CALL OF THE WILD

noreply@blogger.com (Sreeram) — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 02:21:00 +0000

Thirunelly – Wayanad – Taking Divinity and Adventure to the next level...

02/07/2011

In religious term, divinity is the state of the things that come from a supernatural power or deity, such as god, or spirited beings, and are therefore regarded as sacred and holy. Such things are regarded as divine due to their transcendental origins, and/or because their attributes or qualities are superior or supreme relative to the things of the Earth. Divine things are regarded as eternal and based in truth, while material things are regarded as ephemeral and based in illusion. Such things may qualify as ‘divine’ are apparitions, visions, prophecies, miracles and in some views also the soul, or more general things like resurrection, immortality, grace and salvation. Otherwise what is or is not divine may be loosely defined, as it is used by different belief systems.

Every single trip we had was focussed on some prime concepts like God, Buddhism, friendship, family, love, hope, etc,. The reason we had focussed on these virtues were primarily aimed at understanding them. The next question which everyone would be thinking about is: why these virtues? When we had trip to Kushal Nagara and Yelagiri initially thought them to be simple trips but, later we really understood the true meaning of these virtues while we were in these trips. There is a reason behind every single trip we had. Our previous trip was filled most of our vigour, but we needed one more trip to make the whole 2months to be a memorable one – which would be icing on a cake. The atmosphere was really gloomy. The clouds were darker than usual. It was nearing the onset of monsoon with continuous rainfall across the South-Western coast of India. Monsoon is a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation, but now is describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with the asymmetric heating of land and sea. Usually monsoon is known to be the rainy phase of a seasonally – changing pattern. In India, monsoon is mainly caused by the westerly wind originating from the Indian Ocean. This monsoon is usually called to be South-West Monsoon. The South – West Monsoon usually starts by June 1^st or 2^nd week.

Since it was the onset of monsoon we had to carefully plan the travel. The highways were damp and other main roads were flooded because of torrential rains in the area for the past few days. We drove at constant speed of 40 – 50 kmph in main roads and 60 – 70 kmph in highways. We decided to leave home at 6 am in the morning and headed towards Mysore Road. We didn’t take the NICE Ring Road this time around as the dampness would cause the car to topple on the four lane road. Our main aim was to cover maximum distance in rain so that the traffic would be less. We drove at a constant speed on the Mysore road (SH – 17). We reached Mysore by 11 am. We stopped at Aryas in Channapatna on the way for our breakfast routine. We didn’t get into the Mysore. Instead we decided to take the Mysore by-pass which was 10 km road. From Mysore we drove nearly 50km in Hunsur highway to reach our old destination – Nagarahole – longest drive through national park in south India. We reached there by 12:30 pm. We decided not to make too much stops inside the national park because it will sabotage our next pit stop. We drove at a constant speed of 30 kmph. By the time we reached Nagarahole most of the rainfall had disappeared. The land was dry and arid which meant we had lesser chance of animal sighting. But to our surprise we had a deer crossing on the way. We took some videos & pictures of the crossing.

We moved on after the crossing was done. We had to move quickly because we were reaching our deadline sooner than we thought to be. But we moved quite quickly than we thought. We reached Tholpetty Range at around 3 pm. The safari inside the range was closed due to the start of the rainy season. We decided to have our lunch in a wooden tent beside the gateway to the range.

But to our surprise we had to face the wrath of a little soldier (monkey) who was mocking at us.

We decided to tow him some food so that he will stop his mock. But to our surprise he started mocking again. We somehow had our food by making one person stand guard of the food. We managed to escape from his clutches. By the time, we finished our lunch it was almost 4pm. We had to travel about 30 odd kms in the same road to take us to the next destination which was Thirunelly.

On the way to Thirunelly...

We had booked an accommodation for my family at KTDC rest house – Tamarind Thirunelly. The place was really awesome. The atmosphere was really natural and green. The rooms cost were about 2000 rupees without tax and food would cost extra. We had two double rooms. We refreshed a bit and decided to head towards our next destination on our cards – Thirunelly Temple....

Thirunelly Temple is an ancient temple dedicated to Lord Vishnu on the side of Brahmagiri. The temple is at an altitude of 900 metres in north Wayanad in a valley surrounded by mountains and beautiful forests. It is 32 km from Manathavady. There is no proper record of the exact dates of establishment of temple exists, though it is beyond dispute that Thirunelly was once an important town and pilgrim center in the middle of inaccessible jungle valley surrounded on four sides by mountains.

The name Thirunelli derives from the nelli, the Tamil/Malayalam word for Indian gooseberry of the Amla tree. Veda vyasa wrote the 18 existing Puranas. The Matsya Purana, Skanda Purana, Narasimha Purana, Padma Purana, and many other Puranas and Hindu texts mention the beautiful Vishnu temple as being built by Lord Brahma, located in the picturesque Sahya valley, deep in the middle of forest of unmatchable beauty, and in these texts, it is referred to as "Sahyamalaka Kshetra." According to tradition, Lord Brahma was traveling round the Earth upon the Hamsa, when he became attracted by the beauty of the area now known as Brahmagiri Hill. Descending on that spot, Brahma noticed an idol set in an Amla tree. Brahma recognized the idol as Lord Vishnu Himself and the place as Vaikuntha (Vishnuloka) itself.With the help of the Devas, Brahma installed the idol and called it Sahyamalak Kshetra. At Brahma’s request Vishnu promised that the waters of the area would wash away all sins. (Thus, the spring and river near the temple is called Papanasini: “washes away all sins”).

Even today the head priest of the temple leaves a portion of the worship materials in the belief that Lord Brahma Himself will come and perform pooja rites deep in the holy hours of morning.

Dad's description About Thirunelli Temple (in malayalam)

We were really amused by what we saw before us. The beauty of the surroundings was unmatched and priceless. We understood that it was not simply Brahma chose this place, it was a real beauty. We took some amazing pictures of the temple with the background landscape.

We then moved on to the location close to the temple – Papanasini.

Emanating from the heart of Brahmagiri flowing through roots, leaves and flowers of ancient trees and medicinal herbs, Papanasini is a holy mountain stream accessible around 1 km northwest of the temple premises. One dip in the cold Papanasini waters is reputed to wash away all sins committed in a lifetime. It is further believed that Papanasini is the confluence of the rivers Ganges and Saraswathy.

We decided to take a dip in the holy water. Its holiness was engraved with deep chillness in its temperature. Taking a bath in the holy water really made our day. The initial entry part of the Papanasini River is banned for public from taking bath. To preserve the purity of its emergence from stones and rocks, the pilgrims are allowed to take bath after a check point which is marked by a few sand bunds. We took a relaxed and chilly bath in part – frozen waters of Papanasini. We emerged from it after ½ hour. The bath in chilly waters of Papanasini made us think that we have been purified. We felt the divinity in those waters. We took some snaps of the river from different angles.

On the way back to the temple we had a chance to witness another mystical place – Panchatheertham. Panchatheertham is the holy temple pond. One notable feature of the temple is the lack of a temple well. Hence water is transported from a perennial mountain stream deep in the valley by impressive stone aqueducts right into the priests' room. Thirunelly is famous as the destination to perform last rites of the deceased at the rock close to Papanasini stream. We took some pictures of the pond.

We quickly moved towards the temple ground as it was getting dark. On coming around the temple grounds we noticed something really interesting used up for irrigation purposed. It was the use of Ancient Roman based Aqueducts. Bridges for conveying water, called aqueducts or water bridges are constructed to convey watercourses across gaps such as valleys or ravines. My brother gave a short account on topic Aqueducts.

We then moved deeper into the temple surroundings. We statues inside the temple showed signs of origins in 9^th or 10^th century. Inside the srikovil (the main temple inside which the deity is kept) the way the statue of Lord Vishnu was placed and decorated made the whole temple look divine. I was really mesmerized by the surroundings and inside of the temple. The only other temples, which were really amazing, were the temples in Sabarimala and in Guruvayur. Bro took some amazing pictures of the surroundings. We didn’t take pictures from inside the temple. As in South India, photography and videography is strictly prohibited inside the temple. They it will spoil the purity and divinity of the place.

I believe that capturing something like Thirunelly should not just be with videography or photography – it doesn’t define its serenity or mesmerism. It has to be experienced with naked eyes (meaning you should be there to watch it...) to get the feel of it.

It was getting late and the guy at Tamarind Thirunelly had informed us to get back before it got dark. He said that after dark you could expect Wild Elephants and Gaurs on the road (Which is not good at all especially at night...). We started moving quickly and we reached by 7:30 pm. The day’s trip was really continuous and was a bit hectic. We felt tired a bit. We had our dinner and retired to our respective rooms. Hopes were overwhelmed by this amazing day’s trip. Will it be the same or different the next day? We had to really look out for it....

03/07/2011

Hopes were envisaged and our vigour had reached to new levels. Expectations were higher for the day’s trip as the first day seemed brighter than we thought it to be. The day’s climatic conditions seemed to be cloudy and rain – like. We got up a bit late – we were a bit tired due to the hectic trip – the previous day. We had breakfast. It was steam cake with banana. The food was sensational. The hotel guy showed us a trek point away in the top of the mountains. The place was called ‘Pakshipathalam’. It was a guard tower which was a trek point while trekking in upper Brahmagiri hills.

By the time we left Tamarind Hotel it was nearly 11 am. We decided to leave to our next destination on our cards which Banasurasagar Dam.

It was nearly 20 – 25 km journey from Thirunelly. On the way we had a small pit – stop near the Pazhassi Raja’s Tomb. To our amazement we saw a spectacle outside the tomb. It was bats hanging upside down from the bamboo trees. We took some pictures of this spectacle. We then moved to our main destination.

Banasura Sagar Dam, which impounds the Karamanathodu tributary of the Kabini River, is part of the Indian Banasurasagar Project consisting of a dam and a canal project started in 1979. The goal of the project is to support the Kakkayam Hydro electric power project and satisfy the demand for irrigation and drinking water in a region known to have water shortages in seasonal dry periods.

In the dam's reservoir there is a set of islands that were formed when the reservoir submerged the surrounding areas. The islands with the Banasura hills in the background provide a spectacular view.It is the largest earth dam in India and the second largest of its kind in Asia. The dam is made up of massive stacks of stones and boulders.

It was a half a kilometre trek to reach the dam top. The dam was humungous. It was real treat to watch. We took some amazing pictures of the dam with Banasura Hills in the background. Some of the sites around the dam made me realise why Kerala was called the God’s Own Country. I would say this place was his backyard. There were no words to describe the beauty of the place. You have to see it yourself to understand the true beauty of the place.

Banasura sagar dam...

My bro took my solo picture with the true beauty in the background.

There was boating in the place. We were unlucky that bookings were done for day. So we had no choice but to take some photos and head to our next destination. But I was not ready to go ahead. I took few pictures from the boating area and took a solo as well.

Solo....

best pic I had ever taken so far....

We then moved on to our destination which was Kalpetta. The reason why we opted for Kalpetta was that it was the only route through which we could exit Wayanad and head to Kochi.

We started moving as it was getting late and it was nearly 2 pm when we left Banasurasagar Dam. We stopped near Meenmutty Falls. The falls was closed as it was rainy season.

By the time we reached Kalpetta it was nearly 3 pm. The problem with the time was that most of the restaurants would stop serving lunch. Luckily we got into a restaurant – Udupi Hotel before the time. We had Kerala meals served with payasam. The food was delicious compared to all other restaurant food we had in those previous trips. We quickly finished lunch by 3: 30pm. We had to leave fast as it will be difficult to ride through the mountain passes in Thamarasery which was considered to be the most challenging rides of all. On the way we saw a road roller parked on the side of the road which, reminded us of the movie scene in the movie “Vellannakallude nadu” – Malayalam movie acted by Mohanlal.

Road Roller....

My brother took the initiative of riding through Thamarassery. After we passed the Thank You board in Kalpetta we were exposed to one of the most exquisite sites in the world and one of the most dangerous mountain passes. We took the most amazing pictures of our life.

We left the place after a while. We started moving towards Kozhikode which was nearly 60 – 70 kms from the mountain passes. It took us nearly 2 hrs to reach Kozhikode. We switched places to drive from Kozhikode to Edappal. It took us nearly 2 hrs to reach Edappal. It was almost 7 pm. We then decided to move towards Thrissur so that we can catch upto NH 47 which was a 4 lane road rather than the NH 17 being a 2 lane narrow road. We had a pit stop in Thissur for our dinner. We reached Thrissur by 9 pm. We then headed towards Mannuthy which was the entry point to NH 47. It took only 50 mins to reach from Mannuthy to Elamakkara which was like travelling nearly 65 kms in 50 mins. The highway was that good. We reached Elamakkara at 11 pm.

Our journey was a memorable one. It was the most amazing trips we had in our life after Valparai trip (Megatrip). The trip taught us the key virtue which was “HOPE IS THE COMPANION OF WISDOM”. My Trips in the Tech city had reached its pinnacle and ended really well. I hope I would have such memorable trips in my life very soon or later. Remember opportunity knocks on everyone’s door. But only a few answer them and they turn out to be Winners...

Hope I have more Adventurous Trips in my life.... ‘Venture Continues.......

Nandi Hills – An abode in clouds

noreply@blogger.com (Sreeram) — Fri, 11 Apr 2014 07:35:00 +0000

26/06/2011

God is conceived as the Supreme Being and principal object of faith. The concept of God as described by theologians commonly includes the attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, omnibenevolence, divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence. God has also been conceived as being incorporeal, personal being, the source of moral obligation, and the “greatest conceivable existence”. Many people, many religions perceive his existence is different ways.

Nandi is the name for the bull which serves as a mount of god Shiva and as the gatekeeper of Shiva and Parvati. In Hindu Religion, he is the chief guru of eighteen masters including Patanjali and Thirumular. Temples venerating Shiva display stone images of a seated Nandi, generally facing the main shrine. There are also a number of temples dedicated solely to Nandi.

Our previous weekend was at its ultimatum. Hope & Expectations were higher. It was all ruptured by the dwell of poor weather. Due to high winds and dullness because of clouds we had to cut short our trip to a single day. Although our adrenaline was at its peak, we somehow had to figure out a place for a day’s trip. Trip was primarily meant to satisfy our vigour. We had a lot of places on our list that we wished to be visited (list included – Devanarayanadurga, Nandi Hills, Hampi, Bheemeshawari). But the odds were in favour of Nandi Hills as it was more closer compared to the rest. Nandi Hills also known as Nandidurga is an ancient hill fortress of southern India, in the Chikkaballapur district of Karnataka state. It is approximately 60 kms away from the Tech City. The hills are traditionally held as the origin of the Arkavathy River. It is a 1300 year old temple. Nandi Hills route is said to be a biker’s paradise. A lot of bikers in and around the Tech City prefer the Nandi hills route to have mountain ride. It has almost 10-15 hair pin bends.

We all got up at 7am in morning and left for Nandi Hills. We stopped at place near Hebbal for breakfast. The food at the place was pretty decent. International Bangalore Airport is located on route to Nandi Hills. We decided to stop by the airport on our return journey. This time around I decided to the hilly road instead of my bro. It was one of most dangerous decision. As the road connecting Nandi Hills from highway (Bangalore-Hyderabad Highway) had hair pins which were quite narrow. From highway it was around 35kms to the hills. My bro took some really good pics on route.

The connecting road was really exquisite. It really looked green. I hadn’t seen so much greenery after my visit to Wayanad. It is hard believe there exists a place like Nandi Hills within the limits of the Tech City. The place is a real paradise for people who really prefer riding bicycles. The roads were really narrow and I had honk the horn for every single turns we made. Most of the hair pin bends were narrow and steep. We finally reached the destination after an hour of driving from the highway. The parking at the top was really difficult due to the fact that availability of a parking spot. We somehow managed to find a parking spot. We crosschecked the car to ensure that we locked it properly or not. The reason was that there were lot monkeys roaming around the hills which were really cunning. They were cunning in the sense they will cheat you by taking your food, so we had ensure that our food was safe inside the car. Since it was a hill and the monsoon was not quite far away, there were high winds and dark clouds at the top of the hill.

We initially paid our visit to the main temple at centre of the hills. There are many stories behind the creation of the temple. In the period of Cholas, the hill was called as the hill of Happiness or Ananda Giri. Another story is that Yoga Nandeeshwara performed penance here, and so it was named after him. Nandi is also commonly called Nandidurga (Fort) because of the fort build here by the ruler Tippu Sultan. It is also perhaps called Nandi Hills because the hill resembles a sleeping bull (Nandi).

Another theory holds that the hill gets its name from an ancient, 1300 year old Dravidian style Nandi temple situated on this hill. An ancient, lord Shiva and Parvati temple also adorns this hill. The Bhoga Nandeeshwara Temple in Nandi village is one of the oldest temples in Karnataka dating back to the ninth century. The temple hewn out of rock consists of two complexes. While the first complex houses three deities, the second complex consists of a huge and majestic kalyani pond. The foundation of the temple was constructed by the Banas of ninth century. The Chola rulers of the 11th century constructed the roof of the temple.

Kalyani Pond....

The marriage hall was built by the Hoysalas in the thirteenth century and a wall of the second complex was built by the Vijayanagar kings. Beautiful stone carvings are a popular tourist site and are a source of inspiration for students of art and architecture.

Stone Carvings at the exterior of the temple....

Main Temple....

Marriage Hall...

The temple was special of its own kind. We then moved the exterior of the temple which was a sight to watch. There were really beautifully cut out rocks on the side of the temple. There was fort extension constructed by Tippu Sultan on one end of the temple. There was another interesting place called as Tipu’s Drop, where Tipu Sultan threw his condemned prisoners to death. There is a secret passage situated on the west of the hills which was used by the Kings to escape during unforeseen attacks. We took some amazing pictures.

Its me near the Tipu's Drop...

View from Tipu's Drop...

Bro standing near the cliff...

This is the passage through which hot oil is passed to kill the invaders...

Escape Passage...

Bro, Dad & Mom standing near the Tower of Guards...

The most highlight of all is the children’s playground which is been constructed by Karnataka Horticulture Group. It is a sight to watch as there were really a lot of flowers in store for us to watch. There was lilies, roses, jasmines, lotus etc. My bro took some really good pictures of the flowers which became the highlight of all.

One of the most awesome pics taken by my bro at Nandi Hills..

By the time, we took pictures of flowers and the garden; it was time for our lunch. Initially we thought it would be normal lunch but, we were in for a surprise. There were two monkeys guarding our car. One of them was sitting near the windshield of the car and other one was patrolling the car.

Our food was inside the car. The task seemed to be near impossible. The monkeys were patrolling like the Vietnamese soldiers in the movie ‘Rambo’. Our mission was getting our food and supplies from the car without alerting the little soldiers. Dad and bro decided to take care of the mission as one of them decided to take care of the monkeys by force and other one would sneak and grab the prize. Dad decided to fend off the little soldiers from the car using a stick. As the soldiers were wasting the time and concentration on my dad, my brother sneaked behind and grabbed the food box from the car. He then, had to run for his life to not to be caught by the little soldiers. Our mission was success.

Dad guarding the food..

But we knew that we won the battle but, not the war. One of us had to guard the food and supplies while the rest were having food. It was like Cold war II. We were lucky that none of the monkeys showed up. We completed our lunch and moved to the car for our next destination on our cards, which was the airport.

Near the pond we found something interesting and we decided to take the video of it.

Bro decided to take the return drive from Nandi Hills. The route was special on its own kind with various flora and fauna.

On route we stopped at a place near a rose garden farm. We took some pictures of the farm. The farm looked so lively.

We started moving on from the rose garden to the airport.

The international airport was about 15-20 kms from the rose garden. The airport road was really good. We reached the airport at around 5pm. We parked the car and waited for witnessing some flight take offs. We took some videos of the flight take offs. First it was Fly Emirates – the one to UAE. We took the video of its take off.

We then, took some pictures of the airport.

Parking Lot at the Airport....

We decided to head back to the Tech City as it was getting late. The road from the airport to Highway was glowing with street lights. It was glowing like the necklace road in Mumbai. We reached home at 9pm. We decided to have small dinner. Our vigour was satisfied and felt really worn out.

It was our last weekend in Tech City. Our next weekend was our journey back home. Will it be normal ride like the one we headed into the Tech City for the first time or will it be a different one considering the weather statistics? The ‘Venture continuessssss.........

Kushal Nagara – Trying Buddhism for a change.....

noreply@blogger.com (Sreeram) — Mon, 07 Apr 2014 07:04:00 +0000

18/06/2011

Enlightenment is said to be the key concept behind the path of Buddhism. It translates key concepts in Buddhism like nirvana, bodhi, kensho & satori. In Sanskrit, bodhi is the perfect translation for enlightenment. Kensho is a Japanese derivative which means seeing ones true nature. Even though I am not great believer in Buddhism, I have found some

methods and concepts really interesting. The most simplest concept in Buddhism is, when we reach a Dead End always figure out the solution by backtracking your routes and find the piece which solves your maze. Hope & hard work are the two important virtues taught through the above mentioned concept. What made Buddhism so successful in south east Asian countries? It is the simplicity which made it special. The region around Tibet is the area where Buddhism is predominant. I decided do some research on places in around India where Buddhism is predominant. To my surprise I came across a place called as Kushal Nagara near Madikeri (Coorg) in Karnataka has a Tibetan settlement. To my luck I found some Monasteries in and around the area. I came across a monastery named Namdrooling Monastery in Kushal Nagara. This monastery provided accommodation.

The accommodation cost around 300 rupees without TV (pay 50 rupees for TV). Drinking and non veg are not allowed inside the accommodation premises. This monastery is the largest teaching centre for Nyingmapa – a lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. This monastery was established in 1963. Kushalnagara is one of the places in India where we can observe a Tibetan settlement.

We left Bangalore in the morning around 6am. We took the SH17 Mysore highway. We stopped at Kamath Lokkaruchi at 8 am for our breakfast. Left for Mysore at 9am. We took Mysore bypass to Hunsur in state highway SH 88 which connects Mysore-Mangalore. It was nearly 90 kms to Kushal nagara from Mysore.

Hunsur highway SH 88...

The road was a four lane road to our surprise. We reached Kushal nagara around 12 30 pm. We stopped by a restaurant named “Top in Town”. They had decent lunch options and food quality seemed to okay.

We then moved onto the direction of the monastery (Namdrooling Monastery).We unpacked and refreshed a bit. Our next destination was Dubare on our list.

Dubare is known for its elephant camp, a forest camp on the banks of the river Kaveri. The elephants for Mysore Dussehra were trained at Dubare elephant camp. At present, the logging operations have ceased, the elephants have been practically retired except for giving some rides to tourists. River rafting is one of the most interesting activities hosted by the forest department. They provide rafting boats and there will be a guide. If you ask me, I would raft when it rains or when it is rainy season which is around June-July.

That is the time when river Kaveri becomes really treacherous and that’s when rafting becomes really interesting. Rafting becomes more interesting if you are in a group say 8-15 people. Rafting boats can accommodate people from 8-15. It was Rs 500-600 per person. Since we were a group of four we refused to take rafting instead opted for boating. To our surprise boating was as cool as rafting. It was just 1000 rupees for the four of us. Since it was rainy season, the river was very treacherous and violent. That made our boating more exciting.

River Kaveri becoming serious....

Boating in River Kaveri

Dubare Elephant training camp...

Thats me recording the whole video coverage while boating...

Boating at Dubare...

The movement of the boat was mostly inhibited by the downstream current. The boatman played with the boat by shaking the boat from left to right and reverse. He almost made the boat submerged in the water. I had never expected river Kaveri to be violent and treacherous. I had a chance to take a video of the whole boat trip which made our day an exciting one.

Rafting:

We left the place in the evening.

We then paid a visit to the Namdrooling monastery near our accommodation in the evening. Monastery was really big. I had feeling that I was inside Tibet. Namdrooling monastery is actually a school for the young Tibetan monks. The monastery had gold plated roofs and at the top there was wheel which was immobile.

Entrance to Namdrooling Monastery

Main Temple in Namdrooling Monastery

It had 12 spokes which resembled 12 months of a year. The greatest speciality of the monastery is that at sunrise the whole monastery shines like a Golden Pagoda. We offered our prayers. Inside the monastery we could sense the nature of calmness and silence. It is said that if we meditate in such an environment we would forget what we really are. May be it is how Buddha attained his enlightenment.

Grand Bell at the entrance of the main temple....

Inside the monastery my bro took a really awesome pic of Great Buddha. He adjusted the shutter speed and aperture in such a manner that the pic looked fantastic.

Calmness...

He also took some awesome breathtaking pictures of the monastery with respect to some flowers and reverse.

It started getting dark. We had our dinner at “Top in Town” and then retired to our rooms with a hope that our next day would be even more memorable.

19/06/2011

Day 2

Expectations were higher as we moved to the second day at Kushal Nagara. Mom & dad got up early in the morning and paid their visit to the monastery. To our surprise they discovered something new in the monastery’s sidelines. They called us up to show what they have seen. We saw 3ft cylinders lined on the sides of the monastery with strange symbols drawn on top of it. Symbols resembled that of Sanskrit. But it was not Sanskrit.

There were about 1000s of these cylindrical drums which we are required to rotate which is some sort of an exercise for our hands.

After every 300 odd cylinders we have to rotate a big cylinder which, rings a bell on every single rotation. The complete designing of the drums made the monastery look really marvellous.

Just beside these drums, we found a yard where a lot Buddhist monks playing cricket. To our surprise these monks were playing really well. One of the kids had a six dotted on back of his head which resembled that of Rimpoche.

Just beside the cylinders we witnessed a model of the monastery situated in Tibet.

Just beside the temple we saw a painting which had a 3-D look and painting was that old monk feeding a deer.

3D look painting...

By the time, we completed our cylinder rituals 2hours had run out. Our next destination was Sera Je – Sera Mei. It was another monastery which was 2-3 kms away from Namdrooling Monastery. This monastery was really big in size and in area compared to Namdrooling. Inside the monastery it had a seating capacity of more than a 1000 people. They had a photo of Dalai Lama at the centre of the hall inside the monastery.

Hallway inside the Monastery....

We took some pictures around the place.

Buddhist monks having a Time Pass...

Sera Mei....

Namdrooling Monastery Distant View from Sera Je

Story behind Sera Me..

We spotted two Buddhist kids near a pond beside the monastery. We took some pictures with them (with their permission).

Our next destination on our list was Nisargadhama.

It is an island formed by Kaveri. It is 5kms from Kushal Nagara. It is 64 acres island, with lush foliage with bamboo, teak and sandalwood trees. Nisargadhama is somewhat similar to the Sunderbans delta formed by Ganga-Brahmaputra river system. There is rabbit park, deer park inside this island.

Deer park....

The island is connected using a hanging rope bridge. We took some photos on top of the bridge and on top of tree tops.

Wooden Balcony View.....

hanging rope bridge

We left the place around 12 in the afternoon. We decided to head back to Tech City as it was 250 kms travel from Kushal Nagara. There were heavy blocks in Mysore. We reached the Tech city at 10 pm. We had our dinner at Kamath Lokarucchi.

We ended our journey with a hope that next weekend we would have a better place than Kushal Nagara.

Journey continues.....

Yelagiri Trip – Family comes FIRST!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Sreeram) — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 17:39:00 +0000

12/6/2011

Family comes first is the virtue of every citizen leaving the land of different cultures. A good family always stays together when there is happiness and when there is sorrow. Every single emotional movement inside the family stays inside a family. Thinking that my cousins and myself decided to have a trip with ‘THE FAMILY’ to a place called as Yelagiri. Wikipedia defined the place to be one of the exotic places in South India.

Yelagiri is a hill station in Vellore district in Tamil Nadu state, situated off Vaniyambadi – Tirupattur road. It is located at an altitude of 1410.6 metres above mean sea level and spread across 30 sqkm. The description also talked about the sports ventures in the place like para-gliding and rock climbing. As anyone, my expectations were high. But, what did I find? I was really disappointed. I expected it to be really cool. But what I saw was really disappointing. The place was completely deserted and most of the places which we visited were really hot.

The FAMILY comprised of myself & my bro, dad, mom, cousins, their mom and dad. We had rented a Toyota Innova. Innova was way too powerful than our 1.2 ltr beat. Although, innova was damn powerful, I always had a soft corner towards Beat because it was our first car. It was my dad’s and uncle’s idea to visit Yelagiri and that too, in a single day, which was way too much to ask for. The ride inside the innova was a bit congested and wayward because, there were 9 people inside the car. We tried almost all possible combinations in seating but almost all turned to be a failure.

The initial route to Yelagiri seemed to be really nice. The nature contours seemed to be a beauty of its own.

After major hair pins and mountain underpasses, we entered into the flood of eucalyptus trees. Its beauty was stunning.

After the eucalyptus stretch we entered into the town section where we stopped near a temple for offering prayers and rituals. I often wondered - it is said the temple is a place where people not only go for prayers but also having a peace of mind. In most of ancient temples in India, especially in south India they have great Banyan Tree in front of the temple. The reason for having a banyan tree in and around the temple is not only a cultural one but also a scientific one. It is said if we meditate under this tree. It has a capability to purify our thoughts by instilling pure oxygen into our blood-oxygen system. By pure oxygen I mean that air free of pollutants. Every single thing which we learn as culture has a scientific reason behind it. When we arrived near we saw a bunch of jackfruits placed at the entrance.

We had cultural moment then at the temple. We offered our prayers and rituals at the temple. At the entrance, I saw the weapon used by Lord Muruga - Vel(It is a weapon used by ancient tribal hunters).

Vel...

Just outside the temple I was able to see a peculiar variety of chameleon. It had a orange-black tinch to it. My bro took a really good pic of the chameleon.

Just outside the temple I was able to capture a photo which changed the way I approach photography. I always needed to instill a cultural feel into picture. So I decided to take a picture of piercing of Vel into one's hand. I had the courtesy of Cousin Vidya who volunteered to take up this task. I told her to place her hand in a particular angle and told her to have an expression as if like it is piercing into her hand. She did a fantastic job in doing so.

Here I made use of the same technique which I had used in college trip to wayanad.

Later that day, we decided to go for boating in the nearest lake. That boating was the only memorable moment in the whole trip. We pics of the splash of water with very high shutter speed.

After boating we took some pics of the lake aerial view.

My uncle then said that there was a falls near the lake called as the Jagathambha Falls. The name sounded horrific so expected it to be horrifying falls. It was worse than we expected it to be. The coming from the falls was less than water coming from the nearest tap. On the way to falls, we had an opportunity to ask to a person who was coming from the falls, He said "there is a lot of water, you can bath for hours.". Whatever he said was true (sarcastically) water was almost close to tap water and it take hours to take bath in this stringent waters. Most of the family members criticized my uncle for coming this long way.

We didn't wait long we decided to head back home (bangalore). On the way back to home, we decided to stop near Krishnagiri Reservoir for the sunset.

After we left Krishnagiri to Bangalore, on route I tried some photography trials on sporty lights. I took picture of sun from the window of the car going at 80kmph with low shutter speed and high aperture. And this is what I got.

We finally reached Bangalore and headed back it our homes feeling disappointed and tired. I still hoped that we could have a week where everything could be changed in single trip. I hope I'm not wrong! The Hunt continues.......

Trip to Zoo...........

noreply@blogger.com (Sreeram) — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 11:26:00 +0000

5th June 2011

Seasons were changing... thoughts of people were changing, but my plans were not the ones to be changed. It was a feeling where I had wasted a lot of days without proper travels. This weekend was completely wasted as Saturday turned out to be a dull day with problems roaming around the state. I decided to take a small trip to Bannerghatta National Park. It is the only national park which is in the limits of the city. It is just 22kms away from the city center. Distance wasn't my concern as I have made trips to places which are far greater in magnitude when considering the factor of distance.

On the way, we faced a lot of problems. Half way through, I had realized that I had forgotten to take the camera. We lost a lot of our time by heading back home to retrieve our precious asset. We reached the national park by 3 pm. By that time, safari was closed. The tickets for last safari were sold out. We had to make changes in our plan to visit the zoo.

We started off by paying a visit to our national bird - Peacock. Its beauty was unmatched.

Peacock Caged......(Our National Bird caged)....:(

Next, I had to move on to the Hippopotamus. I wasnt able to take a lot of photos, area near the hippos were really disgusting. (Note: Area near Hippos are always like that.)

PLEASE DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!!!

Hippos can open their jaw for an angle of 180 degrees. I dont think any human being can open their jaws that much. Hippos fight with each other using their big jaws. They have stubby legs and hairless body.
We were not able to stand at that point for a long time because of the foul smell coming from the pond.

We, then moved onto the birds section which had variety of species. I wasn't able to cover pics of all birds. The first bird to be spotted in the zoo after Peacock was the Painted Stork which is a large wading bird. It is a bird which is usually found in the wetlands of tropical Asia mainly to the South of Himalayas in South Asia and in some parts of South East Asia. Their distinctive pink tertial feathers give them their name.

Painted Stork

The next which we spotted was a group of Black-headed Ibis. It is another kind of wading bird which is mainly found in the Indian Subcontinent. It is similar to a Stork, but the only difference is that it feeds in groups. It has a black head&neck & body has white feathers. This bird reminded me of black & white pics.

Black-headed Ibis

Then, I was able to see Black-crowned Night Heron. It is another type of wading bird. The only difference with respect to other birds in the category is that they don't have long necks like others.

Black-crowned Night Heron

Then we were able to see some Spot-billed Pelicans. This bird reminded me of the character 'Nigel' in the movie 'Finding Nemo'. For those who haven't watched the movie 'Finding Nemo', 'Nigel' is actually an animated character which is basically an Australian Pelican.

Spot - billed Pelican

We took a lot pictures in the section of pelicans and storks. We then moved onto the section which had crocodiles and alligators. We patiently waited for some time for seeing some action from the reptiles.

Croc waits....

Alligator

We were almost ready to lose our patience thats when the action kicked in. A cat got caught inside the croc's area. The cat had zero idea of how to get out from there.

Cat stuck in croc's area....

After seeing the struggle of the cat inside the enemy’s territory, we moved on the rare birds section. We were lucky that we were able to see an ‘African Toucan’. This bird reminded me ‘Toucky’ character in the comedy movie ‘George Of the Jungle’. Its beak is very much artistic in nature. From such birds we can understand that the creator has a good taste of beauty.

African Toucan....

Up next was the scariest section of all SNAKES...

There was a big pit like structure inside which the zookeepers had a chance to add world’s most deadly snakes. Even standing outside the pit would allow you to shiver yourself (It was THAT SCARY.....:o). We had a chance to see python and baby python in action. There were a lot vipers, cobras, rat snakes.

Python....

rat snakes

Baby python

Viper...

Rat snake..

rat snak from a hole

rat snake in action.

baby python in action..

Next up was the turtle section, we had a chance to see one of the slowest land animals after snails. It reminded me of the story of 'Hare & tortoise'. The story reminds us the virtue of patience.

Next up section of the world’s deadliest predators – leopards and jaguar. They moved as if they were ready to hunt any animal in their site, unfortunately they were caged. This actually made me sad. They are supposed to be left alone in a big area like inside forest rather than inside a cage and feeding them like house hold cat. Even though they were inside the cage, their movements were highly predatory.

Here is where I had a chance to take photo in the emotional state of a predator who is fed up of the area.

Predatory moves:

Trip was a memorable even though we didnt have a chance to visit the national park. THE VENTURE GOES ON......

The ITTIAM Day.....

noreply@blogger.com (Sreeram) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 08:15:00 +0000

27/05/2011

The next weekend was more of a techno week. I had to attend an annual function hosted by the company in The Grand Magrath Hotel. The company which i worked was celebrating its 10^th year of its successful venture. The company was Ittiam Systems Pvt Ltd which was started in 2001 by ex-employee of Texas Instruments - Srini Rajam, CEO of the company who was present in the function.

Srini Rajam...

Puneet Gupta, Principal Engineer - was the anchor of the day.

Me and my mom inside Grand Mcgrath Hotel..

Awards and achievements to be given away.....

ITTIAM meant “I Think Therefore I AM” a more of a conceptualised version representing your mind. The function was less formal and with inclusion of more excitement in it. Each team in the company hosted its unique level of contests and giving away prizes for the contests as chocolates. The participation was so high that even for participation there were prizes.

Dus ka Dham...

My Team...

As for my team, was concerned their contest was more into the field of geography. The contest was called as “Dus Ka Dham” which is you have to find the name of 10 places in the given 60 seconds of time. My mom, dad & my cousin had real fun. Some of the events were real funny. There was an event - Eating biscuits by stacking them first with your mouth and not using your hands. And there was another one which was like one person was forced to rotate his hips so that the Yo-yo tied to his hips can strike all the bowling bottles placed around him.

I had real fun..... The day was really a memorable one......

The venture continues.................

Finally Wayanad!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Sreeram) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 07:52:00 +0000

21/05/2011

It was nearly 20 days spent in the tech city. But I hardly noticed those days in the city expect for the last weekend. The days were passing and my stay at Bangalore was nearing the conclusion. So as planned earlier, my cousins decided to go on a trip with us (me and bro). Our cousins were really positive that driving to Bandipur national park would enlighten the complete pack (me, bro and cousins). Unfortunately, the plan seemed to be sabotaged due to the fact of accommodation in bandipur. So, I came up with an excellent plan which was by visiting bandipur and then staying at Wayanad which has a lot of accommodation centres whose rates are almost half the rates in Bandipur. It seemed that Sulthan Bathery – a place in Wayanad seemed only 25 kms away from bandipur. Bathery was a major touristic centre in Kerala. We found a KTDC hotel in bathery namely “Pepper Grove”.

We (me, bro and the two cousins) left Bangalore at 6 am in the morning. As usual, we pit stopped at Kamat Lokkaruchi for breakfast. The food was every energetic. We decided to move on. As it was already 9 am and the highway was starting get congested. We reached Mysore by 11 am. We had our lunch break in a Cafe Coffee Day shop near Gundelpet.

The Last Cafe Coffee Day Shop on the way to Gundelpet....

NH 212 Mysore-Calicut Highway

After having our break we decided to continue our voyage. We travelled through the NH 212 Mysore – Calicut Highway. The road was really amazing.

We finally passed through the gates of Bandipur reserve at 1pm expecting to see some wildlife action. On the way we witnessed a group of elephants on the side of the road. My cousins even thought of taking some photo shoots with the elephants. A move like that might result in fatality.

Group of Wild Elephants....Part-1

Part-2....

Mountain Squirrel found in Muthanga Range....

We enjoyed the song the nature from there on. When we passed the border check post, the highly vigilant Kerala police scanned and verified our identities to make sure that everything was safe. Finally we were in Wayanad the beauty of Kerala. It is the one which makes Kerala as the Land of God’s Own Country. Wayanad is only place which has both tea and coffee plantations.

As we drove through the roads of Wayanad, I smelled the scent of godly nature of Kerala – place where i was born. We took a stop at Muthanga Wildlife Reserve before heading to Sultan Bathery. The reserve offered jeep safaris into the reserve. The reserve was famous for its tigers, leopards, jaguar, black macaques,
bears, vultures, sambhar deers, etc.

Safari point at Muthanga Reserve

Entry Point to Muthanga Wildlife Reserve

The cost of a Jeep safari was close to 1500 rupees for a jeep which can accommodate max of 8 people. In the safari, we were accompanied by a forest guide. He showed us the crazy route-ways within the reserve.

Safari Route

Elephants in Muthanga Reserve...

He even showed us a group of vultures feeding on a dead bear.

Vultures feeding on Dead bear..

Vultures

The sight of the reserve was similar to the one which we see in the Discovery channel. It was a tropical forest for sure as there were areas where we witnessed elephant grass. It is grassland area where the tiger hides itself for capturing its prey. When we moved across the elephant grass the monkeys which were sitting on top of a tree were making alarm noises in order to alert all the deers in the area. Then we came to know that indeed there was a tiger which was present in the grassland area which was camouflaging itself from everything. We weren’t allowed to wander in that areas as those areas came under the Buffer Zone. Therefore, we were made to leave the territory.

Deers in Muthanga... This part of the reserve came close to the Buffer Zone...

We did shot a documentary on the safari trip to the Muthanga Reserve. It was shot by my cousin (Vicky)...

Jeep safari- Documentary part-1 by Vicky(mycousin)

Jeep safari- Documentary part-2

Mountain Squirrel

Deers in Safari route

On the way back we had chances of seeing some wild elephants and also some macaques. We left the reserve at about 5 pm for Sultan Bathery.

Pepper Grove (outside view)

Dining Room-Pepper Grove

We stayed at a place called as Pepper Grove in Bathery for the night. Pepper grove was hotel which, was under the KTDC (Kerala Tourism Development Corporation). The stay & food was amazing.

We played badminton in the court at night just for enjoying our stay at the hotel. The hotel had 5-star look.

22/05/2011

The next day was a memorable one as we decided to pay a visit to Edakkal Caves one of the UN Heritage Site in India. The caves were considered to be one of the oldest ever.

It had the most dangerous trek route. The region in caves was considered to a plastic free zone. We were forced to deposit 10 rupees for the plastic bottle which we carried to the caves. Before entering the caves, we were checked for any plastic materials like bottles, covers, etc. If they find any, then we were forced pay a deposit of 10 rupees per item and a label is tagged to the item which we carried so that we can renew the deposit on the return trip. Thus, they can make sure that plastic waste in not disposed in the caves area.

The view from the top of the caves was a memorable one. From the top we were able to see the famous “Phantompara” – rock hill which is naturally carved like face of a phantom.

View from the top of the caves...

Trek route in Edakkal Caves....

Phantom Para.....

The route to edakkal caves was very treacherous. There were steep areas which were very slippery. Route was very narrow as only one person was able travel at a time.

Finally, we reached the caves. The walls of the caves had the encryptions of ancient art. It was an experience which can never be described by words.

We took some photos to mark our arrival.........

Inside Edakkal Caves......

That's me. Behind me is the rock engravings found in Edakkal Caves...

Inside Edakkal Caves....

Rock trails found in Edakkal Caves....

In the caves, we noticed something really familiar, ‘rock trails’ – trails used by the people who regularly do mountain climbing or rock climbing. When we enquired about it, we came to know that rock-climbing was very common in the caves area as people do it often especially in the Feb-march time which is the perfect season at which rock climbing is easier.

We left the place at about 2 pm. We reached Bathery town and had some lunch. And left the town in the evening at 4 pm. On the way we saw a wild elephant taking bath in a pond...

elephant taking bath in a pond...

We crossed Mysore at sunset expecting that we can reach home at night. On the way, I took some really amazing sunset photos which looked so picturesque.

We reached back in the tech city at 11pm.

It was trip which never be forgotten in my life.......

The Journey Continues.......................

Boring 2nd weekend....

noreply@blogger.com (Sreeram) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:48:00 +0000

14/05/2011

After a great trip in the first week, mom and dad were really tired. Dad decided to head to Ernakulam on the Monday which followed the weekend. And it was just three of us (mom, bro and myself). We decided not to spend time sitting idle in the house. Instead, spend time within the city for a change with our cousins. We thought that “IT WOULD BE REALLY FUN!!!”. But the contrary was the one which happen.

...........................We visited Mantri Mall ... It was really boring to go to the mall especially, when you think of the shopping in the malls. It happened to be a very bad & boring day for us (me and bro). But our cousins & mom seemed to really enjoy it. If there was a 3^rd party present in our group. He could probably measure the height of ambivalence in the group.

We somehow managed the complete day.

15/05/2011

A VISIT TO LALBAGH.......

We decided for the next day to go some other place other than shopping. The only place we could think of was ‘Lalbagh Gardens’. Lalbagh gardens are known as ‘Lover’s Spot’. Lalbagh Gardens stretches around 1/3^rd of the city. When someone’s says it is Lover’s Spot our mind might start to swirl to things like fountains, rose gardens, neatly cut grass with sprinkling waters all around it. It was truly the same with the case lalbagh gardens.

Neatly Cut.....

View of pine like tree in Lalbagh Gardens....

A tree named after our former PM - Rajiv Gandhi...

This was the most old fashioned tree in Lalbagh. It is said that this tree is more than 1000 yrs old....

Neatly cut grass resembling different shapes...

Donald Duck made out off grass.......

Dinosaur gate ways made out of grass....

The flowers and neatly cut grass shapes looked very amazing. Big positive to say about Lalbagh Gardens, the maintenance of the place was excellent. And there were fountains at lot of places reminded me of the Musical Fountains at Brindavan Gardens in Mysore.

Glass Palace......

Fountain before the glass palace.....

Glass Palace in Night.....

Glass Palace in Light.....

A True Piece of Work.....

But here we were in for a big surprise. There was a big palace made out of glass in the centre of the park. The most illuminating thing about it was that, when it becomes night, the lights are turned ON and the glass palace illuminates as if like a heavenly chamber.

We left the place at 7 pm.

We ended our day with a small dinner in a restaurant called as ‘Andal Mess’ in Indira Nagar. The food was very homely and also very cheap.

The First weekend in the Tech City.....

noreply@blogger.com (Sreeram) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 22:33:00 +0000

06/05/2011

It was the first weekend in the tech city (Bangalore or Bengaluru). The first week of work in the company was amazing. Every day we (me and avinash sharma who was there with me in doing this internship programme) had lunch with the team in the company canteen. It was an amazing experience which i cannot describe. Playing Basketball and solving the rubix cube was my pass time in the company. A guy named Anoop who worked in my team always gave me his rubix cube for solving. In the first week, while having lunch I used to ask the people in the team for places of trek, so that I can go on for the trek, which is always my favourite pass time. I was introduced to the XMECian in the team who was working in the company for the past 6 months. And then from him I came to know about rest group as well. We had only two malayalees in the team. One was the XMECian (Vishnu Prasad) from Calicut and other one was a guy called as Sajeer from Kottarakkara who was an active trekker. He (Sajeer) told me about a place called as Honnermardu near Jog Falls and said about its beauty. He also added that the place was used by the IAS trainees for their BHARAT TOUR.

For the initial week we (my family -me, my bro, mom, dad) planned a visit to Mysore not to pay homage to Mysore Maharaja but to visit my grandmother's sister-in-law who lives in the outskirts of Mysore. We thought of visiting her, as it was her birthday which came in that weekend and the same time we thought of paying visit to a close by National Park - Nagarahole (South India's Largest National park).

The route to Mysore from the Tech City was through SH 17 one of the major state highways in Golden Quadrilateral. It was a 4-lane highway. Saying the highway being a 4 lane one would mean that the route would be really quick but, the fact is that people there do not follow lane traffic. They drive as if like there is 6lanes or maybe 8 lanes. In the highway there were areas where there are a lot of speed breakers. Imagine speed breakers in Highway. ‘Incredible India for sure!!!’

The distance from Bangalore to Mysore is like around 130kms. But due to congestion factor it takes around 4hrs to reach the destination. We took the NICE (Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise) road which was really a nice road. Road is apt in its name. But not so apt if the cost was concerned, it was nearly Rs 50 for driving a distance of 25kms.

NICE Road

We left Bangalore at 5:30 pm and reached Mysore by night 9:30 pm. In between we took a small break near Ramanagara where there was an amazing drive-in veg restaurant - “Kamath Lokarucchi”. Food was far better than the ones in Local Highway Dhabas. We had our evening snack at about 6:30 pm. Kamath is well known for it’s ‘idly’ which is steamed in coconut leaves it shows a great resemblance to the Kerala dish ‘Puttu’ (Steam Cake).

Though I didnt take snap of the steam cake here is a pic of the idly which is there in kamat. Idly is steamed in cocunut leaves just like in the photo.

Outside Kamat

07/05/2011

Next Day we got up at 6 am decided to go to the Nagarahole National Park. It was about 80kms from Mysore. Route was like we have to take the Mysore-Madekeri Road (SH 88) and drive till Hunsur and then take another state highway which was SH 86(Hunsur – Kattikulam Road). ‘Kattikulam’ the name sounds familiar; it was a place in wayanad which was close to Thirunelly temple. We knew that we have to pay a visit to this destined place at some point of time which may be not in this trip.

Mysore-Madekeri Highway..

Drive till Hunsur in the Madekeri highway was like a heavenly feeling. Even though the road was 4lane, it had speed breakers in between. This state highway becomes completely 2lane when it reaches near to Hunsur.

After reaching Hunsur we took a left turn to the SH86 (Hunsur-Kattikulam highway).

Left deviation in Hunsur bye-pass

Mysore-Madekeri road

Another major road which connects the two states Kerala and Karnataka. From that moment onwards it was like we were heading to national park where there were no human inhabitants but only wildlife. The road became narrower when we reached close to the National Park. We took some stops before reaching the national park. We witnessed some amazing sites on those stops. It was very hard to believe that there was state highway passing through this amazing route. Although, there was very rare buses which, pass through this route.

Hunsur- Kattikulam Highway

my dad,mom and bro..

Most of the national parks in India are named after the leaders of India except for Corbett national park. Here, in Nagarahole it is named as ‘Rajiv Gandhi National Park’. We reached the Gateway at about 8 am. We decided to go to the safari point all the way. On the way we witnessed a lot of deers, elephants, etc. It was like a mini safari. The national park has an area of 650 sq kms. The national park is considered to be one of the main reserves which, is certified to be a TIGER CORE area. Timing is 6am - 6pm (in-out).

Hunsur -Kattikulam highway through nagarahole national park.

Royal Stag....

Another royal stag...

Here is a video of the route in Nagarahole:

Deers in National Park:

Stag:

Wild Elephant:

Wild Boar:

We reached the safari point at about 10:30 am.

Black Macaque in Nagarahole

Deers in Safari Point

An interesting caption which was placed at the safari point..

Safari route

They (forest officials) said the next safari trip was about 4 pm from now. So we thought spending time somewhere else. When we enquired about the places of visit, the forest officials told us that there was a waterfall close to the Kerala border which was the ‘Irpu falls’. So decided to leave the safari point and thought exploring areas other than the safari point.

Heading to Irpu falls....

Irpu falls was like 20-30kms from Nagarahole. While going to Irpu Falls we thought of taking a stop at Kutta where had our breakfast at 11 am. From Kutta it was like 10-15kms to the falls. Before going to Irpu falls we checked the fuel status it was like quarter tank. We enquired for petrol pump stations. For our amazement most of the people said that there is petrol fuel pump in Kattikulam which is like 25kms from Kutta. They even gave us another option of ‘Black fuel’ which is like selling petrol fuel in Black (meaning Black-marketing). They said 1ltr Black fuel is like Rs 80 whereas fuel cost in Kattikulam is like Rs65 per litre. So we decided to go to Kattikulam after returning from Irpu falls. We left Kutta at 11:30 am.

Irpu falls come under the great Brahmagiri Hills. Irpu Falls wasn’t big deal of waterfalls as everyone says it to be. It was a small and decent waterfalls, not so much of water rush. Water flow was less as it was the end of summer. We took bath in the falls.

The water was mesmerising, it seemed heavenly when compared to the salty hard water which we have in the ‘Tech City’.

Irpu Falls...

Sky sight at Irpu falls

Honey combs at Irpu Falls...

We had our lunch in a home-made restaurant near the falls. We left Irpu falls at about 1:30 pm and headed towards Kutta and then to Kattikulam. Route to Kattikulam was amazing.

No words to describe!!

Tholpetty Reserve lies in between Kattikulam and Kutta. Tholpetty reserve was an extension of Nagarahole national park. After seeing road I was amazed of the fact that such an excellent road existed in Kerala. We reached Kattikulam at 3pm. Fuelled the car as well as ourselves. There was nearby tea shop where we had tea and evening snack as Pazhampori (banana fry). It was getting late; time was 3:45 pm already. The last safari is at 5pm. We were needed to reach Nagarahole safari point within 5pm. And it was nearly 25kms from Kattikulam. 25kms in 1hr and that too in a Ghat road was very risky. But still we somehow managed to reach the Safari point within 4:45pm. We took tickets for the Safari from the Forest officials.

In the safari ride, we witnessed about 20-30 deers wandering over a plateau. And also witnessed a group of elephants drinking water from the lake. It was barely visible from our safari truck. Truck which was allotted us was very noisy, and probably any animal which was close by would surely run away from the route the sound of the truck.

Here are some snaps of the safari:

Wild boar

Peacock (Our national Bird...)

Sambhar deer in Nagarahole National Park....

Safari was not worth at all compared to sightings which we had when we were driving through the National Park. It was only saddening part which we had on this trip. It was not at all cost worth. Safari was over by 5:45 pm. It was getting dark. We need to drive again around 30-35kms to exit the national park. Night driving in the national park is risky. So we have to be careful of animal sightings.

Deer crossing the road at night :

We drove for about 1 hr and finally reached the exit gate and guards started checking the car for any animal marks. We left the gateway by 7:00pm. We decided to head back to Mysore and visit Chamundi Hills the next day and, also to greet our grandma with warm happy birthday wishes. We reached Mysore by 9:30pm.

08/05/2011

Next day we left to Chamundi Hills. We left to Chamundi at 9:30 am. We reached the top of hill at 10 am. It was very hot. Summer heat was striking on to us. The rush in the temple was very high as it was a ‘Sankarajayanthi’.

In chamundi hills

View from Chamundi Hills

We left the temple at 12 pm.

We had lunch plans with our grandma sister-in-law who was celebrating her 82^nd birthday. We had our lunch in her house. And we had Palpayasam as a birthday treat to all of us. We left Mysore at 2pm.

On the way back we took some snaps of Tippu's palace and also the famous St.Philomena's Cathedral :

Tippu's Palace....

St Philomena's Cathedral..

Again we had a stop at ‘Kamat’ for the evening plan.

We reached Bangalore at night 7pm.

The trip was excellent...

The ‘venture continues.....................

Bangalore trip.......

noreply@blogger.com (Sreeram) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:42:00 +0000

30/04/2011

It was my summer vacation. And I decided to do small internship program in one of the core companies in Bangalore. My program was for 2 months starting from May 2nd to June last. I decided to take my car to Bangalore as well. So that i don't get bored on weekends. Our travel route to Bangalore was contained in THE GOLDEN QUADRILATERAL's major highways - NH47 and NH7. EKM-TRICHUR-SALEM stretch of NH47 and then SALEM-DHARMAPURI-KRISHNAGIRI-BANGALORE stretch of NH7.

The plan was that I leave Ernakulam at 5:30am and meet my bro at Mannuthy ( Trichur Byepass) at 6:30 am. But unfortunately I was a bit late. I became late by 1/2 hr. Departed ekm by 6 am. I was a bit desperate. Bro started critisizing for being late. I knew that NH 47 Edappally-Trichur stretch is deadly fast. So decided to drive a bit fast. I peaked almost 100 kmph. Because I reached Mannuthy in 45 mins. It was the first time for me when I drove this fast. 75 km in 45 mins....Just imagine....AMAZING right???

From Mannuthy onwards its Trichur-Palaghat stretch which is a bit narrow and risky stretch...So my bro decided to take that stretch. The most dangerous stretch as road is a bit bumpy and highly congested with heavy traffic.. Chances of accidents are very high. In this stretch we have the Kuthiran Kettam which is considered to be the most dangerous and accident prone area in this route. Lorries are most dangerous of all vehicles present in this route. This route being a 2-lane road lorry overtaking happens in the Kuthiran. Their driving is also deadly. We had instances of accident. But by GOD's grace we escaped the mishap.

These are some of the photos of the TCR-Palaghat stretch....

These photos were taken from my bro's mobile camera ( LG Optimus p500)...

We had our Breakfast at Wadakkencheri Hotel Aryas with some Hot idlies.
Palaghat stretch ends at Walayar check post which is the border of Kerala - Tamil Nadu..
Walayar check post is famous for lorries... Stories say that it is through this check post at night lorries transport 'spirit' illegally between states. After this stretch which in the main hills of Western Ghats it is dry land of Tamil Nadu.. We will feel the difference by means of temperature, humidity, etc..

Walayar stretch begins.....

Beyond this route board its Tamil Nadu.. Kerala state ends here.... When I saw this board stating "Thank You for visiting Kerala State" I was a bit emotional...

Beyond this route board lies a road of amazing quality.... It is a 4-lane highway after this border. But a road which lacks in natural scenic beauty which, is present in the kerala roadways.

We had our lunch in Hotel Aaryas in the Highway close to Coimbatore in Avinashi Road. The lunch was excellent with likes of Coimbatore Rasam - spicy and delicious.

But main disadvantage of this route is that when we travel from coimbatore to Bangalore in through NH47 -NH7 highways we incur a toll amount of nearly 350 rupees.. which is pretty costly. There are about 5-6 tollgates. Tollgate rates are like - avinashi road-salem is about Rs55 , salem -dharmapuri is about rs65, dharmapuri - krishnagiri - Rs 70, Krishnagiri-Hosur - Rs60, hosur-electronic city - rs 65, Electronic City flyover a 9-10km stretch itself costs around Rs 65.

When we neared Krishnagiri tollgate it started raining.......

Krishnagiri stretch was amazing with a lot of rocks on the side of the highway.

After this stretch we took an evening tea - break at Adyar Anandabhavan which lies on the way to Krishnagiri.

Had a good evening snack...

Adventures CONTINUES in BANGALORE......

Intro to Canon S5iS

noreply@blogger.com (Sreeram) — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 18:16:00 +0000

These were the first set of photos taken in my bro's new Canon S5iS. It was the first time that I have handled a high-end Camera.

Specs:

12x optical zoom lens with Ultrasonic Motor (USM) and UD lens

Optical Image Stabilizer

8.0 Megapixel CCD

DIGIC III with advanced Noise Reduction technology and Face Detection for stills and movies

Red-Eye Correction in playback.

This was the first photo taken in that camera. Precision damn good. I mean focus was perfect. Everyone might think the fruit is actually a tomato or an apple but, instead it is a chili (Kanthari Mulakku) which was there in my backyard.

This photo was taken with a lot dedication to nature. I really got interested in taking such photos, as it reminded me about the beauty of life.

Caterpillar the intermediate stage of the butterfly evolution. This caterpillar was just 7-8 cms long. Such a precision and focus without a tripod required me to have about 5-10 trials. Best suggested mode for such a photography "Apeture Priority Mode" for amateurs. Everyone might think that I am being a professional but, I am still an amateur in the field of photography.

Pupa - the next stage of life in the life-cycle of a butterfly. It somewhat similar to hibernation part. The stage after this is the Evolution of Butterfly.

After taking the photo on that day, it rained heavily that night. Next day when looked for I didnt find anything. instead I saw remains of the Pupa shell which was not cracked. This reminded me of the famous phrase composed by Herbert Spencer, "Survival of the Fittest".

"Life is unfair". But, we always forget something, we make use of such a statement when we don't get proper outputs for our work. For example, if a student doesn't get output in his lab exam given that he is a bright student. Doesn't mean that his life is unfair always. We may consider it 'unfair' if we don't get what we want, but why do we expect to always get what we want or think that's how it should be?

Things happen...how we deal with them is what matters.

Decision making, hard work should be in our life.

Moreover, Patience and Perseverance should be there in our life. I think more than luck, Perseverance will be surely rewarded with proper output.

College Trip To Wayanad

noreply@blogger.com (Sreeram) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 15:47:00 +0000

26/02/2011

It was the third year with my UG course. So it was time to do an industrial visit. Our principal gave us a duration of 2days and 3 nights for the industrial visit. In which one day should be either a saturday or a sunday. He also said that the objective of the trip must be industrial visit and not some sight-seeing. We planned a trip to Wayanad which is about 300kms from Ernakulam. In which we included a visit to Kinfra Park which, is small industrial park for small scale industries. "Visit" was just a roam-around and not "the big visit".

It was a tight trip as we planned a lot of touristic places in Wayanad. As usual, I was able to take some more improved techniques of photography.

This photo was taken from the balcony of the hotel which we stayed. The photo is that of the Chembra Peak, which is one of the most dangerous trekking spot. Trekking distance is about 25km which is one of the major trekking spots in south India. (Other major ones are Kudajadry-Agumbe 30km and Agumbe-Narasimhaparvatha 33km).

Tea gardens of Wayanad.
The speciality of Wayanad when compared to other hills like Parambikulam, Nelliyampathy and Munaar is the fact, that here you get both kinds of beverage crops(tea and coffee. Coffee due to the fact that it is closer to Coorg were you get coffee).

The most funny photo of all.

Any Non-Mecian seeing this photo will feel that he is looking at some Tamil Superstar. Rajinikanth, Vijay,...., Nithin Thomas (probably the next generation actor if he was into acting). People are lucky that this "Superstar" is aint present in the main screen of any film industry.

KINFRA Park is a industrial park dedicated to small scale industries.

That is me on the left of the photo.

"The Big Visit" was on the first day of the trip. Few snaps were taken in front of the I-park.
Funny side was when our counterparts from the other batch came to the scene. They were guided with our Dept HOD - Murali Sir. He was wearing a funny round collar t-shirt, which showed resemblance of beach shirt. This showed that even their guides were dead serious about the industrial visit.

"THE BIG VISIT" lasted for only 10-15 minutes.

The next target was Soochipara WaterFalls. When hearing the name everyone will have a feeling that, waterfalls consist of a lot of rocks which are needle-sized. This waterfalls was highly slippery as it had algae all over the rocks which were partially submerged in water. Sachin (one of my friends) fell into the water with mobile phone in his pocket.

There I mastered the true technique of "how to make a macro object microscopic" and Reference switches between background and foreground images which, is usually done by most of the photographers.

One of the most precise photos taken by me. I would like to thank Joel for his patience because if it was anyone else at his position then they surely wouldn't do it.

From there we moved on to the next location - Meemutty Waterfalls which was one of the most dangerous waterfalls in Kerala. It was one of the largest waterfalls in South India. We had to trek for about 4 kms. Out of the 4kms trek, the initial 2km was easy but, the next 2km was the harder one. As we had to stick to a rope tied to a branch of tree. Because on one side we have slippery rocks and on the other side we have got a big cliff. This trek is highly adventurous even though it is for distance of 2 kms. I was not able to the trek route to Meemutty because it was that treacherous.

These are some photos of Meemutty Falls.

This is the place where our great College Web Admin - Paul Thomas a.k.a Kohaserver lost the contact details present in his phone.

From the photo it is evident that rocks are slippery as we can see the presence of algae on them. Here, I learnt how to take photos with high detailing. Compare the previous two photos taken two different modes. To see the highest bit of detailing check the photo below.

It was already 5:30pm.Our guide started complaining that we had to head back to parking lot as it not so safe when it becomes dark. So we started to head back. While heading back we witnessed sunset from a very decisive view point. Very interesting photos were taken. Some people in our class had some crazy ideas with reference to sunset like, Bilu, Joel and Sachin had an interesting concept with sunset.

To improve sunset photography we have to note some points. Firstly, use 1/3rd rule which i have already mentioned. Secondly, give more importance to the foreground than to the background image. Thirdly, take the photo in lower lens exposure.

The above photo was taken with greater exposure that is why the quality looks bad.

That was it for day-1 of Wayanad trip. Our stay in Hotel Afaz, Kalpetta was excellent.

27/02/2011

Next day, we planned a safari in Tholpetty Range. But when we reached Tholpetty, the forest officials said that the range is closed indefinitely due to the fact of Forest Fires. We were all sad that we were not able witness some wildlife after travelling so far. So to remove the sadness we re-routed our trip to Kuruva Dweep (Kuruva Island).

Kuruva Islands is group of small islands which is formed by the river Kabini.
In Kuruva Islands, Kabini is split into 8-10 streams. Out of which 1st stream is the one with maximum size and force. A traditional boat ("Chengadam") is provided to the tourists when they plan to cross the first stream.

Reflection of sun in water is the best possible photo which we can take at this point. Photo should be taken in minimum aperture and with minimum shake.

Two photos are taken with different exposures factors. Former photo with more exposure and the latter with less.

This was Siddharth's idea (the one on the right). Good one. He found the presence of Kuruvi (Vivek Kuruvila the one on the left is nicknamed as Kuruvi) in Kuruva Dweep. More than idea, it is their expressions which looks quite funny. Excellent innovation by Siddharth.

Next photo, is the one which I found to be very interesting. All forests in Wayanad are tropical rain forests. With greater content of Bamboos. So I planned to take a sun speck through a bamboo which, I find it to be very illuminating.

Then, we were off to Karapuzha Dam. Our last touristic visit in Wayanad. We planned to take sunset from the Dam's view point.

Before the sunset, Vishnu KS, Nithin Thomas, Sachin had some thing else in their mind.

This photo required too much of trials. As we required all of their legs in air. Shutter speed should be damn quick to capture such a photo. Sports mode/Kids-pets mode is preferred while taking such a photo.

Vishnu KS's (one who seems not to fit in the photo) stance was the one which spoiled the theme of the photo.

It was now Vivek's and Siddharth's turn.

They started playing with the Sun.

Their expressions are too good. Expressions are the prime assets of a professional photo.

I would like to thank Vivek and Siddharth for the dedication to this photo.

Used the same concept of foreground - background cross referencing.

I shifted my photographical skills to the primary goal which is SunSet.

Different stages of sunset were taken.

Each with different set of modes.

This one was taken with rather a bit higher exposure window inorder to capture the reflection of light in water.

Preferably, the reference was given to the landscape rather than the foreground image.

Stage 1 of sunset. Exposure and aperture ratio must be varied based on the basis of amount of light exposed.

Stage 2:
Low intensity photo.

Stage 3:

Stage 4: Add that sun radiance to the photo with minimum back-lights. Increase the aperture and minimize the shake.

Stage 5: Maximum Exposure with minimum Shake. Tripod is preferred while taking such photos inorder to minimize the shake.

That was it for the college trip in Wayanad. We all had a great time.

Just before left Wayanad we had small events being conducted in Camp-Fire (Usual tradition while we go for a trip from college or schools).

Left Wayanad - Kalpetta at 8pm.

Trip was excellent, the one which cannot forgotten in my life-time. It will always remain as the one of the most memorable trips which I have gone so far.

Megatrip

noreply@blogger.com (Sreeram) — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 19:00:00 +0000

25/12/2010

The sight of cliff is so fascinating. The 40 hair pin bends of Valparai calls everyone to take one or two snaps of the scenically tremendous surroundings. Cliff edge is pointed to the Great Azhiyar/Alliyar Dam one of the major dams in District of Pollachi - Tamil Nadu.

On the way to Valparai we have got a lot of sight points or we could say view points which named after some flowers. This naming was done after bill was being passed by the Govt following request of the Apex Court. Naming of view points was actually done to avoid call "Suicidal Points" which sounds more horrific and not at all touristic. This was done primarily to improve tourism in such areas.

One of the best photos which i have taken in my life. As everyone would say first photo will always be the best. Capturing this photo was a bit adventurous as I had small slip before taking the photograph. A major slip might bring me down from a height of 4 storey building which is nearly equivalent to the height of my college building.

From this spot, I had a feeling that I was on top Himalayas Jr. As it was almost equivalent to the height of 2500m. Anamalai Hills are visible in the photo which is off height 2500 and above. Valparai is one among them. The audibility of my ears reduced due to the fact that high pressure closed my ear drums. When I checked my watch it was near 5:30 pm. So I stopped taking photos for a while. Since I had a feeling that, by the time we reach the top of the peak we can take a lot sun set photos. Enjoyed the nature's song for while.

After reaching the top of the hill, on a curve we took a stop to take some crazy sunset photos.

Always when you plan take a photograph of landscape with a major focus on some item in the photo. Then, it will be better if you follow a 1/3rd rule see the above photo, the sun is placed at the 1/3rd position from left to right frame length. So the specks of light given out will be less and will look more illuminating and at the same time background can be viewed without any noise. But if the photo was taken with sun being placed in the middle then noise ratio will be higher and the blurification will be more.

That day I learnt a new technique in photography, which is self-descriptive from the above photograph.