Indiblogger meets are all about product promotions and yesterday was no different with Flipkart showcasing outdoor products from Altec Lansing, Samsung Gear S2, Red Chief Shoes, Polaroid Cube, Coleman and Garmin at this #FlipkartOutdoors meet.

But that isn’t why I attend, my reasons have nothing to do with the promotion or freebies. My attendance is all about friends and fun – meeting the bloggers I’ve grown close-to over previous meets and who I look forward to catching up with. Though the freebies are definitely welcome too. 😀

An hours bus journey took us from Ulsoor to Mango Mist Resort yesterday morning, where breakfast awaited us before the day started with a warm-up Indiblogger style. 😀

Here’s the line-up of products we got introduced to before the fun started.

Red Chief Shoes

This desi company makes casual shoes for men. These shoes are great if you want to give the impression that you are the that cool outdoorsy man, but make note these shoes are not recommended for actual hiking or trekking.
 

One thing that I thought was really cool was that these shoes are supposed to be biodegradable, yep the sole too!
 

Sadly they don’t have anything for women, and won’t have anything on offer for the fairer sex for another three years!

Polaroid

I’ve used the GoPro a couple to times before and really like it. It’s great for those crazy things Che and I do, it’s why I was excited to see the Polaroid Cube. It’s size and feel are the pluses for me but its magnetism which is a great feature to use for in car recording etc. was a put as it’s powerful enough wipe clean data and hence makes the device unsafe for handbag carrying. 🙁
 

I was also excited to see and try the Polaroid Snap. Che’s been using the Instax Wide over the last one month and a comparison was but inevitable. I’m not the best judge of quality but I did like the sticker format of images, the option to choose between b/w, colour and sepia and the size of the camera. I’d love to try out the next version of the Snap as it’s supposed to have instant photos and a data card so you can take multiple prints if you wish.
 

Altec Lansing

Lately I’ve been on the lookout for good earphones for running, wired or unwired. The new Altec Lansing Bluetooth Headphones wowed me. They tuck in well into the ear, are water proof, have great battery backup and are offered at a good price. Only drawback was the battery like thing on the cable that feels like a weight hanging off the ears.
 

There were also the Lifejacket speakers which were a crowd draw with their pulsating water to the beat of music. These little babies are not at all delicate,we hurled them 20 feet away and they continued to play. They beasts are rugged and waterproof. Prefect for our doggie house, me thinks… but wait, are they doggie proof? 😛

Garmin

Ironically it was just last month that I bought the Suunto Ambit 2 R from Flipkart and I’ve been a satisfied user for a couple of weeks now. That said, after seeing and handling the Garmin devices on display yesterday, I think a Garmin device would have been a good buy too.
 

But when we were choosing the device, we’d been disappointed by Garmin’s prices in India. I bought the Suunto at Rs.15,000; the Garmin equivalent (Forerunner 620) is Rs.27,825 on Flipkart!!!
 

I hope Garmin works on their pricing, this same watch is $239.99 on Amazon.com, thats Rs. 16,494 (at rate 68.73%). It’s cheaper to buy it in dollars!!!

Coleman

Don’t go by my photo of Shantanu investigating below, I was amazed that these guys have even a porta-potty! Aside from that they also had tents, bottles, compass, foldable chairs, insulated tiffin boxes and bungee cords on display. This was the most outdoorsy counter, if you ask me. 😉
 

Samsung Gear S2

I don’t really know how good these are for the serious outdoorsy folk or fitness addicts but they look really cool with colour display, phone sync, touch screen, etc. These would be cool everyday android wear.
 

Customary niceties over. Now on to the fun part (after a quick review of the resort of course). 😉

Mango Mist Resort is one those activity based resorts set in a Mango orchard. They offer a host of activities from zorbing to fish spa. They have a variety of packages available but almost all of them only have 4 coupons included (each coupon is worth Rs.50).

So what are coupons. Coupons can we used to do activities like rock climbing, crossing Burma bridges, climbing rope ladders, zip-lining, zorbing and more. There are a lot of activities offered but with just 4 coupons nothing much can be done, especially since it’s not one coupon per activity, some activities need 2 or 3 coupons. 🙁

I had to request for more coupons and as always the Indiblogger guys obliged. Thank guys for the extra fun. 🙂 Before I go on, a quick note on Mango Mist Resort – the resort is nice and the food good too. I liked the variety of packages offered with cottage and tent accommodations too so you can stay over and have more fun.

I big drawback was the lake behind the resort. It smells obnoxious and looks dirty too. A little work and help of the resort guys might make this eye-sore a beautiful water body and a good addition to the resort, it’d nice to see resorts give back to nature. The other down like I mentioned before was the limited coupons.

Ok, all that formality done. Here’s some pictures and a video of all that happened for me. 😉

I thought this would be easy compared to the others but man was this scary, with my phobia for ledges I giggled in nervousness all the way across the bridge.

Here’s the one Parinita choose. When looking at someone doing it, it’s so easy to give advise and think you’d do it better. Doing it though is a completely different thing.

After all that activity, like all good girls, we hit the bar. 😉

After watching zorbing on TV many a time, I’ve always wanted to try it out. Bhawna and I had a screaming match in there and so much fun. That’s how we looked at the end of the roll. 😀
Another item checked on the bucket-list.

And we finally ended the day with paintball and we won. That’s the team – don’t know what we were thinking but its an excellent capture. 😀 Below is what I won.A girly pink 3 box insulated tiffin system that keeps food both hot and cold.

I’d made instagram videos through the day, but putting up each one, just makes for a lot of video. (Plus Instagram is a pain with embeds). So, here’s a mash-up of the day on my Youtube channel.
 

 
It was a super fun day and tiring too. Catching up with friends and doing crazy stuff is tiring. 😀

A couple of shout outs at the end –
Thanks Flipkart and Indiblogger for a spectacular day.
Rajiv for the morning ride. That was exciting!
Che for taking over at home so I could get away… Thanks isn’t enough 😛
Bhawna and Pari for the wonderful company that made the day even better. 😉

To complete my affiliate tie-ups for now I wanted to add FlipKart to my list. I live in India so Amazon is great for all who read my blog abroad but in India Amazon doesn’t work so well as it costs a lot to ship stuff. But FlipKart is the big book seller here so I thought it worth my while. This way I can give readers two options to buy the book.

The FlipKart Affilate Program is very easy to join. Just click on the ‘Join Now For Free’ button and follow the instructions to fill in your details. Once you signed up you’ll see the home screen.

I haven’t used the FlipKart links much yet but the layout seems super easy to figure out and report useful. I did go to ‘My Account’ though and add in all my information.

The process of creating links seems very simple compared to others I’ve seen until now who generate the link. But that said its early days. I’m just starting out with it, so I’ll keep you posted on how it comes along.

Update as of 26th December 2012 – Until now I had only used my affiliate id for books I’ve reviewed. I didn’t gets clicks in the initial months it seems but in November and December I got 76 clicks however none of them converted. Maybe people in India aren’t buying so many books after reading reviews 🙂 I have to get more aggressive with my affiliate marketing I guess.