Trivia: Stamped Moments

Kaziranga National Park: With a sprawling 430 sq km area under the national park, Kaziranga is one of the largest national parks in India, and perhaps the finest, certainly for me. The sheer variety of wildlife and the high chance of witnessing them, makes the park most worthy of a visit. Add to that the spectacular landscape with beautiful elephant grassland crisscrossed by 4 rivers including Brahmaputra, and you have a feast for the traveler spirit. It is a host to more than 4000 one-horned Indian Rhinos (70% of the world population) and has one of the largest concentration of the royal Bengal Tiger and a large number of swamp buffalos, deer and variety of birds. The national park was first established in 1905 as a Reserve Forest which was converted into a Wildlife sanctuary in 1950 and was declared as a National Park in 1974. With increasing tiger population, Kaziranga was also declared as a Tiger Reserve in 2006. The UNESCO declared it as a World Heritage Site in 1985 for its uniqu

The spatial dilemma: Goa has so many beaches and other amazing places that visitors often wonder where to go! And visitors who have been there once, and want to revisit, have a dilemma: how to choose the base location. In my experience, south Goa beaches are more beautiful, and pristine. Then why are north Goa beaches more popular? If you are planning for Goa, it's wise to your destination carefully. If you want more recreation, choose north Goa. North Goa beaches are closer to the airport, offer bustling market places with various options for party, shopping and food options, and a lot of fun activities. And if you want more visual pleasure and peace of mind, choose south Goa.  However, if you are a first time traveler, and want to have all sorts of experiences, choose Colva as your base location; it's centrally located, the first major beach in south Goa and located relatively close to the airport and railway station. You can easily visit both north and south Goa from here.  

Along with Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Mehsana and Patan a little north to Ahmedabad form an extraordinary travel circuit. To help travelers planning to visit this part of India, I put together a plan for 3 days.  Best time to visit: December to February. Day-1: Bird sanctuary | Ahmedabad Reach Ahmedabad in the evening of day-0. Have authentic Gujarati dinner at Pakwan restaurant or Gordhan Thal or Rajwado or Sasumaa (you can explore the next day as well). Nal sarovar bird sanctuary: It's a good way to start the trip with a visit to the nearby (60 kms) Nalsarovar bird sanctuary. The best time to visit a bird sanctuary is early in the morning, before sunrise. More than 200 species of birds- both local and migratory birds flock at the Nalsarovar lake and marshy land surrounding it during winter- spring season.    Sabarmati/ Gandhi Ashram: Late in the afternoon,   start again; y our next stop will be Sabarmati/ Gandhi Ashram. Gandhiji established this ashram in 1917 to carryout his Satyag