The sunset

There always is a wonderful reward that awaits you when you trek atop a mountain, a jaw dropping valley or a deep gorge or many more mountains arranged in a sequence that makes you sigh and gaze and eventually brings back all the energy you had spent on the way up. 

This was the setting of the sunset after we reached atop the hill near our lodge in Ganeshgudi. The Old Magazine House near Ganeshgudi run by the Karnataka government’s Jungle Lodges and Resorts has many beautiful trails around it. Situated deep in the westernghats it has many beautiful treks around apart from the wonderful birds that it is famous for. 

The secluded beach and the sunset

Call me snooty but I generally prefer places with less people, the more quiet, the more I can hear the sounds of nature, my thoughts and just be with my thoughts without any distraction. I love trekking in the Himalayas precisely for that reason, for the only way you can go away from people to the real places is when you walk away from the road and take up a trail up the slopes!

 

There always is an effort going on whenever I travel to go find such spots, sometimes its great to be just by yourself in nature, watching a sunrise or a wave crashing on a rock or a squirrel making merry with some nuts.

 

Recently we stayed in a place called Balapitiya, kinda in between the more famous Bentota and Hikkaduwa on the west to southwest sea coast of Srilanka, whilst Hikkaduwa and Bentota both are pretty nice beaches, there is a lot of activity there too, we did immerse in those, however, in the evenings after a couple of Mojito’s we preferred to walk on the beach across the road from the villa we rented. Barely 50 meters away is this beautiful beach, the best part was very very few people were about and so it was great fun to have this all to ourself.

The beautiful Balapitya Beach!

 

We took long walks whilst watching the waves, collecting shells, getting our legs wet, spotting snails stuck on stones, and when tired we sat down to see an ethereal sunset! A very quiet, peaceful evening on this wonderful beach that was also where we took our first dips in the morning, albeit in the morning there were a few joggers around!

The waves crashing on the rocks

Soon enough the sun started going westwards!

 

continually showing different hues as it went on its way!

 

There always are hideouts everywhere, remember that! If you are one of those who likes finding them, this is one nice beach tucked away in Srilanka that is not “developed” and at times I am thankful of that! 🙂

A sunset

The fun thing about road trips is that you have to make halts, several halts at that, to pick up a cold bottle of water or to take a leak or to pick up some nice looking guava’s from the road side or sometimes the crowd around a Kachori wala hawker attracts you. These are some of the reasons I love road trips. You can converse all the time, you can do as per your whim all the time. This time round, instead of going to Jaipur directly from Bharuch enroute the Himalaya’s where we usually take our first break, we started a day early! Yes, that is one more perk of taking a road trip, I didn’t have much work and so we started early and we thought we would book a hotel with a pool and beat the heat.

 

So we selected Udaipur and reached there by noon, we took a dip in the pool and after that decided to stroll about the Fatehsagar lake as for us Bharuchi’s that weather that day in Udaipur was certainly pleasant. We walked about camera in hand on the many stalls of Fatehsagar lake wondering where to eat. What I didn’t know is that the place has an absolutely gorgeous setting for a sunset! Its straight out of the drawings we used to do as kids. Mostly we would have a water body, behind the water body some mountains, a sun setting or rising and maybe a few birds in the sky, a boat in the water and a few people standing by. Well I guess if I have built up an image in your head… here goes!

There, aint it the one we, who were poor in drawing always paint this type of scenery? 

Even junior loved the setting and kept gazing!

As you walked about it showed different shades! 

Tea in a kulhad with such a view was a blessing I tell you! 

Sigh… I did fall in love with this sunset!

 

 

Happy Times!

When you are about to set off on a journey to the jungles to track tigers, leopards and bear, you get a text from your soul mate who has had a wonderful appraisal and there are just grins all over, hugs being held onto and its a total gooey moment… yes it is also a time to get up and just let lose and do the crazy dance! 😀 😀 😀 😀

Feeling Happy! 😀 😀