Hebbal Lake is en route to Bangalore International airport and offers some good variety of birds for photography. An early morning outing with like minded fellow photographers from BWS (Bangalore Weekend Shots) in a group of 10 people made a good outing meeting new people and knowing more in the field of photography.

Any group outing is bound to teach you something, be it tip or a trick to free the motion of flying motion. It has taught me many such small tip which i have felt are extremely helpful in field while shooting.

It is very interesting to feel the voices of different birds and then concentrate even harder to sight the bird. There have been occasions when the bird was sighted and then as I get ready to freeze the shot, the bird flies away.

It is sometimes disheartening to wait patiently for long in tracking the bird and then bird just gives you a glimpse and flies teasing away. But that is also the exciting part wherein the shooter runs around silently to photograph the bird following their voices.

Follow the link below to find the gallery for this place.

If you would like to go there, try an early morning outing when you can capture the sunrise as well behind the trees and emerging from under the lake.

The holy trip to Tirupati was a 2 day weekend tour from Friday night to Monday morning. We started our journey from Bangalore at 10 pm reaching Tirupati by 4 am. It was a picnic time more than a pilgrimage since we were venturing out of Bangalore for the first time. Adding to the fun was the fact that it was an all friends outing for the next 2 complete days.

Day 1:
Once we reached Tirupati early morning we had to take tickets for entering the temple which is on a hilltop. The ticket has slot timings allotted to a devotee. It is only during this time that we can visit the shrine. Also there is a limit of tickets which can be issued to prevent the temple from getting overcrowded. Lord Balaji is the second richest god after Vatican and the security in this temple is high. We purchased ticket for darshan from base and got the slot time of Sunday evening. Since we had more than a day, we were to cover all the temples at the base of hill that day. The next day we would see some more temples and then drive up the hill. After getting tickets we boarded the coach again to reach the hotel where had to stay. It was a decent room but without AC. The climate in that region was hot and humid and difficult to sustain without AC.

We managed to upgrade our rooms and slept for some time. We then got ready to visit all temples in the planned package tour itinerary. We covered 4 temples in that area whose architecture just amazed me with beautiful carving on the exterior. The temples stand tall visible from quite a distance made up of rock boulders or stones. This makes the temple floors get quite hot to walk on when the sun is in its full fury. The humidity inside the temple also increases with rising temperatures.

We stopped at a place for traditional South Indian lunch after visiting one temple. Ahead on the tour we visited 2 more temples in neighboring areas. The names of temples were difficult to pronounce, forget about remembering them. By evening we reached back to our hotel rooms to relax. We then explored area around the hotel. The weather was cooler by then but the humidity level was still high. We had some snacks and juice to refresh ourselves. We also went to a nearby Kuber temple built in a big area and spent a lot of time. After visiting this temple we went for different kind south Indian cuisine.

Day 2:
The next day was to be a long and we had to get ready quite early. The first visit was to Anjaneya temple which is built at different heights on a hill. At the hill base was the main temple and after walking a few steps we reached a hill top. The architectural beauty of city was visible from the height. We sat on the top for some time to see the sun rise on top of us.

The next destined temple was Siddhivinayak of Lord Ganesha. The compound was quite beautiful and there were less number of people so we had a good time. At center is a pond with small waterfall within the compound. On one side of the water body was the main temple and other side had rooms for devotees to stay. This was the last temple for the trip before we visited the main temple of our journey.

The Balaji temple is on a hilltop called Tirumala and it took us little over an hour’s drive to reach there. On reaching the entrance we had to take off our footwear and join the queue for darshan. If one has a VIP pass, it will take less time as they have a separate entry. We were under the general pass category and people in that queue take about 4 hours on a less crowded day. On auspicious days, it can even take days. The temple is closed only for 2 hours from 2-4 am. Once the Darshan is completed, 2 big sweet laddoos are provided. The number is fixed to 2 per devotee.

The bus conductor had collected money in case any one of us wanted extra laddoos. That was a good achievement for me as I was told that in any case a devotee cannot get more than 2 laddoos. Inside the temple premises, at different places were placed huge containers where people can donate money. The containers had heavy security around them and also are emptied regularly. Being in the queue for so long did not matter as we had a good time waiting with all friends. We chatted and discussed all kinds of matters in the world. This was quite a relaxing time with no physical activity. It was a very long queue and we got our turn in around 4 hours.

Once we got close to the main temple, we got to see the idol of Lord Balaji for a fraction of second. That is the maximum time any devotee is allowed to see the idol. Since there are so many people they ensure that people do not stay in front of the idol for a very long time. Once we completed the darshan we went to a designated place to get our token exchanged for 2 laddoos. Once we got them we returned to the place where our bus was parked. We were feeling hungry now and also it was around 8 pm. We again had south Indian food at a nearby eating joint and boarded the bus which brought us back to the base of hill. There our bus was waiting which had to bring us back to our homes. The devotional and religious trip came to an end after getting rid of all my committed sins.

It seems like a season of marathons are happening all around. The past month has witnessed marathons for running, walking, bicycle and now photography marathon.

It was an event hosted by Canon where about 230 photographers participated. It was a one of its kind experience where the participants were given 3 themes after every 2 hours. The photos had to be clicked on the day and then submitted before the announcement of next theme.

People from all age groups were seen. The youngest member was around 10 years of age with his photographer father and the eldest one being over 60. A nice mix of people with varied backgrounds and creative skills.

It was a fun activity and I was surprised to see so many shutterbugs at the venue at 8:30 am on a Sunday morning.
You see all of us are motivated enough.

The first theme was "On the Job" where people were asked to be creative and submit their shots. As soon as the theme was announced, people went berserk clicking photos of all people doing something or the other. A few scenes during the competition were a participant clicking the photo of a policeman and then the photographer was caught in a wrong situation. Shooting photos of mason working on a construction site, a carpenter repairing some shop interiors, boot polish guy and many other people.

I managed to catch the shot of a motorcycle stand where many bikes were parked.

The next theme given was "Freedom". The first impression which flashed my mind was a bird in full flight or some other flying creature. People started traveling to far off distances to catch a bird in flight as considering the city limits. A local lake famous for birds caught the creative mind of a wildlife photographer. He shot a flying pelican and it came out well.

I had a modern perspective to this theme and shot a side market shop where T-shirts were hung in multiple rows. To me that looked like freedom.

The third theme was a "Standing out". I thought that was a tough one to crack in the short span of time we had been allocated. I tried some panning shots, shallow DOF shots but could not manage anything appealing.

Hence I decided not to submit anything for the third theme. Personally I had a good time and a lot of fun too. It was nice talking to other photographers who had come to showcase their creative sides.

At the end a good event, organized well and a successful one.

In the recent posts of my trip to makedatu I wrote a long enough travelogue for people to use as a guide. The travelogue was written as a web page and hence people might want to keep it as a copy while traveling.

I have created a PDF document from the same travelogue information with a little bit information rephrased and corrected.You can grab a copy of the pdf document by clicking on the screen shot below of the travelogue document opened in Acrobat 9 professional.

The pdf file is about 350Kb in size. The image quality within the travelogue might not be greatest as I have tried to compress the data and keep the file size minimum.

Please take care before finally printing the pdf file. In case of extreme need, you should fire a print. Otherwise you could just note down the relevant details on your travel diary or any other document which you generally carry while traveling.

If nothing of the above works for you and you have to fire a print command, please ensure that you print on both sides of the paper i.e double sided print even if it is the network printer in your office. This will save some paper for all and prevent cutting of some trees.

Hopefully small actions like this by us can go a long way in keeping the earth as green as possible and travelers like me to keep the exploration streak forever.

It was a single day trip, to Makedatu which is located about 80km from Bangalore. We hired a cab for the journey to be undertaken by 3 people including 2 of my friends.

It took us about 2 hours to reach the first destination of the journey called Sangam. We started early from our houses reaching comfortably by 9:30 am. ‘Sangam’ is a Hindi language word meaning meeting place for rivers. It is a place where Cauvery and another river merge. Makedatu is about 5 km from this place. Makedatu is a Kannada language term comprising of “Make” meaning ’sheep’ and “Datu” meaning ‘gorge’. Thus the saying that the gorge was separated so close that even a sheep could cross it.

We got off the cab and had to cross the river. On the other side of river was the starting place for a bus service to Makedatu. The river was knee deep and we enjoyed crossing it. After consulting we got to know that the bus would start at 11:00 am. We had one hour with us to explore the surrounding place.

We could see rocks everywhere and water flowing around it. Since it was not monsoon season water level had receded allowing us to go quite inside the rivers. The rugged natural terrain was also looking good in bright sunlight.

We were done with the exploration in about 30 minutes and inquired again for departure of the bus. The service was now postponed to 1 pm as there were not enough passengers to fill up the rickety bus. We decided to trek the distance of 4 km.

The trek was not a difficult one as the route was clearly marked by regular plying buses. It was an extremely hot day and we were sweating quite a bit. We were carrying some sandwiches and 2 liters of water. By the time we reached Makedatu all our supplies had exhausted.

The place is actually some steps down the main road. We took them to see a beautiful terrain in front of us. The river had carved its way through the rocks marking the rocks on its way. The whole view was simply amazing. We were the only ones to be there and we could enjoy as we felt comfortable.

All of us were tired with the walk and lack of liquid intake. We decided to go back on the road above and wait for the bus to come sometime. We heard a bus approaching us and breathed a big sigh of relief. Seeing the bus at that time was the best thing that could happened to us at that moment. In the bus, some vendors were carrying chilled mineral water and soft drinks. We bought it at an exorbitant price.

Our return journey was also an experience. We three were the only passengers in the bus and the driver was driving it like a racing car on a jungle road. I did not even think of sitting and clamped the holders on top for a little smoother ride back.

The bus journey took about 10 minutes which would have taken 2 hours to walk. We again crossed the river to reach our cabs. We decided to have lunch before heading for Chunchi Falls.

The falls are located around 15 km from this place and we saw a sign board for it on our way. We reached the falls in about 30 minutes. It was another trek down to reach the falls. This was a small one but difficult terrain to walk on. We went down quite a bit to see it fall from a height. At this time of the year it was quite dry and we came up after spending 10 minutes near the falls.

Once we reached near the parking area, all of us feasted on tender coconut water. It was a great refreshing drink which just made us feel in heaven.

That was the last destination of the trip and we headed home reaching at about 6 pm. All of us slept like dead logs on that day awakened only by the morning sun light.

Please be cautious to not enter the water at all places. There are warning boards as well due to the presence of crocodiles in the waters. The safe and best route to cross the river is right where the road ends. The water is shallow and knee deep when we went. Also after crossing the river be prepared to walk for around 4 km in case there is no service of a  rickety bus. The bus will charge Rs 20 to drop you at the final place from where you need to trek down to a level where the gushing water through the rocks can be seen and heard aloud.

Ratings and Recommendations:
A good place for picnics and group outings. Across the river the mats and tents can be erected for a good time. People with interest in following areas will appreciate the place more.

* Landscape
* Getting feet wet
Rating: 3/10

1- Lowest

10-Highest

Monsoon seems to have set in and the showers are livening up all species in the region. A little heavy showers were experienced late evening yesterday leading to the usual traffic jams and continuous honking by impatient people or thinking that the person driving in front them plans not to go home.

If the road is getting repaired near your house and office, then you are definitely in a bigger trouble and expecting the travel times to be in magnitude of hours which usually takes minutes.

To stay away from listening to blasting honks and fights over vehicles kissing each other, I started a little early to have a peaceful evening watching the rains pour down, get drenched a bit and explore my love for photography. Well the monsoon shots did not come any good worth sharing but this photo showcased above is shot after the showers in the golden time.

Hope you have a good time reliving some similar moments. If not you could think of the time when the rains gods were blessing mother earth and you were enjoying the hot sip of a tea or coffee. Or probably the childhood days when you were just eagerly waiting to get completely drenched in water on the first shower of the season and your parents running after you to get you inside as soon as possible.

Think for those moments and I am sure it will lead you to a smile. Enjoy the monsoon season ahead.