Road to Destiny

Adventurous Trek and Camping - Kodachadri

2011-11-09T22:59:00.000+05:30

Walking in the middle of the forest, taking treacherous winding roads with excitement and fear at every step, hearing the chirping of birds and watching few others fly around, feeling submerged in the passing clouds at the higher altitudes, experiencing the kiss of the breeze as the legs struggle to climb up the steep hills - the greatest pleasures of trekking won't come without risk or struggle.

After a long time a bunch of friends decided to trek and this time setup a camping too and the place chosen was Kodachadri, a part of Western Ghats in South India. I have always felt proud and fortunate to be belonging to Karnataka, because so far the greatest pleasures I got out of treks/travels were from Karnataka, be it Kumar Parvata or Mullayyanagiri or Kudremukh or any other place. The vast landscapes and the versatile wildlife here always amuse me. Kodachadri was no exception. The mountain peak surrounded by the dense forest is approximately 1343 meters above the sea level and is a habitat for versatile wildlife which includes highly venomous snakes! The place is around 425 kms from Bangalore. More information here: Kodachadri-Wikipage

We had rented the tents from Bangalore and had made all the arrangements for a successful camping. We left on Friday late evening to make sure we reach early in the morning to the starting point. We checked in into a hotel at Hosanagara ( after Shimoga ) to freshen up before we start to trek. Just a few kilo meters before Nittur, there is a starting point for trek through Hidlumane water fall to the Kodachadri Peak. The plan was to start from there and camp at the peak; next day morning trek down from the other side towards Kollur. We hired a guide for 300 RS who showed us the way till the peak. The way up was exciting as with every previous trekking spots. The trek path was mixture of different types of landscapes - cultivated fields, thick forest range, rocks along the water fall, the grass lands on the hills and then finally the jeep track till the peak. On the way we were greeted by a couple of hosts of the jungle, Pit Viper snakes. Without knowing that it was a Malbar Pit Viper (Yellow Morph) and it is highly venomous, we sat a couple of ft away from the snake and clicked plenty of snaps till the snake got bored of posing and moved away. The difficulty level of trekking is moderate but still it became very difficult for the souls who were doing it after such a huge gap. Trekking 20 kms up/down is not an easy task especially when you know you are grown 3-4 years older than when you trekked last time. We took plenty off breaks before we finally reached the Bhattar Mane at the top of the hill.

The people around warned us not to put up tents as it is prohibited by the forest department and they shared with us some recent incidents of drunken people harassing some women. After such tiring effort to reach the top, when you hear such threatening stories, you would think twice before putting a tent. Also when we were in the middle of our dinner at around 7 PM (served in the house at the peak), the hell broke loose, and it started pouring as though it was going to smash the roof. Our hope of putting a tent, which already seemed a remote possibility, completely vanished when those rain drops appeared to pierce through the roof. We requested the caretaker of the temple to accommodate us in already crowded place. He asked us to sleep in the kitchen for which we agreed, but then a moment later he didn't allow us that either as there were a plenty of his guests arrived. So again, we had to make a decision and as the rain appeared to slow down, we all took a brave step of climbing further and setting up the tent at the peak. We climbed up the hill in pitch dark and before we could freeze with the cold we managed to fix two tents on a flat surface which was just a couple of steps away from the edge!!

It was one of the memorable nights, sadly because of a bad situation. The wind picked up the speed as the late evening approached the midnight. Hadn't realized it would be so heavy and such a recurrent wind; close to 2 am in the night, one of the flexible poles of the tent broke because it couldn't withstand the wind; and after a while the broken parts pierced through the top sheet and tore it off. It appeared as if the wind would pull off the whole tent and take us away from the edge of the hill which was just a few ft away. I have literally prayed that night, for the wind to stop its torture; and every time I prayed, the wind became heavier, faster and more threatening. Feeling helpless, whole night we couldn't sleep properly; holding the broken pole in hand I tried to doze off but only for a short while because I was woken up as soon as the pole skipped off my hands.

When it was close to 6 am in the morning, I was the happiest person not because I was able to experience a beautiful sunrise from the peak but I could come out of the tent and pack it up. We saw that one of our 2 tents was smashed from one side. Thank God the extra pegs tied to the wooden log saved the tent and us.
We had breakfast at the caretaker's house and geared up to complete the trek. Though few jeep drivers influenced us to hire the jeep to reach the foot hill, we were adamant that we will trek down and complete the adventurous trek. Climbing down wasn't too easy as we had thought, but because of the pleasant morning and tremendously beautiful landscape views it went fine. Out of 10 kms, 5 kms stretch was a thick forest route, which was the best part of the trip. We heard the calls of woodpeckers and hornbills but couldn't sight them. The Great Malbar Squirrels entertained us with their call and sightings. When we reached the main road, our tempo was waiting there which was such a great relief. We went to Kollur to finish off lunch and freshen up. From there it was a journey back towards Bengaluru with a stopover at Veerappa Nayakana Kote (Fort) in Nagar which was like a dessert after a meal; we got to experience a wonderful sunset from top of the fort, with lush green fields and a giant lake around.

We were back to Bengaluru in the wee hours of Monday morning and before the Monday blues hit us, we had enough memories from this trek to sail through the busy week ahead.

Photographs:

1. Uphill towards the Kodachadri Peak

2. Trek path near Hidlumane Water Fall

3. Hidlumane Water Fall

4. Hidlumane Water Fall in monochrome

5. Bunch of friends bathing under the Hidlumane waterfall

6. "ID me please?" - A snake found in the bushes on the way up to Kodachadri

7. Malabar Pit Viper (Yellow Morph); spent some time near this beauty and it posed too

8. Grasslands atop the hill

9. Vast landscapes, a part of western ghats

10. Someone was really in hurry to spoil my frame ;-)

11. Candid moment - Jeep track on the way to Kodachadri Peak

12. Gamblers in the tent; fun-filled moments before the nightmares :)

13. Crimson backed Sunbird - Kodachadri

14. Shivappa Nayakana Kote, Nagar

15. Sunset viewed from the fort at Nagar

"Seven Heaven" Ride - Dal Lake, Kashmir

2011-11-04T13:52:00.000+05:30

(...Continuing with Destination Leh and "Ladakh, Landscapes"..)
With a couple of days left in 10 days long eventful journey, there was one small treat waiting for us before we ended the trip. It was Srinagar, where we had one morning to be spent before we could board the flight to Delhi. And obviously the famous Dal Lake was fitting well with the morning plan.

Dal Lake is the second largest lake in the northern most state of Jammu and Kashmir in India. The shore line of the lake is about 15.5 KM which is encompassed by a boulevard lined with numerous Mughal Gardens, Houseboats, beautiful parks and hotels. As with any lake I always believe the best time to visit is the morning and that too before the Sunrise. I was desperate an evening before visiting Dal Lake to get up early in the morning and to never miss this opportunity, because we just had one morning there. Like we planned, we got up early on a pleasant morning and headed towards this lake. As we were walking along the lake to find an entrance an elderly gentleman approached me and asked "Sir, aapko Shikara chahiye?" ("do you need a boat ride?") - Initially I ignored him and tried to walk off from there but then the gentleman followed me and showed me his ID provided by the J & K tourism dept and told me that he would charge me nominal price. We thought it was a good deal (400 RS) for 2+ hours and we agreed. We then followed Ali Bhai to his Shikara which he had gracefully named as "Seven Heaven"!

As we closed in, we sighted plenty of Kingfishers doing what they do the best, fishing. It was amazing to see them dive into the water and pluck the fishes out of the lake in a split second. The Sun was slowly rising up the horizon as the Shikara moved along the lake. The eyes witnessed majestic view of the lake against the backdrop of giant hills. The houseboats built with inspiring artworks, lined up along the lake kept our eyes wondering . Pied Kingfishers, in their typical way, hovering over the lake before making a vertical dive bill-first to capture the fish, kept the visitors amused. Flowers and vegetable sellers on the boats cruising along the lake appeared to be a decoration on the lake. In the middle of all this, school going kids taking their daily transport, Shikara, to go on to the other side of the lake brought smile on our faces. It was truly turning out to be a remarkable morning experience. Ali Bhai was extremely generous giving us plenty of time whenever we wanted to click some snaps and whenever we wanted to spend more time at some part of the lake. He also gave some historical details about the lake. He then went on to show us the places and the boats on which movies from 1970's to till date were shot. He took us to the floating gardens and something called as "Chalta firta Khet" on which they grow vegetables. The floating gardens blossomed with lotus were delightful to watch. Chai served from a shop in the midst of the lake tasted good. It was one long ride for more than 2 hours and as the Shikara was heading back to the starting point, eyes were still gazing at the silhouettes of the hill ranges against the sun with the reflections in the Dal Lake lighting up the faces. That truly justifies why this lake is nick-named as "Jewel in the crown of Kashmir" or "Srinagar's Jewel".

As opposed to what I thought the visit to Srinagar changed my opinions about the place. The people (from Lodge manager to the Chaiwalas) were extremely helpful. And no one tried to exploit the tourists by charging hefty prices in shops or on the streets. This place requires a few more visits for sure.

Following details can be useful:

Lodging/Stay/Accommodation: (Clean, luxurious lodge)

Hotel Victoria

Phone: 0194-2478233

Mobile: 09419077579

In case you have any complaint against anyone like taxi driver, restaurants etc, you call up the below number and they will immediately help you.

J & K Police for tourism: 01942477224

Photographs (18):

1. Ali bhai, the owner of "Seven Heaven" Shikara starting a ride

2. Houseboats at Dal Lake

3. Kids going to school look at the visitors with curiosity

4. I would prefer a wide angle for this but at that very moment, I had 55-250mm hooked into my Canon 450D

5. Another shot of children going to school; these kids appeared to be engrossed in some thought

6. How I wish she had turned her face towards the camera

7. Magical morning - Hills, Shikaras, fog and mist, Sunrise

8. Flower sellers cruise along the house boats

9. Floating gardens blossom with lotus, which bloom during July and August

10. The lake is habitat for a lot of ducks and water birds

11. Small blue kingfisher observes the movement in the lake before it hunts a fish

12. "Morning Prayers?" - Common Tern appeared to be resting on a pole.

13. Nehru Park situated along the Dal Lake

14. We bought a lotus from a lake side flower seller

15. Though it appears dirty but note that they are the "Chalta firta khet" (Moving fields) where the vegetables are grown

16. Trail of Pigeons' flight

17. Kids waiting for their Shikara

18. Colorful Shikaras lined up on the shores; it turned out sunny after we had soothing Shikara ride at Dal Lake.

Ladakh, Landscapes

2011-09-25T00:46:00.001+05:30

3 years of planning and every time seeing it jinxed in one or other way, the Ladakh Trip had remained as a dream until 16th Aug 2011, when we entered the nature's pristine creation after our relentless efforts to get there. As I wrote in the my earlier post, Destination Leh, we had to beat a series of uncertainties and had to make the best decisions. After overcoming all the hurdles for 5 long days finally the Leh trip was taking a good shape. Though we had covered more than 1200 KMs of road journey, we were elated when we reached Leh. We just had more than 2 days of time and wanted to make best use of it. Weather didn't disappoint us, instead it was extra nice to us. Some times clear skies, some times a slight drizzle, and a couple of times snowfall on the way to Pangong Lake and Nubra valley. It was a perfect show displayed by the weather to the desperate people who wanted to get there at any cost.

On the first day, we visited Pangong Lake (one day trip). We had hired a Scorpio and an Innova as there were no Tempos available. So the gang of 9 was split into two groups. The Pangong Lake is roughly about 5 hours drive from Leh and the way towards it is beautiful with some amazing landscapes. The lake is at a height of about 14270 ft; it is 134 KM long and spread across India and China, with only 40% of it in India. In the winter the entire lake freezes. When we visited the lake, the atmosphere was just perfect. The play of clouds along with the sun light created magical scenes as we walked along the lake. The lake with crystal clear water, reflecting somewhat bluish color provided breathtaking view against the backdrop of few snow-capped mountains, few sun-drenched hills and few hills covered with the clouds. The joy, obviously was immense, watching such picturesque landscape. We spent few hours walking around the lake and obviously had some photo shoot. Few pictures of the landscapes between Leh and Pangong Lake are posted below.

The Nubra Valley is a high altitude desert in the Ladakh region, which is at a height of around 10000 ft above the sea level, with scant vegetation. It is roughly around 150 KMs from Leh. On the way to Nubra Valley, we crossed Kardung La pass which is known to be the highest motorable pass in the world (at a height of about 17,582 ft) At Kardung La it had snowed heavily, which was unusual in the month of August it seems. Again, the landscapes along the way to Nubra Valley are picturesque. At Nubra valley there is a small group of Bactrian Camels and camera ride will be available. Again, we hardly had any time and hence spent very few hours in Nubra Valley. I guess it had rained a day earlier, and there were some lovely reflections that we got to see out of standing water. We headed back to Leh after a satisfying visit to an amazing valley. Once we got back to Leh, it was almost an end to the eventful journey for last 9 days. We arranged a taxi to Srinagar from where our flight was scheduled on 20th Aug to Delhi. In the wee hours again, we started another long journey but this time back home.

It was a very short visit with plenty of beautiful things to be registered in mind for a longer time; those high altitude roads, rivers and water streams meandering through the snow-capped mountains, the yaks gazing in the valleys, the Himalayan Marmots playing with the visitors, delicately standing villages on the hillocks, versatile landscapes from barren lands to vivid green lands, surprising snow fall at Kardungla Pass, the military convoys in plenty of numbers hovering between the camps on the roads carved through the high altitude desert, a short distance Camel ride and the list goes on. Some things one can only experience, words fail me. It was not such a great feeling knowing that we were heading back, away from all these things but that's how it is. By evening we had reached Srinagar, and though there were two more days left as per the itinerary, it seemed like an end of this long trip. However another awesome experience was waiting for few of us. Look forward for the next post to know what it is and trust me it is really worth watching :-)

Few of the photographs (23) from the two days spent in Leh:

1. Roads carved on the hills and the clouds and the play of light producing magical scenes, on the way to Pangong Lake from Leh

2. A village delicately balanced on a small hill near Leh

3. A tent at Changla pass, on the way to Pangong Lake, Ladakh

4. Landscape around Ladakh

5. Landscapes around Ladakh

6. A tourist lady entertains a Himalayan Marmot while the Marmot thought the lady was holding some eatable in her hands; the man tries to capture that moment in his camera. ( My personal favorite from the trip) :)

7. My friends, Lawrence and Beverly sit along the Pangong Lake to pose for a photograph

8. Shadows, light and people create a scene, Pangong Lake, Ladakh

9. A family stands at the edge of the lake to experience an unforgettable evening, Pangong Lake, Ladakh

10. Brown-headed Seagull in flight, Pangong Lake, Ladakh

11. Brown-headed Seagull in flight, Pangong Lake, Ladakh

12. Soldiers watch me curiously as I click their photograph, near Pangong Lake, Ladakh

13. Calm and Serene, Pangong Lake spread across India and China, Ladakh

14. While heading from Leh to Nubra Valley, it snowed a lot and the trucks halted till the roads were cleared

15. Ladies with contrasting colors walk on the sand at Nubra Valley Ladakh

16. Reflection produced due to the rain water at Nubra Valley Ladakh

17. A Cow came real close to me while I was shooting the reflections near Nubra Valley, Ladakh

18. A water stream, villages, snow covered mountains, the clouds hovering over the village, green patches and dry lands all in one frame

19. Military Convoys cross the road at the Nubra Valley (desert) as the play of clouds produce a magical background

20. One of our vehicles, while heading back to Leh from Nubra Valley

21. Another Village near Diskit, Ladakh

22. A village on the way back from Nubra Valley to Leh

23. Himalayan Marmot usually found in Himalayas at a height of 980 to 14,800 ft; I believe they are found only in Ladakh in India.

Destination Leh

2011-09-13T23:42:00.000+05:30

Just as the sky got clearer, the sun shone brighter; as the breezy wind cruised through the mountains around Dharmshala, there was a sense of satisfaction that we were finally heading to our destination through a safer and probably a better route. The tempo picked up the speed; the music was a pure bliss; Pear fruit tasted heavenly; numerous water streams and falls running through the giant hills provided breathtaking views; curvy roads through the mountains and the lush green fields along the route appeared drenched in the golden light of a beautiful sunset; all in all, feeling of a perfect travel. The eye lids felt heavy as the vehicle moved smoothly and just before I could close my eyes for a nap, I could see a small stone skipped off from the vehicle on the opposite direction rushing down and the only direction it could find was the windshield of an unfortunate vehicle with even more unfortunate travelers in it. The silence was broken with the sound of the stone smashing the windshield. Another inch of drive could have brought down the pieces of glass on the driver; the tempo halted so was our travel. Short-lived, the feeling of a perfect travel! People in the tempo left in dismay, once again, for the 4th day of our trip called "Destination Leh".

A gang of 9 people who left Bangalore on Aug 11 2011, towards Delhi to make a trip to Ladakh from there, never imagined what was waiting for them for the next week. Unlike last year's North India trip, this time we had a "plan", a neat plan indeed. The plan was to reach Manali on 12th morning. Start to Leh on 13th Aug and reach Leh by 14th Aug evening. Then visit places in and around Leh for next 3 days. Travel back to Bangalore through Srinagar->Delhi>Bangalore route. Perfect as it appeared on the paper.

On the 13th of Aug, we could travel towards Leh for only about 50 KMs just to see the Rohatang pass blocked because of the landslide. The whole day was spent at a Dhaba in Marhi waiting for the landslide to be cleared. The day turned into dusk and there was nothing much for us other than heading back to Manali. The next day too didn't have good signs as no vehicles crossed either side of the Rohatang Pass. Adding to that, heavy snowfall at Baralacha La kept the travel agents and tourists anxious as to when the roads would be cleared. It appeared it would take indefinite time, because of the bad weather. We thought of heading back to Delhi to take a flight from Delhi to Srinagar and travel to Leh. The bad luck followed us wherever we went and whatever we thought of. A bridge or pool had broken down due to heavy rains on the road to Delhi and the road was blocked indefinitely. The only way that was left with us was to travel to Leh through a longer route. From Manali -> Mandi -> Jammu -> Srinagar -> Leh, a gigantic stretch of close to 1200 kms. Otherwise it would have been a 9 days stint at Manali where there is nothing much to do other than shopping (during rains at least). The only thing that we were happy with at that point of time was that, we had our favorite driver Vijay ( who took us around Lahul and Spiti last year) with us. Vijay drove us through the scenic routes of the Himachal Pradesh towards Srinagar. Just when we thought everything was going fine, a small pebble had some other plans for us.

It was a moment of despair, helplessness and frustration. We didn't even know which state and which part of it we were in. Late in the evening under the moon light, with not many houses around; so many thoughts running in the mind - "will this trip happen?", "Should we just go back?", "What else is left?" We thought of possibly everyone who might have cursed us or felt really jealous of our trip to Leh. I remember tweeting "Buri nazar wale tera muh kaala". Meanwhile, Vijay was trying to arrange something to get us to our ultimate destination. The repeated attempts to arrange another vehicle from that remote place failed. Meanwhile, he met his cousin Rinku, a driver with Innova, who was heading back to Himachal. Both of them tried their best with no use in the end. We could have either got the windshield fixed by next day in which case we would have lost another day, or we could have gone with some other driver and in some other tempo. We were left with limited and difficult options once again. The group had a good spirit and there was still a lot of excitement. When I cracked a joke to Rinku, that we can manage to sit in Innova, he said he doesn't have any problem if we manage to squeeze in. I readily agreed and asked others to dump the luggage in Innova; and we somehow managed to fix ourselves inside. Imagine 9 people plus a driver sitting in an Innova with their luggage. Rinku, who was heading to his house after a month of travel had to turn the wheels back towards Leh again and was really unhappy though he said he would drop us to Leh.

All the excitement was broken into pieces, when the Innova appeared to have lost it's suspension because of the heavy weight. Forget about the vehicle, the body parts lost their senses as we couldn't sit properly (obviously not possible!). On top of that Rinku's discouraging stories of misfortunes added to our frustration. "Apka luck bahut kharab hai sir, ek baar door check karlo, khul gaya hoga" - he was making fun of our situation and scaring us that a lot more can come our way. The pain and agony continued. Nevertheless there were quite a few jokes that happened during this short travel in Innova which were ROFL moments. When we realized that we might lose our limbs with numbness, we decided to drop this plan and get back to the old one. That is to call Vijay back, fix a new windshield the next morning (doesn't matter if we lose a day) and then go with Vijay, comfortably in the tempo. We came to know that we were close to a place called Pathankot, which is a meeting point for the 3 northern states of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir; and a major travel hub for the 3 states. Never in dreams had we imagined that Pathankot would make it's way into our travel plan. We made a night stay at some guest house and the mood in the group was terrible as we didn't know where the trip was leading to. The next day morning we saw our tempo standing outside the lodging with windshield pieces cleared completely. We traveled 20+ kms till the city without the windshield. Surprisingly all the faces were glowing with joy again; a new day and a new hope.

On a Monday morning tempo woes were fixed in a garage. With patriotic slogans, since we realized it was 15th Aug, once again we started our broken journey towards Srinagar. It took a whole day to reach Srinagar. Way towards Srinagar was pleasant and the roads were in a very good condition. I had always heard and read about Jammu & Kashmir, mostly about violence, through news since childhood. But for the first time I was actually traveling in the J&K state itself, it was kind of a different feeling. There were plenty of check points and we were asked questions like from where we were coming from and where we were heading to along with the purpose of the visit. We reached Srinagar, pretty late in the evening. We made a night stay at Srinagar. We paid hefty tariff for just 4 hours of stay in the hotel.

The next morning , in the wee hours, we headed to Leh through the scenic and heavenly roads of Kashmir. We were all set to experience a wonderful drive. Bad lucks and misfortunes were the forgotten stories. We were woken up for breakfast when we reached Sonamarg, Kashmir. That Tuesday morning was really pleasant as the Sun was raising up to provide another delightful day. The place is really heaven on the earth. As we climbed higher through the mountains the drive became very risky on the muddy road but the vast landscapes from that height provided a majestic view of undoubtedly the most beautiful place on the earth, the Kashmir. You feel as though you are in the lap of the nature of supreme quality. Though the military troops appear annoying or odd things in that place but the fact that they are there for a reason, to save this pristine place from the infiltrators, must be appreciated. The beautifully lined up mountains with numerous herds of sheep on the green patches, the river flowing with crystal clear water with the horses grazing along the river provided perfect scenes that one can enjoy on such a travel.

Along the way, we spent some time walking on the street of Dras, often called as "The Gateway to Ladakh", the second coldest inhabited place on the earth. It is this place where the major Kargil War happened during 1999, in which India successful captured the base back from the infiltrators. We crossed Kargil, however didn't spend any time roaming around in Kargil. On the way to Leh we visited a place called Mulbek where we found a huge statue called Chamba Statue. The view of Lamayur was just exquisite with the sunlight lighting up the sand dunes behind it. The terrain kept changing from barren lands, to snow covered mountains to the green hills throughout the journey. Finally when we were just about 50 odd KMs away from Leh, the excitement was getting higher and higher. People who were ready to visit Leh, even if it was for a breakfast, had something better than that waiting for them. All the frustration seemed to be vanishing as soon as we got on to the plane roads at a height of ~12000 ft. Everyone's cheer of reaching Leh still reverberates in my mind. It was a great feeling. As they say it's not just the destination that matters but the journey itself. We really had one such awesome journey towards our destination.

Whatever happened was all blessing in disguise as we had escaped heavy rains in Himachal Pradesh and possibly escaped getting stuck between Jispa and Rohantang Pass forever. Yet another north India trip yielded yet another memorable experience. Further trip account and pictures will be uploaded separately in the next few posts. Meanwhile few pictures from Manali ->Srinagar -> Leh.

1. A dam near Mandi, Manali, Himachal Pradesh

2. We had a narrow escape from getting stuck on a broken road due the cloud burst and water fall

3. Windshield being fixed at a garage near Pathankot, Punjab

4. Girish enjoys a view on the way to Srinagar from Jammu

5. Roads appear risky as we climb higher and higher, Sonamarg, Jammu and Kashmir

6. Horses run along the road, Drass, Jammu and Kashmir

7. Sheep resting along the green patches of the hill, Drass, Jammu and Kashmir

8. Military Camps along the Drass roads, Jammu and Kashmir

9. Chamba Statue, Mulbek, near Kargil - You can see the rock carved Statue of Matriya Buddha

10. Exquisite view of Lamayur; it has drizzled earlier, sun rays were lighting up the sand dunes

11. Another view of Lamayur

12. Mountain Goats look at the other herd curiously, a big herd crossed the road in front of our vehicle

13. A candid moment; Vijay, a cool headed driver who took us through safely overcoming all the obstacles during our trip last year and this year.
Must thank him a lot. (Caution: Cigarette Smoking is injurious to health)

14. What an awesome feeling it was when we were nearing Leh, everyone cheered "oooohoooo!!!!"

A brief visit to Ooty

2011-03-30T00:33:00.003+05:30

A very short visit to Ooty last week turned out to be a very soothing break. As the temperature is increasing day by day summer is taking its toll on everyone. Ooty turns out to be the best hill station to have a trip during these days with scorching sun. Bright sunny days, a cool breeze, beautiful lakes, awe-inspiring landscapes and the Nilgiri tree ranges all add up to provide a very good travel experience. The homemade chocolates and authentic Tamil Nadu food will be a treat.

I have always thought Ooty to be a hyped place and highly commercialized. Though the latter is true the place is magnificent. I gave a brief visit to Ooty when I traveled to Coimbatore to attend my friend's wedding. A longer visit to this place is surely worth it. Here are few pictures clicked during that short trip.

Ooty Lake

Pykara Lake

Botanical Garden, Ooty

Trees reaching out to the sky, Ooty

Velvet-fronted Nuthatch

Shooting points, Ooty

Ooty View Point

Ooty View Point - Ooty is situated at about 2,286 meters above sea level.

Sambar near Pykara lake

Supermoon evening; Actually with a bigger zoom lens you can always find the supermoon :)

No matter how much you request, you will always have such nuisances

Bandipur Expedition

2011-02-24T15:59:00.004+05:30

Looking forward for birthdays and celebrating them hasn't remained as exciting as it used to be. But still, somewhere in your mind you will think "how should I start my new year?", "Can I do something special?" etc. etc. If it is on a Monday, definitely you wouldn't want to give yourself "Monday blues" as a gift, would you? When I found that my birthday is going to be on Monday, I felt the same thing. I didn't want to wake up thinking that I have to beat 2 hours of terrible traveling time to reach office; that I have to plan for fixes/releases for the next whole week. I wanted to be away from all this stuff at least on this day and spend some quality time in the lap of nature(again!). So I decided to head to Bandipura Safari Lodge, and booked Jungle Lodges for the first time. My trips are usually not well planned or well organized. It was probably the first time I planned it and made all the necessary arrangements much before the trip. With few of the best pals ever, I headed to Bandipura National Park in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

BNP is a tiger reserve and one of the well protected forest reserve in India. It is roughly around 220 KM from Bengaluru, and 80 KM from Mysuru. It is 4 hours of journey from Bengaluru. The Jungle Lodges charges 3000rs for one day which includes food, accommodation, 2 jeep safaris (close to 2-1/2 hours each). The arrangements by the jungles lodges are top class and I didn't regret spending 3k for a day for the quality of stay and the food they provided. The safaris were satisfying too. I had a great time on my birthday with my friends adding a magical touch to the day.

Following are few pictures from the trip. Don't scroll down to look for Tiger or Leopard as they are not the only wildlife to watch out for. (I've been telling this to myself since I couldn't get a glimpse of them). In the recent past there has been a great sighting of Tigers and Leopards in BNP. I was happy to hear that someone sighted a Tigress with 4 cubs by the main road, a few days back. What an awesome sighting it would have been!

Photos:

1. A family of elephants gave us some opportunity to photograph them them up and close

2. Meanwhile one of the parents of baby elephant ran towards us to scare us

3. A jeep track in BNP

4. Jeep track on a foggy and misty morning; all we could sight in this foggy morning was herd of Indian Peacocks.

5. A Sambar staring at the visitors

6. Monkey business; as usual

7. Indian Blue Peacock sits on a broken tree branch on a foggy morning

8. A Mongoose

9. Indian Roller in Madhumalai Forest

10. Crested Serpent Eagle at BNP

11. Indian Blue Peacock

12. Brahminy Starling

13. Serpent Eagle, another view

14. Always a treat to watch, Common Hoopoe

Valley School Birding, Bangalore

2011-02-07T15:30:00.000+05:30

Valley school is a wide area. Though the entry inside the school for photography is not allowed because of some reasons, the area just outside the school is a good place for bird watching. Especially the fields near a small village, are residence for few of the beautiful birds. Here are few pictures from the photowalk towards this area.

Laughing Dove

Common Hoopoe in flight

White Browed Bulbul having breakfast ;)

Juvenile - Eurasian Golden Oriole

Jungle Babbler?

Eurasian Golden Oriole

White Throated Kingfisher waits for prey

Black Winged Kite

ID?

Thattekere Lake (Kanive Mahadeshwara Lake) and the route

2011-02-04T00:45:00.004+05:30

I had been thinking that I always have to drive at least 300 kms away from Bangalore to get a glimpse of forest until I drove on Ragihalli-Thattekere-HarohaLLi stretch which is just around 25 kms from namma Bengaluru. Most of this stretch falls inside the Banneraghatta National Park. My illusion about this "national park" was that it is a big zoo with bigger crowd hovering inside the park, and there is nothing more than that. My confusions were cleared when I got to see the real stretch of the national park around Ragihalli and Thattekere. Spread over a wide area this place is a home to a giant lake, vast landscapes, numerous water bodies, and various species of birds. There are traces of elephants too.

You can reach Thattekere lake either through Bannerghatta road and Ragihalli enjoying the drive through forest or from Kanakapura road towards Harohalli and then taking a left turn. There are a lot of big lakes on the Kanakapura road and you might get a beautiful sunrise on one of these lakes if you are an early bird. The place around the Thattekere lake is not at all commercialized (and it should never be); even now in a couple of villages nearby the buses make only 3-4 trips in a day. There are no hotels around for several kms, so carry some eatables along. During the first visit we drove 8 kms past the Thattekere lake missing a deviation. It is not so difficult but there are more chances that you will miss an important deviation to reach the lake from the main road. The best ever landmark help, is asking people in the village. Follow their directions.

Google Map:

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One of the best lakes I have seen in and around Bengaluru. The lake is spread over the forest and looks majestic being situated in the middle of the small hills. There is a temple called Kanive Mahadeswara temple near the lake. There are not many villages and people around. The water is not polluted at all (looks like it is a private property). The Lake on one side has a line up of tall Nilgiri trees and the forest hills on the other side. We walked around the lake to get different views and the walk itself was refreshing. Spending idle time sitting along the lake, listening to the recurring sweet music of the small tides in the lake hitting the shores, the trees making sounds by breezy winds as the birds also chirp, is a pure bliss. If you are lucky, with all this soothing environment you will get to hear woodpecker pecking the tree trunk. We were lucky to find two of them!

For nature lovers, for people who enjoy village side drives, for bird watchers and bird photographers this place is a paradise. Being a nature admirer, one humble request is, please don't litter any of these places you visit. The nature will always remember and respect us for not leaving behind the traces of our visits to it's territory. So please don't pollute the place!

Following are the few pictures to show the place and few bird life. For more detailed post on bird life around please visit: Ragihalli-Thattekere on Bangalore Captured.

(The blogger has spoiled the quality of the images to some extent, for sharpness)

1. My friend and I climbed up a small rock hill on the way to Ragihalli to find an amazing view; were surprised to see the vast landscape at just around 20 kms from Bengaluru;

2. Thattekere, a giant lake

3. Thattekere Lake, in the nature's lap

4. Black-winged Kite, sits on a wire

5. Purple Sunbird reaches out to a dried up leaves

6. Pied Bushchat, Female

7. Grey wagtail sits on a rock in a small water body on Harohalli-Thattekere road

8. River Tern in a delightful flight

9. Rose-ringed Parakeets fight for a tomato, in a huge tomato field!

10. Can easily be one of the worst shots, but sighting woodpecker is always exciting; found this one close to Thattekere Lake

11. My first sighting of Common Hoopoe; The bird is not too shy and doesn't fly away (like Kingfisher) a longer distance when it finds people around; It actually posed for quite a few shots but it was in the bush, didn't get a clean shot.

12. Asian Paradise Flycatcher; There were two of these that we sighted near the Thattekere Lake

13. Bay-backed Shrike

14. Rufous Tree-pie

15. Grey Wagtail takes a stroll as the small waves from the lake hit the shores; with 55-250mm lens, I literally sat very close to this Grey Wagtail; for sometime it ran around with fear but when it came to know that I am not a threat, the bird moved around freely, giving me an opportunity to take closeups.

Year 2010 - Memorable traveling moments

2011-01-03T12:32:00.012+05:30

2010!! Phew!! What an year, as far as travel is concerned.

When I started this blog, the caption for the title "Road to Destiny" was "tours and trips around Bangalore" . The year 2009 broke the barrier and I made my first north India trip for 10 days. I, then updated the caption as "tours and trips in India". Then the year 2010 came in and took me even farther, across the country; I visited France and Denmark. So now the caption is just "blog about my tours and trips".

It all started with a wonderful wildlife experience when I did a Tiger census for three days in Rajiv Gandhi national park in Jan 2010 ; then a 10 days travel to Paris and Copenhagen(Denmark) in June; 11 days trip to North India in Aug; a couple of days trip to Goa in Sep; and few drives to the places like BR hills, K.Gudi, NagarahoLe,Yalagiri hills, Ranganathittu, Lepakshi and Nandi hills.

This post highlights, few of the memorable places that I visited, of course through photographs!

One of the sunsets in Nagarahole, while I went for Tiger Census, during Jan 2010 which setup my 2010 for an eventful journey

Paris and Copenhagen (Denmark)

It was a memorable moment indeed when I stepped out of the flight in Paris; I never thought that France would be the first country to be visited outside India! I then flew to Denmark for 6-7 days where my friends stayed. It all started with a gtalk chat when I was chatting with one of my friends who was onsite working in Denmark; The entire trip was planned in just a couple of days and I was all set to experience my first international trip (with my own money). I visited Paris for a couple of days. It was a beautiful summer season in Paris. The longer days gave me enough time to explore as many places as possible. It was also a day when French Open's final was played at Roland Garros stadium. We sat in an open air theater to watch Nadal win in that finale. Apart from the hassles with vegetarian food I really enjoyed my stay at Paris.

Denmark on the other side, was raining, and it was a bit cooler compared to Paris. The life in Copenhagen seemed very slow but soothing. I rented a bicycle for a couple of days. Riding on the bicycle and exploring few places around was a good experience. These are few of my favorites photographs from that memorable trip.

1. With the breeze on the banks of the river Seine, it was an amazing view of The Eiffel Tower from a brigde

Versailles Palace, Paris

2. Versailles Palace, Paris

3. It was a great experience exploring the historical Louvre Museum, Paris

4. People pray at Notre Dam church, Paris

(4.a) Notre Dam Church, Interior view

5. Nyhavn, the 17th century waterfront - Copenhagen, Denmark

6. A bicycler heading to work in Copenhagen, Denmark

6.a Another bicycler heading back to home in the evening, Copenhagen Denmark

7. City Center of Copenhagen, Denmark; people hang out here in the evening and enjoy the shows from street performers

8. Copenhagen city has close to 40% of people using the bicycle as their transport; Almost every house has a bicycle

9. A church in Copenhagen, Denmark

North India trip - Aug 2010

We planned for Leh; there were floods ripping villages apart around Leh. We planned for Valley of Flowers; there were cloud bursts ripping the roads apart. We stopped planning but still headed towards Delhi thinking some plan might come up. 4-6 hours of discussion and planning sitting outside Indira Gandhi Airport, Delhi finally yielded some plan. Through this discussion we thought about all the options, like Rajasthan, Shimla, Sikkim, relief work in Leh(!!!!) etc etc. Finally the only thing worked out was a trip to Manali. After we reached Manali we planned for a trip along Tibetian border, from Manali to Shimla; covered Lahul and Spiti valley visiting lot of monasteries and enjoying the delicious Tibetian dishes. We went to places like Manali, Chandratal lake, Spiti Valley, Nako, Tabo, Kalpa, Shimla and Chandigarh.

In spite of every obstacles and the threats of weather, we headed for this trip and it turned out to be the one to be remembered for a longer time! Kudos to the group!

10. A day spent at Manali with my gang; It rained heavily during the time we visited the place. God's grace, whenever we were out it didn't rain

11. Prathima, jumps with joy at Chandratal Lake near Manali; The lake looks amazing in the middle of few dried up and few snow covered mountains; the place was serene!

12. Landscape at Lahul and Spiti valley; there are some oldest villages in these areas.

13. This is me standing on a rock at Langcha peak; Lahul and Spit valley is really worth the travel!

14. A view from Langcha Peak in Lahul and Spiti valley

15. A Gonpa at Ki Monastery served us a hot tea which relieved all of us from whole day's stress

16. A monastery at a place called Tabo in Lahul and Spiti valley

(16.a) It was certainly the best evening we had in our north India trip; Tabo monastery is surrounded by tall hills and on a moon lit evening it really feels to be heaven. A must visit!

17. Few kids near Dhangkar, a 1000 year old Monastery; the tourist usually bring cookies or chocolates to the kids in village and the kids enjoy it

18. Buddha Statue at a monastery in Kalpa, North India

19. Reflections.. A lake in a village called Nako, one of the oldest villages. Explored during a trip to Spity and Lahul valley in a route from Manali to Shimla

20. A night view from Ki Monastery in Spiti and Lahul valley; It was a moon lit evening and this shot was taken with 20 seconds exposure, with camera on a compound

21. Shimla, wasn't as cold as we would have thought, but it was a pleasant experience exploring Mall road

22. Traveling in toy train from Shimla to Kalka was great fun; we had one whole compartment for our group

23. A lake in Chandigarh; It was absolutely hot and humid in Chandigarh. All I did was sit under a tree and take a nap

24. I traveled to Goa to attend one of my best friends, Lawrence's engagement on Sep 18 2010 at Maupsa, Goa

25. Miramar beach, Goa during September 2010; beaches were empty with no tourists around

26. It rained a hell lot in Goa this season

27.A Bison gives us a stare at Nagarahole forest, while we drove one early morning inside the forest; There were quite a few drives to wildlife around Bengaluru

29. Few trips around Bengaluru to explore architectures and temples This one is around Bhoganandiswara Temple, Nandi grama (close to Bengaluru)

29. During Tiger Census, we heard the roar of a tiger in a huge field; we waited to get the glimpse of it; but it never turned up or seen even at a distance; meanwhile we did some model photography :-)

30. One of those beautiful evenings; at Manchinabele Dam near Bengaluru; Bidding bye to 2010 and welcoming new year 2011. Hope it brings glory in every one's life. Wishing you all the best of life ahead! Happy new year!!

Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary - Collection

2010-12-25T21:58:00.003+05:30

If anyone asks me how many times have I visited Ranganathittu bird sanctuary, I really won't be able to answer because it is innumerable. My visits to this place have always been for a purpose of bird watching and photography, of course! Situated at around 125 KM from Bengaluru and 3 KM from historical Sri Ranganapattan, Ranganathittu is a small bird sanctuary along the river of Kaveri (since 1940). The islets formed out of the Kaveri river (after the KRS dam was built) form an important nesting grounds for birds. The sanctuary attracts lot of migrants throughout the year. Though the best time to visit the place is said to be from March to May, I would say throughout the year you will be able to spot lot of birds (except some migrants which are seasonal). Early morning would be the best time to visit, because either you will find only nature lovers along with you or you will be the lonely visitor in the early morning. Otherwise, rest of the day you would find the place chaotic(most of the times), with people screaming and shouting or playing in the lawns.

Bird Life in Ranganathittu:
Common Kingfishers, Pied king fisher, White Ibis, Openbilled and Painted Storks, Wagtails, Magpie Robin, Red Whiskered bulbul, Pelican, Paradise Fly Catchers, Grey hornbills, Night heron and Pond herons, Little Cormorant, Indian Peacocks.. (the list goes on)

The photographs will keep on piling up on top of the archives, because my visits to this place are going to continue as long as I am around Bengaluru. I hope the readers/visitors of the blog like this collection and hope this adds to your love for nature and bird life.

Most of these shots are taken with following equipments:

1. A beautiful winter Morning, covers the Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary and the fields around with a thick fog; when the Sun rises above the horizon the fields get a golden bathing

2. The fields along side the river provide a good habitat for lot of birds which are seen throughout the year

3. The early morning mist dripping down as a droplet

4. Morning is the best time to visit the sanctuary as there will be less visitors giving you an opportunity to go around and take a lot of pics patiently. Also boating (250rs for a 8 seater) would help you go close to the habitats of migrant birds

5. Commonly found bird at the sanctuary; River Tern rests on a rock in an islet of the Kaveri river, on an early morning

6. Pelican in flight; these Pelicans are huge in size and when they fly you can actually hear the sound of their wings pulling the wind back

7. Little Cormorant: It is always such a delight to see this bird's flight, and it flies tangential to the water looking for fishes

8. Eurasian Spoonbill in flight

9. Eurasian Openbilled Storks sitting on a tree, seen cuddling each other

10. Eurasian Spoonbill in flight

11. Common Kingfisher on a dried up branch

12. Night Heron waits for it's prey while making sure it is getting shade

13. Magpie Robin, not a very shy bird; gives enough opportunities for a photographer

14. King of the sanctuary: Pied Kingfisher waits for a fish hunt on a broken tree branch

15. Birds: Great Thick Knee

16. River Tern, turning its head before scratching it's back ;-)

17. Painted Stork in flight

18. Indian Grey Hornbill; Hornibills are very beautiful birds to watch; a number of species of hornbills are threatened with extinction

19. A small birdie (may be a Sun bird or yellow wagtail?), in a cultivated field; I somehow feel very happy seeing this picture though there is nothing great in it. I love the bird in its solitude and there is a whitish grass over the bird's head as if it is an umbrella.

20. How can I forget this picture which won me a consolation prize at Canon Go Green competition Bangalore; A tiny droplet shows the green landscape along side the bird sanctuary

Tiger Census - Jan 25th to Jan 27th 2010 - NagarahoLe

2010-11-24T14:27:00.001+05:30

The Tiger (Panthera Tigris) is one of the most endangered species in the world today as everyone knows. And it is one of the things that are making news nowadays when it comes to wildlife. Destruction of the habitats and poaching for fur of the Tigers has left approximately 2000 Tigers in the world as per the recent survey as opposed to an estimation of over 100,000 of tigers at the start of 20th century. India is home to the world’s largest population of tigers in the wild. Project Tiger started way back in 1973 led by Indira Gandhi, was a major initiative towards conservation efforts. The program received accolades when the Bengal Tigers population was tripled from 1200 in 1973 to over 3500 in the 1990s. However a tiger census carried out in 2007 (report published on Feb 12, 2008) startled the nature lovers which stated the Tiger population in India has declined by 60% approximately 1411, the number which you have been hearing from famous Sportsmen and Actors on TV channels everyday now. Also, the number might be lesser than 1411 by now.

1. On the verge of extinction; This shot was taken at Pilikula park, Mangalore;

The Forest Department under the supervision of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), the Central Government and Office of the Field Director of Project Tiger will carry out the Tiger Census in 2009/2010, in various states in India. Hopefully the results are announced soon about the population of Tigers as of now. With this background I will share my experience of Tiger Census conducted between Jan 22 and Jan 27th of 2010. I received a call from Hunsur Forest Division, to be a volunteer to help the officials to conduct Tiger Census for the second session starting from 25th Jan till 27th Jan 2010. Instantly I accepted the offer and planned my vacation.

*Note about the census conducted:
There is no guaranteed intervals or frequency at which Tiger (or any census) is conducted in the forests; The census usually will be done in all the forests throughout India; you will get such information through news paper or some online forums; you need to fill up an application form from Forest Office Division, fill it up and send it to the respective division to show your interest in volunteering. The govt officials will call you up and inform about your selection.

With so much of excitement, a little bit of fear whilst determination to sight a Tiger and capture that moment in my camera, I reached the check post of Veerana Hosa Halli range which is the starting point of Rajiv Gandhi National Park. After signing the bond paper few of the volunteers including me were taken to an Anti-Poaching camp inside the forest where we were supposed to spend our next 3 days and nights. I have always seen the jungle either through a safari which covers only a narrow part of the jungle or driving through the tar roads carved inside the national forests. This time, it was different. I was taken deep inside the jungle where anti-poaching camps are situated and where life can take any turn any moment. The excitement on the faces of all the volunteers was so evident! Few said "sigh, I can be away from all the tensions for 3 days" and few others cribbed "God, how am I going to spend 3 days!!"

As the jeep took the deviation from the main road and entered the jungle the excitement doubled and the eyes were searching for the wildlife as though all the animals will be waiting to welcome us (high hopes!!). We drove inside for a few KMs till we reached an anti-poaching camp. All I can say about the camp is that, it was a 4 walled construction which had an entrance but no door, and there was a trench surrounding the camp which could have been crossed only by elephants. A guard and two watchers are the residents of the camp. These people are responsible to guard certain amount of forest area that they are assigned with.

The entire forest in this region is divided into several ranges and each range is divided into Compartments (CPT). In each CPT, there was a straight line of 2 kms cut into the forest (basically a narrow path was created) where were supposed to walk in a group which included 2 volunteers, a guide, and a Guard. Census on 2 kms stretch was conducted on first and 3rd day which involved census on habitat, prey density, herbivore and carnivore count and the vulnerable areas. The second day involved a longer coverage of about 5 to 7 KM specifically for Tiger Census. The census happened from 6 AM in the morning for about 4 to 5 hours every day. The camera trapping method was used 2 weeks before the census. This method entailed transmitting infrared beam at the ground level and the instruments kept perpendicular to the tracks commonly used by Tigers. The invisible IR beam would break and in turn trigger the camouflaged cameras which would take close up pictures of the animal.

The 3 days spent in the forest came as the gifted days when I needed a break the most. Away from the traffic jams and monotonous work; away from the pollution; fresh air all 3 days; birds chirping round the clock, Nilgiris Langurs making noise and jumping from branch to branch; jungle Mynas always flying as a couple; lot of parakeets flying high over the trees; those jeep tracks and our search for pug marks; distant lake and a shelter on the tree branch on which we waited for hours to get the glimpse of an animal; a sighting of a Leopard at a distance of just 50 meters and in all the excitement forgetting to release the shutter at the right moment; Finding a herd of 15-20 elephants right in front of the eyes and running back in fear to climb a tree to escape; climbing the tamarind tree and spending hours together just to kill the time; asking the watcher to prepare tea several times a day; camp fire in the evenings; etc etc; So many things; small things but always pleasure enjoying these moments.

After 5 hours of search on the 3^rd day too, I could not sight a Tiger other than hearing its roar and seeing its pugmarks which was such a disappointment for me when all other volunteers who stayed with me had spotted at least one Tiger. I pray and hope that the Tigers’ population is maintained and probably increased in coming years. I just hope next time around when I do census, I sight several of these striped beauties and get a chance to capture them in my camera. I had a terrific 3 days in NagarahoLe national park which will be remembered for a longer time. I am waiting for another such journey because the zeal to participate in such events will never die in me!

Update 28th March 2011:
Just heard the news that tiger population is increased by 15%; what a good news!!

PHOTOS

1. Bisons crossing the road early in the morning; there will be more movement of wildlife early in the morning, and hence every day we used to start by 6 AM.

2. The Census included collecting data about vegetation in around 15 meters radius at every 400 meters for a stretch of 2 KM. The data includes the types of vegetation and density of each of the types in the given area.

3. While observing vegetation, the density of different types of leaves fallen off, and the affected leaves was also noted.

4. Dried up land and the left over pugmarks of a Bison; Very old pugmarks are not counted during herbivores census

5. Prey density is an important data to understand the Tiger population in an area. The lesser prey density alerts the officials of Tigers’ starvation and hence the deaths.

6. Pugmark of a Tiger on a jeep track inside the jungle printed just after our jeep has crossed this road a while before that. I missed to sight a Tiger by few minutes, in two incidents; once when there was a fresh dropping of the Tiger in the CPT where we conducted census; second one here on the jeep track.

7. When we were getting back from the census and walking towards the camp, we saw Pugmarks of a Leopard. After walking few steps on the same track we were stunned to see a Leopard marking its way down in the same direction. By the time I realized I had a camera and released the shutter, the Leopard fled the place and disappeared; disappointment for my camera but a sense of satisfaction to me that I sighted a Leopard on day 1.

The Anti-Poaching camp in Veerana Hosa halli range; They seem to guard the forest 24x7 without door, and with minimal facilities available.

8. The 2nd day too didn’t yield a Tiger sighting but full of pugmarks and rakes on the trees. I heard the roar too but couldn’t follow it.

9. Very old pug marks, as old as 3 months near the dried up lakes or water holes.

10. We found a herd or elephants right in front; they were all heading to this lake and hence we ran back, climbed a tree and waited for the elephants

11. Census included recording the data about how many trees are cut, how much of a tree is cut and natural damages around. This would provide an idea if there is a poaching in the region. The dried up leaves and fallen off trees are more vulnerable to take up fire. Last year around the same time, half of Veerana Hosa Halli forest was abolished because of the forest fire it seems; another reason for destruction of habitats of Tigers.

12. Umesh, our Guard, a brave officer who shot a poacher at his leg when a gang of 6 people were caught stealing the precious wood from the forest. Incident took place while the Census was on, two days before I reached. It is a message to the people complaining that our officials are not doing anything to save wildlife that there are few like Umesh who care for wildlife.

13. Elephants in the jungle are more threatening to the guards and watchers than Carnivores. There have been many instances where the elephants have charged down and chased these folks for several KMs.

14. A painting of a tiger from Chitrakala Parishat; I hope that the Tigers don’t remain just in photographs or paintings such as this one.

15. Will always remember this troop for giving such a wonderful experience of the jungle!

Silhouetted Couple

2010-10-18T17:55:00.001+05:30

Silhouetted Couple, originally uploaded by kulliprashant.

Chandigarh was really humid and hot when we visited recently in Aug 2010. We spent a day wandering in Chandigarh, driving on beautifully carved and tarred roads, the gardens and a lake. This shot was taken near a lake during the sunset.

Day 4 of 12 days of North India Trip

2010-09-16T19:22:00.000+05:30

We were back to Jaipur in wee hours of 25th September 2009 and later on finished few hours of much required sleep. It was the fourth day of the trip and we had set a new record in this trip for being together for more than 3 days on any of the trips so far in last 3 years. 4^th day started with a little bit of heat. Already Jaipur was burning, and Lawrence lost his control after his routine breakfast time was slipped by 2 hours (it was 9 AM). All of us were tired of the previous night journey and still looked sleepy in the morning. However Lawrence did not appreciate me sitting quiet outside the lodge and doing nothing. He yelled at me terribly and just walked away for a KM in search of a hotel though there was one very close to the lodge. Girish and I, then, followed the Mr Angry (and hungry) man and walked close to the bus stand. We were supposed to enquire about the bus to Delhi from Jaipur. Apparently there were no seats available for AC buses to Delhi. Then a thought popped up – “why not travel to Agra directly and ask Sriram to join us in Agra” – and it seemed like a better plan. We informed Sriram and decided to leave from Jaipur at around 11 PM to Agra. All set and we planned for one more day’s sight seeing in Jaipur.

On a sunny day, this is one thing you can't miss noticing

Amber Fort was one of the places we wanted to visit and also Jal Mahal. We negotiated with a Rickshaw driver for a good deal to and fro journey to Amber Fort. The driver also went on telling us the history about Jaipur and few forts. I don’t know whether he knew anything or he was bluffing because we idiots did not know anything. It was a great fun when the driver called Girish as Abhishek looking at his tall stature and the goggles.

As soon as we reached the Amber fort there was a guide waiting for us. May be the driver had called up and told this guide “Bakra logon ko leke aa raha hun mein”. He did not charge us much though. It was really hot, and the place was burning. We had to walk for some distance to avoid paying for the jeep. It was kind of a small trekking. The guide said us he made us walk to save 200rs from our pocket.

Every bit of shade was occupied

The guide then started his typical history lecture on the fort and the King who built that. For a change the King (Jai Singh I guess) seemed to have only 2 wives. Maharaja Jai Singh completed the initial structure of the fort. Then Raja Man Singh, Senapati (Commander in chief) of Akbar enhanced it to palace complex. There was a nice interesting story that he told us about how Raja Man Singh made friendship with the neighboring lower cast people who troubled the rulers of the place before him; and then intelligently his Sena killed all those people (in thousands) on a holy day when the enemies didn't hold the weapons.

Confusing pathways inside the Amber fort

Stories apart… I know it is always boring…. Coming back to our gang, everyone in the group wanted some sort of shelter where we get to hide under shade. We were in that place at a very wrong time of the day. The sun was right up above our heads. Every few steps we walked we felt thirsty and the eyes searched for water source, or a shop. We reached interior part of the palace complex to see a beautiful building. The guide let us go inside and explore the place, take few pictures and asked us to come back in 15 minutes.

In desperate search for a way out

We went inside took few pictures, and then headed towards some basement to explore the place. The fun part was that the group was split and I lost touch with other people for a while. I then started searching for them; meanwhile I had crossed few pathways and lot of turns. I was totally confused where I was. I could hear other guys from some distance and managed to reach them. I asked “where is the way out” and they said “we are also searching for it” – Next 10 to 15 minutes were like real fun. “Hey I guess this way” – there was a dead end.. “Hey I found it.. should be this way” – Again dead end.. It went on like that for sometime. The building seemed like a vicious circle. One of the ways we took, lead us to a dead end and there was Jail at the dead end. Amazing fun. We somehow managed to find a way out. The feeling was like “Oh God why did we find a way out?”

Ended up in a jail!!!!

Shashi was sitting out with the guide all this while; sharing a lot of stories. Once we came out, we were then taken to interior parts of the fort like Jail, Kitchen etc. Guide also showed us a place where recently released – “Jodha Akbar”- was shot and he also showed, with a lot of excitement, a vessel and said “Isee mein to Aishwrya Rai ne pakaya than Jodha Akbar movie mein”.. He then showed us a very huge and well built treasure box. We all attempted to open the heaviest of the opening for this box. It was very heavy and required a lot of effort to open with both the hands.

After spending some time and hearing few more stories, the guide took us down back to the place where our Rickshaw was waiting. And before that, like every other guide in Rajasthan he took us to a Rajasthani Emporium (where he surely gets some commission). Aunty, Chittra and Girish bought few materials from there. We thought we will have lunch there itself and then start back. We entered a hotel and for half an hour no one even bothered to take the orders. I don’t know why but they were just not turning up to our table even we called them several times. We decided to get out and we thought they will stop us but nothing of that sort happened. This is when you start missing a place like Bangalore where for food you don’t have to wait or don’t have to walk for kms.

Hungry souls eating junk food

We started back to Jalmahal; before that we went near a garden (didn’t enter though) and had snacks (remember, no lunch) like Pav Bhaji, Bhel puri and Lassi also. After a while we reached Jalmahal and there was nothing much for us to do there other than taking a picture of it from distance, and also group snap.

Jalmahal

We owed this auto driver something I guess, for which he took us to another shopping place and pushed us in. However Lawrence and I bought leather jackets. After coming out of this shop, we did nothing much other than rushing to the hotel rooms and packing our stuff; there was a late evening shopping done before leaving Jaipur.

Hawamahal, on a moon lit evening

Last evening in Jaipur

We hurried to the bus stand at around 10.30 pm. Lawrence and I did calculations of our Rajasthan trip; Shashi and Chittra sat together; Abhishesk and Karishma (Giri and Sangeetha I mean) seemed exchanging a lot of stories throughout the way to Agra. Only those 2 voices were heard while the entire world was sleeping. Next day early morning we opened our eyes to see the empty streets of Agra; we pulled ourselves out of the seat to hold the bags and search for hotels again.

Udaipur Visit - Day 3 of "North India Trip 2009"

2010-04-10T10:59:00.000+05:30

24th Sep 2009:

Compared to Jaipur, Udaipur was cool and there was breeze even if it was sunny. Hotel reception arranged a guide for us to take us to a place called Fateh Sagar . Fateh Sagar is beautiful lake situated in Udaipur City. Udaipur is called as City of Lakes for having lot of man made lakes. The lakes are still maintained in good conditions and few of them are being used as source of drinking water.

Just to give a brief history about Fateh Sagar lake – This delightful lake surrounded by hills and woodland was constructed by Maharana Jai Singh; it is an artificial lake dug up in 1678 and was reconstructed by Maharana Fateh Sing. The lake has 3 islands for some specific reason. Find out more from googling. :-) In the surrounding of this lake, there is Maharana Pratap Memorial hall. This is an old building built in 18^th century. The guide went on explaining us the story of Maharana Pratap Singh – about his bravery and his wars against the neighboring parts. We tried our best to ignore him but the guide was good enough to hold our attention. The story of Pratap Singh’s horse, Chetak was really touching. The monument has the story carved on it, of how Chetak ended his life after rescuing Maharana Pratap Singh from the battle field.

By mid noon the city was turning out hotter. We, then, went to the City palace. City palace is really big and it took us a lot of time to explore. Without writing much from this palace may I show you few photographs which pretty much explain the fun we had in the palace?

After coming out of the fort, we then had nice meals in a hotel nearby. This is one of the very few satisfactory lunches that we had on the 12 days of trip. How can I forget the name of the hotel which served us that valuable lunch – It is Hotel Meera.

Colorful Shopping Streets

The Lake Pichola is again one of the beautiful artificially dug up lake which has Jag Niwas and Jag Mandir as islands. The city palace extends along this picturesque lake’s eastern banks which can be seen in one of the pictures below. When we reached the lake, we noticed a cable car taking people to the top of a distant hill. This was very close to the lake. We decided to reach top of the hills by cable car. I am glad we noticed this place which gave us certainly one of the best evenings in the entire trip.

As the cable car went up we got an ecstatic view of the Lake Pichola; and when we reached the top of the hill, we could almost see the entire Udaipur City. We managed to climb further and sat on a compound next to the temple. Udaipur city looked very neat, white color all over (as opposed to pink in Jaipur), well maintained, and very clean. The distant roads and railway tracks looked like pencil curves from the top of the hill. As we sat and watched further, a trail of flight of few pigeons caught our attention. Girish wondered how on earth the pigeons change the direction every second and move in sync with each other. I said there must be one fellow in the group who would give the commands and guide the others. Recalling this just makes me feel how jobless we were, sitting idle on top of the hill leaving our feet hanging down. :-D

We spent around 2 hours talking about silliest of the things and cracking silliest of the jokes. Then we moved down to a place to see the view of Lake Pichola and the City palace from the other end. The place held us back for the sun set too. It was certainly an amazing evening with very small crowd. On one side the Udaipur city looked like a wallpaper; on the other side the Lake Pichola with the Sun rays reflecting from the water and the water boats creating a pattern in the clean water were treat to watch. Behind the Lake Pichola, eyes could witness range of AravaLi hills lined up one after the other. It was as scenic as a school kid’s typical painting of a sun set behind the range of hills.

As it neared the Sun Set time, the Sun seemed to move down very fast; the hills formed a beautiful silhouette giving me a great opportunity to photograph! Few small kids around who came with family were running around a lot; they gave a pose to my camera too. A couple seemed to be enjoying the view. Everyone from our gang was in their own world. Girish was over the phone talking to his loved one (s) :) ; Lawrence was watching the Sun go down the Aravali hills and later on engaged himself in listening to music. Sangeetha was busy scaring small kiddos with her bulky D90 camera. I then took over and pulled the kids to pose for my camera. Chittra and Shashi joined the fun soon with their shopping bags.

After the sunset, the City palace and the Jag Mandir were lit up brightly giving us a delightful view again. This place calls me back; certainly the most romantic place to experience a sunset like that and I am sure I will go back to this place in future with my partner (when I get one) ;-)

So far so good; we enjoyed this evening to the fullest; and there was a sense of satisfaction, a feeling that we were on trip was showing up on our face. We reached down the hill and headed towards “Fateh Sagar” since my friend who belongs to this place had told me that there will be nice chats to eat. When we reached Fateh Sagar, we searched for a nice place for having snacks and found a place besides a small college troop. It was fun watching the girls, whose names were not so difficult to find out since they were printed on the shirts.

The cab was waiting for us to take us back to Jaipur to the same hotel where stayed before. After having a lot of fun we then had to leave Udipur so reluctantly which gave us one of the memorable days of the long trip. All this was followed by 5 and half hours of journey.

Day 2 - Of 12 days of North India Trip

2009-10-29T09:20:00.001+05:30

Day 2:

This is a part of trip report of my North India Tour from Sep 22nd to Oct 4th. This is Day 2 of the trip.

23^rd morning at around 8 am we started to Hawamahal. Before entering the fort we had to search for a hotel for breakfast. One thing a Bangalorean misses terribly when he moves out of the city is the lack of restaurants or hotels. In Bangalore, you will hardly find yourself hungry for a long time, since at every corner you have “Some Corner” or “Some Darshini”. After a km of walk we could find a 3 start hotel; Samosas and Kachoris were available for breakfast along with very costly Idli. :) May be it is just the regional difference that makes me feel how anyone could eat Samosa or Kachori for breakfast? Chittra was interested to try something interesting and she ordered something she had never heard of before. Girish's eyes were really sharp. He had been observing (and later we all) a tall lady in the hotel reception during our breakfast. Though someone directed him to the washroom, his steps continued towards reception.

After the costly breakfast, we came back to Hawamahal; we hired a guide and started exploring the place. One thing about the Kings of Rajasthan is that they had several wives (some king had as many as 23 wives) and countless keeps (same king had 373 keeps). Isn’t that surprising (or interesting? :)). There used to be a very sarcastic smile on the guides’ face when they used to talk about this.

Hawamahal also called as Wind Fort is famous for its unique architecture. It has as many as 950 windows in total around a small fort, 350 of them being on one wall!! The interiors of the fort are really well made. Hats off to the designer of this master piece. I wish we had something similar to Hawamahal (No AC) as our IT office. :-) Guide charged us nominal price for his lecture and he tried to influence us to take him to the next location, Jantar Mantar, as guide. By that time, I guess all of us were bugged with the history lecture. We decided to go on our own.

“Just 2 minutes walk” said Larry and started walking towards Jantar Matar, and it ended up becoming 15 minutes walk under the burning Sun. By the time we reached Jantar Mantar, there was no energy left in me to bear the heat. We had just started to get acclimatized and it was becoming unbearable. I just could not walk around or stand in this place; I wanted to find some shady place and just lie down; I didn’t want to take photos too. Finally I could find one such place under a tree near the compound and that’s it. Meanwhile, Larry and Sangeetha were exploring the place. Shashi (Aunty :-)) covered her face with a stole to save herself from tanning and as she walked in, she looked like a terrorist :-) No offence! Girish wore his bluish sun glasses and was sitting in another corner. Chittra was grinning again and again looking at our goggles as if she looked like a princess of Egypt in her sun glasses. Wine color Sun glasses.. LOL. Sangeetha has fun time taking "Gandhiji ke Theen Bandar" sort of picture of myself, Girish and Larry.

Jantar Matar

It was just around 12 in the noon and we decided to call up the driver and go to Udaipur. Aunty and Chittra did shopping whenever they got any opportunity. Surely their trip expenses would have exceeded anybody else’s.

After the terrible lunch at the hotel we packed out bags again and dumped them in the Innova and headed towards Udaipur which is around 410 kms from Jaipur and it is a close to 6 hours journey on a highway. We decided not to drop by Ajmer since there is only a Darga to be visited. However we decided (rather “I”) to go to Pushkar, to see the World Creator’s temple. Lord Brahma’s temple can be found only at this place in India. I am too lazy to type the history behind Brahma, Pushkar and his mistakes which lead him not to be worshipped anywhere on the earth. Googling will surely help. Following are few of the pictures taken around this place.

The drive to Pushkar after it took deviation from the highway, was interesting; It crossed several Rajasthani villages and colorful temples; I listened to Hotel California Live Acoustics n number of times, courtesy Sangeetha's iPod. When I was bugged I tried reading "God Father", courtesy, again Sangeetha. By the time I could figure who this "God Father" is I was bugged with the book too! and we reached the Brahma Temple. There was nothing much to do there apart from visiting the temple and roaming around a bit.

Pushkar Streets

Hoping that we would reach Udaipur by dinner time, we left from Pushkar. Our dear driver took a different route to avoid the toll tax on highway and few extra kms, which lead us to a terrible journey. It turned out to be more than 6 hours of journey from Pushkar to Udaipur. The journey never seemed to end. The traffic was more and the high intensity beams from the Lorries did not allow anyone to sleep either. I tried to entertain my friends with few real stories that I have come across. Everyone carefully listened to me and had a time pass but no one admitted that it was really entertaining. The stories were like typical Indian movies with sad ending. ;-) We stopped on the way for dinner. By this time, we were slowly hesitating to eat the Rotis and curries but still there was no option. I had spoken to a person in Udipur to keep our rooms booked for a day; we woke him up in the midnight when we reached Udaipur and collected the keys.

That ended our tiring Day 2.

"Dream Destinations" - A Tour of 12 days in North India

2009-10-19T12:11:00.000+05:30

18^th September 2009 was the day for which I had been waiting eagerly. It is not that I had a date with some beautiful girl or something, but it was the day since when my 16 days of vacation was starting.

During the time I waited for this day, there were plenty of plans crossed my minds as well as my friends’ who also got so many days off. Lawrence and Sangeetha had got 7 days off; Sriram had got only 3 days off giving him 9 days of vacation. Later on I tried to influence Girish to pull him for this trip and he too agreed; and then Chittra and Shashi joined who also had 7 days off.

First of all the plan was to go to Manali-Leh. It was ruled out since Sriram could not have made it because of the lack of so many days to cover it. Then our plan shifted to “Valley of Flowers Trekking” in Uttaranchal. But then it was again a flop show since Uttaranchal Tourism folk informed us that it is the end of the season and the roads are already closed. Then there was Lawrence’s master plan with Gangotri-Gomukh plan. There was a problem with this plan too; that we could not get the permission for trekking to Gomukh from Gangotri from the Uttaranchal Forest Dept for the dates we wanted.

Finally, we decided to go ahead with “No Plan” – which, in the end, worked out much better. We booked tickets to Jaipur for 22^nd Sep and fro tickets from Delhi for 4^th Oct. Between 22^nd and 4^th there were no cabs, hotels, or anything booked in any of the places that we planned to visit. From this point onwards till the flight took off, every hour was counted, lot of shopping was done (adding to the trip expenses), and gmail status message was changed several times. In the end "No plan" turned out to be "Gangothri-Gomukh" plan, all lead by Mr Lawrence Mesquita. :)

Today I am just trying to fetch or recall those moments of happiness, abundant beauty of the places we visited, joy of being with friends for such a long time, beautiful journey which seemed eternal, the best jokes which made us ROFL, the frustration out of hunger which made us yell at each other, the groans of the tiredness while trekking and so on.. Though all those moments are still stamped in my mind as fresh as they were then, I don’t trust my memory and want to put down everything here. This is for my reference when I want to look back on these 12 days. If there are readers to this page, you may read it at your own risk or just skim through the photographs. :)

Here it goes from Day 1 to Day 12.

Day 1:

On Sep 22^nd Tue, I did not require an alarm to wake me up early in the morning since I was eagerly waiting for that moment. More than me my mother had so much of excitement that she prepared lot of eatables for us, spending a lot of time in preparing them a day before. I fought with her since she was making me carry some more weight (didn’t realize the importance of it basically). I yelled at her and said I will dump it in the airport only and board the flight.

At around 9 am when I reached airport I could see Girish, Chittra and Shashi waiting near the entrance. Sangeetha too joined in. Lawrence was supposed to travel from Goa to Jaipur. Sriram was supposed to start after 3 days to join us in Delhi.

First thing which I noticed on the airport was Shashi’s huge travel bag, and the next moment I was convinced since I knew she would be doing a lot of shopping for her boutiques that she has set up in Bangalore. Sangeetha’s Wild craft bag looked taller and heavier than her. To exaggerate this further it looked like Sangeetha's poster on a wild craft bag :-) lol. Chittra looked dreaming about feeling the snow in Himalaya and stepping on a desert land in Rajasthan. Girish looked, as usual, very cool and calm (the only time I found him unusual was in Delhi.. Read on..) We had few sandwiches before we boarded the flight.

At around 10.15 am the flight took off from Bangalore after a nice ;-) air hostess gave the travel instructions. I and Sangeetha had seats next to each others'; also Chittra and Shashi. Unfortunately Girish had to sit between two old gentlemen and it was fun to see his face. I thought the oldies would have bugged poor Girish; at the end it turned out to be the other way.

As the flight took off to cross the sea of clouds and reach the sky, our enthu also had reached the heights. It is such an amazing feeling to be so high up in the sky and look down to find the roads and rivers look like paintings. The top view of Sahyadri Mountains as we were approaching Mumbai was breathtaking! As the flight moved closer to Mumbai, the beautiful view was replaced with never ending Slums. I thought “Slumdog Millionaire” was an exaggeration but then the real view was even worse! The slums looked hooked into the hills, apart from several kms of stretch on the ground level. Slums start just an inch after the airport boundary. Anyways.. There was a half an hour break in Mumbai. After that the flight took off to Jaipur.

Just before the landing in Jaipur, we got a message that there is a turbulent wind and we may experience a bit of it before landing. It was one of the scariest landings. We got out of the flight after the landing to experience even worse. Hot blow of wind in the Jaipur airport was threatening. It was nearly 40 degrees Cel of temperature. People grinned at me looking at the jacket I was wearing. Next moment I took my jacket off and boarded the bus to the terminal. After collecting the bags, none of us wanted to leave the shade and get under the Sun to search for a taxi. We managed to hire a prepaid taxi, Innova, from Airport asking him to take us Hawamahal Road.

We did not know even a single hotel in Jaipur, because of our so called "No Plan" plan. Driver too came to know and he said he would guide us. He took as to few hotels all of which were 3 stars. I don’t know what made him think we are so rich. He was finally making fun of us saying that we will have to be on footpath for cheaper accommodation. After a lot of roaming around we got to a place called Sugandh Retreat, close to the bus stand and a complex called Amber Tower. The accommodation was good and reasonably priced. By this time I could hear the empty stomachs crying out of hunger. Only then I realized the importance of the Chapathis that my mother had packed for all of us. The Chapathi and typical North Karnataka Chatni Powder and paste of red Chilly is kind of trademark of my mom's cooking skills; it tasted heavenly to be honest.

I negotiated with the same driver for our drive to Udaipur and Pushkar for the next day and places within Jaipur. It worked out cheap and best for us. We paid him 9000rs for taking us to Chokhi Dhani on the first day evening and then to Udaipur on the second day. In the evening, after a brief walk nearby we headed towards Hawamahal Road from where I had asked the driver to pick us up. We headed towards a famous village resort called Chokhi Dhani..

Chokhi Dani is a unique village resort where one gets to experience typical Rajasthan Colors. Chokhi Dani means a “fine hamlet”. The interiors look really grand and like a Rajasthani Village itself. There are lot of folks dancers who perform, few Rajasthani Emporiums, Camel rides, Cart rides, puppet show and Rajasthani dinner service inside the resort. They charge 350rs for your time spent in Chokhi Dhani which includes a dinner.

Good Earning for Choki Dhani Owners

It was a good start for my camera too but there was no proper lighting to assist me. It was quite dark with the only light

coming from the lamps. I tried few slow shutter shots and was quite happy with the results. :)

Dancers Performing in Chokhi Dhani

Puppet Show

Dinner at Chokhi Dhani

It is a big place and we got to roam around for quite some time. We got to see every unique thing about Rajasthan from Cultural activities to Food. The Rajasthani folk dance was good to see - We, joining the folks with few steps was fun – Camel Ride was kiddish, the Kulfi tasted very sweet. Finally the dinner with Typical Rajasthani Servings was new experience for us.

Funny thing happened when we were waiting to wash our hands before dinner. Lawrence does not like waiting and to irritate him there was a girl who was taking a lot of time to make way for others. Lawrence said slowly "Haath do rahe ho ya phir naha rahe ho" and apparently her boyfriend or husband overheard it. Good that he took it lightly. Otherwise I could imagine Lawrence getting hurt with injuries on his face :) The servings were quite new to us but Dal Bhati tasted very nice and small Jelebies were tastier. The peaceful dinner pretty much ended our day 1.

We headed back to the hotel having planned for the next day.

Purple Drop

2009-08-24T15:19:00.002+05:30

I still have a trip report to upload from Alleppey trip.. Till then posting this new picture here.. which got good response from my friends.. It is a smallest droplet on a small flower petal.. Thanks to the macro technique worked out cheaper with The Reverse Lens Technique....

Nehru Trophy - Snake Boat Race - Allapuzha

2009-08-12T13:07:00.003+05:30

I had been to Allapuzha or Alleppey, Kerala on 8th and 9th Aug to witness this year's, 2009, Nehru Trophy (Snake Boat Race). It was a real fun. More detailed report and pictures coming soon on the same page.. Background: Nehru Trophy Boat Race is a popular Snake Boat race held in the Punnamada Lake near Alappuzha, Kerala, India. Worth reading more details about How this race started

Lalbag

2009-07-14T21:56:00.001+05:30

Lalbag HDR, originally uploaded by kulliprashant.

On last Sunday, I went to Lalbag, Bangalore with a group called "Bangalore Photo Walk" in flickr. It was a good photo walk and we had enough evidences to scream that Bangalore Rocks!

The huge rock seen in the picture is supposedly very very old and one of the attraction for morning joggers around Lalbag..

Nandi Hills

2009-06-27T19:26:00.000+05:30

Place: Nandi Hills

Distance: Approximately 60-70kms

Route: Hebbal -> KodigehaLLi gate -> Bellary Road -> Devanahalli -> Sulthanpet -> Nandi Hills

Best time to visit: All year around, if you are going early in the morning or evening

Map:

View Larger Map

Now that I have provided some information above, I will write my personal experience of this trip.

It all started with a simple mail again, asking friends "what's the plan for weekend?" and then a suggestion "To Nandi hills?, Night Bike ride?" Everybody was cautious and said driving in night would not be really safe, and they agreed for early morning drive. So we had set 4 am as the starting time from Vijayanangar. Though a person who never misses an opportunity to prove that he will never be punctual (me of course) was up and ready at 4 am, others were busy waiting for each other. Now I realize how terrible it feels to wait :). Finally the group assembled at main bus stop by 4.40am. It was too late to start :( Nevertheless we started with all excitement. I think this was our first such trip such early morning and on bike.
The West of Cord road looked beautiful with fresh air and breeze and inspired us to rip through. It did not take much time to reach Mekhri circle where one of our main planner or organizer joined us coming from old air port road. No wonder everybody was hungry, after getting up so early in the morning. But for our bad luck there were no shops opened so early. Concerned about whether we reach before sun rise, we drove faster; this concern did not bother us while we had a cup of tea on the way though.

While we crossed Yelahanka it had started drizzling but still we decided to move on. Thanks to the recent elections, the road was repaired and looked new rather. And apart from few kms, the road was beautiful till the peak to Nandi hills. This was the first time I also drove bike in a ghat section. It was really an amazing feeling. With such beautiful road, not many vehicles around, clouds touching the distant hills as if to decorate the tip of the hill, and the sweet air; turned out to be so soothing for the traffic jam and smoke affected s/w engineers.

The following photo essay would conclude the Nandi Hills trip. Hope readers enjoy this.

Hari, Sriram and Lawrence (3 Bikes) already reached Vijayanagar and waiting for Manasvi and Kumar

Road to Nandi Hills looked amazing and very new; Thanks to the recent elections.

I was sitting behind Lawrence having my heart in my mouth

Place where we could not resist stopping and clicking this beauty

]

Highly enthusiastic group; game for a trip any time but making sure utmost care is taken

Towards the hill there were lot of monkeys on the way, when I stopped by and opened a biscuit packet, there were lot of them climbed down and came very close.

We were really hungry early in the morning but there was nothing available in shops other than these. I really wonder if someone takes cold drinks that early.

Early morning mist had resulted in chill cold weather; monkeys gave a warm hug to their babies..

Garden at Nandi Hills has a lot of beautiful flowers; which cannot go unnoticed..

When we reached the hill point, the view was exquisite and Lawrence did not leave a chance to hang his feet down the edge to relieve himself of his stress..

A couple seemed to have been having one of very beautiful days and enjoyed each other's company

A monkey too seemed to be enjoying the view; more than that it looked as if he is the king and ruling the world below

We sat there till the Sun really came up and cleared the fog; Soon after that we were ready to leave

After having a wonderful time on another wonderful trip, we headed back and on the way back I was just thinking "Where to? Next week..?"

NagarahoLe and Irpu falls

2009-05-03T11:10:00.000+05:30

Place: Nagarahole, Irpu falls

Distance: From Bangalore 280kms, Irpu falls is 20kms further.

Route: Bangalore --> Mysore Road --> Srirangapattana --> Right deviation towards Ranganatittu --> Join the Hunsur Road --> At Hunsur left (ask tea walas) drive 50 kms there after.

NagarahoLe is a national park situated at 94kms from Mysore and around 240kms from Bangalore. This is also called as a "Rajiv Gandhi National Park", which was supposed to be a hunting place for the former rulers of "Mysuru Saamrajya".

After I bought my new DSLR, I automatically got an attention towards wildlife.. and I always had a dream to explore wildlife with a nice camera in hands. Now that I have everything I don't miss out on any such opportunities. NagarahoLe plan just came as a random thought, and I asked my mom (who works in a govt sector) whether she can somehow arrange for our stay at NagarahoLe. She was able to help me out. Next thing was to call up friends and check who was available that weekend. 3 of my friends got ready, and my brother which made 5 of us.

At Midnight we started from Bangalore, and the plan was to reach early morning. The drive to the place was fun. At Hunsur, when we asked for a way to the forest a person warned us of the wild animals' danger during the night.. He meant Elephants.. It was pumping excitement rather than fear in all of us. Next, on the way we took a wrong deviation and traveled extra 10kms till we hit "sort of" dead end. It was around 4 am when we were doing all this circus.

We searched for the right track driving back. We reached a place called "Murkal" from where actually the forest region start off. There is a gate and policemen who won't allow you till it is 6 am in the morning. Several cars including ours waited near the gate till the clock ticked 6 am. It was turning out to be a beautiful morning. The fog had covered the roads and trees. Everything looked soothing in dim light of early morning.

Soon after, the gate was open and we were instructed not to stop anywhere till we reach the main office and govt guest houses. It was truly a superb drive just the way we imagined it to be.

The road was completely covered with fog. The driver had tough time. I and Sriram were setting up our DSLRs. "Which mode?" "What is the ISO?" "What is the shutter speed?" - etc etc - finally we had our camera's set. A herd of male gaurs just along the road surprised and scared us. It was a stealing moment. The way the gaurs were standing, that scene was beautiful. Unfortunately we missed to click any snap since in hurry we had crossed the herd.

!A deer giving a perfect pose for my camera!

Also we felt, anyways there was safari and we could spot the same again ( which never happened during safari). On the way we could spot many deers of all sorts like Chital, Spotted deer etc and adding to our excitement there were 2 elephants crossing the roads which we could see from a distance, also there were beautiful Malbar squirrels found on the trees with an amazing reddish color and long tail. Overall it was the dream ride of 25kms within the NagarahoLe forest.

We reached NagarahoLe forest office at around 6.40am and got the tickets for Safari as well as key for our dormitory. The safari inside the jungle was boring. Thanks to very rude and uninterested driver. However we could get the feel of wild forest with many water bodies around , wooden logs evferywhere , the bamboo trees shattered by the Elephants, mist melting down and decorating the grash and leaves of trees - total Jungle feeling.

Only few lucky people spotted a tiger which was on a hunt and chasing a deer. I could only see the deer :-(

On the way back from Safari my eyes were closing and I really took a nap..

"Splashhh!!!"

An elephant trying to beat the summer and it's thirst

Beautiful birds around the place

Later on we entered our dorm and had nice sleep since the whole night we had not slept.. The next action item on our plate was to visit Irpu falls in the afternoon. It was really hot and humid out there in Rajiv Gandhi National park when we drove towards Irpu falls. We placed an order for the food at the foot hill, and headed towards the water fall. We just had walk for a km and climbed some stairs. The initial view of the water fall did not give so much of satisfaction since the more than water we could see the rocks. Obviously summer season had affected it. However we decided to go below the water fall and thanks to the people there who made arrangements to reach down to the fall. They have actually made a way with bamboo and other wooden logs, to reach below the water fall. As soon as we got the punch from the water it just took away all the pain and heat from the body! It was really really cold and relief to take bath there; to beat the summer.

Irpu falls in B&W

We came back from Irpu to NagarahoLe just before Sun said bye to this part of the world; remember after 6 pm in the evening no vehicle will be allowed inside the national park. We had a peaceful dinner at the guest house and watched zillions of stars in the sky which you will never get to see in Bangalore even in the midst of night. It was so pitch dark; We sat outside our dorm for sometime. Here and there we could hear somebody's crunchy foot steps. They might have been deers or elephants but it was surely exciting.

We hit the bed at around 10pm, which was so unusual. We had a real good sleep of 7-8 hours that night.

The next day's plan was to drive within the forest for about 20kms up and down; and get the glimpse of the same morning which we experienced on Saturday. We really got to see those things again; however there was no fog and mist. Deers gave perfect poses for our cameras. Gaurs crossed the roads in herd while we clicked from a distance. An elephant was in deep thinking standing near the shores of lake with big bamboo trees. Malbar squirrels were busy running around the tree. We were busy capturing all these scenes.

Overall it turned out to be an experience that we expected and imagined. Sunday afernoon, after having lunch we said bye to the cook and started back to Bangalore. On the way we stopped at a place where there were few elephants which were pet, and there was a lake where the herd of wild elephants and other animals come to drink water in the evening, it seems. It was getting darker and when I looked up towards the sky it looked like some rocket was launched from the earth just a while ago. It was getting darker and that's it we packed our camera and ran toward the car; soon after it started raining, giving a perfect soothing end to our exciting trip to NagarahoLe.

Overall the visit to this place is worth and if you are planning to go there, forget about Safari and you drive yourself early in the morning on the main road for 20-30 kms up and down; you will have so much of fun. You will get to see all the animals! What else you want?

I would like to visit the same place again when I get bigger telephoto zoon lens.

[saving money.. but takes years :( :( ]

PS: I am feeling little lazy writing blog nowadays; want to get that rythm back :0) and update the blog with my weekend trips. Hope I get that back and continue writing more interesting things :0)

Cheers!

Mullayyanagiri - Chikkamagaluru

2009-05-01T12:08:00.001+05:30

Mullayyanagiri - Chikkamagaluru, originally uploaded by kulliprashant.

Something my friend wrote after he saw this pic. Thanks Ravi!! The poem written by Ravi TS ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ i am caged i am blinded i am saddened i am unlighted oh! I want to touch u but u hold me away oh! i am so near u but u seek me away oh! u never understand love is our road to destiny and... i am ur light i am the sun... i am the sun in the shadow! ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~

Flow of the Clouds

2009-04-22T14:24:00.001+05:30

Flow of the Clouds, originally uploaded by kulliprashant.

I had been to Mullayyanagiri, the highest peak of Karantaka last weekend and it was for the 3rd time. This time around I could get to see the heaven in the early morning. I have already explained about this place and an experience of my trekking in one of my blogs. So just posting this picture here..

Bulbul atop the hils

2009-04-14T11:51:00.001+05:30

Bulbul atop the hils, originally uploaded by kulliprashant.

During my last trip to Coorg Dist, we stayed at a homestay near Virajpet, which was in the middle of abundant greenery. Early morning I went out for a walk, and found that the place was dominated by lot of Red Whiskered Bulbul's.

My 300mm telephoto lens wasn't enough to get this bird in full frame; however I liked the background and the way the bird was sitting calmly watching below it, a huge green field.

Deer Panning

2009-03-24T00:11:00.001+05:30

Deer Panning, originally uploaded by kulliprashant.

My last trip to NagarahoLe national park, Karnataka was an amazing experience in the midst of Mother Nature :-)

I did not get great shots, but I thoroughly enjoyed spotting herd of deers, wild elephants, Gaurs, Malabar Squirrels and beautiful birds.

I guess this panning deer is Chital.

More on this trip will be posted soon! Stay tuned (if there are any visitors to this blog ;-) )