Pune June-3 and 4

 These are the two last days of this entire road trip…Dadu is highly excited to go there! So am I as I can see my pet cat Mini once again!

 

On the next morning, we left to see the famous crater lake of Lonar and then to Pune. The lake at lonar was fabulous and awesome the crater is almost 1/2 km in diameter! Almost 200ft in height! Imagine the impact which must have happened when that asteroid must have come and hit the surface of the earth. Even foreign scientists are showing interest in this phenomenon.
After this we reached Pune at almost 5:00 in the afternoon.

 

The crater lake at Lonar

 

Daityasudan temple at Lonar

 

Bandhavgarh the land of the tiger!!!!!! May-31 to June-1

We left lucknow and went to Baandhavgarh national park. It took us till night to reach there. We had planned to take two rounds of the jungle in an open jeep. To spot the animals we need to get up at least by 4:00 in the morning. So we went to sleep by 10:00. I was full of excitement and anticipation and I couldn’t sleep a wink! In the morning I went in the jeep with mom and dad. We spotted three tigers in just four hours.

Only someone who has actually seen many jungles can appreciate our great luck! In the evening, I went with Kaka and Mausi. In the first three hours we spotted a stand-off between a tame elephant & a male tiger! Imagine the luck!!! At almost five minutes for the park to close, We heard the alarm calls of a monkey( when any herbivore animal spots a carnivore it sounds the alarm) By the sound of it, our guide could tell that it was a call for a leopard near by and thanks to our luck, we spotted the leopard almost 4ft. close to our jeep! It had a male spotted dear in it’s mouth and it was carrying it between its forelegs.

Apart from big cats, we also a varitey of animals and birds.

 

Jungle fowl

Spotted deers

 

A leopard with its kill

 

 

Changeable hawk eagle

 

 

Manali and The gigantic dam of Bhakkra!!! May 21st – May 23rd

May-21 : Right this is second day in Solang nala. It is around 18 Km from Manali and really beautiful with a beautiful river and forest.
I thought that this would be a quiet day. But, accidentally we saw a board mentioning zorbing in the meadows near the river. I knew about this sport of zorbing. It originated in New- Zealand. In it, we are enclosed in air filled ball, and let down rolling down the hill. I and Dadu went inside one & rolled down. A fabulous experience, believe me! In it for one second I would see Debu upward and at the next moment below me! At the end, I had landed upside on the side of the zorb, which was facing the ground!
We also went for skiing but there was a huge traffic jam leading up to Rohtang and we tried it on a patch of rough snow.I didn’t enjoy it.At the evening, we went and had trout fish at a restaurant called the Johnson’s restaurant and bar. Had a wonderful game of Foosball and I ate some veg pasta.

Beas river

View of Friendship peak from our hotel

A cute house in the middle of nowhere

Mom and Dad gobbling Trout

May 22-23 : From Manali we went to Swarghat. A highly uninteresting journey, we finally reached the place. There after few hours of resting, we left to see the nainadevi temple and the famous Bhakkra dam. At the temple, we boarded a ropeway to go to the top of the mountain, where the temple is placed. I enjoyed it a lot! I was feeling a bit sad for Siddhu because he and Chetan Dada had stayed at the hotel to watch TV. Then we went to see the grand Bhakkra dam. A wonderous experience really. As you know this dam is simply gigantic!!!

All the way to solang nala.May 20th

The day was new. The weather was clear to start with but it became cloudy by the time we reached Kunzum pass and it was raining by the time we reached Rohtang pads The distance was only around 210km, but due to the steep turns & bad roads conditions, it took us almost 8 hrs to complete the trip. The following photos will prove this to you… The two passes had just been cleared 2 days back and very few vehicles had started crossing it. Pass was supposed to officially opened for vehicles after a few days. The road (or whatever was there of it) was really in bad condition after the Kumzum pass and at places was it was quite precarious.
As you may have observed, there was snow all over the road & streams used to pass from these roads. A vary tiring day, on the way, we gave lift to a doc. We reached Solang nala almost at 8:00 clock in the evening. It was the dusk of course. We then relaxed in a hotel called hotel Iceland and had a hot, spicy and delicious pizza and then slept.

 Early morning in a village on route from Kaza to Kunzum

 

Spiti valley is one of most sparsely populated places in Himachal. Most villages have a population of 30 to 150 people. But all of them have electricity and schools are there within 4-5 Km
Village folks waiting for a ride to go to Dhankar monastery for the big Buddh Pournima celebrations


























The road get totally eroded or washed out during winters and has to be repaired every year

Kunzum pass (approx 4560 meters)

Kaka's Pajero makes a big splash

The road was still not opened officially and snow clearing was in progress at places

Just approaching Rohtang pass (approx 3950 meters). On the other side of the pass (within 1 Km) there was huge crowd of tourists. Good that they did not think of coming this side :)

 

Dankar lake & Pinn Valley, may19th

The day was fresh and the weather was perfect. While Chetan dada & family along with Kaka & Moushi, were planning to go see the famous Ki monastery, Papa, Aie , me & Dadu were going to see a lake which is on the top of mountain besides Dhankar monastery. The climb up the hill was quite tiring for me. But thanks to Papa, I got acclimatized and completed the remaining portion easily. Besides the lake, the soil was a bit soft, as the lake had just been over it and then evaporated. This was the most enjoyable part in this trip. The soil was soft in the lake bed and we saw tiger like pugmarks. We were sure that these were the pugmarks of the famous and elusive snow-leopard.We took pictures of the marks so that we can show it to some wildlife experts later and get confirmation. We saw smaller pugmarks also which probably were made by the young . These marks were not very fresh.
As we went closer to the lake, the pugmarks there seemed fresher and fresher. It appeared as if they had been playing in the water with the supervision of their father. Not only that, we also saw the bones of s yak, which had probably been eaten by the leopard. I even collected one of these bones.
We also went to see the Pinn valley. The monastery in it had become new due to reconstruction. The Pinn valley still remained as beautiful as ever. On our way to see these places, we gave lift to three women. On the way, I observed something very beautiful of the snow clad mountains at a moment they don’t appear to you and at the next the mountains ‘move’ like a curtain as the car goes forward! Revealing the magnificent snow behind them.

Dhankar lake

Our steep climb up the mountain of the Dhankar lake

The Tibetan Wolf Pugmarks we spotted along the lake. We initially thought it was Leopard's pugmarks.

View of the Key Monastry ( Chetan dada took this)

 

Tabo, Dhankar & Kaza may 18th

So the next day had arrived and we were planning to do another ambitious trip to Kaza, wich is 140 km away from Nako. On our way, we saw the Monasteries of Tabo And Dhankar . In the way to Tabo, we got stuck in a landslide. Thanks to the three army Jawans and contribution by us, we could clear a way through the landslide.

Tabo – This is a monastery, which is built of mud. As photography is not allowed inside, we couldn’t take any pictures of the interior. The sculptures and paintings inside are more than1000 years old and still, they look as beautiful and majestic as ever. The color still looks so fresh that you can almost smell it. Crisp and majestic is all that can be said about it.
Dhankar: - This is another ancient monastery. The interesting thing about this is its magnificent height & brilliant placement on a narrow mountain cliff. There underneath it, the two gigantic rivers of Pin& Spiti embrace each other. A program was going to commence in the monastery just after two days and the preparations were in full swing.

Sunrise at Nako

the cute little village of Nako

Dhankar Monastry

A Pashmina goat


































Compare the size of anthill like structures on the way to Kaza with our car

 

The City of gardens (Chandigarh) 10th May

Hi pals! How are you? It’s been great with us until now.

We left Delhi this morning…
And left for the magnificent city of Chandigarh. As the roads of the entire city are almost grid like, it had been easy for us to navigate in this massive city…

We visited the famous rock gardens. Although, the landscape of the entire structure is great, many of the sculptures were broken and had been removed. There are some big groups of sculptures, which without any reason appeal to the eyes.
You too will trust me, once you see the pictures... ... ...

Animals in rock garden

People in rock garden

 

The Magnificiant Taj (may 8th)

As you may have observed,I have from this blog onwards, started telling the date of post on which it was written(supposed to be written).This is for the convenience of all the viewers
Into Agra, aren’t we? Just besides the glorious Taj Mahal …
Today morning, we went to visit the Taj. It is not at all an exaggeration by calling it a poem in monument, or a संगमरमर का स्वप्न.

There is nothing as beautiful and majestic than the Taj. In it, there are certain glowing stones, and a beautiful inlay work is done inside it. As we are not allowed to take photos in it, we
Were not able to capture its true beauty…

Still just checkout the photos


Buland Darwaza at Fatehpur Sikri

Tajmahal

Tajmahal (The scaffoldings are being used for cleaning)

 

Gwalior...And Papas old home

We drove to Agra via Gwalior. We spent around 3 hours seeing the Gwalior fort. It is a nice fort with a very interesting palace. This palace was built around 500 years back by Mansingh and had been occupied by various different kingdoms since then.

Since we had such a nice experience with MP Tourism hotels, we decided to stay at UP Tourism hotel in Agra. We checked in to Taj Khema. It is within 500 meters of East gate of Tajmahal and offered a view of Taj that is probably better than what you will see from inside the Taj campus. We were somewhat late so we could not go inside Taj today. We decided to visit the house where papa had stayed for around 4 years till 1976. This is right next to the southern gate of Taj. Though My father did not have the courage to disturb the current occupants of that house but my mother knocked at their door and told them that we had come to see the house. To our surprise, the current occupants of the house really welcomed us and treated us to nice Pethas. They wanted us to stay with them and not in any hotel!!



Mansingh’s palace at Gwalior fort

Sahastrabahu temple at Gwalior fort


















Inside the temple

The deers of Shivpuri

This is one of the posts, which I loved the most, for it comes in my field...

The national park of Shivpuri is known for the variety of the dears found in here. Spotting them in such a dense forest, with their beautifully camouflaged coat is not by any way simple.
Thus, in the photos which I have taken for this post, are genuinely hard-earned. The types of dears we saw in the jungle were the Chinkara(Indian Gazelle) ,Neelgai (Blue Bull),Chittal ( Spotted dear),Sambar
I have included one-one photo of each.


A Neelgai and a cleaner bird interacting

A Beutiful Chital


A Sambhar

A Chinkara (photo by Papa)

 

Ujjain to Shivpuri National Forest, May-5

We had decided to start really early since the drive today was close to 350 Km. We had planned to start by 6:30 AM and we were more or less on time (7:30 AM) when we left Ujjain. This stretch of NH-3 is just wide enough to allow 2 trucks to pass but fortunately the road surface was good in most part and the traffic was sparse. In fact whole of our drive through MP has been through very sparsely populated area where you will not even see a hut for miles. We reached Shivpuri by 3:00 PM and checked into the resort (Tourist Village). We were the only 2 families in the resort.

We mainly relaxed for rest of the day though .I and Papa went for a walk in evening. I was very excited to see peahens flying high for the first time as two of them flew to rest on a 50 feet high tree.


Start of our long drive to Shivpuri.

 

Favorite adventure sport for people in MP.

Both the photos have been shot from running car and hence the bad quality .

From Mandu to Ujjain

A drive of around 140 Km took us to the town of Ujjain. This brought up 1000 Km of our trip. We decided to take a halt here for two reasons. The Mahakal temple here is another of the 12 Jyotirlinga and it also breaks the long drive from Mandu to Madhav National Park (Shivpuri) into two days. On the way to Ujjain, we took a lunch halt at Indore. We saw the Kanch Mahal at Indore. It is a Jain temple the insides of which are built totally of different type of mirrors. Even the floor is mirror. There is a lot of intricate work on those mirrors. Unfortunately photography was not allowed inside the temple. Today I had my first meal on this trip that was not that enjoyable. But the Lassi on the highway more than made up for this. BTW, Lassi has become a big part of our breakfast, lunch and dinner!

We probably spent more time locating our hotel in Ujjain than we took in driving from Indore to Ujjain. Fortunately the weather here is cooler than it was in Aurangabad. We decided to walk the 4 Km to temple instead of driving. We have been having too much good food (Dhaba for lunch and at our hotels in night) and all of us are worried that we will be at least 80 Kg by the time we return to Pune.



Fossils park at Mandu. It is in real bad shape and is probably a fossil itself

Baobab (not sure of spelling) tree that Alauddin Khilji got from South Africa

This is just a sword which I found pretty beautiful as it gives a feeling of power

Mandu

I developed some sort of stomach infection and was vomiting. So the two families decided to roam around Mandu fort (supposedly the world’s largest fort city with an area of 40 Sq Km) in two different batches making sure that i wasn't left alone in the hotel. The burn on my father's calf (he burnt himself by the silencer of his bullet on the weekend before we started) started hurting a lot. The doctor(?) in a small shop in the fort diagnosed that the wound was developing infection and asked him to start antibiotics. He also advised him to buy Hydrogen Peroxide and some ointment and asked him to clean the wound daily and do a fresh bandage.

Mandu is very beautiful with a lot of history and natural beauty. It has monuments starting from eighth century (King Bhoj) to British time. Rani Roopmati Mahal, Baz Bahadur Mahal, Jama Masjid and Jahaj Mahal are really good.

We are settling in to a nice rhythm. We have been living in hotels of state tourism board. When you are about to leave one place, you can talk to your current hotel and book rooms in the hotel at your next destination!


baracks at rani rupwati mahal

 

Top of Rani Rupmati Mahal



 

Jahaj महल