Three school friends to the Ghats and Greenery of Tamil Nadu - Ooty & Kodaikanal !!!

Pissed of routine and busiest activities of cities made three of school friends suddenly to draw a plan for the ghats and greenery of Tamil Nadu i.e Ooty & Kodaikanal.. Plan also had included Munnar but at the end it was dropped due to some reason which will be discussed later..  Three friends are myself Vazzz an employee of  IT world then Azu who yet to become slave of IT world and finally Afzu a employee of Finance world which really suits for him.. It was the year of 2012 and month of December and we were ready to catch hold of our Volvo bus to Ooty from Bangalore.. It was early morning of 11th December we started our journey to Ooty.. When we were passing by Bandipur forest range we were curious to see wild animals as I was really attracted towards them but we got only chance to see some Monkeys and group of beautiful Deer's. Some pictures were caught of that forest range but missed to take picture of Deer's.

So finally reached to bus stand of Ooty around 2 PM on 11th December and no words to it's beauty both en route to Ooty and Ooty itself.. It's a town on hill with full lush of greenery.. Then we tried to contact our Local Driver, Guide and friend for whose name I can't reveal here, hence we can call him in this trip as bhaiya.. Bhaiya already had booked a hotel near by a beautiful Masjid and he will be meeting us next day..  So we reached our hotel by somehow by a small walk and it was chill & soothing weather even though it was afternoon..

                                                   View from room on first day...

Then we decided not to waste our half day.. so we had a lunch at Yasmeen hotel on the circle near taxi stand which is small and good for non veg.. but there are lot of options for veg compared to non veg..

We headed towards boat house by walk on road parallel to lake and it was really amazing to walk on it with full of greenery around you and below is one of the picture.. just beautiful...

Reached Boat House  and it's a place with beautiful lake with cottages, hotels, bungalows around it.. If possible try to take rooms or cottages near lake house it's too good compared to other places.. but it's bit costly in season but very cheap during no season.. Winter season considered as no season but winter is the best time compared to summer to see it's beauty..

Boat house you need to take a ticket which has a small park, scary house as entertainment then boating which is it's heart.. Boating is must here to see the beauty of Ooty from this location.. And you need to pay separately for boating.. And our friend Afzu is very scared of water but somehow we convinced him...

To be continued...

Bike Trip to Land of Coffee-Chikmangalur....

I am a IT Tech Guy... Year of 2013 December.. There was three days continuous leave and my mind got into sudden idea.. lets try some coffee with greenery and wild animals...

I took my bike and called cousin let's go to Land of coffee... One bike and two riders left to Land of Coffee..

So a drive started to Chikmangalur from Bangalore Via nice road.. On the way we heard from locals there is a very nice Dam at Kunigal called Markonahalli Dam built during time of Krishna Raj Wadeyar, hence we decided to visit this dam and it was really nice with full of water and small park around entrance with no public..

Bad news is that I lost my all photos of this trip due to some system issue..:(, hence I tried to collect some pics which I had taken similarly from google to give you insight of my trip..

Some picture of Dam...

After pleasant Dam we started again our smooth drive by joining nice road and we crossed Hasan then near by reaching to Belur we met a twist in our road trip that was a horrible accident of ours.

There was pin turn and we lost our control then bike skid into mud sanitation near by some farm fields. But nothing happened to both of us as we fell on shoulder of road with grass area except some scratches.. Best thing was there were no vehicles and humans around us except some cattle..
Somehow we got our bike outside and we were laughing seeing each other.. Thanks to god..

Again with some caution on new roads we started our journey and we were about to reach my cousin place in Chikmangalur..

First day took some rest with some local shopping etc and spent some time with mechanic for dosing our bike.. Which was getting ready for wild riding on mountains of coffee land..

Second Day we went to see Coffee Day 2013 Car Rally and till we reach a remote area I forgot the name and its after Mudigere..

Mudigere road and roads to that remote were filled with coffee estates, fragrance of coffee, fresh wind and beautiful cottages which won my heart.. unfortunately I lost my all beautiful photos except some..

But we got chance to see Cars participated in rally at ABC coffee HQ.. Below are some:

Back to home had some rest and third day morning we decided to go through forest which is outskirts of Bhadra Tiger Zone but not core area which is restricted by forest department..

Malandur Circle  - Jakkanahalli - Muthodi - Jagra - Kolagave - Attigundi - Dattapeta Baba Budangiri.

This was our route and it was dark dense forest area with muddy roads, on one side landslide and other side valley with sound of Bhadra river... No single human and weird sounds...

Finally our dream come true we saw bunch of peacocks around us and flying over our head.. It was our most pleasant time.. Every side greenery and only peacocks around us.. Spectacular and just amazing no words..

Then we started moving further then we came across a type of fox and it went into trees suddenly..
Lot more like different types of birds which we had no idea, many butterflies and fragrance of herbs, trees was just fabulous...

Although we were scared to extreme due to silence, darkness and every turn we were scared of tigers.. We were just thinking when we will be outside.. then we came across a type of black color snake which was more than 5 feet in it's length.. Then we moved further praying to god to get us out of this place and will never try this on bike.. With beautiful experience of forest, sense of animals, greenery, mud trek roads etc finally we reached attigundi from where you will find habitation and then finally our destination to top Baba Budangiri.. Then on the way back to cousin place we went to Jhari falls which also had bad trekking small route where you have to walk but its worth...

 

Malandur road..

Some pictures you may see and feel them on the route mentioned above.

Finally fourth day back to Bangalore with smooth drive and without my photos this article is incomplete as I had to skip many things which I don't remember..  But beautiful experience of nature and made me to realize one thing, this just didn't came into existence randomly but created by some eternal power..

Uelen - The hidden place in Eastern Russia.....

Hi folks... Was checking about a place called Uelen....  Uelen is a rural locality in the Chukotsky District, just south of the Arctic Circle in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in the Russian Far East. Population: 720....  Uelen is also the closest Russian settlement to the United States..

Archeological investigation has revealed the existence of a settlement in and around the present day site of the village about 30 km from the village for at least 2000 years, based on fishing and the hunting of marine mammals. The main site of archeological investigation is at the Ekven site, a site of importance comparable to that of the Ipiutak Site across the Bering Strait on Point Hope

Demographics: The population according to the most recent census results was 740, of whom 368 were male and 352 female. Uelen had a population of 740 at the start of 2009, down from 776 in 2003. Other villagers are Russian.

Transport: Uelen is not connected by road to any other part of the world and is 100 km from the district centre, Lavrentiya. However, there is a small network of roads in the village including.

Usually they survive by hunting whale, sea dog and sea lions etc... marine food.. yummy...

Some Beautiful pictures...

Svalbard... Beautiful place to explore...

Svalbard is a beautiful Ice Island near to Norway... Very rarely people around the world aware about it.. World is beautiful it just need to conscious eyes to see it...

Some Pictures....

There is Seed Vault project in Svalbard.. To portect seeds of different kind of food around the world for future due to unexpected climatic change... very good project and there is a very good documentary on it by name "Seed of Time"... Some pictures of seed vault below: