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Train, bus & helicopter between home & base camp for Uttarakhand trek

11.04.2024, Thursday.

Three friends met at the station. One of us had actually joined impromptu (on-the-spot) and had managed to get all confirmed reservations (not even RACs)!

The final packing of the bag concluded a few hours before the journey started.

My bag weighed 13 kg.

We alighted at Delhi.

Another train journey took us to the foothills of Uttarakhand - Kathgodam. We met our fellow trekkers in this train for the first time - Paresh Bhai from Ahmedabad and Govind Bhai from Panvel, MH.

12.04.2024, Friday.

22:30 The train reached Kathgodam. Our KMVN's hotel TRH Kumaon Dwar just 5 minutes from Kathgodam railway station and we fell off to sleep in the clean rooms.

13.04.2024, Saturday - day 1 - reporting for the trek.

Our batch of 25 gathered on time and the long journey to Munsiyari starts. It is our base camp.

On the way, we passed by the Neem Karoli Baba Ashram, Kainchi Dham. It is approximately 3 hours from Kathgodam and 8 hours from Munsiyari. We saw it from the top and the road swirls next to it in the valley. I wish we could have stopped for darshan of this powerful place. Neem Karoli Baba was the avataar of Lord Hanuman. Jay Shri Ram.

Pandey Lodge at Munsiyari is our base camp.

The long spacious room accommodated 5 trek mates and it had 2 attached washrooms. The stay was comfortable in the clean room.

14.04.2024, Sunday - acclimatization day.

YHAI Delhi, the organiser of this trek had arranged a hike to the nearby Nanda Devi Mandir.

15.04.2024, Monday - flag off.

Our trek starts by a flag off ceremony and we walk into the jungle.

Our trek route will face the Panch Chouli peaks (5 snow clad peaks). And a detailed description of the trek will be given in the blog posts to follow.

19.04.2024, Friday - group breaks & election day.

Now the plan to RETURN actually started the moment we were seated in the bus from Kathgodam to Munsiyari.

It was election day. And public transport was not easily available. Some of our group members panicked and requested that the acclimatization can be forfeited (dangerous when the trek is an high-altitude one) and thankfully nothing of that sort happened. Members had their flights and trains booked and were apprehensive that they might miss them.

We had booked our return by helicopter and the ride was my life's first. Many of us had traveled in aeroplanes, but helicopter travel is rare. There is weight limit. Anyone above 85 kg and anyone's luggage above 5 kg would be overweight and will pay INR 100/- per kg. My luggage was was 8 kg above the permissible limit and I had to pay Rs. 800/- more. After taxation and luggage, my total fare for the helicopter ride was INR 4475/-.

The same friend who had booked impromptu tickets, got confirmed helicopter tickets for us.

The experience was good. It's choppy. No wonder, it is called a chopper 🚁.

The best part of this aerial journey is bypassing the 12 hour road trip, which dehydrated me completely while coming here.

7 antiperistaltic movements and eyes closed tight. Too much.

The 🚁 ride cuts the travel time to just 45 minutes. The pilot doesn't allow any recording even with a mobile. Flight mode is compulsory. He was shouting some instructions inside the cabin with the rotors on and we couldn't hear anything. We just nodded and actually didn't utter a word in the entire flight and gestured to our neighbours about the land formations seens from the top.

Yet frankly I did feel nauseous, but thankfully not as bad as the road trip.

From the top, Uttarakhand has only mountains, valleys, towns, and rivers. The mountains are lush green. The rivers are running dry.

Nainital is easily identifiable from the top, with the lake after which it is named and also the other lakes of Nainital.

From the chopper 🚁, when all the mountain ranges ended, our ride ended, with landing in the plains at Haldwani. It was hot and jolted us.

We had changed our train's boarding point to Haldwani and INR 20/- per head rickshaw (x 3 passengers = 60/-), dropped us to Haldwani railway station, which was just 15 minutes away.

Friends parted.

We took the Kathgodam - Delhi Junction train.

The train reached Delhi Junction at 3:30 am.

We rested till 6 am in the waiting room.

Delhi has lots of travel options, but we selected to walk the last mile after metro journey to a delicious breakfast at Janpath.

Now the heat awaits us, but my Delhi friend's plan saved us. Check out what Delhi has in store for us and it will be a pleasant surprise. A ride in my friend's Mercedes Benz!

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Delhi & Gurgaon visit in 2024.

This time in New Delhi/ Gurgaon, I saw 3 places.

12.04.2024

After a delicious lunch of Raj Kachori at Haldiram's at Chandani Chowk, we decided to explore the surroundings.

Two of our friends dropped out seeing the heat. Two of us headed to Red Fort. The Sun was high and sucked us dry. The hat was just a summer formality. I had a severe headache the entire day after returning from Red Fort. That's the only thing I remember after Raj Kachori.

Turn your mobile or this photo upside down to enjoy the above photo.

There was even a light & sound show at red fort, that we couldn't attend.

20.04.2024

While returning from Munsiyari/ Haldwani - Delhi to Mumbai, I was clear that I will be in the shade or indoors.

The day started with an early morning breakfast at Andhra Pradesh Telangana Bhavan at Janpath, where you will remember my excitement of seeing peacocks in the city limits!

As the Sun rose up, I explored the Metro Museum in Delhi. This museum is an open museum located in the concourse level of Patel Chowk Metro Station. A complete history from inception to action of the Delhi Metro is showcased. There are working models of the tunnel machine, complete with the sound of drilling underground at the press of a button. And the length of the tunnel excavator machine is like a long train. The scaled down model of this tunnel machine is again a working model! Rock samples extracted while tunneling are on display. I purchased a small souvenir of the first Metro ticket. It is a coin shaped plastic token, that was inserted in the slots at the Metro gates. I don't know if Mumbai had a similar ticket.

Then I went to Gurgaon by Metro. No stepping out in the Sun and my friend had come with his brand new Mercedes Benz in Mohave silver color to pick us.

From Metro to his home and then to an air conditioned place, the MUSEO Camera. This 3 storeyed place is huge and a photography enthusiast can easily spend hours here. We even met the curator of the museum Aditya Arya, who has himself contributed to a lot of exhibits on display. The old and large collectible cameras were in working condition.

Sitting in front of the world's largest and oldest working camera & I will show a photo it clicks too!

This is the photo of my friend, clicked by me using that big camera box!

One of the world's miniature cameras that actually worked. They also had James Bond's spy cameras, that clicked high-level secure documents in 007 movies!

How lovely these ideas are as a gift!

We then had a delicious lunch, again inside the plush cafeteria of the museum.

As our time to catch the train to Mumbai approached, we were dropped at the railway station by my friend.

It was evening. Though it is still hot and dry, the severity is much less.

The return journey in Delhi was more rewarding than the previous one.

At both times, we were free of our heavy bags and were unhindered by weight.

Overall, a nice experience.

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Public clocks in Delhi.

Delhi (DEL) that is near Chandani Chowl Metro Station / Red fort has two public clocks - one outside and one inside the railway station.

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An evening with Leica

I was thrilled to lay my hands on a brand new unused Leica digital compact camera.

It was a Leica Digilux (D-lux) 3, released somewhere around 2005. Leica is a premium German camera company.

A 20 year old camera, that came out of the sealed box with all its finery.

The silver color model rested on the extended palm of my hand beautifully.

My heart beat faster seeing the legendary Red Dot.

I slept and thought of starting my photography day in the golden hours of sunlight. I kept dreaming about the functions and the results.

And it was in my budget. I had already bought it in my mind.

I already had a bitter experience with an Olympus Pen EP-1, so I was aware of problems that may pop up ahead.

But the batteries worked like a charm, protecting me from heartbreak.

The new original and the duplicate batteries were swollen. They rotated on the glass top. They discharged within 4 minutes of charging them fully for 30 minutes with an indicator LED on the original charger.

All my hopes of using a Leica, crashed.

Gem of a person. The trustworthy and honest dealer who allowed me the trial without any obligation/ payment. I am thankful to him for his gesture. I hope that one day, I may be able to afford the latest Leica.

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Photo credits: My friend, DrKRG - an eclipse chaser who visited Olney, Illinois, US and was at a golf course and clicked all the photos with her battery of mobile phones mounted on tripods. She, her family and friends used safety solar eclipse glasses while observing the TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE on 8th April 2024 & they were in path of 100% totality!

Can you find Venus in the photographs1?

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Notes on Solar eclipse.

These online notes will keep getting updated:

SEQUENCE OF THINGS TO SEE/ PHOTOGRAPH DURING A SOLAR ECLIPSE:

ATMOSPHERIC CHANGES:

First contact.

Temperature begins to drop.

Wind speed will rise.

Sky starts to become dark.

Venus may become visible.

Other bright stars & planets become visible.

BAILY' BEADS (in the sky):

Before second contact.

The time difference between second and third contact is the duration of totality.

SHADOW BANDS (on the earth):

Alternating light & dark wavy lines on white sheet of paper placed on the ground.

DIAMOND RING (in the sky):

First diamond ring before the third contact.

Second diamond ring after the third contact.

FLASH SPECTRUM:

Chromosphere of the Sun can be photographed before and after the totality.

CORONA:

Corona of the Sun can only be seen during the totality.

After the corona disappears,

the diamond ring,

Baily's beads and

shadow bands

all reappear in reverse order.

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The eastern limb of the Moon in a lunar eclipse is first involved in obscurity and the western limb of the Sun is first involved in the Solar eclipse.

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How I saw the TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE of 8 April 2024 from India?

A screengrab from Google when you search for Total Solar Eclipse.

Some chat messages shared by my friends who were in the path of totality.

Eclipse Maps.

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Have you ever seen a #sunset from #Mumbai where the Sun actually touches the #horizon?

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Difference between water lily & lotus

The white flower is the lotus and the red are the water lilies. The lilies' leaves float flat on the water's sruface, whereas the lotus' leaves rise above the water's surface.

That is the lotus part used in preparation of Kashmiri dish called nadru.

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The urban seascape

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Hindustan Times (HT)'s Heritage Walk of Art Deco in Mumbai

With Editor of HT Brunch, Ms. Rachel Lopez conducting this heritage art deco walk, it was a great attempt by one of my favorite newspapers to connect with their readers.

Try to guess the locations from the photos. It is revealed at the end of this post.

The photos are from the recently renovated EROS THEATRE (cinema) near Churchgate Railway Station.

Editor of HT Brunch, Ms. Rachel Lopez, who is well known for her collection of kaali-peeli taxis' interior (rooftops or celiings of taxis from inside), lead the walk and described so beautifuly making us fall in love with the Art Deco Architecture.

One of the favorite windows of an Art Deco building at Marine Drive.

The walk was followed by a sumptuous breakfast at a beautiful cafe while chit chatting with ART DECO lovers/ authors/ architects.

I enjoyed the experience provided by HT & HT Brunch. Thank you. Looking for some more experiences.

Why should you all be reading Hindustan Times and HT Brunch? Because there is an opportunity waiting for you too, to attend this heritage walk and realise the connection between Tutankhamun, the boy-king, Pharaoh from Egypt and Mumbai!

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Many years ago, when I was smitten by the bug or the itch to see all the Art Deco buildings of Mumbai, I had walked along the Marine Drive and around simply clicking them and here they are in 7 parts.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7.

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Sunset/ Evening

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Ride to the beach.

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Last man standing.

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Worm Moon on Holi Pournima 2024.

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Sunset

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Patience.