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!

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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!

Bittersweet Galle Kandy

Colombo, Kandy and Galle.

After much arithmetic gymnastics, I managed to convince myself that I could afford the four days off that I needed to make the Sri Lankan holiday. Once that was sorted, the realization dawned that four days to explore a country was not even remotely possible and the dropping of things off the agenda began. No Sigiriya, no Yala National Park.

The Hornbill Homestay was a pleasant surprise, providing excellent air-conditioned digs for US $27. Arriving in Colombo at two in the morning had us producing our passports every few kilometres at the police checkposts that reminded us that Sri Lanka was just about done warring. The other reminders of recent disaster were the signboards near the homestay showing us the evacuation routes in case of a tsunami.

I'm not the most enthusiastic shopper, but feedback from many corners had me imagining a nice Lowepro bag for my camera at half the Indian price and other such magnificent bargains, but after Odel and House of Fashion though, I was ready to move on to more familiar forms of entertainment. A lucky visit to the promenade opposite the Galle Face Hotel at sunset and we were witness to the Sri Lankan flag being ceremonially taken down for the day. And then it was time for some devilled (they devil almost anything) calamari and parotas from one of the roadside stalls across from the oldest hotel east of the Suez Canal.

Instead of staying a day at Kandy, we opted to go on a day tour that would take us to some of the places worth seeing in the hills. The first stop, after breakfast at a beautiful colonial bungalow, was the elephant orphanage at Pinnawale where the store sold elephant dung paper and all seventy eight elephants paraded across the small town to the river for a bath watched by hundreds of tourist voyeurs. At the spice garden I finally saw the plants and trees from which the spices which I've eaten for most of my life come from. The two enthusiastic Bangalore boys, Kenny and Preetham who'd joined us on the tour, volunteered for face massages and a little hair-removal (just Kenny for that one). There was also a back rub with a spice oil to encourage me to splurge on some of the ayurvedic concoctions on sale there. I resisted. For me, the star of the magnificent botanical garden with its palm avenues, orchid garden and japanese garden was the huge weeping fig (Ficus Benjamina) in the middle of a large grass field. The Temple of the Tooth Relic, on the bank of the Kandy Lake, is where the Lord Buddha's left canine is housed after being taken from his funeral pyre and smuggled into Sri Lanka in Princess Hemamali's hair when her father's kingdom was under attack. The walk around the lake has some beautiful trees and bungalows. And then, just before the drive back to Colombo, I witnessed the tail-end of the famous Kandyan cultural show with the performers eating and walking through fire.

The road down to Galle goes along the coast and at some points is just metres away from the water. What I found amusing was that each town along this road, even though you can see the water from your seat in the bus, has a signboard declaring its height above MSL (mean sea level). This, by the way, is, on an average, 3.5m!

Unawatuna is just a few kilometres further down the road and immediately reminded me of Goa with small roads and lots of beaches and seafood shacks. We put up in a guest house a two minute walk from the beach where a friend of a friend, was staying with her Sri Lankan surfer-fisherman-boyfriend. With rented bikes, we rode down the coast to a fishing village Mirissa, stopping along the way at Kogalla for a boat-ride to an island in the clear-glass backwaters. From Mirissa, we watched the sun go down over a cup of tea. We were entertained with fishing stories over a dinner of "curry and rice" and how he learnt to climb coconut trees because he had to get out of the way of the tsunami (noting that he had the perfect view of the incoming waters from his precarious perch!)

I was still sorely tempted to visit Yala, which is another 3 hours down the same coast but 6 hours on the last day was a little too much to do for a couple of hours at the park. So we opted to visit the Sinharaja rainforest instead which was supposed to be half the distance. As it turned out, we
spent 6 hours in the car anyway. But it was well worth the ride and the couple of leech bites just to see the large Green Pit Viper resting on the fronds of some fern-like plant. We also encountered hump-nosed lizards, kangaroo lizards and green garden lizards on the way to the Kekuna Falls. But the lack of time didn't allow me to 'stop and stare' at the giant trees and climbers or search the canopy for birds. On the way back, we stopped at the Galle Fort to watch the sun set. The fort is a fascinating city inside a city with Dutch cafes alongside mosques and old mediterranean-looking guesthouses.

Back at the Nirmala guest house, Sri Lanka had one last surprise for me. As I sat on the parapet with a cup of tea thinking about the journey back home, a toddy cat leapt from the roof just above my head onto the coconut palm behind me, pausing just for one disdainful glance before disappearing into the darkness.

My visit to Sri Lanka was too short. And even then, there is so much more to tell. Like how the food is similar to Tamil food - string hoppers, kotthu parotas, dodol. And that there is a dessert called Watalappam which is a dark brown eggy-coconutty custard with raisins on top. And that the ladies wear a form of the saree known as the Kandyan saree which I shamelessly enquired of the receptionist at the place we had lunch one day. And that the Sinhalese word for river is 'ganga' and for water in 'watura'. And that water monitors are quite a common sight. And that people tend to say that things are closer than they are.

Sigh. There is still much to see and do in this beautiful and hospitable country.

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Ten Sunny Days

It was like a scene out of an old sepia tinted movie. Just outside an abandoned railway station, a dust covered traveller steps out of a bus with just a bag on his back. The bus leaves in a cloud of dust, and every face turns around to watch the new arrival. But that's where the movie switches back to colour.

To the people of Kallidaikurichi, a chinese face is a rarity. Rare? I don't think they'd seen one in the flesh until I stepped off the bus. They have, however, seen Jackie Chan in Tamil dubbed movies sitting on mounds of sand in their open air theatres. And so, for ten days, I was Jackie, and expected to teach little kids kung-fu.

But that wasn't why I was in this sun-scorched village in south India. Abhi was looking for someone to help with her survey of waterbirds in the tanks on the border of Kalakkad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve, and I wasn't about to let such an opportunity pass me by. And so we visited the tanks and counted birds by the hundreds - egrets, herons, storks, moorhens, jacanas and kingfishers. The birds that were the highlight of my stay though were the Cinnamon Bitterns and a Red Collared Dove. And the Ashy Woodswallows chattering animatedly in the Palmyra trees silhouetted by the sunset.

There were Bark Geckos and the Fan-throated Lizards aplenty, and a walk by the canal showed us a few baby Checkered keelbacks.

The heat prevented us from venturing out most of the day, and so I spent a lot of time in the nursery helping Ruthamma with the saplings. It's a joy communicating with someone without words. We spoke sans words about butterflies and trees and slugs and mosquitoes.

It was fascinating to hear the story of the tilted lingam of the 1200 year old Thirupudaimaruthur Temple from one of the priests. The temple is named because the lingam was found in the hollow of an Ashoka tree by the king who built the temple. Legend has it that a sage was coming from a long way for a darshan, and found the river near the temple in spate. Unable to get to the temple, he prayed and the water subsided. When he got there, he found the lingam tilted to one side and he asked god why, and the god replied that he had tilted his head to hear his call. And that's the story of the idol in the temple.

Atree, the organization that was playing host to me, has various programmes to get the local people involved in conservation. One of them is the flying fox census that the kids of the village participate in. And so, one evening we set off to this temple compound with huge trees where the bats roost and waited for them to take off to their feeding grounds and then counted them as they flew by. The kids have been doing this once a month for the last two years for this particular population of 2000-3000 bats.

Ten days went by in a flash washed in sunshine and lemon juice. Ten days of eating breakfast, lunch and dinner off banana leaves with my hands. Ten days of trying not to spoil Jackie Chan's name. Ten days of birds. Ten days of stalking the insects and frogs in the garden with the 105mm. Ten days of stories that would fill volumes!

And then it was time to say goodbye and time to get Ruthamma to smile for the camera.



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Bridges and Tunnels

Yedakumari.

Five years ago, we had trekked along this unused railway track that wound its way through tunnels and over bridges in the Western Ghats from Donigal to Edukumeri. The plan had been to spend the night at the railway station and trek onward to Kukke Subramanya, but exhaustion got the better of a couple of us, and we had hitched a ride back to civilisation and come back to Bangalore. A feeling of incompleteness has nagged me ever since, especially since someone told me that the trek beyond Edukumeri is far more scenic.

And so I set off again with tent and sleeping bag and enthusiastic company. The Mangalore KSRTC bus dropped us at Manjarabad Fort in a chaotic deadlock of vehicles at 5:30 am. It was four kilometres on the tarmac before we found the path onto the tracks. From there, the just past monsoon ensured that the "green route" lived up to its name. The flowering grasses waving in the breeze and screeching Racket-tailed Drongos accompanied us on the eighteen kilometres from there to the station at Edukumeri. The grass seeds attracted many Black-throated Munias. Noticeably missing were the thousands of bats that had lived in the thirty-five tunnels the last time I walked the track - yes, the same ones that had pissed on us - what a waste of the cap I bought to shelter my head from the unwanted conditioning! The butterflies were present in large numbers - Common Bluebottles, Lemon Pansies, Chocolate Pansies, Eggflies, Common Lascars, Common Sailers, Blue Mormons, Southern Birdwings were the ones I could identify. A few goods trains passed languidly by giving us ample time to get out of the way. Just a little before Yedakumari, we decided to cool our heels, literally, in one of the many streams that cross below the tracks. Then, as we picked up our tired bodies to make the final push towards our destination for the day, I spotted a scaly pattern on one of the rocks. The beautiful Malabar Pit Viper made our day, posing unmoving as we took our photographs.

I was surprised to see the station sign saying Yedakumari and not Edukumeri. I tried to translate it into English, and what I got amused me plenty: Yeda Kumari = Mad Maiden. I wonder what it really means though. The blogs had warned us that we would not be allowed to pitch tent at the station, so we hiked on looking for a spot to camp for the night. We had spent twelve hours on our feet when we finally settled down near a stream next to our tent with jam, cheese and bread. I must admit, it wasn't the most comfortable night I've ever spent. The pebbles beneath the tent made my fidgety sleeping quite painful. Still, it was a pretty night with stars peeking through the strangler fig under which we slept.

Scarlet minivets watched as I brushed my teeth in the stream in the morning. The Malabar Whistling Thrushes sang their happy songs and bright Yellow-browed bulbuls picked the fruit from the trees above.

The linesmen on the tracks had given us a target of the 80/400 marker as the spot from which we should turn off the railway line onto the forest path that would take us to Gundiya and a bus back to Bangalore. Armed with this information, which turned out to be 300 metres off, we set off knowing that we would have plenty of time to make our destination over the remaining bridges. To our right, for this entire stretch was a magnificent view of the shola forests of the western ghats. I spent much time wondering if one of the hills was Kumaraparvatha which is said to be the toughest trek in Karnataka. I will find out some day.

With a little difficulty, we found the path down to Gundiya, marked by some helpful soul in the moss with a stick - "GUNDY ->", and down we went. A sweaty, oily, uncouth, vest-clad trekker passed us by and turned around to ask me where I'm from and was extremely disappointed to hear "Bangalore". The group he was walking with made their noisy way past us, destroying many plants along the way. A little further, he turned around and asked if I had a lighter or matches - to light a fire! And then a little further, he came back to say, "Do you have some food? We're all very hungry. We have money but didn't find any shops." What I thought of this intrusion has been censored! Anyway, this caused us to take a detour which led to us getting a few leech bites (just one for me) and a far more interesting walk through the forest down to the town.

The buses to Bangalore were packed and we exhaustedly stood the three hours to Hassan before we got seats.

Here's some information that would have made the trek a little less interesting:

1. Take the 11:15 pm bus heading to Mangalore from Bangalore and request to get off approximately 4 kilometres after Donigal. If the conductor doesn't agree to that, then Donigal/Manjarabad Fort is the place to get off (usually some time between 4:30 am and 5:30 am). It may not be possible to book tickets to Donigal, so Uppinangadi should do.

2. The trains are not a problem. And no one tries to stop you from trekking on the track.

3. Definitely carry a torch. We switched off the torches in the middle of one of the tunnels and I couldn't see my palm 2 inches from my face (and people will tell you that I practically glow in the dark!)

4. You get on the track around the 50/400 marker and Yedamukari is just past the 68km mark. The turn off to Gundiya is at the 80/100 marker just after tunnel no. 35 and just before a bridge.

And so, five years in the doing, it is done.

Elephant Diwali

The elephants came on the eve of Diwali. They weren't greeted with lights as Ram and Sita were greeted by the people of Ayodhya so many aeons ago. Sal and I were sleeping. Tension, our dog alarm, announced their arrival with a volley of loud barks. If he weren't so scared of snakes, maybe I wouldn't have mistaken his excitement for the escape of the cobra from its box (its fangs are still growing back after its encounter with a snake-charmer). Arghh... if only I had looked out of the window instead of into the snake box!

So our guests stopped ten metres short of the room where I was serenading the stars with my snores. They left their calling cards and left - the flattened electric fence, a peepal tree we can't find and elephant dung everywhere. The recently built hide was left intact (perhaps my snoring scared them off!).

We wished they would return. We spent Diwali patrolling the quarry scanning the tree line for the hulking shadows that would signal their return. But they'd moved on.

And so we watched the crackers from our vantage point, cursed the people sending up huge clouds of sulphurous fumes into the already smoggy air, and wished each other a Happy Diwali (neither of us is Hindu). And we wished that the people would give the money that they burned every Diwali to the poor. Yes, there is employment in manufacturing the crackers, but must surviving be so hazardous?

The Grey-headed Mynas (Sturnus Malabaricus Malabaricus) turned up on the owlet tree. The White-throated Fantail Flycatcher (Rhipidura albicollis) has been in our sights for a while. And the skulking Blue-faced Malkoha (Phaenicophaeus viridirostris) has kept me amused with its carnival mask-like face.