Bliss!

It’s exactly an year after we embarked on a wonderful little trip to Ladakh! The memories are still very fresh in my mind!


Lazy me … have been planning to write about the trip for an year. Only god and time know when I’ll really sit down and write about this trip!


For now, thought of uploading a few pics from the trip!

See here for a few more pics!
My Flickr set on Ladakh!

At the high altitude pang gong tso lake, which is partly in India and partly in China.

Pong gong tso lake

Zozila pass, near Srinagar

What will you do if there is a broken bridge ahead which blocks all the traffic for hours?

Will sleep anywhere!

We were down, but not out! The low oxygen levels at the high altitude passes took a big toll on us.

Yes, the next filling station was 365KM away. What would be your reaction if this guy tells you that his pump isn’t working!

Interesting section of road!

The spot where we were stuck as we couldn’t cross a heavy stream. We were stuck for several hours starting a cold evening till late night. Turned out to be the toughest night of the trip.

At the summit! Highest motorable road in the world

Blocked!

Here is the list of clicks I did in 2009. This pretty much tells what I did in 2009 for I carried my camera everywhere I went except during my pilgrimage to Sabarimala.


1. Jan 1 – Bannerghatta zoo with the Moulis
2. Jan 3 – Clicked the finished Tanjore paintings done my Mercy akka
3. Jan 4 – Paintings again plus Vidya’s son’s 5th birthday party. I was the official photographer!
4. Jan 7 – Book release (The Cosmic Detective by Mani Bhowmick)
5. Jan 8 – Book release (Trina)
6. Jan 14 – Early morning trip to Hesaraghatta lake in search of spiders and dew drops. We found neither.
7. Jan 25 – Early morning shoot for Prem at the Besant Nagar beach, Chennai.
8. Jan 30,31 and Feb 1 – Trip to Alleppy and Kottayam, houseboat stay and Babu’s sister’s wedding
9. Feb 3 – Book release (True Dummy)
10. Feb 7 – Early morning BWS shoot at the Hebbal Lake
11. Feb 8 – Intach Parichay at Avenue Road
12. Feb 14 – Book release (Family Values by Abha Dawesar)
13. Feb 15 – Karthi and I clicked a few photos of ourselves at home
14. Feb 18 – Clicked how Karthi eats
15. Feb 19 – At office. The mastermind event where I won a laptop for winning the programing contest!
16. Feb 22 – Visited Babu’s sister at their Chennai home and clicked a few photos for them
17. Mar 7,8,9 – Bike trip to Belur, Halebeedu, Chikmagalur and Kemmanagundi
18. Mar 13 – Clicked the unpacking of Ubu – my laptop!
19. Mar 14 – Did a tabletop try with my abacus
20. Mar 21 – BWS shoot at city market. One of the photos from this shoot made it to the cover of TimeOut magazine
21. Mar 29 – Clicked the IT Corridor at night in Chennai
22. Mar 30 – Tried a small photo documentary on child labour using Steffy and Jeffrey as models
23. Apr 4 – Tried a few long exposures at home with Karthi as the model
24. Apr 8 – Last minute trip to Calicut with Babu
25. Apr 18 – Intach event at the Bangalore Fort
26. Apr 19 – Sankar’s house warming ceremony. Official photographer.
Ahh.. man this is becoming a long list!
27. Apr 21 – Babu’s wedding. Official photographer!
28. Apr 26 – Nagercoil. Johny’s first communion function.
29. May 5 – Clicked the little pretty chocolate wrapper doll done by Poppy
30. May 16 – Met the Muthiahs
31. May 28 – Kids day in office. Official photographer.
32. Jun 6 – Steffy, Jeffrey birthday in Chennai
33. Jun 24 to Jul 10 – the great Ladakh Bike Trip
34. Jul 25 – photoshoot for the Babus
35. Aug 2 – BWS Photo Chase and shot the olive and popeye done by Poppy
36. Aug 8 – Lalbagh Flower show
37. Aug 9 – Profile shoot of Snowy, my first Bonzai
38. Aug 13 – Book Release (If it is sweet by MIrdula Koshy)
39. Aug 16 – Revisited the Lalbagh Flower show
40. Aug 20 – Beer Bash (Oops .. IDC Bash) at office. Official Photographer.
41. Aug 21 – Team photo at office
42. Aug 23 – Dosai’s marriage in Chennai
43. Sep 6 – Clicked my mini garden
44. Sep 8 – Mini shoot for karthi
45. Sep 12 – Oracle Volunteers outing to Banneghatta Zoo with under privileged kids
46. Sep 16 – Book Release (No Money Marketing by Jessy Paul. NRN was there)
47. Sep 18 – Clicked a road block at BTM which appeared in DNA. Went to Bangalore Arts Festival.
48. Sep 20 – Intach Parichay at Devanahalli. Cycled to the destination along with Peevee.
49. Sep 27 – Bike trip to Le Pakshi temple
50. Oct 1 – Few clicks at home with Steffy
51. Oct 2 – Trip to Vandaloor Zoo in Chennai with family
52. Oct 3 – Met Srilatha in Chennai
53. Oct 4 – Trip to Hassan. Visited Ediyoor Temple on the way.
54. Oct 6 – Book Release (The Professional by Subroto Baggchi)
55. Oct 7 – BWS shoot at City Market
56. Oct 19 – Bike trip to Makedatu, Sivasamudram and Talakadu
57. Oct 24 – Tanjore Painting shoot
58. Oct 29 – Team photo for the AN team in office
59. Oct 31 – Intach Parichay at Cubbon Park
60. Nov 8 – Clicked the flooded streets of Thoraipakkam in Chennai
61. Nov 13 – Clicked Snowy who was in full bloom!
62. Nov 15 – Tanjore Painting shoot
63. Nov 17 – Tanjore Painting shoot. Started the Kondhavai project.
64. Nov 24 – Tanjore Painting shoot
65. Nov 28 – Tanjore Painting shoot. Poppy starts learning photography!
66. Nov 29 – Intach Parichay at Begur.
67. Dec 1 – Tanjore Painting shoot
68. Dec 7 – Tanjore Painting shoot
69. Dec 12, 13 – Mangalore trip for Kambala
70. Dec 22 – Tanjore Painting shoot
71. Dec 24 – X-mas shoot at home in Chennai
72. Dec 25 – Shoot for the kids, akka and athaan
73. Dec 27, 28 – Jeni’s Wedding
74. Dec 31 – Tanjore Painting shoot

Kambala is the traditional buffalo race held in Coastal Karnataka region. Have been wanting to go and see this sport for a long time. Will not miss it out this year.


Wikipedia has done a good job explaining this spot. So I won’t do it again! Here’s is what wikipedia says:

Kambala is traditionally a simple sport. The ‘track’ used for Kambala is a paddy field filled with slush. The contest generally takes place between two pairs of buffaloes, controlled by a whip-lashing farmer. In olden days, the winning pair of buffaloes were rewarded with coconuts and a bunch of plantains. But, Kambala today has become an organised,professional sports. People place massive amounts of bets on the winning buffaloes and one can witness more than 20,000 spectators in a well organised Kambala, egging and cheering the buffaloes to complete the race. As of now, more than 45 races are held annually in Coastal Karnataka. Nearly 18 kambalas are held under the banner of Kambala Samithi and the rest are held under the auspices of temples and political patronage. Kambala still remains a hugely popular sport in Coastal Karnataka.

Here is the calendar of events for the 2009-10 season. Thanks to Sowmya for getting this.


5-Dec-09 – Shirva – Udupi
12-Dec-09 – Baraadi – Karkala
19-Dec-09 – Katpadi – Udupi
26-Dec-09 – Mulki – Mangalore
2- Jan-10 – Ikala Bava – Mangalore
9-Jan-10 – Miyaru – Karkala
15-Jan-10 – Nandhikuru – Udupi
23-Jan-10 – Moodbidre
30-Jan-10 – Barkuru – Udupi , near Kundapura
7-Feb-10 – Venuru – Beltangdi, near Dharmastala
13-Feb-10 – Pilikula – Mangalore
20-feb-10- Pajeer – Bantvala
26-Feb-10 – Eedhu – Karkala
3-Mar-10 – Puttur
10-Mar-10 – Uppinangadi


Moodbidre, Karkala & Puttur Kambala’s are very famous and are supposed to be good.

Spotted this wonderful magazine during a random scan of the magazine stand last time when I was at the bookstore. It really stood out from all other run-of-the-mill magazines.


This is a quarterly magazine on various heritage topics and all the topics are well researched and illustrated. I liked it so much that I’m now planning to order all the old issues!


Take a look at their website:
https://www.heritage-india.com/index.php?activeTab=1


They have an interesting blog:
https://www.heritage-india.com/blog/


I carried this to Chennai during my weekend visit. Amma flipped through this and commented that the photos were good – actually better than what I click! Honest and as-a-matter-of-fact comment from Amma as usual. It will be interesting if I can manage to get my photo published on this magazine and show that to Amma!

On the way to Leh

On a lazy summer afternoon in office, Pillai, all of sudden, commented that he’s planning on a trip to Ladakh! It didn’t take me more than a second to jump up and join him! The decision was made the next second.


We were initially planning to go on our own, probably by hiring a cab. But soon after, we stumbled upon a motorbiking expedition which was too good to resist. The only catch was that the expedition would be for 17 days! That would mean that I would have to be off from office for 13 working days! I had never done anything like that before. But then this was Himalayas calling. So I wrote a well worded mail to my manager. I explained why this 17 day expedition is better than a normal week long (short?) trip. And further mentioned that it would be just fine if he thought that I should rather stay back in office. But to my surprise he gave me the go ahead! He allowed me to answer the call!


The plan was to parcel pillai’s Royal Enfield Electra 350 cc to Chandigarh and then do a round trip from chandigarh to chandigarh via manali, leh, kargil, srinagar and jammu on the way crossing the top three world’s  highest motorable passes, camping at a high altitude cold desert, walking the shores of a high altitude salt water lake, paying homage to the war heros of Kargil and visiting the green top Kashmir valley. But, we ended by exploring more than that!


So we embarked on the great himalayan bike trip on 24th Jun 2009.


Here is the day-by-day schedule (will write a separte post for each day):

1. 24-Jun-2009 – Reach Chandigarh. Receive and unpack the bike. Briefing.
2. 25-Jun-2009 – Chandigarh to Manali. Night at Manali.
3. 26-Jun-2009 – Manali to Darcha via Rohtang la, Grumphu, Tandi and Keylong.
4. 27-Jun-2009 – Darcha to Leh, but cut short to Darcha to Pang due to unavoidable delays
5. 28-Jun-2009 – Pang to Leh via Tanglang la and Upshi
6. 29-Jun-2009 – Leh to Hunder via Khardung la
7. 30-Jun-2009 – Hunder to Panamic
8. 1-Jul-2009 – Panamic to Leh via Khardung la
9. 2-Jul-2009 – Leh to Tangste via Chang la
10. 3-Jul-2009 – Tangste to Pang gong Tso to Leh via Chang la
11. 4-Jul-2009 – Leh to Kargil via Fatu la by NH 1D
12. 5-Jul-2009 – Kargil to Baltal to Srinagar
13. 6-Jul-2009 – Srinagar rest day. Ride to Gulmarg.
14. 7-Jul-2009 – Srinagar rest day.
15. 8-Jul-2009 – Srinagr to Pathankot.
16. 9-Jul-2009 – Pathankot to Chandigarh. Pack the bikes.
17. 10-Jul-2009 – Pack up. Reach Delhi and be at Bangalore by night.