The Travel Connection

And it was yet again the time for our yearly pilgrimage to pray that we have a wonderful year travelling as much as we can. This time around we got greedy and decided to grab as much as possible. So whilst the majority of Bangalore crowd went bar hopping till wee hours, we woke up before sunrise on the first day of the year 2017 and went Kere Hopping!! Kere for the non kannadigas translates to lake. And the first stop over was the Linghambudhi Kere At Mysore. A temporary home to migrant birds, it was a sight every bird watcher dreams of. Make sure that you cover all the sides of the lakes including the bund road to sight as many birds as possible. Yellow wagtail Common Kingfisher Northern Shoveler Male and female Some of the birds we spotted included Yellow wagtail Indian Silver bill Clamorous Reed warbler Common iora Common Kingfisher Purple sunbird Black headed ibis Wood sandpiper. Black winged stilt barn swallow Rosy...

Mysore is the gateway to weekend getaways from Bangalore. A quick stop to refresh , maybe munch on Mysore masala dosa with coffee and we would be off from the place. It was only recently I got to explore some parts of Mysore though it is one of the popular tourist destinations in South India. We went local and took the least traveled path up to the Chamundi temple. After a quick breakfast at popular Darshini Nalpak, we started the ascent up the steps. An enthusiast fellow climber who had got us here mentioned that it was a half hour climb! Little did we know nor did we bother to question him!! Lord Ganesh as always was around at the start to make sure we had a safe climb.A  stone toran painted red and white welcomed us towards the worn out steps. One of the first things you notice is that some diligent pilgrim has  applied the Kumkum and Turmeric along the top of each of  the risers.After the holy start, we were told these steps are close to 300 years old a...

If you don’t know what a twitcher is then, this might not interest you. No it has nothing to do with the Blair witch project or maybe it could. In the Blair witch project, there were three film makers who hiked into black hills to film the legend.  In the twitch project, three of us had journeyed through the hard roads of Karnataka, fought the potholes, and conquered the crowd to film the migratory birds. Like with all discoveries, we chanced upon Ranganthittu on our way back to Bangalore as we had taken some crossroads. Our driver tried to dissuade us from venturing into the waters claiming that the sanctuary closes by 4.00pm. But nothing can stop us “the mighty twitchers”. OK technically I am not a twitcher as I don’t walk the distance to spot the rare birds, but even the everyday birds are becoming a rare sight. So I guess the term twitcher is fine. It was a mixed crowd on the boat. As most of us were birding enthusiasts, our guide agreed to take us on a long...