Snapshots............

Photos from across the world....

Tigers of Kanha

Kanha National Park : what a place it is, maybe one of the best national parks I have visited in the country! One of course for its abundant tigers(comparitively that is, with parks like Sariska having
none left) and the second for its magnificent green jungles! Its a huge park, with two main gates from where tourists can get in. One of them is the Kisli/Khatiya gate and the second one is the Mukki gate. The Mukki gate is where most of the high-end resorts are located, while the Kisli gate has the not so high-end resorts. The Khatiya village is also located at the Kisli gate.

Reaching Kanha is a big challenge though, its not one of the most easily accessible places to go to! For Mukki gate, you need to fly to Jabalpur and drive a couple of hours from there. For the Kisli gate, you need to fly to Nagpur and then drive till Kanha. We went to the Kisli gate this time. The drive took us about 5-6 hours and you drive through the Pench Sancturary on the way. The roads are quite average, with lot of patches of bad roads. The landscape is quite pretty mostly, with lots of forests and shrublands on the way. The setting is rural throughout the way, passing through villages and small towns of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

At Kanha, we stayed at the Mogli resort, which is located just next to the Kisli gate and the forest guest house also located just
next to the gate. The rooms at Mogli are basic; they will have all you need and the staff is helpful. About the food there, I wouldn't know much, as we everyday ate at a dhaba next to the gate called Kamlesh Dhaba. The food at the dhaba was so amazing, a little oily but so tasty and all for 300 bucks for 4 people! We ended up eating all our meals at this restaurant itself:). The best places to stay would be the forest guest house and the bageera tourist resorts which are located inside the gate, within the jungle. I guess you can take small walks there, and feel you are closer to the tigers too:)

Anyways, we did 3 safaris in the park over two days. Two morning ones and one evening one. The morning safari starts at sunrise. The safari gypsies queue outside the gate from 5am onwards waiting for their turn
to get in when the gate opens. Apparently the earlier you get inside the park, the greater the chances of spotting the tiger (apparently!!). The day we landed at Kanha was the first day of the park opening after the monsoons and our entry was delayed by two hours because of a dispute between the park officials and the taxi union! Anyways it was quite a show in negotiations with the forest officer finally coming out to sort the issues.

Once the issues were sorted, we all rushed in, with each group trying to outdo each other to spot the tiger the first! Each
gypsy has about 5-6 tourists with one guide provided by the forest officials. The spotting of the tiger as well as the whole park experience depends a lot on your guide. There are some guides who really dont know much while some do know the forest inside out. So they
regale you with stories of the forest to entertain you while you are looking for a tiger. We were lucky to get a very good guide in the first safari itself, and we learnt a lot about the jungles from him.


Our first morning safari was all focussed on spotting the striped
one! We saw one napping in the bushes, pried on him for a long time but anyways gave up when he refused to wake up or budge (plus some 10-15 gypsies landed there, so it wasnt any fun either!). After roaming around in the other parts of the jungle, we finally came back to the same spot and what a sighting we had of the same tiger (once he managed to get out of his slumber that is).

We caught the tiger stalking his prey: a couple of chitals in the
grass. The deer caught wind of the tiger however, after the tiger has sat patiently for half an hour (and so had we!!) and ran off, making a barking sound and warning other animals in the vicinity too about the presence of the predator.


With his prey running away, the tiger then started walking on the path towards us for a minute and a half, posing and giving us all the photo time we wanted. It did get a bit


scary after a point though, as the tiger was one gypsy away from us and moving towards us, while the gypsies behind us were not backing off at all! Anyways the tiger was a friendly one, so no incident occured and we all went back happy from the safari:).

Once the sighting was over, we just roamed around in the jungles.
The weather was awesome, pleasant and a bit chilly, with no sun in sight. The jungles green and lush after the monsoons. A nice and pleasant drive away from everything else!

Our evening safari was bereft of any tiger sighting; apparently they just sleep through most of the day and walk around only at nights and
mornings. So we just drove around and enjoyed the green jungles of sal trees, the Kanha meadows and the hills and the grasslands and water bodies and the white foam covered grass.


The next morning we were again off to a 5 am safari, we spotted
the same tiger as the previous day walking towards us! There were three gypsies on the other side, with us getting the front view. The tiger kept walking towards us, leisurely, sometimes venturing into the grass but then choosing to stay on the road.

Behind us also, suddenly there were ten other gypsies all trying to get a look at the tiger, while it continuously continued to walk towards us. We backed down an incline, crossed a stream of water but I guess we were too slow for him. He just decided to go off into the shrubs.

It was again a long sighting, with the tiger continuously walking
towards us, and us again trying to back off faster than the tiger. And what a royal animal the tiger is, the leisurely ' I don't care about anything walk', the cute cat-like look, its really regal to look at and observe. And scary too, when you imagine, even a friendly slap from his paw and you are gone!




Once the tiger sighting was over, we went off for the other sights of smaller animals in the jungle. We saw wild boars and jackals and lots of very colourful birds that day.

We also went to another part of the jungle where we saw some of the most beautiful butterflies ever. They were just everywhere.





We also saw a small brook where on three specks of grass were sitting dragonflies of three different colours, yellow, blue and red.











And the spiders! If you can manage to tolerate them, some of the webs they make are amazing!






Actually Kanha has a lot of other wildlife too, like bears, leopards
(which are very rare to spot), wild dogs, barasingha etc etc all of which would be fun to spot in the wild. The tiger however eclipses all the other wildlife as everyone is only excited to see one while all the other wildlife is forgotten. (Well I guess we were also the same category:) but still!)


We did see the usual Cheetals and Sambhars too. Two animals which we did not manage to see though were the bison and the barasingha which are quite common sightings actually.

One thing which we missed is the tiger spotting done by elephants. Mahouts on elephants try to follow the tigers pug marks into the forest and when they spot a tiger sitting somewhere/resting, they then take the tourists in groups one by one to where the tiger is sitting, on the elephant itself. Its apparently fun, we however missed it, there were no tiger spottings when we went!

An interesting thing we saw were trees with the tiger paw scrappings, that is how the tiger marks his territories as well as some trees with leopard paw markings, where a leopard had climbed the tree. Other than the safari, there are also nature trails to walk on, through the forest.

Also while in the forest, you would come across multiple forest checkposts where forest rangers stay. Its quite impressive and scary too, for these people to be staying all alone like this in the jungle. Apparently they don't even keep guns with them!

One point to note is that since we went there after the monsoons, it was colder and the weather was a lot more enjoyable and tolerable, even though the sightings of animals is not as
much as in the summers when all animals come to the water bodies in search of water. Still I'd rather enjoy the woods and the weather in the winters than the summers! Would generally suggest to visit such parks in the winters only.

A lot of the tourists who come to jungle are quite a disgrace though, I must say. They use flash to take photos of the animal and behave like kids when there is a sighting, making sounds, refusing to budge, trying to get their vehicle in front of the other one when there is a sighting. Quite irresponsible behaviour, leaves quite a bad taste.

Duke University and Durham

Durham in North Carolina is the seat of the Duke University. Its quite a cute little town, like most small US towns I guess. The landscape is well crafted, with green forests and lakes and waterbodies in between, dotted with small towns very close to each other.
Durham downtown is small. We went to a mall complex as well as the mills converted to pubs and restaurants. Quite a relaxed chill environment. And there is sooo much space everywhere! Between buildings, and shops.. Everything feels so grand and spacey. Coming from Bombay, it does mean a lot:).
I also visited the Duke University in Durham and what a breathtaking
place it is to study! With woods all around and nature trails within the university to spend time in. The student halls are built in stone, typical European style. The university chapel is a pretty picture as are the stadiums in the campus.



Am just posting some photos. Quite an old-style inspired university, must be a pleasure to study in:).

Culture and times of Bali

Bali is one of the islands in Indonesia, popular among tourists as a beach resort, as well as providing a rich cultural experience to all. We did a short four day trip to Bali, and it turned out to be quite a complete vacation.

The capital of Bali is Denpasar Bali, where the airport is located. Thankfully, Bali offers visa on arrival for tourists which is a big plus. The Indonesian Rupiah (IDR) is the currency used in Bali and a big pain to use. Most dinner bills would run into millions of IDR irrespective of how much you eat. So you have to be very careful about using the bills:).

We landed at Denpasar and the first view of the country is enough to make you feel it has a lot to offer: and something very different from what you would have ever seen before.

Our first stop was the Hard Rock Hotel in Kuta where we stayed for the first day. Kuta is a beach resort town very near Denpasar. Nusa Dua is the more popular place for water sports, but Kuta is more popular with the surfers. It is however a small city, hence not as isolated as some people would like. Anyways, we went to the
beach which was very commercial and full of people. But the waves were really good to even body-surf. The sunset was lovely, as well as the different shaped kites flying in the air. We even saw some of the flights landing at the airport from the beach itself. The air strip almost runs into the sea, and the flight landing there is scary as well as mesmerising.

The Hard Rock cafe has a huge pool, with sand and an artificial
beach created. Good for some lazing around. Outside the hotel, there are lot of shops to get a good meal. Indonesian food is yum, the curries, the chickens and all. In fact most of the places we ate, the food was very tasty. Also the shops in Kuta as well as elsewhere in Bali sell a lot of colourful dresses made of batik. Very colourful and bright, they look very tempting to buy. Kuta is a nice place to chill and relax, and thats what we did!

The next day we did a full-day tour of Ubud and Kintamani and other places on the island. Our first stop was to see the traditional
Balinese dance. Since Bali is a Hindu country, a lot of the dances are based on stories from the Ramayana and Mahabharat, but are still somewhat different and unique.
We saw the Barong dance at the village, and it was a lot of fun. 

The dance had characters like Devi Kunti and her son Sahdeva though in a very different context.The Balinese dancers look very graceful and dance slowly. And the Barong (or the tiger like animal below) is a lot of fun to watch. The music is also very different, very soulful, with musicians playing different kind of instruments than the usual ones.












After the dance, we visited different local villages. Each village in Bali has a village craft, which everyone in the village learns.
So we saw the Batik painting in the village, jewellery, stone carvers as well as the wood carvers villages. The Batik paintings and jewellery pieces were pretty though quite expensive. What we loved the most though were the wood carvings, they were all masterpieces, very intricate, detailed and pretty.

Also, the villages in Bali are very pretty. There is a lot of greenery around, with rice fields and other
plantations. The houses are all very pretty and well decorated. Each house in built in a similar design, with a sloping roof and stone carvings placed outside the house. Each house also has its own temple with exquisite artwork decorating it. The houses on the way were a treat to look at as well as all the temples in the villages.

Apparently, each village in Bali has three temples, dedicated to the three gods: Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma. (This is something very different from the Hinduism we practice in India, isnt it? ).


The temples are again very pretty and grand with intricate carvings and sculptures. The temples are however opened only once in six months for ceremonies,the rest of the time they are closed. We did manage
to see a temple during a ceremony actually. It looked like the entire village was there, in traditional attire, waiting for the ceremony to start. Tourists are allowed to enter the temples but you need to be dressed in the traditional sarong to be able to do that.

The same day we also visited the Batur volcano and lake, one
of the two volcanoes in the island. Apparently you can trek to the top in two hours, we however chose to just take a look at it:). Its quite a pretty place to spend some time, and an even better place to bike!


We also visited a coffee plantation, as part of the agro-
tourism being promoted in Bali.Saw how Luwak coffee is made, uggh!! That day we stayed at Ubud which is supposed to be the cultural capital of Bali, at another wonderful resort, Kori Ubud.



The next day we visited the Ubud palace and temple. And then cycled in the city and villages around. We visited the monkey forest, which is dedicated to Hanuman.











The temple in the forest is again worth a visit. Beware of the monkeys there though. They are revered as well as very naughty. I almost lost our camera there!

And then that day we drove through the market and through
the villages with the layered green fields. So serene and unreal it was! We also saw rice fields in the villages, very quiet and calm. Not at all like villages in India :)).





Passed by farmers...








On the way while biking, we also stopped at a place where women were sitting and making offerings for ceremonies using leaves. The version of Hinduism practised in Bali is quite different from what we follow in India. Its very interesting to see how something with the same roots could develop into something so different! The people of Bali are very simple and nice. They still seem to be untouched by commercialization, was quite a nice thing to see:). Also, they get very happy to meet people from India. 

A standard line we heard was ' You Hindu? Me also Hindu (with a big smile) Nice to meet you'!! They also seem to like Hindi movies a lot, a lot of them use that to strike up conversations with Indians:).Also, here is the statue in the main square in Ubud. Its funny that in the country of its birth, I have never seen a statue of Ram in a public place like this![Update: This statue is actually of Arjun, rather than Ram as I thought. Still a surprise, have never really seen a statue of Arjun in India either!]

Firangipani is a popular flower in Bali, used everywhere,
in dances, as offerings, and even by women everyday to put in their hair. A very pretty flower. Also, balinese massage is something very popular with all, guess you can try it. I didn't find it great though.


The last day we spent in shopping in the markets of Ubud. Stone carvings and Batik dresses was the most popular selling item. Not very reasonable in prices though.

All in all, a really enjoyable trip, with relaxing on the beach, cultural tourism as well as seeing the countryside. Its a really charming country, still far off away from commercialisations. A must do place for a nice week in the countryside.

The Pristine Andamans

Andaman Islands is a group of about 500 islands in the Indian Ocean, closer to Burma than to India. And for some reason they are part of the Indian Union, don't really know why:)! Anyways the islands are not on too many tourist itineraries, maybe because of their difficult accessibility or because these islands have not really
been developed for tourists. The islands, the beaches, the national parks, all are in some way as they would be without human interference. And that may be what appeals to some of the people who do end up going there, but definitely not to all. Its too raw, too uncouth, too wild for some tastes. I loved it though, it felt like a different realm altogether!

We had a long ten day vacation there, and so got a lot of time to actually explore a lot. There was still a lot more that we would have liked to see but could not get a chance to explore, more so because of the difficult accessibility to some of the farther islands.
Anyways to start with, to get to Andamans you need to take flights either from Chennai or Calcutta or ferries from these two ports. The ships take about 2-3 days to reach, so can be a bit too much. The capital city of the Andamans is Port Blair and you will be
surprised when you land there. Its quite a usual bustling little town, at least bigger than what I expected. Its as any other town you would see on the mainland, similar buildings, similar roads, similar cars and similar people! There are lot of Bengalis and Tamils settled in these islands, so you wont really see any 'locals' in the towns (which I was expecting). The locals are anyways few in number most of which are still tribals living in the jungles away from human contact.
We spent a couple of days in and around Port Blair, visiting the
sights nearby. The local marina is a nice lighted road next to the sea with nice parks to sit and enjoy. At night with the twinkling lights, this part of the town looks very pretty. (An advice to anyone going to Andamans would be to not stay in Port Blair for long, to go on to the other islands which have a lot more to do plus are less city-like.)
One place which all Indians would definitely visit is the Cellular
Jail, located in Port Blair itself, very near the Marina. Its a national memorial now, with a couple of exhibitions inside showing the freedom struggle.

The cells in the jail are hair-raising scary and the stories even more gruesome. They also have a sound and light show held at the jail in the evening, which though not great, does give an idea to how life in the jail used to be like in those years.





The other place to visit near Port Blair is Ross Island, an island
just across a small stretch of sea from Port Blair where the British had first set up their establishment. Its just a couple of minutes ride from the Marina, and has ruins of the old British buildings, with the expected church and the rest.


The beach at Ross island is also very pretty even though its very small. Also, the same ferry which takes you to Ross Island also goes to two other islands, Viper Island and North Bay where you can apparently do some snorkelling.



Another place which is not on most tourist itineraries but I loved was the Harriet National Park, which is about an hour or so away
from Port Blair. You can also take a ferry to go till there part of the way. Thats an advantage on most of the ferries in Andaman, you can take your cars also on the ferries and cross over. There is also a trekking trail which goes to a beach and a lighthouse from the park itself. We did just part of the trek though, but should be good fun I am sure!
Harriet National Park is located on the the highest mountain of
the South Andaman islands, and gives a high level view of the places around.





Its a national park, with a winding jungle drive leading up to it and nice view points when you reach there.
Also nearby is a place called 20-Rupee point, where you can take a look at the image thatis imprinted on the 20 Rupee Note. See for yourself:)


One of the days, we also went to the Mahatma Gandhi Marine Park, also called the Wandoor national park. It is a national park comprising of a couple of islands which have corals and other
marine life. The two famous islands in this park on which tourists are allowed are Jollybuoy and Redskin Islands. Only one of these islands are open at a time. Jollybuoy is apparently supposed to be out of this world. Sadly, it was closed when we went there. So we went to Red Skin island instead.
You can take a ferry from Mahatma Gandhi Marine Park itself,
which takes you through the mangrove islands and then drops you at Red Skin island. Its a nice beach, with clean and still water where you can snorkel. There are pretty fishes and even prettier coral all along the beach.


We also went and saw some of the corals and fishes around the Grub island which is just nearby.



The Wandoor national park also has its own beach,
same isolated beaches away from all population as is there for most of the Andaman beaches.



Another must visit is the Havelock Island located nearby which is actually a bigger tourist hub than Port Blair. Its the most popular island among tourists with popular and pretty beaches like Radhanagar, Elephant Island and Vijaynagar. (Another advise would be to stay at Havelock for a couple
of days rather than doing just a day trip there.) We stayed at Havelock for four days and quite a wise decision it was.



There are regular ferries from Port Blair which take you till
Havelock, called the Havercruz. If you are feeling more adventurous, you can also take the helicopter rides that are available for tourists. You will be there in 15 mins, plus get quite a complete over view of the islands. Its at Havelock that you can do scuba diving at a couple of good sites. I did scuba diving at South button island, the Wall and the Aquarium. The sea life is breathtaking, the visibility great and the variety of fishes unbelievable!
Also around Havelock, there are tons of very nice resorts to stay,
right next to the beaches! Its the perfect place for people to relax, do a couple of water sports and generally have a good time. The beaches next to the resorts are mostly average though. Not too deep, with green blue water which during low tides recedes a lot.
Our next stop was to Baratang, which is an island on the middle
Andamans. The drive till Baratang is again very pretty, through fields and villages and hills and jungles! Its during this drive that you notice that Andamans is a lot more developed and richer than most of the Indian mainland. Most of the villages have pucca houses, light, electricity, cars and excess employment. It was quite surprising actually, I always imagined Andamans to be very backward and underdeveloped.
Also another thing you notice while driving through the islands was that at a lot of places, there were inland water bodies. Its all the remnant from the tsunami times, when water came inland and was not able to get back to the sea. Now all the trees in these areas have withered and these places are no longer suitable for cultivation.
While going to Baratang, you will have to pass through the Jarawa Reserve, which is essentially a reserve where the Jarawa tribes still stay. The government tries to minimise the interaction between the tribes and the outside world, and so there are rules regarding the the passage of people through this area. The tourists are not supposed to stop their vehicles or give the Jarawas anything or take their photographs. Of course all these rules are flouted by all!!
Till a couple of years back, the Jarawas did not interact with the outside world and used to kill the passerbys with poisoned arrows. Now that has stopped though!! Tourists passing through the reserve have been giving the Jarawas food, clothes, money etc, and now they are no more hostile! In fact the Jarawas come and meet the tourists who pass by on the roads, asking them for food and 'paan'! As the guards in the area say now, they have been corrupted by humans, as they have been introduced to money!
Anyways we came across lots of Jarawas on the way, sitting next to the road, eating, collecting fruits, or just basking in the sun. They have negroid features and live very wild lives still. Was quite interesting to see people still live like this in our own country!!
In Baratang, we visited a limestone cave, to see the stalactities and
stalacmites as well as a mud volcano. The ferry till the caves goes through mangrove forests, like the photo here.
The highlight of the trip however was the visit to the Parrot Island. Its an island slightly away from the mainland, where you can only go by ferry. Its a very small island, not even 500 mts wide I guess, and full of the mangrove forest. Thousands of parrots stay on this island and everyday at sunrise they all fly off, and during sunset all of them come back to this island.
It is a sight to behold when at sunset, hundreds of these birds fly back from all directions, chirping loudly and creating a ruckus, all of them getting together and then landing at the island! Its a sight I cannot describe, but can just be experienced. Also, the island is fully trimmed, the leaves on the top are fully cut by the parrots who live there.
I also saw the best sunset ever while going to the island. Here are some photos of this ride.

The last of what we saw in Andamans was Chidiya Tapu, a beach where apparently hundreds of birds used to come before the tsunami. Now there is just a beach, and of course a stunning sunset to see.

On the whole, Andaman offers a complete vacation with activity, fun, relaxation, beauty and history. And not too much of it man-made.