Maidenahalli

Probably for a long time I have not wasted my holidays sitting at home, but it's a surprise for me that 10days of holidays and I am sitting at home. I just proposed the idea of driving to Maidenahalli for over night camping and then a photo shoot of the black bucks early morning. Raghu and Harsha joined me for the same. It was a quick short trip.

Called up RFO Harish for permission but heard since the village had zilla panchayat elections the next day, permission was denied. However Harish heeded to our demand because of our interest and allowed us to stay at the IB by giving a letter to Tashildar asking for permission at Madugiri.

We started from Bangalore at around 4pm and reached Tumkur pretty quickly, however from Tumkur road to Madugiri is horrible. Well the better route would be to take a right from Dabaspete on the Bangalore Tumkur highway and head towards Kortagere. This road is pretty decent and also a bit shorter.

We reached Madugiri at around 6.30, took permission from Tashildar and headed towards IB. We reached here by around 7pm. On the way we were really very hungry and stopped at Puruva village for some masalapuri. Cold winter with some hot masala puri was a perfect combination for a tired soul. We had packed some food for the night, finished with it and then spent some quality time star gazing, remembered my friend Naveen who is really good at it. Planned to take him some time and learn some stuff from him. It was wonderfull experience in the open sky watching so many stars and a couple of bright shooting stars.

Raghu and Harsha picked up a room, however I prefered to stay in the tent with Jyothi. However night was not great since there was one more group of boys who were partying hard. It was surprising that RFO gave them the permission to party one day before the elections, otherwise with all respect I really appreciate RFO Harish for his work in maintaining this place and also his love for nature.

We got up very early in the morning for some good photo shoot but just like last time looks like the black bucks are very camera shy and I cannot get a good picture with my 300mm lens. However the best thing of the trip was to find some Falcons along with a couple of good picture of other birds along with the black bucks.

Team: Poorna, Jyothi, Gilli and Harsha

Route: Bangalore - Nelamangala - Dabaspete - Take a right from Dabaspete towards Kortagere - Since the road from Tumkur is in very bad shape and also its a bit long it would be better to go by this route. From Kortagere take a right towards Madugiri -- From here take Hindupura road - Kodigenahalli - Puruva Village - ID Halli

Contact: RFO Harish -- 9448731686/ Ranganath -- 8105224893

They have 2 rooms and a hall with 2 toilets and they charge 600rs for the entire stuff else 300rs for the room. However there is no facility for food, you will have to make your own arrangements for this. You can camp outside with your tents and you will not be charged anything.

Agumbe and Malpe Beach

I have seen this urbanization growing rapidly near my home town. Once covered with rain forests are giving up for human greed. Yet probably we can find one of the best ever green forests in the world. It's probably almost impossible to venture into these forests during rains due to the fear of floods, insects and snakes. Forest in these parts are so dense it gives me a feeling that even mammals avoid these place, its a paradise for reptiles. As a child i remembered a beautiful virgin lake near the check post of Agumbe, how ever I was a bit disappointed to see it being converted into a park with lots of petty shops and plastics all around. Once you start loving nature in its raw format you would for sure not like the compressed format of it like parks.



There has been lot of changes to Malpe beach as well, but it looks lot better with some good facilities. But still if we can avoid the crowd from littering the place that would be amazing, we can't just leave everything to authorities its the responsibility of the common man as well. I wanted to visit St. Mary's Island but didn't have enough time for the same.



But best part of the trip was visiting Vinayak's house and staying there. A small village Hermunde on the foothills of Western ghats in the middle of the forest was amazing. Plan to visit here again in December.
Also visiting ARRS (Agumbe Rainforest Research Station) was very educative. Would love to spend some time volunteering here. I am sure to learn a lot talking to these experts and this would also benefit me for my photo shoots. Visit this link for more details http://www.agumberainforest.com/


Also Spotted monitor lizard (near someshwara), flying lizard draco dussumieri (agumbe), grey hornbill (Arsikere) for the first time.

Route Directions:
Agumbe: Bangalore - Tumkur - Tiptur - Arsikere - Bhadravati - Shimoga - Thirtahalli - Agumbe
Malpe Beach: Agumbe -- Udupi - Malpe

Kabini with ToeHold

Kabini for long has been a place I just love and admire. Probably that's the reason I keep visiting this place again and again. However this time the idea was to learn from the masters Sudhir Shivram and Giri Cavle sir the art of wildlife photography. Well wildlife photography is all together a different ball game, so different from all other photography. Its difficult just for one simple reason that you got to get a good photograph with pure luck.

Reasons:
1) Wildlife sighting depends on your luck and knowledge about the animal/bird.
2) Lighting might be bad.
3) Getting a clean shot is very difficult, animals and birds are always behind a bush or tree.

4) Most of the animals/birds never pose for camera and being on a jeep high potential we end up with a shaky image.
4) When you get everything for a minute, having the right camera setting is the most difficult thing.

Cross @ your own risk

I was on my bike and didn't really understand the meaning of this signal. We all know the traffic menace in Bangalore. It was red for vehicles yet probably the government wanted to warn pedestrians to cross the road at their own risk :-). Be alert while you cross a road , a green doesn't mean you can cross without any risk.

Chitradurga

It was a weekday and I was asked to go to Chitradurga for "Mahalaya". I am a person who is least interested in the concept of life after death , well when i see so many bad things about life when they are still alive, praying to either god or any activity for dead hardly interests me. However it was an oppurtunity to visit the Chitradurga Fort which had special memories as a child in my mind. As a kid I used to go to this fort everyday for morning jog, play a game of cricket inside the fort and come back by around 9am.

Had heard a lot that things have changed, lot had been done for the development and restoration of the fort, but couldn't visit the fort for a long time. I even planned with friends many times but again could never materialize the same. This was the oppurtunity, drove to Durga picking my cousin, chikappa and chikamma. Droped them at Doddappa's house at around 10.30pm and went to my uncle's place to take a break. I was asked to be there for the function at 7 in the morning. As I told you before, was least interested in sitting and watching each others face in function and I headed to Durga Fort @ 5.30am in the morning.

Wow.. it was not the same fort anymore, lots of sign boards, well laid footpaths, restored broken walls, good lighting, toilets, it had gilmpse of international standards. I really appreciate archelogical department's efforts in getting this done. It's amazing work executed perfectly.

The moment I entered the fort one thing which came to my mind was "Tuppada Kola", it's quite a big rock to climb. As a kid I remembered getting beaten by my uncles for climbing it up. Now after so many treks and scaling so many peaks this did look very tiny. Just wanted to try it again and yes it was fun. After reaching the peak realized that now no one can shout at me :-).

It was around 9am and I started getting calls from home :-), anyway I took my own time to roam around doing some photography and turned back towards home only when I was hungry. It was memorable trip these rocks have so much to say and just waits for an ear to listen to them.

Maidenahalli

Well if you are sick and tired of Bangalore traffic then this place is a very good weekend camping ground. Not very far from bangalore but very calm and scenic. Even though i did most of my schooling in Tumkur i was not aware of this place until very recently. Maidenahalli or Jayamangala Black buck Santuary gives a good feel of interaction b/w humans and animals. I heard from locals over there that they have to guard their fields all night in order to protect their groundnut yield from the protected black buks.

I wanted to do some photoshoot of the blackbucks but then even though the sighting was good, they were very shy to face my camera the moment they saw me they would just run. I just managed to get a couple of pics defnitely not the kind i wanted off. Any away beautiful calm place very relaxing you can just pitch a tent and enjoy the silence of this place watching black bucks moving around.

Visit this place if you are a nature lover, love watching birds. You can talk to local forest guards and also pitch a tent outside. But then you don't get anything to eat, you should prepare your own food. There are 2 rooms with toilets in the forest guest house probably you need to book in advance. Also you can go for a walk in the forest and if you are lucky you might see jackle or wolf. Since its pretty open grasslands i would say the best time to visit this place is during winter or else be prepared to feel the heat. Best time for sighting is early morning or evening so camp overnight and enjoy sighting.

Also there is very good temple, fort and huge rock for trekking and rock climbing in Madhugiri. Madhugiri is a decent small town to get some food.

Team : Poorna,Jyothi and Diwi

Route: Bangalore - Tumkur - From tumkur bipass ask any one and take a right to Koratgere/Madhugiri -- From Madhugiri take hindupura road (don't go towards chikbalapur or gowribidnoor) -- kodigeneahalli -- reach puruvara village --ID halli -- Maidenahalli/Jayamangali Blackbuck Reserve. Around 163kms one side. Road is very good until tumkur and from tumkur to Maidenahalli is bad due to recent rains.

Contact: Harish (RFO) -- 9448731686/ Ranganath -- 8105224893

Hogenkal

Hogenkal is the perfect example of how a so called civilized human spoils the beauty of nature. Just like shivanasamudra this place is badly littered, full of plastics all around, people take bath spoiling the sanity of the place, booze and then throw liquor bottles etc into river. Sorry to say but this is not the scene from a civilized society. Lots need to be done in many ways like banning of plastics and also educating and charging heavy fines for people who do not adhere to rules. I have been visiting this place again and again but then every time i visit, its worse then the last time. Its so expensive but not a penny is put for the development. Probably i will not visit here any more for a long time.

108 Emergency Service

I just started from my office today evening @5:15. A couple of guys
helped a person lying on ground to footpath. It was a minor accident
but person on bike had a broken leg probably either a ligament tear or
fracture with enormous pain. No one knew what next. I called 108 for
an ambulance. I was so impressed with the service
1) Is the patient bleeding? Can he talk? Don't panic give me the
adress and ambulance will be there in 5min
2) Immediately after that police gave me a call asking do I need any
assistance? Is there any jam or is it a major accident. At the end of
the call they said thank you "poorna prajna". I was so surprised that
they even tracked my name so fast.
Amazing service the ambulance was there in 7min that's something
really good with the kind of traffic in bangalore
Keep up the good work guys hats of to you :-).

Blog from mobile

I learnt about a cool feature of blogging from mobile :-) trying it
out for the first time hope it works. I am posting this from my mobile
!!!!!

A Mistake

As a kid I was very fond of playing just like any other kid. My parents enforced me on reading newspaper every day as soon as I got up, even though I was not interested in knowing about rest of the world. I was in my own world those days. Enforcement on that day has turned into an addiction today. I need newspaper on my coffee table everyday in the morning.
But now I feel I get into depression reading newspaper every day its full of corruption, murder, misuse of power etc not one constructive message to improve society. I wish I can come out of this addiction and stay away from this biased media who have lost their ethics and only value for their circulation and TRP :-(