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Showing posts with the label Uttarakhand

Rishikesh - The Pahadi House Experience

A lantern hung on the branch of a tree , its pale glow just enough to find our way around. Our host rushed to light the fire, and details emerged from the darkness – the neatly whitewashed house, with a pretty garden around, a water pump, the kind I hadn’t seen in years, wickerwork chairs that reminded me of my grandparents’ house, and a pair of care-takers, busy whipping up dinner for us. However, there was just one thing that Samhith noticed – the old fashioned charpoy (wooden bed) on the lawn! He needed no invitation to make himself comfortable, and declare that he loved the place! This was to be our last halt at Rishikesh before making our way back home, and I couldn’t have chosen a better place!

Rishikesh with Ravers

Driving through the mountains , I looked out eagerly for my first glimpse of the river. A sharp turn, and the bluish green waters came into sight. I asked the driver to stop, and he did, a little later, at a convenient spot. I just had to get off, and stare at her. Unbidden, tears sprang into my eyes, and I brushed them away hastily. It was an emotional moment, after all, I was setting eyes on the Ganges in Rishikesh, after a gap of over 25 years!

Moving on... from Dharamsala to Amritsar to Rishikesh

Amritsar wasn’t on the original itinerary for our #SummerTrip. The city was added to our plan simply because we were delayed in booking Shankar’s return flight, and the only convenient one available was from Amritsar! It was then that realization dawned – that Shankar had never visited the Golden Temple! Plans were at once re-modified, tickets booked, and I began to look forward to my third visit to the city! Somewhere on the way to Amritsar...

The Story of my Summer Trip.....

The Summer of 2015 was a memorable vacation. We set out on a trip which took us across the country, starting from Tadoba in Maharashtra to Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh, and finally, Kanyakumari in Tamilnadu. This was the trip I literally travelled all the way from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean! The trip lasted all through the month of May, but the resulting posts kept me occupied for the rest of the year. I completed the series just before the year ended, and here is a look at the whole journey.... first, through my attempt at Storifying the series.... and with links to all the individual posts... [ View the story "#Summertrip 2015" on Storify ] The Story of my Summer Trip The Tadoba series The Tadoba Experience Pillars of Tadoba In Search of the Tiger at Tadoba Our Trysts with the Tigers at Tadoba - Part 1 Our Trysts with the Tigers at Tadoba - Part 2 Birds of Tadoba - A Photo Post The Himachal Series Discovering Heritage in Ruins - The ...

Memories from Corbett Safari Resort

While on a vacation, I usually don't like to stay in a resort, preferring instead to wander and discover the area I am visiting. On my recent visit to Corbett, there were so many things planned that we spent very little time in our rooms, which is just the way I liked it! However, there are some things about the Club Mahindra Safari Resort which I shall always remember.... such as the towel art.....

Jim Corbett Museum

The association between Jim Corbett and Corbett National Park is much deeper than just the name. For anyone familiar with Corbett’s books, it is impossible to think of the area without remembering his encounters with man eaters. Even as we wander around the forest, hoping we come across the tiger, we cannot but imagine how it would have been, a hundred years ago, when tigers roamed free, and they were hunted by one and all! The efforts of Jim Corbett and those of his ilk are all the more important and relevant when we realize that in spite of the official count of 164 tigers in the reserve, it is so difficult to see a single one! On my recent visit to Corbett as part of the Club Mahindra Bloggers Trip , we set out in search of Jim Corbett, and what better place to begin that at his erstwhile home, now turned into a museum?

In Search of the Elusive Tiger at Corbett

In the year 1936 , under the influence of the then governor of the United Provinces, Sir Malcom Hailey, India got its first national park. Aptly, the new sanctuary was named after its founder as Hailey National Park, and so it remained for the next twenty years. There were others involved in the formation of the sanctuary, but none more so than Edward James Corbett, or Jim Corbett, as he was more popularly known. Born and raised in the area, Corbett had an intimate relationship with the reserve and its animals. A keen naturalist and photographer, Corbett knew the forest as well or even better than the locals, and he is most well known for ridding the area of some of its most notorious man eaters. It was through his efforts that the national park took shape, and after his death in 1955, the park was renamed after him as Corbett National Park. Corbett was well aware, and extremely concerned about the need to safeguard the tiger population, and fittingly, it was here that Project Tiger...

Sunset at Nainital

On my recent visit to Corbett as part of the Club Mahindra Bloggers Trip , we spent some time at Nainital. After roaming around the streets for a while, we took the ropeway to get a glimpse of the snow covered peaks of the Himalayas. The ropeway idea was just a lark, to spend some extra time at Nainital, but it turned out to be full of surprises - from the beautiful aerial view of the Naini Lake.....

Corbett Falls

In an area surrounded by mountains and inter-crossing rivers, a waterfall comes as no surprise. However, when you enter a gate just off the highway, drive along a lane leading into a dense forest of teak, and then alight to walk through a narrow path cut amidst the dense undergrowth, you know that this is something special! I was at Jim Corbett National Park as part of the Club Mahindra Bloggers Trip, and we were visiting the Corbett Falls, situated 25 Km from Ramnagar and 4 Km from Kaladhungi, on the Kaladhungi – Ramnagar Highway. The falls were an unexpected treat, giving each one of us something to remember it by… For some it was the waterfall itself, the sound of gushing water drawing them from a distance, for some of us, the inviting sound was drowned by other sights and sounds along the way, and we tarried here and there, to revel in the glory of nature or take a pic of an insect basking in the morning sun. No matter what our interests, when we finally did get to the ...

On the Kosi at Corbett

The Kosi river forms the eastern boundary of the Corbett National Park, and Club Mahindra’s Corbett Safari Resort is located on its banks. The winter had begun to set in, and the river was just a narrow stream, though flowing quite deep and fast at some stretches. The rest of the river was just a bed of stones worn smooth by the flow over the years, a tempting sight for me, since as you all know, I love to collect stones! On the very first day of our Bloggers trip at the Club Mahindra Corbett Safari Resort, we went upstream to an old bridge to try out some adventure sports.

A Welcome Break - Bloggers Trip to Corbett

Our school library had a system where we were only allowed to choose among books that were considered ‘suitable’ for us to read. Raised on a steady diet of Enid Blyton books, I still remember the first time we were given one of Jim Corbett’s books to read. Our teachers had kept these books away from us, because they worried that our young and innocent female minds would be affected by tales of man eaters. They seemed to be partly right, because, for the first week, many of us spent sleepless nights imagining man eaters instead of monsters under our bed! I was fascinated by these tales though, and continued to read his books, in spite of the occasional nightmare! It took a long time for me to discover that not all of Corbett’s books were about man eaters! There was so much more! He wrote about the people who made up ‘His India’ as he called it, about the villages, the customs and traditions, their beliefs and faiths, their fear and their superstitions….. and above all,...

Binsar and Around - A compilation of my posts on my Binsar trip

Now that I have finally managed to complete my series about my Binsar vacation, I thought it would probably be a good idea to compile all my posts into one…which will hopefully make it easier for anyone wishing to go there to get the information they want…. So here goes….. We started off from Delhi by train, and hired a cab to Binsar. To read about the journey and the Club Mahindra Binsar Valley Resort and Manipur Villa, read Binsar - Part 1 . The Club Mahindra Resort as seen from Manipur Villa Home to the Binsar Bird sanctuary , the whole range is full of birds… you don’t need to look far to spot some wonderful birds…. Read all about the birds we saw from our room at Binsar Part 2 – Armchair Bird watching . A Plum Headed Parakeet seen from our window There are plenty of activities at the resort ; all you have to do is find one to your liking. We chose to go for a short trek coupled with a bit of bird watching too… Read all about it at Binsar Part 3 – Trek to a river, wit...

Forest Fire

Before I complete my series of posts on Binsar, there is just one more thing I wanted to post. It does not concern any place of interest or any great experience, but an experience which was a first for me, and brought up a lot of thoughts….. I kept this one to the last, since I thought I would get out the ‘touristy’ stuff before coming to this……. I even wondered if I should put it up before I finally conclude the series, but then decided to, since it relates to the mountains intimately, and my trip too…. We were returning after our trip to Patal Bhuvaneshwar and Bageshwar, tired and worn out after a day spent on the road….and couldn’t wait to get back to the room and put our legs up. Suddenly, as we turned a curve on the mountain road, I saw something bright and shining, and wondered what it was. Our driver had missed it, and we left it, thinking that it must have been my imagination. After a few moments, however, as we rounded another curve, our eyes glimpsed a glow, and our driver ...

Binsar - Part 11 - Nainital

We had a big decision to make as our last day at Binsar approached. Our train to Delhi was at night, and we had to check out by 10 AM! What was to be done all day long? On one hand, I wanted to buy something for everyone back home, for I hadn’t been anywhere near a shop in a week! On the other hand, I also wanted to visit some nice place, something which would wrap up my vacation in a memorable way! We thought of visiting the sun temple at Katarmal, but I wasn’t in the mood to walk, and a visit to the temple involved a bit of trekking….. I wondered about shopping at Almora, but decided that I couldn’t possibly spend the whole day there! Finally, we took our driver’s advice and headed to Nainital – we could at least go for a boat ride after a bit of shopping! The Naini lake as seen from the road While I am usually not very enthusiastic about hill stations, especially crowded ones, Nainital held an attraction for me – the fact that my parents had honeymooned here, almost 38 years...