Jim Corbett National Park

I had the opportunity to spend a couple of days for a retreat near the Jim Corbett National Park.

It takes 7 hours of uneven road travel to reach the Park area in the Uttaranchal State. The road from Delhi is part highway, part dusty tracks by the side - lots of dust I should say. Infrastructure cries for redemption all over India, and this area is no exception. Except I expected a better infrastructure around Delhi than in any other part of the country ! With heavy trucks, lorries, buses, cars, vans, tractors, bullock carts, and cycles (apart from the occasional pedestrians trying to cross the road risking their lives), it requires heavy concentration and ability to brake rather very quickly to manoeuvre the highway.

Nevertheless, Jim Corbett is worth a trip. Though it is rare to sight any tigers (I didn’t), or elephants, I managed to see deers and monkeys. I guess one has to spend considerable time within the forest area in order to be able to see anything more significant. There are procedures to be complied with while gaining admittance into the park. Like most publicly maintained facilities in India, there is confusion while going in - they ask a lot of questions and delay the entry while checking a series of documents, including driving licenses ! It is never smooth, coordinated, easy entry for tourists who have taken the trouble to come all the way.

However, finally one gets in on a four-wheel drive - the Maruti Gypsy. It’s a rough ride all the way, and people with back problems better be careful. The ride can’t be made smoother, there is no proper road inside - it is a dirt track all the way. The drivers are quite rough and push the vehicles to extreme performance while ensuring a rocky ride to the passengers. But, you tend to ignore all that, in the hope of seeing some wild animals.

Suddenly, the driver stops the vehicle and shuts down the ignition, and cautions all of us to be silent. We look around carefully, holding our breath. Voila, there comes a deer ! We raise the cameras, and it appears frightened. However, we manage to capture some shots……the driver now explains it would be better to go along the river stream to see the elephants, but alas, no such luck.

Here are some photos, some more in the next post :

DSC08394.JPG, originally uploaded by vjsri99.

Jim Corbett National Park

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Road leading to Jim Corbett National Park

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A poor shot of the deer…….from a moving vehicle

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Gypsies at the parking lot

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A view of the river stream

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River Stream at Jim Corbett

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A dirt track in Jim Corbett - one can see the big pebbles on both sides of the track

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Lunch with the Tigers, anyone ?

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Periphery of the Park

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A view of the dirt track inside the National Park

Hope you relished the pics, though nothing great. Make the Jim Corbett National Park as one of your “must-see” places.

Some of the relevant links for your further read on Jim Corbett are as follows :

“Corbett Park”

“Jim Corbett (hunter) - Wikipedia”

“Jim Corbett National Park - Spectrum Tours”

Have a great weekend

Cheers

Vijay Srinivasan
12 April 2008
Mumbai

White Water Rafting @ Kundalika

Today was it - the first time I ever overcame the fear of white water rafting !

A fabulous wet experience by any standard, and that too in this part of India (Maharashtra) - I had always thought that to get any white water rafting, one had to go to Rishikesh.

Unfortunately, no photo-taking was possible, so I am directing readers to the website of the organizers - “Wild River Adventures” . You can view the photo gallery on the site to visualise some of the experiences I went through today !

Reaching Kolad on the Mumbai - Goa Highway takes approximately 3 hours. There are small sign boards on to your right as you get into the Kolad village, and one can easily miss these - I asked why the signboards were not big and clear with necessary directions, and was told that big-sized signboards are hacked away for their material content ! So small ones are used, and there are atleast 3 companies with signboards pointing to the left direction.

So we turned left, and quickly crossed the railway crossing. It was a winding road leading all the way to Pune. We missed the turn to the Camp and drove for quite some distance before we located a small signboard on Wild River Adventures (WRA), which took us to their booking office. Finally got back to the Camp for the night rest……

This is a serene place with quiet surroundings that I really liked. The only thing I was worried about was the mosquito bombing threat, luckily in the rooms there were no mosquitoes, even though the organizers had provided mosquito nets inside the camping tents. The rooms were really large but simple, for a comfortable stay.

We headed for the river around 8:30 AM - it was approximately 7 to 8 Kms away. WRA guys are experts in white water rafting, rappelling, kyaking, et al. They explained the rafting procedures, especially the safety aspects, and advised us to follow orders. Then we wore our life jackets and helmets, grabbed the paddles, and headed to the rafts parked near the river bed.

Our trainer loaded all of us inside the raft - 9 of us - and asked us to paddle forward. After about 20 metres, he asked all of us to jump into the river ! I hesitated, but he gave no choice, and assured me that I would be absolutely safe. However, the fear of sinking was always there, and I was not alone ! The water appeared to be deep. Anyway, we all jumped in and after the initial screams we were all right, just floating on the water ! Climbing back up into the raft is tough, even when someone is pulling you up - one has to be quick and keep the legs away from the raft - pull the rope down and push the weight up. We all managed to get back ofcourse !

This exercise removes the water fear, though not completely. But it atleast familiarises one with the river and the surroundings. After some more paddling, we headed to the flowing river with the water gushing forth - the gates of the Mulshi Dam were opened around 30 minutes before we hit the river, so it was in full force. Going from the relatively still section of the water to the gushing river spooked some folks ofcourse ! We joined the river and almost immediately saw the rapids ! Were we astounded ?!

It was an amazing experience to go through even the smallest of the rapids. We must have gone through atleast 10 rapids of varying levels today. I exchanged my place to be at the nose of the boat to experience an even higher level of thrill, and it was worth every drop of water ! Great experience, hardly any safety issues. One has to follow orders of the trainer strictly and observe basic precautions to maintain the place on the raft ! At the calm areas of the river between the rapids one is encouraged to jump into the river and enjoy the peace of floating horizontally in a yogic pose. I did that for almost 20 minutes, and it was unbelievably calming and refreshing, to say the least, apart from the fact that you are in the middle of a flowing river 100 feet wide.

Now I am encouraged to seek even more thrill - may be I would wait till the monsoon time when 6 instead of 3 gates of the dam are opened up, and the water level is likely to be atleast 10 feet higher than what it was today. Or, may be one has to take the Rishikesh Challenge !

Strongly recommended for all except the most faint-hearted.

Have a great weekend,

Cheers

Vijay Srinivasan
5th April 2008
Mumbai

Abode of Purity

I went to Mahabaleshwar and Panchgani over the last couple of days.

This is the best place I have yet visited in Maharashtra State. It took approximately 6 hours (with some half-hour break on the way) to reach the place from Mumbai. You spend almost 90 minutes of it trying to get out of Mumbai, which is always messed up on the way out via Powai, Chembur, Panvel, Vashi, etc., All these big lorries create chaos on the road, and headaches for the drivers forced to follow them. Apart from these, one has to contend with real bad driving habits of young drivers with mini cars whizzing past from left and right. Then you have those tourist buses who refuse to move out of the right most lane. Well, I can go on and on…….

Once we hit the Pune Expressway, it was good, and even beyond…..the roads were in pretty decent condition towards Satara and even up the hill towards Panchgani. After a long time, it was a winding road experience but not for too long. I was amazed at the speed at which we gained height - all of 4,000 Ft !

The air and water are still pure in Mahabaleshwar, despite commercialization. The place is not as confusing or poorly maintained as Matheran, the other hill station which I visited several months ago - see my earlier post - “Matheran Visit”

Mahabaleshwar is known for its several fantastic “view” points on the various hills of the Sahyadri Mountain Range. There is a lot to write about the experience, but since I am out of time, I thought I will quickly put up some pictures for your enjoyment. More prose sometime later !

DSC08163, originally uploaded by vjsri99.

Elephant Head Point

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Sahyadri Mountains - a Fabulous View

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The Venna Lake near Mahabaleshwar - good for rowing

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On top of the Elephant Head Point

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Another very captivating view of the mountain range……..

DSC08099, originally uploaded by vjsri99.

There is a fort on top of this mountain - the famed Pratapgarh Fort

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The serrated ridges of the mountain range

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View of a dam on the Krishna River basin

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Beautiful View of the Krishna basin from 4,000 feet high

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The “Elephant Head” clearly visible

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Lodwick Point with inscription of the story of the man who made it to this spot in 1824 (see next pic)

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The inscription on General Peter Lodwick

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A bit unsafe - better not get excited about the view too much !

There are many more nice photos, but one had to make choices !

Have a great week ahead,

Cheers

Vijay Srinivasan
10th Feb 2008
Mumbai

Husband 1.0

NOTE : This is from a family friend, I thought it is hilarious, Enjoy !

Installing Husband 1.0

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow-down in overall system performance - particularly in the flower and jewellery applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, installation of Husband 1.0 seems to have uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed such other undesirable programs as NFL 5.0, NBA 3.0.and Golf Clubs 4.1.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system.

I’ve tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail. What can I do ????

Signed, Desperate ============ ========= ======

Dear Desperate :

First keep in mind that Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an Operating System.

Please enter the command: “http: I Thought You Loved Me.htm” and try to download Tears 6.2, and don’t forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update.

If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewellery 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

But remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0, or Beer 6.1.

Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will automatically download the Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT install Mother-in-law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background which will eventually seize control of all your system resources).

Also, do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program.

This is an unsupported application and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance.

We recommend Hot Food 3.0.

Good Luck, Tech Support

Cheers

Vijay Srinivasan
1st December 2007
Mumbai

Lonavla Again

I spent a day in Lonavla about 2 hours drive from Mumbai - it was just “monsoon fabulous”.

Unfortunately did not get to use the camera, but it was simply nature at its best. Stayed at Lagoona Resort for a night, the hotel is surrounded by green mountains and waterfalls. It is not a great hotel, but the location is outstanding. Just get up and walk out, and you would see the mountains kissing the clouds. I took a walk with a few colleagues in the evening time. The private road outside the hotel was terrible, and it would remain terrible for the foreseeable time I guess. Nevertheless the walk was notable for couple of reasons - one, the mountain view all around, and second, the clouds hanging on top of us. If we are located a little higher, I think one would get the feeling of walking through the clouds.

There were nice bungalows all around, and we chanced upon a colony called “Ravi Valley”. We walked right through and took a look around, it was a very nice place with row houses and all facilities. The pricing looked attractive, but who would want to come here every weekend except a couple of weekends during the monsoon time ?

I am not able to refrain from again making the comment on the infrastructure of the place. One could clearly see the highway from the Hotel, but it takes more than 20 minutes to reach it ! The access roads are in very bad shape, and the rains continue to create big potholes on the poor quality tar roads. When we reached the expressway, the access into it was the worst one could ever see anywhere. The vehicles were turning into the expressway from a dirt track ! And, joining the traffic stream. Very unplanned, and very dangerous, to say the least.

Life goes on, and the monsoon is peaking with tremendous showers over the past couple of days in Mumbai and environs, including Pune and Lonavla/Khandala, etc., It is gorgeous, and I now understand why the local people love Monsoons, though the rains cause heavy disruptions on the roads. I saw them walking out in heavy rains onto the Lonavla roads and enjoying the same ! These are monsoon people, I thought the rains should be playing a very important role in setting their moods for the evening.

Great place to be in during this time, and if you are in Mumbai, I guess you should spend atleast a weekend at Lonavla or similar place during this time.

Cheers !

Vijay Srinivasan
4th August 2007
Mumbai