Speech is silver, silence is gold

In the jungle the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight... Remember the famous song from The Lion King? (song still playing in my head) Sariska Jungle In my case, there was a mighty jungle for sure. No points for guessing, I went on my first real wildlife safari. What do I mean by real? Well, Hyderabad's Nehru Zoological park had these Safari rides in Tiger and Lion enclosures within the zoo. I also drove through the National Highway 766 which runs along Bandipur Forest range during my road trips, not in absolute wilderness but covered supposed Tiger reserves in three states - Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. All I spotted during my drives through the highway; elephants - yes, deer - yes, langurs and monkeys and peacocks - yes, tiger - no. Anticipation levels were high because Sariska, my next road trip expedition, is home to fourteen Royal Bengal tigers and about hundred leopards. The preparation back home for my first safari was pretty intense, I picked...

Until you cross the bridge of your insecurities, you can't begin to explore your possibilities - T. M. Fargo At the heart of all my adventures was a quest to get home - and at some ungodly hour most of the run ups to the modes of transport were not short of an adventure, keeping those who knew about my journeys up all night. I was however yearning for real adventures, when I set out on those adventures they made me realize I was not fit for the terrain, especially those with an incline or a steep fall. What I did next seemed foolproof - I began climbing hills and trekking snow-capped mountains in my head. My imaginary treks and adventures came to an end after marrying Mr. M (the seasoned traveler, trekker) and moving to Gurgaon, where I knew the rendezvous with the hills was just round the corner. Shot from Dalai Lama temple - Our best shot at snow-capped mountains The D-Day: In the last week of May, to beat the melting pot that was Gurgaon, we hit the road for...

Perks of marrying a wanderlust are, you get to be part of those travel stories, not just listen to them. Also, thanks to the same husband, who believes in being in the moment; my camera was shy of a lot of beauty which I missed to capture owing to 2 reasons. First of which I already mentioned and second of which was I was really being in the moment, this kind of thing rubs off easily. I have been on road trips before, soaking in the sun and all the terrain sitting comfortably in the backseat and taking a couple of photos either on my digicam or mobile phone, whichever was at my disposal. Those images were often blurry, taken off of a speeding vehicle. Then came this guy, and the comfort of the backseat was no longer the norm. Hail passenger seat! Apart from the passenger seat another thing remained constant in my first 7 road trips (yes, 7 in the last 7 months): Starting point was Namma Bengaluru. The first road trip was to Valparai fondly called the 7th heaven, a hil...