurting themselves.

How to cross the Highway to reach the bus stop on opposite side?

One can easily cross the busy road with the help of flyover Pedestrian Bridge connecting Mydin bus stop to the other side. This is indeed needed to find a return bus to Nibong Tebal. If one doesn’t want to return back to Nibong Tebal, can find  the bus to Peneng Sentral, which is also known as Butterworth. From Butterworth one can find ferry service to Penang. And also buses connecting to other cities of Malaysia. 

This is all about Mydin Bukit Mertajam, Hope you enjoyed! Stay in touch to get more updates of the shopping mall.