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...

The High Life

Yercaud.

The bird song that woke me on Sunday was a little too loud. I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the pre-dawn light and tried to remember where I was. "Ah, yes... the weekend in a tree house!" The bird sang again and I crawled across the creaking floor to the doorway and peered out at the leaves silhouetted against the grey of the morning. Covering myself with a blanket, I sat and listened as the chorus of birds greeted the rising sun.

It was still too dark to distinguish between the birds and the leaves, so I shook off the cobwebs in my head and tiptoed back into the room, washed my face in the alga-green water, grabbed my binoculars and headed down the ladder and out. I'm sure the others were awake but didn't share my feathery obsession.

As I walked through the coffee shrubs to the road, a little Jungle Owlet silently glided out of the leaves and alighted on a twig in front of me. A glance over his shoulder and he was off again. Just past the gate of the estate, an Asian Fairy Bluebird was hunting from his post on the tree by the road. The deep red eyes, in sharp contrast to his blue and black coat, ignored me as I watched him shuttle to and fro across the road.

Up the road I went, towards Pagoda Point (or Pakoda Point, depending on which sign you choose to believe) smiling happily at all I met on the road, stray dogs and humans alike. Anjali had mentioned that she'd seen some woodpeckers near the check dam that we'd walked to the day before, that's where my footsteps turned. A crowd of Jungle Babblers babbled noisily in the clump of trees caught in the turn of the road. Among them, a Brown-fronted Pygmy Woodpecker made his way up the trunk of a silver oak. A pair of Gold-fronted Leafbirds flew from tree to tree near the check dam.

By this time, my stomach was crying out for breakfast, so reluctantly I turned back. A Crested Serpent Eagle sat watching me watching him, and then regally spread his wings a flew over the valley and into the distance. The White-cheeked Barbets sang a loud chorus and the Plum-headed Parakeets screamed along. As I walked through the gate to the estate, I spotted three Greater Flameback Woodpeckers getting breakfast and I was reminded to go get my own.

'Twas quite a morning with Magpie Robins, Scarlet Minivets, Ashy Woodswallows, Coppersmith Barbets and Rufous Treepies added to my list.

After breakfast and a guided hike to the edge of the Shevaroy Hills, we drove down to Yercaud town, found some bicycles and rode some way around the lake. After lunch, we left Glenrock Estates and Yercaud behind and drove back to Bangalore. The tree house stay was too short; high in a banyan tree, it was surprisingly large, easily holding all five of us, though the bamboo partition for the bathroom is not for the shy. Perhaps I'll visit again some day and listen to the Racket-tailed drongos scream outside the window once more. And perhaps I'll pay more attention to the many butterflies that flitted through the trees.

Holi Colours

From beneath the flowering Persian Lilac (Melia Azedarach) tree, I looked up and saw a sky of the truest blue through the fresh green leaves of spring. White clouds sailed across the blue, silhouetting a pair of crows in shiny black.

The sun went down painting the clouds pink and purple, leaving behind a soft golden glow. Behind the hibiscus, the full moon rose fading from yellow to white, till finally, the world was just different shades of grey.

No Black Panther

Dandeli.

It was pouring when we sleepily disembarked from the Ajmer Express at Londa. I could see the taxi drivers' eyes light up when they saw us descend the walkway over the tracks, what with two French women leading the way. With a start like that, the fare bargaining, expectedly, was most unfair. Anyway, after unsuccessfully haggling a bit, we drove off into the monsoon green and to our home for the weekend - two spacious rooms at the Jungle Lodges' Kali River Resort.

The Kali River, the boatman told us, is named after the black appearance of the water. The rains, however, had turned it into the colour of a light coffee. The crocodiles took the opportunity presented by the short break in the rain to drag themselves out of their lethargy by soaking in the cloud filtered sun-rays. Women from the village across the river took the same opportunity to wash clothes down by the river. They've always done this with no fear of the crocodiles because there are fish aplenty in the river.

The driver stopped the jeep suddenly and killed the engine. The silence of the forest is shattered by the shriek of a Crested Serpent Eagle. There he was, perched on a leafless branch looking over our jeep at a ripple in the pond. He shrieked again, gave us one disdainful glare and gracefully soared into the trees. Methinks he was mightily displeased by our interference in his hunt of the rat snake in the pond. The ripple that was the rat snake must have thanked his lucky stars. The other creatures we disturbed that evening were a herd of gaur, a wild boar, a malabar giant squirrel, some spotted deer, a few emerald doves and dozens of peafowl. The forest is clad in its thickest coat at this time of year, so I wasn't surprised at the meagre returns of our safari.

Screeching hornbills woke me up the next morning. Gathering wits and camera, I stumbled out into the grey dawn. Malabar grey hornbills and malabar pied hornbills adorned the higher reaches of the trees, squabbling about what I do not know, but kicking up one helluva ruckus to be sure. The racket-tailed drongos we saw on the morning walk, the noisy ones in any hunting party, seemed courteous and polite after the chaos of the hornbills. They were accompanied on their hunt by common flameback woodpeckers and scarlet minivets. The path we walked through the forest was netted by spider webs, most prominently those of the giant wood spiders. Frogs and grasshoppers leapt out of our clumsy way giving the forest floor a nervous appearance. A rufous woodpecker on a silver oak completed my morning walk.

The rest of the day was then spent trying to fool each other at bluff, and other card games. And then it was time for the bus ride back to Bangalore. Aurelie, Emilie, Manik and Dillu... merci beaucoup!

Of Clouds and Leeches

Agumbe.

I'm pretty glad Siddharth made it to the bus seconds before we left. So much would have been lost in translation had he missed the bus. Reminder to self - learn Kannada.

I was a little sceptical when Kasturi Akka told me over the phone, in a mixture of Kannada, Hindi and English, that all I had to do to find the house was to ask for where Kasturi stays. But Dodda Mane was exactly that easy to find. Just around the corner from the bus stand, and everyone knows Kasturi Akka.

Stepping into the house is almost like stepping through a window in time. A hundred and ten years, the house has stood; stone, supported on ornate wooden pillars, built in the traditional style of the people of the ghats. In the middle, the courtyard that once had been the place where the head of the village had dispensed his justice was being pounded by the monsoon. We were directed to a large room upstairs with windows that seemed to glow with the emerald green of the rainforest.

After a breakfast of Neer Dosas and too-spicy chutney, we headed off to Jogigundi: "find electric pole 67 and turn right off the road and follow the path. And watch for the leeches." The road wound through the greenest green accompanied by butterflies fluttering whimsically from flower to flower. The rain stopped and started, drizzling sometimes, pouring sometimes. The birds took every pause in the rain to break into song, teasing us by flitting about in the leaves, just out of sight. Frogs, toads and grasshoppers leapt joyfully by the side of the road. The unfortunate ones had been run over by the overnight traffic. We saw a malabar pit viper, a checkered keelback, two caecilians and hundreds of frogs dead on the road.

A little way down the road, Nisha snorted disgustedly at what looked like fruit packing on the side of the road. As she bent over to pick up the litter, her expression changed to wonder. It was the most amazing mushroom any of us had ever seen; a peach-pink lantern on the forest floor. As we walked along we caught little glimpses into what must exist deep within the rainforest; the beautiful purple plant parasite, the yellow succulent flower, the wood-ear mushrooms, the orchids in the trees.

And then we were at electric pole no. 67. The path to the right was there, leading invitingly into the forest. My research before the trip had taught me that insect repellents do keep leeches away, so we smeared some on our feet and stepped in. The first thing to greet us was a bicolored frog, confident in its camouflage sitting on the forest floor. And then there were leeches everywhere. Stopping only to pull the leeches off our ankles we were very quickly at the waterfall. The water falls through large boulders on the side of a wall of rock into a pool from where it continues down to where I know not. We spent an hour exploring the rocks around the waterfall and a little way downstream. On the way back, Rohan and I saw a Malabar Trogon, one of the birds on our wish-list. There were so many birds in that one place that we decided to come back there if we could; electric pole 42.

We slept through the afternoon and then went to the edge of the Someshwar Ghat to watch the sunset. There wasn't a sunset in the way of a traditional sunset, but the view was breathtaking . The clouds looked like they were pouring down the ghats on our right into the valley below. Little clouds between the trees on the forest floor looked like puffs of smoke. And this green and white carpet spread out before us as far as we could see. A bright red crab sat on the rock with us as we watched the light fade behind the clouds.

Undeterred by the lack of a sun in the sunset, we set out early the next morning to see the sunrise. The Jain temple on top of the hill had been built of stones quarried from the rock it stood on. One of the pools that had formed was full of huge bull frogs croaking their hearts out. The clouds swirled around us and the rain beat down heavily. The sun must have risen behind all that. There's an indescribable peace standing on top of that hill in the pouring rain

Nisha and Siddharth went to Sringeri to see the temples there while Rohan and I decided to go back to the electric poles to see if we could spot some birds. And spot some, we did! Racket-tailed drongos, scarlet minivets, pompadour green pigeons, white-bellied treepies, black bulbuls, black headed bulbuls, dark-fronted babblers, malabar parakeets, malabar gray hornbills, hill mynahs were the highlights. There were so many others which we didn't identify because we couldn't keep up with them. I finally saw the malabar whistling thrush which has been teasing me with it's schoolboy whistle through so many forest hikes. And we saw the malabar trogon again! On the way back, we had to take shelter from the rain in a cowshed. The owner of the place saw us standing under the eaves and invited us in. They were a most jolly family, thoroughly amused at our inability to understand a word they said (learn Kannada). On the way back, we were startled by a barking deer and our third malabar giant squirrel. My good deed of the day was to pick up a pill millipede off the road and put it back in the leaf litter.

Lunch was special - mango curry, bamboo shoot curry and a snack made of acacia leaves wrapped around something I can't remember. Rohan's appetite wasn't tickled.

Onaki Abbe was our final destination. The path was a carpet of leeches. We moved swiftly through the forest till the path disappeared in the undergrowth. It was getting dark when we finally turned around. By then, we had surrendered to the leeches and were letting them have their way with us. Back on the road, a truck driver saw the blood on my feet and stopped to tell me to put salt. 'Uppu Illa' I told him and asked for a ride into the village, and so we rode atop a sand truck to the nearest restaurant where I asked for salt and watched as the bloated leeches dropped off my feet. We walked barefoot back to Dodda Mane, stood outside and washed the blood off our feet. Tissue paper served to stop the bleeding. There were so many leeches in Nisha's shoes that she decided to leave them behind.

We said goodbye to Kasturi Akka and headed to the bus stand, just in time to catch the bus back to Bangalore. I broke out in rashes because of my allergy to leech-bites, making me look rather scary, but that subsided halfway back to Bangalore. And I found a last couple of leeches; one on my ankle and one on my arm.

The infection from the leech-bites has gone away now after a heavy dose of antibiotics and the wounds have almost healed. It was quite an adventure, and methinks it's time to plan a trip back there. I still have to visit Onaki Abbe and Barkhana.