BRO (Border Road Organizations) yesterday announced that they will be closing the Manali-Leh highway on the first of November.

Even though the weather has been pretty bad this year and at times people were speculating that the highway wouldn’t even remain open in the beginning of October, BRO as usual has managed to ensure that tourists and essential supplies are able to reach Leh especially considering the tension in Kashmir.

Hats off to these brave men who work in the most inhospitable conditions and yet manage to perform their duties with conviction and zeal.

I am planning to go to the Pushkar Camel Fair next month; this would be my second trip to Pushkar, first being in November 2006 with over a dozen BCMTouring members (Pushkar Travelogue).

While I spent majority of my first trip in chit chatting, eating and lazing around with a bit of sighting, this time around I am planning to devote majority of my time to photography.

To photographers, Pushkar is kind of like what Disneyland is for kids. With myriad of colors, sights, people dressed in colorful traditional cloths, death defying shows, tradition, culture and of course, lots and lots of camels and livestock.

So if you like photography and have the time to visit the fair during 7th to 13th November, then don’t think twice. Go there and you will come back with memory cards full of beautiful and memorable photographs.

I’ll most likely be there between 7th to 9th November and so will be members from BCMTouring, if you are heading there and are interested in meeting me/us there, then email me at yogeshsarkar@gmail.com or give me a call at 9891211270.

Around a year or so back, we started planning for a trip to Sikkim and Bhutan on BCMTouring. However due to a few constraints, I had to opt out of the trip at the beginning of this year.

But the good thing is; Jithu, Amit, Sparsh, Anup and Gopi decided to go ahead with the proposed trip and thus five bikers from the three different corners of India (North, West and South), descended upon the Eastern/North-Eastern corner of India.

Not only did they managed to cover Sikkim and then crossed the border to enter Bhutan, they also rode through the entire breadth of Bhutan and then crossed over from the border crossing at Samdrup Jongkhar to the Manas National Park in Assam and then preceded to Guwahati, from where they left for their respective cities.

While the full travelogues will take some time since they have just returned (Sparsh and Jithu are yet to reach home), few teaser photographs are up and surely more will be posted in the coming days.

So make sure you keep a watch on The thunder-dragon ride (Sikkim-Bhutan 08) thread on BCMTouring, as it would surely be one of the most exciting and anticipated travelogue of 2008.

After almost a week of closure, the Manali - Leh highway has finally be reopened again for vehicular traffic.

The 475-km-long Manali-Leh National Highway opened to traffic Thursday after it remained blocked for a week due to heavy snowfall, an official said.”The Manali-Leh (road) was opened to traffic this evening (Thursday),” S.K. Doon, commander, 38 Task Force, General Reserve Engineering Force (GREF), told IANS.

The highway was closed for traffic following heavy snowfall Sep 19.

Source: The Indian

This year has seen pretty harsh weather in pretty much all the North India and in particular in upper reaches of Himachal Pradesh. Looks like it is going to be a long and cold winter this year.

After two days of persistent rain in Delhi, I wasn’t quite sure if we would be able to do much photography on Saturday, and whether or not any one would show up. But there was no backing out now, with an umbrella packed in my bag, I decided to head out to Lodhi Garden, venue of our first ever Delhi Photography Meet.

Rains had created havoc on the streets and there were plenty of traffic jams en route and it took me well over an hour to reach Lodhi Garden (it normally takes around half an hour).

Once there, I found out that only Amit has turned up, not sure whether or not any one else was coming, we decided to go ahead with the photo shoot and started taking photographs of Bara and Sheesh Gumbad.

Sheesh Gumbad

Bara Gumbad

A while later I received a call from Shamik, informing me that he and Salil had reached Lodhi Garden. We soon met up with them behind Bara Gumbad, where the duo was clicking to their heart’s content. The focus soon shifted from monuments to birds and plants. While Salil was having a ball capturing birds with his Canon 70-200L F4, the rest of us were struggling to keep up with our 18-55 lenses and point and shoots. Here are a few macro and bird shots that I managed to capture:

Laughing Dove

We then came across a small bridge, while everyone got busy capturing the small fishes in the stream below, I saw an opportunity and walked a little further and managed to capture the reflection of a person standing on the bridge.

We then decided to head to Sikander Lodhi’s Tomb, here I received a call from Tanmoy and few minutes later he joined us as well.

With the light going down, we decided to head out to the next section of Lodhi Garden, where the stream was at its widest and also had a few ducks and other verity of birds.

With the sun going down, we decided to head out of the park and get some thing to eat; with well over 300 photographs and no rain in sight, I was glad that we hadn’t postponed the meet.