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Lord Parshuram threw the axe
And the sea gave way to a strip of land
and thus formed the green Kaleidoscopic – God’s own country Kerala. Geographically Kerala is separated from rest of India by the massive Western Ghats and enjoys an extensive coastal line formed by the Arabian Sea. The rugged, steep, wild and forested Western Ghats sheltered Kerala from mainland invaders and the long coastal line provided it maritime contact with the outside world. This land of noble and generous “King Mahabali” is generous in its offering for the tourists too. It has palmed fringed beaches, tranquil hill stations, emerald green backwaters, expressive dance arts, rejuvenating Ayurvedic treatments, moist evergreen forests and abundant varieties of Flora and Fauna.

In Kerala, the colors we noticed in abundance were Green, Green, Green and occasional Blue. It is a keralite tradition not to build houses taller than the surrounding trees and hence wherever one lives the abundant greenery always surrounds him and even the pristine blue sky is visible only in glimpses.

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Feeling the effects of the high altitude, and having restlessly dozed off on an empty stomach last night, I woke up in the morning to furious activity at the campsite.

Surprisingly & thankfully, the throbbing headaches were gone and I was as hungry as a famished pitbull terrier… Had the morning tea, a couple of biscuits and smokes and soaked in the sun a bit. Kinda reminded me of the song by Sheryl Crow… “Soak up the Sun”.

During breakfast, I get talking with the staff members and get a crash course in geography… Kaza is the sub divisional HQ for the Spiti region, which by the way means Middle country in their dialect, and once I cross the Kunzum Pass, 75 Kms ahead, I would be in the Lahaul region… So much for my knowledge… I always considered them to be like Siamese twins… inseparable. (more…)

Uttranchal is blessed with pilgrimage destinations which are quite remote and out of bounds during off season for the hurly burly crowd. I feel for such places which don’t have a crowd of their own, so I go there to fill the gap. For remote trekking destinations seekers, Panch Kedar is a sumptuous package of five destinations. How these 5 places are connected is also very interesting- they are connected underground by the body of a huge bull. You dig up google for panch kedars and you will know the legend. Mota motee it’s like this : Pandavas who weren’t feeling very great about killing their own kith and kin and accompanied incidental brahmahatya seeked Lord Shiva for some kind words as Shiva is the great sage. Bhima was sent to look for shiva.But Shiva was in some other nongodly-feeling mood, wandering in disguise as a bull and not ready for a discourse. Also he didn’t think much about Bhima in terms of mental capacity to understand the trappings of life and karma etc in general. So he went underground, no literally. Bhima was persistent and got hold of the hind legs and tail of the bull and managed to pull parts of the bull out of the earth. 6 in fact. Horns of the bull at PashupatiNath in Nepal, Face at Rudranath, matted hair at Kalpeshwar, Arms at Tungnath, Hump at Kedarnath,torso and navel at Madhymaheshwar. What I marvel at is that all of these places are amazingly remote, it takes atleast 1-2 days of trek to get there, are very beautiful and quite in close proxmity around Okhimath/Gopeshwar. Tungnath is the easiest to reach though. 3-4 hours of trek and the highest temple of Shiva in the himalayas at 3600+ m. The temple is more than a thousand years old. This region is the best to get views of Chowkhamba, trishul , Nandadevi among others which are many. The highest point in this trek is Chandrashila which is at 14k feet ASL. This is a local maxima and you get unobstructed views in all direction. Unfortunately I cannot provide you with this view, but I can tell you its up there.

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We had gone on a short trip to meet relatives in London, and I had a great urge to see Scotland. I mentioned this to the relatives, and was so politely and decently informed that I must have not done enough research. Scotland is a fair distance from London, and requires some amount of planning (and a few days) to enjoy thoroughly, and of course, this was the start of winter and it would be nice and cold. So, Scotland was dropped; I was unhappy :-), but one cannot argue against solid logic.
So now the search was on for an alternative, we needed to go out of London atleast once, and Dover Castle had been seen by some friends of my relatives; so Dover was the best (and actually only) possible place to go to. I had heard of Dover before (not specifically the castle though) - it is the place where the English Channel tunnel starts on the English side; in addition, Dover is the closest port to France, and must have been the first place to be attacked by any invader. So much for history, Dover Castle it was (for want of a better alternative).

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