The campsite at Humkhani

GHNP Trek Day 2: Beyond the bridge, the wilderness

Once we are across the bridge, it feels as if behind us a huge wall of forest has grown, shutting us out completely. It is silent, dark and mysterious. Day 2 of our Great Himalayan National Park trek, recounted by Sandeep Somasekharan Continue reading GHNP Trek Day 2: Beyond the bridge, the wilderness

A grey hooded warbler with catch

GHNP Trek – Day 1: An oxymoron called acclimating

Day 1 was an ‘acclimatizer’. Ha. Acclimating is an oxymoron. Ask those who laboured up the slopes from Neuli to Shakti and ended up painfully breathless by the end of the day. Part 2 of Sandeep Somasekharan’s report of The Green Ogre trek to the Great Himalayan National Park in 2012 Continue reading GHNP Trek – Day 1: An oxymoron called acclimating

Americana – a birding diary from the United States

On the rarest of rare occasions, your boring desk job can get really interesting. If it takes you on short trips to lands unseen. July 2012 was one such, for it took me the United States and kept me there for four months. I was mostly busy with work but the weekends were left to me. So what does a bored birder do on weekends? That one’s a sitter. Continue reading Americana – a birding diary from the United States

When a rookie walks the Himalaya

I remembered a little affront I heaped at the mighty mountains when I landed at Aut. Taking a reel out of Apollo 13, I mimicked the scene where Jim Lowell covers the moon with his thumb and looked at a peak far away, murmuring, “As tall as my thumb.” Anand Yegnaswami reflects on his trek in the Great Himalayan National Park, one year later. Continue reading When a rookie walks the Himalaya

All is not well with Alleppey

The Vembanad Lake in Alleppey, once praised by Lord Curzon as the “Venice of the East”, is a Ramsar Wetland and a Birdlife Important Bird Area. But those tags have not stopped greedy and exploitative tour operators from turning it into a sickening playground of hooligans and a dumping ground for trash. Here’s a horror story that will turn Stephen King’s stomach. Continue reading All is not well with Alleppey