An Early Hour Ride to Nandi Hills

First of all we thought of reaching Nandi Hills by Saturday late night. But Binoy was feeling that he is going to get fever, so we wait till next day morning 3:45 am. In between we called up Nithin who also agreed to join us from near HAL by 4:15am. When we woke up at 3:45am Binoy felt OK, and we decided to go. By 4:15am we started from HSR lay out and reached Nithin’s flat and picked him. We drove in a hurry towards Nandi Hills so that we may not miss the sun rise. This is the fifth time I am visiting Nandi Hills.


We reached there by 6:00 am just in time of sun rise. Wav! The clouds were like as if we see them from a flight. The white clouds which turned yellowish and reddish in the rising Sun’s light were so low in altitude that it covered the entire low lying places, so that we felt like we were on top of a floating peak. In distance near the sun you can see hills popping up from the clouds. We had tea from the near by shops and took few snaps of the rising sun. Lot of people was already there to view the sun rise.

A monkey sitting on the edge of a projected steel structure watching the valley was of particular interest, you can see the picture above. By the time I was about to make a little close up picture of it, some mobile camera photograph enthusiast make it run of fear while taking snaps.

While we were walking near the edge of the cliff, my cameras ring near the lens hood slipped of my hand and the wind took it down the cliff. Binoy and Nithin asked me not to take risk of searching it near the cliff, but I was not ready to leave it, since I was sure, I am not going to get it separately from a shop and I was sure the ring has not gone too far. I managed to climb down a little through the cliff where the ring disappeared and after a search of 10 minutes, I got it for my relief, you can see the picture above of me searching for it, taken by Binoy.

Binoy And Nithin

We left the place around 6:30 as we had to attend the Sunday mass and reached back Bangalore by 8:30 and had our breakfast from a mallu mess. (Puttum Kadalayum).

Sun Set of October from Global Village

I got this wine-red sunset picture from Global Village while we were having coffee on the same evening from the Cafeteria on the top of MindTree’s Phase 1 building. Global Village or West Campus as MindTree Minds calls the place – the new campus of MindTree situated at Pattanigare, behind RVCE, Mysore Road.

Neelgiri Thar (Varayadu) and Neelakurinchi in Munnar

Neelakurinchi blooms once in 12 years. But the people who belongs Munnar say it is not that accurate, the plants blooms once in a blue moon day. Better say, Neelakurinchi blooms approximately in 12 years. One tourist from Thekkadi who came along with his kids to see the blossom said that this particular plant blooms now and then, but not every year, and the kind of bloom that happened now occurs around once in 12 years. The flower ‘Neelakurinchi’ is a very small one, with a length of approximately one and half inch, but when it blooms covering an entire mountain like a carpet, the scene is a visual delight. While we reached there, the bloom was almost about to finish, leaving blue patches here and there in Rajamala.

The amount of tourists those who were coming to see the bloom were un-imaginable. We had to wait in the queue for tickets to the mountain top for almost 4 and half hours. The forest department enforced pass to the location and tourists were not allowed to walk up to the place even, but the facility arranged for the tourists were very limited, causing every body to wait in the queue for long. The bad thing was that some of those forest guards helped people who bribed them to get a pass without waiting in the queue and the police force that were present over there, also were practicing these kinds of corruptions.

The mountain thar or so called Neelagiri thar (Varayadu in Malayalam) is an endangered species and is only seen in these mountains of Idukki in the entire earth. Scientists say that the age of these mountain goats can be determined by counting the number of rings formed in the two horns of these animals. A male is clearly distinguished by the darker color in its body and the size.

In the past, sighting once of these mountain goats was luck, but now, Munnar is a crowded place, and these animals are so tamed that they will come so near to humans without any fear. This is a dangerous fact since it opens a better chance for diseases to be spread to these wild animals from Humans. More over poachers can easily catch one of these animals, even though these species are protected as a wild animal as well as an endangered one. The sign boards that ask tourists to preserve the Neelakurinchi and Varayadu for the future generation is really a good work. But people need to develop a more eco friendly and nature loving mind to make them disciplined towards the nature.

Exotic Munnar

The photo published here describes Munnar better than words. Abins commented that Munnar looks like Switzerland. Yes it is truly exotic. God blesses this place with enormous natural beauty. Situated in the district of Idukki (also called High Range) this location plays an important role in the tourism development of Kerala. Devikulam national park is the habitat of many wild animals including the endangered species – “Varayadu – The Mountain Thar or Neelagiri Thar”.

Our two day holiday out of which one day went in traveling from and to Bangalore was not enough to enjoy the wonder of the nature. On the way to Munnar, our cab driver found it very difficult to drive through the mist, that the visibility of the road infront was too low to spot other vehicles and curves through the curved roads of the mountains.

When we were about to reach Munnar, the landscape turned amazing each minute, with tea estates stretched like a carpet through out the hills and lakes in between. The mountain tops were covered with clouds and mist, making the Malayalam lines – “Moodalmanju mulakacha choodi” eternal.

The only problem with this location is that, it is becoming too crowded with tourists. Government should take utmost care to protect the natural beauty of Munnar along with the development of tourism. This place offers a lot to those who love trekking. This wonderful location is almost isolated from the other parts of Keralam and Tamil Nadu by the mountains and forests.

The mist and dew drops on the leaves of each plant along with the chilling weather refreshed our mind. We decided to visit this location again, when we have at least 3 or 4 days to spend here. To visit all the places in Idukki and enjoy the nature, it will take more than a week’s time.

A Wonderful Dawn at Munnar

A cuckoo woke me up at 5:55 am on that Sunday morning with its sweet song. What else can make the dawn more wonderful? I decided not to sleep more though the temperature was chilling outside. Within 15 minutes I completed taking bath and got dressed up and got out of the cottage. Wav!!! The misty morning with pleasant rays from the sun is so charming. It made my day. I haven’t had to think much where to focus my camera. Everything I saw in the morning was extremely beautiful and pleasant. I bow in front of almighty artist.
Here are some pictures of shining dew drops on tree leaves. The last one, I got it by making the focus of the camera a little bit out, so that the blue color refracted from the drop got enlarged as you see below.

The sun peeping behind the misty mountains and trees was an exotic scene to watch. Here are few snaps of the same.

The misty sky added a strange beauty to the entire location, tiny drops of dew hanged from every tree leave, and those dew drops even made the spider’s web a beautiful object. The natural beauty of the morning was more than having a hot morning coffee. Here are some more snaps of the Dawn.

A Rainbow in the Morning along with the Moon

Morning welcomed us back to Bangalore with a pleasant sky after a long journey in bus back from Munnar. Just after reaching home and after a bath, I went outside to buy one packet of Milk. As usual I looked up at the sky to spot the moon, for I haven’t taken the picture of today’s moon. (This is project which is ongoing, will be in my blog within a couple of months, if the sky cooperates well). The pretty clear sky was really amazing with this semi circled rainbow, and the quarter phased moon. You can see the moon faded at the topmost border of the picture to the left after clicking and enlarging it. If the rainbow completed the circle, sun would have been outside the raibow circle, another strange fact! It would be nice to develop a technology to predict a rainbow, the location of it, the arch size of it and all. It is a difficult thing to take the picture of a rainbow in a clear sky. If I am not using the zoom, unwanted building tops would have ruined my picture, but after zooming a little bit in, the camera was not able to focus on anything, the rainbow is not a sharp subject for the camera to focus automatically. At last I put my camera in manual focus mode and turned the focus distance to some what near infinity and got this picture.

Memories of Another Wayanad–Bangalore Car Ride

This time Binoy and I decided to take the other route from Wayanad to Mysore, the one which starts from Mananthavady and go through Kartikulam, Bavali (the Kerala Karnataka border) and H.D.Kotte. We started around 5:30 and it we reached the Kerala Karnataka border around 6:15. Till then the road was nice. Starting from the border, the road was very bad for another 30 kms. After that we enjoyed the ride as the road is in very good condition till Bangalore.

We occasionally stopped in the woods when ever we saw some tree houses constructed by the localities to protect the crop from wild animals. During the twilight period, we were not able to take good photos, the low light made almost all of the photographs shaken. We some how managed to take these snaps posted here. We got to see few peacocks, deer and bison. But it was almost 7:00 or after that when we spotted these animals, and we just took snaps when we spotted a deer so near to the car. Similarly we got the snap of a bison, it was just 4 to 5 meters away from the car, but we were not brave enough to step out of the car and take the snaps, since we may not notice a panther or an elephant standing behind the car in the darkness.

Any way, the ride was fun, especially because we saw lot of wild animals, but the time and lighting condition didn’t allow us to have good snaps. We reached Mysore around 9:00 pm and had our dinner. It was the peak time of Dhasara celebration in Mysore where the Mysore palace and all other big buildings where decorated with lights in an amazing way, and of course the city faced a huge vehicle traffic that made our car to move in a 5k/h speed. We also saw lot of fire works happening here and there on account of the festival celebration.

From Mysore till Bangalore, we faced a huge traffic on behalf of the vehicles of those who returned to Bangalore after the festival celebration. The other side of the road, (towards Mysore) was almost empty. We reached home around 12:00 am. It came around 250 kms for the total journey, where it would have been around 300 kms if we take the Sulthan Bathery - Gundalpettu road.

Spiders Reloaded

It is a tough job to take the pictures of spiders using auto-focus mode, especially when it is on its web. The background will be always brighter or the objects behind will be bigger and clear, so that the camera will not see the spider at all. At last, I gave up trying with the auto mode, and tried to focus manually and got these pictures. Manual focusing with S2 IS is not that easy and will not be that accurate when compared to an SLR.

More Spiders ==> Beautiful are thee - Spiders

Alligators spotted near Kuruvadweep

First of all, this is not new news. I remember my eldest brother Biju, saying that he saw one of the creatures while he went on a one day picnic to Kuruvadweep along with his friends from NSS Engineering College, Palakkad. That was around 13-15 years ago. Now, alligators are seen in lot in the two rivers that form Kabani, which splits and join together to form Kuruvadweep. But till now, these creatures have not attacked any human beings or cows.

According to Baby chettan, who is working as a pump operator nearby this place, these reptiles are seen from around 10 am to 4pm or 5 pm, lying on the rocks in the river. They may like a daily 6 hours' sun bath, I guess.

The reptile was not clearly visible from the Payyampally side of the river. So I walked along the two bridges that is constructed across Mananthavady River, and Panamaram River and reached the other side of the river. Baby chettan helped to spot a good location where I can take a good snap of the reptile. The river is more than 100 meters wide, and was flowing full, with muddy water after the monsoon. The alligator was lying in the middle of the river so I had to use the full 12x zoom of my camera, as well as the 1.5x tele-convertor lens to get a good shot of the reptile.

I climbed up the tree shown below, to a height of 15 feet and took these snaps. Since these reptiles are now in large numbers, it is high time some government authorities should protect them so that they won’t be killed, as well as protect the people from these mammoth reptiles.

The moment we made some sound, the alligator retreated into the water and disappeared. So thinking of taking a close up shot by reaching some more near with the help of a small boat was not in the picture.