Category: Travelogues

After a complete SWOT analysis, we selected to visit The Rann of Kutch (greater as well as little) as our holiday destination and I must say it was a decision well made. The place is a must see not just for its avi-fauna but also for its cultural and geological importance.

Gujarat is a colorful state, and perhaps Kutch still retains most color. People here are simple, helpful and very courteous, their attire enticing, their language sweet despite the hardships they face.

Our first destination was the Greater Rann of Kutch. We stayed at CEDO, Moti Virani Village. CEDO, the Center for Desert and Ocean is a trust run by one of the most knowledgeable persons about the region, Mr. Jugal Kishore Tiwari.  Nearest to CEDO is the Banni Grassland where we spent a lot of time.

Continue reading The Banni Grasslands of Kutch.

Three days worth of business trip, three weeks worth of shopping and fun. This time going to Thailand was different.

6 AM sea side walk, meetings from 8.30 AM to 6.30 PM and shopping in the evening, that pretty much sums up our time at Pattaya where our client is based. But Bangkok was a different play field altogether.

Bollywood mania in Thailand – I saw Devdas dubbed in Thai being sold in stores and what took my breath away was a Thai girl singing “Dhoom macha le Dhoom” and perfectly at that – this was in the hotel lawns for some party. It seems the locals know the song very well – everybody was singing and dancing to Dhoom!

Ever since Tarique returned with his Patpong experience (2 years back) I have been wanting a redux and I got my chance in this visit – Patpong is not just famous for its flesh trade, but also for its night bazaar – you get everything there – right from local woven silk purses to international brands – and what fine imitations, right out of the spam mails!! “madam -authentic Gucci at 50% discount” “Authentic Rolex at big discount” are the phrases you keep hearing as the pavement shopkeepers try to woo you to at least have a look at their goods, and once you have looked, you are hooked 😉 I bought several items from the bazaar – a Thai silk purse, a lovely painting on Thai silk, a huge folding fan – I almost bought a Gucci purse indeed a 100% authentic imitation right down to the stitch details

While we navigated the bazaar and went inside a different type of whispers and calls beckoned- “Madam, ping pong show ”, “Sir, come inside, have a look and don’t pay if you don’t like the show” every step you take, there were men and women asking you to peep inside the dance houses and sit if it pleases you. So we went inside one of the dance house – the nude shows are never held on ground floor they are always on the mezzanine or first floors of these dance bars – I had a good idea of what to expect there so it did not surprise me – there were of course nude girls dancing and doing the acts they are famous for, but it was more of a circus than a dance show. There were several women watching the show, men falling over the dancers and the bars owners making money. In short it was crude, somewhat funny and amusing but not titillating to the least. I got bored pretty soon and had it not been for an Indian making a perfect fool of himself, I would have moved out earlier. This gentleman, was summoning girls and playing with them – throwing money at the girls and the girls asking for more and more money without obliging him – he was drunk, being had and he did not know. He looked like a novice (or may be he was not) but I was so tempted to whistle and shout some advice in Hindi! This too got monotonous after a while and we left… May be there are better shows somewhere but got the feeling that they were mostly the same every where….

Some observations: The tourism industry of Asia is really on a down swing after the series of consecutive disasters – SARS, Tsunami – the sex center of Asia – Patpong is now less than half of what it was (comparison by Tarique since his last visit). I noted the same about the Chatuchak market – Bangkok’s most famous and biggest weekend market where one gets *everything* – the shops were barely starting to open at 8.30 AM on a Sunday and the shopkeepers were disinterested – the items on sale were not appearing new, the people walking around were mostly Thai youngsters who had nothing else to do on a weekend. The range was not as vast as it was since my last visit to Chatuchak two years back. However, we did manage to get quiet a lot of stuff for ourselves and Aasim – some fossils, shells, dried star fish, Black and Decker sets, table lamps, no clothes – clothes and T shirts were of extremely bad quality in Chatuchak this time unlike my previous visits. The best of clothes we bought at Central Plaza – branded stuff at low prices.

At Central plaza, we also had best of food – I stuffed myself several times with grilled Salmon steak. We successfully refrained ourselves from getting into MacDonalds, Pizza Hut and KFC and experimented with various cuisines. Tried Japanese, did not like it perhaps MK (A famous chain of restaurants which also serves Japanese) is not a good place to start the Japanese experience. Most traditional Thai dishes have too much lemon grass for my liking.

Our return was as eventful as this entire trip. We were due to take flight to Nagpur on Monday morning, but on reaching Domestic Airport and being told that the airport transit rooms were full, we were wondering what to do for next few hours when I noticed that the evening flight to Nagpur was delayed and due for departure in 40 minutes. Ran around a bit, got ourselves two seats and we were on our way to Nagpur within two hours of getting off the plane from Bangkok. We did not get to sleep much in the night as Aasim was too excited but it was well worth spending more money, wasting the apex tickets and reaching home.

This morning Tarique started to write an LJ entry but left it half way – here’s what he wrote before giving it a ditch.

“She was sick with my cribbing about not having time for fun on our trips and decided that it was time to fix it. To start with the tickets were booked for as nearly connecting flights as possible and did not waste a complete day sitting at Mumbai. The client had suggested that we do not meet the very next day, in consideration that we will be tired but we said *No*. We reached Pattaya via a 2 hour cab ride. We were put up in a nice sea facing room at the Hotel Asia Pattaya. and were at the Client’s office at 15:00hrs. This aggressive schedule set the mood for the entire trip. We shut our mind to the physical tiredness, being in good physical condition helped, and concentrated on doing what we wanted to enjoy, pursuing fun with the same *has to be done* attitude as we usually apply to our work. So from meeting it was straight out to shopping for few of our favorite things. Another thing that we had firmly decided that this we will not eat at any of the fast food brands. KFC/McDonald/Pizza Huts were out!”

It was after 10 years that we took a holiday to Kanha and it was a very rewarding experience in every way.

Not only did we see the wild life so closely, we learnt a lot of lessons on a personal level as well.

Visit to the jungle made us respect its laws. Mankind no longer belongs to the jungle, he has been alienated from the jungle much too long to even decipher them. It takes a while to realise that it is the tiger who is giving you a privilege of sighting him – so what if you are on an elephant back – one leap and the tiger can reach you at 10 feet. One slap of his paws and a man can be disemboweled. Its when you realise that you can be on the menu of that beast you start to respect him. That he did not even roar at you is his privilege. Tigers in the jungle can not be compared to those kept in the zoo. These beasts of the jungle live their own lives at their own terms and quiet a few have been known to turn into man hunters (if not man- eaters).

Like any other species, each animal has a character, out of a population of 128 tigers of Kanha, about 8 or 10 are show-offs they make themselves visible and pose for our photographs! How we capture them is our skill as long as we respect the space they demand. You cant get down from the elephant, set up a stand, wait for the sun to shine brightly to photograph wild animals. When it comes to capturing the wild, its your skills with the camera that matter –À mauvais ouvrier point de bons outils. To prove the point there are compositions which Aasim has taken with a 1MP camera which are better than any of ours.

Talking of blaming and pointing fingers, says here that he was disappointed and pointed fingers at the guide for not showing us anything. Why, the same guide showed brainz a sloth bear and a leopard the very next day and the same jeep driver who was with us on first day evening went with Uncle Stevens to show a tigress on mud road and tracked her for more than 45 min. When we are in a jungle, the beasts we see are the ones that willingly come out and show themselves off. Animals and birds are far more sensitive to sight and sound than us, I am sure that scarlet minivet sitting on the tree top spotted us and allowed itself to be photographed, so did the peacock that almost posed for us and I am humbled at the thought.

Another incident that I now feel ashamed about was directing my disappointment towards our tour guide whose vehicle broke down while we were returning -it wasn’t his fault, there was no way he could have anticipated that, I knew it, but at that time, I did point fingers and again a talk with Uncle Stevens made me realise how wrong I was. We, in a fit of anger, and disappointment, find it very easy to point fingers and blaming everyone else for what we think as wrongs done to us – this not only is a sign of immaturity but also that of a weak person, a loser!! never do we introspect and rationalise.

Both above incidents combined also put in perspective how we most of the times tend to focus on the trivial details and lose out on the much grander bigger picture – À bon entendeur, salut.

This jungle trip taught me to be more patient practical and put the perspective where it belongs – In wide angle

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May 21st, on our way to Kanha National Park, we also saw a rare celestial event, occlusion of Venus by the moon, Aasim was the first to notice and pointed it out to us and we saw the entire phenomenon – moon coming closer and closer to Venus, and nearly eclipsing it, Venus appeared as a bright white dot just below moon, as if the moon developed a wart!!. I wish we weren’t so much in a hurry…. we did not take any pictures

We got out of the vehicle that took us to Village mocha, 16 kms from Kanha which was to be our abode during our stay there, we were greeted by Mr. Denzil A.G Stephens, Resort Manager, Tigerland Resort. Uncle Stephens was introduced to us by our tour guide, Mr. Arjun Dhanwate, as an expert in Wild life and a naturalist with keen interest in Tigers.

A thorough gentleman, Uncle Stephens had many stories to tell us, we sat and listened in awe as he spoke and just as he was speaking, he whispered to us, turn back slowly and don’t make any noise, he pointed his torch light and there was a wild spotted deer (axis axis), right inside the resort garden. It galloped back as we shrieked in excitement.

Spotted deers and leopards are a pretty common sight, Uncle Stephens went on to tell, a leopard regularly comes to sit on the rocks adjoining the resort. The resort had no brick wall to guard it from the jungle, just a small bamboo fence, that even a deer can break, we stayed in the midst of jungle, woke up every morning before sunrise to the chirping of hundreds of birds and for the first time witnessed the expanse of milky way which gets so lost in the hustle bustle and lights of city life.

The crisp and cool morning air was refreshing as we sipped our morning tea sitting out in the open, looking at the jungle corridor that joins Kanha (located in the Malkal hills of the Satpura hill range in mandla district of Madhya Pradesh) to the other forest belts. Animals, specially the herbivores, we were told by Uncle Stephens, keep migrating from one place to another from Bandhavgarh which is 250 kms north to Kanha to Kanha and Pench which is about 200 Kms south of Kanha.

With herbivores, even carnivores move, forever extending their territories. It is a good thing that their numbers are rising. In Kanha itself, there are about 40,000 spotted deers and 128 tigers, about 35 Indian sloth bears, several leopards and jungle cats which co-exist with about 250 varities of birds and hoards of Jackals, wild boars, Bisons, Barasinga (the only surviving species of barasingha is in Kanha) wild dogs, langurs… and so many more animal species. A place to witness the biodiversity in fullest, it only takes a second to be surrounded by hundreds of butterflies. We were absolutely awestruck when our elephant stepped into the indri river bed – I have never seen so many varieties of butterflies, each one more beautiful than the other and I was told this is not the butterfly season. To see them in resplendent colours and even greater numbers one should visit in the spring time during the months of February – March

Animals blend so beautifully in sal and bamboo forest of Kanha, it takes and expert eye to spot the tiger sitting on the road side under a bamboo bush. almost missed spotting a leopard even though it was very close to their jeep.

We enter the jungle at sunrise and see few Bisons peacefully grazing, deers grazing, galloping, and keeping a watchful eye a couple of jackals playing with each other in distance. Lets turn left, our guide tells us, and we find out that a sloth bear has just crossed, the tell tale signs of its foot prints on soft sand.

Each animal has a tale to tell, and we heard the jungle whispering tales – birds giving alarm calls, male deer tapping their foot and grunting giving rattling calls to their would be mates, peacocks meaou meaou filling the jungle and suddenly a hare lept across the road. We spotted a tigresses pug marks -she is on a kill. Looking up we saw vultures sitting waiting for the tiger to hunt and finish eating so that they can come down and feast on crumbs..

We weren’t really looking for the tiger, we went upto the river bed and returned to take another route. When we came back to the resort, Uncle Stephens told us, he was there in another jeep ahead of us by about 10 minutes he had decided to cross the river bed, to look for more fauna when a tigress was spotted, perhaps the same one which was on the kill and the we had heard the entire jungle taking.. She was there on the road side, she waited and with a calculated gait circled the jeep in which Uncle Stephens was with some other tourist, after a few minutes of inspection she walked on the mud pathway and the jeep followed her for about 45 minutes. We missed out this opportunity…. it happens very often uncle told us, each tigers has a character, some are playful, some shy, some grumpy and some flaunt themselves, just like people do.

He spoke of one tiger named Charger, in Bandhavgarh forest, Charger, he was a naughty one and was named so because he loved chasing jeeps full of people and scaring them. He was huge but one could almost see him smiling after his little game said Uncle Stephens.

He has many more tales and those are an experience in themselves, we intend to keep going back to Kanha and other forest reserves -its addictive!!! took many interesting pictures which he will post in his journal, will do the same.

The first picture is up and can be seen here