Some pleasant momories of my trip to Junagadh

Junagadh- is a historical place, though I have been to there as a child, I remember it as quite an interesting place im ny memories.This time running with shortage of time even, we thought to visit Junagadh , before hubby fly to USA, and a great experience it was. More on Jungadh see here and here.

This pleasant view we got to see while entering the Jungle , Tree of "Kesudo"(Butea monosperma L.) , was ready to welcome us :D, showering its flower on earth to make the perfect red carpet welcome :) .

Near the stream in the Jungle- they told us to do not move out of car near stream, coz it has the most probability to have lions around there ,visiting to drink water. Still we dared to move out :D.

Inside Jungle - Moglee and Radha....:)) .I loved watching "Jungle book" series as a kid... no still i love to watch it :D, and so does hubby :) . sharing our pics for the first time here on blog .

this is "Shilalekh" at the foot of Girnar entrance. King Ashoka is famous with this. it is an edict of Emperor Ashok inscribed on a rock dating from the 3rd century BC. The edicts impart moral instructions on dharma, harmony, tolerance, and peace. i have got its translations in to english captured in pics with me, if intrested in readin/knowing it, tel me , may be i will send that to intrested people. its too much to post around here.
The fact behind "Shilalekh- documents written on rock". click to view it in larger size.

Mount Girnar- they says viewing from side it creates a shape of face of a man. its as whole body , rest of the body is inside earth ...

now Next are some "Jadibuti"- aryuvedic medicines(aushadhi) , from the the Jungle of Junagadh. we got very few of them , as we visited here in fall, raining season is the right time to get most of them in jungle. (it was agood chace to try my hand on photography too :D. )

Maalan

Chanothi and above this pic is tree of chanothi

something used for detnal problems...

Shemdo

At place called -Ooperkot. behind ours is mount girnar , visible clear and so peaceful...

See , how I am going with photography..... :) .

Its too hard to capture bird in camera, as far as it concerns to peacock its almost impossible as i see that they are very sensitive to other voices and soon hide themsleves in some safe area, if we pass from near by... still i got to click some pic of it.
this lovely pair of parrot, i cant resist capturing in my cam ,and sharing here with you all. aren't they lovely?

Now , a Guessing game... see the pic below carefully, and guess how many creatures / birds are there in pic. look carfully, even I missed some of them in first look. :)) . put sharpen your mind& vision and keep guessing.... (click on image to view it in larger size).

Indian Kitchen-traditional way to select and store wheat for the whole year.

Something nice to share with you all.

I still remember those days when I was a child I used to see this whole process, by sitting at a side :) .

Mostly in the month of April every year , at my mom's place,Mom used to order good brand of wheat delivered at home.
To select good brand of wheat from stores , then order it, and afterwards get it plucked and finally make provision of storing it in such a way so that no way it get spoiled throughout the year.

Other major aspect of this tradition is to store it in a big, airtight containers.
I always find it much time taking and also after I get married I never did this kind of things.
But I always admire this system. This is the tradition due to which our parents and grand parents have spent and are spending a healthy life. This is the reason behind our healthy childhood and normal
day to day life.

Sometimes somethings become so common in our life that we rarely value them until it disappeares from our life.
The same life much of us around here on blogs spending now, right?
Just to get packed flours and cook it acoordingly. I also do the same at my home after my marriage. Fast life, fast cooking and fast weight increasing too ! :))
Fortunately, this time being at mom's place I got to click Mom's hands on these lovely moments and was gladly a part of all of this. I never even before my marriage even I was a part of such process, as always I was busy studying while I was at home, then I went to hostel for engineering , afterwards was doing job outside my home town, so this was something I knew uptil now,not something I did.
This is a first chance when Iwas an active part of the whole traditional process of plucking carefully stones and other items from Wheat.Then finally get it oiled well,mixing and storing it.
It really reminds me of secret of healthy life our my parents, grand ma-grand pa and great grand parents.

May be some day we will show this to our fast food lover niece-nephew or children and they might get a chance to see the tradition of India. Thought to blog about this to save this tradition of us with great pride and hight respects for those who did so much just to bring up their child with high nutritions and right food. :) Hats off to them !

( P.S-Forests of Junagadh soon to appear in next post here. Stay tuned and have happy days ahead. :) )

Mahabaleshwar- Mini Heaven in Maharashtra :)

Just before we left our beloved Pune to march over to USA , me and hubby visited famous hill station Mahabaleshwar, and it was a pleasant experience in all the way.

Mahabaleshwar is a very popular hill station in Maharashtra because of its places lakes, verdant hills and cascading waterfalls. thought it was not raining season here when we visited , we didnt get to see streams like waterfalls here ,but he other beauties of it were companasating this. It is not only famous for its scenic beauty but also for its various temples, spectacular viewpoints and historically significant places too.
During our trip I tried my hand on photography, and had a great time along with that too ! :)

Here are some pics of strawberry plants to share with all of you. It was really a great to visit real strawberry farms in Mahabaleshwar. Basically Mahabaleshwar is famous for that very much around here. And the market around there is full with strawberries from the starting of winter season to march . That too very fresh , big one and too yummy ! Luckily we hada guide who lead us to one of hid relative's strawberry farm there and we got to eat farms fresh strawberries there, OMG that taste still makes my mout hwater... :P

Picture 1

I had my part already there, until my stomach refused to take any more of it. :D

The fruit of strawberry starts developing from the center part of small white colored flower on the plant (pic 1 below). later on it goes on growing up in size and till much larger size of it , it remains in the color green (pic 2 below). when fully grown up it turns into perfect red color like the one shown below in pic 3.

Picture 2

Picture 3
Below are some pictures of the real beauty of Mahabaleshwar. There are more than 30 points to visit. most of them are at the hill place, situated near by and worth visiting. some other point like lake and temples are in the city and situated in the center of Mahableshwar.

Check out the picture below, here the middle of hill is in the shape of dinosaur, which I found resembling a huge lizard……… I hate lizards…. But this is looking nice, coz it is naturally turned into shapes like this. There are so many others like needle point, elephant head, the 3 monkeys of Gandhiji(Gandhiji ke teen Bandar)etc….
It was nice time when we planned visiting there, though the real season of visiting Mahabaleshwar is considered from mid- March to July. I succeed to capture a picture of monkey family on one of hill point needle point over there, I just went 'Fida' over the cute looking so young baby monkey ... :)).
Near by Mahabaleshwar is Pratapgadh – famous for its story of victory of Shivaji Maharaja over Afzal Khan. It’s a real historical place worth while visiting. It’s the one I have ever seen constructed with so much intelligence to protect it from enemies. It is really worth appreciating for each detail it is built up with. It has the entrance just of size that only one person at a time can enter. So that even if there is any attack from outsiders irrespective of the size of the army of enemy only little people at a time can be entered and that can be easily faced by the not so big army of Shivaji. Watch point 1 in red circled area
At the entrance there is a hidden cave in which 40 people can be hidden, to strike the enemy army. The next intelligence was their watch points.
As the fort is built at much height, there are 4 watch points situated at four different directions, which can easily monitor people moving in the area around and below, and before the enemy could reach the real fort mostly they can be sent to death, mostly by bombarding. There is much more to write about that , but may be some other time. Just a note that if anyone is visiting there then dont forget to get a guide along with , as without guide one can easily miss some very important points in the fort there, also to enjoy it fully guide will help you explaining each details of the constructon of fort vey well. just the point is you should not miss so many nice points worth while visiting and knowing.

This one is the complete picture of Pratap gadh taken from watch point 1. (shown in picture above)

Comiong up in next post some pictures of our trip to forests of Girnar, Junagadh - a historical city, and our trip to Farms of my uncle. so stay tuned to keep enjoyin the real pics of birds and animals enjoying in the forests, and the fresh products of farms... and yet there is so much to share with you all. So be in touch and keep enjoying your days ahead .

This is the 100th Post of this beloved Blog of mine.hope you enjoyed journey of my blog world till now, many more to share with you yet... :)

Soon posting Lauki-chanadal (bottle gourd- begal gram curry) for 'L' to Nupur for A-Z of vegetables on