Ishwin's First B'Day

My Daughter Ishwin is now One Year Old..and I am one year old father. :) To celebrate this occasion we had a small party. Here you can find all the actions.

Ishwin's First B'Day

A Trip to Zipli Lake

This was another weekend and was just about to finish as usual. We were planning to visit some near by places.

I picked up phone called some friends to execute the plan, but every body has some prior booking :(
Then my friend Sumeet called me and tell me a place called Zilpi which is just 25 Km from Nagpur.
So He called other colleagues and finally we all left at three.

Atmosphere was cool and pleasant.
On our way to Zipli we faced couple of rain showers making the environment cooler. It seemed rain god was playing Hide and Seek with the Sun.
All in all a perfect timing for an outing and we were the Perfect people. ;)

As “No” one from us had visited the spot before so we kept asking the path to people to make sure we are on the right direction.
After crossing Hingna we stopped to a Tea stall beside the street. As this is far from City we expected a good Doodh wali Chaye here.

While sipping our Teas, Sumeet went ahead and asked the Tea Wala , "Jhilpy Lake khute aahe" in Marathi, and that tea waala so enthusiastic to help us ,he narrated all the path in very detail but alas all in Marathi. And we understood a little, but mistake or rather say over smartness of my friend, is all on our part.
All we could understand we were near to our Spot. Ah ha but I forgot, yes tea was really good seemed no water, pure milk and kadak Indian Tea.
After five minutes of drive we reached our destination.

Place has a beautiful small lake surrounded by beautiful lush-green landscape and a Small Hill.

I wonder had it been summer time what could have this place to offer us. Any way this was not the damn summer of Nagpur and we were not there to think about the past or future of that place.
We were just out there for fun, to enjoy and really desperate to give a break to our daily monotonous life which we left back 25 KM from here.
So we spent our time as we liked , My daughter is very fond of water so first we played in water with her, Snehal seemed a serious photographer and was keen about capturing all the moments and beauty of the place.


Ishwin was keeping Sumeet, Munira, Snehal and I busy with her self. So her Mom finally got some time to sit and rest peacefully on the bank of the lake.

After some time we had a walk towards the Hill, We also climbed up that small hill, Spent some time in shooting and had chit-chat and fun...

Finally got back to lake again ...spent some time the same way and got back to Car. As soon as we all settled in the Car Rain god again appeared. But this time with no light shower...A heavy down pour, like he is saying “Guys fun time is over get back to your work.” And we drove away towards Nagpur.
After one hours of Drive we were back in the City. We all liked the place very much which later inspired some of our Enthusiastic colleagues to make Eco-Friendly Cycle Expedition to this place.

A Trip To Pachmari(Part Two)

We planned to cover most of the points 2nd Day, so we had Hired Zipsy at last night only.
I woke up at 7 morning; Atmosphere was cool and pleasant. We spent some time in the Hotel’s Garden. There were lots of monkeys playing at Roof and Trees. One needs to be careful about them. Soon we realized it was already 9 so what happened to our Zipsy wala…but mistake was on our part as Zipsy wala was already waiting for us outside of the Hotel.
We had some snacks at market place, and then finally went for Entry Ticket and Guide.
Guide is compulsory, but as we were already late there was no guide available for us.
After this our 2nd day tour started.
First we went the Pandava Caves. There was a beautiful and well maintained garden in front of the cave. We were not willing to spend much time over there as it was noon and Sun was on its peek. Had we visited this place at some other season we would have spent a quality time over here.

So we quickly wind-up there and went for Apsara Vihar. Here we hired a guide who narrated us all the stories about this Water Fall and pond. First he told us about the historical Importance and why it is called Apsara Vihar? ," During British rule in India, British women were used to take bath here and they were referred as fairies (Apsara) by local tribes because of their fairer complexion.” 

This place was also used as shooting spot in one of the great indian movie "Ashoka", starring SRK and Kareena Kapoor. Guide Told us many action sequences of SRK were performed by a duplicate. 

I was too tired by then as I was carrying my daughter too and she was 9 kg. Place was really cool, we had fun in water for some time, then we continued from a different path, guide showed us Panchali Kund in our way back to taxi.

We went to visit a spot called Rajat Prapat(Silver fall), as name suggests it was a waterfall in deep valley and we were watching it from far away opposite direction, so it seemed like a thin silver line.

After that we went to B-Fall , another water fall and another tracking L
 here too we had to walk almost one and half Km but fortunately this time a bearer (Pittu) was with us to carry our children and our belongings.

This was quite a big water fall in comparison to Apsara Vihar. One can have a really good massage under this, as water was falling with great force. As we were with our kids, we decided not to take bath here and we went up on our way back to a place where water was flowing with little less current and was not deep enough. We really had great time here especially my daughter. She was first time in water but she was not afraid at all and had too much fun in water. Every body was just watching her playing and laughing.
Soon we realized we were too late from our scheduled time of return. We could have missed our last point “Sun set at Dhoop Gadh”. Our Driver was waiting for us (Seemed he wanted us to be late so that he could skip this last point so be aware of these drivers when you visit there and always keep an eye on time). He was in no mood of taking us to Dhoop Gadh saying "it is already 5:30 and we are too late, gates must be closed by now" but we told him just to drive. He reluctantly drove us to our last spot. Dhoopghad is the highest point of Pachmari as well as Madhya Pradesh. Way to Dhoopgadh was zigzagged with lots of sharp turns. Being a local driver and with Four wheel drive Zipsy, we were expecting him to navigate swiftly in these curves but he was driving damn slowly. I bet my friend Vijay could even drive it faster than him. Soon a Maruti 800 overtook us; I doubted about this small car reaching the destination. But it was moving up slowly so we had to be slower …
But woohooo!!! Car reached the gate and gate re-opened for them so we finally entered the Point at the perfect time. Here it was like we are all above the world; Sun was ready to disappear behind Satpura Hills.

It was a panoramic view to see the Sun setting down in Clouds and Hills. Sun set has never been so beautiful in my life. I took lots of snaps of this beautiful scenic view. This was the end of second day tour for us. We were about to return home next day.

 

A Trip To Pachmari (Part One)

It was just end of April Month and Mercury had already hit 48 degree. I had already planned to go nearest Hill Station Pachmari to beat this heat.
After a long time I was going for Vacation. Though this is not the place I was going first time, but feeling was no different. As this was the first time I was going after marriage. Also it was the first long trip for my sweetheart daughter Ishwin. She was just seven and half month old. I and my wife Goldy were more concerned about her rather than places we were about to visit.

We left Nagpur early morning at seven o’clock in my friend's brand new Hundai i10. We were already late by one hour from our scheduled time. Road was good up-till now. We reached Chindwada at 10. We took a halt there for refreshment at Raj Garden. We had Parathas and Chach(Butter Milk) at its lush green lawn. Our children had a great time toddling here and there. We finally left for Pachmari at 11 AM.

After some miles only, my friend realized it was better to come by taxi as most of the road is missing from the place it should be. We saw Work is in progress board every where but really was it? Don’t know.
We covered this half distance nearly in 4 hours and reached Pachmari at 3 PM.
We had advanced booking of two hutments in Hotel Highland & Resort from MP Tourism. Our rooms were not as good as we expected and the service was as pathetic as the Roads of MP. After little rest we went for some sightseeing. Though it was noon but temperature there was not more than 35 degree. Thanks to greenery caused by Mangoes , Sal Trees which covered almost 90 percent of Jungle. 

First we hired a guide, took some snacks at a local restaurant and moved ahead to  cover some points near by.
We visited Handi Khoh, Bada Mahdev, Priyadarshni, Green Valley and then finally for Sunset at Rajendra Giri.

We all were too tired by then. We had dinner at Hotel Maheshwari located in the city. Food was really really good. Attending staff was good; they provided us food suitable for our children.

So we made up our mind for now onwards taking food from here only.