My Past Experiences

I have recently started to share my experiences through this blog, but I would like to share my past experiences. Here I will just mention the place in short and a few photos will follow. Hope you like them.

I will start with the older ones and then come towards the more recent ones as I remember them.

Ooty

I visited ooty in Feb, 2008 for a conference. The conference was at the famous ooty radio telescope. The places visited in ooty were ooty lake, botanical garden,rose garden,dodabetta peak (highest peak in south india), and the magnificent journey in the toy train from ooty to Mettupalayam.

Dodabetta Peak & Ooty Radio Telescope (with Prof Govind Swaroop)


Ooty Toy Train & Ooty Lake

Matheran

A mega trip to Matheran was arranged by members of the Astroclub after successful organization of the lecture series ' Frontiers in Physics '. We started our journey with the ride in Neral-Matheran toy train and later on explored Matheran on foot. It was fun with a group of 18 friends. We did lots of masti and dhamaal.

Neral-Matheran Toy Train


Friends

Mangalore-Surathkal
 

I happen to go to Surathkal for an exam with my cousin Kartik. Along with Surathkal we visited Mangalore (major city in Karnataka, Udpi (Temple town famous for udpi restaurants), Dharmasthala (Gamateshwar statue: Jain Pilgrimage) . We had taken the konkan railway route from mumbai to mangalore and that was one of most thrilling journeys of my life.

View from the Heavens !! ( Atop a Light house at Surathkal)



Statue of Gomteshwar & Surathkal Beach

White Water Rafting in the Kundalika River

This was the most adventurous outing in my life. It happened by chance. My cousin Dhaval along with his friends were going for rafting, one of the friends backed out and I got the chance. The experience is beyond words and cannot be told or written.

The above photo is taken by one of the organizers






Sinhagad

The Sinhagad fort is just 25kms from pune city and is a popular weekend gateaway. I have been to sinhagad for quite no. of times. Mostly for trekking and skywatching. Memories of my first meteor shower observed from this place are still fresh. This place is ideal for first time trekkers. The lake of Khadakwasla is enroute to this place.

Parvati Temple

It is a old temple of Shiva atop a hill near sarasbaug. It was build at the time of the peshwas. The terrace of this place offers a magnificient view of the Pune city.

This photo is taken with a exposure of 30 sec at around 20:00.


Goa

GOA!! WOW WHAT A PLACE !! This place needs no further introduction.

Date of Visit: 25th December

Duration of Visit: 2Days

Purpose of Visit: !!!!!!

Sky Party - Khagol Vishva

I recently bought a new DSLR and my hands were itching to take some 'night sky' shots. The oppurtunity came to my way through the sky party organized by khagol vishva. Thanks to Sandesh and Pritesh for inviting.

Kolkata

I got a chance to visit kolkata when Priyanka and me had gone for the Young Astronomers Meet at IIT-KGP. Though we had only a day to go around kolkata, we enjoyed every bit of it. Starting from ride in the ferry over the mighty hoogly river and visit to the eden gardens to the momorable journey in the underground metro. We also visited Kalighat and the Victoria palace.

Flower Exhibition

Every year I make it a point to visit the flower exhibitions held at the Empress Garden and the Sambhaji garden. In this exhibitions one is able to see wide and exotic variety of flowers which is very pleasing to the eyes. The following photos are from such exhibitions.

Vasantutsav

Vasantutsav is a cultural event held in the memorial of great classical singer Vasantrao Deshpande. Last year i got a chance to cover the event (special thanks to P@P). I witnessed a spectular concert. Rahul Deshpande (singing) and Leipzig Philharmonic Orchestra, Germany Conducted by Dr. L. Subramaniam.

Wildlife inside the University of Pune Campus

The University campus is a good place inside the city where you can have a good time in the company of trees, birds, and insects. Today while going to the department took my camera along with me. I had decided to click some shots in random. As the day progressed and lunch time was near my tummy rumbled and i felt the need for food. So along with friends I started the short trip from the department to the canteen. On the way Hershal saw a 'common warbler' and i shot it!! (From my camera).

We then proceeded for lunch. While eating the not so tasty peas pulav Hershal and Pankaj promised to show me some really big spiders in the Alice garden. I was more than excited. So after having lunch we went to the garden and there they were huge spiders of palm length. I had not seen such spiders in my life. I wasted no time and got out my camera and shot them too!!

The trip to the university with the camera was successful. Spotted some birds like 'magpie robin, cuckoo, redvented bulbul and Great Cormorant'.

Thankyou Pankaj and Hershal for showing me around.

For more pictures please click the following link. http://picasaweb.google.com/mhamu3/WildlifeInsideUniversityOfPuneCampus?feat=directlink

Bird Watching at Kavdi

Finally i got smitten by the birdwatching bug.. Thanks to my dear friend Hershel Pandya who is a bird fan himself. Winter is spreading its wings over Pune. We had heard that there is this place called 'kavdipat' near Hadapsar which is a heaven for bird lovers. I had recently got a new telephoto lens 'sigma 70-300mm' and was eager to click some birds.

So a on a fine sunday morning of 22nd November,09 we decided to give kavdi a visit.

We started around 6:30am from my home at camp. We reached kavdi 20min later. We were greeted by the rising sun on our arrival. The place was serene and quiet with birds everywhere. My bird watcher friend was very pleased and was surprised to find such a place so near to the city. I started clicking right away and my first shot was a beautiful 'Grey Wagtail' sitting quietly on the ground posing for the camera.

Grey Wagtail

Then i continued clicking more birds and Hershel identified birds for me. Next was a White breasted Kingfisher. I like KFs the most. So getting a good photo of my little hero was a must.

The White Breasted Kingfisher

We continued our spotting and i also got a few shots of birds in flight. My favorite amongst them is that of the 'Cattle Egret'

Cattle Egret in Flight

Many photographers and bird enthusiast later joined us. After spending a good 3hrs we finally decided to leave around 10. Bidding goodbye to our avian friends. We would definitely keep coming back to the place to enjoy company of our friends. You start loving them when you spent some time with them.

For more photos please follow the following link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/photomukul/sets/72157622751165435/