My First: A visit to the “Paradise” - Ladakh

Had heard a lot about this heaven on earth, for which the plan was to visit during July 2010, but better late than never, the plan got executed towards end of August 2010, with my favorite adventure group these days, “Jungle Lore”. The whole trip was a little uncertain mid  August, due to recent flash floods in some regions of Ladakh, which took approx a thousand lives. Few of us were determined to be there, with some cancellations on the cards, 16 of us ultimately turned up for the trip. We spent some 10 days of life in heaven and are back in time to face the grounds.

26^th August 2010 was the day of execution. All of us headed in three different flights to reach Srinagar by afternoon and to stay in the “house boat” in Srinagar in a lake named as “Nagin Lake”.  There was an utter silence in the air in this place due to recent unpleasant events; there appeared enough protection and police force on the streets. Evening of 26^th we visited market area on “Shikaras” for about 3 hours. The market is also called as floating market, because of its very nature, as most of the stuff being sold in Shikaras or on shops which are built afloat. The climate in the evening gets really chilly across this lake. The day ended with lot of chit chats, lots of photographs and some spicy food from chef of the houseboat.

Leh to Srinagar

Morning of 27^th we were on our way from Srinagar to reach Leh with majestic view all over on route. 

During this trip, we spent a lot of time travelling in Innova. On 27^th August, we visited Vijay Smarak (Kargil War Memorial) and got a magnificent sunset view of the “Tiger Hill”. We stayed overnight at hotel Siachen in Kargil, which is supposed to be the best hotel to stay in Kargil. 

Morning 28^th we proceeded to Srinagar via Fotula top (this is at a height of 13479 ft and is the highest point of Srinagar Leh road). We visited Mulbekh Monastery, Lamayuru Monastery which was apparently closed in the afternoon.  From Lamayuru Monastery, one views the “Moon land”, the patch which resembles land on Moon and therefore the name. In the evening we got a majestic view of the confluence of Sindhu and Zanskar rivers. We visited the Magnetic hill, which is said to have magnetic properties. The magnetism, we observed with our eyes, when one of our drivers drove the Innova for like 50 mtrs without starting the car. Post this, we visited Pattharsahib Gurudwara (managed by the army force). We learnt that this place was almost drowned during the recent flash floods. The attendant (who also are the army men) at the Gurudwara told us their experience of the recent flash floods and the way they rescued the holy books “Guru Granth Sahib” from drowning in the water. 

Leh, recent happenings and in & around the city 

28^th August, ended with the tiring journey of approx 450kms from Srinagar to Leh, reaching our base camp for the entire trip, Hotel Bijoo, which is located near Leh City market area. 

Coming to the flash floods, it has done a good amount of damage to the region. Destruction could be seen while we travelled across various places. But the destruction, so to say is not as much as hyped by the media, so as to collapse the whole tourism industry in Ladakh. I cannot comment on the amount of damage caused by floods, since I had not seen this place ever before, but, to see a place like Pangong Lake, Nubra Valley, Tsomoriri, one has to travel 100s of kms, which are quite remote to the location of flood affected regions, which are still as beautiful as one could see by doing a image search on google. It is not an end of tourism in Ladakh, as one sees these days in the news channels and other medias, CRAP!! There is a strong urge to set up tourism industry back to its normalcy, since a major economic dependence of the people of Ladakh is on this industry. Beauty of this place is still intact, while some patches of the region and lives have been affected due to floods, which can be back with the pick of next tourism season. There has been a good amount of relief work being done as we could see, but apparently, I felt, a shortage of manpower to rebuild and rehabilitate the affected areas / people. We got to know from our driver that the affected people have been given tent accommodations to stay, and food has also been supplied by the government. Hopefully, things come back to normal for these parts of Ladakh. 

Coming back to the trip, 29^th August, was a day to relax and take a visit to the most adjacent places of the Leh Market. We visited the ancient Tibet Refugee market, which was located near our hotel. Post lunch, we visited the Leh Palace, Spituk Monastry, Hall of Fame Museum and Shanti Stupa.  Spituk Monastry will remain in the memory for one of my camera lens which fell down and stopped working for a while, needing a repair now. At Shanti Stupa we also got a chance to attend the evening prayer by couple of Buddhist monks. 

All these monasteries are filled with vibrant colours and awesome architecture. Prayer wheels and the Buddha statues are common across Leh and all the monasteries. The prayer wheels are of different sizes, vibrant colours and designs and are rotated clockwise by the devotee to pass on the message to the heavenly abode. All these monasteries are located at heights, on different mountains, which led these unaffected during the flash floods. 

30^th August was again a day which involved less travel and we visited Hemis Monastry, Thikse Monastry Shey Palace (at which photography is prohibited L ) and Sindhu Ghat. 

Nubra Valley 

31^st August, was the day on which the real trip was to begin, when we were to proceed for Nubra Valley, a deserted area (cold desert as people call it) via Khardungla Pass, which is Worlds Highest Motor able Road and is at a height of 18360 ft. We experienced the double hump camel rides in the evening nearby our resort and some playful time at the sand dunes. Overnight stay was in comfortable tents at the Nubra Organic Retreat, which is a real organic place of it kinds. There are apple and apricot trees all over this hotel along with variety of vegetables. These are served in cooked and raw form to the visitors for lunch dinner deserts and breakfasts.  On our return to the base camp, we visited the Diskit Monastry where we also got a chance to see a huge monument of “Maitreya Buddha” which has been put up at this place only a year back. We returned in the eve of 1^st September to our base camp for taking a nap and look forward for some more fun for rest of the trip. 

Pangong Lake 

Next day, September 2^nd, we were on our way to Pangong lake which is at a height of 14500 ft, acclaims to be the Highest Salt water lake and is considered most beautiful place across Ladakh region. Only 30% of this lake is said to be in the territory of India while the other part being in Tibet. As it is said, the lake is beautiful, peaceful, calm and soothing. Evening we returned back to base camp, Hotel Bijoo.  

Tsomoriri   

The next on agenda, was another beauty of Ladakh, Tsomoriri, which is at a height of 15080fts. The place is quite far from Leh, approx 220 kms drive from our base camp, with the most difficult and challenging roads with majestic beauty on both the sides of the road. 

As we approached the lake, we saw this green, blue, white crystal clear water in the lake (for about 40-45 minutes drive across the Tsomoriri lake), which to me was the best moments of the entire trip. The view as we saw, is the one which I cannot describe but it’s just worth of an experience.  Evening of September 3^rd, we all reached the tents at Tsomoriri. This, was the most challenging destination of the entire trip. The evening we reached, a cool breeze was already there to welcome us. The temperature we learnt, would drop to approx 4-5 degrees midnight. While the night passed sleepless, we decided to do some photography at 4 in the night / morning, out we were and we had the magnificent view of the moon and thousands of stars. 

Morning  4th September, around 10, we headed back for our base camp and by evening we returned back to the resort. The next day was the day of rafting and resting, while few of the group decided to go for rafting, few decided resting. Sunday, was the day to be in the market.

Next day, September 6^th, the day a wonderful journey ends with wonderful memories for a life time!

Link to the Pics -

Pics on Flickr

Vasai Fort

One more addition to My First....Treasure of Maharashtra.. A gift by Portuguese... its a history... as old as 16th century!!!!

It has been 11 years I have been staying in Vasai and missed the mystical historic treasure, which is just about 30 minutes drive from station. Well, they say, its better late than never :), so here I was, with the Mumbai Weekend Shoot for a photo shoot, on a heavy rainfall day, to experience the Portugal architecture, the Fort of Vasai. What an architecture, the whole fort, its architecture, look and feel of the fort, walls, surrounding place, environment, nature, rains, it was all perfect!! Majestic!!

The structure of the fort is kind of deteriorated but its being rejuvenated by the Indian Archeological Department.

We spent about 4-5 hours in and around fort, clicking various things, like walls, the structures, the literature (only one which we could see and capture :) ), snails, rain drops, boats, anchors, waterbodies, etc. etc. etc. and to sum it up, we were clicking the whole motherly nature!!

Keeping the description concise, as the images speak better

Here goes the link - Click for flick

Visit to Pench & Kanha National Park

To break the routine this summer, I decided to pack my bags and head towards a new destination, Pench and Kanha National Park. Rudyard Kipling was inspired to write one of the famous telecast show from my childhood memories – The Jungle Book (with the lead character Mowgli). Both jungles are located in Madhya Pradesh, not too far from Maharashtra border. Pench is at a driving distance of 90 kms from Nagpur (a drive of about an hour and a half) and Kanha at a driving distance of about 200 kms from Pench (say a drive of 4 hours). For our journey, we headed for Pench in the morning of May 19, 2010.

Pench National Park

Pench is a teak forest and is different, quite dense and surrounded by thicker trees. For the first safari, we moved in to the park on a burning and blazing hot day of May 19^th at 3:30 in the afternoon with a clear anticipation to see the beast of the Jungle. The drive into the jungle is in to a classic Maruti Gypsy (too comfortable and quite steady on jungle streets). Apart from the tiger, there are many other attractions to look around including Gaur also known as Indian Bison, langoor, deer, peacock amongst the breed of animals and Racket tailed drongo, barbet, Magpie robin, lesser whistling teal, golden oriel etc. amongst the breed of beautiful birds found in India. When you are in the jungle, you, your driver, and your guide, all are alert looking to the left and right with anticipation to see him at any moment. All the drivers in the park are quite friendly with each other and keep a good coordination amongst them to please the tourist. There was this one spot, where we met another driver who told us that it is worth waiting here. This place was like Pench F1 track, surrounded by driving lane (jungle streets) from all four sides and in the centre was lots of trees and rocks. And, there somewhere in the middle was the beast hiding from all of us, may be lazing, may be sleeping or may be shying away from us. To be precise, it was 5:10 p.m. when we decided that we will wait and 6:01p.m. was the moment he came out walking. Wow… was the moment, and pleasure could be seen all over!! He walked a little bit, guess got tired and sat again after taking few steps forward. While we were sighting him, there was this particular moment when tiger got up and all of a sudden, the whole climate changed, with a gust of wind all over the jungle. I put that to be the most majestic moment of the whole tour. It felt like, the whole atmosphere is kind of saluting the tiger. We got to see this tiger like for about 45 minutes from different parts of our F1 track :). Well, park has to follow certain rules, 7.00 p.m. was the time we were supposed to be done with the safari and out of the gates of the park, the driver ensured that we see the beast to the fullest.

Second safari was in the same park, next day as early as 5.00 am in the morning. The jungle early in the morning is so cool, soothing and freshening with wonderful birds chirping all over the park. The whole look of the jungle at this time is just awesome, class and beautiful, don’t have the words to express. One more thing that happens in these parks is, an Elephant Ride, basically, mahawats (the rider) gets into the interior jungle with the elephant and once a tiger is spotted, it’s a jackpot for the tourist. One after the other, each tourist is taken to see the tiger from the most nearest Gypsy accessible street. Sitting on the back of the most eldest elephant of the jungle, Jungbahadur, we saw the second tiger of the tour, in the second safari. This elephant is remembered for killing his colleague (another elephant) in some recent past. Safari ended with most pleasant memories from Pench National Park.

Kanha National Park

Afternoon around 3.00 p.m. on May 20^th we left for the next destination, Kanha. All the people were sleeping in the quails since every one had got up quite early in the morning. All of a sudden there was something which obstructed everone's sleep, opened the eyes and saw what, it was raining (Icing on the cake moment!!!). Just opened the window and could simply smell the dust and freshness of the first rain in the air!! By the time we reached Kanha in the evening around 6.00 pm, it had rained quite a lot and the whole atmosphere had suddenly turned from 42 degree heat to the chilling winter waves. While we were happy with the rains, it left some of us a bit worried about the upcoming safaris, the anticipation to see the tiger here was a little bit fading. Kanha is a forest full of Sal and Bamboo trees risen high up in the sky in most part of the jungle. One specialty of this Bamboo tree I got to know, it gives flowers and that too for only once in its lifetime. Kanha is equally beautiful, with superb smooth landscape and even in the burning hot summer, it was lush green. The whole scene would leave any one with a thought in mind that it will surely turn into a green pasture of heaven on earth in the mighty rains. In the 3 safaris we did in Kanha, apart from tiger, we saw so many animals, like Chital, sambar, wild boar, langur, sloth bear, wild dog, jackal and quite a lot of birds in and around this park. Jungle also has one particular area, where the administrators have constructed a beautiful museum, here one can easily find any and all the information about the park. Our third safari at Kanha will remain in the memory lane for long time for never forgettable tiger sighting. This time again it was on the back of an elephant, but the sighting was just one of the best as it could be which also resulted into a wonderful deck of images.

To sum up, a wonderful experience, wonderful memories, wonderful images, and one more experience for the lifetime. Kanha, Pench, I will be back again :D

Adding a link to the best of the rest images from the jungle of Pench and Kanha

.

Click for images uploaded on Flickr

Chor Bazaar

Visiting to an uncommon place that too early in the mornings, has been a weekly weekend affair after joining the most fanatic group of photoholics - Mumbai Weekend Shoot (MWS). Well, for May 9, 2010, MWS had freezed on one of the busiest market place in Mumbai - a visit to Chor Bazar also commonly known as Bhendi Bazaar. With a book and my i-pod and but ofcourse my camara, I was up and on to reach the predestined place. From western suburbs, one can take a cab from Grant Road station to Bhindi Bazaar to reach the destined place. Around 30 odd photoholics gathered about 8 in the morning, finished the weekly ritual of a Group photograph first and entered the most happening market I could have ever imagined. It was blazing hot at 8 in the morning and shops in the inner street were selling Bisleri water in some duplicate brand (no wonders).


Coming back to the bazaaar, the market was just getting momentum with few shops opening up in the morning. This place is such that one can find all kinda stuffs, right from a small pin to a vintage collection car. Upon entering in the market, we saw this shop with 100s of old wall clocks and gramophones, this was the only shop open at that point in time and the market was taking shape at a faster pace. The street is round and round and round, you don't realise which corner of the market you are in, though one can remember the shop number as sign to remember a place. Walking further, we saw a lane filled with all sort of automobile equipments. Going further, we saw this street selling cloths cloths and only cloths, guess every lane had a dedicated product type :). There are lots of mosques around this street, and most commonly found community of people living in and around are Muslims. Most of the people are very gentle in talking and allowed the group to take photographs while some resisted from themselves and theirs shops from being in the clicks. One gets to see a lot old architecture on both sides of thes streets.


I guess you get everything here, from old coins to old currency notes, old watches and telephones, barbells, gramophones, all kinds of furniture, fixtures, clothing, books, hardware material, automobile equipments and what not, and ya, to my surprise there was a vintage collection car up for sale. Must say, a very busy street. One of my friend told me that the first market was wound up around 7.30 a.m. in the morning which begins at around 4.30 a.m. One can imagine, how busy Indian markets get, especially when its Mumbai. One of the photo enthu added to his collection of books, a book written in 1964, titled "The American Indian" saved by this photographer, from being eaten up by a goat (Goat was turning and eating some selective pages from the book on a case to case basis :)


Well to sum up, saw thousands of people pouring on to the street early morning, with some people still sleeping at cramped corridor outside their houses, some going to Mosques for daily rituals, some working hard over sewing machines, some washing clothes, some selling garments, some preparing food at hotels for their daily living etc. etc. etc. and a crazy bunch of photoholics taking a record of all these :)... Thats Mumbai....!!!!

Click for Some Glimpse of Chor Bazaar...