Wordless Wednesday!

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5.57 am on Sunday, the 10th Sept.'17...Sunrise at Elliots beach, Chennai, Tamilnadu, India

 

6.01 am on the same day!

 

6.03 am on the same day!

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Dharamshala...Temples, Dalai Lama & More!

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I am writing about Dharamshala again here! But about other things, not cricket!  As I told you in my previous post, we had stayed in a hotel in the market place and visited other sights.  2 mts. walk and taxi stand was there.  They take us to the destination for a fixed price.  All drivers, whoever took us, were good, soft spoken and friendly.  Walk the other side and the Buddhist temple/monastery  is there where Dalai Lama stays and he was there when we went there! Though he doesn't give 'darshan' everyday (our friend at the hotel told us so!), I think I was lucky to see him interacting with press persons and others inside the temple/monastery.  The temple looks very simple.  We were not allowed to take cameras/even mobile phones inside the temple.  I have seen Buddhist temples in Singapore, Malaysia also and they were beautiful, colourful.  This was very simple.  But the Buddha statue which was inside was huge in gold colour with lots of intricate designs. 

Got this image from here, thank you!

I have heard that the Dalai Lama is a practical person, very well educated too.  I was not able to hear his speech properly.  The crowd was laughing and he too was in a happy mood.  Know more about him here! 
 

The temple/monastery

This place looks simple from the outside and it is simple inside also, except for the Buddha statue.  Dalai Lama also was speaking like an ordinary person.  No air at all.  Nice.

A colourful Buddhist temple near our hotel at McLeod Ganj! It was on the busy market road.

The lower part of the temple.  The street was too narrow to take a full picture! You can see many drums with designs and people walk around the temple, just touching and rolling/turning them.  Whatever we want we can ask for while rolling them, it seems.  People keep on rolling while going across to the parallel road through this temple!

This was the bus we went to the cricket stadium.  Medium sized only for them to drive through the narrow curves/bends. It is always crowded, esp. more during matches, it seems! Share jeeps are also available. 

This was our favourite hotel.  We had our breakfast and sometimes dinner too, here.  Vegetarian restaurant. The owner is a Tibetan lady. Good food. Had momos too! You can see a Tibetan lady with her display.  These are Tibetan refugees and we can see them in all the narrow market roads, selling clothes, trinkets, brass sculptures of gods, Tibetan things etc.

We kept on coming across many Buddhist monks and some were having breakfast when we were having it in this restaurant.  Noticed an American Monk too! The roads were full of monks...saw many child monks inside the monastery.  All of them looked happy.  Giggling among themselves!

A restaurant named 'Bodhi Tree' also was good.  And another, Nick's Italian restaurant was good.  Had ravioli there! All these restaurants were in walking distances from our hotel. 

A view of Dharamshala among the trees!

You can go on a trek too, here!

Looks so beautiful!

My son went on a 22 Km. trek, one early morning.  He enjoyed.  The above 3 pictures were taken by him during the trek. The next one too!

A road at Dharamshala!

Well, we enjoyed our visit to this place.  We will remember the scenery while watching cricket match always.  Visited Kangra Fort,
which was just OK.  Sunset was beautiful.  I have posted it here!
Nothing else is there for us to stay for more than 3-4 days.  Cricket match is the catchy event here, I think.  The market area is stinking with dirty water on both sides of the road.  Still we see many foreigners on the road.  They can be seen even during 'no cricket match' days too, it seems.  Noticed many furry dogs and lots of sparrows and small birds which was good.  A taxi driver was saying that Modi's Swachh Bharath mission is quite active there.  So the place will improve and attract more visitors, in the future, he said. They speak Hindi with some accent! Slight Punjabi?!

Farming is done in the surrounding villages.  Otherwise only tourists' income is the main income for the place, it seems.  Well, still, this trip is a memorable trip.  One more beautiful picture of the place taken while watching the cricket match, for concluding this post!

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Dharamshala...Snow Clad Mountains, Clouds AND Cricket!

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This is the right picture for the caption!

We had been on a three week trip to Northern India.  The main purpose was to watch the March 25th Test match between Australia and India.  Though I have noticed the beautiful Dharamshala stadium in the TV before, I never expected it to be so overwhelmingly beautiful.  And it was a test match, not a one day or T20 match! And some of my readers might remember about my earlier post about our visit to a cricket match here and one more post about cricket here. 
Well...my husband and son are cricket crazy people.  So, whether I liked it or not, I am familiar with the matches.  Sometimes I too sit with them and watch when it is too interesting to resist, esp. when India is poised to win!

We had stayed in a decent hotel in the market area ('M' Hotel, Temple road, McLeod Ganj, Dharamshala). So, we had a choice of restaurants to visit and it was the main shopping area.  Though a bit crowded, we enjoyed the place.  First, we thought of hiring a taxi to reach the stadium, it was tooo expensive (10 Km. Rs.400).  So, like many other visitors, we too went by share jeep and then local bus! It was a good experience since it is a long time since we went by share jeep and crowded buses in our place:) The roads were very narrow, with ups and downs, as is common in hilly areas.  Hairpin bends were many.  This is a typical tourist place.  The buses were not long like our city buses.  They were quite small ones.  One more thing we noticed is, the people are unbelievably too friendly.  With all the traffic chaos, nobody got angry, the driver or the passengers.  Oh, let me write about these things in another post! Now, to cricket!

We reached the stadium at about 9.15 am, I think.  The match was to start at 9.30 am.  We were checked thoroughly as usual nowadays...we got delayed because my son had taken a binocular with him! Their net link didn't mention about it but we are not supposed to take it, it seems.  He had to meet some 4 top officials to get clearance! Some small changes and an eye drop bottle was confiscated from me! They were put in a small pouch and thrown in a basket with others' things! We were asked to pick them up when we returned! We did!

Then we entered the venue!!! What a scenery! I just stood in the first step and gasped! Then pulled myself down the steps and sat just below the pavilion, which was the best place to view the match and the hot midday sun didn't roast us here much! Yes, it was cold in the morning and evening but hot in day time! The match had already started.  In the beginning, I was not watching the match but just enjoying the snow clad mountains, clouds all around! We were not allowed to take even water bottle...everything should be bought there! One plastic cup of water priced Rs.10! Pop corn Rs.50, Ice cream Rs.50.  But while going up to get water, I saw Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev and Ravi Shastri...so, forget about the cost of water!

As soon as the first wicket fell down, the crowd started involving...chanting 'India, India'...'Bharath Maatha ki Jai' etc.  Smith scored 111 and that was the highlight of the Australian team.  The afternoon session was the best...Umesh Yadav and Kuldeep Yadav (test debut!) started stealing the show.  Wickets started falling one by one...the crowd chanted 'Kul deep, Kul deep' continuously.  Kohli had some injury and Rahane was the captain.  Whenever Kohli came out during drinks, the whole crowd chanted his name.  Some friends of mine said that since Kohli won't be playing, the match won't be interesting.  But, NO, it was very very interesting...it was like a one day match.  The Australians were all out for 300 runs, thanks to our bowlers. We played an over also at the end of the day.

We didn't see much crowd on that day, i.e. the first day.  On the left side, the area was full of school children in uniform...free entry for them it seems.  

School children in uniform on the left side!

We went back to the room by a through bus to McLeod ganj! The bus was full but stopped midway because of some repair.  The driver put on some gloves, opened the gear compartment, did some repair work! The passengers were just watching.  No one grumbled! It must have taken around 15-20 mts. He was chatting with people all along asking them to 'havaa leejiye baahar' (to get some fresh air outside)!  Hmmm...our Chennai means, a big hungama would have been there!

The next day, we took a taxi...the adventure mood was not there on the second day! Son had left the binocular in the room itself and I left the change also in the room.  So, we sat in our seats before the match started.  The match was a bit slow.  We started enjoying other things than the match! Many Australian fans had come.  A huge kangaroo doll also was there, sitting among us.  They were very friendly people.  All were chatting, in a friendly way.  One old man was selling ice cream, some 'lotus' brand... he was cutting jokes about the old players and humouring people.  More crowd was there on the second day.  Not very eventful, though.  Jadeja played well on that day.

Unfortunately, we had to leave for Chennai on 27th.  My husband and son enjoyed the match and I, the scenery, esp.cloud movements on the snow clad mountain peaks and people.  My picasa album is full of snow peaks and cloud pictures which can be watched always.

Now, to some pictures, for you to enjoy!

2nd day afternoon.  You can see the spider cam with the cloud background!

Australian fans with a Kangaroo doll...notice the Indian flag on its cheek. Very friendly people!

The Australian fan with the green cap was standing up and dancing for 4's, 6's or when any player scored 50 or 100 or got out! Australia or India didn't matter for him! True fan! The whole crowd around him were HIS fans! Us, included!

On our way out of the stadium in the evening.  Felt a bit sad.  Cricket match is played everywhere, but Dharamshala match experience is unique.

You can see the score board here! We won the match by 8 wickets! Jadeja and KL Rahul were the top scorers! Jadeja was the 'Man of the match' and 'Player of the series'! This test match was a memorable match for us/for me! I never expected the first innings of the Australians to be over within a day! That was the highlight of the match.

Click on the pictures to view the scenery better!

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P.S.: Sunset shots at Dharamshala

Survivers!

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Cyclone Vardah hit Chennai on 12th December '16.  We had never experienced such a cyclone as long as I remember.  The wind blew with a hissing sound.  We could hear breaking of the tree branches near our house.  Since last year's December flood had given us a good lesson about natural calamity, this year lot of preparation was there by the State and Central Governments.  More than human loss, this time natural loss was more.  The avenue trees, huge ones too had fallen down.  Many very old trees inside the IIT, Kalakshetra, Theosophical society etc. had fallen down and repairs are still going on.  Some trees were lifted and re-planted.  Huge amount of green waste was seen everywhere. Many compound walls have got huge gaps now.  It will take a long long time to get back the green cover in Chennai.

Many volunteer groups have started planting new saplings everywhere.  Rainfall this year, is not helping.  Hope it rains soon as is predicted, which will help the trees to come up fast.

Let me write what happened to a beautiful tree behind my house:

This is my favourite tree in the neighbourhood.  Everyday we could see many parrots coming and chatting on this tree.

Same tree...spring is coming! This picture was taken in 2014.

I have got many snaps of this tree in my album.  My favourite one is this with Rufous Treepie birds!

During the Vardah cyclone...this is the same tree which is shown in the first picture. Many branches have flown away (On 12.12.16). Picture taken from our window.

Next day (13.12.16)

This was taken on 9.1.17...It has survived! It should be back to normal like the first picture by next year! Parrots and other birds will be happy...Me too!

Some trees which were affected during the cyclone are fighting back to come out now! Feel so happy to see them during our morning walk!

A tree which was damaged during Vardah...the new branches have started coming out (1.9.17)

Many huge trees had fallen down but some like this, survived even after losing all the leaves which had flown away during Vardah.  Many tree are like this in our neighourhood!

On the Elliots beach road.  The small ones are given support now by volunteers and they are coming back! ((9.1.17)

Only a small base is remaining...still they are surviving!

Now, let us wait for Chaennai to become green city soon...like Bengaluru ones was! Reading about many groups taking action! Hope for the best!

Foto(s) Friday!

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Cloud pictures taken from a moving bus...on our way to Las Vegas!

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P.S.: Third and Fourth pictures look similar! Which one shall I remove?! 

Wordless Wednesday!

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Feast To The Eyes! Maharashtra's Valley Of Flowers, Kaas Plateau!

Kaas plateau, The Valley of Flowers of Maharashtra! The place is full of wild flowers which are rare to be seen elsewhere.  People come here from far off places for enjoying and research purposes.

We had been here, at the Kaas Plateau, last September...I had never heard of this place before our visit.  Son wanted to have a look at this famous (for Botanical students and nature lovers) place, during our road trip to Maharashtra. We started from Satara at 6 am. Couldn't have even tea, so early in the morning.  The route was good, weather was good and so we enjoyed the ride.

We had reached here at the right time of the blooming of flowers (the season is from August to September...monsoons).  Let me quote some facts about this place from Wikipedia and  their website, Kaas website :

The Kaas Plateau also known as the "Kaas Pathar" is a plateau situated in the Western Ghat Sahyadri range, 22 kilometers from Satara city in Maharashtra and is known for various types of wild flowers which bloom during August-September every year.   The area of plateau is located at a height of 1200 mts. and is approximately 1,000 hectare. It has been declared as Biodiversity World Heritage Site by The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The place has more than 850 different species of flowers.

The flora of Kaas i. e. the entire flowering plants and their related plants are typically restricted to that particular locality only. This is because the plateau is largely formed of basalt which is directly exposed to atmosphere. The basalt is covered almost entirely by a thin cover of soil formed due to erosion and has accumulated a layer of not more than a inch or so. This soil is neither black nor lateritic. At certain places water gets accumulated because of uneven surface. Such places appear like small puddles which harbour a typical marshy flora. Because of this particular situation of soil, the plants growing on Kaas plateau are typically of herbaceous nature of like grasses. Botanically the flora is labeled as “herbaceous”. The small shrubs and trees are located at the periphery of the plateau.

Heavy fog, drizzle, little sun were taking turns to entertain us! That is me walking in the drizzle!

We came here by car.  We can't use cars here, it seems, only jeeps.  We have to hire/book for them before coming here and it is better to hire a guide too. I and son enjoyed walking nearly 3 Kms. on this road. Tab was the guide! Husband was reluctant to walk in this road!

This patch is yet to be covered with flowers and the next one has got flowers!

Karvi flowers, which bloom once in 7 years. We were lucky to see them. 

We met some nature enthusiasts like Mr.Kulkarni who are regulars here.  He said that every year the plants are depleting.  We may not recognize this place after another 5-6 years, he said.  Felt very sad.

Click on the pictures to have a good impact pl.

The plateau seems to change the colours after every 15- 20 days as the cycle of flowering plants progresses with the monsoon progress since June to October. We saw buds of different coloured flowers in between these plants.  They take turns to pop out, I think! Once the whole area will be pink, then white and then yellow!

Carnivorous flower?!        

A Botanist who was there, said that this flower is called Hanuman's mace!

This is the famous 'lotus pond' at Kaas.  Missed to add this yesterday.  We were too early to see them in full bloom.  They need Sun to open themselves.  It is a beautiful sight, we were told.  We were a bit early and the drizzle and fog didn't help them to bloom, bad luck!

We roamed in this area until around 10.30.  Had to drive for another 15mts. to locate a vegetarian hotel.  Poha and masala chai were good!

We could see boards at many places asking people not to walk on the meadow, but our people would not bother to follow them.  Could see some plastic bags and bottles on the sides of the path.  Nothing is given importance here.  We might lose this place soon.  What can government do, if people are indifferent.  

Visit this beautiful place as early as possible and enjoy! Week ends will be crowded, we were told!

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P.S.: You can have a look at a beautiful video of the flowers here!