Below is a copy of India Travel Blog Newsletter that was mailed out on May 02.
The India Travel Blog newsletter dispatch is sporadic and infrequent, but I try to send it out once a month. Last newsletter was circulated in March. To get this occasional newsletter, which announces important happenings in India Travel Blog and also summarizes the recent content, subscribe to it by keying in your email id on the box at the top-right corner
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Hello,
Thank you for subscribing to India Travel Blog Newsletter. Feel free to forward this to anyone who would be interested.
The desktop wallpaper calendar for May 2007 is now online and can be downloaded here
It has been two months since the last newsletter was mailed, and plenty of content has been added on India Travel Blog since then.
1. The North East Diary is ongoing since last 2 months and is continuing in good pace. There are many posts that cover about travelling infrastructure in north east, conservation and environment in the region, and about Guwahati. Topic currently being written is about birding in Eaglenest National Park. Read the last post on it – Journal Entry on Eaglenest National Park. See links to previous posts on North East on the sidebar.
2. Added trip report of some old and recent journeys in Karnataka’s western ghats. a) Swimming in Kempu Hole and b) Climbing Thadiyandamol
3. Two book reviews have been added. a)Elephas Maximus by Stephen Alter and b) Chasing the monsoons by Alexander Frater
In the coming days, I have much to write about North East, including Tawang, Kaziranga, Nameri, Shillong and Cherrapunjee. I am planning a 2 week long trip to Himachal in about 4 weeks time, and hopefully all about Himachal will be the next thing on India Travel Blog after the North East Diaries.
Happy travelling and happy reading!
– from India Travel Blog
Desktop wallpaper Calendar for the month of May 07 is ready. This is an image of strands of a waterfall with the major flow of the fall seen in the blurry background. I am in double mind about whether the image is suitable for being a desktop calendar though. A browser resized version looked ugly and pixellated on my computer, so I advice seeing the full sized image. Click on the picture to get the image in 1024×768
About the Image
This image was made at a place called Muthyala Maduvu, or Muthyala Madu near Bangalore, occasionally also called as ‘Pearl Valley’. It is a small fall with not much water going down, but when you look up from the bottom of the fall, the drops of water look as though it is pearls falling down(and hence the name). I was with my friend, photographing the fall and was unhappy about the result and told my friend – “The fall is like a poetry, but the images are like snapshots.” This was the picture I made immediately after I said this to him.
Author: Alexander Frater
Publishers: Penguin Books
Pages: 273
‘Chasing the monsoon’ is a book on Alexander Fraters journey through India, along with the monsoon clouds. He starts right at the bottom – Trivendrum when the monsoon clouds arrive in June and travels all the way north to Delhi with the progress of monsoon. He is there in Kovalam beach when people dance and rejoice at the sight of first rains. He moves northwards via Cochin to Goa and sees people welcoming the monsoons all the way. On his way, he does some research by meeting people at the meteorological department, learns the science behind these seasonal clouds that brings rain into India, and all about predicting the monsoons. He learns how important monsoon is for the Indian farmer and also to all those people who are looking for relief from the rains.
Set in the seventies, his journeys and many other experiences of those days feel a little outdated, but the facts and narration on monsoon do not change with time. In those days when he travelled, he had to find someone’s influence even to get an air ticket on board of Indian Airlines. He had to spend several months and go from door to door begging all the bureaucrats just to get permits to visit Cherrapunjee – a place that is open for all to visit now.
Besides being a wonderful narration of monsoons and making a good learning of everything that monsoons is, this is a well written travel story that gives a glimpse of the way of things in India’s the seventies. Sometimes the scientific facts seem overwhelming though. It is a worthy book to read for any one interested in travelling in India, and a must read for the fans of monsoon.