It has been one year since I have started uploading videos onto YouTube (Even though I joined around 5 years ago). Since then I have uploaded around 33 videos and more to come. Initial days I did not knew about video editing and HD. That is the reason initial videos have no wide screen capture [even if my camera supports it :-)]. Once I could realize this, it has been all HD widescreen except for few old videos. Since I started uploading, the channel has seen considerable views but not much. In-spite of less views, I will continue uploading many videos. All videos are captured by me with no duplicates and wherever required suitable credit has been given to the audio used.
All of my videos (barring initial 4) are created using KDENLIVE, free open source non linear Video Editor. It has got great capabilities and my experience so far has been excellent. I have not yet enabled Adsense in YouTube. I will definitely donate to the open source project if I enable AdSense and earn some money :-).
On this day, I am sharing 1080p video of my hometown kaup beach. This time there are clips with view from atop of light house. It is breath taking view from the top. The clips were shot with Canon EOS 550D with 18-55mm kit lens. I used 1080p, 25fps PAL encoding. The video was composed with 1080p, 25fps and h.264 encoding. Watch and enjoy. Please share if it is worth :-)
This was taken during wee hours of Saturday morning 24-Nov-2012. Something familiar from past many years. Only difference was that I captured it for first time in camera. A truck accident took toll on the travelers on this way as the traffic remained stagnant for more than 3 hours. Even though huge trucks are not allowed during night, some sneak in after having understanding with security personnel and create such kind of havoc. It is difficult to clear the jam in such terrains and there are no emergency team here as of now. Even mobile network is inaccessible which creates more problem. Fortunately the incident happened somewhat near to Sakaleshpur so the traffic people could clear things at the earliest. It has been almost 5 years since the government officials kept on saying about concretion of shiraadi ghat road. However no progress has been made so far and not sure it will make any. It is believed that local contractors are major hurdle for improving the ghat road since it may block their maintenance money flow.
Unfortunately I did not see the news in newspapers at-least I see :(. The media which craves in to get garbage news out of mangalore never bothers to report such incidents. This would at-least help many people who suffer in such traffic jams. As somebody said world is full of contradictions :(.
The video was taken with canonSX210IS and edited using KDENLIVE under linux. Since it was dark, the video has come out bit noisier. Watch the short video. I create videos not only to show something but also to test my skills. Leave a comment if you have any improvement points.
This deepavali I gifted a weird stuff [relatively ;)] to myself. It is quite unusual too. So what was it? I was scratching my head so much from many days that why my camera does not see like my eye. After so much R&D around net, I finally understood that I need a 50mm lens :D. The search was ON. First 50mm/f1.2 IS USM lens. I was shocked at its price and immediately went to 50mm/f1.4 IS USM lens. Its cost was also very high :(. The only option was 50mm/f1.8 EF II lens. It was relatively cheap than rest two. However the major drawback is no IS :(. The lack of IS could be felt sometimes. Nevertheless it is quite good for a beginner though. So I tested some captures and videos in my hometown and it came quite nice. I could achieve very nice shallow depth of field. The best thing about the lens is that it can maintain f/1.8 even at high shutter speeds. At nights it can grab more light so that you can capture very good image. I also captured some videos+images in beach side. I know it is not meant for landscape but still wanted to have a try ;). Overall it is good buy for money. So here is the compilation of images and videos I took in my 50mm lens. All of them [Images+Videos] were taken in Manual Mode with lens in Manual Focus.
As every-time please comment on video so that I can improve further.
ಇಂದಿನ ತಿಂಡಿ ಅವಲಕ್ಕಿ ಒಗ್ಗರಣೆ! ಸಾಮಾಗ್ರಿಗಳು ಇದ್ದರೆ 15 ನಿಮಿಷದ ಕೆಲಸ ಅಷ್ಟೇ ;). ನಾನು ತಯಾರಿಸುವ ವಿಧಾನವನ್ನು ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಬರೆದಿದ್ದೇನೆ. ಮಹಾರಾಷ್ಟ್ರದಲ್ಲಿ ಇದನ್ನು ವಿಭಿನ್ನ ರೀತಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ತಯಾರಿಸುತ್ತಾರೆ.
ಬೇಕಾಗುವ ಸಾಮಾಗ್ರಿಗಳು:
1) ದಪ್ಪ ಅವಲಕ್ಕಿ - 3/4 ಲೋಟೆ 2) ಒಗ್ಗರಣೆ ಸಾಮಾಗ್ರಿಗಳು (ಎಣ್ಣೆ, ಸಾಸಿವೆ, ಕಡಲೆ ಬೇಳೆ, ಶೇಂಗಾ, ಘಾಟಿ ಮೆಣಸು, ಕರಿಬೇವು ಸೊಪ್ಪು) 3) ಹುಣಸೆ ಹಣ್ಣಿನ ನೀರು 4) ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಬೆಲ್ಲ 5) ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ತುರಿದ ತೆಂಗಿನಕಾಯಿ
ಅವಲಕ್ಕಿ ಒಗ್ಗರಣೆ
ಮೊದಲು ದಪ್ಪ ಅವಲಕ್ಕಿಯನ್ನು ತೊಳೆದು 5 ನಿಮಿಷ ನೆನೆಯಲು ಬಿಡಿ. ನಂತರ ನೀರನ್ನು ಚೆಲ್ಲಿ ಸೋಸಲು ಇಡಿ (ಒಣಗಲಿಕ್ಕಾಗಿ). ಇದೆ ಸಮಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಬಾಣಲಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಒಗ್ಗರಣೆಗೆ ಇಡಿ. ತುಪ್ಪದ ಒಗ್ಗರಣೆಯಾದರೆ ರುಚಿ ವೃದ್ಧಿಸುವುದು. ಸಾಸಿವೆ, ಕಡಲೆ ಬೇಳೆ, ಶೇಂಗಾ, ಮೆಣಸು, ಕರಿಬೇವು ಸೊಪ್ಪು ಸರಿಯಾದ ಸಮಯಕ್ಕೆ ಒಗ್ಗರಣೆಗೆ ಹಾಕಿ ಬೇಕಾದಷ್ಟು ಫ್ರೈ ಮಾಡಿ. ತದನಂತರ ಹುಣಸೆ ಹಣ್ಣಿನ ನೀರನ್ನು ಒಗ್ಗರಣೆಗೆ ಹಾಕಿ. ನೀರನ್ನು ಬಿಸಿ ಒಗ್ಗರಣೆಗೆ ಹಾಕುವುದರಿಂದ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಮೆಲ್ಲನೆ ಜಾಗರೂಕತೆಯಿಂದ ಹಾಕಿ. ನೀರಿನ ಮಿಶ್ರಣಕ್ಕೆ ತುಂಡು ಬೆಲ್ಲ ಸೇರಿಸಿ. ಕಡೆಗೆ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಉಪ್ಪು ಹಾಗು ಚಿಟಿಕೆ ಅರಿಶಿನ ಪುಡಿ ಸೇರಿಸಿ ಕುದಿಯಲು ಬಿಡಿ. ಸಿಮ್ಮಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಕುದಿಸಿ. ನೀರಿನ ರುಚಿಯನ್ನು ಗಮನಿಸಿ ಬೇಕಾದನ್ನು ಹಾಕಿ. ನೀರು ದಪ್ಪ ದ್ರವವಾಗುವವರೆಗೆ ಕುದಿಸಿ . ತದನಂತರ ಸೋಸಿದ ಅವಲಕ್ಕಿಯನ್ನು ಬಾಣಲಿಗೆ ಸುರಿದು ಮಿಶ್ರಣವನ್ನು ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿ ಕಲಸಿ. ನೀರು ಆವಿಯಾದ ಮೇಲೆ ಗ್ಯಾಸ್ ಬಂದು ಮಾಡಿ. ನಂತರ ಇದಕ್ಕೆ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ತುರಿದ ತೆಂಗಿನಕಾಯಿ ಸೇರಿಸಿದರೆ ರುಚಿಯಾದ ತಿಂಡಿ ತಯಾರು :-).
ಅವಲಕ್ಕಿ ಒಗ್ಗರಣೆಯನ್ನು ಚಿಪ್ಸ್ ಅಥವಾ ಮಿಕ್ಷರ್ ಜೊತೆ ತಿನ್ನಬಹುದು. ಕಡೆಗೆ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಮೊಸರಿನ ಜೊತೆ ತಿನ್ನಿ. ಇದಕ್ಕೆ ಪೇಪರ್ ಅವಲಕ್ಕಿ ಕೂಡ ಉಪಯೋಗಿಸಬಹುದು. ಇದನ್ನು ಉಪಯೋಗಿಸಲು ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಅಭ್ಯಾಸ ಇರಬೇಕು. ಇಲ್ಲವಾದಲ್ಲಿ ಮುದ್ದೆಯಾಗಿಬಿಡುತ್ತದೆ. ಯಾಕೆಂದರೆ ಪೇಪರ್ ಅವಲಕ್ಕಿಯನ್ನು ನೀರಿನಲ್ಲಿ ತೊಳೆದ ತಕ್ಷಣವೇ ಉಪಯೋಗಿಸಬೇಕು, ನೆನೆಸಿಡಬಾರದು.ಈ ತಿಂಡಿಗೆ ಕೆಲವರು ಈರುಳ್ಳಿ ಮತ್ತು ಬಟಾಟೆಯಯನ್ನು ಕೂಡ ಉಪಯೋಗಿಸುತ್ತಾರೆ.
ಇವತ್ತು ನೀರು ದೋಸೆ ತಯಾರಾಗುತ್ತಿದೆ. ತಯಾರಿನ ಮಧ್ಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಒಂದು ಸಣ್ಣ ಬರಹ. ಕರಾವಳಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಹೆಚ್ಚಾಗಿ ಕಂಡು ಬರುವ ದೋಸೆ ಇದು. ಇದನ್ನು ತಯಾರಿಸುವುದು ಬಹಳ ಸುಲಭ ಆದರೆ ಕಾವಲಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಹಾಯಿಸುವುದು ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಕಷ್ಟ (ಮೊದಲ ಬಾರಿ ಮಾತ್ರ). ಇದನ್ನು ತಯಾರಿಸುವ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಬರೆದಿದ್ದೇನೆ. ಈ ದೋಸೆ ಹೆಚ್ಚಿನವರು (ನನ್ನಂತವರು) ಕನಿಷ್ಠ ೭ ರವರೆಗೆ ತಿನ್ನುತ್ತಾರೆ. ಆದರೆ ಇದು ಬೇಗ ಕರಗುವುದರಿಂದ, ಮಧ್ಯಾಹ್ನದ ವೇಳೆಗೆ ಬಹಳ ಬೇಗ ಹಸಿವಾಗುತ್ತದೆ.
ನೀರು ದೋಸೆ
ಮೊದಲು ಊಟದ ಅಕ್ಕಿಯನ್ನು ಸುಮಾರು ೫-೬ ಘಂಟೆ ನೆನೆಸಿಡಿ. ನಂತರ ಅಕ್ಕಿಯನ್ನು ರುಬ್ಬಿ. ರುಬ್ಬುವಾಗ ನೀರು ಹದವಾಗಿ ಸೇರಿಸಿ. ತುಂಬಾ ನೀರಾದರೆ ದೋಸೆ ಎಬ್ಬಿಸುವುದು ಕಷ್ಟವಾಗುವುದು. ರುಬ್ಬುವ ಮಧ್ಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ತುರಿದ ತೆಂಗಿನಕಾಯಿ ಸೇರಿಸಿ. ಇದು ದೋಸೆಯನ್ನು ಬಹಳ ಮೆದುವಾಗಿಸುತ್ತದೆ. ಜಾಸ್ತಿ ಹಾಕಿದರೆ ಮತ್ತೆ ದೋಸೆ ಎಬ್ಬಿಸುವುದು ಕಷ್ಟವಾಗುತ್ತದೆ. ಸುಮಾರು ೪೫ ನಿಮಿಷ ರುಬ್ಬಿದ ನಂತರ ಬೇಕಾದಷ್ಟು ನೀರು ಸೇರಿಸಿ ಜೊತೆಗೆ ರುಚಿಗೆ ತಕ್ಕ ಉಪ್ಪು ಹಾಕಿ. ಇದನ್ನು ತಕ್ಷಣವೇ ಉಪಯೋಗಿಸಬಹುದು. ನಾನ್-ಸ್ಟಿಕ್ ಕಾವಲಿ ಬಳಸಿದರೆ ಉತ್ತಮ. ದೋಸೆ ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿ ಎಬ್ಬಿಸಲು ಬರುತ್ತದೆ. ಬ್ಯಾಚುಲರ್ ಆದ ನನಗೆ ೧ ಲೋಟೆ ಅಕ್ಕಿಯ ಮಿಶ್ರಣ ಸುಮಾರು ಮೂರು ಹೊತ್ತಿಗೆ ಸಾಕಾಗುತ್ತದೆ.
ಮಿಶ್ರಣ ತಯಾರಾದ ನಂತರ, ಕಾವಲಿ ಬಿಸಿಯಾಗುವ ತನಕ ಕಾಯಿರಿ. ಜೊತೆಗೆ ಎಣ್ಣೆಯನ್ನು ಹರಡಿ. ಸಣ್ಣಗೆ ತೆಳುವಾಗಿ ದೋಸೆ ಹಾಯಿಸಿ. ನಂತರ ಕಾವಲಿಯನ್ನು ಮುಚ್ಚಬೇಕು. ಸುಮಾರು ೨೦ ಸೆಕಂಡಿನ ನಂತರ ಮುಚ್ಚಳ ತೆಗೆದು ಮೆಲ್ಲನೆ ದೋಸೆ ತೆಗೆಯಿರಿ. ಗ್ಯಾಸ್ ನ ಬೆಂಕಿ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಜಾಸ್ತಿ ಇದ್ದರೆ ಒಳ್ಳೆಯದು. ದೋಸೆಯನ್ನು ತುರಿದ ತೆಂಗಿನಕಾಯಿ ಮತ್ತು ಬೆಲ್ಲದ ಮಿಶ್ರಣದ ಜೊತೆಗೆ ತಿಂದರೆ ಬಹಳ ರುಚಿ. ಅದರ ಜೊತೆ ಮಾವಿನಹಣ್ಣು ರಸಾಯನ, ಬೆಣ್ಣೆ ಕೂಡ ಉತ್ತಮ ಕಾಂಬಿನೇಶನ್. ಕಡೆಗೆ 2 ದೋಸೆಯನ್ನು ಮೊಸರಿನೊಂದಿಗೆ ತಿನ್ನಿ. ಇದರ ಒಂದೆ ತೊಂದರೆಯೆಂದರೆ, ದೋಸೆ ಹಾಯಿಸುವಾಗ ಸುತ್ತಲೂ ಅದರ ಮಿಶ್ರಣ ಹರಡುತ್ತದೆ. ಪದೇ ಪದೇ ಕ್ಲೀನ್ ಮಾಡುವುದೇ ಕೆಲಸವಾಗುತ್ತದೆ.
Here are some of the prominent Ganapathy temples of coastal Karnataka. It is non-exhaustive list. The mentioning is based on frequently visited temples and other places I have visited. I have given brief details of the temples. If you observe, most of the beautiful temples are situated in Kundapur taluk of Udupi district with awesome nature cover. All pictures are self taken.
1) Sri Sharavu Mahaganapathy Temple, Mangalore, Dakshina Kannada District
Situated in heart of Mangalore city, the temple attracts huge crowd during Ganesha Chaturthy. It has mythological importance too! Even though Shiva is present, the many deity is Mahaganapthy. It is udbhava ganapathy as per records and has trunk twisted towards right (Balamuri)
SHARAVU MAHAGANAPATHY
2) Sri Vinayaka Temple, ANEGUDDE (kumbhashi), Kundapur Taluk, Udupi District
Situated close to NH-66 and in mid of beautiful nature, this temple also attracts many devotees all through the year. It is situated near Kundapur taluk of Udupi district. The place also has shiva temple near by.
ANEGUDDE VINAYAKA TEMPLE
3) Sri Siddhi-Vinayaka Temple, Hattiyangadi, Kundapur Taluk, Udupi District
Situated close to Kundapur, this temple also attracts many devotees throughout the year. The temple can be spotted on the way to Kollur from Kundapur (Just 4kms from Kundapur).
HATTIYANGADI SIDDHIVINAYAKA
4) Sri Ganapathy temple, Idagunji, Honnavar, Uttara Kannada District
This is the most beautiful temple since it is situated in mid of wondeful nature. Uttara kannada is blessed with good natural beauty. This is reason why Idagunji is so special. It is the highest visited in coast of all the temples. There is queue for darshan spanning more than 2kms during sankashti and ganesha chaturthi. The temple is very close to Honnavar town.
IDAGUNJI
5) Sri Maha Ganapathy temple, Gokarna, Uttara Kannada District
Gokarna is famous for Mahabaleshwara temple. However the importance is equal to Ganapathy situated nearby due to well known mythological reasons. As said earlier, Gokarna is also covered with beautiful nature with great beaches and rivulets. Also Gokarna is the highest raining place in coastal Karnataka (around 5000mm).
GOKARNA MAHA GANAPATHY
6) Sri Mahaganapathy temple, Southadka, Kokkada, Dakshina Kannada district
This is peculiar temple since it has no roof. Quite natural Ganapathy :) (Watch small video here). It seems all efforts to build permanent structure have gone in vain. Hence nowadays there are no plans to develop any sort of protection cover for the temple. Situated in mid of forest area, this temple attracts many devotees. Most of the devotees who visit dharmasthala do visit this temple too. The appa prasada and avalakki panchakajjaya prepared here with ghee is the yummiest.
SOUTHADKA MAHAGANAPATHY
7) Sri vinayaka temple, Guddattu, Kundapur Taluk, Udupi District
This one I recently discovered via my uncle. This is becoming famous nowadays. The speciality is udbhava ganapathy on the huge boulder. The pooje is done to the stone ganapathy itself. The ganapathy is filled with water till its neck and there is space to hold water. Mythology says Ganapathy consumed too much honey which resulted in body heat. Shiva as a result filled ganapathy with water till neck. The famous offering here is ayirkoda seve (1000 koda water seve to ganapathy). This is done only twice a day since it is tidious task. There are dedicated members who assist in seve. During the offering the water is taken out and panchamrutha abhisheka is done to stone idle. After that water is filled till neck and the stone idol is cleaned not to leave any oily surfaces. Then again water is removed and filled back to neck portion. This is repeated again for second time. This offering is done along with vedic chanting of Rudradhyaya. Even though abshisheka is done to Ganesha idol, it is called as Rudrabhisheka since shiva has prominence of filling water. As of now many people are registering for offering and the new ones will get date only after 2013 mid! The pradakshine to temple is the big boulder itself. It is around 500m in perimeter.
GUDDATTU VINAYAKA TEMPLE
ROCK FROM WHERE GANAPATHY IS ORIGINATED
BEAUTIFUL NATURE NEAR-BY
The temple can be spotted on the way from Brahmavar towards Kollur. There is small town called shiriyaara. From here you need to take 1km inner route to reach temple. Watch a small video here
8) Stone Ganapathy temple, Padumundu, Kundapur Taluk, Udupi District
This was old temple however due to lack of roads, never was in picture. Now small road is built and one can visit the temple. This temple is nearby Guddattu temple surrounded by beautiful nature and stream. The temple is made of stone and the deity sits in middle of huge boulders. Besides ganapathy, one can find parvathy and ishwara idols too. The real attraction is the beautiful nature surrounding the temple.
STONE GANAPATHY
ENTRANCE
SCENE NEAR-BY TEMPLE
9) Sri Anantheshwara Siddhi-Vinayaka temple, Madhur, Kasaragod district
Even though this temple is not part of Karnataka, people of coastal Karnataka have close affiliation with the temple. The main attraction is its architecture. Please read complete blog on the temple here. Watch small video here
This was the scene on Saturday morning. The same sort of scene could be seen even during afternoon. There was no cloud build up at all till 4PM. It was hot and humid throughout the day and previous day too! [It was sweating like hell]. We had been to temple near Kundapur to attend a function. There was no sign of rain.
SUNNY SATURDAY MORNING
Around 4PM clouds started hovering around Udupi region and at about 6PM stage was set. It did not even start with drizzle. The rains started pouring with full intensity and it did not stop until next day 11AM. The scene was completely opposite to what was observed earlier. From 6:30AM to 9:30AM, it was like a cloudburst with fierceful rain. The speciality was just intense rain, no lightning, no thunder, no gusty wind!
SUNDAY MORNING DELUGE
STREAM AND FARM LAND UNIFIED
OVERFLOWING STREAM
Even though rains receded after 11AM, the floods did not until Monday morning. This was the high intensity rain of the season. Even the upper region like ours were under water for sometime. The stream was overflowing and entire village was under watery gravy.
We had to leave for one more temple on Sunday and here is the video taken during our travel. Watch the scenes of flooding and overflowing stream. There is no Met Observatory in Kaup. The nearest one is Udupi and Mulki which recorded 15 and 19 cms of rain respectively during the deluge day. Most probably Kaup would have recorded more than that.
The video!
Watch the video taken in Canon EOS-550D with 1080 progressive scan and 25fps frame rate. The pictures were taken with Canon SX210IS barring the first one. The video was composed and transformed to MP4 (H.264) format using KDENLIVE. This time I used video bitrate of 18Kbps while still maintaining 384kbps AAC audio
Clubbing all the Monsoon videos, I created small documentary on the Indian Monsoon [even though videos are only from my place :-)]. Nevertheless, you see the same scenes across west coast of India. The video is inspired from one of the videos in youtube (watch it here). Same music used too! Since the videos were shot in Canon SX210IS, there is no 1080p version. I used same encoding as before except for 720p 30fps and 12kbps video bitrate. Please watch and comment for improvements.
Music: Wonderful chillout music Lagoona mana by Christian Rusch
I was planning for long time to visit kotilinga temple. This day I made up my mind to visit the deity at KGF. Since my house was near to Old Madras Road, I started to wait for a bus towards KGF. However I could not get even a single one. I had to reach Majestic to catch a bus. Since it was express, it will not stop even in my place. I caught up with a passenger who was also travelling to Kotilinga. The co-passenger had to get down at Kolar due to some reasons. As soon bus reached Kolar bypass, the beautiful stone hills attracted me. I did hear that there are so many beautiful spots here.
I reached KGF around 11:30AM. Apparently it is under-developed town. There are no proper facilities. The MPP of this region is Railway Minister of state also. Bus stand looks to be garbage dump. But the irony was it was gold field some time back. People are really good. One person told me that buses towards vellore, gudiyattam, v.kote go via Kammasandra where temple is located. I caught up a private bus for Rs.5 and got down at Kammasandra. A boy was also travelling to the same place and he guided me to the stop. Apart from temple it is just like an under developed indian village :(.
Temple has wide area. Not many people were seen at that day. Apart from that I was getting too hungry. What a co-incidence. Free meals are served every day here. I enjoyed anna saaru and mosaranna. The food was very good and tasty. I donated some amount for annadaana too. Free meals are served from 12:30PM to 2:00PM. The entrance fee to temple is Rs.5 while Rs.100 for camera. I paid the money since this was first time I was visiting. Temple is covered with bountiful of shivalingas. You are tempted to take more and more snaps. Inside the temple you find many other temples too! The main deity is Manjunatha Swamy. Apart from that, one can find Brahma-Vishnu-Maheshwara temple, Venkatesha temple, Annapoorneshwari temple, Santoshi Maata temple. In between one can also spot Ganapthy idols too. Temple has around 82lakhs shivalingas. The target is to reach 1-crore as per the boards. You can install shiva lingas too! One needs to contact temple administration regarding this. Moving forward, the huge shivalinga with Nandi facing is very attractive. People who do not carry camera have to pay Rs.40 to take photo beside huge Shivalinga. Exclusive camera persons are present to take photos and print them.
NANDI FACING SHIVALINGA
I took around 150 photos to compensate the camera fee :). Later I travelled back towards Bangalore. Despite of huge number buses, the roads are completely pot-holed. I took government bus towards KGF which costed Rs.7. That is the reason private buses were crowded. I took express bus from KGF to bangalore. It started around 4:15PM. The tiredness made me to sleep till Hosakote. I reached home around 6:30PM.
ಮಳೆಗಾಲವೆಂದರೆ ಕರಾವಳಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಅನೇಕ ರೋಗಗಳ ಆಗಮನ ಕೂಡ. ರೋಗ ಅಂದರೆ ವಿಚಿತ್ರರೋಗಗಳಲ್ಲ, ಬದಲಾಗಿ ಶೀತ, ಕೆಮ್ಮು, ವಾತ, ಪಿತ್ತ ಮುಂತಾದವು. ಇದಕ್ಕೆ ಕರಾವಳಿಯವರು ಕಂಡುಕೊಂಡ ಪರಿಹಾರ ಕಾಲಕಾಲಕ್ಕೆ ಕೆಲವನ್ನು ಸೇವಿಸದೇ ಇರುವುದು. ಉದಾಹರಣೆಗೆ: ಆಷಾಡ ಮಾಸದ ಮಳೆ ಮತ್ತು ಚಳಿ ಸಮಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಮೊಸರು ಸೇವಿಸದೇ ಇರುವುದು, ಕೆಲವೊಮ್ಮೆ ಬೇಳೆ ಸೇವಿಸದೇ ಇರುವುದು ಮುಂತಾದವು. ಹಿಂದಿನ ಕಾಲದಲ್ಲಿ ಆರೋಗ್ಯವನ್ನು ಗಮನದಲ್ಲಿಟ್ಟುಕೊಂಡು ಇಂತಹ ವೃತಗಳನ್ನು ಆಚರಣೆಗೆ ತಂದಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ಮತ್ತೊಂದು ಪರಿಹಾರ ಎಂದರೆ ಮನೆಯಲ್ಲೇ ತಯಾರಿಸಿದ ಕೊತ್ತಂಬರಿ-ಜೀರಿಗೆ ಕಷಾಯ. ಇದು ದೇಹವನ್ನು ತಂಪಾಗಿಡುತ್ತಲ್ಲದೇ, ಶೀತ-ಕೆಮ್ಮಿನಿಂದಲೂ ದೂರವಿಡುತ್ತದೆ. ಕರಾವಳಿಯ ಹಳ್ಳಿಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಮಾತ್ರವಲ್ಲ ಬದಲಾಗಿ ನಗರ ಪ್ರದೇಶಗಳಾದ ಉಡುಪಿ, ಮಂಗಳೂರಿನಲ್ಲೂ ಹಲವರು ಈ ಕಷಾಯ ಸಿದ್ಧಪಡಿಸುತ್ತಾರೆ. ಈ ಕಷಾಯ ಪುಡಿಯನ್ನು ಮಾಡುವುದು ಬಹು ಸುಲಭ
ಬೇಕಾಗುವ ಸಾಮಾಗ್ರಿಗಳು: ೧) ಕೊತ್ತಂಬರಿ - ೧ ಲೋಟೆ ೨) ಜೀರಿಗೆ - ಅರ್ಧ ಲೋಟೆ ೩) ಬಡಸೊಪ್ಪು - ಕಾಲು ಲೋಟೆ ೪) ಮೆಂತೆ - ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಸಾಕು (೧/೧೦ ಲೋಟೆ) ೫) ಕರಿಮೆಣಸು - ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಸಾಕು (೧/೧೦ ಲೋಟೆ). ಖಾರ ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಬೇಕಾದರೆ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಹೆಚ್ಚಿಗೆ ಹಾಕಬಹುದು.
ಮಾಡುವ ವಿಧಾನ: ಮೊದಲು ಮಿಶ್ರಣವನ್ನು ಬಾಣಲಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಹಾಕಿ, ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಹೊತ್ತು ಬಿಸಿ ಮಾಡಬೇಕು. ಮಿಶ್ರಣ ಕಪ್ಪಾಗದಂತೆ ನೋಡಿಕೊಳ್ಳಬೇಕು. ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಬಿಸಿ ಮಾಡಿದರೆ ಸಾಕು. ನಂತರ ಮಿಶ್ರಣವನ್ನು ಮಿಕ್ಸಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಹಾಕಿ ಸಣ್ಣಗೆ ಪುಡಿ ಮಾಡಬೇಕು. ಇಷ್ಟು ಮಾಡಿದರೆ ಕಷಾಯ ಪುಡಿ ತಯಾರು.
ಕಷಾಯ ಮಾಡುವ ವಿಧಾನ: ಮೊದಲು ತಟ್ಟೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಒಂದು ಲೋಟೆ ನೀರಿಗೆ ಒಂದು ಚಮಚ ಕಷಾಯ ಪುಡಿ ಹಾಕಿ ಕುದಿಸಬೇಕು. ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಕುದಿಸಿದರೆ ಕಷಾಯ ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಕಡಕ್ ಆಗುತ್ತದೆ. ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಕುದಿಸಿದರೆ ಒಳ್ಳೆಯದು. ಕುದಿದ ನೀರನ್ನು ಸೋಸಿ ಹಾಗೆಯೇ ಕಷಾಯದ ನೀರನ್ನು ಕುಡಿಯಬಹುದು. ಇಲ್ಲವೇ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ನೀರು ಹಾಲಿಗೆ ಕಷಾಯದ ನೀರನ್ನು ಬೆರೆಸಿ ಕುಡಿಯಬಹುದು. ಬೇಕಾದರೆ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಸಕ್ಕರೆ ಹಾಕಿಕೊಳ್ಳಿ. ಮಳೆ ನೋಡುತ್ತಾ ಈ ಕಷಾಯವನ್ನು ಸವಿಯುವುದೇ ಆನಂದ. ದಿನಕ್ಕೆ ಎರಡು ಬಾರಿ ಕಾಫಿ-ಚಹಾ ಬದಲು ಕಷಾಯವನ್ನು ಕುಡಿದರೆ ಆರೋಗ್ಯಕ್ಕೂ ಒಳ್ಳೆಯದು. ಈ ಕಷಾಯ ಮಳೆಗಾಲಕ್ಕೆಂದೇ ಮಾಡಿದರೂ ಇದು ಯಾವ ಕಾಲಕ್ಕೂ ಅನುಕೂಲಕ್ಕೆ ಬರುತ್ತದೆ.
The temple is situated around 7km north-east of Kasargod town of Kerala state. Even if Lord Ananteshwara is established in temple, main attraction is the Lord Vinayak appearing on the wall. The temple surrounded with full greenery. The temple town has magnificent look with hills at nearby distance and the coconut-arecanut plantations. Madhuvaahini stream flows from north to south in front of temple. The temple has 3 level structure facing east and having shape of "GajaPrushta". The same type of structure can be seen in Ananteshwara temple of Udupi near Sri Krishna Math. The top two levels have copper cover while the lowest one has tile cover. One can observe beautiful sculpture in and around temple. It is believed that the "GajaPrushta" shape is influenced from ancient Buddhism. It is believed that even Nepali style may have influenced temple structure. The heavy rains of coast has influenced such a structure.
THE STRUCTURE OF MADHURU TEMPLE
FRONT PORTION
SIDDHI VINAYAK TEMPLE
There is a small gopura in west of temple. The devotees are allowed to enter only from here. Lunch House (Bhojana Shaale) can be found towards left of main entrance. You can view the backside of temple from west entrance. There is a small pond towards north-east of temple. Madhuvahini stream flows in front of temple. During heavy monsoon season, the stream swells and enters temple premises too. Towards left of temple frontside, you can find seva kacheri. All announcements are done in Hindi, Malayalam, Tulu and Kannada. The notice boards are written even in Kannada Language. In front of temple, one can see bronze pillar (Dhwaja Sthamba). Lord ananteshwara is established facing east. While you walk around temple, first temple which is found is Kashi Vishwanatha. You can also find prasada distribution counter near-by. The Lord Vinayak icon is facing south. It is not visible clearly. One can have somewhat clear sight if viewed from nearby wall. Few steps further you can see Ayyappa and Parvathi temples. You can also view the stack of coconut meant for Gana Homa and Pumpkin meant for lunch. Still further, one can see Subramanya Gudi. Nearby, one can see temple kitchen and well too. Near by well, one can see trace of sword created by Tippu Sultan. History says that Tippu Sultan had plans to demolish the temple. However since he drank water here, it is believed that he left temple untouched with small trace. Because of this, the king of Mayappadi conducted large scale moodappa seve here on 1795. The area around temple is wide. One can also enjoy the oil paintings on the wall of temple.
TEMPLE POND
PUMPKIN STACK AND OIL PAINTINGS
BEAUTIFUL SCULPTURES
The shiva linga is bit special here since it has some traces of injury. It is believed that a lady named "MADARU" while cutting grasses, her tool hit a stone from where blood started to flow. When she informed the incident to her relatives, all of them approached the territory king on the incident. It is believed that king and the people when prayed together with an intention to build temple near water body, the icon appeared near banks of Madhuvahini stream. Since animals were leading friendly life in that region, people decided to construct a temple in the same place as per the folklore. Backside of temple has banyan tree. The mark of Tiger-Cow resting together which is the Tiger stone can be even found now. The name "MADARU" turned into "MADHURU" as per folklore.
Lord Vinayaka appearing on wall: Once the children of priest of Madhuru during festival time, drew picture of Lord Vinayaka and decorated it with flowers. They took the Rice powder brought by elders and mixed it with water and created round pastes. These were offered as Naivedya to Lord Vinayaka by the children. The elders got surprised and performed rituals as per tradition. They mixed jaggery to the paste. Unboiled "PACHAPPA" naivedya started as tradition from this day. Later a sculptor of the drawing was raised with KaduSharkaraPaaka. To this sculptor, a gudi with small door was also constructed as per folklore. The lord Vinayaka here is Balamuri Vinayaka (trunk twisted towards right).
Specialities: 1) Here Moodappa Seve, Udayastamana Seve and GanaHoma Seve are prominet for Lord Vinayaka. Rudrabhisheka is famous seve for Lord Ananteshwara. 2) Every year 5 day annual festival is celebrated. The fourth day is Bedi (fireworks) day. After performing pooje in Uliyattadka Moola Sthana, the special fireworks is peformed in Madhuru temple Bedi Katte. The next day is last day of festival. All along 5 days special programmes like Sangeetha, Yakshagana are conducted. 3) Every day devotees are served with free lunch. You need to take lunch token before 12:30PM.
How to reach: 1) There is ample bus facility from Kasargod town. 2) No direct bus from Mangalore. One has to travel to Kasargod and find another bus. 3) Better to hire taxi from Mangalore. You can even visit attractive places nearby. 4) For people who travel on their own vehicle from Mangalore, one has to find deviation 4km before Kasargod which is called as chowki. From here take a left turn. From here onwards there is no proper road directions. You will have to take help from local people. Even Google Map may help. Otherwise you can even reach till Kasargod and take Madhuru road. You may get good guidance from here.
Stay: There is only one Madhuvahini guest house nearby temple. You can even stay in Kasargod town. If you prefer Karnataka, stay either in Mangalore or Puttur.
Temple Timings: 6:30AM to 12:30PM 5:30PM to 8:30PM (watch out for long gap)
Time to visit: November to February. During Sankashti, Ganesha Chaturthi, Sundays, Maha Shivaratri and annual festival, the temple is heavily crowded.
Here is first 1080p video uploaded by me to YouTube. This was first time I was uploading Full HD version to youtube. I was just testing the EOS 550D camera with 1080p/25fps movie mode. The initial part is blurred since lens was put in MF mode. So took some time to focus the subject properly. The subject is nothing special. It is usual scene of dogs playing on the road. In my case it's neighbor's dog and a street dog. The neighbor's dog was tied in front of house since it was raining on Sunday. A street dog came and started playing with the home dog. I captured some of their moments and uploaded to YouTube. The kids near by thought the dogs were fighting. After sometime both dogs got bored and the street dog went away.
It is near 2 minute video which was stored in MOV format. The original was around 620MB later reduced to 170MB using KDENLIVE. The video was converted to MP4 format with same H.264 encoding@12K bitrate and 384kbps audio.
Hope you will enjoy the video! Expect more 1080p videos in my YouTube channel :-). Share if you enjoyed it and comment if you have suggestions.
This was on 24-June-2011 when it rained briefly for few minutes. Finally I captured some heavy showers in my camera. It was raining too much a week before which I missed. We have a camera in house however parents are not interested to use it :(. It started to rain around 9:00AM and went on to become heavy shower for about 5 minutes. However, later in the day sky was clear with few clouds hovering.
The Monsoon has been sluggish this time in India with too much flooding in Assam and less rain in eastern side. Too much pacific typhoons also have monsoon clouds away from India. Ghat areas of Karnataka has not seen much rain too. Even Bangalore had lowest rain in June after 112 years. Hope everything will be alright in mid of July.
No music this time since I wanted to maintain natural sound of rain. Please watch the video and share your thoughts. Hope I will get opportunity to capture torrential rains somewhere around July.
Pray for good monsoon every year throughout India.
One more long drive! This time it is me alone in Maruti Ritz diesel. It is fantastic car and you will never feel strained by driving for many distance. It was around 415kms of drive with me driving alone. This was first time I was driving alone for such a long distance (Earlier was 260kms from Sirsi to Kaup). I was really excited :-) since the pickup was too good (190NM of torque @2000rpm was superb). The torque could be felt especially from Sakaleshpur to Mangalore where the geography is almost hilly with too many curves and blind spots. The worst thing was ordinary KSRTC buses were overtaking despite vehicle's presence in opposite direction. I encountered four to five times. I had to slip down the road or stop at the middle of highway to avoid them. They do not have pick up even then adamant to overtake resulting in accidents. Switch on headlights and start overtaking. Apart from this bitter experience everything was perfect and really enjoyed drive.
Since it was Monsoon season, I enjoyed some of the moments in Shiraadi Ghat. The Ghat road was OK however is about to get damaged (could see parched area in many places). It was drizzling in Ghat and fantastic to cherish. The streams were flowing however with not much vigor since Monsoon has not yet reached peak. In mid of journey I stopped at many places to take photographs. This time no videos since I was alone driving.
Watch the journey photo collection with wonderful music.
Music: ASP Project - See the Sun Video Editor: KDENLIVE under Linux Mint Maya Camera: Canon SX 210IS
Our table fan manufactured by Cinni recently completed 40 years and it is still operating young and energetic :). It was bought by my father during his first job. From then onwards it has not even seen a single repair. It does not mean that we use it rarely however it lasted long. Even today we use it daily.Only once the body was coated with black paint to prevent rust. Otherwise even now it's air circulation is like a jet. It has got four blades which is of old style and an antique style knob behind to facilitate rotation.
The only part which is not functioning is it's potentiometer. Due to this, fan has the highest speed irrespective of regulator position. We hope that the fan will still stay for very long time.
One more drive! This time its through jungles from Kukke to Dharmastala spanning for 52kms. The speciality is dense jungles and many streams in between. The drive from Kukke to Gundya forest gate is fantastic and has lot of curves. From Gundya forest gate till the 'Dharmastala deviation' is NH-75 which runs from Bangalore to Mangalore. From the deviation till Dharmastala is of semi-ghat type with some steep curves and narrow roads. Through out the journey there are lots of blind spots which one has to be careful about. Watch out for nasty vehicles overtaking at the curves. Since it was bharath bundh, the road was almost clear. However there were some tourist vehicles plying along the way. The places are not densely populated and hence no mob created trouble. However small group of people questioned us in gundya forest gate (which is the best place to catch hold of people since it is busy junction). We told them that our visit pre-planned and God will curse us if we do not do so. Those people let us go after brief discourse. I was about to take up state tax which was high in country but did not dare fearing retaliation in terms of violence [may burn our car :-)]. One of the person warned us that people will pelt stones en-route but nothing such happened.
It is wonderful to drive along such routes especially I love to drive under such conditions [provided roads are good :-)]. Towards Dharmastala roads are only patched but not relayed. So the roads are uneven. The patches may turn into pot-holes during monsoon. There are small pot-holes too. Watch out for them. They can create problems in narrow road.
Watch the video with Ulrich Schnauss Monday Paracetamol music.
Watch my other videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/nakumar85/videos
The third time lapse video. This time it is the moving clock. Initially I captured in auto mode. However pictures turned out with varying exposures. Also some images had flash due to low light. By that time even battery had drained off. After battery was fully recharged, I tried with Manual aperture mode by setting F3.1 and slightly over exposed to +1/3. This gave camera shutter speed of 1/4s. Since the camera and clock were steady, this shutter speed did not cause many problems. Also due to low light camera had to expose for long time so might have chosen less shutter. The canon sx 210 IS does not come with full manual mode. At-least one of them is chosen by camera (shutter speed, exposure value or aperture).
So here is the video. Watch and enjoy. Share if you like and comment if you have suggestion.
Watch my youtube videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/nakumar85/videos
Here is the continuation of Time Lapse videos. This time the images were taken in my native village paadoor near kaup, Udupi district. One fine afternoon, I was sitting idle. There was heavy breeze from west as an indication of Monsoon Beginning. I saw the trees and paper on the table flying along the breeze. This gave a thought for creating time lapse video.
The first two were taken in AUTO mode. The first one is a cloth and paper flying along the wind and the second one is fluttering of trees and plants. I did not have tripod and hence used table to have steady frame :-). The second one though bit shaky since I could not get proper elevation in camera.
The other two were taken next day morning. The monsoon was about to begin and consequently lots of clouds floating around sky. With wind pushing the clouds faster, it was right time to capture time lapse. The first was around 10AM and the second one was filmed around 12:00PM. It was hot and humid so both the times I had to adjust shutter, aperture and exposure to have clear view of sky and clouds. In the first case the shutter speed and exposure were set manually (1/1600s, -1ev) and in next case aperture and shutter speed were manually set (F7.1, 1/2000s).
The first video was taking along with stool in the coconut plantation. My mother was surprised and asked me what I was doing. I told will explain later. The stool made sure that the frames were steady.
The second video was taken under hot sun. The camera was kept under hot cement roof of the house. My mother became furious seeing this. Somehow I convinced her that camera would be fine. I guess the images were taken for 5-10 minutes. Fortunately camera sat steadily on the roof and hence I grabbed nice interval pics. After the session, my mother inspected the camera for correctness. It was too hot and mother got angry that I will make mess of my camera. I showed her the time-lapse (approximate) by fast scrolling the images on LCD screen.
The video was created using KDENLIVE. One can create slideshow clip in KDENLIVE to get desired speed. For ex:
If you select 5 frames for an image and there are total 90 images and you select 30fps as frame rate, then the calculation goes as follows.
Duration of video = [(Number of frames per image) * (Number of images) ]/ (frame rate)
In above case, duration = 5 * 90 / 30 = 15 seconds [Simple math nothing special :-)].
You can increase or decrease duration by increase or decrease frames an image can take. More the frames/image slower is the time lapse and vice-versa. Ex: For clouds, one may want to have faster time-lapse while for sunset one may choose slower.
So here is the video! Watch and enjoy. Share if you like it and comment if you have suggestions.
Warning: Using intervalometer script may decrease the camera shutter life. So use it only when required :-)
This weekend it was already planned to visit Dodda Aalada mara near Kengeri. I finished daily routine and started at around 10:00AM on a Sunday morning. This time I took bike to visit the place as bus journey was quite time taking. Also you may need to take 3 buses to reach there. Along the travel I stopped at many places to take snaps. This is advantage if you make your own arrangements. Of-course I went alone.
Since it was Sunday, traffic was smooth even at peak time. It was around 11:30 AM when I reached the place. Late since I stopped at many places en-route. There is not much to see here except the big banyan tree which covers around 3-4 acres of land. People visit here just for change from city environment. Some pictures en-route. Most of the pictures in auto-mode did not produce the lane markings due to haze. I had to under-expose (2/3) and adjust shutter speed to get clear picture.
ROAD LEADING TO DODDA-AALADA-MARA
ONE MORE PICTURE EN-ROUTE
Some of the details as mentioned in placard:
1) Maintained by Horticulture department of Karnataka Government 2) Situated at Kethohalli village, Tavarekere Hobli, Bangalore South Taluk 3) It has history of about 400 years. 4) Spread around 3-4 acres of land 5) Around 400 to 500 dangles are growing in the tree.
There are benches for resting and you can have view around the tree for some time. For visitors there is parking space outside the area. There are many eating outlets outside with reasonable price. Muneshwara temple is situated inside the premises. Watch out for the monkeys when you sit for eating. However they did not seem to be aggressive. This is place is to enjoy for few hours not entire day. I presume some good places can be found near by too. Just check internet for details
How to reach:
The place is situated 23 kms from main city (may be from Majestic). However it took around 30kms for me from HSR BDA. One has to travel along Mysore highway and cross Kengeri. 2-3 kms from Kengeri town, you reach a small junction near Rajarajeshwari Dental College towards right. Take the right turn and travel along the beautiful road for about 7kms to reach Dodda Aalada Mara. The place is along the main road and there is no need to take any deviations. You may feel to be lost due to inadequate sign boards but do not worry; local people do guide you well. Watch out for nasty humps. There are many en-route. They are unscientific and neither have sign boards nor markings on it as indication. The humps are present especially in village area and curves.
There are buses from K.R.Market and Majestic. Better to reach Kengeri so that you can get ample buses. I assume that bus service is infrequent (most of the buses were over crowded). Watch out for the interceptors en-route along Mysore SH-17. Do not cross speed limits [60kmph for 4 wheelers and 40kmph for 2 wheelers]. Also traffic personnel will be checking your documents even so do not break rules [wear helmet].
This is my first time lapse video. It is not something like fastening up the video but taking images at intervals and rendering them as video. The images have to be very much steady to have better time-lapse video. It is good to use a tripod, make adjustments and start taking pictures.
So how did I do it? I own Canon SX 210IS. Using CHDK available for canon cameras, I used intervalometer script which captures the images at pre-defined rate without user intervention. I am not writing on CHDK. Please refer links below for details. The images were taken at the rate of 1-image per 2sec. So I captured around 69 images and put them up in KDENLIVE to create a video. Since I did not have tripod, the video came out bit shaky. Kindly bare with it :-). Next time I will take better one.
A simple slideshow creation in KDENLIVE will do the rest. I created slideshow with 3 frame drops with 29.97fps and 720 progressive scan rate. I am not sure about the exact calculation of frame drops. If you are interested please refer wikipedia entry on SMPTE timecode (see references below).
Enjoy the short time-lapse video of Dose making. Of course I heated the Dose for long time to have better detail [put the gas in sim :-)]. I am optimist of posting such videos often [That is why the title numbered 1 :-)].
Watch my other videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/nakumar85/videos
References:
1) How to Install CHDK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYOaspc4Ohw 2) SMPTE code: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMPTE_timecode 3) Creating Time-Lapse video in KDENLIVE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVqrxNV5Y_s
Finally the day had arrived to visit Bannerghatta National Park (Further will abbreviate as BNP). It was on Sunday 13-May-2012, we planned to visit BNP along with my elder sister and my nephew. We started pretty much late (around 9:00AM) from Koramangala and reached Majestic at 10:00AM. There we had to wait for some time for the bus. 15 minutes past we got a VOLVO bus to BNP. We reached BNP arounf 11:30AM. BMTC has a fine terminus in BNP that looks really posh as of now.
Since it was sunday, BNP was jam packed. We could get tickets easily however had to wait long time for safari ride. There was huge crowd waiting for safari ride. The resting place is really good. When our turn came, it was around 12:30PM. The buses are arranged by KSTDC and had protection cover also. The helper told us that safari ride is around 15kms. There was deer safari, bear safari, lion safari, tiger safari and peacock safari. Huge trench surrounds each safari so that animals do not cross. The animals are manually fed. The white tiger is isolated from usual tiger since they fight. The travel through safari is really scenic and has three or four water bodies along the way. Fortunately I got the front seat beside driver.
BNP Entrance
We could see all the animals along the way. We had close look of deers, tiger, lion, bear and peacock. Peacock was visible earlier closely however as we neared him, it ran away. I managed to get some good shots and also the driver took very good shots for me. Most of thw animals were resting on the right side of the road and I was sitting on the left side of bus. However, driver helped me to get good shots. Between every entrance of Safari, huge gates are erected to prevent animals mixing up. The driver and helper were too good. Whenever animals were spotted, the driver stopped vehicle for considerable amount of time to have view and take snaps.
Safari Bus
Collage of animals in Safari
After 30-45 minutes of safari ride, we came back to national park, had lunch and visited zoo. The zoo is well maintained and has small park for children to play. It is not as extensive as Mysore Zoo but wonderful to watch. The only problem is, there is no proper instruction or walk path boards to guide you as in Mysore-Zoo. Nevertheless, it seemed intuitive. You can also have elephant ride with some cost.
Crocodile
Some bird
Leopard
King Cobra
It was around 3:30PM the sky opened up and started pouring heavily. We reached bus stop before it started to rain heavily. Due to this we could not visit butterfly park. The buses towards bangalore were ample, however there was also ample crowd. Every bus was jam packed and we finally found a private bus towards K.R.Market. We got down at Jayadeva to reach home.
How to reach:
From Majestic, you can catch VOLVO or ordinary BMTC buses which will take directly to BNP. The cost of volvo is Rs.50/head. We thought we would not get seat, if we start from Jayadeva. It is not true since there are buses originating from places like Shivajinagar (AC-4), brigade road (G-4) which go via Jayadeva. You can catch from Jayadeva too. If you are travelling via KR-Market area, you have private buses which directly go to BNP. You can also travel till Bannerghatta and take an auto. Even though distance is only around 3-4kms auto people may charge more. If you own four wheeler, it is best option. You will also need to pay parking charges. however there is ample parking space.
Food:
There are hotels and ample snack outlets nearby. However they charge more. Everything is costly here. Better to carry own food and drinks rather than buying. Even inside zoo you can find snack and ice-cream outlets.
Timings:
PARK + ZOO: 9:30AM to 5PM SAFARI: 10AM to 4:30PM (Depending on tickets available, timings may vary) WEEKLY HOLIDAY: TUESDAY
Expenses (In rupees):
Still Camera: 25 (Not sure whether same is applicable for Butterfly park) Video Camera (Handycam): 200 (Not sure whether same is applicable for Butterfly park)
Safari:
Adult: 210 Children: 100 Senior Citizen: 140 [The same ticket can be used for ZOO entrance also]
Zoo:
If you want only to visit ZOO, here are the charges.
Adult: 60 Children: 30 Senior Citizen: 40
Butterfly park: This requires separate ticket. Not sure about price since we could not visit.
When to go:
Start early. Atleast reach by 10AM so that you need not have to wait for SAFARI. At around 11-12 (AM-PM), animals will be resting near-by road. You can have good look at them. BNP is completely plastic free zone.
Some Negatives:
1) People were seen throwing plastic waste on to the floor despite having ample dustbins around. The dustbins were really good and well maintained.
2) The patrol people had to really struggle to maintain discipline. Some people were seen sneaking into the queue despite good patrolling. It is really annoying that educated people do such things.
Just a request for people who visit not to spoil these places.
The Video!!
At the end the SAFARI video. The video is composition of Safari ride as well as still images of animals. There are no videos of animals. The video was created using KDENLIVE. I initially chose HD-720p with 29.97fps. Since the video was distorted 25fps was chosen with same progressive scan rate. H.264 encoding was used with 12k bitrate and AAC 384kbps. The video is bit shaky but still watchable. Enjoy the video!
