Trip Ideas !

Taking trips and going on vacations is one of the greatest enjoyments of life. I distinctly remember my early trips to Himalayas with my parents and how much I enjoyed each one of them. Later on, more trips happened, which can be attributed to office group initiatives. I was always spellbound by the majestic mountains, floating clouds and beautiful weather and novelty of the new places visited.

The opportunities to learn more about flora, fauna, art galleries, religion, history, architecture and culture are as amazing as are the treks taken to reach these wonderful places.

I was wondering what I could write about for a very long time and thought to publish something about the places I have visited and plan to visit. It will also offer me the unique chance of pasting scenic pictures in this blog :) Hence, here is the humble history of my journeys ! Though I intended to cover many places, but I think right now writing about one or two interesting places will suffice.

I visited Naggar nearby Manali with my parents a long time back. We went to some nearby place by roadways bus from Manali and trekked up till Naggar. It turned out to be a quaint wonderful place with a beautiful temple, a wooden castle and boasting of a Nicholas Roerich Art Gallery. I especially loved the art gallery with a collection of beautiful paintings. All the photographs clicked by us are hard copy and someday I will scan and add them over here. Till then, I think I will paste some pics browsed from net overhere :)



A painting made by master himself !
Source for the pic: vansaires.blog124.fc2.com



Naggar Castle
Source for the pic: www.tribuneindia.com/.../spectrum/main5.jpg

Next I think I should write about our interesting office trip to Ranthambore. Our office group of around 20 colleagues went to Ranthambore. We went by train and reached Ranthambore station in the early morning. We were being provided by the transport by the Hamir Resort and hence we greeted our open safari vehicles transport with apprehension in the cold weather of November. Everyone tightly wrapped shawls, jackets and caps and braved through the cold winter morning to reach the resort.



Safari vehicle added to lot of fun!
Pic Source: My boss's camera !

Once we reached the beautiful resort everyone was excited and happy to see the beautiful resort and a quick game of cricket was set in motion.There was a lot of confusion and conflict while playing which added to the fun and I was recruited as the fair umpire to give final decisions. There were many wides and many fours and sixes on loose bowling.



Hamir Resort !
Pic Source: Same as above.

Then after having breakfast in the Hamir mess decorated with tiger pictures we set out for the safari. Ranthabore fort is situated in the midst of a dense jungle. So we had a grand tour of safari looking for tiger, depending on monkey calls and bird calls. The happy chattering noises of our group didnt help us and thus we ended up seeing many types of deers, birds, a few crocodiles and tiger pug marks.



Crocodile enjoying a sunny day !



Cute Deer having fun !

Then we moved onto visiting huge Ranthambore fort which loomed on the horizon from a distance and looked majestic. We had a long trek in the huge fort exploring various temples and platial structures in the fort and looking down from high & strong fort walls. There were various tunnels and domes in the fort adding to the mystical lore and inspiring us to discover and explore the fort. Our huge group got split in various smaller groups and ended up exploring different areas of the fort. Hence we got to see a lot more of what we had missed from the photographs taken by other groups. We were only bound by the time as we had to reach back to the Hamir resort in time and it was getting late in evening.



After reaching back even though we were tired, we arranged for camp fire and music in the resort and ended up having a lot of fun playing antakshri and dancing a lot. Hence, we concluded one of our wonderful trips ! Our office group is currently planning to make a visit to Tungnath which should be a wonderfully scenic and amazing trip :)