Madikeri - South Karnataka

Day 1 : Bangaolore -- mysore road -- srirangapatna -- hunsur road -- titmati -- gonikoppal -- ponnampet -- Irpu Falls -- kutta -- Nagarhole
Nagarhole -- kutta -- ponnampet -- gonikoppal -- virajpet -- madikeri

Started from bangalore quite early at around 7.30, and moved swiftly on mysore road. Reached srirangapatna without even noticing. It was smooth going until we missed the turn at hunsur towards nagarhole, and so had to travel via titmati,gonikoppal,ponnampet... Reached Irpu falls after a lot of winding roads and a lot of asking-around for the way. Road was poor once we left the state highway. Had a flat tyre at irpu falls, and had to replace it with the spare tyre i had, luckily that had some air left.
Visited the rameshwara temple at the base of irpu falls. Headed towards irpu falls.
Started for Nagarhole from irpu via kutta. Had the tyre puncture repaired at kutta, actually we had to replace the tube itself. Then reached nagarhole national park at around 3.30. Next safari was at 4, and we had to reach madikeri before dark, so skipped the safari and instead shot the spotted dears that we saw inside the park. Asked directions at kutta, and left for madikeri.
Reached gonikoppal at around 4.30 and had lunch, Chappati and egg-bhurji, and coffee in Classic restaurant, nothing so classic about that, but decent food.
Touched virajpet on way, entered a one-way, asked directions again and finally got the madikeri road.
Reached madikeri at around 6.30 and checked into hotel hill view at 7.


Day 2 : Madikeri and around.
Started at 8.30. Had breakfast at hotel new paris, nearby. This time, appam and potato-bhaji.
Visited Abby falls and then headed towards thal-cauvery.
Stopped on way to take snaps on way to thalcauvery. Climbed up at thalcauvery to saw other mountain ranges, came back and stopped near bhagmadala at hotel mayura-kstdc to have lunch. Had chappati, rice, sambar, rasam, papad, the typical kannada thali. Saw bhagmandala from the way, and headed for the hotel.
Took rest at hotel, and the went to see Raja's seat in the evening.


Day 3 : Madikeri -- Nisargadham -- Veerbhoomi -- Golden Temple

Checked out of hotel early at 8.30 and after having appams at nearby hotel new paris, we started for kushalnagar.
Stopped on way at nisargdhama, spent some time feeding the deeers, sambars, and also the rabbits.
Entered kushalnagar, and checked in at veerbhoomi tourist village. Had lunch here and took rest.
Visited Namdroling monsatery , also known as the golden temple at bylakuppe, 3 KMs from here.
Came back to veerbhoomi and saw the cultural program of the tourist village, performed by local artists and folk singers/dancers. Had dinner at the resort restaurant.

Day 4 : Went to dubare, harangi dam, and then returned home.

Harry Potter- part 4

Harry Potter

Saw Harry Potter part 4 movie on saturday. That was one book which I really loved, best among all the series that J.K.Rowling has written.
It is nice that the movie captured all the important events described in the book in 2.5 hours.
For people who love Harry Potter, I am sure this movie would be loved by all.

This movie has brought Harry to his adolescent phase. And along with the magic he is trying to acquire, he now has to face another mysetry which he might not be able to solve easily- girls.
The way his feelings take a turn for girls, the way he admires them is now seen in the coming parts.

This year they have a new Defense against the Arts teacher - Alastor Moody, an ex-auror.
Till now on this post, they have had a teacher who was taken over by the dark lord and died, a teacher who lost his mind, a teacher who is a were wolf and now a teacher who is actually an impostor. This post is actually jinxed with the teachers lasting for only one year ...

Harry has to take part in the Triwizard championship. This championship is supposed to be very hard and has rules that students below 17 age will not compete. However, Harry's name still ends up in the list and he is among the chosen ones.
Viktor Krum, Fleur, Cedric and Harry now have three tasks ahead of them and one of them will win the glory of the Triwizard champion.

Hermonie is looking great in this movie. And Ron who I believe has a secret crush on her, is very jealous when he sees her with other guys. But he is too afraid to ask her to dance with her, or rather takes her for granted. So when he learns that she is going to the dance with his favourite hero Viktor Krum, he is not ready to accept it. Harry is sad that his crush Cho has accepted Cedric's invitation for the dance. In the end, they are left with Padma and Parvati as their dance partners. Well, Ron and Harry are the only people who donot enjoy the party.

The only unfortunate thing is that after this part , in every part some one or the other who is beloved to Harry will die.

So whoever has not seen the movie till now, go on... You will like it .

Mount Pilatus - Switzerland

This is a mountain of 7000 ft height near Luzern. And in order to go there, we can take a train (a cogwheel) which has the highest gradient in the world of 48 degrees.
We left zurich with the 11.35 train to Luzern. Our next stop was Alpnachstad, for which we had to take a train from Luzern at 1.05. we reached Luzern at 12.25 pm and thought of roaming the place there for sometime. Nilesh Jesani was with us and hence we thought of showing the old bridge of Luzern to him. We again went to wodden bridge and this time too it looked beautiful. I guess that is the speciality of Switzerland here. No matter how many times you see things, you will like them all the time. We did some timepass over there. Then we left for Alpnachstad at 1.05 we reached at 1.30.
From here, we had to take the cogwheel up. the journey up the mount pilatus takes about 30 minutes and the journey back down takes 40 minutes. This cogwheel has the highest gradient of 48 degrees. we were lucky that the cogwheel was made, else we would have had to climb up the mountain on muleback, just like queen Victoria had done many years back :)
There are various myths surronding the mount pilatus. People believed that a dragon with healing powers and spirits inhabited the rocky crevices. Ghost of roman governor once found lasting peace in Lake Pilatus. And so for a long time, it was forbidden to climb the mountain- for calamity struck anyone who disturbed the Pontius Pilate.
While on the train, as we were rising up to 7000 ft, the view below went on becoming spectacular. The trees looked so tall and this time we saw mountains, rock mountains. The rock also was looking beautiful. This view was wonderful. Till now we had seen snow covered peaks, trees greenery around. This time it was a little different with the granite rocks (I hope it was granite). We were always loking at the gradient at which we were travelling, it was always like 37- 43 , 38- 48 % and all. This is supposed to the only cogwheel which travels at this graident. We reached the top and we could see everything below us so clearly. We could ahead and see Titlis and all the other snow covered Alps. and we could look below and see so many lakes and the Luzern city. We climbed up higher on the mountain, and looked everywhere. Now slowly, mist was forming around us, since it was likely to rain. For a time, we thought that this mist will block all our view and we wont be able to see anything. But slowly our view cleared again. I really wished that you should have been there to see all these things. Dad would have definitely loved it. We clicked a lot of snaps. We could see altogether 5 lakes. Some we could make out, some we could not. One of them was Zug lake. The other was Luzern lake. The Luzern lake had a very different shape. Some of the water we could see as green, and some of it we could see as blue. Above us, we could see many peaks, all snow covered. We could see the cogwheel with we which we had climbed up. Everything was so wonderfull here. Did not wish to go down leaving this heaven. We had been to mount titlis, but from there the view was only of snow everywhere. But from here, we could see the greenery, snow, water... all in just one shot.
We started to move down at 5.30. this time, we were going to take the Gondola from Pilatus to Kreins. This ride of 30 minutes was also beautiful. We were moving between the trees. We wondered how these people had built all these new technology things and yet had kept the nature unharmed. Not like in our cases, where whenever we are building something, we just donot care about the nature. It was fun to see the trees on both sides and moving in between them. From Kriens, we took the bus to Luzern and reched Luzern in 15 minutes.
We left Luzern at 7 pm and came back to Zurich at 8.15 pm.

Legend of Pilatus :
From time immemorial, local people around Mount Pilatus believed that the tiny lake in the Oberalp dip was to blame for the terrible storms in the area. Devastating thunderstorms appeared as soon as ripples were made in the waters. People feared the restless ghost of Pontius Pilate, said to rise from the waters every Good Friday to wash the blood of Christ from its hands.

How the ghost of Pontius Pilate found its last resting place in Lake Pilatus
Soon after the death of Roman governor Pontius Pilate, the myth spread that he had met a disreputable end. This belief was strengthened by the lack of a grave and conflicting reports of the cause of his death. Since the 15th century, it had been said that Tiberius Caesar had had Pontius Pilate thrown into chains as a punishment for condemning Jesus Christ, whereupon Pilate committed suicide. His body was thrown into the Tiber, but the river rebelled against it with great floods. The body was pulled out again and sunk in the Rhone. Alas the ghost of the damned once again caused trouble. It was then decided to sink Pontius Pilate in a tiny remote lake on Oberalp on Mount Pilatus. This apparently resulted in some degree of peace. Only once a year, on Good Friday, did Pilate allow himself to be seen, during the Passion, seated on a chair in the middle of Lake Pilatus – with flowing grey hair and wearing the purple regalia of a judge.

Ghost banished in 1585
In the mid-16th century, fear began to abate and in 1585, Lucerne's priest, accompanied by a plucky band of townspeople climbed Mount Pilatus to challenge the ghost. They threw stones into lake, churned up the water and waded in it – but the ghost did not react: the spell was apparently broken. To make sure that the ghost of Pontius Pilate had also ceased its thunderstorm invoking activities, in 1594 a gap was dug in the wall of the pond on Oberalp to dry it out. It wasn't until 400 years later, in 1980, that people ventured to close the gap again. Today the peaceful lake exists once more. And the ghost of Pontius Pilate rests in peace.


Dragons :
In medieval times, it was believed that dragons with healing powers lived in the rugged clefts and crevices of Mount Pilatus.
And today on Lucerne's own mountain you can still occasionally meet PILU®, the friendly PILATUS-BAHNEN dragon, a distant relative of the legendary Mount Pilatus dragons.

In the summer of 1421, a powerful dragon flew to Mount Pilatus and landed so close to a farmer by the name of Stempflin that he fainted. When the farmer came to, he discovered a lump of coagulated blood and a dragon stone, the healing powers of which were officially confirmed in 1509.

In autumn, a youth fell into a deep cave on Mount Pilatus, landing between two dragons. However they did him no harm. When spring arrived, one of the dragons left the winter quarters and flew away. The other beast gave the youth to understand that it was now time to leave. The dragon crawled to the cave exit, held out his tail to the youth and so pulled him out of the cave.

The chronicle of Petermann Etterlin tells how Regional Governor Winkelried killed one of the Mount Pilatus dragons: he wrapped a spear with thorn twigs and thrust it into the open mouth of the dragon, finishing the beast off with a sword. In the process, drops of poisonous dragon's blood spurted on to his hand. These drops - and the poisonous breath of the dying dragon - froze the blood in Winkelried's veins and he also met his death.

In the early hours of the morning of 26 May 1499, a wondrous spectacle was seen in Lucerne: after a terrible thunderstorm, an enormous, wingless dragon rose out of the wild waters of the River Reuss at the Spreuer bridge. The beast had probably been taken by surprise by the thunderstorm and washed down from Mount Pilatus in the Krienbach, which flows into the Reuss beneath the Jesuit church. Several well-respected and educated townspeople authenticated the truth of this story.

Titlis - Switzerland

Titlis is a snow capped mountain which is 3020 m above sea level. It is called a glacier paradise and has snow all the year around.
On friday, we did our shopping to take along some sandwiches, cake, juice, etc and packed our bags with warm clothing. Titlis was supposed to have good weather in the morning and in the afternoon, there was expected to be a storm. So we had to reach titlis in the The total time to reach titlis was about 3 hrs or so. So we wanted to reach there by 10.30 max. We had to catch a train from Zurich Sheetal, Radhika n me got up at about 5. and took it along with us. We also gave a wake up call to Killol at 5.45 so that we reach Zurich HB atleast by 6.45 am. However, Killol missed the train of 6.39 from his house and he was coming by 6.50 train. We told him the platform number where the train would be starting from and thought that we will miss this train for sure. But he was running at 7.02 am on the HB towards the train and we also started running and climbed the train just in time. So now we were all set to go to titlis in time.We got hungry at after some time and had our breakfast of bread At Luzern we changed our trains again to go to engelberg. This train was very flashy looking We did not know what lay ahead of us in this train journey. We thought it just to be like a normal journey but it was not so. Engelberg is 1050 m above sea level and we were to go up to that level in this train the train started to run and we were comfortably seated on our seats, watching the outside view as the snow capped moutains came closer to us. The train reached Stans where some of the train compartments were removed and the remaining train went ahead to titlis. Suddenly we realized that the train is climbing up, it
It was fun watching outside , as slowly and slowly the train was mounting higher and higher. We all of us had our head outside and were watching our progress. The mountain Titlis was now seeming much closer to us and I had already started feeling the snow around me. Finally after a long ride up the hill, we reached engelberg station. From here, we had to take a cable car to Trubsee. In between again there was another stop for people to get in.
We went walking from the station to the cable car starting point. The view from here was wonderful. We could see the green mountains from here and behind them there was the snow capped mountain titlis. It was very amazing how the two things existed so close to each oth er. The sun was burning in the morning, but the air had a chillness to it. Overall, we were feeling that it would not be so cold up there and we took a wrong decision to bring so many warm clothes with us. We took our tickets to Titlis and sat in the cable car. This cable car mechanism was also so sophisticated, I was jealous of this country. If we only had even a little bit of their sophisticated mechanisms we would have been way ahead till now. There was a rope which was taking the cable cars with them. The cable cars were not moving but the rope was moving in a round circle, up the hill and then back to the start. And along with the rope the cable cars were attached so that all the cable cars were moving at the same distance from each other and at the same speed. This was controlled by a motor and which was moving at a continuous speed. The mechanisms built for the rotor to move, to control the speed was amazing. There was no person there to guide us or to stop the motor so that people can sit in the car. The cable car used to come, the doors automatically opened, move slowly for some time so that people can climb in( 6 max in one car) , then close the doors and go forward again. It used to hover in the air for some time and then swoosh, it used to go in the air completely. Then move up with a constant speed. We were so up in the cable car. For a moment I just wondered if this cable car broke down and we were sent sprawling to the ground what would happen. But nothing like this happened ;) and we were enjoying the beauty of engelberg from so up in the sky. We got the first glimpse of the snow on the mountain. In between there was a stop again for people to get down or to climb up. And believe it or not, this was the first tourist stop where I saw instructions written in hindi. It felt so good to see that. We started our journey again upwards in the same cable car. At the next stop we had to get down and go into another cable car. this one bigger and many people were in this car. All people were standing here. Many of the foreigners had brought skiing equipment here. The snow was below us now on the mountain but we had yet to reach titlis. While we were going up, suddenly the cable car stopped. There was some technical problem and so we would have to wait for some time. So after all these are also people and not everything goes right here too ;) We had to wait almost 20 minutes before the car started again. Till then I was watching the snow below me and people skiing down on skis and also snow boards. Many of the people were falling while they were skiing and then going ahead again. Now was our final journey up to the mountain peak.

There was this cable car called the Rotair, a rotating cable car. This is one of the first of its kind in the world ( a rotating gondola in hindi as was written inside the cable car) The rotair starts rotating immediately after its ascent and during the 5 minute journey up, it rotates through 360 degrees giving everyone a complete breath taking view of all that is on the mountain. We stepped outside this gondola on to Mount Titlis finally.
Mt Titlis peak was on the 5th floor and we walked up the stairs till that. We could now see that 95 percent of the people here were indians on a tour. All around we could hear Hindi, Marathi,gujarati and it was like being in our country again. We ste pped outside in the snow and I felt like my desire to se the snow was fulfilled at last. We walked out into the snow and realise it wasnt all that cold. the temparature was supposed to be about 2-4 degrees only :( We took the snow in our hands and felt it to be hard (it wasnt fresh snow :( Today, it was supposed to be snowy but then maybe we would not have seen the view plainly coz of the snow) We saw deep down in the valleys and felt that this was beautiful. Sheetal first started the fight with us throwing the snow at us. and all of us were then in full excitement. We started snow fighting and after some time grew very tired. We noone of us had worn boots for the snow and we were feeling wet now. But, we were too excited to notice this at first. We walked up a small peak in the snow, falling/sliding down and climbing up again. Finally we reached up after a painful ascent, and all our socks and shoes were now filled with the snow

We sat down on the snow as if it was a garden and then later on felt the wetness and cold seep through our clothes and stood up in a start. We did some snow fight again over there
After some time we decided to go through something called as a Ice flyer, which was a round trip journey to view the glacier crevasses. We slid down from our places to go to the Ice flyer and by the time we reached down we were numb with cold :). We then went to the Ice flyer chair lift. This chair passes between the lower and top stations of Titlis and is at 3000 m above sea level and the view from here is wonderful. 6 persons can sit here at a time. We went on that Ice flyer and the experience was amazing. We went down to the lower station of Titlis by Ice flyer and the skiing people would do the opposite. They ski down from top to lower station and then go back again to the top using the Ice flyer. From the Ice flyer we saw the valleys below us. We were above the clouds and the feeling was one which I cannot describe in words.

After the Ice flyer, we wanted to do snow tubing. In this, there were tubes filled with air and using which you could slide down a specially prepared run. It was fun. We took the snow tubes, the person hooked our snow tubes to a rope which went up and at the end the hook was lifted off, so that we slid down from up to the bottom on the snow. It was great fun :) after this we decided to move down back. But we had to yet watch the titlis Glacier cave and south face window. The Titlis glacier cave has different colored lights. The cave is made in the ice which reflects the light in a very beautiful manner. The cave was full of blue, red and yellow light and it was looking amazing. the ice walls of this cave are 20 m thick and it is 150 m long tunnel. The cave has an amazing sound and light system. After this, we went thrugh a long tunel to see the south face window, but could not watch anything there since the window was covered with snow outside.
We began our downside journey from here. I bade goodbye to the snow around me with a heart which had seen all the snow that it had always wanted to see. While coming down, we again came throught the rotair. the woman insde the rotair was speaking beautiful hindi and this time the rotair was full of Indian tourists. We changed from rotair to cable car and came down to engelberg again. It was 2.30 now and we suddenly felt hungry. We removed our bread and ate them witht he sabzi that we had prepared. We took the 3.15 train back to Luzern. While going back, I sat besides the window and saw the Titlis going farther away from me, as the train descended to Luzern.
We did not know what we would be doing so early back at Zurich so we decided to roam around Luzern for some time. At Luzern, we went to the tourist information and sought out the places to go. Over there, I bought a St Bernhard doggy ( I mean a fur doggy) It was looking very cute and I loved it the moment I saw it. We walked around the old town there. We walked down a beautiful bridge to go to the old town.
This bridge is also one of the tourist attractions at Luzern, or Lucerne as it is called in German. Then we decided to walk down by the lake. We saw that we could do boating there, and so we took a pedal boat and sat in it. As we moved out into the lake, I could see what the city looked like actually. the first thing that struck me looking at the city was the city of Pinnacio. It was just like that in the fairy tale.the towers looked just the same. We did boating for about 1/2 an hour and then came back. I saw the swans at the lakeside again and took close up snaps. I tried touching them but they were afraid to let people touch them. They were eating the food that the tourists were throwing at them. Someone told us to go back to some dry place as there was a storm coming there. It would start raining heavily after some time. So we started back to Zurich at about 7 pm.

Interlaken

Interlaken is a city that is a must visit in Swizterland. It is a beautiful place to go for site-seeing. We went at 11 from Zürich to Bern first. There we took another train to Interaken and reached Interlaken east. On the way to Bern, we saw beautiful lawns full of some yellow flowers. Large mountains and lots of trees, just turning green. Some of the trees were reddish/brownish in color. It was breath-taking. Killol also loves this scenery so we two were just looking out and watching all this.We saw a nuclear plant( atleast thats what we thought it was. Some kind of a dome and nearby was a chimney with steam/white smoke coming out of it). also, in the sky, fighter/jet planes were leaving streaks of white smoke. In general when I saw this it was really worth coming to Switzerland. But I did not know there was more to come. This was the journey to Bern. Cute small houses in between the lush greenery, and cows chewing the grass in the fields. When we change the train in Bern (which as you know is the capital of the country. but the station in Bern was worst that I saw here. The Zurich station is wonderful.) the journey from Bern started with the scenery of snow capped mountains. It is burning hot down in the streets and still the mountains had snow all over it. These were the Alps -the largest mountain range here and it was very beautiful to watch. Some of the mountains had snow all over it but not at the top .. it was very funny looking if you know what I mean. All over the journey from Bern to Interlaken, this was a scene that we could watch continuously. Also, the lush gren fields with some yellow looking flowers were also there. We went from Thun to Interlaken west and fnally reached Interlaken east. Here we got down. We had been split into two groups : Adi, Dinesh, Vishal and family and Himanshu and family had gone by the 9.30 train from Zurich. And in this train, we were me , killol, ashwin, soumit and two other guys Arshad and Nagesh. Sheetal had seen this city so she did not come. We called up Adi asking where he was, he said that they were in mystery park. We debated where to go, but since all of us were hungry we decided to eat something. So we went into a restaurant, where there was no food that I could eat. Ate somethings which were edible for me and left the rest of it. Wasnt tasting good at all. Then we were thinking of going for paragliding. But all weren't in for it. We went to meet Pramod and another guy called manoj here after lunch. They said that we could go cycling in the city and then go via boat to Thun. So we rented some cycles (ashwin, killol, sreejith, pramod, manoj and me) and the rest decided to go on foot only and meet us in the boat. We went a long way on the cycles. The view that I saw was splendid. As we went in the outskirts of the city, what I saw will always haunt me. the cycles were geared cycles so cycling wasnt much difficult. As we passed the city, we went closer and closer to the mountains. We thought that it will be cold then, but no it was still hot and the mountains still clad with snow. We saw beautiful green fields with cows grazing in them. We touched them as they came near us. Took photos. I know they were just cows, but they were so clean ;) As we passed, I saw different kind of trees, with various colours ( not as many as they would be in spring) but the most of all were white (these trees had some white flowers small ones), pink, reddish brown colored leaves, and several others. The lawns or the fields were green , and it had these yellow and purple flowers that we normally see even on our mountains sometimes. These fields had cute houses. And it was so peaceful. It was like the people out here did not have any bothering things. they were living so happily. We saw mountains that were looking huge and big from so close. We stopped at a place where there was a kind of fountain. Here wherever there is a fountain, u can drink water from it. And we were a little tired also, so we stopped. I took the water and splashed it on my face, and got a shock :) It was very cold. As I said earlier also, the sun was burning down on us and we were sweating. and still when we touched this water it was like ice cold. We then drank this water and it tasted very sweet. Maybe it was because of the beauty all around me that it was tasting so sweet. But whatever, it tasted like heaven to me. then we again went forward. We came back to the city, and then decided to cycle along the river. So we went that way , the river flowing besides us and we cycling along the tracks. That scene was beautiful , the same things here , but which we seldom find in India. The cleanliness and the peace and the beauty all merged into one. I felt as if this was the city that I had always dreamed about of visiting. All the greenery, all the snow clapped mountains and all the peace together at one spot. We cycled along the river and reached Interlaken west (from east and its a long way u see) Then we had to catch the 5pm boat, so we turned back and went to east.Gave the cycles back and reached west by bus. Here we took the boat to go to Thun. the ride on the boat was also breathtaking. I saw mountains which was covered with snow completely and some with a little bit of snow here and there. And also, I saw a huge mountain, it was really huge , but noone could tell me the name of the mountain. We saw a small waterfall while going in the boat. It was very small, but its position was really nice. And since this is just the onset of summer, the melted snow was really making the waterfall full of water and it was flowing with full force. We reached Thun with all this scenery throughout the boat ride. I did not feel like taking my eyes off it. Then from Thun, we took a train back to Zurich and again saw the same scenery from bern to Zurich. And you wont believe it , at 7 the sun was still shining as if it was just 4 in the afternoon. It is light here till 9 pm in the evening these days. We reached Zurich, ate dinner and then I went to my house and slept.