Stories from 2018…

2018 was a significant year in my life’s journey, I’d say.

The year began by catching up with old friends… two of my school/ college-time friends were visiting from the US and December end/ Jan beginning was when I got an opportunity to meet them. It was lovely exchanging details about the latest happenings in our lives and reminiscing about the good old times. Another close friend also visited during the later part of the year and it was time to catch-up again with families in tow – it was a riot watching all the kids together! So yeah, 2018 was a good year friendship-wise – re-discovering old ones and I formed some new ones too in the neighbourhood!

It was also the year when I finally got the opportunity to step out of my comfort-zone work-wise and boy! did I grab it with both hands or what?! I moved out of the client/ project that I was stuck working in for the past 5 years, ever since I joined my current company! That was an achievement in itself, I’d say. And the new work project gave me the biggest travel opportunity of my life. More about that later…

Before I get there, I must mention here that it was also the year when we visited the beautiful archipelago in the Bay of Bengal for our Summer vacation – the enchanting Andamans! 🙂 It was a lovely vacation where we explored the beauty of the various islands – from the awesome corals of the Jolly Buoy to the historical ruins and military remains at the Ross Island.

Corals at Jolly Buoy island

Boats and more at Jolly Buoy island

The highlight was no doubt the Havelock Island and our stay at the resort there – with an exclusive private access to the extension of the beautiful Radhanagar beach, we couldn’t have enough of the sun, the sea and the sands. The resort itself was so beautiful that it left us yearning for a longer stay. Apart from the gorgeous sunset scenes at the Radhanagar and Govindnagar beaches, we had loads of fun times playing with the waves at the rocky Kalapathar beach.

The beautiful Radhanagar beach

Sunset at Govindnagar beach

But the icing on the cake was of course the once-in-a-lifetime experience of the scuba dive!! With the hubby declining to take the plunge, I was left to face it alone and to be truthful it scared the hell out of me. For the first time I realised how scary it is to just get your ears wet, by getting under-water! And I regretted (not for the first time too) not having learnt swimming at a younger age when I had the opportunity! I did the dive with butterflies in my stomach, fluttering and rising up to my throat, but got to see the most wonderful under-water marine-life. That’s an item off the bucket list I guess. The hubby and sonny-boy had fun too – snorkelling in tandem with some expert divers 😀

The ruins at Ross Island

Back at Port-Blair, we also visited the gorgeously green Chidiya-Tapu and the Munda Pahar sunset point – I really loved the way in which the former place has been developed and maintained with a natural setting for the animals and birds in pristine surroundings. And of course, the view of the sunset and mangroves of Munda Pahar are picturesquely postcard-worthy.

Well, that was one vacation which we and the kiddo thoroughly enjoyed and will savour the memories for very many years to come. And of course, I clicked a zillion pics and have enough stored away to remind us of the beautiful times with just a click 😉

I hope to get back with more travel stories in my next post – of the beautiful scenic locations that my work took me to!

Mysore – day 2 – Sri Chamarajendra Zoological Gardens

Well, the ‘next few days’ from my last post has turned into ‘next few months’! I did think of writing about the final part of our August holiday, but never got around to doing it. Not until, my friend A point out yesterday that she had visited this space to check for updates and found that it wasn’t updated in a long time! Thanks A, for letting me know that there’re still people who visit this blog to read what I’ve written! So here I am, saying better late than never!

Considering that it has been a couple of months, remembering the details might be difficult, but I will try my best. We had decided that the last day would be ear-marked for the zoo-visit. This was on our to-do list for a long time now, we’d always put off the visits to the zoo/ national park saying let the kiddo grow-up a little so that he can enjoy looking at the animals. So now was the time, we thought. I’d been saying hurry-hurry, otherwise we’ll reach when it’s siesta time for most animals, but as is always the case, it was already mid-day when we entered the Mysore zoo.

The Mysore Zoo (officially the Sri Chamarajendra Zoological Gardens), as the Wikipedia will tell you, is a 245-acre zoo located near the palace in Mysore. It is one of the oldest and most popular zoos in Southern India, and is home to a wide range of species. It is one of the city’s most popular attractions. It was established under royal patronage in 1892, making it one of the oldest zoos in the world.

We started off by looking at the tall and majestic giraffes and moved on to the birds sections, where there was a huge variety of winged wonders in all shapes, sizes and colours. The kiddo was specially thrilled to see all the colourful macaws and his amma was thrilled to be able to point out the ‘toucan’ from one of his books to him! 🙂 After the birds, we moved on to other enclosures – we found the cheetahs and were thrilled to read that the two of them had been adopted by Rahul Dravid’s two sons. Yes, the Mysore zoo has this adoption scheme introduced in the early 2000s, which has been a success – with celebrities, institutions, and animal lovers contributing directly to the welfare of the zoo inmates. Later we saw that several other animals too were adopted by celebrities as pointed out by the boards. We excitedly moved towards the tigers and as I had feared, all of them were enjoying their afternoon nap! But one of them (Rama/ Lakshmana – not sure which one) did get up, showed us that famous feline stretch and majestically walked down the ramp, only to curl up and sleep at the next platform!

We walked on and caught up with several other friends like the zebra, the white rhino, the chimps,the baboons and others. Most of the animals are housed not in small enclosures, but wide open spaces with lots of room for them to move around and rather than wiring and fencing (except for a few like the big cats) the concept of wide moats and glass etc. have been used, which gives this sensation of openess to the entire zoo. Insipte of this, the one place where I truly felt saddened was when we saw the gorilla. The gentle giant was all alone and sitting/ sleeping by itself while scores of visitors gaped at it’s antics 😦

We then rested our legs a bit before moving on to what we hoped was the final section – little did we know that there was still so much to see! The sonny boy was shown the bears and the hippos, but he was very interested in looking at the hyenas (thanks to reading all about their evil menacing laughter in the story of Simba, the Lion King!), but unfortunately due to some renovation work being carried out, their enclosure was covered. We then looked at the various deer species – the sambar, the spotted deer, the nilgai, the barking deer and also the jackals, wolf, wild gaurs and bisons. Then came  the turn of another of our favourite mammals – the elephants. The sight of two big ones engaged in a tusk war was enjoyed in awe and so also the antics of the little ones welcomed with squeals.Right behind the huge area housing the Asian elephants were their African cousins, but we could only view them from far – their hugeness with the long tusks and big flapping ears were a sight to behold.

After the elephants it was time to look at more big cats – the panthers and the jaguars – and unlike the tigers, they seemed to be ready for action and were pacing all round their enclosures. Their shiny spotted coats and their lissome athletic figures with flashing eyes and adrenaline charged gait – sent shivers down my spine! In cold comparison the king of the jungle and its clan were happy being lazy and slouching and looked to be in no mood to be woken up from their siesta! We infact had trouble getting S to identify these lions amongst the landscape into which they were blending very well!

Just when we felt that we couldn’t go on walking further, we were welcomed into the cooled enclosures housing the reptiles and the birds like the pelicans and storks. There were so many varieties of crocs – with the garhwals and the alligators and there were not less than 6-10 in each independent lake. Some of them seemed to have fallen asleep with their mouth wide open and the little one had loads of fun pointing them out to us 🙂 The lakes were covered with a canopy of trees which housed the several big birds. Also located close by were the various species of tortoises and turtles – some of them so small and wondrous!

By now, we were completely tired out and so was the little one and were happy to note that we were close to the exit. There was only the snakes section to be covered and we stood in the queue. We looked closely at more than two dozen species of snakes in glass covered enclosures and each one was so unique. Each case also a write-up on the name of the species and their specilities. The final ones were the King cobras and humongous pythons – boy! were we glad to be far away from their reach?! By now we were at the exit and once again said hello to the giraffes and bid them good-bye too.

It was a wonderful day, well-spent getting to know our friends from the animal kingdom and more importantly getting them introduced in person to our little one! All-in-all it was a befitting end to our three-day trip – planned to be a relaxing, educational and entertaining trip for each of us and it turned out to be just that! 🙂

 

Mysore – day1 – Venugopalaswamy temple & Brindavan Gardens

After spending the day at the Shimsha waterfalls we headed towards Mysore on the evening of Thursday. We didn’t go back to the Malavalli route and instead took the Kollegal – T-Narasipura route to reach Mysore – the hubby was very happy to drive without the chaotic Mysore-road traffic and kept gushing about the scenic beauty. I must mention that just before we left Shivanasamudra, on the Bharachukki falls road is the Madhyaranga Sri Ranganatha Swamy temple. This the second of the trio of the Sri Ranganatha temples along the river Kaveri – the Aadi Ranga being at Srirangapatna and the Antya Ranga being at Srirangam in Tamil Nadu. The temple itself is along a serene stretch and is beautiful without the usual milling crowd of tourists.

The Venugopalaswamy temple site

We reached Mysore by late evening and checked into our hotel after a dinner stop-over. The next day dawned bright and nice and we were excited to be going to visit one of the jewels in the crown of Mysore – the Brindavan Gardens and the Krishna Raja Sagara dam. But before visiting the gardens we had decided to visit the Venugopalaswamy temple at its new location in Hosa Kannambadi.

The main temple structure

This temple has a fascinating history and you can read all about it here. The temple was originally built several 100 years ago around the same time as the Chennakeshava temple in Somnathpur and was located in the village of Kannambadi before the KRS dam was built. When the KRS dam was conceived and built, the king of Mysore ordered the people to be relocated to the new village of Hosa Kannambadi, however the temple and a few more other temples in the vicinity were doomed to be submerged. It continued this way for several decades where the temple would surface only when the water levels in the reservoir fell – mostly during the drought years. Then recently the Khodays group took up the task of relocating and restoring the temple to its present location near Hosa Kannambadi.

The temple is located in a spacious island-like location a few kilometers off the main road amidst the KRS dam back-waters. The temple complex is vast and pristine, since it is mostly untouched by tourists as of now. The original architecture has been preserved and most of the slabs and stones from the original site have been recovered and used, but the installation of the idols is yet to be done and so the temple awaits its official inauguration.

The temple front view

We spent a good couple of hours at the temple site enjoying the serenity and the beauty of the architecture. Thereafter we headed over to the Brindavan gardens. These gardens have been one of the major attractions in Mysore and were conceived by Sir Mirza Ismail, the then Dewan of Mysore for the beautification of the dam site. The work on it was started in the year 1927 and it was developed in the Mughal style similar to the Shalimar gardens in Kashmir in a terraced fashion – the main architect for the park was G.H. Krumbigal, then Superintendent of Parks and Gardens of the Mysore Government.

Fountain at Brindavan gardens

The gardens are spread across 60 acres – we spent the latter part of the day strolling through them after having a spot of modest lunch at the KSTDC hotel inside the garden premises.We decided to first walk upto the dam end of the garden to check if we could take a look at the Kaveri waters roaring and rushing through the opened gates. Unfortunately we were not in luck and were told that the access to the dam gates was completely shut from the garden end. If we wanted to have a close look at the dam gates, we would have to drive right up to the beginning of the dam-site which was a good 5 kms away from the gardens 😦 Disappointed, we trudged back and walked slowly right up to the other end, where the famed musical fountain is located. The show was slotted for 7 PM and we had gone as early as 5.30 PM. As we waited the amphitheatrical steps started filling up and how?! By the show time the entire area was teeming with thousands of people and there were only flashes going off in all directions, lighting up the night!

Another of the fountains

The musical fountain used to be one of its kind – where bursts of water, lighted up in varied hues, are synchronised to the music of popular songs. Unfortunately the shows now last only for 15 mins and there are 3 shows held with a gap of 10 mins between each show, within the one hour slot of 1 hour. This is quite a deviation from the original shows which used to go on for an hour. Also the songs chosen were quite alarming – the first one was the popular and very apt ‘Kannada naadina jeevanadi’ in SPB‘s delightful voice which gave me goosebumps. But the next two – ‘Babuji zara dheere chalo remix version(?!)‘ and ‘Dhoom machale‘ left a bitter taste in my mouth! Why do we have to cater to such stupid tastes of the populace? Why can’t we have more Kannada numbers which talk about our land and it’s beauty or atleast some good patriotic numbers if you want to reach out to people from other states?

Musical fountains

On our way back, we did stop over at the beginning of the dam to catch a glimpse of the dam gates – the night was dark and the lighting wasn’t very good, but just the sound of the majestic roar of the mighty Kaveri brought in that rush of adrenaline in my body and soul – how I wished I could’ve been there and seen it in daylight! Nevertheless, that wish hopefully will be fulfilled sometime in the future… With that, I will end this looong post! There’s more – Mysore day-2 coming up, hopefully in the next few days!