Goa, June 2012

 

To rejuvenate myself, I went for a week long trip to Goa with Jomy & Ri. We planned for a very relaxing trip, which meant absolutely no plan. We kinda stuck to it for the whole week while being there. We went out for couple of days, exploring some villages and beaches of south & central Goa. We enjoyed our time at Covla beach, drive to Madgoa and drive along the beach side road. Being true to our way of exploring, we went around the places on motorbikes. Ri who is 16 months old now, thoroughly enjoyed the motorbike ride and when she was very happy, she stretched both her arms to the sides and felt the blow of cool winds (whenever we went for drive after rains). In the initial few days when pre-Monsoon shower had not started, it was very humid and hot. But, after couple of days, with the pre-Monsoon shower, the weather was pleasant and enjoyed being on the beach.

 

Ri was very co-operative the entire trip. Oh man, this little girl enjoyed the beach so much, I felt, Like mom, Like daughter! We spent most of our time in the backyard beach in the resort. While not being on the beach, we lazed in the resort swimming pool.


We stayed in Club Mahindra resort in Varca which offered good indoor games options. Ri tried her hands at Carom with her Appa teaching. God knows, what she understood! But, she tried to use the striker.


 
Overall, a very memorable vacation with family. Of course, at the end of it, felt rejuvenated.

Bhandavgarh National Park, MP

From Kanha, we moved on to Bhandavgarh and stayed there for 2 days. Bhandavgarh was our last chance of spotting tiger in this trip.

Bhandavgarh National park (26& th 27th Dec)

For the first day morning safari, we didn’t have the vehicle booked by the hotel. In the morning, we went near the park gate (Tala) to find if someone can share their safari vehicle with us. After a hard search, we found an American who was ready to help us. We thought that we were lucky to get the jeep, and now our luck of spotting the tiger would soon follow :) After 3 days of safari in Pench & Kanha, I was not very keen in experiencing the forest. The forest here is very much like Kanha with Sal trees & Bamboos and I must say that the scenic beauty of this park didn't impress me. My only interest was in spotting animals, especially tiger since that was one of the biggest reasons for this trip. It is commonly said that, in Bhandavgarh the chance of spotting tiger is 99%. Before we planned for this trip, we heard from many people that there is no way that anyone could come back from Bhandavgarh without spotting a tiger. At least, we can spot the tiger in the ‘tiger show’. All these words made me feel very hopeful about spotting tiger in at least one of the three safaris that we have planned in Bhandavgarh.

We did all the three planned safaris in Bhandavgarh and in each of the trip we came out of the forest without spotting a tiger. I must say that I was disappointed after each trip and the hope of spotting the tiger was gradually wearing out. Every trip we made, we were always close to the tiger, but could never spot it. There was a time that a small tiger cub moved into a bush (spotted for very brief moment by a guide in another jeep) and didn't bother to come out for more than an hour of our waiting. It had two other siblings and the mother Tigress was not around. All of the jeeps waited there with the hope that mother would return in the evening. But, she didn’t come. May be she chose to take a different route that day! There was another time, when we heard a loud growl of the tiger - The guide mentioned that the sound is arising not from too far, and it should be within 100-200 meters off the road. It was really thrilling to hear the wild growl of the tiger. I wished that he comes out and gives me a look :) But, that didn't happen. Some other time, there was a deer in the meadow which got alerted and started making the alert calls. We waited there for a long time only to watch the paranoid lone deer.

Anyway, after 3 safaris we didn't spot a tiger in Bhandavgarh. The reasons mentioned by many were - It is winter and the tiger can easily settle inside the forest as the water reserve is high. Due to peak season, there are too many vehicles and many more such obvious reasons. But, how can all these be true only for Tala zone in Bhandavgarh? In the same forest, due to peak season, another zone named Magdi was opened up. The general idea is that the spotting of tiger in Magdi is difficult as it is denser than Tala. However, in one safari, there were 3 sightings of tiger and all the jeeps could spot them! So, the reasons quoted are just means of convincing people and does not really apply to the happenings. I say, it is mere luck! So far, we had 7 safaris in total in this trip and the luck didn’t bother to pass by my side. I went through height of disappointment and convinced myself that I would visit in summer again. Our driver was mentioning that "In winter, people ask if you spotted tiger, whereas in summer, people would ask how many tigers you spotted!".

After all the disappointing safaris, we were just wandering in the streets of Bhandavgarh. We had another half a day in Bhandavgarh and then our plan was to go to Khajuraho. The disappointment was really bothering me and decided to take another safari in Bhandavgarh, not wanting to miss a chance. I didn’t want to blame myself for just freaking out on the Bhandavgarh roads, instead of spending the time in the forest. But, the problem was we neither had permission nor the safari vehicle. Anyway, after some hassle, we ended up sharing it with few MBA students who had come from Pune. Now, in this final trip, I didn't have any expectation. I took this trip so that I don't later regret that I should have made another try somehow. Anyway after 3 hours of safari in the last trip, I didn't spot any tiger. We were coming to the end of our safari number 8 and all I saw was wild cat and mangoose! yee... But, wait! suddenly things changed. There were hoards of jeeps waiting in one area and our driver immediately understood the cause and rushed towards it. There she was! I saw a tigress doing her 'cat walk'. It was an absolute beauty. After walking for some time, she attempted to climb a tree - All her four paws on the tree and her tail waving in the air. What a scene to watch in the wild! It was one of my dream come true. The excitement maddened me for few moments - My luck was pushed to the last 5mins of my 33hrs of total safari time. Never mind, I got her in wild and it was an extraordinary moment (No photos though, since it was slightly dark and slightly far). It is one of the most unforgettable moments in my life and we moved out of Bhandavgarh with a success story to tell!

Our next stopover was Khajuraho and we headed towards it. Rest of it in the next posting.

Kanha National Park, MP

After Pench, we visited Kanha National Park and stayed there for 2 days.

Kanha National Park (23rd & 24th Dec)

On both the days, we went around the park in the morning. The park is about 2000 Sq.Km. and each safari lasted for about 6hrs. The mornings were really cold and I was typically quivering in the first hour of safari. After an hour, with sunlight passing through the tree gaps, the temperature in the air rose and the cold became manageable. Kanha is undoubtedly beautiful with lush green forest and huge meadows. Sal trees and bamboos are the prominent vegetation here. Anytime, Jim Corbett National park is the best park in India. Anyway, who can deny Kanha was the inspiration for Kipling's classic Jungle book and it reserves a special place among the Indian national parks. After all, it is one of the well maintained park in India.

For the safaris, Saleem and his friend Anand joined us. Saleem manages few safari vehicles in Kanha and he is also a naturalist. Anand is the manager of the resort we were staying at. Both of them are nature & wildlife enthusiasts. In the first few hours of our safari, we spotted lots of birds - Some of them which I still remember are Rocket tail Dracon, Seven Sisters, Woodpeckers, Golden Back Kingfisher, Parakeets, Plum Headed Parrots, Kites, Owlets and the rare Snipe. Lots of peacocks were freely moving around in the meadows and we spotted lots of Chital, Sambar, Barking Deer and Bison. We also saw the not so common Wild dog and Barasingha . Barasingha is present only in Kanha and is preserved here from extinction.


Here, in Kanha, I wanted to incentivize myself by spotting tiger in the wild. This was a highly motivating reason for me to visit the national parks this season. At many times, I came very close to spotting a tiger in this park, but didn't manage to see any. We saw fresh pug mark of a big male tiger which according to our guide, should have just crossed the road & moved inside the dense region. I also saw deers alerting each other with their alert calls - It was in a meadow and I was dreaming that a tiger is gonna come pouncing at the deer :) There were other missed chances like in the interior forest camp area, the male tiger was walking around freely for about an hour. We missed it by about 15mins. While going along a trail, first of the three jeeps spotted a tiger crossing the road. But, our jeep was 5th in the line and we couldn't watch that.

After such a long search for the tiger, I became desperate to spot the tiger in "The tiger Show". In tiger show, elephant mahouts spot a resting tiger and take people to that place by elephant so that the tiger don't get disturbed. On the first day of safari, Saleem had very high hopes of spotting the tiger in wild and we reached late at the centre where we need to register for the tiger show. We were 58 in number and the jeeps till 55 got to see the tiger! On the second day, we were a little proactive and enrolled for the tiger show earlier and were 13 in number. But, the tiger show didn't happen that day since the forest rangers couldn't find any resting tiger! There were many such instances happening through out our presence in Kanha national park. However, these didn't disappoint me as Bhandavgarh was next in our list.


In Kanha, other than the safari times, we spent our time walking around the small village. While walking around, I saw couple of trees with all its branches, full of butterflies. They belonged to same family (same color & pattern) and they were eating the tree leaves. It is the first ever time, I saw thousands of butterflies in one place! It was truly interesting to watch.

We had some of our meals at Mohan dhabha near the Khatia gate. Parathas & Lassi were very tasty. While you are there, I suggest you to try out this place. We met Mr. Yadav while we were traveling from Pench to Kanha. He is the owner of Pugmark resort in Kanha. He had invited us for evening tea and we visited him. He is very friendly, but very talkative too. He is an ex-army and police service man and was mentioning about his service experience to us. His resort is pretty good with fine rooms charged at nominal Rs.1200/- In Kanha, there are many resorts in this price range. For people caring for budget and cleanliness, these resorts are of good choice.

Kanha to Bhandavgarh

From Kanha to Bhandavgarh, it is about 400Kms and we had all of it to be covered in a day by regular local transport buses. We took the first bus at 6:30 a.m from Kanha and had to switch over to multiple buses at different points of our journey. The experience was all tolerable till 3p.m, after that it became really frustrating. The body started giving up and the back started complaining. But, I chose to travel by bus and got to do it. It is part & parcel of experiencing the local culture. After a long day of travel, we reached Bhandavgarh at 8:30 p.m and then came to know that Gypsy for the next day safari is not booked (though we have the permission to enter the park). We tried through different people to get a Jeep booked, but couldn't. We were too tired to do anything further & decided to take care of it in the morning.

Stopping here for now. I will post my Bhandavgarh experience in next posting.

Brief details on route to & accommodation at Kanha are at How to Reach & Where to Stay

At Pench National Park, Madhya Pradesh

We visited national parks in Madhya Pradesh during last winter. We started our trip on 19th Dec with some planning done before hand. Having enough time for this trip, we decided to travel by train both up & down.

It takes about 24hrs by train to reach Nagpur from Bangalore. But, our train Bagmati Super Fast Express took about 30hrs, stopping at many stations at will letting all passenger trains, local trains pass by. Shockingly, this long journey train doesn't even have a pantry car. They supply food only from few destined stations and only mineral water & jumpins fruit drink is available on train. So, any utterance of food items at any station immediately arouse our interest. At one time, there was a vendor selling Samosas at a station. The moment the train stopped, all of us in the boogie bought Samosas instantly. When another samosa vendor entered the train and saw us all munching samosas, he was surprised and said "Arey, train abhi roka tha, magar sabke hath me samosa hai!!" :)

From Nagpur, we took a local bus to reach Khawasa. We took our seats next to the driver to have a better look of Nagpur city. The city seemed to be pretty clean. Ofcourse, it is only based on the streets the bus took us through. From Khawasa, by Jeep we reached Heaven's Garden Resort, ~5Kms from Pench National Park gate.

Pench National Park (21st Dec)

In the shivering morning cold, we eagerly reached the park gate by 5:30, an hour ahead of the park opening timing. Early at the gate means you would be one of the first few vehicles to enter the park. Most often, the animals would get disturbed by the vehicle sound and slowly move away from the trail. So, it is always better to be one of the first few vehicles in any trail.

At 6:30 sharp, the gate opened and the vehicle started moving. With the moving wind, it became even colder and I started shivering. Sweater, Muffler, Jacket didn't protect me completely from cold. After few minutes, once we entered the thick jungle, I forgot the coldness and completely got indulged in the forest. Due to winter, the park had very many dry areas. The pench river which flows in the park, didn't have much water too. These changes didn't matter to me. I was ardent about meandering in the park. Of course, only by staying in the jeep. We are not allowed to step down from the jeep inside the forest perrmises.

While maundering in the jeep, I sighted some of the commonly seen animals like Chitals, Sambar, Wild boar & Bison. Though Chitals & Sambar are common, I can never become weary of watching them in the wild. At times, watching them being very casual & careless, eating the fallen leaves from the tree, sometimes observing them to be alert and noticing them taking every step ahead with great caution, excitedly listening to their alert calls which they call out loud when some danger or threat nears them, it can never be dreary. I forget the passing of time in their presence.


I had an exhilarating moment, when I saw a herd of deers suddenly fleeing into the forest and finding that a Jackal was the reason. The Jackal was approaching towards us. For every few steps it took, it looked at us and ensured that we are of no danger to it. It hurriedly crossed the trial and quickly vanished into the forest on the other side. Another really interesting moment was when we sighted the fresh kill of a deer by a predator. It was very close to the trail and I could clearly see that the spotted deer's intestine was torn apart and was missing. The guide mentioned that the deer is killed by Leopard - Leopard first eats the intestine of the prey. Our guide was repeatedly saying that the Leopard should be within 100-200 metres of its prey and this shy animal should have been disturbed by some vehicle sound. We quietly and patiently waited at this spot for sometime, but the adamant Leopard vehemently refused to come closer to its prey. It has all the day to guard its prey and eat it in the night. But, I have only 4 hrs of safari in the morning and 3 hrs in the evening :(

Moving on from Pench (Pench - Kanha)

Early in the morning, around 7:30 a.m, we left Pench. It took us about 6hrs by bus to reach Khatia gate, Kanha National Park. When choosing to take bus in Madhya Pradesh, it is a must to be aware that the road conditions could be terrible, as worse as not finding laid roads on some stretch of the travel. Also, the buses could lack suspension. The duo could do magic to your backs! So better be aware of this before taking up this mode of transportation. I was aware of these facts and the experience didn't come out as a surprise to me.

After a hard day travel, we had a relaxing evening in Kanha. I will post my Kanha experience in the next post.

For those who want to go to Pench, I have added details at How to reach & where to stay at Pench

Exploring Heritage Karnataka

My first ever posting on my travelogue. Having made quite a few traveling in the last few years, the time had just come to post my first one. Got the draft written at the end of 2007 and I am posting it after some minor refinements only now! I was quite determined to post this, not having to worry about the way I have written it.

20th Dec – 24th Dec 2007

An enticing long weekend was approaching and I couldn’t just let it pass by. I marked in my mind that I want to travel somewhere, but where? Only one thing was clear – No beach. Only two weeks back, I was enjoying sea at Baindur (one of konkan beaches) with banana ride, rappelling, floating in the sea, watching dolphins jump and gazing at stars in the night lying on the beach. I want to cherish these memories for some more time. So, I decided it is time for some other kind of trip.

After a very long stare at India map, I looked at places to visit in MP, Orissa and other eastern states for two days. Finally, on 20^th morning, we (myself & Jomy) decided to backpack to Hampi! A big question remained – Will we get bus/train tickets? We were lucky to get KRSTC Rajahamsa tickets for the night and we were all set.

At Kempe Gowda Bus Terminus

Me & Jomy reached Kempe Gowda bus terminus, and as usual rushed towards the platform. We managed to reach there just on time, but the bus hadn’t arrived. We needed to check with at the least 3 conductors to come to this state of understanding. All the bus had the writings in Kannada, which we don’t have any clue of. So, every time a bus entered some where close to the platform, we ended up checking with some conductor near-by. Carefully ensured that we were not bothering the same conductor again & again! After sometime, we found a guy (Bijoy, whose name we found out later) who can read Kannada & was also boarding the same bus. Called ourselves lucky, we just followed him when the bus came.

After 45mins of waiting, the bus arrived. We boarded the bus around 12:30a.m – Our seats were at the last but one row & we jumped up & down gazillion times before we reached Hampi. I think the driver hated pressing the brake – He didn’t even consider pressing the brake even when the wheels hit the speed breaker. With very little sleep over the night, we reached Hampi around 9a.m.

Stepping into Hampi

As soon as we stepped down the bus, we were swarmed by guides who were ready to take us to the guest house nearby. We first wanted a good cup of coffee. So, we slipped through them & settled on a wooden bench of a small chai shop. Sipping our coffee, we went through Lonely Planet’s recommended guest houses. We found ‘Sudha Guest house’ which was tagged as a ‘Gem’ by our guide and decided to check out the place. After reaching there, we found out that Sudha Guest house might have been a Gem 2 years back (Lonely Planet Edition ‘10th Edition - Aug 2003’). We didn’t like the place & moved on to a different guest house. The place we finally chose was very cute, had a small garden in the front.

Historic temples in Hampi

After relaxing for a while, we began our exploration in Hampi. We planned to visit all temples, rather ruins of temple on the first day. We first went to Virupaksha temple, which was just 5 mins walk from our guest house. This temple has 2 towers, each build by 2 different kings. As we entered the first tower, a temple elephant welcomed us. We spend about 2 hours in this temple taking photographs.

Later in the day, we visited temple ruins in Hampi – Badavi Linga, Ugra Narasimha, Krishna temple. Hampi was once the capital of Vijayanagara dynasty and now it has the empire ruins spread over 26Sq Kms. Towers of Krishna temple is completely ruined. They have used bricks as the basic building block & used limestone based material to do the intricate work. The Krishna temple had a very beautiful pond (on the other side of the road). When we went there, there was only one man who was painting the scenery. The place was very peaceful & very beautiful as well. We relaxed for a while and enjoyed the tranquility of this place.

After sometime, we went to another historic temple “Vittala”. We had to walk quite a long distance to reach this place. We could have taken an auto/taxi, but it is typical of us doing things this way. This temple has a huge stone chariot carved out of monolithic rock. I think it is unique to this place and was very beautiful. We enjoyed this place till sunset & called off the exploration for the day.

Matanga Hill

Next morning, we hiked to the top of Matanga hill to get the overview of the nature that this small town inherits. This town has vibrant history hidden in the ruins. I could see thousands of pillars! We hiked down the hill before it started to become sunny. After a very good breakfast in the town, we hired a kinetic Honda for the sight seeing to the ruined palace.

Vijayanagara palace

There were too many spots to be visited in the palace. Maharaja’s palace, his temple, his swimming pool, his queen’s palace, his people bath house, his auditorium, his public gathering etc. Each & every stone in that place belonged to him. I really liked the architecture of “Pushpakarni”. The heat was taking its toll on me and I was getting tired. The wonderful stone carved temples gave me a very good shelter from heat.

Late evening story in Badami

Later in the evening, we planned to go to Badami. We had to take multiple buses to reach this place. We had to once again go through the business of checking with multiple people to ensure that we have boarded the right bus. After all the hassle, we ended up at Badami very late in the night. It was around 11p.m. This was a very small town and we expected to get lodging easily. To our surprise, all the lodgings were completely full due to some temple festival the next day morning. The auto driver took us to almost all hotels and we couldn’t find any. He mentioned that he can take us to one of his friends’ place & we can stay over there. We weren’t sure at all. It looked very unreal & we weren’t sure at all. He was too nice to us and he was offering his friend’s place. My manipulative mind was always trying to tell me that don’t go by his words. I was asking too many questions to him – Why are you not taking us to your place? Wouldn’t your friend have any problem? What about his family? And many more. He had a perfect answer to all these questions which didn’t convince us really. He finally said, I will take you there & if you like it you can stay there. My heart believed in the goodness this world has and trusted that this man might have some. So, we went to his friend’s house at 12’0 clock in the night. His friend is also an auto driver. All his family was awake and watching T.V. We were extremely uncomfortable to step our foot into some stranger’s house at midnight! But, the family made us feel really comfortable - His father, mother, wife and his son. All of them greeted us happily and they showed no signs of animosity to receive strangers at that time in the night. They gave us coffee and gave the key of their other house in the neighboring all for us. We were terrificly surprised – We had a great night sleep. It was a unique experience and I was immensely moved by the love & care shown by them. I would never ever forget this in my life & I would always remember that there is still lot of goodness in the world.

Pattadakal, Aihole, Badami

For our day sight seeing, we hired his auto and he was our guide. His son also joined us in the site-seeing! We explored the rich vibrant architectural history of Pattadakal, the once capital of Chalukya dynasty. Then, it was an experimental place for different styles of temple architecture. It has both Dravidian and Aryan styles and Papanatha temple which is mix of both. It also had group of Jain temples. The place is very rich in sculptures.

We then visited Aihole, a small village full of temples. This was another experimental place during Chalukyas period. Here, I saw more temples than houses!

In the evening, we visited the cave temples in Badami. There were four caves - one decidated to Shiva, two decidated to Vishnu and one to Jainism belief. The sculptures here were huge and was very beautiful. But, the place was over crowded and we couldn’t really explore as much we would have wanted to.

Later in the evening, we took bus to the next big town Gadag and halted for the night there. The next day, we did nothing but taking rest in Gadag. In the evening, we reached Hampi to take our bus back to Bangalore.

Mango Tree

Earlier in the day, a friend of mine (Roop) had mentioned about a restaurant called “Mango Tree” and said it is in the middle of banana plantation. We were immediately interested and decided to be there for our dinner. The place was just awesome. The restaurant was set under a huge Mango tree, at the side of Tungabadra river bank. The seating is the lay-back kind. With the moon light being perfect that night, we could see the flowing river water sitting under the mango tree. We thoroughly enjoyed this place and this is a must visit in Hampi. I really didn’t want to leave this place that night!

The End

After this beautiful dinner, we reached the bus stand to only find that the bus wouldn’t come to Hampi for some reason (No information nothing, we found out from the locals). Then, we took an auto at 11p.m in the night & rushed to Hospet to catch the last bus to Bangalore. After enquiring in the Hospet bus station, we found that KSTRC cancelled the service from Hampi for that night. We were extremely shocked to know they didn’t bother to notify their passengers. Atleast, a poster or something of that sort in the Hampi bus stand would have helped! Anyway, we found bus from Hospet to Bangalore and reached without any trouble from there.