The N Family

Coorg.

Last year's visit to the Synthesis Homestay made me a new friend, Namratha. Her parents, Naresh and Namita, took such excellent care of us that when she said she was going home for the holidays, I offered to drive her home. And in the process, I invited myself to their estate again.

Since it was the monsoon, I expected it to be raining heavily and constantly for the entire weekend, so I planned to sit in the patio with cups of tea getting my fill of dripping green. As it turned out, the rains stayed away, mostly, and I ended up with a bunch of highlights: Blue bearded bee-eater, what a blue! Pork for every meal. Shield tail snake, Uropeltidae, while walking at night. Crested Serpent Eagle sitting close enough to identify without binoculars. Buff-striped keelback at my feet. Namratha as a guide to the estate.

And then when I got back to town, I learned that Shield-tailed snakes are only found in the Western Ghats! And what I've spent my life calling hammerhead leeches are really terrestrial planaria, or flatworms! There's still so much to learn.

Oh, and the Ns are seriously wonderful hosts!

More photos...

Same, Same, but Different

Vietnam.

Same coffee, but whitened with condensed milk, sometimes iced. Thoroughly enjoyable either way.

Same spring rolls, but wrapped in rice paper.

Same stalactites and stalagmites, but so much bigger than I've ever seen, in caves named 'Amazing' and 'Surprise'. The surprise was the source of humankind.

Same Latin script, but not a single recognizable word. Well, recognizable if pronounced, but what would 'Bich Lap' or 'Phuoc Long' mean?

Same pieces of paper, but spent in millions of dongs. A significant amount of time went into wondering if we were actually paying a reasonable amount of something we were buying - I mean, is it reasonable for dinner to cost millions?

Same sounds of war (probably), but now made by tourists shooting AK-47s and M-16s.

Same tunnels, but no longer used by rebels, just by well-fed visitors.

Same taxis, but some of them have meters that run at five times the speed. I think we were taking for a ride in just one of those.

Same ancient Hindu temples, but pockmarked with bullet holes. The ruins at My Son are relics of a Cham civilization that thrived for many hundreds of years.

Same communism, but you wouldn't know it, apart from the blocking of facebook.

Same international apparel brands, but available at two different prices - the brand price, and the locally made price. The quality is still excellent though.

Same songs, but covered in an undecipherable accent.

Same secret war strategy room, but now a family shrine to the man who ran 'Pho Binh' right under the American noses through the war. The chairs on which the leaders of the Viet Cong planned their attacks on the Americans are still there.

Same En Chiang though. No matter that they thought I was Vietnamee.

Lots of photos...

Root Beer and Bubble Tea

Malaysia.

When Air Asia added Bangalore to its list of destinations early this year and offered cheap introductory fares to Kuala Lumpur, a bunch of us made a spur of the moment decision to visit the country that was 'truly Asia' during the Diwali break. We didn't realize then that early November is the beginning of the monsoon off-season. It turned out to be quite a blessing because the hotels and resorts were all offering low season discounts.

The Paradiso Bed and Breakfast in Bukit Bintang is a clean, comfortable, backpacker's hostel, which is, interestingly, and initially frighteningly, located above an 'unprofessional' foot massage parlour. The narrow staircase is guarded till the wee hours by overly made-up women in short-skirts hawking their wares making every return to the hotel vaguely embarrassing. The proprietor and the employees of Paradiso more than make up for this inconvenience with friendly service, a convenient breakfast, and useful suggestions about how to spend time in Malaysia.

The first suggestion was a walk through the more interesting parts of Kuala Lumpur. The Islamic Art Museum apart from their regular exhibits was hosting a display on Islamic architecture in India. For me, the fascinating part was the discovery of how big an influence Islam has had in China. Actually, I should have known; after all, the Mongols were all Khans!

At the Bird Park we sheltered from the giant raindrops in the Hornbill Restaurant. This restaurant's balcony is within the walk-in aviary of the Bird Park, so we had three species of hornbill, a hill myna and some really greedy, beady-eyed egrets for company over lunch.

Petaling Street, on the way back in China Town, has all the designers that I have heard of and plenty that I haven't, all made locally. Oh, and I love bubble tea - the original milk tea flavour.

Bukit Bintang is a fascinating place. There was something happening every evening on the sidewalk just across the road from our hotel - a BMX biking competition, a Brazilian martial arts demonstration - on Halloween there was a Count Dracula, two vampires, five Stormtroopers and an assortment of night creatures walking about the street. Oh, and I love root beer.

If Bukit Bintang is the place where things happen, then Tioman Island in November is the place where nothing happens. Colourful fish in clear blue water, white sand beaches leading steeply up forested slopes, lonely waterfalls - paradise. We met a man there who's probably living the retired life that most people just dream of. This man of Punjabi and Malay descent retired from KL to be the caretaker of a shack on Juara Beach, spending his days bumming around one of the most beautiful places in the world.

From one of the world's most beautiful islands, we went to one of the world's oldest tropical rainforests in Taman Negara. The journey to Taman Negara was a three hour bus ride through rubber and palm plantations followed by a two hour panoramic boat ride up the Tembeling River. We had a huge dorm room to ourselves. The pair of tapir we saw on the first night were probably the highlight of the trip. The forest floor is alive with scorpions and centipedes and the trees are hung with webs in innumerable patterns. Actually, maybe the highlight was the tarantula we saw. Or maybe the barred kingfisher or maybe swinging from a tree into the river or maybe the walk through the canopy. Or... sigh! Or maybe it was just the company of Sylvie and Jean-Loup and the plans we made of exploring Nice and Cannes with them.

And then there was Melaka. The best part of Melaka was Jonker's Walk and the visit to the Baba Nyonya museum (the guide, Sabrina, was full of loud, innuendo-laden advice about the matters between the sexes). Of course, there was the Hakka artist whose home studio we walked into. One look at me and he says in Hakka, "You have long earlobes, just like the Buddha. You will live long." There's something comforting about finding someone that speaks the same language that you do in an unfamiliar place.

My visa's valid for a year.... Langkawi, Penang, Borneo!

More photos...

Peace be...

There's an eerie stillness in the air. Or is it just the trepidation in my heart? I hope this beautiful day is not the calm before the storm. Just the day that India chose the higher road.

Do I believe that the voices calling for calm will be heeded? I pray they will.

There will be peace, I know.

Strains On The Kapila

Shishila.

The first little rapid on the Kapila, and 'supplies!', my oar snaps in half, I hit a strainer, my ducky flips over and I get a serious arse-whupping from the rocks. Quite an introduction to kayaking, wouldn't you say? As I was tipped into the racing water, I wondered if I should have stuck to my plan of going hiking. But as quick as the thought came, it was gone and I enjoyed a thrilling swim down the rapid.

With my slightly painfully gained respect for the river, I got back in the ducky with a fresh oar, and spent an exhilarating six hours paddling over rapids, wave-trains and pools back to the 'Stream of Joy', the home-stay where we were put up. We practiced tossing the throw-bag at people body-surfing down one of the larger rapids. Sohan, Manik and Vijay practiced their rolls in the pools between rapids with varying degrees of success. It is amazing how quickly breakfast is digested when one is paddling. The packet of dates and chikki didn't last very long at all.

Sohan managed to get everybody out of bed and eating breakfast by seven the next morning. The local food wasn't doing my stomach any favours, and it was only at the last minute that I decided to run the river again. Naren, Jaggi and Chetan decided not to join us so that they could head back to Bangalore early, but they did come along to the put-in. We caught up with them at the temple where they were feeding the Mahseer that live protected in that stretch of the Kapila. The second run down the river was quicker but not without incident. Just as we approached the largest rapid on the stretch, Sid floated into an overhanging branch which tipped him over. Vijay and Kiran had to scramble to retrieve his boat and paddle. Then while surfing one of the holes a little further downriver, Kiran's paddle broke and he ended up sitting on a rock in the middle of the river with his boat beached on the bank. That same rapid saw Sid's paddle break as well.

Back at the home-stay, we loaded the equipment into Naveen's van so that they would be able to get back to Bangalore before it got too late. Sohan, Kiran, Sid and I then hired a jeep to go the the Neriya river to recce a Class IV rapid. One look at the crashing water, and I knew that I would have to spend a whole lot more time studying rivers and rapids before I would be ready to take the rapid on. On the way back, we stopped at a point that is downstream of the 'Stream of Joy' on the Kapila where there is a waterfall and a gorge. It's a beautiful stretch of the river and one that I probably would not take on even if I had a lifetime of studying rivers behind me!

And in the manner of all birders, I must mention that there are a large number of Stork-billed Kingfishers on the river, apart from the White-breasted and Small Blue. Pied and Grey Wagtails and some variety of Sandpiper. One Malabar Pied Hornbill and two different species of large raptor. Rufous Treepies, Racket-tailed Drongos and Coucals. And Cormorants aplenty. Oh, and two Rat Snakes crossing the road for those more reptilian in interest.

Row, row, row your boat, gently..... Oops! Splash!

One Not-so-rainy Monsoon Weekend

Dandeli.

The long awaited monsoon trip to Dandeli finally happened. The Friday evening traffic did give us a scare but Ajmal knows his way around and after waiting a longish while under a cloud of passing fruit bats, we made it to Yesvantpur well in time for our train to Hubli.

The short walk from the Dandeli bus stop to the Kali Adventure camp passes over the Kali river. Cinnamon Bitterns and Little Herons aplenty roost on the banks and on the little rock islands under the bridge. The surprise of the morning was the huge White-bellied Sea Eagle that flew gracefully over us as it headed upstream. The Brahminy Kite looked so small in comparison. At the camp gate, we spotted a Rufous Woodpecker and a Black Rumped Flameback. When we finally made it to the camp, all of us had neckaches from lugging our bags along while peering through our binoculars.

Malabar Grey Hornbills and Malabar Pied Hornbills argued raucously in the trees above our tents as we washed the unsanitary smell of the Indian Railways from our nasal memories. The rest of the morning was spent walking through the forest department nursery and the forest beyond. An uneventful safari in the Dandeli National Park after lunch resulted in us wondering if there really were any mammals in the forest. We didn't see anything at all! No deer, no bison... nothing for any invisible black panthers to prey on.

Back at camp, darkness came along with calling frogs and glowing worms. The view from our tents was of the paper mill spewing smoke into the orange-hued sky above the trees. The guides told us that no one had been to the Cavala caves since the monsoons began and that there would be leeches and that it was King Cobra breeding season - reasons for us steer clear of the caves - and so we decided that that would be our destination in the morning.

The walk to the Cavala caves starts from the end of one of the safari paths in the Dandeli forest. The intrepid couple that accompanied us on this hike soon found us stopping for every little creature along the forest floor - frogs, spiders, ants, mushrooms, caterpillars, millipedes - each one got its turn in front of our cameras. Suddenly, there was the sound not unlike the rotors of a helicopter accompanied by a loud buzz. I ducked thinking that someone had disturbed a beehive, but the guide grabbed me by the shoulder and pointed into the canopy. Above me, I saw the sunlight shining through the yellow stripe in the wings of a Great Indian Hornbill. And I was left gaping in wonder as it flapped and buzzed its way over the valley to the opposite ridge. And I gaped some more as three more of these huge, beautiful birds that inhabit this patch of forest took off into the distance. Only when they were gone did I realize that I had not even pointed my camera at the hornbills! Oh well, photos in the mind.... photos in the mind....

It took us four hours to make it to the stairs that led down to the caves. The algae on the stairs and the sudden appearance of a steeply diving hornbill resulted in Shreeram landing on his rather substantial backside which in turn resulted in a raft of poor jokes about the invention of chapatis and other such flattened preparations. The ceiling of the cave is covered in thousands of bats (false vampires, perhaps) and while we were examining the bats through our binoculars, Suma spotted a snake up amongst them. On closer examination, it turned to be a Forsten's cat snake in the act of swallowing one of the bats! And from its distended stomach, it looked like the bat was the third in the line. We found one more cat snake coiled in the holes in the limestone ceiling. The walk back to the jeep took just a little more than an hour.

In the evening, we visited Syntheri Rock, a large monolith being slowly worn away by the raging Kali River. The whistling schoolboy, the Malabar Whistling Thrush was hopping on the rocks by the water. The rocks, where they were wet, had little tadpoles with bluish spots heading off to become frogs. The rock face has nesting swifts and the hives of rock bees and fruiting wild banana trees.

The last morning, we visited the Old Magazine House at Ganeshgudi where the guide said we would see many birds, but by the time we got there, the sun was already high in the sky and apart from a Ruby-throated Bulbul and a soaring pair of Crested Serpent Eagles we didn't see much in the way of birds. However, we found a huge Tarantula nest in the mud near one of the huts at the Old Magazine House, but we'd have had to have been there at night to catch a sight of the spider. We did spot a rat snake by the road and Romit saw another one high up on a bamboo.

Back at the camp, we relaxed until it was time to catch the bus to Hubli and the train back to Bangalore. It was a trip with much to remember, the snakes in the bat cave, the Great Indian Hornbills, the White-bellied Sea Eagle, but mainly, it was memorable because of the meeting of so many curious minds.

More photos...

Far From The Madding Goa

Goa.

It was almost too late to catch the 9.30pm bus when I finally decided that the twelve hour bus-ride would be worth enduring for three days in sunny Goa. That sentence eventually ended up being truthful in just one aspect - that the bus-ride would be worth it, though even that was a close thing.

For starters, the bus left only at 10.30pm. And, the cyclone Phyan in the Arabian sea clouded up the sun for all but a few minutes of my stay. And, twelve hours... well, the Seabird Travels bus broke down at Ranebennur which is about halfway to Panaji. The conductor then tells me that they would arrange for another bus, but that would take four hours, maybe. The passengers were encouraged to make their own way, and so I did - from Ranebennur to Hubli and then on to Panaji, enduring a massive traffic jam close to Ponda. And so I made it to Panaji at 4.30pm instead of the scheduled 9.45am effectively making my stay two days only. The journey has one magnificent memory for me though - the first rays of the sun, lighting up the cotton clouds from below, hitting the faces of huge fields of blooming yellow sunflower. This sight, somewhere between Ranebennur and Hubli, lit up my entire journey.

Saturday was almost gone by the time I bathed the dust of the road off me so all Abhi and I could fit in was a walk on Miramar beach in the dark. There were hundreds of jellyfish beached on the sand and another unusual anemone-like creature attached to the outside of a discarded shell. We must have looked quite suspicious searching the sand meticulously in the dark with the dim light from my cellphone torch. But then it was time for a dinner of excellent pork balchao at Mum's Kitchen. This mum of mine sure does charge a lot for her cooking!

We woke Jyothika early on Sunday to take us to the Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary on the island of Chorao showing her her first Goan sunrise in the process. The mangrove forest had Abhi and I mesmerised. The habitat is so different from the forests of the western ghats which we'd explored together. There were fiddler crabs duelling in the mud with their single large pincers, mudskippers hopping around with their fins and Little Herons skulking around in the shadows. We saw Greenshanks and Redshanks and Common Sandpipers aplenty. Oh, and the ferry ride to the island is free if you're not taking your car!

Back in Panjim, we explored Fontainhas, the old Latin quarter with brightly coloured bungalows and white churches. Goan sausages and prawn curry for lunch at Panjim Inn. And then we caught the ferry (another free ride!) from near the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Old Goa to Divar Island, taking our rental bikes this time. The ride up the wooded hill on the island passed many beautiful homes that I would love to live in. There's a beautiful church, the Church of Our Lady of Compassion, on top of the hill and plenty of birds in the trees. Small Minivets darted through the sky above us as we explored the church grounds. Back on the mainland, we passed the Viceroy's Arch, which, in my head, is the Portuguese equivalent of the Gateway of India and visited the Church of St. Cajetan. I was quite captivated by the inside of this church. The paintings mounted on its walls are magnificent! And, apparently, the dome of this church is modelled on the one in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

Abhi and I spent Monday morning wandering first around Fort Aguada where I saw the Grey Headed Bulbul for the first time, and then around Baga Hill and Baga Creek. There was absolutely no one on Baga Hill apart from some frustratingly evasive birds and a patrolling plainclothes cop who warned us to be careful as there had been many "incidents" there. It's really peaceful up there in the dancing gold grass. Back down the hill and across Baga Creek is the Xavier Retreat House, and once we had walked beyond that, there was one last shack and then just the Arabian Sea washing up against the shore. We sat on a rocky promontory and watched it drizzle on the waves.

Thankfully the ride back to Bangalore wasn't as eventful as the ride to Goa.

More photos...