Matheran

Having realized that Bombay was not receiving its due share of rains, I and my friends decided to head out of town for a weekend. Out of sheer laziness and lack of planning time, we picked Matheran as the destination. With great enthusiasm, I decided to take along my camera and tripod, with the intention of spotting and photographing a few interesting birds.

The evening before the trip turned out to be interesting, but not quite in a good way. I left office early Friday, intending to get to Rasayani , and then leaving for Matheran from there Saturday morning. Other than getting me a couple of extra hours of sleep Saturday morning, this was supposed to allow me to drop off loads of laundry and other assorted stuff home and take only the bare minimum – camera and tripod, on the trip. Quite unfortunately, Friday was also the last working day before day one of the Ganesh featival and all the intelligent citizens thought similarly (getting out of the city, not going to Matheran). I boarded an ST at 9.15 PM, and woke up a couple of hours later to find myself still in Chembur. The bus broke down at Deonar and I decided that it might be wiser to stay in Mumbai for the night. I took a cab from Chembur to Dadar, and the fare ensured that the cabbie’s family would have a new set of clothes, kids would get good schooling, and that he would have a decent pension for life.

Saturday morning, I ended up at Dadar station at 6.30 AM with heavily loaded backpack, plus camera and tripod. I caught the 6.41 Karjat train and my friends joined en route. We reached Neral around 8.15 AM and rushed out to gobble up some hot vada pavs. We hired a taxi for 200 Rs. to take us to Dasturi. The weather was excellent - just like it was about to drizzle. We walked to Panorama point, which is a little way off the other places to visit, and is accessed by a mud road from Dasturi. As expected it was deserted and beautiful, with no one around except a local courting couple, which I expect, didn't have kind things to think about us for disturbing them.

After a peaceful walk back to Dasturi, we headed into Matheran, spotting along the way, a blind snake. (pictures at the end). Most shops were closed on account of reduced tourist numbers (swine flu and Ganpati festival). Famished, we waited while a small restaurant owner in Bazaarpeth cooked lunch specially for us, and then proceeded to demolish the meals provided. We then walked to One-tree-hill, passing along the way, some very pretty old buildings, including the Sir Ratan Tata Convalescent Home -The Homestead. We walked in to have a quick look and found the beautiful building crumbling to pieces. We spent some quiet time at one-tree-hill, before some young tourists found the place. We then trekked to the Charlotte Lake, where we proceeded to have lukewarm tea in the company of two very friendly dogs.

By this time, my shoulders were suggesting an early retirement, and considering the time, we trudged back to Dasturi Naka, to catch another cab back to Neral. We had some excellent Misal Pav at Neral, before catching trains back home. I reached home only about 8 PM, with my pleas to my mum for a shoulder massage following around 8.01 PM.

Matheran doesn't have too many visitors in the rains - definitely visit during the monsoons when the maddening crowds aren't around happily trying to figure out why their voice echoes at every 'point'.

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Bandhavgarh, Kanha, and Panchmarhi

I managed a much-needed break last month - after three months of planning and scheduling, me and my friends Mandar and Girish went on a 10-day trip to Madhya Pradesh. Our three planned destinations were Bandhavgarh, Kanha, and Panchmarhi. Now that I'm back, I realize I'm going to cherish this trip forever.

You might know that Bandhavgarh and Kanha are Tiger reserves - while Bandhavgarh is a small place, Kanha is huge and spread over 1945 sq. kilometers. You'll realize these dimensions mean nothing when you're actually in there; it is actually possible to get lost in there and even face mortal peril from wild life. Tigers, leopards, jackals, wild dogs, bear, enough to never let you relax even in the relative comfort of your open jeep. It certainly does not make you feel better that nothing prevents the animals from walking over to your open vehicle and grabbing a bite of you, while the driver and guide are not even carrying sticks for protection. But,as I realized, the animals prefer their own, and seem to be least bothered by the human intervention. And for the tiger, well, 40 screeching jeeps carrying over 150 screaming people might just be another parakeet in a tree. S/he goes about routine tasks like there's no one around.

We managed to spot a tigress both the days we were in Bandhavgarh. (Bad light and a frantic rush to take photographs, combined with amateur photography skills and the euphoria of the moment have ensured that none of the tiger photos are good). B2, the alpha male at Bandhavgarh, as well as leopards remained elusive. We spotted an adult male tiger on our last safari in Kanha as well.

Both locations are home to a large variety of birds, and we managed to make the most of it by spotting and identifying over 57 different ones. (Thanks go out to Tanya for lending me a pair of excellent binoculars and a copy of Salim Ali's definitive book on Indian birds.) [Some bird photos here.]

One highlight of the Bandhavgarh safari was being witness to a pack of wild dogs hunting. The dogs sort of lost interest in the hunt after a while and settled down on the road allowing us to take photographs to our heart's content.

We ended the tour with Panchmarhi, a hill station that turned out to be a major disappointment. This place does not have much to offer, and what it has seems to be in very bad shape thanks to a combined effort by the government and vandals.

[All photos here.]

Route: Mumbai - Katni - Bandhavgarh - Kanha - Panchmarhi (via Jabalpur) - Pipariya - Mumbai

Tips:

#Accommodation is easily available at both Bandhavgarh and Kanha. Most of these places come cheaper if you negotiate on the spot rather than call and book in advance. We stayed at Mowgli Jungle Resorts in Bandhavgarh (Excellent) and the MPT Dormitory in Kanha (desolate, scary, beautiful).

#Nothing much to do other than admire the work of vandals in Panchmarhi.

#Madhya Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation has good hotels in all these places, can't say much about catering though.

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Road Trip Through Himachal Pradesh

This might seem like an anti-climax - after all the hype and hoopla about going to Nepal and all the planning and thinking, I never went to Kathmandu because the Royal Nepal Airlines insisted on me requiring a valid passport, which sadly, I don't. So in spite of the the Nepalese immigration authorities telling me that a valid PAN card was good enough, the airlines refused to budge, and I had to cancel my trip.

Since my tickets to Delhi were already booked and non-refundable, I decided on the alternate - trip through Himachal Pradesh. Me and my friends hired an Innova (expensive, but comfortable) from Delhi and took off Saturday night. After an overnight drive we reached Dalhousie,which turned out to be an extremely pretty, small town with unpredictable weather. I considerably enjoyed walking around the town.

Tips - Hotels are very cheap this time of the year, less than half regular fare - very nice church and very well maintained church garden.

After a day in Dalhousie we drove to Dharamsala, also making a trip to McLeodganj. We visited the Buddhist monastery in McLeodganj late in the afternoon, completing the day with hot tea beside the Dal lake.

Tips - Buying trinkets in Dharamsala/McLeodganj is expensive if you can't bargain

We drove from Dharamsala to Manali, reaching there around 3 in the morning. Manali was a shopping haven, and I bought a large number of gifts (shawls and stoles) for family and friends. We made a short trip to Pirdi, near Kullu, where my friends went river-rafting (while poor 'ol me with the fractured wrist sat in the car taking photos of pretty birds). We made another trip to Rohtang the next day, taking around 3.5 hours to drive through the treacherous twists and turns in the road. It had just started snowing when started, and was a scary snowstorm when we reached there. Again, while my friends made an extremely painful, pony trek in the freezing weather and near-zero visibility, I stayed warm and comfy in the car. The journey back was quite slow but we made it back in one piece.

Tips - Manali is COLD, take lots of warm clothing - Kashmiri Pashmina and Kullu shawls available in Manali are excellent - Amigo's, the German bakery is a great brunch place - definitely eat hot Maggi noodles when at Rohtang

We traveled from Manali to Shimla, spending the day in Shimla walking around, watching the handsome colonial buildings, and shopping for wooden trinkets at Lakkar Bazaar.

Tips - The Embassy restaurant on Mall road is an excellent place to eat, and the proprietor is very kind, helpful, and nice to talk to - definitely have a drink at the Oberoi Cecil - walking rather than driving is a better option in Shimla

We had originally planned to stay in Chail for a day, having read that Chail has a nature park. But Chail turned out to be a very quiet, middle-of-nowhere village with very few tourist destinations. We visited the Kali temple on the hill and the world's highest maintained cricket ground in Chail and drove on to Kasauli.

Tips - Monkey menace in Chail, don't leave anything outside - the woods are teeming with many different species of fauna, for those who have good lenses and can differentiate between them

Having reached Kasauli in the evening, we first looked for accommodation and settled on the relatively expensive Hotel Maurice. The rooms were large and luxurious, giving us an idea of the luxuries the British must have enjoyed when Kasauli was a colonial summer resort in the early 1900s.

Tips - Kasauli is really small, and most structures are worth observing - other heritage hotels are the Alasia and Ros Commons - Monkey point is a tiring climb, don't carry anything the monkeys can snatch

We drove back to Delhi from Kasauli and spent the day shopping at Palika Bazaar and then topped it off with an excellent meal at Galina at Gole Park. After this scrumptious end to the trip, we flew back to Bombay in the evening and I have since resumed the pretense of work.

For others who might be interested in a trip like this -
1. Some of my photos can be seen here.
2. The total distance we traveled in 7 days was 1800 kilometers.
3. September is the best time to go - it's not gotten really cold yet.
4. September-October are considered off-season; you can get accommodation really cheap.
5. WARM CLOTHING!
6. Carry a good camera and a telephoto lens and you will get some excellent nature shots.

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