PHOTO JOURNEY by www.Travellingcamera.com

For the past few years, I have taken to Himachali music. I first got introduced to it during my wedding, when a constant background music of women singing Himachali wedding songs, made the simple ceremony even more beautiful. Since then, I have been introduced to several Himachali songs that I have come to love. And this also gives me a great advantage - when I sing these in family gatherings, VJ's side of the family is unfailingly impressed by a non-Himachali knowing so many Himachali songs :-P.  

It had been a while (more than two years) since VJ and I had gone on a vacation together. So when an opportunity to take a vacation at a very short notice came knocking, we decided to make the most of it. We did not have enough time to plan, so we had only two options - purchase a really expensive itinerary from the likes of MakeMyTrip or head out without much planning and decide the itinerary on the go. We decided to take the second option.  We wanted to explore an area we have never explored earlier. Northeast India had been on our minds for some time so we zeroed in on Sikkim after some thought. We purchased the flight tickets (they were expensive as we booked them barely two days before the travel) and booked a reasonable homestay in Gangtok for a couple of nights. We began our vacation with no idea of what we would do after Gangtok. Details of the itinerary and how it developed will follow in another post, this series is about exploring various aspect of th

We started our journey from Shimla in a car and drove through  Jeori , Pooh,  Nako ,  Tabo , Kaza , Key ,  Kibber , Langza , Koimik,  Dhankar ,  Gue  & Kalpa, along with various smaller stops on our way. It was last day of our road trip and this post talks about the day spent around Kalpa and on the way to Shimla. And not only that, we will share how to reach Kalpa, main things to do and some of the not to miss experiences in this part of Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh.  

After almost 9 months of exclusively eating home-cooked food and being practically cooped up in our homes thanks to the raging Covid-19 pandemic, we were starting to terribly miss the outdoors by December 2020. We had done pretty well so far - managing to effectively work-from-home, managing family, household chores, and also maintaining positivity and sanity, in general. But cracks were beginning to appear now - evenings had become more dreary, the drive to try new recipes had waned, and home-cooked food had lost flavor. 

As winter approaches North India, various wetlands start seeing thousands of Migratory Birds and Bharatpur's Keoladeo Bird Sanctuary is one of the most popular wetlands around National Capital region of India and hence sees lot of tourists from Delhi /Noida/Gurgaon region. And it's not limited to nearby tourists. Lot of serious birders visit Bharatpur during Winters from various parts of the country as well as foreigner tourists. This blog-post shares tips to plan a successful trip to Bharatpur from Delhi and what kind of things to take care while planning this birding trip.