In late August 2013, my dear wife started reminding me that she had applied leave for a week, in November. She wanted us to do something more exciting, than our usual jaunts to the jungles of Southern India. I suspect she’s had enough of Tigers and leopards (What with the resident 100 kg Tiger she sees every day at home..!!! ) As usual, I enthusiastically agreed at that time, and conveniently forgot all about it till mid October.
Mid october…
Wife: Vineeth, so where are we going then ?
Me: I have it all figured out, We’ll do 2 days in Bandipur, 2 days in Kabini, 2 days in BR hills.
Wife: That is something we can do any weekend, I specifically said something different !!!
Me: What??!! Why ??!!! This is such an awesome plan !!!
Wife : You Moron !!! I had given you enough time to plan,chuck everything and lets stay home…Pffftt
Me: (Panic) Lets do Leh !!! we’ll call up Vivek(my brother) and do a week-long trip to Leh.
Wife : Now you’re talking….
So we call up my brother, and he agrees( What a sport ! ) as he too has leaves pending and so we plan….flights,hotels, destinations…..
Late october…
Bro calls up and informs that he has to leave to Singapore on an assignment…all plans go for a toss.
We still wanted to see the Himalayas,and perhaps do a bit of birding…So I mentioned Pangot and Sattal, birding hotspots in the Himalayan foothills in Uttarakhand.
Reshma agrees, so we call up the guys at Asian Adventures, who handle the bookings for Jungle lore Birding Lodge at Pangot and Sattal Birding Camp at Sattal. We dealt with Mithun, who was very professional in chalking up an itenary which suited our needs.
The plan was that , we reach Delhi airport, get picked up by our guide Shyam Sharma, and driver Adeshji. Reach Pangot and spend 2 nights there, move on to Sattal and spend another two nights in Sattal.Efectively we’d have five days of sightseeing and birding.We were to have a Toyota innova all to ourselves for all 5 days…Airport to airport.
So we transferred the money, booked air tickets from Bangalore-Delhi-Bangalore,leaves finalised in my office….and oh,bought a new Canon EOS 70D for the trip.No more fighting for the SLR, I was to use the 70D and the 4005.6 and Reshma the 500D and the 100-400.
So we are all packed and ready to go to Bangalore( we planned to reach one day before to do some last-minute shopping).Our Karnataka KSRTC multi axle Volvo is scheduled to depart from Calicut at 2200 hrs.Around 1700 hours we see news flashes of violence and rioting on the Calicut-Bangalore road due to opposition to the Kasturirangan report. We hope it’s not too bad and keep our fingers crossed.Around 1900 hours we hear in the news that its going to be hartal in Kerala ( equal to a Bandh) from midnight. We still hope to travel…
Around 2000 hrs we get a message that our bus has been CANCELLED !!!
Panic sets in….we have visions of all our money going up in smoke. Nevertheless we decided to check out the bus station at around 2130 hours or risk driving the car to Bangalore( yeah we were desperate…)
As we reach the bus stand we find a Kerala ksrtc ordinary bus ( believe me..ordinary it was) bound for Bangalore leaving…I ran up to the driver, and luckily he says seats are available and he will wait for us to bring our luggage…very few people wanted to travel that night.
We desperately drag all our luggage into the bus and finally start our adventure !!! The bus took a long detour avoiding the problem areas, and very late into the night managed to cross into Karnataka, unscathed.
It takes crazy ass mallus to handle crazy ass mallus…no one else would have risked driving that night.But we had serious money at stake here…worst case we might get stranded on the highway…The bus was originally scheduled to depart at 2000 hrs.The stars and planets were on our side….Some seriously brisk driving over some atrociously bad roads, made for a bone jarring ride…
We finally reach Bangalore in the morning, much earlier than we thought we’d reach, shop for gloves/skullcaps,thermal inners, new camera bag…and call it an early night.
Our cab picks us up at 3am,and after another brisk and hair raising drive ( putting it mildly ) reach airport before 4 am…well in time for the 6 am flight to Delhi. Our flight thankfully, is on schedule and lovely weather greets us in Delhi when we finally land around 9 am.
We find a dude wearing a cowboy hat and dressed in the manner of a hardcore wildlifer/ desi cowboy waiting for us at the airport.
Shyam Sharma is not your typical guide…in our 5 days together I have never seen him in non camouflage gear…”Sir, yeh to hamesha andar ki wildlife feelings ko zinda rakhne ke liye hain” he says(Err…loosely translated he meant, Sir, this is to keep the wildlife feelings alive inside me all the time). A veritable store house of information ( and tall tales too, claims to have seen 2o black bazas on a huuge tree ) he proved to be an excellent guide and a fantastic travel companion, netting well over 100 species in 4 days of birding and sightseeing….
Our driver Adeshji was waiting and so we started our long ( 8hr) journey to Pangot.Sunday traffic in Delhi was sparse and we made a quick getaway from the airport and soon crossed Delhi limits. We stopped for brunch at Maama’s dhaba ( Out of this world paranthas and butter roti and daal makhni and…you get the drift ) Somewhere after crossing the river Ganga, I drifted off to sleep..something i’d never been able to do when someone else was driving.Cant praise Adeshji’s driving enough…never had any nervous moments except for the occasional tractor and bullock carts and crazy bikers that you encounter in the highways of Uttarpradesh.
Woke up when we reached choti haldwani ( Jim corbetts village). From there we started climbing…crossed nainital and saw our first views of the mighty Himalayas. I’d probably have to write another post to describe my feelings on seeing the Himalayas, but for now I’d just say……(speechless)
Reached Pangot, and Jungle Lore Birding Lodge around 6 pm, and was warmly welcomed by Tejpalji who is a caretaker/manfriday at Jungle Lore. It had already gotten dark by then….and very very cold !!! From 32 degree Kerala weather to a cool 8 degree Himalayan evening.
Sunset at Pangot clicked with my iphone
We settled into our cottage…comfy enough because of the heater they provided. Had a shower and an early dinner and hit the sack…we were finally here !!!
To be continued….
The Lazy Traveller 