Monday, December 12, 2005
Jabalpur, Bhedaghat and Kanha
I am posting some pictures from my trip to Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh last month. It was just an amazing experience being in the Jungle, soaking in the jungle sights sounds and smells :)
Kanha is also the setting for Rudyard Kipling's famous Jungle Book.
The trip started with a day out at Bhedaghat, about 30 Km from Jabalpur (base town for our trip). The picture to the left now is of the incredible marble ghats at Bhedaghat and that's the sacred Narmada flowing through those ghats. The river at places is over 300 feet deep and rises much higher during the monsoons. The ghats are home to a veritable potpourri of marble rocks, I had never quite imagined marble in black and pink before.
The Chousat Yogini Temple at Bhedaghat
Kanha is also the setting for Rudyard Kipling's famous Jungle Book.
The trip started with a day out at Bhedaghat, about 30 Km from Jabalpur (base town for our trip). The picture to the left now is of the incredible marble ghats at Bhedaghat and that's the sacred Narmada flowing through those ghats. The river at places is over 300 feet deep and rises much higher during the monsoons. The ghats are home to a veritable potpourri of marble rocks, I had never quite imagined marble in black and pink before.
The river has also cut quite interesting patterns in the marble rocks as can be seen in this close up.
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Now on to my favourite picture from the trip :) ... I just love the layers of yellows and the green in this picture. And I love that sight of the elephant in the distance grazing sedately in the morning fog. The elephant was still around a few hours later, munching away, after we were done chasing down the tiger.
We also did spot other animals on the trip like the Sambar, the rare BarahSingha , the Chital ( Spotted Deer ) and everyone's favourite, The Langurs :). However, the best part for me on the trip was 15 Km bicycle ride we took in the buffer zone adjoining the main tiger reserve area. Words simply are not enough to describe the beauty of the place, I perhaps will take to my grave, the memory of the golden sunset by the river in the jungle, set against the sounds of the gurgling water and a gentle drone of a thousand dragon-flies (sunlight seemed to reflect off their wings). With the fresh & fragrant jungle smells thrown in for a good measure, it was quite a heady mix for the senses.
I had taken my Sony TRV38 camcorder along on the trip and I was hoping to capture some of the sounds of the jungle. But I am pretty dissapointed with camcorder's internal mic's performance. It's time I invest in an external mic with proper wind baffles to cut out the wind noise. Actually I think I need a new HD camcorder too :D . There is too much a red-shift in my aging TRV38.
The trip to Kanha was very memorable, thanks to the company of my friends, Navneet and Ajit and our wonderful hosts from the Youth Hostels Association of India who did a splendid job organizing the trip. Think I am addicted to this Travel and now I just can't seem to stop dreaming about my next trip.. where when how. ~sigh~
The trip to Kanha was very memorable, thanks to the company of my friends, Navneet and Ajit and our wonderful hosts from the Youth Hostels Association of India who did a splendid job organizing the trip. Think I am addicted to this Travel and now I just can't seem to stop dreaming about my next trip.. where when how. ~sigh~
