Stylish Travel Blogs for Creative Travelers

A perfect Day... To trek alone.

Saravana@kettik.com (Saravana Kumar) — Wed, 01 May 2013 19:37:46 +0000

There are days when you are surrounded by so much beauty that you feel privileged, blessed even, to witness it. You walk with a spring in your step, a big grin on your face and the world just feels right again. It is like being in love, maybe even better, because you have none of that 'delicious torment' (to quote Emerson) that comes with it.

This was one of those days.

Highs and lows of the Korzok to Kibber (Parang La) trek

Saravana@kettik.com (Saravana Kumar) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 13:37:38 +0000

The Parang La Trek was to be (and was) the highlight of my 5-month sojourn into the mountains (in 2012). The 105km trek would take me from the beautiful Tsomoriri lake in Ladakh, across the Pare Chu river, up and over the 5580m (18300ft) Parang La pass and into the gorgeous gorges of the Spiti valley.

This was another 'safe' trek that i carefully picked out to expose myself to the dangers of trekking alone in the mountains. The dangers i was after this time were crossing rivers and traversing glaciers, both of which i was afraid of doing. Turns out that those fears were more than justified.

Read the day by day entries to find out.

Bumps on saddle .. A true bumpy ride :)

Manish@kettik.com (Manish) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 09:48:18 +0000

Bumps on saddle .. A true bumpy ride :)

Its a local story of my ride, places might not be failiar to you, hope you will enjoy.

For today ride - I had a idea for Dakor with shortest route possible.. How and why it turned with 150+ here you read..
Morning i started around 6:00 am for this ride, confusion started from home itself, mom thought I m going on motor bike.. But it was cycle. :)

I decided to take shortest route possible from village to avoid highway traffic. Looked Google map and tough to of taking router 3 somewhere near Sakarda and I asked at Sakarda.. villagers gracefully pushed to highway again.. so no choice, i have to take highway and ride turned to just 70 km more.

Once I reached at Dakor, around 8:30 people near temples were starring at my bikes and also kind enough to take of my bike when i was in temple for prayer. when i was out from temple i show a big crowed near my bike (25-30 visitors) and i had to encounter lots of questions on bike, about me, why i cycled up to this place, can this bike run at speed of 50 ?..
Finally one person told me now where I will go now ? I told back to Baroda and suggestion to visit Galteswar which is some 5-6 km (people told me this) and from there you can ride to Savali and reach back home.. it was so easy for them to tell me this. They might be think I have a geared cycle and it can run a speed of motor bike. :)

My first question to them was how is road, reply was good road ..
Yes it was good for car not for bike like mine.
Finally I decided to ride on same route and end up doing 150+ with really nice road where most of the time I could not put my bumps on saddle..
.. :D hope to ride soon ..

From The Window

Manish@kettik.com (Manish) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 06:54:44 +0000

After 18 years of living in Baroda, I came across to travel in Heritage Narrow gauge train which runs between Pratapnagar to Jambusar for the first time. A lovely ride of 3-4 hours to cross almost 50+ km.
The first narrow gauge railway line to be laid was to 2'6" gauge by the Gaekwar of Baroda to connect the town of Dabhoi to the broad gauge BBCIR railway. Initially bullocks were used to provide motive power to the railway until three 0-4-0 tank locomotives were introduced in 1863. The tank engines proved too heavy for the lightly laid rails and 0-4-0 tender engines were found to be more suitable with heavier rails. In the 1890s a 0-4-2 tender locomotive was introduced and instantly became popular.

The first train came to Vadodara in 1861, and the Railways celebrated its 150th anniversary in the city recently. The narrow trains are here since almost the same time. The tram line as it was called back then was the first tracks and rail to be owned and laid down by an Indian, the then king of Baroda(as it was known back then), Sir Khanderao Gaekwad in 1862. The coaches were then pulled by a pair of oxen. They were replaced soon by a locomotive built specially. More than a hundred and fifty years later, the narrow gauge train is still active on two routes around the city. Miyagaam to Dabhoi and Pratapnagar to Jambusar. I chose to try out the Pratapnagar to Jambusar route that spanned 50 kms.

I reached 30 minutes before the scheduled departure hoping for a Sunday rush and an empty ticket reservation window. Yet, it held a different picture. The station parking was full autos. The station itself was no more than two platforms a big and had a narrow gauge and a broad gauge. A canteen, a reservation counter and a temple along with the offices of the railways staff formed a part of the platform that was now crowded with men, women and children, most waiting for the broad gauge. The toy train like narrow gauge waited right in front for its scheduled departure and surprise, it was on dot time at 10:00 am.

There were many surprises on this toy train, one it run on enough speed a one can easily get down and get into other coach, a Guard was giving tickets where no stations in between. I can see that all passengers were buying tickets, even though you did not find any ticket checking in train. Train guard shuts "FATAK" (rail track crossing with road) before and after train crosses.

WOW a total fun trip .. Thanks Saurabh and Rena to make me part of their journey.
A empty Narrow gauge coach welcomes just opposite to Pratapnagar railway station.

LADAKH

Shinzy@kettik.com (Shinzy) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 18:47:45 +0000

TRAVEL

North Star Ahoy !

Saravana@kettik.com (Saravana Kumar) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 19:13:55 +0000

For a long time, during my travels in the mountains, I used look up at the star studded night skies and wonder how anyone could manage to navigate using the stars. There were so damn many of them, espcially on a clear moonless night. So how do you find one little North Star out of so many ?

hike

Gaurav@kettik.com (Gaurav Kumar) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:32:53 +0000

treks

The Ghats Western

Amol@kettik.com (Amol Marwaha) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 07:14:53 +0000

Like most people, the things that worried me about going into this magnificent rainforest along India's tropical western coastline were the usual jungle troubles: myriad creepies with their crawly chums menacing about ruining everyone's day, the off-chance of being mauled to death by some sexually frustrated jungle object, torrential rain, food, and of course, being bitten by a bastard of a snake.

But I went in prepared. Over-prepared even. My ruck-sack weighed close to 60 kilos (132 lbs) for a 4 -day foray into the enchanting forest surrounding Agumbe, a quaint little one-road town nestled in a valley of the Shimoga district. Everything was perfect until I reached the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station. A cop I met on the way was good enough to offer me a ride to the station and on enroute, told me all about the naxal violence in the area while simultaneously assuring me that camping within the woods was safe for me on account of being a civilian( the discrimination!) I was quite relieved to be honest, after all he was a cop.

Later, the good folks at the Research Station told me a story about an incident that had happened in the woods not more than a month before that date. Long story short, an inspector in charge of a police patrol combing the forest for naxals decided to take a dip in this creek he found and sent his boys to circle around. On returning, the patrol spotted movement near the edge of the creek which spooked a few boys who promptly fired off in the general direction of the movement out of sheer nerves, killing poor inspector saab in the process.

Uh-oh.

So, I was advised to stick to tourist spots and the temples by the good people of the ARRS. Since evidently, the training and the lack thereof and almost god-like levels of immunity make the cops a much bigger threat than the naxals. Now this was all rather disappointing. I mean, I had after all come all this way, even if to be mauled to death in a sexual manner goddamnit!

So I decided to do what any rational person would do in a situation like this: First, I drank. A lot. Next, I bid farewell to the nice people of ARRS and then walked straight into the damn forest. fuck it. If all went well I thought, I'd be shooting cops by nightfall. I didn't have a great camera but i did manage to take pictures of a few random things (I stopped using the camera by dusk to avoid detection by flash) which I will upload as soon as I can find the damn thing's usb cable grrr. (photo uploaded above courtesy: google)

Anyway, I found this clearing in the forest at around 2100 and pitched my tent in the moon shade of a giant Banyan tree. By 2230 I was fed and intoxicated. It was perfect. There is a certain joy in being completely alone while being constantly reminded, subtly so, of the fallacy of the notion. The forest, it forces you to embrace the otherwise. There is a toxic level of uncertainty and certainty that exist simultaneously and even battle each other for your reasoning. The trick is to fear and prepare against the certain as best you can and let uncertainty dwell on it's own.

I spent the night listening to the forest, I was eavesdropping. A few times, I could hear what I thought was a Gaur quite close to my tent. Maybe he wanted to investigate my intrusion, I'll never know. But what I know for a fact is that I was under constant observation the whole time. It's an eerie feeling, being watched. And as they watched, I listened.

There is something peculiar about this exchange that surpasses simple sensory function, it's an adaption, a mini-evolution if you will. And if you allow yourself to partake in this seemingly mundane activity, over time you will start to feel like a part of the forest itself. You can almost FEEL the life around you get agitated as you enter its domain and then relax with time's passing. But only if you're earnest. There are unwritten rules which reveal themselves to you, like layers. After all, the energy which is inside you that you may call your soul, your sub-conscience has been around since the start of it all (think law of conservation of energy) and has experienced this before and now, your soul is nostalgic. And if you're lucky, your soul will take you home. To your real home, wherever that may be.

Image quality is irrelevant when the filter comes apart into 2 pieces.

Saravana@kettik.com (Saravana Kumar) — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 14:10:53 +0000

I have to admit i was very impressed the first time i saw the You Tube video where a Hoya sales representative banged the Hoya HD filter against the corner of a desk and tried his best to scratch the glass on the filter without any success. They looked indestructible in that video. I was so impressed that i decided to buy the Hoya HD CPL for my 6 month trekking trip to the Himalayas.

I ordered the filter from Maxsaver, an online store in Hongkong which sells original Hoya & B+W filters for cheap prices and has a very good reputation among photographers worldwide. The filter arrived promptly with 2-3 weeks of ordering and on first impressions i was quite impressed with the build quality of the filter.

The polarizer functioned as it should, albeit adding a warm tinge to the pictures (the warming effect is common in all polarizers, Singhray and B+W have special neutral polarizers if you are worried about the warm tones). Since it was a slim filter, i had some difficulties attaching and removing the filter from my lenses, but again that was to be expected and soon i was comfortable putting the filter on and off the lens.

I was quite happy with my purchase until on day in the mountains above Badrinath the filter came apart in two pieces as i was removing it from my lens. I tried a lot but there was no way to securely attach the pieces together. They would fit together for a while and then fall off on their own later while i was taking the pictures. Although the glass was fine, the filter to me was as good as broken and i had no further use for it on my trip.

Later when i checked the internet about this issue, i was surprised to find that it is a very prevalent problem with the Hoya filters and has been that way for a few years atleast. Check out these threads on the FredMiranda and the POTN forums.

So until this issue is addressed, i would suggest everyone to stay away from the Hoya CPL filters and spend a few extra dollars on the B+W kaesemann filters which have a sturdy brass ring holding the pieces together and doesn't seem to have the 'self destruct' issue plaguing the Hoya filters.

Update : Customer service from Hoya & Maxsaver

Hoya Customer Service :

Since the filter had a one year warranty, i mailed the Hoya international customer service about the problem and requested them to resolve it. They forwarded that email to their Indian agency who promptly replied saying that the filter i bought was fake and that they do not repair or service fake filters.

I wonder how he came to the conclusion that the filters were fake without even seeing them. Its just a excuse for them to wash their hands off this issue and not deal with it. After his reply my opinion of Hoya went down further.

Maxsaver.net customer service :

I then emailed Maxsaver.net, the 'supposedly fake' company in Hongkong where i bought this filters from. They promptly replied back apologizing for the issue and asked me for a photo of the filter which came apart. When i sent them the picture they immediately agreed to take it back and provided me with the details of how to return them.

Needless to say i'am terribly impressed with their customer service. Once they receive the return, i'am going to buy the B+W XS-Pro Kaesemann Circular Polarizer from them. They are the top of the line of the B+W filter and more importantly they have a Neutral color cast and dont have the warming effect like the other polarizers.

The cresent shaped bays of the Tsomoriri lake beside the Korzok village.

Saravana@kettik.com (Saravana Kumar) — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 16:18:10 +0000

The cresent shaped bays of the Tsomoriri lake beside the Korzok village.

Birds eye view of the Korzok village and of the Korzok Phu (stream) flowing into the Tsomoriri lake.

Saravana@kettik.com (Saravana Kumar) — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 16:17:57 +0000

Birds eye view of the Korzok village and of the Korzok Phu (stream) flowing into the Tsomoriri lake.

Saravana@kettik.com (Saravana Kumar) — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 16:17:45 +0000

Birds eye view of the Korzok village and of the Korzok Phu (stream) flowing into the Tsomoriri lake.