It is interesting how we have molded soil to make it into a new form for our usage. It is again something we have borrowed from mother earth.
Pottery town exhibit
On a more creative note, it is something that we have traditionally being using before the metal age. Even today I am sure, there are many households which use utensils made out of it.
I still remember the college days when I used to such utensil to cool drinking water.
Recently I was invited for a “Street Food” festival in one of the business hotel of Bangalore. Hotel Clarion had organized the event to promote its presence in Bangalore IT hub of Whitefield. I took my camera as well to capture some nice spicy food shots.
Hotel Clarion Khao Galli festival
The article has been published by Dare magazine on their website. Wishing Clarion all the best on their Bangalore presence.
The wildlife week is being celebrated from Oct 1-7.
Let us try to understand nature and its wildlife making planet earth a better place for all living species to peacefully co-exist. Humans need to be less aggressive in their outlook towards animals and wildlife which are essential for its own existence.
Go out, enjoy the weather, capture them as memories to be cherished forever.
After a breathtaking lifetime experience of seeing wildlife in Serengeti, we started off for our journey to Ngorongoro crater reaching there around 5pm. We checked in at the Ngorongoro Wildlife Lodge which was at an ideal location overseeing the crater with wildlife roaming freely right below us.
Ngorongoro crater Tanzania safari
The lodge has a crater view balcony with a very powerful telescope from where we could easily sight animals. I was comfortably seeing multiple black rhinos, elephants bearing tusks, lazying lions while sipping up a hot cup of tea. It was a beautiful setting with sun going down coloring the sly and crater in yellow tone.
After adjusting in our rooms, we came back the crater view balcony and sat there for about 2 hours watching the exquisite views and wildlife sightings. We could not believe the pristine form in which we were seeing them in their absolute natural habitat. The animals within the crater cannot come out as the crater is 650 m deep and our safari vehicle had a challenging time maneuvering through descend and ascend.
The lodge has extensive usage of wood for its decoration from bar table to generic furniture around. The leather upholstery used for bar stools, sofa sets, cupboard covers and chairs were something unique. They are kept in little raw form with hair intact providing for extreme comfort and cushioning. The rest rooms were literally carved out of rocks and maintained extremely well.
As the sun set, the temperature started reducing rapidly reaching the figure of 55F(13C) which is quite cold considering we were in Africa very close to Equator. We had a quick dinner at Rhino restaurant and it was funny to live the extremity of globalization here.
A Chinese cook preparing Italian pasta in African continent for consumption by Indian whose ingredients imported from South Africa.
After a checkout at 6:00 am with packed breakfast and lunches we started to descend reaching the crater base by 7:30 am. Our game drive was planned for 4 hours in the crater base. The crater has 3 entries and 1 exit.
There was a chill in morning and our guide was feeling really cold. Our first wild sighting was of a herd of wild buffaloes about 500m from the lodge. As soon as our vehicle went near them, they just vanished into thick forests. On our descend we could see zebras walking grazing alongside red mud paths. The red soil is this region is extremely fertile and we could see large farm plantations.
The Ngorongoro conservation area is in an area of 8300 sq km with the crater in 250 sq km at a depth of 650m from the plains. It is instructed not to feed animals as they would forget their natural feeding/hunting techniques.
Giraffe is not found in crater due to scarcity of acacia trees. This animal is also popularly known as Miss Tanzania due to the way it walks with stiff and high head position while on the move. During the game driving we saw a pair of wild buffalos basking in sun with Ox pecker cleaning their skin. A little ahead I was surprised to meet one of my friends who is a regular to witness migration almost every year. It is always nice to meet someone in a foreign land who belongs to your homeland.
Lake Magadi is present at the center of crater making it the focal point for all live actions. During season time, the lake is full of Lesser and Greater Flamingos and we were able to see few of them on the shore. Our plan was to circumference the lake as that would provide us with ample game sightings. The Wildbeast present within the crater do a local migration from one part to another as getting out of crater is impossible for them. We were really lucky to see this unique migration apart from the Big Five encounters.
We started driving towards a green patch with a small pond to eat our packed breakfast. This is the place where we were allowed to get off the vehicle and freely walk around seeing wildlife all around us. We could see couple of hippopotamus peeking through the pond. We were watching them relax and also enjoy the much needed sunshine heat.
After a quick meal, we started the drive towards the far end off crater where we saw probably the biggest tusk elephant of our trip. The tusks were kissing the ground below it. We also saw 2 black rhinos is far off edge but could not drive there due to off road driving limits. We were still satisfied as we had seen them through the binoculars the earlier day. The clouds were playing hide and seek and whenever they covered sun, the temperature used to drop sharply. A little further ahead on the path, we saw many ostrich both male and female grazing on white cotton like grass.
There was diversity in the grasslands within the crater area. We could see some jackals hiding in brown grasslands and at one side elephants chewing on tall green bushes. There were also warthogs kneeling down and enjoying the thorny bushes.
By noon time we planned to exit the crater due to permit limitations and ascend was quick thorough the Lerai Forest where we saw white monkeys. This was the end of our wildlife safari in Tanzania and we were heading back to Arusha from where we had planned for going home to Dar es Salaam.
It was finally after 3 days that we were back on tarmac roads to speed to Arusha town by around 3pm. During the past 5 days we had covered approximately a distance of 1125 km.
NGMA Bangalore
National gallery of modern art is a place where contemporary art forms are displayed. The art forms range from sculputres, canvas paintings, charcoal work on paper, photographs and alike.
NGMA opened in bangalore recently and I visited it to see the different art forms and also for inspiration for photographs which are seen as art form. Being a wildlife and nature photographer, I find it sometimes interesting to portray it as art rather than just fact.
Located on Palace road, next to India Oil petrol station(Mount Carmel college is another big landmark), it is beautifully constructed with a mix of ancient British architecture and modern landscaping. The well maintained green plush gardens with fountains make the whole campus teaming with inspirations for all art inspirers.
Meeting with the Director was also a good insight into the work done over the past 3 years to get it inaugurated only a few months back. A place recommended for all art lovers. The art is only for display under tight security for an entree fee of mere INR20(< 0.50USD). There are starting to gain momentum in their activities with cultural tours and insights behind the art work on regular days. Sessions and lecture series are also conducted by eminent artists from time to time.
Having visited Delhi NGMA also, I think the one in Bangalore has an edge :)
Elephant hit by train
Tiger news may be exciting with cub reports and new sightings at higher altitudes. But there is carelessness at lower altitudes for other animals as well.
Is the focus only on tiger conservation and all the resources have been pulled to this cause? A goods train in north Bengal in India ran over 7 elephants killing them. Yes 7 asian elephants have been killed in no time after being hit by a goods train in the Banarhat area of Jalpaiguri district on Wednesday night.
The herd of 7 elephants left four filled on the spot after collision, the remaining 3 died the next day. It seemed like an extended family with including sub-adults and two juvenile elephants.
The forest department has requested to run the train at lower speeds in this stretch but there is always hurry for everyone, and the train driver was no exception. Is running at 70km/hr against the requested 25km/hr going to bring back the elephant family?
A case has been booked against Subhankar Sarkar, train driver. The train runs across the forest areas in Dooars at odd times including night which is the most active time for elephants to feed.
Elephants need to feed around 10% of their body every day. This approximately 100-300kg of food per day which takes about 12-15 hours per day feeding. A rough estimates states that there are only 26,000 Asian elephants in wild in India.
This is not the first incident, three months ago, another elephant was run over and killed by a train near the same spot. Reports are even stating that 30 elephants have died in such collision incidents in the past years.
If the news of 2 cubs in Ranthambore was not much exciting, here you go for super moments captured.
In the kingdom of Bhutan, Tiger has been sighted using camera traps over the 4 months of field expedition by BBC. there was a male and female captured with breeding behavior. This is the first sighting of Tiger beyond 4000m height.
Another fab news is the sighting of snow leopard cub in the same region of Bhutan. See the clip to understand it inquisitiveness for the camera trap.
It seems like a season of good wild news!
There have been reports of 2 tiger cubs spotted in Ranthambore on Sept 22, 2010. Cheers to all the efforts in making it happen. Looking forward to a trip to Ranthambore now? Or is Bandhavgarh the destination first!
Update: the cubs have been found for T13 also known as Sultanpur tigress. The cubs have been spotted in Kundal zone which is next to Zone 1.
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A visit to Bandipur national park is always thrilling and anticipating to see the endangered Indian tiger in wild. There are maximum number of tigers in this national park, but the area covered by it is also one of the … Continue reading