A Friday treat for you all –12 amazing images (according to me of course :) ) from my trips over the last two years.
Hello darkness my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again.
Because a vision softly creeping, left its seeds while I was sleeping.
And the vision that was planted in my brain still remains,
Within the Sound of Silence!
With Kali Dak rising just in front of me, I walked towards it only to reach the end of the meadow and a slope. It was now that I screamed my lungs out. In fact I was hysterical as I shouted out to the guys.
Statutory Warning – Prolonged exposure to the bugyals (high altitude grasslands) can lead to awe-inspired delirium. Traveler discretion is advised.Oh, if I forgot to mention, Ali Bugyal is known to be Asia’s most beautiful grasslands
Day 2 – Loharjung to DidnaSitting in front of our tent, reminiscing the first day’s events, we were enchanted by the play of light put up for us by the conspiring sun and clouds. The spotlight was illuminating many objects of interest, once the ridges of the mountains, once the village and once just plain winding trails.
People don’t matter.. only snow matters!
- Wonderful
- Wonderful and very helpful. And don’t be surprised if you find lot of people from the Telugu speaking fraternity! Many entrepreneurs from Andhra have settled there.
- Well now I cannot go out on a limb and proclaim anything. But I did feel very safe during my 4 day stay at Bastar. When we asked the people there about the naxal problem all they had to say was even we see/hear about them only in news like you people do. It mostly happens in remote villages or deep forests. Not here.
- Chitrakot Falls – India’s biggest
- Haat – the colorful local village fairs that happen every Friday.
- Tirathgarh Falls – the 300ft cascading falls.
- Kailash and Kutumsar Caves – still dark and scary – pure unadulterated adventure!
- Kanger Ghati National Park
- And if you are very interested in going to tribal colonies, you can ask for guides who will take you to the interiors.
- Kondagaon – The craft village. Check out the bell-metal, terracotta and wrought-iron crafts.
- A lot of old temples whose names i do not know. But yes, i know there are lots. Ask your tour operator or the hotel manager.
- Chitradhara Falls, Thamada Ghumar Falls – a straight 96ft drop, Mandwa Falls and many more. Remember, the land is still being explored. A comprehensive list here
- If you manage to visit during October, you could also witness the grand Dussera Celebrations spanning 75 days.
- The central base point for travel here can be Jagdalpur which is the district headquarters for Bastar. And the nearest big cities from this place are Raipur at 300 kms and Vishakhapatnam (Vizag) at 323 kms. A train runs to and fro from Vizag everyday.
The train numbers will be 1VK and 2VK. Besides, Jagdalpur is well connected by road to many major places. We went from Vizag to Jagdalpur by train and returned to Vizag by bus which was very comfortable.
- There is govt. run Chitrakote Resort right in front of the falls which is great and offered at a very reasonable price of 1500 rupees per night. And if you happen to have a choice, opt for the first room which has an awesome view of the falls from inside the room through glass windows.
- At Jagdalpur, we stayed at Hotel Rainbow which was strictly just about ok. If a shelter for night is all you are looking for, this hotel gives enough for 500rs per night. But anything more than that, you will be better off staying at one of those resorts in Jagdalpur.
- Oh! If you are staying at any of the resorts, don’t forget to request for the traditional Madiya tribe dance with the bull headdress
- Anytime after the monsoon and before summer is good. As most of the waterfalls are seasonal, timing is essential. July - October should be good.
- It can get very hot in summers and the waterfalls may be dried fully.
- Although this place hasn’t reached the peaks of popularity with whole of India yet, it is very popular with the locals around. Kolkata, Raipur, Visakhapatnam are some cities apart from the many towns from where people flock. You will see a lot of foreigners too. The campaign run by the CTB seems to have worked like a charm.
I went on a trek to Roopkund in the Uttarakhand state of India along with 25 other trekkers to see the
Monsoon had cast its magic and we were spellbound for sure. Yet another eventful weekend in the diaries of the Wandering Soul. Read on to find out more.
KP was looming above the temple right in front of us and we couldn’t wait to start the journey to the peak. Spirits were soaring high and so the journey begins. We started walking towards KP. A right turn from the temple leads to the trail. After some 15-20 minutes walk on the road through the village, one can spot the official trail with a welcome board informing the details of KP.
at and already exhausted. Just half an hour into the trek this was our condition and we were looking at a whole day of steady ascent with obstacles we did not imagine yet. The light breakfast we had was of no help and we were feeling hungry and drained. At that time some angel I suppose offered us an orange. It was pure delight! The citrus fruit had worked its magic effect and we were feeling better than a minute before. It is at times like this that one actually appreciates the value of basic essentials of life. Never had an orange tasted so good in my entire 23 years of existence! And then again, the four of us were getting ahead slowly with frequent breaks to ease our tired bodies. The weight we were carrying got us tired even more than usual. But we were told we will leave our entire luggage at Bhatta’s house. That was some consolation getting us past this rocky ascent.3 hrs of trek in the dense jungle brought us to Bhattaru mane at around 12.30 – 1.00 PM. Rice, Sambar and some pickles were served for lunch. We were good to go by 1.30 again. The plan was to reach the peak by 3 or 4 PM and then start the descent to reach Bhattaru mane by 5-6 PM. So off we go by 1.30.
We left our entire luggage and resumed the trek at 1.30 PM with just water to drink as there are no water sources till the top. There is one stream supposedly near Mantapa but who knows what flows there. It’s not a major stream. We had to stop at forest office to pay some charges to enter the forest and off we go again. We were crossing small hillocks, grasslands for most part and the sun was shining high up in the sky scorching us. After crossing a few hillocks we reached a point where the ascent was steep and seemed endless. No more plain lands in sight. Tough part starts again we thought although totally ignorant of the beating we were about to take from nature!
The descent starts and its time for one more realization. I always thought ascent was the toughest part of a trek but so was not the case. I never realized while descending down a mountain one needs to carefully place footing to avoid really serious injuries! All the while I was just feeling like “Juggernaut” from the X-Men series. It was really tough to balance with all the kinetic energy and momentum pushing us down the trail with loose soil and rocks all along. What I didn’t realize though was that this could get worse if you have luggage to carry (Which I learned the next day!). By now the damage was slowly being done and I was totally unaware. What I am talking about is that I hadn’t cut my nails before the trek and so they were slightly overgrown. And my toe nail kept on hitting the fron
t of the shoe while I took each step down. After an hour I realized both of my toes were paining a lot. But ignoring the pain while basking in the glory of nature as the set sun over the distant horizon casting a golden glow over the already golden grass we moved ahead. We reached a viewpoint at around 6 PM. We took some snaps.. some rest..some conversations flowed and we were back on trail. And the “self-photo maniac”(as my friend puts it ) that I am , I took a couple of photographs more than the rest of the people. By now the rest of the gang was out of sight. Vinod and the rest of us started after a short while I guess it was twilight by then. We were all relaxed and chatting away through the trail when suddenly we couldn’t locate the trial for a while.
Next morning we hit the trail again by around 8 AM. Now the task of getting down the hill was becoming more tedious as we also had our luggage to carry while we tried to balance ourselves. We slipped, we fell, but we made it to Kukke Subramanya in one piece by 12-1 PM! We met a couple of childern playing cricket at the foot and joined them for a game. We were back in the same hotel where we started this wonderful sojourn - two momentous and joyous days in the woods. We were planning to eat at the Subramanya temple which is known to serve the tastiest food but it was too crowded and we had to start soon for B'lore. Instead we thought we would atleast visit the temple but people were queued up already in long lines and no chance of that either. But miraculously one gate in front of us was opened( I don't know for what reason) we pushed our way through to have a wonderful Darshan. And as always all's well that ends well! So was the end of this journey.
And so it was a long weekend again! March 27th – 29th ’09. The scorching summer heat was totally getting on my nerves and all I could think was water..water..water.. which culminated in us taking a trip to the gorgeous Hogenakkal falls that weekend. As is turns out summer heat continued to wreak its havoc however the falls itself totally made up for that! Hogenakkal translates to Smoking Rocks. Well the water here falls with such force they create the illusion of smoking rocks.
Hogenakkal falls on Cauvery River in Dharmapuri District of Tamilnadu are a whole series of waterfalls spread over an area of one Kilometer approximately. The water falls over on one side into a gorge some 20m deep and there is another gorge which is the downstream of the river. An idyllic place for a perfect weekend day out! The water here is believed to have curative powers as it passes through some forests with medicinal herbs. Curative or not, it sure was rejuvenating as hell!
