Fun amidst the clouds at Mahabaleshwar.

Residencing in Mumbai for almost 17+ yrs now, made it to Mahabaleshwar,  the well known hill station of Maharashtra  ,several times so far but the trill and enjoyment we had last monsoon was just incomparable....

   Our close family friend had come over to our place to enjoy the monsoon of Mumbai and a trip to Mahabaleshwar  with them was an obvious  choice .....We had done our booking at a 5 star hotel there prior as for mumbaikar  ,Mahabaleshwar  is a high priority destination  during monsoon and hardly get a hotel room if booking not done prior....... We planned a bit detour to Mahabaleshwar  via satara,  valley of flowers.....By the time we reached Mahabaleshwar  , it was raining heavily  and was very cold too...... Hotel was just fantastic,  without and complain......and we all were sure to have an absolutely  wonderful  time together .....A glass of strawberry  wine , made the evening  gorgeous  with such lovely companions  alongside and mystical weather around ......

Next morning  after buffet breakfast  we all got decked up in our rain wears to venture around Mahabaleshwar  town in the rains .... it sometimes  feel  great to behave like kids , and bring out the child in us all  ....coming out of the crunches  of our career profiles and be one with nature ; ......As we went from one site seeing location to another  , we kept loving to drench more and more in the rains that kept splashing onto us heavily ...it was really fun which we will all remember  for quite a long time....enjoying  onion bhujiya,  hot cup of tea , hot burnt corn by roadside in the rains added more and more charm to our thrill .....Yes , I alway agree to the believe that if u have wonderful  company of friends  , absolutely  awesome  weather ,every  trip wherever it might be turns into a memorable  one.My pics will say it all about the fun time we had last monsoon  at Mahabaleshwar....😀

My walk across the Rhododendron valley on Nathu'La highway( East Sikkim).

Though ,it was our 2nd trip to Sikkim ,but I made it a point to visit both Changu lake and Nathu La top on Nathu'la highway that connects Sikkim with China border.....Mostly ,its a matter of luck ,whether a tourist can make it to Nathu La Baba  mandir or not as the highway is treacherous  besides driving  thru' the high eastern Himalayan region , where landslides , road closure is a common phenomenon  besides unpredictable  weather  conditions  that results in disruption  of traffic movements most often.

   Whoever have taken on the drive knows how difficult  the journey  is and dangerous  too but thrilling and nerve crushing..... I had been to several other highest motorable  passes across the Himalayas ie.Khardung'la & Chang'la in ladakh , Se'la in Arunachal,  Zogi'la in Kashmir valley joining ladakh with J&K , so was quite excited about adding another experience  to my already long list of adventures  across the Himalayas......

    After we started on the journey  ,our first target  was to reach Baba Mandir on Nathu'la and after a short stay we headed for Changu lake  ......Both the places ,where absolutely gorgeous  with mighty Himalayas  standing tall all across....Now the World's Highest Ropeway service have started from Changu lake that takes a person to the top most point of Nathu'la pass at 14000 + ft high where the weather mostly is almost freezingly cold....We made it a point to try this adventure  too ; 

 Now as we moved forward , on the highway , we chanced upon the beautiful  Rhododendron valley  ...though it was almost end of season of flowering but still its absolutely  beautiful....i asked our driver to stop the vehicle as i wanted to walk thru' ,a little distance and frame some memorable moments in my lens but our driver was at first quite hesitant to stop as Army doesn't allow stopping on this highway and there's lot of army camp all around....but after several request ,our driver agreed to stop for 10 mins , which sounded quite sufficient  for me to experience this untouched beauty..Those lovely pink flowers growing wild across the slopes of the high mountains...absolutely picturesque; As i made my walk thru' those small shrubs , my heart was full of joy .....I turned a 360 degree and tried to canvas its beauty  in my mind as well, besides framing it in my lens ......Just loved this experience which was totally unexpected....Hope this beautiful  valley remain hidden from the eyes of innumerable visitors to the region orelse,  it might get spoilt like other such locations of north sikkim ,where these flowers  colours up the valley during summer......

BASTAR thru' my eyes..

Bastar is a district  of the state of Chattishgarh  in Central India.  Jagdalpur is the district  headquarters. Bastar is surrounded  by Narayanpur- in NW,Kondagoan in North, Koraput in south,South & SW by Dantewada, West by Gadchiroli of maharashtra. It has a unique  blend of tribal and Odia culture. The district  is part of Red .

     Many a times we thought of visiting the famous Chittrakoot waterfalls ( Niagara of India) , in Bastar region but ,alway had a dilemma  whether it's safe to venture into the Naxal zone ,which mostly sees its space in news headlines about fight between Security forces  and Naxalites of the region ....even ,being a tribal area , was never sure of the infrastructure  ,good hotel/ resorts availability,  so we just kept the visit to this region in the back burner of our list of visiting places across India.

   It , so happened this time that luckily my husband  planned out a road trip from Nagpur to Jagdalpur  ,soon after his training  was to get over ....The moment I heard of his plan ,I was very sceptic  , above that a 13 hrs road trip is really not everyone's cup of tea ,and so even I was not very sure about how the journey  might turn out to be....

It was 24th of Sept 2019 ,that we checked out of our hotel at Nagpur ,very early morning  to avoid traffic on the highway to some extent ...... After we hit the highway , its nonstop drive upto Rajnandgoan.....were we stopped for breakfast  but was very disappointed  ....its was only onion poha and a glass of mosambi juice only......hardly much option available  and I was not interested to have samosas for breakfast....After we crossed Rajnandgoan  , we were about to start experiencing the flavours  of Chattishgarh.....desolate road , few vehicles running up and down ...even hardly any locality.....vast barren lands with teak trees.....rarely saw a petrol pump too .....After some 2/3 hrs more drive , now those vast green rice fields of Chattishgarh  started showing up with check dams after some distances  ....the land looked very fertile,  but where r the residences .....I simply cant see much ...may be all away in the jungles ,that's the thought going on in my mind as we continued our journey  across .....to Kanker, suppose to be district  headquarters.....But to my surprise,  it got some small shops , hardly much eatery to have proper lunch but I badly required  a washroom ....we search for a proper place but found non ......I kept grumbling  with my husband  as I had to wait atleast another 4 hrs+ to reach Jagdalpur  resort to go to a washroom......looked as if Swach bharat campaign  of our PM modiji has gone unheard in this region of India......Soon the Kanker ghatti  started off ...looked like eastern ghat region somewhat.....full of Shal,  tenndu,  Shisham  trees which looked much more older than my age even .......so long the national highway connecting Raipur to Jagdalpur  was somewhat good but soon it all vanished off and road turned so horrible ...some 50 kms drive took us more than 2.5 hrs....We kept praying for the roads to turn better so that we reach Jagdalpur before it turned dark .....Night falls earlier in this region than Mumbai,  so we wanted to cross over these dense jungle region fast .....next came Kondagoan; we were relieved to see good roads again and without any stop over at Bastar, we speeded up for Jagdalpur.....By the time we reach our resort NAMAN BASTAR , it was 5.30pm ...... it had been a long long journey.......But the resort just brought smile on our faces ....its very beautiful  with lovely garden all around ...next 2 nights , it's to be our home ...😀.....

Next morning  we woke up to the aroma of Rathrani  flowers .....the Fragrance  of  eucalyptus and the fresh air just refreshed us up and  we looked for our drive off to Chittrakoot waterfalls, which was hardly 10/12 kms away from the resort....... After  some hot Alu paratha at buffet breakfast, we quickly  wanted to drive down to Chittrakoot...once at Chittrakoot,  our joy so no boundaries.....its beauty is just mesmerizing......we had enough of photo session there before packing up for other sight seeing across Jagdalpur city....

On our way back , felt happy to see tribal girls riding cycles to school .....its good to see , education  awareness  amongst the local people ....they r really very poor ie below poverty line in this region ....having a very tough life too....Next we visited the Danteshwari  temple, Jagdalpur  but I was not aware that it's a Shakti peeth.....prayed there before we visited the king's palace next to it  ....the temple was preparing for the Dusherra  festival  in few days time ....its a famous  function of the region too ....The Anthropological Museum was too good for a first time visitor to know the unique culture of the region....But , we skipped out Tirathgargh  waterfalls and kanger  National Park  due to time constraint....

.Yeh , I didnot return back from Jagdalpur  without my shopping  bounty.....I got myself a beautiful  Kosa  silk saree and a kosa modi jacket for my husband too ...some artifacts of Kondagoan  brassmetal.....But Jagdalpur city doesn't have good eatery ,so its alway better to have food and water at the resort itself instead of trying outside...The handicraft museum was one stop shop for all those delicate  artifacts of the region..

  Next day on our return , instead of kanker  route we  took the jungle route ,where the road looked better via Narayanpur-  and Bhanupratap pur  to Rajnandgoan.....

      It had been a wonderful  experience  of Bastar definitely  and a thrilling  road trip too from Nagpur to Jagdalpur  and return ....

Exploring West Sikkim.

Mostly tourists visiting West  Sikkim, try to settle down with a comfortable  stay at Pelling, housing innumerable  good hotels and resorts, instead of exploring  its areas around .....To explore West Sikkim , we had to plan a night stay at Pelling instead otherwise , it wouldn't have been possible to make it to Singhshore  bridge , the cantilever  bridge that joins to Nepal side from Sikkim.

 We headed for a long drive  on the 3 rd  day of our trip to Sikkim for Pelling City from Gangtok ...it was almost after noon time ,by the time  we checked into our hotel at Pelling...As our original plan for our trip to sikkim had to be cancelled, due to closer of North sikkim,  we kept on doing hotel booking as we moved from one place to another by makemy trip site....once , we reached Pelling , instead of checking into the hotel first , we thought to  check out the PELLING SKY WALK  first ...the road to the top of the sky walk was really a scarry drive ...after 2 /3 twists and turns,  it started to take some 70/80 degree climb up road ....simply crazy and adventurous  too. Once at the top , it was amazingly beautiful....after getting  entry tickets ,we climbed upto the top level of the skywalk .  It's made of fiber glass , so cant walk across with shoes....a Baliness  buddha status is placed on one side of the skywalk ....its the first time that I was walking across such a glass skywalk at this height amidst high mountains.....I simply loved my first experience  of the walk across .....The Buddha statue ,mostly covered in clouds but creating a beautiful  aura all across. 

Next we headed for our hotel ,and badly looked for a sound sleep after whole day travelling all across ....but , the balcony of the hotel room ,gave  an awesome  view of mighty Kanchendzonga  range ,forced us to sit for a while there and enjoy the surrounding beauty before it got dark .....since it was a vegetarian hotel , thought to check out for Chicken momos / Thupas  in a nearby  restaurant instead. Next morning  we woke up to a beautiful  snow covered peak of Kanchendzonga peak amidst blue sky .....clicked  quite a lot of pics, before we  left for our exploration of western sikkim....Firstly ,drove thru' DARAP VALLEY  , which is home to badi elachi( big Cardamom)....The valley is really very beautiful...should have planned a camping there instead...Saw quite a few big and small waterfalls on our drive off to  Singhshore bridge  which is simply hanging across two peaks ...its simply huge and joins Nepal with sikkim...Could realise that hardly outside tourists make it this way as roads were really very bad all across....but beauty of the location is just unmatched....RABDENTSE RUINS was quite a trek but its BIRD WATCHING  site was nicely planned out.Even  the short trek thru' dense woods to khecheopalri lake was a nice experience...Though , couldnot make it to Barsey Rhododendron sanctuary  due to lack of time .....Definitely  , it was worth visiting  such untouched locations  across Sikkim.