Did the Chopta Tungnath Trek long back in April of 2007. The memories are however still very fresh, and the photographs fresher!
Enjoy!
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Tag: India
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Rajasthan Road Trip
Some images from a roadtrip to Rajasthan covering Pushkar, Bhilwara and Chittaurgarh.
Clink on the photograph below to browse through the gallery![scrollGallery id=3]
Our routemap for the trip :
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An important thing to note is
If you are going straight to Bhilwara or beyond, and Pushkar is not one of your pit-stops, make sure that you take a left turn about 8 kms before Kishangarh… A flyover is your landmark… If you were to go to Kishangarh, you would have to go under it, and if you are going towards Bhilwara, you are to take left! -
Do Not Disturb me PLEASE!
“The Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulations, 2010” comes into play today! and looks like it that some processes are better defined that the last time it was enforced!What it also does is that some important communication, e.g. from your online shopping vendors, the Delhi Traffic Police, etc would not be sent out to you. However, there is an option of partially blocking the unwanted communication (SMS and Telecalls).Here is what you need to do to stop all unsolicited calls…To stop all commercial calls/SMS, write START 0 and send it to 1909To start some calls and SMS, these are the codes :Health – 1Education – 2Tourism and Leisure – 3Banking/Insurance/Financial Products – 4Consumer Goods and automobiles – 5Real Estate – 6Communication/Broadcasting/Entertainment/IT – 7To start any of these, write START followed by the category code and send it to 1909, e.g. if you want to get SMS/Calls related to Health Services, the SMS that you need to send to 1909 is START 1If you want to deregister from the DND registry, send STOP 0 to 1909In case you’d like to check the status of your requests you can click here.I personally feel that its not completely thought through from a SMS perspective, and here is why :- Logically, if I want to stop the unwanted calls/SMS I should send a STOP message and a START message otherwise. The current process wants me to send a START if I want to STOP all unsolicited communication
- Also the categories should have atleast 1 State related SMS category, e.g. the Delhi Traffic Police SMS. I do not understand what category it falls under right now!
It is a good start though. I am hoping that the number of SMS that I get reduces to a minimum (I get atleast 30 messages and 5 calls per day)This information is written with reference from all major Telecom Services Providers and the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Portal of TRAI. -
Enough is enough or maybe not 🙂
There will never be enough of1. Good music2. Good headphones/earphones to hear all this good music3. Places to visit4. Moments when you did not talk but communicate5. Good movies6. Early morning I-am-sleepy-but-walking-with-you walks7. I-wish-I-was-out-on-the-mountain moments8. Gulab Jamun after dinner evenings9. Discounts and deals available all around10. Picture memoriesand…11. Tea on a trip to anywhere, somewhere and everywhere!
What you see in the photograph above are some of the thousands of written applications to God in a temple dedicated to Golu Devta, in Chetai near Almora (Uttarakhand, India) Its a custom to write/type applications/requests on paper even stamp papers and put them in this temple. -
India – World Cricket Champions 2011
Recording India’s absolutely amazing win over Sri Lanka on the 2nd of April 2011.
This one goes out for Sachin who has waited for 20 years for this! He deserved to pick this one up!Here is a clip from 1983 to celebrate today!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxiYYTopAu8&w=480&h=390]
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Delhi – Jim Corbett – Nainital – Delhi
Warning : Its a long post with a lot of detail! Have some 15-20 minutes spare to read it please…They say matches are made in heaven, I say Travel Plans are also made in heaven and executed on earth by the lesser mortals!There is no other explanation of how I have landed up in Nainital 3 times without the name being a part of my plan when I start from home? That statement kind of gave away a bit of the information that ideally would have made sense when I finish the first 10% of this travelogue! but whatever!Let’s Travel!
The first cup of tea being made for us at BailParaoBack into time first!Early 2010, I had taken this club membership which entitled me to be a guest for some 15 odd parties in and around delhi throughout the year, not a single of which I attended! AND, it gave me a couple of nights free stay by Country Club Resorts! Honestly what I was interested in the free stay, which was not really so free, as I realised later!
Back to the future now…So we had to send a Rs. 500 draft along with three preferences with different dates to Country Club Resorts before they could pick one (read the cheapest) and book us there! What we got was the Tiger Den Resort! For some reason I thought it was on the NH121 (banks of River Kosi), however we realised that it was about 13 kms away towards Kaladhungi only when we reached Ramnagar and called the resort for directions.The drive from NOIDA was very comfortable except the “work in progress” flyovers on NH24! I can’t believe that the status seems to be exactly what it was a couple of years ago at 3 places… And the road near Garh Mukteshwar is still a buffet of potholes with pieces of road on top! Don’t understand it!The 99 kms stretch between Moradabad bypass and Kashipur (via Thakhurdwara) is still bad! The last I had driven on it was when I was coming back to Ranikhet via Ramnagar, and it did not feel as bad because I was driving a Safari… It did not feel too bad in the Palio either, but it was bad! A lot of strain the arms and eyes! The road quality miraculously changes as soon as you reach Kashipur.. While I could barely touch 60 kmph at times in the last 90 minutes or so, I was driving at around 100kmph as soon as I crossed Kashipur…The question is WHY? And the answer is that I was now driving in Uttarakhand! Drive to Ramnagar was a breeze and it was just 15 more minutes to drive the 14 odds kms after Ramnagar to BailPadao (Resting place for Bulls – if translated in English)
The wooden stove for making Tea… TASTY TEA
Radha made for a good backdrop for this cycle in the rain!We reached the resort only around mid-night it was funny to see the guard room boys struggle with opening the gate!! the lock had jammed, and it took them about 5 minutes before I could drive in! We checked into a room towards the back-side of the resort and figured out a few things we could do the next day.. Safari was not on the plan for Saturday, however we wanted to go to Corbett Falls and plan for a Safari on Sunday… The additional information we got from the resort guy did not really lift our spirits as it included mood-dampners like the grasslands were still under water, most paths inside the jungle were still broken, and there were extremely low sightings so far! Except that he could arrange for a jeep for us to drive around the reserve area (outside the main forest) where there were chances of tiger-sighting! Now personally, I am not a fan of animal sighting! I love the jungle, and I hated the fact that I am not going to be able to enjoy the ride like I would have liked it!We also had to change the room almost immediately after we checked it, as the bed was a spring-bed, and a broken one at that! The shift was prompt, and we called it a day (or night or midnight) after a quick cup of tea!
On our way to Nainital via Kaladhungi
Saturday Morning!We woke up to an thick overcast sky, and did not realise that it was raining too till we opened our room door! It did not make much of a difference at that time as Pooja and myself both were not too keen on staying in that resort or waste our day driving around for nothing! We did not really know what we wanted to do, but we knew that we were checking out of the resort! We did, and decided our next milestone with a cup of tea outside the resort!“There is something about tea made on burning wood.. something different… something that energises me differently”
Its very pleasing to click Radha and see that she stills good great… MUAH!
Did not know something like Choti Haldwani existed… nice find!We decided to drive towards Nainital, which was just about 50 kms (75 minutes) away and started our drive in light rain, with slow speeds enjoying the weather! The rain had stopped, and we drove via Kaladhungi, Choti Haldwani, to reach the foothills, and by the time were reach Tallital, it was raining heavily again! This time it was not rain, but a hailstorm… and both of us were wondering as to why the Rain Gods seem to be too pleased or angry with us.. It had rained like crazy in almost all of our trips together!1. Indonesia… We did not see the Kintamani Volcano and had a rainy walk to Monkey Forest2. Ranikhet… It was a trip with falling rocks, landslides, and overflowing rivers3. Goa… Wasted about half a day waiting for the rain to stop… made us move to hiring a car from a bike too (but that turned out to be good)4. Singapore… Well, there are just two types of days there as Aseem puts it… with rain, and with heavy rain!5. Jim Corbett.. Rains again!But we were commited to having a good time, with rain or without 🙂 So we found a nice cozy room with a lovely view at the Lake Side Inn and spent an hour waiting for the rain to stop! It converted into a light drizzle giving us enough time to walk around without an umbrella! And the waiting time did give us an opportunity to enjoy Maggi while looking out of huge glass windows! Bliss!
What is interesting in this photograph is that OM is opposite in all of them due to air-flowWe just walked around the Mall eating snacks and had a few glasses of tea again while it rained and almost snowed, and we had a lovely view of the hailstorm from under a canopy next to the Naini Lake! The number of people was low in Nainital that evening, and the roads were empty, and it stopped raining too after a bit, giving us a few more hours to walk around on the mall road and the local markets!Chaat, Shopping, Chai, Talking, Walking, Shooting were what we did that evening!Finally called it a day after having some delicious Vegetable Biryani
Langurs enjoying the rainy evening
Wire cycle-rickshaws at a roadside shop.. They are made from a single piece of wire(just the frame)Sunday MorningLooked like the Rain Gods had finally made peace with the fact that Pooja and me would travel, come whatever may, and we were welcomed with a lovely bright sunny morning! It was a long drive back home, and we dediced to start driving back by 1100 hrs to reach NOIDA by 2000 hrs. With the kind of roads and distance, it would take about 8 hours for sure, specially the Sunday traffic back to Delhi!
Shikaras in the Naini Lake
Empty Tea Glasses at a road-side Tea-ShopThe drive back via Kathgodam – Haldwani – Udham Singh Nagar (Rudrapur) – Rampur – Moradabad Bypass – Hapur was mostly uneventful except a deroute forced because of Behenji as she likes to be called, or for others, Ms. Mayawati, Chief Minister of UP. Rampur was sealed because of her visit, and we were forced to look around for options which involved driving through the town, trusting our direction instincts, and drive through a village with mud roads, and lanes just wide enough for the Palio to move through!Rest is mostly history! with Future looking very bright with a few good trips on the cards! Enjoy some more photographs below….
Steamy Tea…
People at the T-Shop
Like I said… it was a hail-storm
One of the two Tea-Shops we had Tea at… this guy was selling everything from Tea t0 Bread-Omlette, Bun-Omlette, Boiled Eggs, Pakodas, Cream Rolls...
Corn-cobs (Bhutte)… They taste different on a rainy evening…
Nothing warms cold fingers better than a wood fire…
Eggs were plenty around the Mall Road…
Another view from the same Chai ki Dukaan…
This guy was really happy to have his photograph clicked…I think this is one of the biggest satisfactions of being a photographer… an opportunity to make people smile!
Loved the steam coming out of the pressure cooker… the 10 min wait was worth it…
Nainital Post Office
Ripe Red tomatoes for the OmlettesNow for some objective information1a. Distance from NOIDA to RamNagar : Approximately 250 kms1b. Driving time : about 6 hours in the night with low traffic… Add another hour if driving in the day because of local traffic2a. Distance from Ramnagar to Nainital : Approx. 65 kms2b. Driving time : About 2 hours (Do take a break to enjoy the view somewhere)3a. Distance from Nainital to NOIDA : Approx. 310 kms3b. Driving time in the day : Approx. 8 hours with local traffic and bad roads and work in progress flyoversRecommended eating joints on the way :1. McDonalds just after Gajraula on the road towards Moradabad2. Meriton just before Gajraula towards Delhi… Its almost opposite McDonalds and serves decent food3. There are many dhabas near the Garhmukteshwar and Gajraula, however I am not sure if I would stop there to have food… snacks and tea would be my choice thereI drove a total of about 660 kilometers over that weekend, and loved every second of it! Pooja is an amazing addition to my co-traveler list, and there is not much other than that a man can ask for! isn’t it? -
What is! what would be?
I remember listening to this song, and songs like these on the radio when I was a kid! Felt good about the simplicity of messages being given via these!!!Cut to today, when what I see all around is a strong negative vibe about almost everything which happens in one’s life! Jobs/ Family/ Infrastructure/ Government/ Policies/ Taxes/Curruption and what not!These songs had extreme positivity and commitment in them! And I think what we are today is not because of what we do today, but what people and leaders about 30 years ago did! We are only seeing the fruits of whatever effort in whatever direction they put in! and if someone starts a change today, its going to be visible in only about a decade or maybe more!I feel extremely sad at the kind of country that we are going to pass on to the new generation! Am I talking like a concerned father? 🙂 I think marriage does that to people! I am thinking of what can I do to give my kids a better world to live in!!!Oh, and if it interests you, you can see the kid Aruna Irani @ 1.57 minutes into the first song and again at 2:49 -
Back from the hills!
Stay for two nights at Ranikhet – Rs. 5700Food Bills for the trip – Rs. 2400Fuel for about 800 kms – Rs. 4500- Dodging falling rocks and rushing through the rock-rain within a matter of seconds
- Gathering courage to cross a fresh active landslide, and driving over rocks and trees
- Driving over huge rocks with just about an inch of possible error margin
- Watching river Kosi in its full flow, and driving through rushing waters for about 100 meters
Priceless!!!!!Came back from a wonderfully rejuvenating break from Ranikhet and around! and brought back a whole lot to talk and think about for a long time!
