26-27th May 2007

It was unanimously supported decision of my plan to visit niagara on the long weekend (Memorial Day-USA).
4 office colleague joined this tour (Parag, Sanjay, Anurag, Swagat). We had 2 day tour planned, so that 28th weekend will be the rest day at home Chicago. We traveled by Air from Chicago to Buffalo via Detroit. The flight was on time. We hired a rental car for 2 days. Our pilot was Anurag. We drove 26 miles from Airport to Niagara Falls area. It was 1st Navigational exercise for all of us, since it was everyone's first ever visiting experience to Niagara. Indian License is allowed to drive here in NY state.

Here is something for you trivia buffs. Did you know that there are two Niagara Falls?

There is Niagara Falls, Canada and then Niagara Falls, NY, USA!

Also, there is no one waterfall called 'Niagara Falls'. Niagara Falls is actually the name of the group of falls - these being Horseshoe Falls and America Falls.This article will be all about the Niagara Falls township in USA!

Niagara Falls is something of a tourist mecca. On our travels we soon realised - wherever we been to we were in the depths of the tourism whirlpool. We all visited the Maid of Mist boat ride as per the 1st target of our plan.

Maid of the Mist has been operating since 1846 and allows you to get as far into the falls as possible. With our blue 'plastic poncho' we were ohhing and ahhing all the way, while we got a shower of fresh Niagara water! It was the event actually for me and all of us since the huge nature's creation is experienced by our naked eyes. You will feel just keep on watching the fall forever. But the since the boat ride is of short time(30 min) everyone on the board were taking pictures of the nature's beauty, saving the camera lenses due to water sprinkle. Its was an wonderful experience.

Our next target was "Cave of the Wind", which is actually getting into the base of American Fall base. There are specially build staircase. We were bit unlucky to spent almost 2 hrs in the que, since on that day one of the lift was not working may be due to heavy load. Somehow we reached before the lights. From Canadian side colorful lights were spread on the American falls. Though it's artificial but looks good. We tried to get as much closer as we can. But can't spend more time in the nearest place since the water will make you completely wet soon.

After this event we went to the nearest point towards Horse shoe from American side. Lights were already started and it was around 10:00pm. If you can't be there right now though, you can always view Niagara via the FallsCam. We had to convince ourselves since it was not good experience since we can't see the entire horseshoe, just a side view. We just imagined virtually how it will look like as most of us have seen the illuminated photos of Niagara from Canadian side.

We return back to mall area had our dinner in one of the Indian restaurant and prepared to return back to Buffalo where our YHA hostel was booked.

As soon we sat in the car; I asked our Navigator(Swagat) about return journey Maps and we all were shocked that he didn't realise that that was required in US. IT was his first visit so I took the blame on me since I didn't rechecked. So it was another Navigational test for me. Good part was our pilot Anurag was cool and were confident about getting the destination. We return back using I90 & I190, but couldn't able to get the correct way to go to the "Main st." where our hotel was. So finally we went to Buffalo Airport and could able to reach the Hostel. By then it was 1:00am of 27th May. The reception was open since we already informed our delay so that was cool otherwise no YHA hostel reception will be open after 10:00pm.

This was one of the good hostel I have experienced in my YHA hostel experience. It was clean and neat. Another 1 hr we took to settle down before the start of the snoring competition between 3 beds out of 6. We all 5 were allocated in 1 room. Our Navigator friend couldn't able to resist to explore his new handy cam, to capture the snoring sounds of our 3 participants (Parag.Sanjay & Anurag). It was fun but I had to listen to some music with airplugs to get reed of these snoring.

Next day we decided to roam around Buffalo City. We visited the Erie Lake end and Marine Naval Museum. I had tried my driving skills just to get experience of "drive in US". It was nice experience driving the Impala from Chevrolet. We drove on the famous Danevore street. Then later struggled to find the way to Airport but by 12:40 we reached Airport and return the car and then by evening return to home by North West. It was on time.

We all were in happy mood due to short of successful trip to Niagara one of the wonders of the world.

Dare devils of Niagara Link

Photo Link

-- Rajan Rikame