Superb catch again Ajay Ji. Regards
Prasad On Sun, Jan 8, 2012 at 7:47 PM, Dinesh Valke <[email protected]> wrote: > Beautiful capture, Ajay ji ... and well the story of Kaas is interesting. > Hope you get there next time very smoothly and get to lot of beauties. > > Regards. > Dinesh > > > > On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 4:05 PM, Rajesh Sachdev <[email protected]>wrote: > >> Ajayji nice pic of this Mothi Sonaki... >> >> >> -- >> Regards >> Rajesh Sachdev >> http://www.facebook.com/leopardguy >> >> >>>> >>>> On 5 January 2012 22:45, Ajay Ramakrishnan <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Though I am a brand new member of EFI, I have been passionate about >>>>> flower photos since August-September 2010. Around that time, I heard about >>>>> Kaas for the first time. But that year I was not able to plan the trip. In >>>>> 2011, I made the long awaited "pilgrimage" along with my brother and >>>>> cousin >>>>> >>>>> But the dream almost became a nightmare... First, the Neeta Volvo that >>>>> took us overnight from Mumbai to Satara was 2 hours late. Then, the driver >>>>> dumped us on the highway instead of taking us to the Satara ST stand as >>>>> advertised on the Neeta website. Then, we had to pay an auto driver 90 >>>>> rupees just to take us the 3 or so kilometers to the stand. Then, we >>>>> learnt >>>>> that we had just missed the 6:45 am ST bus to Mahabaleshwar that would >>>>> have >>>>> taken us directly to the Kaas plateau and that the next bus was at 8 am, >>>>> by >>>>> which time the sunlight could get too bright to take good photos. Then, we >>>>> asked a tourist taxi operator what he would charge for the round trip to >>>>> Kaas, and he quoted an eye-popping Rs. 1200 >>>>> >>>>> Okay, now for the twist. Telling the taxi driving con artist we'd get >>>>> back, the three of us started bargaining with some auto drivers near the >>>>> bus stand. One of them finally agreed to take us first to Kaas, then to >>>>> Thoseghar waterfalls, and then back to the ST stand in the afternoon, all >>>>> for Rs. 1200. We grudgingly agreed to the fare and hopped in. On the way >>>>> to >>>>> Kaas, the hillside road was lined with beautiful flowers, including some >>>>> light blue morning glories that I had never seen before. But since I >>>>> wanted >>>>> to reach Kaas by 7:30 am, which I had been told was the best time for >>>>> flower photography on the plateau, I sacrificed the blue ipomoeas and >>>>> probably many other rare morning flowers. But it was worth it, since the >>>>> auto driver stopped on top of the Kaas plateau, which was only slowly >>>>> filling up with tourists, at precisely 7:25 am >>>>> >>>>> We spent 90 minutes of exploring the plateau to find the few rare >>>>> species left other than smithias and balsams (it was already October 1, >>>>> the >>>>> fag end of the season). Among the beautiful flowers we did find was this >>>>> bunch of Adenoon indicum - Blue Sonki. Hope you all like the photo >>>>> (resolution reduced for sending to the EFI group) >>>>> >>>> >>>> >> >> >> > -- Prasad Kumar Dash Ecologist, Orissa, India email: [email protected] ph. 09437444241
