Aussie 3: Scuba Dive on The Great Barrier Reef and Townsville

In continuation from: Aussie 2: Melbourne and The Boxing Day Ashes Test

Beautiful Sunset over Townsville

Having enjoyed the first session of Boxing Day Cricket test at MCG, we immediately drove to the Melbourne Airport to catch our flight to Townsville. The reason we wanted to go to Townsville was to scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef. Most people go to the city of Cairns for Great Barrier Reef. However I decided to go to Townsville as the flights to and from here were relatively cheaper and we hardly had time to explore a huge city like Cairns. 

The Great Barrier Reef

We spent the 3 hour flight to Townsville completing our quota of sleep. Townsville airport was pretty small and we were told to walk to the terminal building upon leaving the plane. 

Friend ready to jump into the water

Corals 

When the taxi dropped us in front of our hotel, I couldn't help but admire the location of our hotel Aquarius on the Beach. Located right on the Strand, the hotel offered great views of the beach and the waterfront. Thankfully, we were allotted ocean facing rooms on the 11th floor providing beautiful panoramic views from the balcony. Even though we had a pretty early day and were slightly tired, we decided to go down and have a short walk on the Strand. There is a nice walkway here hugging the beach with a number of lawns on the sides. Even though Townsville is only a small town, it has a good number of restaurants, even India restaurants, and a Casino as well. 

Dive guide pointing out a Sea Slug to me!!

Beautifully coloured fish all around

After the walk, we went to an Indian restaurant for early dinner as we wanted to sleep early today. While we were having dinner there, a number of non-Indian customers came in to get themselves Indian food. It was clear that in this part of the world, Indian food is quite popular. 

A Boring Clam is called so 'cause its so so boring

Back at hotel, we spent some time playing cards in the balcony before hitting the bed. However, I was unsure whether to sleep immediately or watch Manchester United play Hull city in the English Premier League. Finally I decided to remain awake for a couple more hours to watch my favourite football club play. It was well worth it as the match was quite interesting and resulted in a Manchester United victory. 

A Jellyfish just below the surface

Next morning, we woke up early, picked our swim wear and went to Townsville Breakwater Marina from where our ferry to the the Barrier reef was to depart. Here, we were provided with our diving gear and once everyone has the gear of their required size, we boarded the ferry and settled in for a 2.5 hour ride into the ocean. 

Its a different world down here

I had always wondered what Great Barrier Reef would look like but I never thought it would be like it was when I actually saw it. In the middle of the ocean with no islands around, the depth of the ocean came down to just about 10-30 meters. And we could see a number of beautifully colored corals with some equally vibrantly colored fishes swimming among them. 

The fish that threatened me!!

So perfectly camouflaged

Once the ferry stopped, we squeezed into our diving gear, put on our scuba tanks and jumped into the water. The first time divers went with a instructor in pairs while four of us, certified divers, went in with one dive guide only. The dive site had perfect diving conditions with great visibility and optimum water temperature. Also, thanks to the corals, there was a good amount of fish life in the area. We saw fishes like parrot fish, butterfly fish, a solitary lionfish and a couple of Barracudas. Other than these, we saw some Boring Clams and some Jellyfish right beneath the surface. Jellyfish look beautiful and harmless but their sting can be enough to ruin your diving pleasure for a while. However, this is just like most of the creatures under water or even above it, who don't really intend to harm us humans. They harm only when we try to hurt them or surprise them leading to a panic attack.

Me posing underwater

Butterfly Fish

The first dive was followed by a quick lunch on the boat. For the second dive, the dive guide just took us in a different direction. This was unlike my previous experiences when the boat was moved to a different point for the second dive. This 2nd dive was slightly more interesting than the first one as we moved close to a wall in this one and there were number of fishes hanging around the plants there. There was one particular gray colored fish about a feet long that came towards my face a number of times. I felt as if it was threatening me to move away so I obeyed its orders and moved quickly. After this dive, we came up, washed ourselves with a fresh water shower and took a seat on the top to move back to Townsville. While we were moving back, a group of Dolphins accompanied us for sometime.

When your oxygen ends, you can use your partner's oxygen like this

Dolphins

We reached Townsville by 5 in the evening. The sandwiches we had for lunch on the boat weren't filling enough, so we decided to grab a meal at an Indian restaurant. After the meal, we took a taxi that drove us 2.6 kms to the top of Castle Hill. Castle Hill is a 286 m high pink granite monolith that towers above the town of Townsville. This offers numerous vantage points offering views to as far as Magnetic Island. This hill was used as a communications and observation post during World War II. Nowadays, many locals walk up the Castle Hill for regular exercise. While we were roaming around the Hynes Lookout clicking pictures of the panoramic views, a number of locals were running along the stairs working on their fitness.

Posers

Us

There are a couple more places worth visiting in Townsville namely Reef HQ and Billabong Sanctuary. We couldn't visit these because of a lack of time. Hence, I would recommend visiting Townsville for a minimum of 3-4 days so that you don't miss out on these sites. For Indian food, the best Indian restaurant was Alishaan, just near The Strand. This night, we had a long sleep and woke up late in the morning. After a quick breakfast, we hopped in to a taxi to the airport to catch our flight to SYDNEY!!

Panoramic view from the Castle Hill

Read the next part here: Sydney and the SKYDIVE

Ranthambore Tiger Census 2013

I visited Ranthambore Tiger Reserve on May 11th and that was when I first found out of the waterhole census that was to be carried out on 25th & 26th May 2013. Later, I found a post on Facebook providing details on how to apply to volunteer for this census. As I have always wanted to experience being in the jungle at night, I immediately sent a mail to the email address provided expressing my willingness to volunteer for this. A couple of days later, I got a response wherein I had to send an application form and updated resume to apply for this. After two days of e-mailing the required documents, I called up the Deputy Conservator of Forests office to find out the status of my application. I was told that my name was put in 2nd list as I didn't have any relevant experience. Upon hearing this, I told them of the number of safaris that I have done in Indian National Parks and also South African ones. On hearing that, I was soon sent a mail confirming my acceptance to volunteer for this.

A huge chameleon in our hotel lawn

I reached Ranthambore on Friday, 24th May for an orientation/training session for the waterhole census wherein we were informed slightly about all the ranges for this census and the differences between some animals with similar physical appearance. This waterhole census was basically over 330 waterholes in Ranthambore National Park and Sawai Mansingh Sanctuary. As the census form was in Hindi, so we were also told names of some animals in Hindi/local language. After this, we were told a few Do's and Dont's in during the census and were told to collect at the division office by 0630 hours next morning. During this session, I was pleased to see the number of naturalists/enthusiasts who had travelled from all over the country to be part of this.

See those parallel logs of wood? Thats Jamoda II machan

I reached the division office on time and tried to find the machan that was allotted to me. After jumping over a few shoulders trying to peek onto the list that was pasted on a board, I finally found my name written next to Kushalipura waterhole. Upon speaking to a few locals there, I found that this waterhole is right on a road  meaning that there would be almost no movement of animals during day-time but leopard and bear come there after dark. However, as my personal motive was to experience being inside the jungle, I asked the Range Officer to change my waterhole to one that is inside the jungle at least. He then changed me to Jamoda II waterhole and told me the vehicle that was to drop me to the waterhole. This vehicle stopped on a Dhaba on the route to pick up food packets for us. A 5-7 kilometer drive and four of us, two volunteers for Jamoda I waterhole and two volunteers for Jamoda II waterhole were dropped at Kushalipura check-post from where a smaller vehicle was to take us to our individual machans over the waterhole. Everything seemed perfect till now. 

Even though I was hanging onto a branch for dear life, but a Paradise Flycatcher is not to be missed

Having waited for almost 2 hours for the smaller vehicle at the check post, it was already 1200 hours when the forest guard offered to walk us to our machan. Considering it was almost noon and the temperature was almost close 45 degrees, I didn't wish to walk. But, my colleagues were very enthusiastic to reach their machans early and I had to oblige. Walking under the sun for just under an hour was enough to make them understand that their decision had backfired and we called up the Range Officer to tell him about the situation. After about 30 more minutes, a vehicle came to us and dropped us to our waterhole where I was to sit with Bhushan from Gujarat. Upon asking for drinking water, the forest guard took our water bottles and filled them with greenish water from the waterhole where we expected all the animals to come for a drink. As if this and the scorching sun wasn't enough to frighten us, the machan looked unstable with the branch vibrating as we climbed on it. However, trusting the forest department, we climbed and seated ourselves on it. The vehicle had hardly left us and we heard a cracking sound. Next thing we understood was that we were on the ground and all our bones seemed mobile without any clear pain. Thanking God for keeping us safe, we immediately ran to the Jamoda I waterhole where we hoped to find the vehicle still dropping the other two volunteers. However, upon reaching there we found those volunteers sitting on their machan and no sign of the vehicle around. 

A highly active bird. Never sat on one branch for more than a few seconds

Realising that the way back was very long tough under the scorching sun, we decided to climb the tree on which these people were seated and sit on some its branches. We did this trusting the forest department vehicle to come to us on regular intervals as was promised to us. So here I was seated on a branch deep into the forest under scorching sun waiting to hear the humming of the vehicle engine. In the meantime, I was still hoping to see some animals no matter what my situation was. However, except for a few Paradise Flycatchers, Kingfisher, Great Tit and some other birds, their came neither any animal nor the forest vehicle. Finally around 1800 hours, a few Sambar deers came near the waterhole but they were too nervous seeing us and only a few drank water and the rest ran to the other waterhole nearby. It had started getting a bit dark by now and I had started to fret a little thinking of how to spend the whole night hanging onto a branch like monkeys. However, I had started to prepare myself to being a primate for the night.

One of those nervous Sambar Deer that came to the waterhole

Finally, around 2030 hours, I saw a car's headlights in the woods and trust me I have never been more pleased to see headlights ever in my life. When it finally reached us, I told them that our machan came down as soon as they left. To this, the forester, Omprakash Sharma retorted that "If you didn't have the guts to sit, then you shouldn't have volunteered". I was taken aback by his response but decided that arguing with him was not going to help. I simply told him that I am neither afraid nor do I wish to back out and he should provide me another machan and I am willing to spend the night on it. Even then he continued to talk crap for a while before telling me to join the forest guard who was seated at Aam Chowki waterhole. I agreed and I was dropped on this machan now. However, this wasn't exactly a machan but the top of one of those old ruins in Ranthambore. Hence, I was seated on it with the forest guard by 2100 hours.

Full Moon

Sitting there, I started a conversation with the forest guard, Shiv Singh with the usual sounds of Nightjar keeping us company. While waiting for any wildlife to show up, we continued to chat for some time when around 2300 hours, we heard the dry leaves behind us cracking. Upon looking around, we saw a Sloth Bear appear out of the bushes. The bear walked close to where we sat without noticing us and went to the waterhole where he had a fill. After that, he moved further ahead without even giving us a look. For all the trouble that I had went through during last 10 hours, I was mightily pleased now for this was my first sloth bear sighting in the wild. Half an hour after this, Shiv Singh dozed off and was snoring heavily in another 15-20 minutes. Looking at that, I also decided to sleep around 0000 hours.

One of the Jackals that came early in the morning

I didn't find it easy to sleep as every sound would wake me up in the hope of a leopard/tiger coming around. Just when I was finally sleeping, I felt a tug on my shorts. I woke up immediately to find Shiv Singh pointing towards the waterhole. He told me that he could hear the sound of some animal drinking there though we could hardly see anything even after the full moon lighting all over us as the waterhole was under the shade of a tree. I tried looking for a few minutes but my head was feeling just too heavy so I lay down again while he continued to look. A few minutes later, he again woke me up telling that their is something at the waterhole for sure. This time even I could hear the sound of a tongue licking near the waterhole. Soon, we could also hear the deep sound typical of big cats like lions, tigers and leopards. Still, we couldn't see anything as the animal was under the shade. A few minutes later, we saw the silhouette of the animal move quickly which is typical of a leopard. As soon as it moved towards our right, the sharp sound of Sambar deer warning call came from that direction as well. So, we were now sure that this was a leopard at the waterhole. After this, I slept again fully satisfied having seen a sloth bear and a leopard during night.

Jungle Mouse?

I woke up at 0515 hours when the dawn was just coming up. I immediately sat up to look at the waterhole hoping to see some animal there for his early morning drink. But, there were only a few birds there. A little while later, 3 jackals came to the waterhole. They played around for sometime before moving further ahead towards our left. Soon, Shiv Singh also woke up and his mobile phone rang too. It was the forester, Omprakash Sharma who ordered him to walk to the Jamoda I waterhole and bring the two volunteers sitting there to our waterhole. I was seriously disappointed to see that these people don't plan to provide us a vehicle again even after all that happened with us yesterday. Shiv Singh asked me to come with him to fetch these other volunteers as he felt that I can talk them into walking again. I decided to cooperate with him and walked 3 kilometers in the jungle looking for pugmarks. When we reached them, they told us that they saw a tiger move below their machan during the night. I then assisted Shiv Singh in taking off the machan and throwing the sticks in different directions while taking the rope with us. This was done to ensure that we don't end up providing readymade equipment for any hunters that might plan to sit in the forest. Then, all four of us walked back to Aam Chowki.

Aam Chowki. This is where I sat all night

Looking for animals to come at this artificial waterhole

Though, it was just 8 in the morning, but the sun was already really harsh and it wasn't easy walking back. When we reached Aam Chowki, we found out that now we were to walk our way back to Kushalipura check-post from where vehicle would pick us to take us back to the division office. Now that was the maximum patience I could keep with the operations of Forest Department and I called up the control room to provide us a vehicle. The person there told us that it was only a few kilometers further away and that we have walked so much, why not a little more. At that point, we decided to end cooperating with the forest department and walked to the road where we hopped onto a local bus that drove us to Sawai Madhopur City.

Walking to Jamoda I waterhole to fetch the two volunteers there

The experience of sitting inside the jungle overnight is frightening but equally fun. However, the arrangements provided by forest department were really disappointing. I will put those in points here:
1.Nobody came to check on us after putting us on machans for 7.5 hours. If we might have hurt our head or any such part when our machan came down, we could easily have died due to loss of blood in that much time. Ideally, they should check on all machans in 2-3 hours for such emergency situation. Other than machan coming down, snake bites or animal attacks could also need such patrols.
2. It was their duty to take us to our machans in vehicles, but they simply refused to provide that and told us to walk when temperature was soaring at 45 degrees.
3. We were also told that we would be provided with drinking water while we were told to drink the greenish standing water of the waterholes where all the animals bath and drink as well. We can easily fall sick drinking it.
4. Even when we are telling them that our machan came down, instead of accepting that and being a little apologetic, the forester, Omprakash Sharma is shouting back at us telling us that we are trying to fool him.

Thats the Machan I was supposed to sit at and the one that crashed onto the rocks

And its branches had these fresh claw marks of a Leopard

Overall, the forest department didn't seem to care at all for the volunteers and anyone wanting to do this in coming years should be prepared to do this at their own risk and responsibility.

While I was hanging on the tree, these primates are seated on the ground

South Africa 1: Reaching Johannesburg

Considering that I had always heard that South Africa is one of the best country for travelling to, this trip was planned with very very high expectations. During the planning stage itself, I had the feeling that those expectations will be fulfilled. For a wildlife lover like me, SA has a lot to offer. On land, they have almost every major animal except for our very own Tiger. Other than that, there is a lot on offer in South African seas with Whales, Sharks, Penguins, Seals being the prominent few. I was surely very excited to be visiting SA.

As we were travelling during the peak Christmas/New Year period, I started the bookings as early as September beginning. International flight was booked first followed by Kruger Safari, various hotels, domestic flights, car rentals and adventure sports like Sky Diving, Shark Cage Diving and Scuba Diving. For anyone planning a trip to SA, its highly advised to make bookings as early as possible because even after starting so early, I found most lodges in Kruger already sold out.

When a 4 am flight is delayed to 7 am!!

On 22nd December early morning, we reached Delhi Airport well in time before the flight only to find that our flight with Ethiopian Airlines was delayed by 2 hours due to technical reasons. This 2 hour delay later extended to 4 hours and it ensured that we miss our next flight to Johannesburg from Addis Ababa. As the next flight to Jo'burg was only after 24 hours, the airline compensated us a bit and accommodated us at a reasonably nice hotel in Addis. However, this also meant that we would miss our first day at Kruger reducing our Kruger adventure to just 2 days. Considering how much we had paid for the lodge at Kruger, we were really disappointed. However, this also meant that we get to see one extra city namely Addis Ababa. Even though the name of the city doesn't sound much exciting, but I used this logic to help my friends get over with the disappointment of the delay.

Bird's eye view of barren Lands of Ethiopia

Other then the normal city life, Addis Ababa has two good museums one of them hosting the oldest known human skeleton. Ethiopia is believed to have the first humans. However, due to some further delays in getting transit visa, we reached our hotel by about 5 pm and were unable to visit any of the museums. After a short drive through the city, we stayed in our hotel rooms only considering that we had to wake up pretty early next morning for our flight to Jo'burg.

Deserted Planes at Addis Ababa Airport

In the morning, we reached the airport well in time for the flight only to find that even this flight was delayed by an hour. The flight continued getting postponed further and further and finally we took off after a delay of over 3 hours. Later, we found out that this delay was due to some electric issue in the Dreamliner we were supposed to fly in. The various issues with Dreamliners have since become an everyday issue.

When you have to wait for 3 hours to get a Transit Visa done

Finally, we reached Jo'burg at 5 pm SA time on 23rd December. After the regular immigration procedure was over and we came out of the airport with a slight sense of anxiety considering how much we had heard about Jo'burg being unsafe. The Car Rental building is located right next to the airport exit where we were guided by a local who seemed to ask for some money when we reached there but as we hardly had any change till then, we had a tough time getting rid of him. Once I took out the papers for our Car booking, I started reading the terms & conditions there. There was a point which mentioned that if you don't pick your car at the designated time, your booking might be cancelled with no refund. However, the lady at the counter was helpful and told us that she will arrange a car for us in an hour. Thankfully, the car was there in 30 minutes and we left for our hotel in Melville that was booked for the night prior hoping to get some discount from the manager as sympathy for all the trouble that we had faced reaching there. Even with GPS, we had some tough time driving the 20 kms to the hotel and reached there around 10 in the night. The roads were pretty good with people driving properly in lanes which always is a big deal for us Indians. I took some time adjusting and finally curbed my tendency to switch lanes at whim during my stay in SA. The caretaker at the hotel provided us rooms but had no bottled water left. Considering that tap water is portable in SA, it wasn;t such a big issue.

We slept pretty quickly after reaching hotel due to exhaustion and the long drive early next morning to Kruger.

Continue reading the next part: The Wildings of Kruger

Corbett: An Unintentional Adventure

For the first time, I am going to dig into my past trips for this is a story I love to narrate.

It was August 2007, when six of us decided to travel to Corbett National Park after the Bollywood movie, Kaal brought it into highlight. This was actually my first trip to a national park and I haven't stopped since!

We started from Delhi around 4 pm in a hired Toyota Qualis having no idea of the havoc that rains play in this part. The drive from Delhi was simple. We reached Rampur around midnight and asked a police car for directions to Corbett National Park. The policemen were quite amused to know that we wanted to go to Corbett at this hour. However, they told us that their are several small rivulets that are flowing across the road and we won't be allowed to travel to Corbett right now. As we were students back then with small budget to travel on, we went to a shady guesthouse for night-stay. The bedsheets were smelling due to humidity and the ceiling was dripping water all night. But, we hardly had any other option.

This is where we bathe

Early next morning, we hired a gypsy to travel to Corbett. We were told that the only Corbett gate open at this time of the year will open in sometime and we can travel to some other parts of the forest in the meantime. So we went there but there was hardly a dog to be seen on that route. We got down the gypsy near an old and huge tree and then climbed down a hillock to bathe in a rushing stream. After that, we came back to Rampur and prepared ourselves for a night inside the famed Corbett National Park. While we were on the outskirts of Rampur, our driver "Naeem" picked a Rangeeli deshi sharab( unbranded alcohol) to keep him company. On our way to Corbett's gate, we passed many rivulets that were gushing over the cemented road. However, they were small and didn't really frighten us as our gypsy moved across them with ease.

Inside Corbett

We reached our bungalow inside Corbett with some time to spare before our evening safari. While we checked out the bungalow, two of our group ventured into the forest on their own. Sometime later, the forest officer came to check on us and asked where are the remaining two out of our group of six. We simply shrugged and he hurriedly gathered his subordinates to find them. Within a few minutes, the two of them were brought back to the bungalow and were warned that venturing into the forest on foot isn't allowed. Also, we were told that CRPF snipers were given shoot on sight orders because of rampant poaching in the national park and that walking on foot, we can easily be mistaken as poachers.  We were truly shaken at that moment.

One side of the rivulet outside exit gate

At 3:30, we left for our evening safari with our driver, Naeem and we asked him to show us as much animals he can no matter what it takes. We had just left when we crossed a small river and found some tribal boys washing clothes there. We asked them, if they have noticed any animals around. We were told that a herd of elephants was heard crossing closeby. We asked a kid there to jump onto our gypsy and tell us their exact location. He came along and jumped off at a point and climbed at a mud hill from where he could see the herd. We immediately followed him and saw the purple eared elephants at some distance from us. Just as some of us were getting onto the mud hill, the forest officer and his subordinates reached there and ordered us to immediately hop onto the gypsy while asking for the whereabouts of our driver as it was his responsibility to ensure that we don't leave the vehicle at any point. He was nowhere to be seen and we were seriously threatened this time for breach of rules. Naeem appeared in sometime and seemed inebriated clearly. He was ordered to immediately take us back to the bungalow and our safari was over!! The forest officer went back while Naeem settled in his seat. In his inebriated state, he started moving further ahead instead of taking us back. As we also didn't want our safari to end so early, we again asked him to show us more animals. A few hundred meters ahead, there was a group of spotted deers grazing and we hoped to see a tiger stalking them. Some more distance into the forest, there was a 2 feet deep and 1.5 feet wide gorge on the dirt track. Understanding that the tyres of our vehicle would get stuck in it if he move forward, we got down again and filled it with some stones at a gap same as distance between the two front tyres of our gypsy. Having done that, we asked Naeem to carefully move the gypsy over the stones. However, alcohol had taken full control over him by then and he moved between the stones and our vehicle went down into it with a thud. By this time, it started raining and was also getting dark. All six of us used all our muscular power to lift the vehicle out of the hole for over 30 minutes. Finally, we couldn't see the vehicle coming out and asked Naeem to walk us back to the bungalow before it gets too dark to see. He didn't seem to hear us and opened his bottle of whiskey while we decided to walk back ourselves.  Afraid of being attacked by a tiger or being hit by the bullet of a CRPF sniper, that proved to be the longest walk of our life. Finally, as were just about to reach the bungalow, we were met by the forest officer and his subordinates who had themselves armed themselves with some weapons leaving into the forest searching for us. They had to arm themselves to protect themselves from being attacked by some aggressive animal. Upon seeing us safe, they were relieved and asked us for the whereabouts of our driver. We told them that he was drinking in the gypsy somewhere deep into the forest. We were told to stay inside the bungalow while they went to bring him back. 

You can't think of crossing that. Can you?

After an hour, we could hear commotion outside the bungalow as Naeem was brought back and was shouting abuses at the forest officials while they were threatening him with a cancellation of his permit. Next morning, we woke up early and were pleased to see Naeem back to his senses and also the vehicle was brought back.  While we ate breakfast, it again started raining heavily and we decided to move out of the national park before all the roads are closed by many rivulets flowing over them. 

However, the rivulets were already gushing across the roads and we walked on foot in them at the vehicle's tyre distance to ensure that the tyres don't get stuck in some pothole in them. We crossed over 10 rivulets this way before we reached the exit gate. But we got the biggest shock when we looked outside the gate. We could hardly see the road as whole of it was submerged under a huge 50m wide rivulet gushing across it. All six of us got hold of a long and strong branch of a tree and started crossing it on foot. Some of us got their feet stuck in it and were helped on by others thanks to the branch we held on to. After some time, although the rains subsided but we were completely drenched in the cold mountain rain and were shivering in the cold. With no dry clothes and the chilly air blowing into our face inside the open top vehicle, there was hardly any respite to be seen. All our expectations of early respite went down the drain as we saw a very huge and deep rivulet flowing across the cemented road again. Here, there seemed no hope of our vehicle being able to cross it anytime soon as even large vehicles were not crossing it and were parked alongside. So, we were again back to our old strategy. All six of us moving in line holding onto the long tree branch while the water level was over our waists. Some of us had our slippers flown away by the gushing water, but we managed to reach the other side where we hopped onto an auto-rickshaw which drove us to the guest house in Rampur. There, we changed into dry clothes and got back into our Toyota Qualis to travel back to Delhi. 

Between Rampur and Corbett

Back in Qualis, we assumed that the adventure was over. As it got darker, and the rains continued to come down heavily, our windscreen wiper stopped working. As we didn't wish to stop, we tied straps of cloth to both wiper hands which were pulled alternately by the driver and the guy sitting in front to operate the wipers manually.

 Finally, we were back in Delhi at 2 am in the night feeling happy to be alive and safe!!

P.S. Never get off your vehicle inside a tiger reserve. Its more unsafe then you think.

Mukteshwar: A quaint getaway from city chaos

I decided to go to Mukteshwar just a day before I was about to leave from Delhi for a weekend trip during first weekend of May, 2012.

We did some quick research on the route and place to stay there. After reading a few reviews on Tripadvisor, we decided to stay at Resort Sequester in Peora Village. This village is about 18 kms away from Mukteshwar town but you can take a different route while driving from Delhi to ensure that you don't have to travel away from Mukteshwar.

As for route, we drove via Moradabad-Rampur-Bhimtal until a place called Talla Ramgarh where we took a left turn.

Our room at Sequester

Peora Village has just about 50 odd houses and a couple of resorts to stay at. Resort Sequester is just a 2 storeyed building with 4 rooms for guests. Each room has a 360 degree view with glass and wood taking place of concrete walls. The rooms have a double bed, sofa cum bed, dining table, refrigerator, television and a microwave oven. The rooms are quite spacious including the kitchen and bathroom and are attended to by a caretaker named Bhaskar who is performing his role perfectly. He takes care of all that you need. We even asked him to bring us a comb and he obliged!!!

View from Van Vilas in Bhimtal

We left Delhi around 11 in the night and after negotiating 3 toll booths and a traffic jam because of road widening work reached Mukteshwar around 9 am. On our way, we had breakfast at Van Vilas in Bhimtal. However, they weren't ready to serve us at 6am and took some time in providing us with some paranthas and sandwiches. The food seemed stale and the place had enough spider webs to make us leave that place sooner than we wished. Though, there location was quite good right next to Bhimtal Lake.

View from our room. Sky god wasn't favorable though

As soon as we reached Resort Sequester, Bhaskar came down to take our luggage to our room on the second floor and the three of us jumped onto the double bed without even talking to him. We even filled the check-in register after waking up for lunch!!! He was kind enough to not disturb us in the meantime. Meals provided here had the taste of homemade food which was perfect for me. For anyone wanting to stay there, I would suggest taking a room on the 2nd floor as you get a better view of Trishul and NandaDevi peaks from there on a clear day!!!

Woods between Peora and Mukteshwar

After lazying around in the room whole day, we left for Mukteshwar town the next day. The drive to Mukteshwar from Peora is quite scenic as it passes through dense woods of a protected forest area. Once in town, we went to the temple and Chauli ki Jaali behind the temple. At Chauli ki Jaali, we saw some school kids doing rappelling and mountain climbing. I have done these in school, so immediately decided to rappel down the cliff. As 85 feet rappelling site was occupied by the school kids, we did 300 feet rappelling which seemed frightening to look down from. However, the site was brilliant with just a couple of overhangs and all three of us did that quite easily.

 Then we drove back to Gurgaon stopping for Lunch at Italiano before Bhimtal. For anyone familiar with the name, I would like to warn that the quality of pizza served here isn't the same that you get at Italiano in Gurgaon. Else driving back was easy as there was minimal traffic towards Delhi on a Sunday evening and we reached back in just about 8-9 hours.