September 2013 preview

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 • ` 1 2 0 • VO L . 2

ISSUE 3

On the Water

September 2013 N a t ion a l

G eog r a p h i c

T r a velle r

79

In focus

VOL. 2 ISSUE 3

in d i a

95

Secret Seaports

Rhythm Divine

Into the Heart of Darkness

Six European towns—in Malta, Norway, France, Estonia, Poland, and Croatia—prove small is beautiful

An extract from “Degree Coffee by the Yard: A Short Biography of Madras”

64

Journeys

52

An Amazon cruise through a Peruvian jungle that few have seen

the Inside Passage

90

The icy landscape of Alaska’s southeast—a photo essay

70

Water World

In a Malgudi State of Mind

A writer explores south India looking for R.K. Narayan’s fictional Indian town

From Kerala to Manipur, India’s protected Ramsar sites are thriving with diverse animal and bird life

96

Somewhere on a Mountain

The 13-day Laya-Gasa trek in Bhutan reveals monks, mystery, and a divine madman

106

Warsaw’s Warm Embrace

Looking beyond its Cold War past, Poland’s capital heats up and welcomes visitors

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kanteva photography/flickr/getty images

Ålesund, Norway

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SEPTEM

. 2 0 • VO L 13 • `12 BER 20

On The Cover

ISSUE 3

ON THE WATER

The cover features a pair of great white pelicans, shot by Sudhir Shivaram in the vibrant wetlands of Keoladeo National Park in Rajasthan. Sudhir is on the Canon Professional Photographers Panel and has won numerous wildlife awards.

www.natgeotraveller.in www.facebook.com/ natgeotraveller.india

14 Editor’s Note | 138 Inspire

Voices 18 Tread Softly Pick the right eco-lodge

22 Frontier Tales Saving Mongolia through tourism 24 Guest Column Persistence is the key to great travel experiences

navigate 26 Take Five Festivals to celebrate a good harvest 30 Family Time Miniature parks in Europe

30 34 The Icon Red Square is Moscow’s cherry on top

133 Stay A hideout in the hills of Wayanad

36 Taste of Travel Explore the origins of Italian gelato

interactive

38 Geo Tourism Cleaning Dharamsala’s trekking trails

134 Photo Workshop Engage your subject with Amy Toensing

40 National Park Walking through Kanchenjunga park

136 Photo Contest The best of readers’ photos

46 Go Now Millions of butterflies take flight

last page 144 Dire Straits Mumbai’s crumbling Watson’s Hotel

50 Port of Call Off-shore adventures in Dubai

get going 116 Adventure Hikes in the southern Western Ghats 120 Sport Plan for 2014’s FIFA World Cup

short breaks Celebrate the harvest

124 From Bengaluru Kerala’s French colony of Mahe

26

128 From Mumbai Caves and culture in Aurangabad

36

132 Stay Unwind in one Shimla’s oldest houses

September 2013 | national Geographic Traveller INDIA 9

universal images group/deagostini/alamy/indiapicture (madurodam), alan benson/lonely planet images/getty images (gelato), Dipak (India Society Religion)/reuters (boy), Sudhir Shivaram (cover)

20 Real Travel Jump on a boat and escape the city

Editor’s Note Niloufer Venkatraman

Editor in Taveuni, Fiji

Lure of the Lake

A

few months ago, I spent a week in Fiji, where I took the five-kilometre Lavena coastal walk on the island of Taveuni. It’s a lovely path that meanders along the beach, through jungle, past streams and groves of banana, coconut, and taro. There are some spectacular points on this walk when you are on completely secluded stretches of pristine beach. My favourite bit however, was when we stopped for an utterly refreshing swim at a crystal clear rock pool with two short but gorgeous waterfalls. While my guide who had lived in the nearby village all his life came sliding down the waterfall, I was content to enjoy the serenity of that secluded spot. “Isn’t water very romantic?” my guide remarked when he saw that I was savouring the tranquillity and seemed miles away in my head. It got me thinking. What he said was true, some of most romantic places I’ve ever been to are indeed on the shores of lakes.

Right then, I thought of my favourite two.

Indelibly carved into my memory is a road trip I took into the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York many years ago. As we were driving, without a plan or map, we reached Lake Ticonderoga. On a deserted road, we

spotted a small sign that said a cabin with a boat was available on rent. Once we met BJ Davis the owner, a lovely lady aged at least over 85, we knew this was the perfect place to stay. She rented us a little log cabin on the edge of the lake, that came with a rowboat and the most fascinating contraption—a floating chair. The next afternoon we saw a young boy camping with his dad across the lake, and so we rowed the boat across the water and camped at a lean-to on the other side. At night we saw a glowing red in the forest that we thought was a forest fire, but on closer inspection turned out to be a kind of moss.

During the day, we sat in our floating chair, enjoying a setting that was beyond peaceful, beyond romantic.

What is it about water that has such a serene effect on me? I grew up by the sea and even now, when everything seems a bit overwhelming, I try and sneak away to the seafront in Mumbai. I find a spot with an unrestricted view of the horizon, and after a short while I find my foul mood has evaporated and I am in a meditative state where all thoughts come to a standstill.

My other favourite lake is the high-altitude

14 national Geographic Traveller INDIA | september 2013

Gokyo Lake in the Khumbhu region of the Nepal Himalayas, which can be reached only after trekking for at least eight days. This brilliant expanse of melted turquoise, shimmering in the sunlight perfectly reflects the soaring peaks all around it. When we reached it after a long, strenuous week of walking, I recall that all exhaustion had evaporated.

Our charming lodge on its banks was run by a jovial Mr. Sharma from Bihar, who served up one-inch-thick aloo parathas in his greenhouse-like sun room as soon as we arrived.

Fortified, I had walked down to the shoreline and sat there with Lopsang, a young Sherpa guide. It was freezing cold even in the bright sunlight, and not a place where one could linger. Yet I felt an inexplicable sense of warmth, and an understanding of myself, of the place, of my place in the cosmos. When it was time to go, Lopsang said something to me that is still clear as day many years later: Like the Buddhists, if you believe you have many lifetimes, there will be many more opportunities to return to this very spot, to once again experience this incredible moment by the lake. n

Pushing the envelope can lead to exceptional travel experiences

“I

need someone to be my wife for a couple of hours. Would you be interested in playing the part and taking a bath with me?”

Admittedly, the line is more likely to end a conversation than begin one, but my time in Istanbul is short, and I’m desperate, so I immediately pop the question to every woman at our tour group’s “Welcome to Turkey” mixer. My quest is motivated by a desire to see something old and familiar in a new way. For the record, that’s not a dig at my actual wife—who isn’t on this trip—or the women in our group; it’s a reference to Istanbul, the ancient crossroads of East and West and one of the world’s great cities.

Having been here numerous times, I’ve spent hours in the usual hangouts—palaces and coffee shops, mosques and museums, the spice market and Turkish baths. I’ve loved every minute, but now I’m craving something new.

During the next couple of days, the itinerary will take us back to these places so familiar I could provide the narration.

I could add some bonus commentary, too.

“The Topkapi Palace, home to Ottoman sultans for almost 400 years, features rooms for concubines and eunuchs.

Without the former there’s not much need for the latter. The Grand Bazaar has more than 3,000 shops. All of which are prepared to make you a very special price because you are the first customer of the

Boyd Matson day.” My cynicism not only disqualifies me as a guide but proves I could use a glass of fresh perspective.

Earlier this afternoon, I had found myself arguing with a guy behind the counter at the Süleymaniye Hamam, who refused to let me enter this historic bath reserved “for couples only.” I tried to explain that my guide, Gulin, is a woman, and I am a man: “Ipso facto, we are a couple.” He won’t waver from his rote response, implying her fluent Turkish and my nonexistent Turkish means we are not a true couple.

“No” is like a four-letter word to me.

Hearing it riles me up and makes me determined to keep pushing, manoeuvring, and negotiating until I get “Yes.” This personality quirk—or flaw, as some might describe it—has led to some exceptional travel experiences. As soon as I hear, “You can’t go there,” I become fixated. Already today, by employing the same persistence I developed in college as a door-to-door encyclopaedia salesman, I’ve managed to gain seldom granted access to the top balcony of the main minaret at the famous Blue Mosque. The minarets of more than 3,000 mosques puncture the Istanbul skyline. But the view is almost always from outside and below, and I want to see one from inside and above.

After a couple of hours of rejections, I find a guy who knows a guy who knows “the guy”—the muezzin, who for 25 years has been sounding the call to prayer at the Blue Mosque. Thanks to loudspeakers, he no longer climbs the interior circular staircase to deliver his calls from the top balcony. But if I want to make the climb and check out the view?

“Please, be my guest,” he tells me.

Clearly, no one has been inside this minaret in quite

Boyd Matson is a journalist and adventurer for National Geographic U.S. and hosts the radio show National Geographic Weekend.

September 2013 | national Geographic Traveller INDIA 25

Boyd Matson

When “No” Means Go

some time. The lights aren’t working.

It’s dark and dusty, with walls little more than shoulder width apart and narrow steps—102 steps by my count to the first balcony, then another 35 each to the second and third. On one step I sidestep a pigeon nest with two eggs, on another a nest with two chicks. But when I emerge into the light at the top, I find what I was looking for: a stunning panorama of the city and a rare vantage for taking in the beauty of the Hagia Sophia museum. I can’t help but marvel at how no other tourist will likely have this experience today, or this week, or maybe even this year.

Back at the hamam, which was built in 1557 for Süleyman the Magnificent and today is one of Istanbul’s oldest baths, I’m not working to change a no to a yes because of the view. My interest had been piqued when Gulin pointed it out as Istanbul’s only historic Turkish bath that is coed, an intriguing venture in a city where conservative religious doctrines hold great influence and in a country where, during the time of the Ottomans, the punishment was often death for a man found in a woman’s bath. I assume Süleymaniye is mainly for tourists now, but the staff—the scrubbers and rubbers, the soapers and splashers—must be Turkish. Is the staff coed? Does an undercurrent of treading in illicit waters permeate the bath?

It’s after Gulin and I are rejected that I start looking for a more convincing wife du jour. Once an adventurous soul accepts my invitation, we pass the couples test and are shown to a private changing room. Our eyes locked on opposite walls, we disrobe and quickly drape ourselves in the provided garments—I’m in a towel that appears to have formerly been a tablecloth in an Italian restaurant; she’s in a giant pair of boxer shorts and an oversize bikini top that could have been two large dinner napkins from the same trattoria.

We enter the bath area and see only tourists, and the staff is all male. Having my body pressed, kneaded, and shoved into hot marble is as painful as I remember.

But I’m still glad I wouldn’t take no for an answer. Revisiting a favourite city can be like spending time with an old friend: If you probe deeply and ask questions, you may learn something new. And that only strengthens your friendship. n

NAVIGATE Family Time

According to Madurodam’s ticket sale statistics, adults love the miniature park more than children. Over 75% of the visitors are above 18 years of age.

It’s a Small World After All Childhood dreams for all ages in these quirky miniature parks

W

at miniature docks, or take control of the Oostersheldekering dams to prevent hapless villages from flooding. Madurodam even has its own mayor—a teenager, who is elected by the Youth Municipal Council from local schools. It’s first mayor, appointed in 1952, was Princess Beatrix, who gave up the title a few years later for the considerably more mundane job of being queen of the Netherlands (www.madurodam.nl/en; open all year round; 9 a.m.-9 p.m.; entry fee `1,200 for adults, `850 for children aged 3-12; children below 3 years enter free).

ith trends in modern architecture fixated on touching the sky, visiting a miniature park can be a pleasant change. Thankfully, there are a few spaces in the world where mortals feel like giants. With designs that range from elegant to bizarre, and incredible attention to detail, these miniature settlements are worth casting a shadow upon.

Madurodam, The Hague, netherlands

A mix of tiny castles, country houses, and urban cityscapes spread over 70 acres, Madurodam in The Hague allows visitors to loom over a 1:25 scale rendition of the Netherlands. Madurodam is alive with activity everywhere you look, from buses and airplanes to figurines performing musical theatre. Visitors can load and unload ships

Bekonscot Model Village, Buckinghamshire, England

The Gauge 1 model railway track winding through Bekonscot is 16 scale kilometres long, complete with signals and crossings.

30 national Geographic Traveller INDIA | september 2013

Bekonscot Model Village was born in 1927 of London accountant Roland Callingham’s love for miniatures and model railways.

Jasper Juinen/Reuters (madurodam), p maguire/alamy/indiapicture (railway)

By Azeem Banatwalla

Miniland, Legoland Billund, Denmark

If LEGO was part of your childhood, you probably harboured dreams of creating a LEGO kingdom, only for those ambitions to

Legoland Billund covers 35 acres and takes several hours to explore on foot. Visitors can take in the sights on the LEGO monorail which whizzes through the park four metres above the ground.

be cut short by a lack of bricks. The Danish creators of the iconic toys clearly had no such limitations when they created Miniland, Legoland’s central attraction, right next to the LEGO factory with a cool 20 million pieces. From replicas of the New York skyline to dedicated Star Wars displays, Miniland is a paradise for LEGO lovers. While the city replicas are awe-inspiring, the most popular attraction in Miniland is the Toyota Traffic School, where kids aged 7-13 are taught to drive (in cars made of LEGO, obviously), fill up fuel and wash their cars, and are awarded a “license” at the end of it. With a monorail, safaris on brick zebras, and manic activity all around, it’s hard not to get caught up in the living, breathing world of colourful building blocks. Outside of Miniland, there’s all of Legoland—an entire theme park filled with rides, shops, restaurants, and even a LEGO-themed hotel (www.legoland.dk; open all year round; entry fee `2,600 for adults; `2,400 for children aged 3-12; book in advance for discounts).

Mini-Europe, Brussels, Belgium

From sharks to zebras, every creature of interest in Legoland Billund is constructed almost exclusively from LEGO blocks.

From Big Ben to the Acropolis, Brussels’ Mini-Europe is the place to stroll through small scale models of iconic structures from about 80 cities across the continent. Lush gardens form buffers between the mini landmarks, fittingly populated by dwarf trees and bonsais. History lessons are all around the park, with live simulations of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the fall of the Berlin Wall, amongst others.

In the summer there are almost always exhibitions of European culture, from food

festivals to musical fireworks displays that light up Mini-Europe, with Brussels’ iconic Atomium glowing in the background (www. minieurope.com; open all year round; 9.30 a.m.-8 p.m.; entry `1,150; `850 for children below 12 years). n

India’s Tiny Towns Although they don’t quite match the scale of their counterparts abroad, India has a few options of mini towns although they are exclusively for children. Ahmedabad’s Kid’s City (Maninagar; 079-32543344; www.kidscityamdavad.com; Entry fee `150 for adults; `100 for children aged 4-14) is one option and Mumbai’s soon to open KidZania (R City Mall, Ghatkopar; 022-61271790; mumbai.kidzania.com) scales life down to child-like proportions.

A miniature township intended only for children, KidZania is an international chain that started in Mexico and now has outlets in 17 countries. Children aged 4-12 are let loose in the simulated town designed specifically for them, and assigned real world jobs like nurses, police, and doctors. Doing a good job earns them cash in the form of Kidzos that can be put to use for engaging in other activities within the township’s economy. Ahmedabad’s Kid’s City follows an almost identical formula, but has a more localised theme. One of the more unusual activities involves interviewing Gujarat’s Chief Minister in a make-believe newsroom. Both have lounges for parents to kick back while their kids learn (or at least try) to be responsible citizens.

september 2013 | national Geographic Traveller INDIA 31

steve davey photography/alamy/indiapicture (legoland), k. von lüders/pictorium alamy/indiapicture (shark)

Such was his obsession with model trains that his wife threatened to leave him if she saw them chugging around the house any longer. More than 85 years after being taken outdoors, Callingham’s favourite Gauge 1 model railway track has been expanded to wind through Bekonscot Model Village, surrounded by gardens with miniature settlements that are a throwback to the London suburbs of the 1930s. Bekonscot Model Village, a popular day trip from London, greets visitors with sprawling, colourful gardens and delightful miniature buildings. The attention to detail in the settlements is matched by an unabashed, typically British sense of humour, with hilariously named mini shops (like Lee-Key Plumbers and Chris P. Lettuce Grocery) and pubs. Look closely to find a replica of Enid Blyton’s house in miniature Hanton, a tiny Marks & Spencer, or red-faced London policemen chasing escaped convicts. There’s ample space amongst the Lilliputian structures to picnic and laze around. A new light gauge railway allows visitors to see things from a different viewpoint (www. bekonscot.co.uk; open 16th Feb to 3rd Nov in 2013; 10 a.m.- 5 p.m.; entry free `900; `420 for children aged 2-12; children below 2 years enter free).

The Keoladeo Bird Sanctuary ironically came into existence as a shooting preserve for Maharaja Suraj Mal, who founded the town of Bharatpur. Hunting was banned here in 1964.

70 national Geographic Traveller INDIA | SEPTEMBER 2013

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IN FOCUS Cover Story

India

Water World There’s never a moment of boredom in our thriving wetlands

Sudhir Shivaram

By Marisha Thakur

SEPTEMBER 2013 | national Geographic Traveller INDIA 71

IN FOCUS Cover Story

S

wamps, bogs, and marshes may not be the first thing you think of when you’re planning a holiday, but consider this. Wetland areas are a storehouse of unusual plants, insects, birds, reptiles, and mammals. Moreover, because they’re not as popular as the lakes at hill stations and other water bodies, they’re relatively crowd-free. On the water, the pace of life slows down, giving kids and adults a chance to notice dragonflies and snails, colourful frogs and sprightly crabs, exuberant birds catching duelling fish—it’s a fantastic way to spend time with family.

Wetlands are crucial to our environment. They provide habitats for many critically endangered species. They act as natural drainage systems, and prevent floods in neighbouring regions. In places like Kerala’s Vembanad Lake, they are a means of transportation, connecting coastal hamlets, islands, and towns, and providing local communities with livelihoods in agriculture, fishing, and more recently, tourism.

These are eight of India’s most picturesque conserved wetlands. Each is listed on the Ramsar Convention list.

Chilika Lake, Odisha October to March

C

hilika Lake, the largest coastal lagoon in India, offers immense biodiversity. Its brackish waters support many species of fish, including 34 species of crabs, and 134 rare and endangered Irrawaddy dolphins. During the migratory season, when birds fly in from as far as Russia and the Caspian Sea, the lake’s little islands host over a million birds, of which the spoon-billed sandpiper, white ibis, grey and purple heron, greylag goose, white-bellied sea eagle, and the purple moorhen are regulars.

Along its shores, locals have spotted threatened animals such as the limbless skink, fishing cat, and the green sea turtle. In all, the region has over 800 species of fauna (and just as many types of flora), and is among the best places in the country to bird watch. The six main islands

are Berahpura, Nalbana (bird sanctuary), Nuapada, Parikud, Phulbari, and Tamapara.

Make the most of it Chilika

Lake is known for birding,

boating, fishing, and angling.

The best time for birdwatching is from November to March.

Concentrated bird populations are sighted from Mangalajodi village, Parikud Island, Bird’s

Island, and Nalbana Island.

Nalbana, which has bird watching towers, is at the centre of the lake and gets submerged every year, during the monsoon. As the water recedes, its mudflats

There are six main islands on Chilika Lake and a number of smaller ones with names like Honeymoon and Breakfast. A rare limbless lizard known as the Madras spotted skink or the barkudia insularis is endemic to one of these small islands—Barkuda Island—and was last spotted in 2003.

72 national Geographic Traveller INDIA | SEPTEMBER 2013

dhritiman mukherjee

B IRD B LISS

India

WHAT IS A WETLAND? Wetlands are marshy areas that are saturated with water permanently or seasonally, giving the area a distinct ecosystem.

WHAT IS A RAMSAR SITE?

attract flocks of flamingoes, pelicans, herons, egrets, and storks.

A permit from the Odisha Forest Department—available in Bhubaneswar—is required to visit the island. The department’s boats take visitors from Barkul (105 km/ about 2 hours from Bhubaneswar) to Nalbana. The local boatmen are well-informed and act as guides pointing out various species along the ride.

Leisure boats operated privately or by the state government can be hired from Satapada, Barkul, Balugan, and Rambha Bay. Excursions include cruising the open waters and visits to Kalijai Island and Rambha Bay,

which is a cluster of small islets wedged between the southern shore of the lake and the Bay of Bengal. The Irrawaddy dolphins are best sighted from the Dumkudi and Somolo islands, and from Satapada village, which sits at the mouth of the lake.

Getting there Chilika Lake

is spread over 1,100 sq km and three districts in Odisha.

It can be reached by rail and road. The closest airport is at Bhubaneswar, which is 100 km/ little over an hour north of the lake. Regular flights ply between Bhubaneswar and Mumbai,

Irrawaddy dolphin

Irrawady dolphins have round heads, no beak, and large paddle-shaped flippers. They are closely related to the orca (killer whale).

Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, and Chennai. The Chennai-Howrah rail route stops at Balugaon, Chilika, Khallikote, and Rambha. Balugaon, 5 km from Barkul, is the most convenient.

Numerous buses make the trip from Bhubaneswar to Barkul (105 km/ about 2 hours) and from Puri to the scenic village of Satapada on the lake’s eastern shore. Satapada is 48 km/50 minutes southeast of the beach town of Puri.

Stay Panthanivas, run by the Odisha Tourism Development Corporation has lake-side guesthouses (06810-278346; panthanivas.com; doubles from `900) at Barkul and Rambha.

Accommodation is also available at Ashoka Hotel in Balugaon (06756-220409; doubles from `500) and Yatrinivas (06752262077; doubles from `1,400) in Satapada. The Mangalajodi village homestay programme (88952-88955, 98611 72605; www.mangalajodiecotourism. com; doubles from `2,600), which promotes ecotourism, offers tents, bamboo cottages, and rooms to visitors.

WHAT IS THE RAMSAR CONVENTION? The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands is a global treaty that promotes international cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources. It gets its name from the Iranian city of Ramsar because it was ratified there in 1971.

SEPTEMBER 2013 | national Geographic Traveller INDIA 73

Sudhir Shivaram (pelicans), aparajita ninan (illustration)

The name Keoladeo comes from an ancient temple dedicated to Shiva located at the heart of the Bharatpur bird sanctuary. While the sanctuary’s most famous migratory visitor, the Siberian crane, has not been seen here in many years, the great white pelican (or the rosy pelican) is a regular attraction.

Ramsar sites are wetlands that are designated to be of international importance under the Ramsar Convention, because of the rich variety of plants, birds and other animals they host.

IN FOCUS Cover Story W IN T ER FEAT HERS

Keoladeo National Park, Rajasthan October to March

K

Make the most of it Keo-

ladeo National Park has a high

Bar-headed goose

Every autumn flocks of bar-headed geese fly at high altitude from Tibet to India over the Himalayas, crossing over the world’s highest peaks.

Fishing is the chief source of income for the locals around Ashtamudi Lake. The daily catch generally includes mackerel, shrimp, pomfret, and karimeen or pearl spot, the state fish of Kerala.

density of birds throughout the year, evident from the multiple nests on each tree. The best time to visit is between October to March when thousands of migratory birds flock here for the winter. Expect to see laughing doves, jungle babblers, Brahminy mynahs, and water fowls such as black-necked storks.

The park can be explored on bicycles or on foot using pathways that cut across the marshlands. Take a park guide along to make the most of the visit. Guides charge `70 per hour for two people. Cyclerickshaws and horse carts (tongas) also ply within the park and their drivers have been trained as guides.

Getting there Keoladeo National Park is on the outskirts of Bharatpur. The town is an easy, one-hour drive (about 55 km) west of Agra on the Agra-Jaipur road. Bharatpur is also linked to Delhi (195 km/3.5 hours) and Jaipur (186 km /about 3 hours) by road. Trains from Agra, Delhi, and Jaipur stop at Bharatpur Junction, which is the nearest railway station. The

74 national Geographic Traveller INDIA | SEPTEMBER 2013

O C TOPUS M ANGROVE

Chenthurnipuzha rivers, is really an estuary. The octopus-shaped water body (Ashta-mudi means eight-armed in Malayalam) features several mangrove species (two are endangered), and supports 57 species of migratory and resident birds such as cormorants, terns, herons, and plovers. The region around the lake and the backwater canals are lush with paddy fields, coconut plantations, and palm trees.

The wetland is home to 100 fish species, giving rise to a thriving fishing industry, apparent by the multitude of Chinese fishing nets that dot the lake’s banks and islands. The lake has three main islands: the scenic Thekkumbhagom, Munroe (cluster of eight isles), and the titaniumrich Chavara South.

Ashtamudi Lake,

Make the most of it Kollam

closest airport, at Agra, has daily flights from Mumbai, Delhi, and Lucknow.

Stay There are plenty of accommodation options in and around Keoladeo National Park. Hotel Bharatpur Ashok (92127 77223; bharatpurforestlodge.in; doubles `4,000 till March 31, `3,000 till Sept 31) is a forest lodge within the park while resorts such as Birder’s Inn (9414023340/ 05644-227346; birdersinn. com; doubles from `2,400), and Hotel Saras (88903 01788/ 05644-223790; doubles `900 till March, `1,300 till Sept) are all walking-distance from the park’s gates.

Kerala All year

F

amed for its access to Kerala’s backwaters, Ashtamudi Lake encompasses diverse forms of life across its 61 sq km area. The lake, which receives its water from the Kalthuruthipuzha, Kulathupuzha and

(Quilon), a historic port town wedged between the lake and the Arabian Sea, is a good base for exploring Ashtamudi. Cormorants, ducks, and herons are commonly sighted on the short ferry rides from Kollam’s jetty to the islands of Munroe (25 km by road), Thekkumbhagom (12

Bimal KC (lake), aparajita ninan (illustration)

eoladeo National Park (earlier called the Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary) is a man-made wetland featuring numerous seasonal lagoons that fill up during the monsoons. Receding water in the winter creates varying habitats such as dry grasslands, swamps, and wetlands, attracting thousands of birds every winter. Keoladeo is considered one of the best birding areas in the world. Over 366 species of birds, 50 species of fish, 13 species of snakes, and seven species of turtles are found here. Among the variegated water fowls found in the marshlands is the Asian open-billed stork, tufted duck, little cormorant, painted shoveler, cotton teal, common teal, ruff, darter, and sarus crane.

India km by road) and Chavara South (14 km by road). Thekkumbhagom and Munroe islands are ideal places for bird watching.

To catch a glimpse of the lake’s aqua fauna, stop by any of the Chinese fishing nets; the haul is likely to include the pretty pearl spot fish (a local speciality called karimeen). A leisurely way of exploring the wetland is to hire a houseboat and make short trips to different parts of the lake. The eight-hour ferry from Kollam to Alleppey (Alappuzha) showcases the best of what the wetland offers: varieties of birds and fish, open waters, backwaters, paddy fields, mangroves, and coastal villages.

Getting there Kollam is

well-connected to the rest of the state by rail, road, and air.

Trivandrum (72 km/1 hour south of Kollam) is the nearest airport; Kollam Junction is the closest railway station. A small stretch of the National Highway 47 abuts the lake en route to Kollam.

are frequently spotted grazing on the slopes en route to the lake. As the wetlands draw near, the landscape transforms from brown and barren to lush and green. Bar-headed geese usually soar over the pristine waters of the lake.

Indian narrow-headed softshell turtle

Make the most of it Tso

Getting there Tso Moriri is 240 km/about 7 hours from Leh, the capital of Ladakh.

Leh is connected by road to Srinagar (434 km/2 days) and Manali (473 km/2 days). There are regular flights to Leh, plying from Delhi, Srinagar, and Jammu.

Moriri is accessible for only a few months during the summer (end-May to September).

Because of its remote location and lack of public transport, it is best to hire a private vehicle from Leh. Acclimatising in Leh for a couple of days before visiting Tso Moriri is important as chances of altitude sickness at the lake are high. Local drivers usually double-up as guides pointing out Tibetan wild ass, Tibetan sheep, and yaks that

Stay Nomadic Life Camp (99062 29877; doubles from `2,800) and Tso Moriri Camp and Resort (011-40580334; doubles from `3,650) provide tented accommodation and rooms in Korzak village.

Travellers can also stay in inexpensive local guesthouses and homestays, which are generally just pitched tents, made of yak skin and hair, run by the Changpas during tourist season.

Though these turtles spend the day submerged in the sandy bottom of a water body, they are powerful swimmers, thanks to their over-sized paddle-like feet and webbed toes. the endangered black-necked crane outside of China. The wetland supports 34 bird species and is an important breeding ground for six families of migratory water birds. Rare birds such as the great crested grebe, the black-necked grebe, and the threatened goa (Tibetan gazelle) are also found in the region. The elusive snow leopard is found here, and the region around the lake is the wandering ground for an indigenous community of shepherds called Changpas.

DESER T LAKE

Tso Moriri Lake, Jammu & Kashmir May to September

N

otified as a Ramsar site only a decade ago, Tso Moriri is a remote wetland, lying 4,595 metres above sea level, in Jammu and Kashmir’s cold desert region of Ladakh. Situated in the Changthang plateau and surrounded by snow-capped mountain peaks, the picturesque lake receives water from snowmelt and streams, which create marshes. Tso Moriri is the only breeding ground for the barheaded geese in India, and for

On the western bank of Tso Moriri Lake lies the Korzak Monastery. In July each year, the 300-year-old abbey celebrates Gustor, a festival in which masked monks perform the Black Hat Dance to ward off evil forces.

SEPTEMBER 2013 | national Geographic Traveller INDIA 75

Michele Falzone/Alamy/indiapicture (Monastery), aparajita ninan (illustration)

Stay Kollam offers several accommodation options, from houseboats on the lake, to homestays, and luxury resorts along the banks.

Journeys Quest

In a Malgudi state of mind

M

y quest is beginning to feel absurd before it’s properly begun. I’m looking for Malgudi, that gentlest of small towns characterised by a completely different pace of life—old bungalows and tiny bazaars populated by sweetmeat sellers, astrologers, small printing presses,

painters of signs, and talkative men. Although it’s a fictional place created by novelist R.K. Narayan (1906-2001) some eighty years ago, a Google-search throws up several candidates in present-day India: One Malgudi is a gated villa community south of Chennai (“inspired by R.K. Narayan’s ideological concept”), another is a pharmacy near Mysore University, and a third is a restaurant on Bengaluru’s outskirts.

90 national Geographic Traveller INDIA | September 2013

Malgudi

The author pursues a series of leads from Bengaluru to Agumbe and Mysore, to track down R.K. Narayan’s fictional town

By ZAC O’Y EAH m im al a N ag Ill us trat io ns By Ur

This last is said to offer delicacies of the four southern states, plus a special “Malgudi menu”, which is why I’m dodging cars, lorries, and buses on Bengaluru’s Outer Ring Road, some 20 kilometres outside town. After about two kilometres of a survival exercise, the restaurant appears like a hallucination. It’s built to resemble a traditional home with wooden pillars, it has a swing on the porch, a tray of helpyourself bananas by the door, and walls covered with reproductions of R.K. Laxman drawings. It’s a haven of calm. Ladies in saris demolish huge thali meals, sinking their hands into rice mountains and sambar oceans.

What would Narayan have ordered? The Malgudi section is a mishmash of southern starters, such as Chicken-65, Chicken-95, and Malgudi special chicken. But Narayan was a vegetarian so I pick a soup and flip to the Tamil menu. Though he spent much of his life in Mysore, Narayan was born in Madras (now Chennai) and towards the end of his life he returned there, where I was fortunate enough to meet him in the late 1990s. Unwilling to answer the same old questions about Malgudi, he preferred to discuss Tamil food habits in-

stead. And so Tamil food it is for me this afternoon. I do the usual travel writer thing and order what I’ve never heard of before, hoping for an exciting discovery. The murungakai soup is a light sambarlike preparation with tender drumsticks and I can imagine it being eaten in Malgudi, but vatha kuzhambu turns out to be pickled garlic pods—and an assault on my gastric system. Narayan would probably have stuck to the standard thali meals that seem to be a big draw here. By the time I empty my plantain leaf, I’m determined to find the real Malgudi deal.

There are clues. Internet sources useful for various degrees of disinformation place Malgudi a few hours’ journey from Chennai, some 500 kilometres away, so Coimbatore is frequently fielded as a possibility. In Tamil Nadu, there are in fact several Malgudi candidates, such as Lalgudi.

But what if it’s in Karnataka? I’ve found evidence in the popular Doordarshan series Malgudi Days by playing the video numerous times in slow-motion. In the episode about the mailman who doesn’t deliver an inauspicious letter on a wedding day, the footage of september 2013 | national Geographic Traveller INDIA 91

Journeys Quest Malgudi post office flashes the zip code 577 411. It belongs to a small Malnad town called Agumbe (population: 180 joint-families).

Malgudi also makes an appearance in the award-winning Dev Anand-starrer The Guide but I trust the small-screen version simply because Narayan himself preferred it to the movie. For one, the Bollywood version was shot in Rajasthan and Gujarat, which didn’t fit Narayan’s own image of Malgudi. But he felt that Shankar Nag’s acclaimed TV series, largely shot in Agumbe, did justice to his fiction.

A clear clue, if there ever was one.

BENGALURU?

Bengaluru isn’t entirely irrelevant in the search for Malgudi, for it was here that Narayan came up with the name. It happened on Vijayadashmi day in September 1930, an auspicious time to set pen to paper according to his grandmother, and so that’s when he began his first novel Swami and Friends.

Narayan had just graduated and was unemployed, so he spent time with his grandmother who was in Bengaluru. In his autobiography he describes wandering about the streets, dreaming, planning, and then buying an exercise book in which he wrote the first line of a novel. “As I sat in a room nibbling at my pen and wondering what to write, Malgudi with its little railway station swam into view, all ready-made, with a character called Swaminathan running down the platform,” he writes. The station had a banyan tree, a station master, and two trains a day, one coming, one going.

Day by day, one page grew out of another and a place so endearing and enduring was built that it caught the imagination of the entire world and has been variously compared to Gabriel García Márquez’s Macondo and William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County.

Although I haven’t managed to pinpoint the exact room, or desk, where Narayan started writing, it may have been in Bengaluru’s Malleswaram neighbourhood. He made sure he gave his town a fictitious name, but historian Ramachandra Guha assures me: “The folklore, which may or may not be correct, is that Malgudi is taken from MAL-leswaram and Basavan-GUDI”—two prominent old neighbourhoods in Bengaluru. And considering that Malleswaram, founded as a model suburb in the 1890s, has a significant Tamil population, it does seem the likeliest candidate.

Furthermore, Malleswaram has a small railway station which was utterly charming back then, according to those who remember the original building. In the finished book, the railway scene comes at the end, as the backdrop to the climax when Swami’s friend goes away on a train and leaves Swami devastated: “All the jarring, rattling, clanking, spurting, and hissing of the moving train softened in the distance into something that was half a sob and half a sigh.”

AGUMBE?

I’m booked on an overnight train that passes Malleswaram without stopping. Getting off the next morning in the temple town Udupi, the nearest railhead to Agumbe, I plan to hire a taxi and with some luck I’ll find a cabbie named Gaffur, just like the driver in Narayan’s stories.

The first thing I do is have tiffin by the temple; pure veg. It already feels very Malgudi. Once I get a taxi, the driver’s name turns out to be Krishna Prasad, which isn’t bad at all considering that the Udupi Krishna temple is the main tourist attraction in these parts. He’s exceptionally punctual too and drives up the narrow ghat road so fast it feels like bungee jumping uphill.

The 55-kilometre road to Agumbe is a tunnel of emerald green92 national Geographic Traveller INDIA | September 2013

ery, areca nut plantations, and rubber nurseries. We run into a thick cloud after the third hairpin bend and by the time we drive into Agumbe, the mist is so thick, it’s like entering a fading photograph of a town… or hamlet, as this turns out to be. I’m finally in Malgudi!

Everything looks like the TV series but less crowded. There are barely any people. No cars. It is so quiet it’s magical.

Agumbe is essentially a T-junction, called “Circle”, with a post office, a bus stand, some shops and messes such as Hotel Kubera.

There is also a bank and a school with a faded board outside­—I decipher the name “S.V.S. High School”. Could this have been the Albert Mission College featured in the TV series?

There’s a winding side lane called Car Street which takes me to a village square with the Sri Venugopalakrishnaswamy temple that feels familiar, and a primary school where kids that look like Swami and friends crowd the classrooms, and a ruined choultry (dharamshala) built in 1906 that locals use to dry coconut husks. Many of the bungalows are distinctly old-fashioned.

Everybody I speak to, from the postman to the shopkeeper, remembers Malgudi Days which was filmed in 1985-’86. When I ask where the shooting happened, they say: “Everywhere.” Most villagers got walk-on parts, doing cameos in the series that transformed this into a bustling small town if only for the duration of the shoot.

Apparently the equestrian statue of the British resident, Collector Sir Frederick Lawley, was put up at the T-junction to transform it into a proper “Circle”.

However, the key location, where the crew spent months on end, is Doddamane (“the big house”) on the main street. This private home built in 1900 has a grand front veranda adorned with pillars, and a central courtyard. Kasturi akka the matron of the house sits on a cot in the inner veranda, surrounded by two other matrons. Before I quite know how it happened, I find myself seated with them. In my hand is a steaming tumbler of kashayam, a milky, lightly spiced beverage with cure-all medicinal properties.

Kasturi akka’s old-world hospitality is the stuff of legend. Visitors to the village can stay in an upstairs room and pay what they like, although she doesn’t allow filming any more. She relates how the Malgudi Days shooting turned the house upside down. The first episode that took place in the house was “Maha Kanjoos” about a miserly grandfather and his mischievous grandson.

Chatting with the family it is easy to feel that one has indeed set foot in a different world. They are proud of how clean Agumbe is and that it hasn’t changed at all since the eldest among them were children sometime in the 1930s.When I step out again, I get a funny feeling that the slow pace here really does set one’s inner biorhythms to Malgudi time. But however close to an ideal village Agumbe might seem, with its kindly, unhurried, educated inhabitants, there are things missing. Where, for example, is the railway station? Talguppa station, a 126-kilometre drive north, was used as a location in the TV series. There’s also no Lawley Extension—Agumbe is so frozen in time that suburbs for upwardly mobile, modern people haven’t yet come up.

MYSORE?

A chowkidar and a black goat keep watch at Mysore’s 15 Vivekananda Road. The toothless watchman confirms that the house indeed belongs to “Narayanappa” and then proceeds to joke that anybody who approaches with bad intent will get headbutted. These days there are plans to restore the derelict home and turn it into a museumcum-memorial.

I’ve journeyed to Mysore, where Narayan lived most of his life, and

Malgudi

“I’ve found evidence in the popular Doordarshan series Malgudi Days by playing the video in slow-motion. In the episode about the mailman who doesn’t deliver an inauspicious letter on a wedding day, the footage of the Malgudi post office flashes the zip code 577 411 in passing. It happens to belong to a small Malnad town called Agumbe”

Journeys Quest I find that much in that town fits my mental image of Malgudi. Indeed, the Malgudi map drawn by Clarice Borio and reproduced on Narayan’s request in one of his books, if tilted to the right, and then a bit to the left, bears a striking resemblance to a map of Mysore.

It’s one of the few towns where one can hitch a ride with a horse-pulled jutka in this day and age of imported cars. And Lawley Extension could well be a portrait of Yadavgiri, the “new” extension behind the railway station where Narayan himself purchased a 180 x 120 foot plot in the winter of 1947-48 to build a graceful twostoreyed home. On the first floor Narayan constructed a sunny bay-room with eight windows affording views of the city from his heavy Kashmiri walnut writing desk.

If I didn’t know, I would have passed the somewhat-ruined house without a second glance. But a landmark to help locate it is the Paradise Hotel, where Narayan and his brother Laxman used to dine in the 1980s, which stands across the street.

The veg thalis at Paradise are still excellent.

Narayan always emphasised that Malgudi can’t be found in any one place, whether it is Agumbe, Mysore, Coimbatore, or Lalgudi. Perhaps tired of being queried about this point, Narayan went so far as to declare that Malgudi was so universal that it might as well be found in the vicinity of the arty Chelsea Hotel on Manhattan.

But I don’t give up. Finally, I find a conclusive clue in Narayan’s essay Misguided “Guide”, where he talks extensively about the movie The Guide.

The film team had come to Mysore to see the setting for the book. He took them to various locations in and around Mysore, including its smaller twin town Nanjangud, perfect for filming his story.

They even went to Gopalaswamy Betta, the highest peak in the Bandipur National Park, up a steep “I’ve journeyed to Mysore, where Narayan lived most of his jungle road where one might encounter tigers or elephants. “At the summit I showed them the original life, and I find that much in that town fits my mental image of the ‘Peak House’ in my novel, a bungalow built of Malgudi. Indeed, the Malgudi map drawn by Clarice Borio fifty years ago, with glassed-in verandas affording a and reproduced on Narayan’s request in one of his books, if view of wildlife at night, and a 2,000-foot drop to the valley beyond. A hundred yards off, a foot-track tilted to the right, and then a bit to the left, bears a wound through the undergrowth, leading to an striking resemblance to a map of Mysore” ancient temple whose walls were crumbling and whose immense timber doors moved on rusty hinges with a groan. Once again I felt that here everything was ready-made This heritage hotel has recently opened a coffee shop called Malgudi, for the film.” It is easy to imagine his disappointment then, when The staffed by young Dalit women, and there I find myself drinking the Guide was shot in Jaipur, Udaipur, Chittorgarh, and Limdi, instead. nicest café au lait in town. I suspect that Narayan, who was famously The most logical thing then would be to presume that Malgudi, fussy about coffee and proud owner of eight different percolators, and again I refer to the historian Ramachandra Guha, “was a com- may have enjoyed a sip of it too—if he were here today. There I realise posite, in physical and social detail, of Mysore and its next-door that perhaps in the end, Malgudi is both a geographical space and neighbour Nanjangud”. Indeed, it is a well-known fact that Narayan a state of mind, a place where we can all go to if we find the right door liked to walk about his hometown, socialising with various characters to step through. n he met in its streets—printers, vendors of sweets, financial experts and the like. Incidentally, the more urban locations of the TV series Zac O’Yeah is the author of crime novels Once Upon A Time in Malgudi Days are recognisable as places in Mysore. In one episode Scandinavistan (Hachette India, 2010) and Mr Majestic: The Tout of I even spot what is now the palatial Green Hotel on Hunsur Road. Bengaluru (Hachette India, 2012).

94 national Geographic Traveller INDIA | September 2013

Journeys Book Shelf

Chennai

Rhythm Divine Chennai will always be Madras for Nirmala Lakshman, especially during the Carnatic music season various sabha canteens, hopping from one location to another.

The sabhas usually run special catering services throughout the season, and each venue is famous for particular items of food.

The caterers are well-established city cooks who run small eateries or cater to large occasions like weddings, but who temporarily set up their services in concert venues. With their grand names like “Mint” Padmanabhan and “Mountbatten” Mani Iyer, they run their canteens with all the pomp and precision of a military operation. Many concertgoers enjoy the food at the concert venues as much as the music, so much so, that during the season, most of their meals are had in these places.

Some perennial favourites are keera vadai, adai, sambar rice, pineapple rasam and curd rice with fresh pickles. Sometimes, there are even three and four course meals, served the traditional way on fresh banana leaves. In recent times North Indian staples like paneerbased dishes, chaats and samosas have become popular, as Chennai music lovers tend to be an eclectic lot. Of course, the filter coffee at these places, served sweet and piping hot, is another all-time favourite. n —An excerpt from Degree Coffee by the Yard: A Short Biography of Madras.

BOOK GIVEAWAY Degree Coffee by the Yard: A Short Biography of Madras (Aleph 2013) examines the city’s love for churches, chess, and chicken 65. Through its passions, the author, Nirmala Lakshman, dwells on the blurry lines between traditional Madras and cosmopolitan, new-age Chennai.

National Geographic Traveller India is giving away 10 copies of the book. Get your hands on one. How? Email us a 250word story about the changing face of your city. Send it to letters@natgeotraveller.in with “DegreeCoffeebytheYard” as the subject. The ten best entries will get a free copy of the book. Our favourite stories will be featured on the Letters page. Last date for entries: 30 Sept 2013.

september 2013 | national Geographic Traveller INDIA 95

Kriti Monga.

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here is a breathlessness about Chennai in December. It begins calmly enough in the mornings when the soft strains of Tiruppavai, the devotional hymn composed by Andal, the seventh-century woman saint, are heard in prayerful but melodic strains across the city. In T. Nagar and Thiruvanmiyur, in Triplicane and Mylapore, in many houses and in temples, the thirty verses of Andal are regularly chanted. The hymn depicts elements of personal faith and service to the Supreme Being or Narayana through the poetry of surrender, the quintessence of the philosophy of Vaishnavism. In celebration of the general atmosphere of piousness that is on display this month, many homes are thoroughly cleaned, and their entrances are decorated with kolams. Temples distribute delicious prasadam to worshippers. As the day

progresses into early evening and night, the city bustles with movement as the world’s largest classical music show gets going.

In no other city can you witness more than a hundred concerts or performances a day, adding up to perhaps two thousand during the month.

These take place in smart concert halls as well as on makeshift stages located in schools and wedding halls (all called sabhas), all located within a few yards of each other. Old men shivering in mufflers and monkey caps, worn as protection against the mildly cool temperatures of December evenings that seldom fall below 20 degrees Celsius, elderly mamis decked out in diamonds and silk saris are crowded into the same space as the young in their deliberately casual jeans but crisp shirts (a nod to the formality of the ambience). Some come from within the city, some from the suburbs. Many non-resident Indians on their annual visits home come eager to savour and connect with the traditions of music and dance that are unique to Chennai. The greatest musicians and dancers on show are so revered that tickets to their performances command a premium, rather like those of the biggest rock stars in the West.

As the critics and experts descend on the city, lay people, some of whom probably have only an elementary knowledge of Carnatic music, suddenly wax eloquent on the nuances of various ragas and offer authoritative opinions on these subjects. But the music is not the only thing that is sought after. A friend once told me that a middle-aged couple she knew would pretend that they were regular concertgoers when in actual fact what they were doing was savouring the food at the

GET GOING Sport

F

ifty thousand fans roared as the final whistle put an end to a frenetic 90 minutes of football at Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium. Another 20,000 in red sombreros and ponchos sat silently, shaking their heads. They had just witnessed the first of many upsets of the FIFA World Cup 2010. The Swiss minnows had toppled the mighty Spaniards, who would win the tournament a month later, and spark an era of Spanish domination in world football. As I made my way through a largely inebriated ocean of red, yellow and green towards the gates, I found it hard to process that I had just witnessed my first-ever match at the world’s biggest sporting event. It had gone by far too quickly.

There’s something about a football World Cup that transforms a country. Every public space is a sea of colourful scarves, wigs, and painted faces, belonging to fans from across the globe. Seedy pubs near the stadiums that ordinarily attract only a few patrons are transformed into tourist hubs, crammed with jovial fans who drink and sing with a tribal fervour. During my time in Durban, I was often one of them. Despite having family in Durban, I preferred to journey solo, watching games on the giant televisions at fan zones in the company of strangers who spoke the common language of football.

In the build-up to attending my first game at the 2010 tournament, I was inexplicably nervous. I had never been to a football stadium before, let alone attend a World Cup match. My seat was in the second of the three tiers in the giant Moses Madhiba Stadium, but I chose to roam around for a bit instead of going upstairs straightaway. Other 120 national Geographic Traveller INDIA | september 2013

first-timers were just as awestruck at what they beheld. I caught my first glimpse of the pitch, where players were warming-up—players I had idolised for years. It was hard to believe that they were just metres away from me.

With the teams on the field, the volcano rumbling inside the stadium erupted as the referee blew his whistle. My eyes were fixed on the action until I realised that my seat and everything around it seemed to be vibrating. I looked to my right to see a Mexican wave heading my way. All the people around me, like parts of a welloiled machine, were banging their feet in anticipation. As the wave engulfed me, I raised my arms and cheered instinctively, and just like that it was gone, only to return a few minutes later.

The match was a cagey affair as the Swiss grabbed an unlikely goal and attempted to hold out against a Spanish barrage. There were “oohs” and “aahs” every few minutes. Large sections of the crowd cried, “Vamanos muchachos!” as the Spaniards came close over again, but to no avail. The final whistle blew, leaving the Spanish with faces as red as their jerseys.

Some fans tend to leave early to avoid the conflux at the gates, but I was too busy living a dream to be bothered. I stuck on well past the final whistle, soaking in every last bit of the slowly dissipating atmosphere. An extra 20 minutes to exit the stadium was hardly a sacrifice. Neon lights decked the gorgeous stadium as I looked longingly back at it over and over again, drifting with the beerbuzzed masses into a chilly Durban evening. n

RAJESH JANTILAL/AFP/Getty Images (painted faces), FRANCK FIFE/AFP/Getty Images (goalposts), RTXRAOS REUTERS/Rogan Ward (moses madhiba stadium), PEDRO UGARTE/AFP/Getty Images (spanish team celebration)

The Cup of Life

Living a childhood dream in the company of 70,000 football fanatics | By Azeem Banatwalla

Brazil

Samba Fever Start planning your World Cup trip for June 2014 right now

T

he domestic football season has just kicked off in Europe’s premier leagues, but it’s already time to set sights on the end-of-season extravaganza in South America. The 2014 FIFA World Cup will take place over June and July in Brazil, the mecca of the football world. The hosts are already being touted as favourites. The prospect of the Beautiful Game coupled with the reputation of Brazil’s party scene promises to make this World Cup the liveliest, most colourful international football affair of the decade.

It may still be ten months away, but football fanatics that want to join in the mayhem should start planning their trip right now.

GETTING THERE

If you’re planning to make it to Brazil in 2014, book your tickets soon. At the time of writing, the cheapest return fares from India to São Paulo were in excess of `1,00,000. The fares will only get more expensive. Those who’d like to spend a few weeks exploring the country before getting caught up in the football could consider flying in on or before May 31st, as tickets are a great deal cheaper for those dates. The tournament kicks off on 12 June, 2014.

TICKETS

Tickets for the 2014 FIFA World Cup are broadly divided into three categories.

Category 1 tickets are the most expensive with the best view, Category 2 are slightly cheaper, and Category 3 are the least expensive, but the seats are usually in the corners or behind the goalposts. That said, you’re a part of the occasion and atmosphere no matter where you’re seated and simply being in the stadium is a surreal experience. Category 3 tickets with an elevation give you a great view of everything happening on the pitch, while those seats near the corner flags may allow spectators to celebrate (and be on international television) with goal scorers as they often run into the corner areas in elation.

Prices and Ticket Packages

Ticket prices vary widely depending on the category and the importance of the match.

Group matches (excluding the opening game) are the cheapest, with Category 3 tickets priced around `5,300. Tickets for the round of 16, quarters, and semi-finals get progressively more expensive. Tickets for the final, as expected, sell for a premium that starts at `25,000.

While buying individual tickets makes sense for neutral fans, more ardent supporters can buy tickets in packages and follow their team of choice around Brazil.

Team-specific packages start at a minimum of 3 tickets (`17,000 for Category 3), to 7 games including the final (`82,000).

Following a team is obviously rather expensive, especially factoring in travel costs and accommodation across the venue cities, but what’s a bank balance to the crazed football fanatic? In the event that a team is knocked out early, fans who have bought 4-7 game ticket packages can still attend the games they have paid for and (perhaps begrudgingly) follow the team that progresses at their expense.

It’s certainly better than watching the games in a pub.

There are venue-specific ticket packages for less nomadic fans, which include tickets for 4-6 matches within a particular city (from `21,000 for four matches).

Tickets are heavily subsidised for Brazilian residents, so if you have a few

Michael Regan/Getty Images

From the beaches to the smallest alleys, there’s always a ball being kicked around in Brazil. Facing page: Painted faces, wigs, and funny hats are a part of the World Cup dress code (top left); Getting a seat behind the goals (top right) is a great way to be part of celebrations; Durban residents jokingly referred to the Moses Madhiba Stadium (bottom left) as a spaceship because of the neon lights on its exterior; Emotions run high during the latter stages of a World Cup, for players and fans alike (bottom right).

september 2013 | national Geographic Traveller INDIA 121

GET GOING Sport MANAUS

NATAL

BRAZIL

RECIFE SALVADOR

CUIABA

BRASILiA BELO HORIZONTE

SAO PAULO

RIO DE JaNEIRO

CURITIBA

PORTO ALEGRE

long-lost South American comrades who can book your tickets, you could pay less than half the standard rates.

Booking Match Tickets

To book tickets for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, fans must first register themselves on FIFA’s website (www.fifa.com).The first phase of ticket sales for the 2014 World Cup began on 20 August, but you needn’t be afraid of missing out. This phase is a random selection draw, which takes in ticket applications from 20 August to 10 October. Fans can apply for tickets for up to seven matches, with no more than four tickets per match. All ticket applications during this period will be processed over the next few weeks, and allocated via a randomised algorithm. Fans who have been allotted tickets will be notified before 4 November and must make their payments then.

This is immediately followed by a firstcome, first-served phase of ticket sales from 5-28 November which offers a more definitive outcome to ticket applications.

However, these tickets could well be sold out within the space of a few hours and with a massive load on the servers, this phase can’t really be relied upon.

The official World Cup draw will only be made on 6 December, so this first phase really amounts to shooting in the dark for individual match bookings, without knowing which teams you’ll be seeing in action. That said, there will probably be

fewer applications during this phase, which should improve the odds of being allotted tickets.

The second phase begins after the draw, following the same format of random selection from 8 December to 30 January and first-come, first-served from 26 February to 1 April. Leftover tickets (there shouldn’t be too many of these) will be sold online and at outlets in Brazil from 15 April to 13 July.

VENUE CITIES

The 2014 FIFA World Cup will be set across 12 host cities in Brazil. Most of the venues are concentrated in the east of Brazil (eight are coastal cities), with São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, and Salvador hosting the biggest matches.

Manaus in the north east and Cuiaba in

the west are the smallest and most remote venues. The other coastal cities that will host matches are Curitiba, Fortaleza, Natal, Recife, and Porto Alegre.

Travelling between host cities

Brazil is an exceptionally large country, and while a glimpse on Google Maps may trick you into thinking that São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are very close to each other, the cities are actually 450 km apart. To put things into perspective, the northernmost host city of Fortaleza is 4,100 km by road from Porto Alegre in the south, so choose your base carefully. Following a specific team across the tournament will require a

122 national Geographic Traveller INDIA | september 2013

number of expensive flights, and beyond planning train itineraries that are almost as expensive, there’s little option.

Fans who’d like to explore a few host cities and intersperse their matches with road trips may find the São Paulo-Rio de Janeiro-Belo Horizonte triangle to be the most feasible circuit. stay

No matter where you lay your head during the World Cup in Brazil, you’ll most likely have to pay a pretty penny for it.

Everything, from accommodation to food is exponentially more expensive during a World Cup, irrespective of the country.

Locals believe that accommodation this year will be even more expensive than Brazil’s other enormous party, the Carnival. If you’re serious about planning a trip, start looking for hotels right away. Expect to pay upwards of `4,000 for doubles at bare minimum.

Since a number of the host cities have large beaches, camping out could be an option. There are expected to be designated camping areas for fans, although this is not confirmed yet. Stoke Travel, a travelling surfing company will have beach campsites in Rio and Salvador where fans can take surfing lessons when there isn’t a game on (www.stoketravel.com; doubles from `5,400; surfing `1,000 per lesson).

If you’re planning to stay in one city, you could consider renting shared apartments with attached kitchens, which could work out much cheaper than a B&B. n

Mark Your Calendar 20th Aug-10th Oct 2013 Random allotment phase I • 5th Nov-28th Nov 2013 First-come, first-served phase I • 6th December 2013

• Official World Cup draw 8th Dec 2013-30th Jan 2014

• Random allotment phase II 26th Feb-1st Apr 2014 First-come, first-served phase II • 15th Apr-12th July 2014 • Leftover ticket sales 12th June-13th July 2014

• Tournament duration

Diviya mehra

FORTALEZA

Short breaks Kerala Mananthavady

STAY

Shades of Green

Fringe Ford lies in the thick of Wayanad’s hills |

Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary

Wayanad District KERALA Malabar Wildlife Sanctuary

Text & Photographs by Supriya Sehgal Set aside a day or two to explore places around the plantation. A trip to Kuruva Island (17 km east of Mananthavady, the town nearest to the estate), which abounds with plant and bird life, includes a boatride in a small river raft. Known as the Kashi of the South, the Thirunelli Temple is worth the scenic 30-km drive to get there. The Pakshipathalam bird sancuary, which is a 7-km trek from the base of Thirunelli Temple, is best visited between October and February; prior permission from the Forest Office is essential. The sanctuary is at a height of 1,740 metres, and has ancient caves, rivulets, and thick forests. About 20 km south of Mananthavady is the Banasura Sagar Dam, India’s largest earthen dam. Skip the trip to Tholpetty Wildlife Sanctuary. After Fringe Ford, the jeep safari here will seem pointless.

Accommodation

“G

et Lost,” urges Fringe Ford’s motto and that isn’t particularly difficult to do at the British-style cottage, built in 1912. Located in the lush Western Ghats, the 520-acre coffee estate in Kerala’s Wayanad district stretches from the Brahmagiri Hills in Thirunelli to the Tholpetty forests. It’s so remote, only a four-wheel-drive can manoeuvre the bone-rattling jungle path.

Fringe Ford is a pleasant respite from the Kerala clichés of Ayurveda and backwaters. Instead, you are submerged in nature; elephants, Indian bison (or gaur), wild dogs, sambar, barking deer, and a host of other jungle residents are regular visitors to the front yard. The silence of the night is broken only by yelping wild dogs and croaking frogs. Stories from the wild keep you engaged around the dinner table—my favourite being the one about Muthu, the cook, who bumped into an elephant as he was walking home one night.

Explore The best way to immerse yourself in the wild is to take hikes with Shabir and Shaji,

There are four cosy rooms with low, Mangalore-tiled roofs and wooden furniture.

Huge French windows ensure that visitors won’t miss seeing nocturnal visitors like elephants. Bathrooms are spacious and use fresh stream water. Meals at Fringe Ford are served on a huge wooden dining table, and include local Kerala dishes (with a dash of Tamilian flavours), and handpicked greens from the jungle, cooked on a wood fire. n THE VITALS

the resident guides. There are three trails within the plantation ranging in intensity from easy to difficult. Shabir and Shaji fill the walks with interesting anecdotes and insights into animal behaviour. The 240 species of birds found in the forest include Malabar hornbills, sunbirds, imperial pigeons, parakeets, lorikeets, woodpeckers, and thrushes.

The pickup point for Fringe Ford is a place called Talapoya, 8 km from the town of Mananthavady in the Wayanad district of northern Kerala. From here, it takes 45 minutes to travel 12 km to the estate. The closest airport is Kozhikode, also known as Calicut, (135km/3.5 hours; cabs start at `2,500) and the closest major railway station is Mysore (130 km/3.5 hours; cabs start at `2,500). (www.fringeford.com; 98800 86411; `3,250 per head, including all meals, and guided walks through the property.)

SEPTEMBER 2013 | national Geographic Traveller INDIA 133