travel 2009 - 1, oman, muscat

internetting at excruciatingly crawling speed for 130 INR / hour from muscat, back from first meeting then lunch. this time i am liking it a little better in here.

much important meeting listed on monday. i hope i will take [professional] positives out of here.

narkanda, on NH 22

realizing a fun-trip is not half as fun or easy as when om is around.

but after a lot of deliberation, cajoling and planning we {a total of 4 guys} embarked on the trip to narkanda. i decided on it for two major reasons: 1) its height {2700 meters} - with a simple trek to a height of 3400 meters 2) it position on a national highway {less time consuming}

a street called narkanda

upon reaching there a relief that came with a disappointment was that there were a plenty of rooms available as there was no snowfall {a delay}. according to what the manager + valet + house-keeper + guide at the hotel told us, we missed scenes that would be very similar to what om is experiencing at his current base in milwaukee.

snow, but a little afar

anyways, the couple of days that we were there went by with us all huddled inside our rooms inside the quilts for our dear lives. the temperature didn't seem to go over 4-5 degrees centigrade even when the sun shone as bright as it does in delhi. nights were either below freezing or around freezing. our drive plus trek took as around frozen sluggish ponds and half-frozen half-tricking streams to a peak called hatu at the altitude of 3 kilometers above delhi.

official declaration of our achievement ;)

the last day saw us coming down to shimla. i wasn't really keen but more than half of the members vetoed my intent. and with the lure of hotties i too didn't fight tooth and nail :D but shimla was disappointing. the mall was full house and even the lots of very beautiful girls [who incidentally were all petite, fair with ruddy cheeks, straight hair, wearing converse canvas shoes, with ultra low skin fit jeans, and one or the other brand of sports jacket - they all looked so similar that i couldn't even recall one face that stuck to my mind] there couldn't seem to make up for what the overcrowding was doing to the place.

this view was available in shimla too, but i clicked this a kilometer above

~~~

i clicked very less number of pictures, none at all of shimla.

decay

i have always maintained and often repeated that timing in visiting historical monuments here in india is the most important factor in the rating that your visit gets.

this saturday saw me getting out of delhi, a long awaited break. although the program was for rishikesh, it was later changed to fatehpur sikri. om wanted to click which he anyways wasn't really able to ;)

got started later than 3 in the morning, late by over an hour. but reached when it was still cooler. started with om getting pissed off by the change in how things work around there and then roaming around the fort complex without a guide.

while om, aro and jo were most interested in exercising their photography skills, i wanted to have some group photographs when while getting bored i realised a story there. looking at the uneven growth of wild shrub in the place where once there would have been much revered tulsi plant of maharani jodha bai herself, i lamented the decay.

the place of tulsi:-



that was the point when i pointed my camera at the walls, the crevices, the cornices, the architecture, the doors and everything. the first thought was how beautiful it all would have been in its glory:-

this is one of those exquisitely done parapets which amazes me:-



i am sure they would have looked beautiful in their times, they seem eroded now. what makes me curious is that although the age of the parapet above and this one below would be much similar, why is there such a marked difference in their erosion pattern:-



another beautiful art in stone:-



this is the most beautiful piece i discovered that day. absolutely breathtakingly stunning:-



before soon, my cheerful disposition which was basking in the thoughts of being part of regal settings was defiled by a cruel pungent stink and brought me face to face with the cycle of time which i had always maintained takes its toll. the smell was due to the excreta of rodents which might be infesting the place at night.

rodents:-



lots of them:-



later, more than the excreta, i was saddened by the corruption that was a result of illiteracy and insensitivity among some rodents of our own species. they were more damaging than the rodents of the rodent species.

i wonder what would have happened to the guy who scribbled this, if he would have been caught doing this inside jodha bai's palace in those times:-



some respite was provided by the efforts that were being put up apparently by asi. but it was not really heartening to see that most of the work was being done in bad taste. but there was an effort nonetheless and it solicits appreciation.

the low quality patch-work, probably because this spot does not warrant as much importance:-



another spot of patch work:-



i was so elated by the cleaning-up efforts put up outside the complex and inside it that i suspected that they were repairing things and making them look as good as the original product.

now:-



then:-



the beautiful suspect:-


~~~

after long, i have done a post with pictures. i always like pictures, you may click them to view them enlarged.

a thought about the wonder called pyramid

bewilderment is the product of intoxication of focus due to difference of opinion in your perception at the given time and the inevitable reality.

the pyramids have a different stature from different view points. they would not seem to be as humongous as you would expect them to be from not far but then you won't be able to realize how far you are. but they would become so huge when you get close that you would not be able to consume all their grandeur. and that is what happens when you try to shoot them. no angle would seem to do justice to them because they would not imbibe in any shot. not imbibe not in a way that they won't appear in one negative but you would not be able to project a grand image of them.

a true man-made copy of a piece of himalayas...

for pictorial explanation please have a look at the last picture post.

the pictures

although i had indiana jones in my head ;) when i was clicking with one hand and trying to keep myself still on the horse's back, i still did not click a lot of them [lest i come to ground, literally]. but here are some...

there are nine pyramids in giza, not 1 or 3, six are visible in the pic below:-

of the biggest three:

the righmost one was covered with limestone
the middle with albatross [marble], which explains the cap like covering on the top
the left one with granite


this is the left of the bigger 3; huge, although these tiny pics won't do any justice to their grandeur




the sphinx, face of a man, head of a woman, body of a tiger:-


this is the biggest pyramid of all, the middle one of the top most pic. maximize it and the tourists on camels and horses might give you an idea of the size of this beautiful perplexing mammoth:-




their grandeur seem to be all the more grand when you try to imagine how would they have been made, with their raw material not readily available and with such perfect geometrical shapes.

talking about shapes, another egyption creation comes to my mind, that girl - sheer hotness ... uff ...

and the cameras were not allowed in the egyptian museum.

a visit to the wonders

it has been six days since i have been out of the country. the short term trip feels like the long term one. somehow i don't feel comfortable in these countries. i generally go to middle eastern countries. more often then not there is much to see, of course other than the conversion of opulence in to swanky roads, glass building, chic malls and clean cornices.

but this time i went to an african one :D and this was special for two reasons:-

1. the obvious one - it has one of the wonders of the world :D yea, egypt :D
2. the program got canceled earlier and i was very unhappy about it.

saw the pyramids the very next morning - as they were visible from the hotel itself. but the real sweet surprise came when we realised that they were en route the client office. we could be more leisurely. i made sure that the work was completed on the first day itself and the next day would just be formalities so that i can give some more time to the pyramids. went there and didn't get ripped off. the tour, the guide tips and the papyrus paintings - everything was inside $200 [including the entry to the egyptian museum on the tahrir square in the downtown]. and let me tell you, visit to the pyramids is incomplete without a visit to the museum. it is just two floors but houses so much stuff that you will forget what did you see two sections back.

anyways, did click the pics too but don't have the cord to transfer them. will do when back home. till then be good...

this fourth trip

out of my last three work related short term travels abroad, i have never took my digital camera along, but this time i am taking it along... can you guess why? ;) :D

goa calling!

yesterday evening wanted to write a post. heard a, rather saw a kailash kher video on telly. the song is already a winner but i didn't know even the video is. anyways that is over now.

goa is back in mind. first trip this would be. so all you people out there, what do you think makes a goa trip rocking and not to be missed?

to dubai

virtually whole of this gone week in dubai was good. i mean i was busy and i was not bored or alone. i didn't read but saw tv and went to sleep tired and not brooding. but i feel alone now that i am back in the place i apparently love and with people who are most important to me.

maybe it was just the city's dazzle. would have faded soon. i probably wouldn't want to settle there. saw the red ferrari running in front of me on the road - amazing. and a white one the next day. i went walking around blocks near the hotel and ate some very good chinese served by a chinese girl with great legs. the crowd was okay. good but not special. i have seen almost amazingly special crowd in only one city till now.

so 4 nights in dubai were not bad.

a trek planned on the last week weekend

a trip to somewhere is now long due. it has been around six months since i went on my last [trekking] trip. a chapter was started then. i don't know if another will open or anything will close. though there are some options floating in the group that would be the superset of those who will actually undertake it, i think it would be binsar. it is a wildlife sanctuary in almora and the solitariness figures in almost all the accounts that i have read of the travel to it. plus i don't have any pictures on this blog, a fact that should change soon.

but i want to do a long[er] trek. something which is 3 on the grade scale. or moderate to strenuous on the layman's scale. and which demands life-support in the form of guide, porters and huge rucksack on the back and specialist shoes on the feet. by the way have you done a trek [lately]?

a(nother) trekking trip

a trekking trip to valley of flowers and hemkund sahib [to wash the overburdening backbone-cracking sins under the wrap of strenuous trek] is very much on the cards.

more on the trip and nude babes later :D