Amboli- Nature's Grandeur- a Macrophotography Journey

 

A friend, Basav, and I drove to Amboli in his Jimny, we took about 7-8 hours to reach halting along the way. Basav is a man with a passion, about EDC, watches, cars, bikes and other such collectibles. It was a lovely drive, lush green, and thick vegetation the entire route.

Then and Now
Me, Parag, Basav, a bit of grey and it is the same. ...And Basav and I are not portly,
that is the camera and the wind 

On reaching Mrugaya, the homestay where we were staying we went out for a nature trail. Our guide (and the homestay owner) was Parag Rangnekar, a naturalist, (an expert on flora and fauna of most places), an adviser to various governments, the CEO of many NGOs,  a  photographer extraordinaire, a raconteur and above all, a very good friend. A man of many parts.

Amboli Toad
This toad only inhabits Amboli, (as the name would suggest), it is smaller than my thumb and has the most unusual colours, purple and black.

A lot of the photography was experimental, trying this and that, much of it came out blurred and focused on the wrong things. Backlighting and side lighting, with and without the flash and diffuser.

A moth caterpillar and a snail
It rained and poured almost all the time, we photographed till the camera and flash gave up, and then we photographed with our phones.

The three of us saw the usual animals, the Malabar Pit Viper, The Malabar Gliding Frog (MGF), frogs and toads of various types, including the Amboli Toad, tarantulas and so much more.

Malabar Gliding Frog

Malabar Pit Viper
This photo shows its prehensile tail (most Vipers have one) and its patience where two droplets of water are going to fall but it has not moved.

Narrow-mouthed (?) Frog in full cry

Seeing the MGF at various stages of its growth to an adult was a pure delight. We photographed a nearly full grown MGF which had only vestiges of its tail left.

Juvenile Malabar Gliding Frog

Then there were frog’s eggs of different types of frogs, we took so many photographs of these, backlit, with the tadpole in them showing and many more.

Backlit pic of frogs eggs...

...Frogs eggs with the tadpole showing

We took pics of various animals and just enjoyed being out in nature, the rain was a bit of a damper, but at this time in Amboli....

It rained throughout, stopping for a bit and then raining again.  The leeches abounded and Parag got bitten by a leech once and I twice, there are as many cures for a leech bite as there are people.

The time to come back came all too soon, and we drove back by a different route, very scenic and pretty.

And so ended our Amboli odyssey.

The Lovely Peaks of Vridh Jageshwar

Sunrise over Trishul and surrounding peaks

Someone once said that "All of life is peaks and valleys. Don't let the peaks get too high and the valleys too low". It may be true about life, but in the mountains the higher the peaks get, more majestic they look. 

The sunrise - I just cannot get enough of the
sight of the mountains particularly at
sunrise and sunset.

The rhododendrons flower in profusion, they say that rhododendrons tend to bloom the higher in altitude one gets, Vridh Jageshwar is not much higher but many rhododendron  trees are flowering in profusion.

Rhododendrons

‘Vridh’ means ‘old’ or ‘previous’, it is on a ridge top with a wonderful view of the Kumaon Himalayas up close. Jageshwar Dham is the group of temples in the valley not very far from here, but distinctly different. Many people stay at Vridh Jageshwar and worship at the Dham. "Praise the Lord, but we want to see the peaks also".

The temple at Vridh Jageshwar...

...and Jageshwar Group of Temples

Human society appears to sustain itself by transforming nature into garbage. It does indeed, ‘clever’ marketing and the ‘need’ to buy more. Walking down to the spring and caves behind the temple at Vridh Jageshwar one sees a lot of the detritus of ‘good’ living. It is a veritable garbage dump for almost fifty metres of the path. (I have done a reel on this at instagram click here)

The first of two caves...

...and the spring

Apart from being a downhill/uphill walk through some dense jungle, the caves and the spring are not much to see.

There are many walks to be had, and most of them are relatively less steep. There’s the Zero Point walk, atop a hillock not very far from here, it is a short distance but steep. Then there is the birding trail, the trail behind the temple, there are two ways to reach this, to the Spring and Caves. The walking track ahead of the temple, a trail to Jageshwar Dham (six Kilometres from the temple), and so on.

Sunset on Trishul and two temple bells

The view of the Kumaon Himalayas is breathtaking, one can almost touch them, from here one can see Nanda Ghunti, Trishul, Mrigthaini, Maiktoli, Nanda Devi, Nanda Khot (Ban Kutiya or the Sickle), and the Panchacholi Group.

The hues of pink and gold and.…. (one cannot even begin describing the colours), so I will leave it to your imagination.

At sunset...

 

Ghost Homes

 Someone once said: “A house is made of bricks and beams. A home is made of hopes and dreams.”

So true,

A house that is not a home

Ghost homes are houses in the mountains that are left vacant by the owners, to be visited a few times each year or not at all. I am writing of Binsar WLS, but this could be equally true of other houses in the hills.

just locked up...

...or dilapidated

...to be visited on festivals

If they are opened a few times a year, then it is generally done so on a festival, as the mountain folk are normally very religious. These are people who have left for better job opportunities in the cities. Or their children who have left for as these villages offer few opportunities.

...another house falling apart

The first to fall is the roof, grass grows between the slates and water seems to seep in. Then the beams fall, the beams are of pine and water is fatal...

...and another

...the last to fall seem the walls, these are traditionally of mud and stone, and without cover of the roof, the weather plays havoc with the walls. The windows look out sightlessly on a patch overgrown with weeds. 

the house-owner keeps his belongings...  

...in a small part of the house. The part he has covered in corrugated iron. Traditionally there is no glazing on windows, simply planks of wood, keeping the house warm in the severe winters of the mountains.

The walls of brick and mud still stand, but the roof and beams 
are dilapidated

Maybe slate quarries are in the Wildlife Sanctuary and so inaccessible. Maybe t raditional building methods are expensive, the materials difficult to difficult to find, and the craftsmen, the few that are left, very difficult to come by. It could be a combination of all these factors.

...homestays are mushrooming

Who doesn't want a slice of the tourist pie?  Views this way and that, almost every village has multiple homestays. Members of the families who want to watch what they want to, do so on their mobiles. Yes, mobiles have percolated into every nook and cranny of their lives.

Huge and fancy houses

A disturbing trend is these homes are long-leased to people from the plains who build incongruously huge houses with retaining walls in the ‘balmy surrounds’ of a wild life sanctuary; for bragging rights perhaps?

Home is not a place…it’s a feeling

Life in the Mountains - Part 2

 “The mountains were his masters. They rimmed in life. They were the cup of reality, beyond growth, beyond struggle and death. They were his absolute unity in the midst of eternal change.” - Thomas Wolfe

Trishul in clouds

Views of the Kumaon Himalayas, like this, are only for us The Great Indian Tourist. For life on the mountains must continue, earlier the seasons dictated the pace of life, now it is calendars and global warming.

Mules are used where the walking track has been
widened

Building a house at the end of a walking track is difficult, all the supplies have to be brought by mule or by hand. Now that cutting and selling wood is not feasible (it’s mostly pine which is not good for construction), the building has to be of modern materials got from outside. Pathways have to be found for mules, where earlier a man trudged, now mules go.

A very tired mule

 Mules did four rounds where I was staying, hauling sand, and cement. The Tor rods were hauled all the distance by men. More and more people from the plains are buying or leasing traditional houses, tearing them down, and building unsightly monstrous behemoths in their place. 

the working man

Most of the labour is from other states, paradoxical though, as the younger generation from the mountains are leaving as there are no jobs to be had...

people who own houses, come infrequently...

...otherwise houses remain locked

clothes that have dried and are ready to be taken in...

Drying is with the sun, clothes are washed when it is bright and sunny and put out to dry. So are the vegetables, most of which are grown on the property itself. 

Pumpkins grown on the property, these are
being readied for Shivratri

And life must go on, the eternal cycle of drudgery. The Munni Devi's of the mountains gather firewood, look at the sky, if it is a clear day...

gathering firewood

"Your faith can move mountains, and your doubt can create them." — Swami Vivekananda

Life in the Mountains

"Beyond the mountains, more mountains.” —Haitian proverb

 

Trishul wreathed in clouds

The local village people do not climb for a view. It is part of their everyday chores, from gathering firewood to going to school, to building a house,  it is a hard life. Especially for villages where one has to walk to get to.

Munni Devi gathers firewood...

...and walks away

Firewood is the sustenance of all villagers in the mountains.  Though gas has come, it is still in the nascent stages and is a luxury to use for heating. One saw a man carry an empty cylinder to be exchanged for a full cylinder, imagine carrying that back, two kilometres each way.

From heating to eating and everything in between,
it is done through wood. 

school is what it is

In village schools there are more kids than classrooms.  In the school one visited, there were three rooms for six classes. 

farming the land for what meagre crop there is

The children go to cities for jobs else they do what their parents did, look after cattle and farm. 

the daily menu...

School going children are a boon, as there one meal less to feed them as school gives lunch, though one wonders how filling or nutritious the lunch is.

Life is hard here in the mountains, harsh weather conditions, limited access to resources, and challenging terrain make it especially difficult.