Birding at Bhigwan, Maharashtra.

Today I visited Bhigwan on tour with beyond Wild tours. Feeling excited as this was my first outing with complete strangers.
Left pune by 12 and reached kumbhargaon by 2pm. Had a quick fish meal and headed for tent site.



The meal was sumptuous and filling. Worth every cent.  The fish was freshly caught at the Ujjani lake.  Offloaded most of the luggage in tent and headed to boat in Lake.

Ujjani lake was formed when there was a dam built on a river downstream. The water is mostly shallow and has algae.

This attracts migratory birds from siberia like flamingoes.
We were given life jackets to wear as safety precaution.
We entered the lake by 4pm on a mechanised boat which was switched off and only oars used when we approached the birds.  Very few flamingoes welcomed us .



We waited and soon a flick of 1000-2000 landed in front of us.



These were greater flamingoes which are pink in colour.
On our way back we saw Open Bill Stork,  glossy Ibis,  egrets and herons.






Came back and had a quick tea. Had dinner and headed for night trail to spot nightjar bird.
Came back and campfire till late night.
The photos are taken using a canon 70d , Canon 70-200mm non is usm and 1.4 extender.
Shots are all handheld.

The weekend it was.... at Singapore GP 2014

It was my second time to Singapore GP.

Here is what I want to share for general public with walkabout tickets Zone 4.

1. Go early and enjoy the Padang activities

2. Go on a Friday or Saturday. Sunday's Final race is just for enjoying and less for photo clicking.

Entry at gate 3

Free standing bleacher at turn 7-8, almost empty on Saturday but no place to stand and peep even on Sunday

Esplanade bridge drive

3. Dont miss the concert, anyways it is crowded to approach the MRT just after the race. Soak in the atmosphere and have some dinner at the Padang.

4. I carried Canon 70-200mm f4L non-IS on Saturday and used 24-105 f4L IS on Race day.

The Saturday is the day when the place is less crowded. The cars come out in daylight for practice.
So you can get a decent shot in proper exposure.

The reach of 200mm was seldom used as there are very less straight line race track visible for walkabout tickets. Turn 10 has a limited straight line visibility. You may try your luck.

I realized that i shot 50% or more at 70 mm with my 70-200mm. At times I wished that I had a wider lens. So I took 24-100mm on Sunday. Decision well taken.

Turn 12, narrow turn, need a wider lens

Shooting locations, Turn seven Bleacher, Turn 11 bleacher, Turn 13 near Fullerton, Esplanade straight drive etc. None of them asked for a 200 mm zoom.

Courtesy:- http://www.f1nightrace.com

After the Saturday the hell broke loose and it started raining. I could not take a decent shot of Robbie Williams performing.

On Sunday it was a different night all together. Got nice #JLoBooty shots with the 200mm decent reach.

#JLoBooty

Enjoy the shots! Leave your comment or feedback down in the comments section.

Last Day in Taipei and Onwards to Seoul

Today we say good bye to Taipei and travel to Seoul by evening flight.

We still had a lot of time to kill from 9 AM to 4 PM.

So we decided to Venture out in the city and see some more places.

We had stayed at Ximending which is in walking distance of most places.

Started off with a breakfast at MOS burger.

The places to see today were 

• NTU hospital building, 
• Taiwan national museum and 
• The peace park around. 

There is also a presidential building nearby which adds up to the rich architectural heritage of the city. 

We later realised that the Chiang Kai-Shek building is also walkable from the hostel. 

What a shame, we travelled by MRT the day earlier to reach CSK hall. We could have just walked!

On the way we had some sweet cakes stuff with regular red bean or cream.

The bite makes others envious....

Prasha wants another round

Soon we reached the National Taiwan museum. There were no plans to see the museum. I personally don't like museums.

The park is just behind the museum and these are the things you can't do in the park.

Kids going home after school

They say, speak with the kids and God speaks back to you!

Working Class having their lunch boxes!

Some heritage building.

Presidential Building from a distance

Bought Doughnuts for mid-flight snacks...

By now it was already 3 PM.

With this we concluded our Taiwan trip. 

Headed back to hotel. Picked up our luggage and took the bus 1819 back to airport.

The station was at a walking distance from the hotel and took us 15 min with the luggage to reach there.

The bus ride took another 1 hour.

Soon were on our Scoot flight to South Korea!

Bye Bye Taipei...... Hello Seoul!

Took luggage off the belt. 

We did as the locals did. Rushed to the train station connected to the airport.

Bought a single journey ticket.

We wondered why everyone was rushing...

Looks like it is the last local for the day.... 

It was still 11PM and last local is at 12 midnight.

Once exited from Seoul city station took a taxi to Kimchee Guesthouse. It was eerily silent and dark, 

The Seoul tower shone from a distance on top of the hill.

It was then we realised it was already past midnight and we had travelled into the next time zone...

Getting late for the day... In the upcoming post will share our experiences of the new city that we just came in 

S E O U L !

Day 4 Sunrise in the Alishan mountain and back to Taipei

Next day we were up at 3:30 AM.
The hotel had provided wake up call service.
To line up for the mountain train which leaves 3 times from 4 AM to 6 AM, one has to get up early.

We had bought tickets a day before to avoid the lines.

Take a look at the lines below

The train goes winding up the mountain top and stops at the Zhushan Train stop.
We were joined by the loads of people from the train we came till here.

Zhushan Station. Sunrise point

Sunrise point.

Fellow Sunrisers. 

Thats me!

Finally the sun rose from the distance and the valley lit up with young golden yellow rays.

The return train was still 40 min away. So we ventured around and took a walk in the nearby foliage.

Sunrise over the valley...

Double Exposure feature from 70D

Once we were back to hotel, we got ready and headed to Taipei.

The bus ticket can be bought on the spot at the 7-11 and Bus leaves from the same place.

After a bus ride for 2 hours, we reached the Transit centre for Chiayi.

A free shuttle to THSR leaves from platform 2 from here. Just remember not to eat or drink on the THSR shuttle.

We had earlier booked a discount ticket from THSR for late night. But after seeing Alishan, we had nothing left to see, we returned in the morning itself. So got our tickets exchanged for a full price early ticket.

Once back to hotel by afternoon 12:pm, we dropped luggage and headed out for the city tour.

We went to CSK, Chiang Kai Shek memorial hall and saw the change of guard ceremony where the guards change shifts.

The next stop was the GuangZhau Street food. Yummy spicy, fried gluttonous sinful eatery street.

  

The age old Longshun temple is near by active center of worship.

For more information refer Alishan on Wikipedia