Udaipur - "Grand" is the word

I visited Udaipur for a couple of days. Well whatever travel blogs say about Rajasthan in general and Udaipur in specific is very true. Udaipur (formerly kingdom of Mewar) is rightly Venice of the East with its lakes, and like other destinations in Rajasthan it is very colourful.

Of course, if you actually want to experience the royal lifestyle of Mewar kings, like stay in Lake Palace or dine in the great Durbar hall with the "grandest" chandeliers you can ever hope to see, you should have a lot of money.

A hand-held panorama of Udaipur from City Palace.

Without sounding too critical, it is worth noting that you won't love the lakes if they're dry. So if the rains have been good, the lakes are nice and the fountains have water. If the rains have been scanty, the lakes dry up and don't look so good.

View of the ghats behind Jagdish temple from Lake Pichola

Udaipur is a small city, it won't take too long to go from one end to another. Due to time constraints I couldn't visit too many places. Plus I was careless enough to run out of battery on day two! Check out the Picasa slideshow below for the entire album:

Technical breakthrough in automobile engineering

Engineers have made a major breakthrough by developing the cleanest possible fuel that can run even the most ordinary cars (with no extra modifications). Pay great attention, all you young minds infatuated with the idea of reducing the carbon footprint; the fuel is none other than sound!

Of course it is not any ordinary sound. As per reliable sources (yeah the same engineers) it has to have a particular range in decibels (the scientific unit of measure of sound); the range is identifiable to the common people as the sound of honking.

So when a red light turns green, vehicles right in front of the intersection get a "push" on account of the honking of the next two rows of vehicles, and so on. Of course engineers claim it works even if the traffic light is still red, because in Hyderabad, as soon as the light turns red, the next seventeen vehicles are allowed to cross without stopping (the basis of the choice of seventeen is not clear at the time of publishing, but readers are free to speculate in the comments).

Apparently a lot of seasoned drivers are already aware of this technology, as a result of which within a fraction of a second of a signal turning green, these drivers morons start honking with a fierce intensity and a solid determination to make the supposedly blind drivers in front of them move ahead.

The usage of the term "morons" in the preceding lines is to drive home a startling revelation that may change the lives of almost all drivers in Hyderabad - there is no such technology (or any research in that direction). On a related note, the technology that makes vehicles disappear (more like vaporize) on a jammed lane by honking aloud is going to elude us for a long time to come as well (confirmed by the same sources).

To be fair, the phenomenon of honking to clear the traffic is not confined to Hyderabad. It is present in Noida as well (not much in Delhi perhaps, on account of the ban on blowing the horn within 100 meters of an intersection and the constant fear of enraging a fellow driver whose profession compels him to carry a weapon to work). To sum it up not-so-subtly,

• Horns do not make vehicles move; and
• Horns do not make vehicles disappear on a congested road.

Happy unnecessary-honking-free driving!

Wine and dine: A weekend in Pondicherry

A day before Cyclone Nisha hit Chennai, I returned from a great trip to Pondicherry (now called Puducherry). It is 3 hours away by road from Chennai, and there are two picturesque routes: East Coast Road (along the Bay of Bengal) and the slightly longer National Highway 45. The drives are both beautiful, and the weather in November (southern monsoons) made it even better.

Pondicherry is a very small town; one could walk from one end to the other in less than an hour. We stayed in Ville Blanche (White Town), the French part of the town. It is very pretty; the architecture has a Colonial feel to it. Apparently even new structures in that area are forced to match those architectural looks.

 

 

Its a nice little town, with good food and cheap liquor. Those are the photographs from my Picasa album (limited somewhat because I'm not keen to shoot in rains). Feel free to leave comments.

A Wild Encounter

Rays filtering through foliage - Muthanga Sanctuary

We didn't expect much out of a one and a half hour jeep safari into the Muthanga wild-life sanctuary (Wayanad, Kerala), but we had an encounter that made the trip totally paisa vasool.

Towards the later half of our safari, we crossed another jeep whose driver exchanged some worried words with ours in his native tongue. Apparently some elephant was blocking the way back to the exit of the park. Our driver, a courageous man, decided to check it out himself rather than make the about turn.

Tracks leading into the forest

When we went up ahead we saw a few jeeps waiting and watching a huge tusker, notorious for attacking vehicles in the past, having his breakfast just on the edge of the track that we needed to take. All the vehicles were ready to go back. One jeep, in order to give the occupants a closer look at the tusker, reversed and drove quite near to the tusker. A second later, the jeep was driving away, chased by the giant beast itself! Lucky for them (and all of us) the tusker gave up after a short chase, and went back to his breakfast.

The angry tusker

That was one scary scene. We stood no chance against the animal if he decided to chase and hurt us. Our driver turned to us and asked whether he should try to sneak past the animal. We told him we completely trusted his judgment. Slowly, while other vehicles made their way back away from the animal, we sneaked up close to the beast, and when we were close enough, we suddenly charged with whatever power the old rusty vehicle could muster. This time the tusker got alarmed and jumped out of our way, and while we drove past out of the park, we got a last glimpse of this "hostile" animal.

Kerala Reloaded

Early morning light in Muthanga sanctuary

Unmindful of a vehicle coming speeding down the road, an old man steps onto the road to cross it. What happens next is very unlikely to happen anywhere else in this country - the vehicle, along with a bike, comes to a stop at the "STOP" line, while the old man continues to cross the road over a zebra crossing. Pedestrians here have the first right on the road, just like in most Western countries. We're in Sulthan Bathery (Battery), district Wayanad, just a few kilometers from the Kerala-Karnataka border on NH 212.

Hanging loose: River Kabani, Kuruva Island

Tea, coffee and rubber plantations flank the roads.

This is my second trip to the beautiful state this year. Accompanying me are (in alphabetical order) Arun Das, Kushal Chokhani and Varun Jasuja, all Oracle-khor to various extents. Firm in our belief that Wayanad is much "better" than Mysore (even on the Dussera day) we decide to skip the latter on our way from Bangalore to Wayanad.

Pookode lake - nice but very touristy

That's me crossing a river on a bamboo raft!

Where's Wayanad? What's there to see? Well all I knew before planning the trip was that it is beautiful, and not too touristy since few people know about it. We had plenty of incidents that could explain "just-in-time" to management students! To begin with, we didn't get a cab (all cabs were booked in Bangalore) until the last moment. Further, our return tickets from Bangalore to Hyderabad were confirmed in the last moment again.

Jain Temple, Sultan Bathery.

3000 year old inscriptions in Edakkal caves

That we hit a cow head-on during our drive to Mysore was another sign that things may not go very "smooth". The cow survived. So did we. Hundreds of school kids and tourists cramming into the hazardous Edakkal caves, a treacherous 4 km trek to Meenmutty waterfalls, a furious tusker who attacked our convoy of safari jeeps in Muthunga sanctuary; we survived them all.

Deer at Muthanga sanctuary

The elephant encounter was the most thrilling part of the trip (read about it here). Banasura Sagar was a surprise hit too, considering that we picked the spot without any expectations.

Banasura Sagar reservoir

I guess that about covers it as briefly as possible (for my readers with extremely short attention spans). My next target in Kerala is to do Periyar sanctuary. Lets see if it happens!

P.S. The complete set of pictures is available on Picasa.

Nature Islands in Hyderabad - Part 2

Well the next one is right next door - an urban ecological zone adjacent to the 5-star hotel Novotel. Flanked by roads leading to the hotel, this is a pond with a fair amount of flora and fauna (a mongoose crossed my path here once!).

To my surprise, though I have taken quite a few strolls around this place, only the last time (when I was actually equipped with my camera) was I asked by the security to clear the area as it was restricted to "Novotel guests only". Check out some photos below.

Nature Islands in Hyderabad - Part 1

Part 1 of ? I don't know, but such a title makes it easy to add similar posts in future. :)

In spite of all the traffic and pollution in this city, there are still unexpected "islands" of considerable natural beauty. There's one called Lotus Pond in Jubilee Hills. I've been there only once and managed to get a couple of decent shots. (Check out the link, this place has its page on Wikipedia!).



It has a beautiful pond teeming with fishes and ducks (and some other birds that are probably not ducks, but I don't know much about ducks!), and of course, lotuses. There is a nice walkway among thick green flora. And if you're not so much into nature, the pond is surrounded by awe inspiring bungalows sitting pretty on top of hillocks. :)

Credits

Ashok - wildlife photography and travel enthusiast, who shared some photographs of this place and introduced me to it. You can see some of his jewels here.

Ajay - My friend who stayed up all night on a Saturday, accompanied me to Lotus Pond early Sunday morning and watched me trying to get some shots, wondering how someone could be photographing plants and leaves instead of him!

Back!

I've taken a decision to start blogging actively. I may not have any readers, but who cares, some years down the line it might make an interesting read!

A trip to God's own country: a photo essay

Kerala is marketed to tourists as "God's own country", and rightly so. I happened to spend a week on the backwaters of Kochi and Alleppey, and am sharing a selected few photographs that I took. My weapon - Nikon D40x (with the kit lens).

Kochi had a historical importance in ancient India's ties with the west. Here are a series of photographs from around Kochi - mainly Fort Kochi which has the original burial place of the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama. Jew Town was the other historically important place - it is one of the oldest Jewish establishment in this part of the world, though only 13 Jews live in this town today.


The fine yet strong Chinese fishing nets have been serving the local fishermen for years at Fort Kochi.



A fishing boat lies abandoned at Fort Kochi.



An antique shop in Jew town.



The colourful street market of Jew Town.


Here are a few photographs from Alleppey. It is no wonder that the backwaters here are amongst the top tourist destinations of the world. This place gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "lose yourself".


The sun rising over the placid waters of Alleppey.



Visitors do not seem to bother these birds inhabiting a secluded island.



The sun peeking from behind coconut trees at dawn.



A boat "parked" on the canal, exaggerating the calmness of the scene.



Coconut trees stand tall on a thin strip of land separating two channels.



Just another day in the life of the fishing folks in Alleppey.



A fisherman at his job.

The beach at Alleppey was a surprise hit - we never knew it was so good! Here are some shots to prove it.


A traveller leaves his footprints in the spotless sand at the beach in Alleppey.



Sea, sky and sand in perfect harmony.



Men and birds alike soak themselves in the breath-taking scene.