Sawai Madhopur-Ranthambore

We were supposed to make this trip in Nov, exactly when 26/11/08 happened. But then that was not the reason for us to not travel. It was then that Chennai also got flooded. :( So with no choice and a heavy heart we postponed the trip to Feb '09. (What better way to spend [V] day than in the middle of a forested area)The heavy heart was for the fact that it is extremely difficult to plan a trip to Ranthambore all the way from Down South Chennai, especially with www.rajasthanwildlife.com website not working properly, and with train reservations from Delhi and Jaipur being close to impossible. I have decided to split this Ranthambore trip into different parts. Part 1 being- Travel planning. Though the website www.rajasthanwildlife.com does give you some information, actually lots, unless you actually get there you have NO idea what you are up against(considering it's a govt owned site and everything is funded by the rajasthan govt) NOW you know what I mean :( I would recommend anyone making this trip to speak to a couple of people who might have traveled to find out how things work. STEP 1. Before you book your tickets, always check the website mentioned above to first find availability of safari's. I am sure studying to be a rocket scientist would be a lot easier than getting a booking on this website.(the govt claims to have improved the site since our return!! what luck!!) STEP 2 The trickiest part being the safari's online booking. Now there are 2 vehicles being mentioned there- the Gypsy(6 seater) and the Canter(20 seater). let me explain how both work. The gypsy is more fun for people who love to be roughed up a bit. It's bumpy, hard on the back, scratches here and there when close to bushes, and there's only 6 people on it. I LOVED IT. The canter on the other hand Looks and seems safe, carries 20 people. It's cramped, full of random people(usually kids are also on it crying and wailing) its not that bumpy. You get to enjoy the ride into the forest without being jostled around, but remember 6 against 20 means you get to stop a lot more, a lot more noise, especially since you are there to enjoy the quiet and peace of the forest in order to spot the "tiger". The canter in comparison to the gypsy as a vehicle is a lot more noisier. So now that you have good description of the two available vehicles, you may pick. STEP 3 If you thought choosing a vehicle is tough think again!! There are safari's that you need to chose from too. Hmhmhm... this year apparently they have started a new full day safari. Let me explain how this works. We got taken in by what the website said( or didn't bother to say) and made a huge mistake by booking full day safari's. there are 2 kinds the FULL day and the HALF- DAY. Not the half- day is hat they have been having for years and here you get picked up by the canter/ gypsy at 6.15 am from your hotel and the safari as for about 3 hours (7.00am to 10.00 am) and then you get dropped back. they say its from 6.15 am but then by the time you pick up/ get picked up by the others in the vehicle it takes that much time. The same is for the eve/ afternoon safari 2.30pm to 6.00pm. Trust me when I say out of experience that THIS IS THE BEST. the other of course is the FULL day safari which starts at 6.30 am where you get picked up from your hotel and ends by 6.30 pm. Now the whole day safari according to me is a sheer, utter waste of precious time. I'll tell you why. coz after the first half of the safari, that's say by 11.00 am, there is long break till 2.00pm when you do absolutely nothing. The website does not mention it. And think about it, we humans don't like to step out in the heat, you think these animals which live outdoors is going to go out there hunt in the blazing heat!! so what they do is take you all the way to the buffer area and make you chill out. anyone you ask(the safari guide, your vehicle driver) everyone usually say "oh!! it's a very nice resting place, a great govt. guest house" oh believe you me when i say DON'T GO ON IT!! it's a dilapidated building, that's anything but nice!! you are made to sit in chairs under tree's for 2 1/2 hours with absolutely no scenic views. There is a beautiful Old FORT(as old as the Ranthambore fort- about 100 odd years old)which by the way unless you are athletic you can't climb and your vehicle driver wouldn't tell you that you need to climb. They talk like they are going to drive you all the way up, (and charge you extra for it)and a lake- which was half dry even in Feb,(which I am sure would have been a perfect scenic spot for a great picnic when filled with water) Then you get back into the forest to continue the safari. STEP 4 Unless you actually have a VIDEO CAMERA do NOT pay for the camera charges. They DON'T CHARGE for normal photo camera's. STEP 5 Now assuming you have checked out the availability of the safari online(which is non-refundable under any circumstance, so don't rush to book it unless you have confirmed train/ air tickets) lets look at options for travel. As we were traveling from Chennai, we had a choice of traveling either via Mumbai or Delhi. Delhi sounded exciting as we had trains from Delhi directly to Sawai Madhopur(10 km's away from Ranthambore. But again a warning, even if you try booking 3-4 weeks ahead, the trains are usually FULL. There are about 3-4 trains, including the Rajdhani which stop at Sawai madhopur. I am sure it would have beena fun trip by train.Else the other option being flying either from Delhi to Jaipur or Mumbai to Jaipur. Hhmhm... now comes another problem. You might as well get prepared to spend at least 2 more hours extra at the airport to and from Jaipur, as flights are ALWAYS de;ayed. It being a less priority airport compared to the rest, flights always get delayed. And it's not happened once. :( Step 6 You could either ask for a pick up car from hertz or ask your hotel for a pick up. either ways it all works outto almost the same price. We had initially thought of hiring a hertz car and driving to Ranthambore. Oh what fun that would have been!! I was so kicked!! I had pictured what music we would listen to, what munchies to take with us etc. And then comes the rude shock that woke me uo from my day dreaming- Hertz does not have self- drive cars from Jaipu!! what a bummer!! Trust me, we were on our way being driven to Ranthambore and I have never thanked God more for not letting us drive!! the first 1 1/2 hours of the drive from Jaipur to Tonk is the worst stretch I have ever been on. There were trucks every 30 seconds speeding past us. It would have been impossible to drive on that road and not get knocked off bya truck. So much for the power nap I had planned out for the car journey!! I was sooo queezy from all the swirves that I was more than happy to reach our destination in one piece. Oh and please please carry excess food for your road trip!! There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHIN, and i mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING on the way from TONK to Ranthambore save a few villages with about 10 houses in each. But,If you love open spaces, the drive is phenomenal! Its just acres and acres of open spaces and fiels, covered by a few hills on either side and on top of each of these hills you will see the ruins of a very old(1000 years) old watch tower. Its sooooooo breathtakingly beautiful.If only the journey was less strenuous I would have so enjoyed the drive. I started out this blog to be a very positive and reminicsing one. But seems like all the negatives have been vented out!! hmhmh storm before the calm!! :)

2006 dec blah blah blah

i have been traveling so much the last couple of months, one trip merges into the other, i cant remember when i did which city, all on work..tho i have enjoyed it tremendously, i do feel a bit jaded.. i need a break.. and am more than glad all my travels for the year are over finally.. but have you ever wondered about the kind of people you end up meeting when you travel?? somehow.. i hate making conversation when i fly, and as most often its an early morning flight at some unearthly hour... sometimes i do prefer one of the cheap airlines, coz then you don't have the hassle of an air hostess coming down the isle to serve you tea/ coffee or snacks.. and the worst of all a meal... so i treasure those hours on the plane where i cld jus catch up on my sleep, and was doing jus that on my flight from chennai to mumbai, and i do prefer to have an empty seat next to me, so nobody wld disturb me.. so here i was with a window seat in the last row, happily dozing off... and the next thing i know, there was someone sitting on the isle seat on the same row.. and you wouldn't believe it, but he spoke non stop till the flight landed in Mumbai, and frankly i know his entire life history!!! he claimed he was happily married, went to the extent of opening his laptop to show me his daughters photo, claimed his wife wld like me, and even invited me over to his house in mumbai.. i think it quiet strange for a man, even tho he might be highly sociable and sweet and friendly to take to me the way he did!!

CS-1

this blog was specially created for me to write abt my various travels.. experiences... funny, scary... moments.. i haven't quiet started doing all that.. but i definitely would like to start with a website that has added a lot more meaning to my life, has made me come out of that"stuck up" person that i had turned my self into, very closed to meeting people... for those of you who don't know what CS is, it stands for couch surfing, now in order to get to know more about this site, visit- www.couchsurfing.com i was introduced to this site, by my friend kannan's wife- Preetha Looking back i have no idea how I even imagined staying over at a random person's house with no idea whatsoever on what kind of person he or she might turn out to be. But then all 3 of my experiences with CS were wonderful ones! I met amazing people from different walks of life with a passion to travel. the passion and the need to travel was so high that it did not matter who they were or what they did for a living!1 all that mattered was that there was a roof above the head, a bud to sleep in and food to eat(sometimes) you could have conversation for hours on end, you could end up getting a very different perspective on life and you would have made a friend for life in the 1 or 2 days that you do get to spend time with this stranger in his or her house!! We have always known that being a tourist you only get to mostly do touristy stuff, but staying with a local who has lived for generations on end there throws a different life into your attitude towards the place you are visiting! you get to eat their food, share their lives and be a part fo whatever it is they do!! check out he link and enjoy CS if you are the adventurous kind

Couchsurfing jan 2007

Couch Surfing!! what an amazing concept!! i got introduced to it, about 3 months ago thru a friends wife, and have traveled using CS thru Europe, and had some of the most memorable times of my life!! you meet people you never thought you would end you meeting, see people live their life, they want to live it!! so whats ops us from doing these things?? you are soooo pulled down by responsibility, commitments, love, family!! and i didn't see any of this stopping people from doing things their way... yeah you do a get a bit lonely, and i guess thats the down side to it, but you win some, you lose some.. but this experience motivated me and inspired me soo much, that i have done things i would never have dreamt i would do, rather my parents never thought i would do such stuff, cook, clean , wash my own clothes.. the basic things we need to take care of ourselves, i never did, coz i feel the Indian life style makes you quiet dependent on others.. i had registered on CS, as someone who just wanted to meet up for coffee or tea... and within a span of just 20 days i met 3 people, from tot diff walks of life, very nice people, and had a chat with them abt traveling and people, something no one seems to be interested i talking abt, here in chennai. “Life is all about timing... the unreachable becomes reachable, the unavailable become available, the unattainable... attainable. Have the patience, wait it out It's all about timing.” and i guess its true, coz today, i had a mail form a girl in south America, who is gng ot be visiting chennai, coz she is gng to studying in India, and i guess the first person she ha mailed is me!! somehow you jus like people, when you see their photo, and thats whats happened, and i am sure she is gng to be my first ever CS house guest!! lets see how it goes...

Thalai cauvery

when i was at the Dubare Elephant camp my family and i decided to visit Thala Cauvery, which was abt 70 odd Km from there. we went with great expectations of having a nice dip, thinking it was gng to be flowing water gushing out of a rock... alas.. thats exactly where all our expectations ended! what you see in the pic happens to be the Thala Cauvery! its not even the the big pond that you see there, its almost invisible in the pic. its a small square hole on the ground, right next to that mandap, where a pujari who sits and does puja. apparently its highly auspicious to take a dip in the pond and also have some of the water from that very small spring sprinkled on your head. so in the end, we jus didn't take a dip, but went to the temple up there and headed back! what is interesting about the Thala Cauvery is not this pond, but the small water hole that i have been mentioning... so it made me wonder as to where exactly the water for the river cauvery come from?? and you wouldn't believe it if i told you, it all.. i mean all of it that flows for almost 800kms comes from that small water hole!! apparently it never floods the place, but thru research they have found out that it seeps thru the rocks under the water hole, and joins at the base of the thala cauvery abt 12 km away at a place called bhagamandala with 2 other small rivers and that is what forms the cauvery.. but believe you me, not a drop of it is seen anywhere else except in bhagamandala- which is the proud host of a 300 year old temple!! you have to see it to believe it! with copper plated tiled sloped roofs, and entrance to each sannadhi half my height! isn't that amazing!!

Dubare Elephant Camp

located in the district of Coorg, next to kushalnagar!! this breathtakingly beautiful resort run by the karnataka govt, is a fabulous get away from the mundane routine of life! it is situated on the banks of the cauvery, and you need to take a brief boat ride to the wild side to reach the resort!! I happened to visit Dubare during Pongal of 2007. Thats the only time of the year when the whole family gets a long off- about 3-4 days continuously. The cottages are clean and very comfortable, basic amenities, no mosquitoes- at least this time of the year, with every cottage having a hammock at the back.. and every cottage has a view of the river flowing by on one side... its peaceful and silent to the point where i could hear my own breathing.. the perfect holiday spot!! the service very good, and the best part being that there is electricity available thru a generator only for 2 hrs in the morn and 2 hrs in the eve... you are jus one with nature the rest of the time.. the best part of the trip being that you have naturalist around who takes you thru treks, explains abt the elephants, the insects, the other animals their lives, their habits, patterns, the birds, the trees, and i can assure you that i have come back a more knowledgeable person, and thats thanks to ashwin! and i would be writing abt all that i learn t!1 facts you cld do with!

travel light!!!

"When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money." -- Susan Heller now that’s what i call smart traveling!! ahh but fortunately some of us learn thru our own experiences. Some who are smarter thru that of others, and some like me- never learn!!! at least not until now... and what brought about this wonderful change?? the fact that i have paid right thru my nose, twice within a years time(2005-2006), both in my onward and return journey - for excess baggage!! Now that’s a lot of contribution to the airport authorities.. And all going waste!! What a horrid way to start off a journey!!! Where we are allowed 20 kg's, how come we plan to carry 30+? How is it even remotely possible?? is it coz, we know we wld get our way thru....???!!!That the rules can be bent and molded to our ways? Now now... do these things happen only in our country?? Why do we take our systems for granted?? and find ways of working arnd each of them??? We were worried for days on end on how we wld get our luggage across without being charged for Eb at the Copenhagen airport!!! and in fact had to ship some of our stuff back to India... the above quotes are in bright red for those of my brilliant frenz who traveled with me on my GSE program to Denmark and Lithuania, for all those of you who were lucky and escaped paying for EB, and for those of us who were unlucky- remember to travel light!! At least I know for sure, that my team mate kannan and me, wld def make it a point to travel light, esp after buying those wonderful backpacks... right kannan? Anyway... the moral of the rather expensive experience -"He who would travel happily must travel light." –