Here is wishing you a very very happy year ahead. May 2011 be full of happiness and bring in a lot of memorable journeys to you.
Here is the desktop calendar wallpaper for January 2011 – image of an egret from Keoladeo National Park, Bharatpur. Get it for your desktop – 1280×800 or 1024×768
Let me begin with wishing you Happy Holidays. I hope you are somewhere in some beautiful place or on the way as I am writing this and will get to read this post only after a week.. 🙂
This is the time to look back at the year that is about to go past and then forget it – to look back once to recall all the good things and bad, and allow both of them to get washed away from memory forever and begin afresh without shackles of the past.
I consciously did not travel much in 2010 and instead focussed on streamlining my work in photography and travel. I am seeing some fruits of this effort already and the days ahead look much better. Here is a quick summary of my journeys and images in 2010. I am going nowhere in this year-end travel season, so it is safe to list them now, knowing fully well that there is nothing more to add!
The temple at Devarayanadurga
I have posted 160 stories here on India Travel Blog in 2010, which approximates to a story every other day. A lot of them are images and photo-stories but there are plenty of long travelogues as well. If I remember correctly, the first travel of 2010 was a short drive out of Bangalore to Devarayanadurga and Madhugiri Fort. It was memorable trip of driving out early in the morning in the winter chill and discovering some beautiful wilderness and hills north of Bangalore.
Bhoganandeeshwara Temple
I made a few more journeys in and around Bangalore later in the year, which included a visit to Manchanabele Dam, one to Nandi Hills and Bhoganandeeshwara Temple at the base of the hill and a day-trip to see the Mysore Palace in all its glory during Dasara Celebrations.
I also managed to go to a few beautiful places within Bangalore that I had never visited earlier but always wanted to see, like the Freedom Park and Tipu Sultan’s Palace. Not that you can call it traveling, but the visits were worth mentioning. Over the last few years, I had considerably cut down on short drives from the city and had been travelling to farther places. But there were many day-trips and two to three-day visits out of Bangalore this year.
A foggy Wayanad
Foggy hills of Chikmagalur during the monsoons
One such weekend trip was to Wayanad in March, escaping from the quickly increasing temperatures of Bangalore to cooler climes where it was still foggy and cold. And later in July in the middle of the monsoons, I made another trip to fog-enveloped Chikmagalur where we never saw the sun for three full days.
A sambar deer in Kanha National Park
Slopes of Sikkim
As for longer trips, I spent four days in Kerala visiting Thrissur on the day of Thrissur Pooram and continuing further to Trivandrum. I was in Trivandrum to work on a story and had dreaded the April heat, but thankfully it was raining there and I spent three pleasant days in the city. Later in June, I spent five days in the wilderness of Kanha National Park where I thoroughly enjoyed the company of wildlife. A quick but memorable trip to Sikkim happened in October. Last month, I made another wildlife trip to Bharatpur National Park followed by a visit to Dharamsala – two places I had been wanting to visit for a very long time. That was pretty much my year of travel, besides some journeys made on work and strictly work, which included a short trip to Ooty and Hassan, and a long trip to Mathura.
Buddhist icons at Dharamsala
Once again, happy holidays to you. I hope 2010 was a good year for you and so will the the coming days will be.
Prints of all the images available. Request for prints.
Wildlife photographer Shreeram and I will be conducting an outdoor photography tour of Hampi, covering a variety of photography opportunities in and around Hampi. The tour includes daily sessions and image reviews besides field trips to shoot landscapes, architecture and wildlife in the region. Read on for more details. We hope to see you on the tour.
Images of Hampi            |
“Many worlds of Hampi” is a 3-day photography tour designed to cover a wide range of interesting subjects that goes beyond the architectural splendours of Hampi. We have explored all the corners of Hampi to bring you the best in
The tour calendar includes
Accommodation:
We will be staying at the Sloth Bear Resort, the new offering from Jungle Lodges and Resorts, on the boundary of the Daroji Bear Sanctuary.
Cost: The cost of the tour would be Rs.8,500/- per person, ex-Hospet.
The cost includes:
– Accommodation on twin sharing basis and 3 meals per day at Sloth Bear Resort
– Field trips
– Photography sessions
– Transport from Hospet to Sloth Bear Resort (for buses and trains arriving to a pre-planned schedule) and transport during the three days in and around Hampi.
The cost does not include:
– Transport from your hometown to Hospet/Hampi
– Additional soft drinks/mineral water/liquor ordered at Sloth Bear Resort
– Additional snacks or eatables ordered at Sloth Bear Resort
– Tips and anything that is not part of the includes list above
ACCOMPANYING GUIDES AND PHOTOGRAPHY EXPERTS
Arun Bhat
Accomplished travel and landscape photographer Arun Bhat’s works have been used by publications in India and across the world, all the way from Japan to USA. He is a professional photographer who has extensively travelled across India, creating some of the finest imagery of India’s landscapes and heritage sites.
Having travelled the country many times over and being used to waking up at 5am in bitter cold winter days, he has seen and captured finest landscapes all the way from Himalayas to the peninsular India but is yet to see anything as spectacular as the ‘morningscapes’ seen from the top of Hampi’s Hills.
Shreeram M V
Shreeram is a passionate naturalist and a professional wildlife photographer. He has photographed wildlife across multiple habitats across India – from the rainforests to the high-altitude deserts to grasslands to coasts. He comes with vast expertise in bird photography, having photographed hundreds of species from places as far as mountains of Ladakh to seashores of South India. See some of his works at http://www.visualquotient.net
BOOK THIS TOUR
Contact us to book the tour. Book before 26th get early bird discounts.
email: arunchs@yahoo.com
Ph: 97400 83260 (Shreeram) / 98800 06460 (Arun)
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