[sudev]

Stunning picture : Leeches spare none!

[Samurai]

Stunning images Dr.Ghosh! Although I live within 50kms of Agumbe, I have not tried to trek into the Agumbe rain forest. Except may be a little in Someshwara forest below the Agumbe hill. They have regular treks there. May be I should try this monsoon.

Originally Posted by Ragul

BTW I had a narrow escape with a K.C strike a couple of years back, but the story is best told in another thread ... someday.--Ragul

I remember reading a book from Romulus Whitaker in the 80s, which said there is only one proven instance of King Cobra related death, that happened to a Britisher in the early 20th century when he tired to stomp a K.C to death. K.C rarely ever attacks humans.

[BulZire]

Nice photos Funda and Dr. A Ghosh!

Romulus Whitaker and one of his assistant Gowri Shankar use to give many documentary programs for NGC about agumbe rain forest research station and king Cobra's life in the jungle. I am very much interested in snakes and once i attended Gowri Shankar's program here in bangalore about King Cobra's. It was really good and got to know lot about the deadliest and venomous snake of the century.

I went to Agumbe once, but could not get entry to the rain forest research station that time. This is a place not to be missed by any wild life enthusiast. I am planning to go in near future.

[Ragul]

Originally Posted by Samurai

I remember reading a book from Romulus Whitaker in the 80s, which said there is only one proven instance of King Cobra related death, that happened to a Britisher in the early 20th century when he tired to stomp a K.C to death. K.C rarely ever attacks humans.

Well this one did and I escaped due to unconscious instinct. Better I describe it in a trek blog .. later this weekend.

cheers

[addyhemmige]

Originally Posted by Samurai

I remember reading a book from Romulus Whitaker in the 80s, which said there is only one proven instance of King Cobra related death, that happened to a Britisher in the early 20th century when he tired to stomp a K.C to death. K.C rarely ever attacks humans.

One of the reasons for the low mortality rate is that the snake rarely comes into contact with humans.

Originally Posted by abheekg

Rs.250/- per day including meals and accomodation.
You have to help the team do whatever they are doing on the days of your visit.
Will post more details about the activities they carry out and what exactly is ARSS.

Stunning pics Dr.Ghosh. I have always said, Agumbe is heaven during the rains provided you are able to keep the leeches off from you.

Originally Posted by BulZire

Nice photos Funda and Dr. A Ghosh!

Romulus Whitaker and one of his assistant Gowri Shankar use to give many documentary programs for NGC about agumbe rain forest research station and king Cobra's life in the jungle. I am very much interested in snakes and once i attended Gowri Shankar's program here in bangalore about King Cobra's. It was really good and got to know lot about the deadliest and venomous snake of the century.

I went to Agumbe once, but could not get entry to the rain forest research station that time. This is a place not to be missed by any wild life enthusiast. I am planning to go in near future.

Is this the program which was held in the British Library. I don't know when exactly, but I had attended a program there held by Gowrishankar and Sandesh Kadur when they launched a documentary called 'Secrets of the King Cobra' which was aired on NGC and more recently in NGC HD. In the Q&A session after the launch, I had asked him a question regarding the interaction between snakes and leeches. IIRC, they told me that snakes were as annoyed as people by the leeches.

Dr.Abheek's pic of snake and leech reminded me of that incident.

[BulZire]

The program i attended was not in British Library. Forget the exact name of the place, It is a wild life research institute near Ramnagar. They had lots of other snakes too. I attended it sometime in 2007.

[unicorn_i20]

Originally Posted by sudev

Stunning picture : Leeches spare none!

Excellent photography Dr Ghosh. The above one is my favourite as well.

I also have this wild desire of clicking snakes, but never got a chance :(

[Funda]

Originally Posted by abheekg

A Glimpse of the rainforest explored
Attachment 517382

Enjoy these.
@Funda : sorry to Hijack your thread with my images.

Love the Pic..
@Dr Ghosh -Absolutely sir. Please feel free.The whole Idea is to share experiences about a place and what better than having things at a place. I was scared to enter the jungles, never bothered to enter during the rains. I see the jungle through your photographs. Thanks a Tonne.

[rock18]

WOW!!!! Amazing pictures.. Looks like a must visit place in India.
Eagerly waiting for the remaining TL.

[abheekg]

Originally Posted by sudev

Stunning picture : Leeches spare none!

Thank you. I immensely enjoy your race travelogues and dream of going to the offroad places that you go on your Vitara. hope to meet you someday soon.

[quote=Samurai;2279138]Stunning images Dr.Ghosh! Although I live within 50kms of Agumbe, I have not tried to trek into the Agumbe rain forest. Except may be a little in Someshwara forest below the Agumbe hill. They have regular treks there. May be I should try this monsoon.
quote]

Coming from a master like you, I am humbled.
If you remember, I had got in touch with you about 1 1/2 years ago when I was planning for this trip. These pics are from that trip. You should explore agumbe and let us visualise the beauty of the place through your camera. i have plans to visit Agumbe this monsoon too. Maybe we can catch up then.

Originally Posted by BulZire

Nice photos Funda and Dr. A Ghosh!
I went to Agumbe once, but could not get entry to the rain forest research station that time. This is a place not to be missed by any wild life enthusiast. I am planning to go in near future.

Thank you sir. Go with a pre intimation and they will be very happy to welcome you.

Originally Posted by addyhemmige

Stunning pics Dr.Ghosh. I have always said, Agumbe is heaven during the rains provided you are able to keep the leeches off from you.

In the Q&A session after the launch, I had asked him a question regarding the interaction between snakes and leeches. IIRC, they told me that snakes were as annoyed as people by the leeches.

Dr.Abheek's pic of snake and leech reminded me of that incident.

Thank you again. During my last visit, I had kind of started liking the leech bite after a while and the stingy sensation had a stimulating effect while hiking. There are several methods to keep leeches off you the best of which is wearing anti leech socks.

I was very intrigued to see leeches everywhere and wanted to see how they interacted with snakes. I was very lucky to get that shot.

Originally Posted by unicorn_i20

Excellent photography Dr Ghosh. The above one is my favourite as well.

I also have this wild desire of clicking snakes, but never got a chance :(

Monssons are the best time to shoot snakes.

Originally Posted by Funda

Love the Pic..
@Dr Ghosh -Absolutely sir. Please feel free.The whole Idea is to share experiences about a place and what better than having things at a place. I was scared to enter the jungles, never bothered to enter during the rains. I see the jungle through your photographs. Thanks a Tonne.

The pleasure's all mine. You writeup brought out these memories and prompted me to dig into my archives. Will post some more soon.

Originally Posted by rock18

WOW!!!! Amazing pictures.. Looks like a must visit place in India.
Eagerly waiting for the remaining TL.

Yes sir, a must visit place in the monsoons. I plan to drive down in my Gypsy again this year.

regards,
Dr. A Ghosh

[sushrutha]

@A Ghosh
Super duper pics... My love towards Agumbe has even increased more after seeing your pics.
Good to see you are upgrading your camera equipment (Saw the camera equipment for sale on Classifieds), Now i'm so eager to see the pics from your new upgraded camera n lenses(once you buy), Wonder how stunning the pics will be.

[contactme27]

Very nice pics. waiting for more info about your trip

[Pardus]

@ Funda: A trip from Chennai coastline to Agumbe's rainforest is an must have been a totally wild experience. Your thread title took me back in history and reminded me of my various adventerous and photgraphy trips. Though I have not managed to see KC in wild I had some nice and bad experiences in the forests including being targetted as "Naxal" and escaping from a group of roughue police folks.

ARRS is the best place to stay and experience the surroundings and learn in depth about the rich biodiversity.

@ Dr.Abheek Ghosh: Stunning pic's. I like the crab the most. Did you manage to see Tarantula spiders?

For those of you who have not experienced the Leeches, the following images should give you an idea.

[Funda]

We spend some time at a tea shop near Chitradurga and then head towards Shimoga. We check into a hotel near the entrance to the town. I don't remember the exact name of the place, but its close to the Maruti Showroom. Well there's an excellent reason for me remembering the Maruti Showroom as you will discover later on. The hotel was pretty basic and very clean. As I always do, I rushed to check the toilet, and they were clean. We take hot water bath ( Hot water was available on request) and venture into the town. we keep wandering aimlessly for an hour or so and then we start asking folks for a good Non veg hotel around and pretty much everyone was directing towards some hotel in the adjacent lane. When we passed thru the hotel, the amazing smell of Tandoori chicken pulled us in. All of us were college friends and the fact that we were in Karnataka ( Non of us stay/ work in Karnataka anymore) made the moment a bit nostalgic. nostalgia relived, we ate like hungry dogs devouring chicken after chicken till we were more than full. After such a heavy dinner and the road from guntakal to bellary, what else could be expected from us, we just crashed like logs on the beds.

Next day morning we start for Aagumbe while it was still slightly dark outside and when we were crossing the jungle all of a sudden I felt that the car was not taking it anymore. All though we were running on AC I could smell something. I parked my car out of the road as it was slight uphill so as not block the way for uphill traffic. We waited for a around 10-15 minutes before getting out of the cars. We did not want to venture out in the Jungle immediately. While we were trying to figure out what went wrong a truck driver stopped by to help us. Good Bless him. He figured out that the clutch plate was burnt and the only option was to get back to Shimoga replace the clutch plate and return.

On The Way from Shimoga to Aagumbe


The site of Breakdown


We went to Shimoga and waited at the Maruti Showroom. It was hardly 7 AM and the service center was supposed to open at 9:00 AM. While we waited for the service center to open we explored all the places around walking aimlessly as we always do. we tried our luck at some random breakfast joint, which turned out to be awesome and believe me that's the fun of a road trip. Wandering aimlessly without deadlines and targets and trying some random hotels. The Showroom finally opened and we got the car checked. The Service adviser told us it would take 2 hours to get the car back to road and as you would expect that's never the case. We though we will wait for the car to get fixed but then we were bored to the core and it was 12:00 Noon so we finally decided to grab a quick lunch before the vehicle is fixed. We return from lunch and the waggy still in the shed. finally around 2 PM we cleared all the dues while the driver got the car out and we headed towards aagumbe.Back on the same route we stopped at the place where the waggy broke down for a minute of silence and then we headed uphill. we stopped at a bay to enjoy our first sight of a distant waterfall and the clouds rising from the valley.

we were enchanted with what we saw - Little did we know what lay ahead for us. To be continued... till then enjoy nature with me

Yours truly
Funda

[Funda]

Originally Posted by Pardus

@ Funda: A trip from Chennai coastline to Agumbe's rainforest is an must have been a totally wild experience. Your thread title took me back in history and reminded me of my various adventerous and photgraphy trips. Though I have not managed to see KC in wild I had some nice and bad experiences in the forests including being targetted as "Naxal" and escaping from a group of roughue police folks.

.

Pardus the journey was even longer. I did the trip long back with my college friends way back when I was in Hyderabad. I was trying to remember and put the journey. The trip was actually done in July 3rd 2009. I have some more memorable journeys which I will write down soon.

I would like to read about your experiences...do you have them written down in TBHP?