Showing posts with label karnataka. Show all posts
Showing posts with label karnataka. Show all posts

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Road trip to Coorg (Madikeri) - A Photo Essay

Way back in April 2013 I had made a trip to Coorg. We had explored various weekend gateway options like Goa, Pondicherry, Ooty etc... and finally decided on Coorg. We decided to drive to Coorg from Bangalore. Since the we wanted to come back to Bangalore the next day, we decided to cover as many places as we can on the way to Coorg.

First stop was the Tibetan colony which falls somewhere in between Mysore and Coorg. It is a great place to see the Tibetan culture, custom and architecture in close proximity.  The central monastery is an amazing place to be in. As soon as you enter it, you will find that this place is so serene and peaceful and it feels as if time has slowed down. There are few shops around where you can buy mementos.









Next stop was Dubare. Dubare is known for its elephant camp and is situated at the bank of  river Kaveri. During peak monsoon when the river level is high, one can also take a boat ride in the river. Its a nice place to spend couple of hours.



We also visited Kanive bridge, which came somewhere on route to Nisargadhama . Kanive bridge is a simple suspension bridge across the Kaveri river.



After spending few minutes at the bridge and taking few photograph we moved along to visit our next stop. Nisargadhama is a a nice picnic spot. Though the park is not that great, it has few bamboo machans and provision for elephant ride. Better buy the ticket for elephant ride from the park entrance it self. The best part of this park is the river that flows behind the park where one can hire pedal boat and take a small ride in the river.



Finally we reached our our hotel (home stay actually). It was a lovely place surrounded by trees.


After a bit of rest and refreshments we headed to Raja Seat. Its a fantastic place which has a nice garden and gives a panoramic view of the valley. By this time, thick mist had set in which gave even better feel of this place. Seeing the sun go down behind the horizon from here is an amazing experience.





Now it was time to head back to our hotel where we had one more surprise waiting. The hotel guys had provision of a camp fire, so we decided to do one. Though campfire in summer was not very enjoyable but we still had fun playing around it.



It was finally time to retreat to bed after a long and exciting day.

Day 2
There was not much to do in the morning so most of us lazed around the hotel. After having a heavy breakfast we checked out from the hotel and left for Bangalore. The plan was to visit Abbey falls and then also visit Mysore zoo on the way.

Abbey falls is situated inside a coffee plantation. A 10 minute walk through the plantation brought us to Abeey falls. However I was bit disappointed seeing it. It was not majestic, probably because we had visited during summer. I am sure the view will be breathtaking if visited after monsoon.


  After visiting Abbey falls we drove back to Bangalore and visited Mysore zoo on the way. Over all it proved to be a nice trip, though I would surely like to come back during winter season.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Lalbagh flower show (Aug 15)

Usually I visit the flower show during weekdays to avoid the the crowd that gathers up during weekends. However this time, I was busy with other stuff because of which I could not visit during the weekday. However I did not want to miss the flower show, so decided to head off during a weekend. As I expected the crowd was huge and I realized that it was almost impossible to take macro shots of the flowers. So I decided to shoot few candid shots of people around. Here are few shots that I liked during this exercise.

Security personal standing just outside of the glass house
Its always interesting to watch the kids. They hardly seem to be  interested in the flower show, but they are always up to some thing.
Mother taking photograph of kid and kid's father
Photo inside a photo :)
Thru the eye of cam
Poor kido, was hardly interested in getting photographed, but his father kept on asking him to give different poses.
Hawkers in lalbagh
End of the day.. heading home
Kids having fun time in the park
Ek main aur ek tu :)

Friday, March 30, 2012

Visit to Somanathapura and Shivanasamudra

I wanted to document this trip long time back, but somehow was not finding enough time to do it. So here it is. Since the trip was arranged from my office we all gathered near our office and left in a mini bus at around 6.30 AM. Our first stop was for breakfast at Adigas on Mysore road. We had dosas, idli and all kind of south Indian dishes. We also parceled our lunch because none of the place that we were about to visit had a decent restaurant.



Next stop was Somanathapura temple. Somanathapura temple is one of the finest example of Hoysala architecture. The condition of the temple is also pretty good, though there was some repair work going on when we had visited. As we went around and saw the lovely architecture of the temple I took few photographs.




After spending about an hour and half at the temple, we moved on to 2nd destination, which was Talakad. Talakad is a small village situated at the bank of Kaveri river. There is also some history associated with this place. For us, it was all about having fun bathing in the river. I took a boat ride and also spent some time photographing my friends who played volleyball in river.


Sometime later we move on to the last destination, which was Shivanasamudra. By far this was the best and the most scenic place. I also managed to get few decent shots here.




Soon I followed my friends to the place which you see in the photo just above and this was when I slipped on a wet rock and fell in water. Luckily I managed to keep my hand out of the water because of which my camera was saved from getting dipped in water. Nevertheless it did get wet because of water that was splashed around when I fell. To prevent any short circuit I removed the battery and the camera remained out of action for rest of the trip. After a while we went to another water falls nearby called Gaganachukki. We had to climb down about 100 stairs to reach this lovely place, but the effort was worth it. Here we spend about half hour bathing under the water falls. It was really amazing experience, last time I remember I had such fun was about 5 years back when I had visited Khandala with my friends.

This was pretty much end of the trip. When returning back we stopped at Adigas for dinner and reached Bangalore at around 9 PM. Visiting so many places was pretty hectic for a one day trip, and place like Gaganachukki itself is such that one can spend entire day without getting bored.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Urban winter

Feb 26, 2012


Most of the time when I visit Hebbal lake I usually concentrate on getting frame filling shots of birds or shooting macros. However now days such shots no longer seem appealing to me. Kinda looks boring or very repetitive. Probably that is a reason why these days I end up keeping only 2-3 shots from any trip, while deleting most of the shots in camera. This time when I visited Hebbal lake, I found decent early morning atmosphere. Though winter was long gone, early morning atmosphere at Hebbal lake still showed some passing signs of the season. I thought of capturing the beauty of nature and also emphasizing on fact that this beauty exists within an urban setup. Not sure if I was able to pass on this idea to viewer via the photographs, but I defiantly got some different shots as compared to my previous shots from Hebbal. Here are few shots that I liked from this small trip.



 
This one doesn't match the theme, nevertheless I liked this one so kept it.



Sunday, February 12, 2012

Lalbagh flower show January 2012

No, I had not been to Mars which would explain my long absence from the blog arena. Its just that these days I haven't got much opportunity to travel or visit any new places. However when 26th January was nearing, I was ready to go to Lalbagh to get few floral pictures. Looks like visiting Lalbagh during flower shows has now become a routine. I think I haven't missed a single flower show from the time I have been in Bangalore. The challenge from photography point of view is to get different shot and compositions from each visit. This is what I got this time during my visit to flower show.















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