Since last few days I am again feeling my immense attraction towards Himalayas. It’s tough to resist my feelings. I have to find something that allows me to connect with Himalayas. Hence I have started recollecting the memories of my last year visits to Himalayas and decided to pen down my experiences which is the best possible way to express my feelings. Here we go.
Last year we visited the gorgeous Sikkim. Our target was to reach Gurudongmar Lake which is one of the highest lakes in the world, located at an altitude of 17,100 ft (5,210 m).

We started from Kolkata on 14th October’2010. We reached at Bagdogra around 2 pm. We were picked up and headed for Gangtok. It was a long tiring journey. The temperature difference was extremely sharp. At Bagdogra you may even feel the temperature is higher than Kolkata. But soon you will cross the Sevoke you will feel the sharp decline in temperature.

Hence it is strongly recommended that please keep the car window closed until you are accustomed with the temperature. Otherwise you goanna be a sufferer of bad headache. I must say that the last year, road conditions were pretty bad on few areas and those patches made our journey more tiring and lengthier. At the same time the thin serpentine road on the lap of the lower Himalaya was truly scary. If you are Acrophobia-tic please do not look down.

But everything will be solaced by the road side greenery and with the constant companion of the river Tista. It seemed to me that Tista was assigned to cut the mountain wall and to bring life to the plain. The look of Tista with its silvery sandy banks and with glittering waters with setting sunrays was awesome. At the foothill of Himalaya Tista was looking like a silky whitish-brown ribbon and as if it was there to prettify our beautiful mother earth. The beauty of nature was overwhelming and indescribable. I soaked me in the freshness of the basic elements of nature – Air, Water, Earth.

Slowly darkness prevailed all across, and we continued our journey towards Gangtok. We reached Gangtok around 7 pm checked in hotel Silverline located at Tibet road. After entering into the room I settled myself within a blanket and ordered for hot chicken soup. Sankho took shower to freshen himself and that was a mistake, soon after he was having very bad headache. Next day morning he woke up with temperature, body ache and with acute cough problem.

If you are reading this blog right now, please note that do not take bath immediately once you reached Gangtok. First get yourself accustomed with the temperature differences, and then act accordingly. It’s not necessary that you will also face the same problem, but as a precautionary measure you should always keep these points on your mind.

15th October’2010 we planned to hang around Gangtok. We visited Rumtek monastery, Banjhakri falls, Tashi view point, Hanuman Tak, Ganesh Tak and moved little here & there before we came back to our hotel.

16th October’ 2010 we woke up at around 8 am in the morning. I parted the window curtains and wept seeing the outside. It was raining heavily. We waited for the right time to move out. After a while we realised we need to start else we will be late. Before we leave the hotel, I got to see the glimpses of a beautiful tiny Green-backed Tit. I was fortunate enough to capture it in my camera.

We headed for north Sikkim. Our destiny was Lachen. It was a damn bad gloomy and rainy day. Continuous rain made the day cold enough. On the way we crossed few famous places like seven Sister’s Water Falls, Mangan, Singhik and Chungthan along with few not so popular places but still very beautiful in their own way. We had our lunch in a roadside restaurant. In north Sikkim, every restaurant runs by local people and they will serve food which is cooked for their own family members. Hence taste and freshness is guaranteed. I cannot remember the name of the place where we had our lunch but I can remember that I had seen a beautiful Common Green magpie there, but I was unable to take a photo of it. We left that unknown beautiful place. Lastly we crossed a place where we needed to submit our identity proof. Remember, to visit north Sikkim; you need to carry your passport size photographs and your identity proof. After we crossed the check post soon after darkness prevailed and we could see nothing beyond the range of the car’s headlights. Only we could understand that we were entering greater Himalayan range and in more dense forest. We reached lachen at around 8 pm. It was pretty cold there. The temperature was almost around 7 to 8 degree Celsius. Lachen is a place situated at 9800 ft above the sea level. Rains continued with biting colds. We had our dinner soon and slept early, as it was told to us that we need to reach Gurudongmar early preferably even before 10 am. Because more the temperatures go up in the Gurudongmar Lake area stony wind starts blowing. Next day we were supposed to start at 4 am morning.

It was 17th October’2010 at 3 am. I got up. It was extremely cold and dark outside. Sankho got up little late and that was the early sign of problems, which I realized soon later. I got ready. I was dressed up in layers. You can say base layer, middle layer and the top layer.

Well base layer included the clothes that were in direct contact of your skins, it was apart from the UGs, spaghetti tops and tight leggings. Middle layer consisted of tight T-shirt and tight jeans along with a tight woolen sweater. Top layer consisted of a Jacket. Apart from all these I covered my feet with two layers of woolen socks and trekking shoe and had had a good woolen hat cap. Believe my words, all those layers really kept me warmed all along the road. If you are noting down my tips then don’t forget to carry a good quality eye glasses.

On the contrary, Sankho was not so prepared. He took it lightly, and stated our journey towards Gurudongmar, only with a heavy jacket apart from his regular jeans and T-shirt. I made a mistake not to carry his stuff separately. Soon after we had started, we reached a place of 10,000 ft altitude. Sankho started telling it was extremely cold and he made a blunder by not taking additional warm clothes. Outside it was drizzling, and we continued our journey towards higher terrain in the dark.

Probably I won’t be able to express all of my feelings in words, because I don’t have any perfect words in my dictionary to explain the whole experiences. It was scary, attractive, dangerous and addictive. What else!!! Once you started you cannot stop. There cannot be any look back. I can still remember that the day before, from Singhik I saw a peak where I found snow started covering the peak, and during the journey I found suddenly, that stony masculine peak was just standing infront of me with its head up. I realised that the thin lines of snow were actually the snow layers covering the peak. I loved the way it was. It seemed to me that I was moving around my best boyfriend ‘Himalaya’ and he was looking at me with full of its curiosity. We crossed few terrible land slide areas. We experienced some traumatic scene.

Sankho started telling about his breathing trouble and he was restless. At around 8 am we reached Thangu Village. Thangu is a small mountain village with countable families. For us Thangu was a stopover place. I had light breakfast there with a cup of tea and breads. Sankho took drinks there, to resist the cold along with his breakfast. That was the second mistake by Sankho. You should not take alcohol while you are climbing up. When you are resting you can drink to keep yourself warm. Anyway mistakes are for learning and should not be forgotten.

At Thangu I saw lot of White capped water redstart. I took photos of them. The most incredible experience was the unforgettable hospitality shown by the village people. Hearts of those people were fresh, pure and strong like Himalaya. They were honest, friendly and helpful. I never had seen such lovely people. I wish I could stay there few more time, I could hang around in the valley, and I could lie down on the green meadow. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, hold it for few seconds grabbed the essence and moved forward.

We started towards north. While leaving Thangu, a local man said that ‘uppar baraf girr raha hain’ that means snow started falling at higher altitude. We were continuously climbing up and realised soon after that we cannot see any more trees. It was all stony mountains covered with sticky green grass or moss. Soon after we realised we had entered a region where snow fall had already started. Where ever I looked at it was all white. We reached almost at height 15,000 ft. Sankho was in a bad situation. He had acute breathing trouble. I asked him whether to return, but he allowed me to continue. Sankho stopped talking. It was scary. All of a sudden I felt that we left the last localities far behind. We had almost finished three fourth of our journey. We were within the region of greater Himalaya. It was also a Himalayan plateau area. More we climbed up we entered deep inside the Himalayan plateau area. There was no road; it was a strange flat area. No sign of human being, no sign of any creatures. I was suffering from visual illusion. I was continuously within a dilemma that we have lost track. Sometime it seemed to me that we were suppose to follow the right side track, sometime it seemed to me we were supposed to follow the left side track. But in reality there was no sign of track. All were snow covered flat mountain base. On our two sides Himalaya was standing like great wall.

Rains continued, but it was heavier than before, because it was falling with tiny snowflakes. Everything was white all across. Right to left; top to bottom – snow and clouds with us all the time. We continued our journey. Sankho was in a pretty bad condition. I was scared as I need to depend on the Sherpa only at the same time I was worried for Sankho as well. But Sankho was desperate to reach the destiny. I could understand his feelings. The whole year we usually waited for these days, to come up at Himalaya, and after that we cannot return with empty heart. So journey continued…

After a while suddenly we realised that the flat plateau area was no longer there, rather again we started climbing up and continued the same almost for 1 hour and finally reached a place, where our Sherpa looked at me and said ‘you move up’. He looked at Sankho and said ‘I will take care of him’. I looked at Sankho he was lying on the snow bed and uttered ‘Go ahead’.

I started all alone. From the back Sherpa said ‘do not waste your time, snow storm will start soon’. I stopped for a while, and then moved forward. I could see one other group was climbing up. But I could only see them as few moving points, not as human structure even. They were far ahead from me. I climbed up for 10 minutes, and then turned back, and from heart I felt I should not leave Sankho all alone. I was standing there for few moments with dilemma, whether to move forward for all desired Gurudongmar Lake or move backward. I descended to the base. I came closer to Sankho, and told him we will be back here again.

Last year we couldn’t make it till Gurudongmar.

Gaumukh, which is the origin of the Ganga, is a glacier. It is situated at a distance of 19 KMS from Gangotri. It is very windy there and as it is situated at a height of approx. 3900-4000 mtrs from sea level, oxygen in the air is deficient. (Oxygen cylinder is available in Gangotri market but personally I do not think, it is needed). One has to walk/trek all through, one can also hire a horse ride up to Bhojwasa (14 Kms from Gangotri). However, the last 5 km is a beautiful trekking route and needs must be covered on foot. The road is okay but strewn with boulders and there are challenges on the way. One needs to cross 4-5 water streams on the way. There are very narrow log-bridges over these streams, barely five inches in width and one has to be very careful when crossing these. There are two landslide-prone zones on the way where stones/boulders come down all the time. Only 150 people are allowed to visit Gaumukh per day. There is forest gate at approx. 1.5KM from Gangotri, it opens at 6.00AM, where one needs to show the travel permission and pay Rs.150/- per person. No plastic bags, bottles etc. are allowed to be taken beyond this point. (One can carry these items after making a security deposit, deposited in this gate office).

You can carry your mobile phones but there will be no connectivity beyond 4-5 kms of trek. The Gaumukh trek is a must for those who love trekking and adventure. If one has the time then, move to Bhojwasa on day one, on day two visit Gaumukh, enjoy the nature and come back to Bhojwasa for the night. Return to Gangotri on day three. While it is more enjoyable to travel in a group and safer, you can also travel alone and enjoy your moments of solitude. Permission for travel/trek to Gaumukh can be obtained from the local forest office at Gangotri (8 – 9 AM in the morning & 6 – 7 PM in the evening).

Some tips for the trek –

1. Carry some Chocolates (or other calorie-rich food items) along with other food, water and juices.
2. It will be helpful if one walks 4-5 kms everyday for 3-4 weeks prior to this trip.
3. Do not return to the base (Gangotri) on the same day. Stay at Bhojwasa (the only place one can stay in the whole route). Otherwise it will be very hectic.
4. Take your usual medicines with you, apart from those that may be required in high altitudes.
5. Trek with proper shoes.
6. Carry Photo Identity Cards and photocopies of the same as that will be required for permission from the forest department.

Disclaimer: Content of this article is provided by a reader of this blog; hence blog owner is not responsible for the authenticity of the information.

Empty spaces fill me up with holes
Distant faces with no place left to go
Without you within me I can’t find no rest
Where I’m going is anybody’s guess

I tried to go on like I never knew you
I’m awake but my world is half asleep
I pray for this heart to be unbroken
But without you all I’m going to be is incomplete

Voices tell me I should carry on
But I am swimming in an ocean all alone
Baby, my baby
It’s written on your face
You still wonder if we made a big mistake

I’d try to go on like I never knew you
I’m awake but my world is half asleep
I pray for this heart to be unbroken
But without you all I’m going to be is incomplete

I don’t mean to drag it on, but I can’t seem to let you go
I don’t wanna make you face this world alone
I wanna let you go (alone)

I’d try to go on like I never knew you
I’m awake but my world is half asleep
I pray for this heart to be unbroken
But without you all I’m going to be is incomplete

Incomplete

After the pool party, returning back home we were planning to watch a movie and dine out. But Sankho suddenly proposed to go out of Kolkata. He said – “just lets go somewhere, let’s take a break”. I admit initially I was absolutely reluctant about his proposal, as I did not want Sankho to risk a long drive at night. So we planned to visit Bakkhali and decided to start early in the morning. But from our friends we came to know that condition of the road to Bakkhali is very bad. So we dropped the plan and decided to visit Mandarmani instead. But in order to visit Mandarmani we needed to start at that very moment, as it is almost 172 kms from Kolkata. So without wasting time we went back home, packed our haversack, dressed up in cool track pants, tees and flip-flops. We started from Kolkata around 12.30 am Sunday, March 14, 2010.

It was a long drive. But thankfully as it was already Sunday the highway was pretty much clear. We continued our journey till Kolaghat. At Kolaghat we took a tea break, and then again we started. But as we were moving farther away from localities the smog seemed to increase. Visibility on roads was less than 10 meters as we were driving south. We crossed Mecheda, Contai almost at a speed of 30 km. We reached Chawalkhola around 4.30 am. It was dark all around. It was the time for another tea break.

From Chawalkhola we needed to take a left turn and follow the village road till it ended at a seaside village called Dadanpatrabar. We were worried whether any resort would open its gates for us at such early morning, it could be that we needed to stay on the sea beach in the dark till the daylight came out. With anxiety and hope we landed up at Mandarmani sea beach and drove straight along the seashore and reached Rose valley. We got the accommodation and entered the resort premises. WOW! It was beautiful. The Rose Valley Resort is huge inside, very spacious and very well maintained at the same time.

We were guided through the area to reach our room. The best part of Rose valley is that you can drive within the resort to reach here and there. It was 5 am when we stepped inside the room. Rooms were also very good and big. Washrooms, necessary items were properly arranged and maintained. Overall first impressions were extremely pleasing. We forgot our sleepless night and tiredness just because of their hospitality.

We didn’t waste a single moment. We freshened up and headed towards the sea beach. The Bay of Bengal was absolutely tranquil with the cool breeze garnishing our overall morning pleasure. We were waiting for the Sunrise. We spent almost one hour there and enjoyed the sunrise with a cup of hot tea freshly brewed. We had local bread and butter, which had an awesome taste, or may be we were too hungry.

We came back to the room to rest. Sankho slept and suggested that I do the same. But I could not. I felt it would be absolute idiocy if I wasted my time sleeping. So I got ready with my camera and went outside for searching birds. I knew that the Bengal Seashore wetland areas are good habitats for birds.

Immediately I saw the Pied Kingfisher. I know that I have waited for long to see this bird. Now is the time to see it, capture its beauty and to understand its nature of activities. Next I saw a bunch of Green Bee Eaters, but I was unable to photograph them. At Mandarmani I had seen White Wagtail, White-throated Kingfishers, Common Kingfishers, Stork Bill Kingfishers, Black Drongo, Black-necked Stilt and rare Eurasian Bittern.

I spent a good time with them. By that time I was flooded with SMSs and a number of missed-calls, so I went back and had an awesome breakfast.

I took rest for half an hour and then got ready for sea bath. Ooo… it was mind blowing. We spent 2 to 3 hrs at sea and we enjoyed every moment thoroughly. Coming back from the sea we washed ourselves and jumped into the swimming pool. Well I look pretty sexy in a swimsuit. Another two hours passed away and we were not feeling like leaving the pool and would not have come out of the waters if somebody did not mention the lunch session.

Without using too many words I would like to thank Rose Valley for their excellent food, services and friendliness. It would have been still better for us if they kept an option for room services at least for lunch & dinner.

In evening we went to the sea beach again, driving along the coast and enjoying the cool, pleasant environment. We had prawn pakora, Alu kata, chips and tea from a sea side local stall.

Coming back Sankho showed his talent in photography with all blurred photos. We spent the evening watching TV and had Chinese food for dinner. No doubt that this last touch was also excellent.

Monday, March 15, 2010 we came back to Kolkata with a heart-full of pleasure, satisfaction and desire to revisit Mandarmani.

]]> http://www.susmita.in/mandarmani-a-pleasant-weekend-getaway/feed/ 5 http://www.susmita.in/how-create-favicon-for-wordpress-blog/ http://www.susmita.in/how-create-favicon-for-wordpress-blog/#comments Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:12:00 +0000 susmita http://www.susmita.in/?p=375 If you Google on this topic you will find many other bloggers had written on this topic. I am writing on this topic again simply to share what I have learnt and how I have implemented the same in my blog.

Favicon is the short form of favourite icon. Favicon is used to identify a website or webpage. Favicon is generally used when a website or webpage is bookmarked by users. Web browsers also use favicon in the URL bar, on the tabs simply to identify a site visually.

Having a favicon is always a good idea because; it helps web users to identify your site from a huge list of bookmarked sites. This also helps you building your brand visibility.

No doubt that we all know and can easily recognize the Favicon for Google, Yahoo or a site like Youtube.

Favicon is 16 X 16 pixels square graphic and saved as favicon.ico in the root directory of web server. Favicon can be implemented for any wordpress site or blog. To implement it to a wordpress blog you need have your blog on a web server that allows access to the root directory.

Step by step guide for creating Favicon for Wordpress blog:

Creating Favicon:

1. First choose an image which represents your website or brand. Make sure that image is not copyrighted.
2. Choose a graphic program that helps generating .ico file. Few good favicon generators are:
• Favicon.co.uk
• Chami.com Favicon Generator
• Favicon.cc
3. Browse your PC and upload your image as mentioned in the site and click on the generate favicon button. You will be provided with a preview of your favicon and a link to download the favicon.

Installing the Favicon to wordpress blog:

1. If there is already a favicon.ico file exists then delete it using your FTP client.
2. Now Unzip the Favicon package which you downloaded during the creation of your Favicon file. Look for the favicon.ico file and upload the new Favicon.ico image file with your FTP client at the public_html folder. ie. http://susmita.in/favicon.ico should show your favicon and this will display the favicon to your site’s subscribers’ feedreaders.
3. Now depending on the theme you have used for your wordpress blog locate the header.php folder and edit header.php file by adding the following code:
4. <link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”<?php bloginfo(‘template_directory’); ?>/favicon.ico” />
5. Save the header.php file.
6. Now refresh your browser by pressing Ctrl+F5 keys.

If you are using Headway Theme –

1. Login to your wordpress admin dashboard click on the appearance tab.
2. From appearance menu click on Headway General Configuration and find the option for adding Favicon.
3. Just paste the link http://susmita.in/favicon.ico and save the changes.
4. Now refresh your browser by pressing Ctrl+F5 keys.

It’s easy right!

For our tour we contacted Wayfarer Adventures and informed them about our tour plan. Mr. Vivek from Wayfarer Adventures made arrangements for our pick up & drop facilities from Kathgodam and to Kathgodam respectively and also arranged for transportation for all days touring.

Our tour plan was from 24th Sep’09 to 2nd Oct’09. However due to unavoidable circumstances we decided to start on 25th Sep’09 and asked Mr. Vivek whether he could provide us the pickup facilities from Delhi Airport.

He did that and we reached Kathgodam on the night of 25th Sep’09. We stayed at ‘Relax Inn’ which was a nice place to spend the night. We had a good dinner and good night’s sleep over there.

Next day morning we had a light breakfast and soon after we left for Vijaypur (210 kms, 6 hrs). We were given a fantastic Toyota Innova, which was driven by Mr. Bablu (Later Bablu Bhai became our close friend).

On the way, we crossed our favourite place Bhimtal, our favourite “Van Vilas” resort and the calm and quiet Bhimtal Lake. Sankho really loves this place. His eyes were sparkling after seeing again the beautiful landscape, which we had experienced last time and it seemed to me that he was trying to soak the whole thing again in those 10 minutes of time. His face was all lit up seeing the Bhimtal lake yet another time.

To reach Vijaypur our route took us through Bhowali, Almorah, Binsar and Bageshwar. As we were proceeding we started having simple chitchat with Mr. Bablu and soon after he became Bablu Bhai. We felt flattered when we came to know that Mr. Vivek would also accompany us in our tour and that the Toyota, which was given to us for touring, is actually owned by him along with the Wayfarer Resort. We were supposed to pick him up from the Garam Pani Market area. Almost after one hour we reached Garam Pani and met Vivek.

WOW! He was such a handsome guy. He looked extremely smart in a blue denim, white tee and a stylish Ray Ban. After the cheerful and pleasant introduction we had tea and started our journey further. On the way we crossed Almorah. We had visited Almorah last time and so Sankho and I were pretty much aware of the roads. We enjoyed the fact that we had not forgotten even a single thing that we had experienced on the last visit. We continued our journey till Binsar and had a small break there for having lunch.

Binsar – A famous place for its BIRDS and its forest. Overwhelming green beauty of Mother Earth is incomparable here. I personally believe that each one of us should contribute some time to save and protect our green world.

Quoting from Wikipedia – “Binsar is a beautiful, quiet and wild Himalayan destination with rich natural surroundings among dense forest. Binsar is perched on top of the Jhandi Dhar hills. This place is situated 33 km north of the Almora town in the Uttarakhand state of India.

From Binsar one can see the 300 km panoramic view of the Himalayan peaks like Kedarnath Peak, Shivling, Trisul and majestic Nanda Devi from a place called ‘Zero Point’.”

At Binsar apart from the natural beauty, I was most enthralled by the stunning silence of the place. When we were crossing the place we hardly came across any other sounds besides the birds’ tweet, rustling of dry and fallen leaves and whistling of air passing through the Oaks and pines. Most amazingly, I was able to distinguish all the sounds at a time. Here we spotted the Whistling Thrush and the Himalayan Woodpecker. I would prefer to visit this place again and again just because of its wild jungle beauty.

After Binsar next was Bageshwar. Bageshwar is situated at the confluence of Sarayu and Gomti. The holy township of Bageshwar is also famous for many old temples. Bageshwar has an average elevation of 1,004 meters (3,294 feet). Nobody can ever argue with me regarding the beauty of this place. Bageshwar is situated between many peaks and has nice plain areas nestled amidst these peaks. This green valley reminded me about all those fairy tales which talked about the beauty of heaven. We spent a few hours at Bageshwar before heading for Vijaypur.

Vijaypur is not very well known among tourists and that was the best part of our tour. Every time, before our trip I search and collect information from the Internet on all places to be visited. Rarely did I come across any detailed information regarding Vijaypur. Even Wikipedia does not provide any information on the place. It was a stopover place for us. We needed to spend a night somewhere before we reached Munsyari. From Kathgodam to Munsyari is a long journey and it was strongly advised to take a break at some point.

Wayfarer made all arrangements for our break and stay-back at night. We reached Vijaypur around 3 pm and realized how lucky we were to get connected with the Wayfarer Guys.

Let me tell you that Vijaypur is an extremely beautiful place. Its virgin, untouched beauty is truly seductive for nature lovers. I can bet that you will fall in love with this place. Vijaypur is greener than the green, nicer then the nicest.

Visiting Vijaypur was all the more better because of the Wayfarer resort. Wayfarer has nice eco friendly huts at Vijaypur. The Huts are ‘hot’, sexy and very comfortable. The whole Wayfarer resort area is situated between green pine forests all alive with flowers, birds and smells of raw earth. Adding to it, Vijaypur also provides fantastic panoramic views of the Himalayas. Unfortunately 26th September’2009 was a cloudy day and we were unable to get a decent view of the Himalayas from the place. We spent a very leisurely time at Vijaypur. Night was sexy with a glowing moon and cold breeze.

Next day morning we woke up around 7 am and looked outside through the window and were left speechless with the beauty of the endless forest. This lush and peaceful corner in on earth is worth visiting. I enjoyed the morning session by exploring the forest, taking photographs of the sun’s rays penetrating through pines. I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the Himalayas from Vijaypur before we left for Munsyari.

But now let me disclose a truth. I never knew that there is a concept known as “Bird Watching” or “Birding” and many people spend much of time on bird watching. Many are engaged in doing research on birds and they are known as “Bird Watchers”. I never knew that many travel or tourist operators make arrangement for “Bird Watching.” These operators engage professional bird watcher to guide, help their tourists.

Now you guys must be thinking that why I have started writing on “Bird Watching”. Because this time when we (me and my hubby) visited Himalaya we met two persons “Vivek” and his driver “Bablu Bhai” who are very much learned and knowledgeable on “Bird Watching”. These are the two persons who introduced us on the concept of Birding or Bird Watching and I ended up writing a blog posts on the concept. Now let’s know what is called Bird Watching. As per the Wikipedia definition “Bird watching or birding is the observation and study of birds with the naked eye or through a visual enhancement device like binoculars. Birding often involves a significant auditory component, as many bird species are more readily detected and identified by ear than by eye. Most birdwatchers pursue this activity mainly for recreational or social reasons, unlike ornithologists, who engage in the study of birds using more formal scientific methods.”

Now let me share my experiences. This time when we were crossing Binsar, Sankho asked Vivek that why Binsar is so famous? I replied back as “It is famous for birds. Here you can see rare Himalayan, north Indian birds.” Vivek and Bablu bhai agreed and told us they can help us knowing Himalayan birds in case we are interested.

Very next day on the way to Munsyari, we halted at many places simply to see rare Himalayan birds. First I saw Himalayan Woodpecker. But unfortunately it was so restless I was unable to capture any photos of it.

Next I saw the beautiful Scarlet Minivet. I saw the male Scarlet Minivet. These male species are having stunning red colored feathers with black patches. These minivets are usually found in southern Asia and their common resident is forest specially in hilly areas. I was fortunate enough to capture the following two.

White-capped Water-redstart was the next who was waiting for us with its beauty. Oh! God! How graceful you are! You gave me an opportunity to see this beautiful life. White-capped Water-redstart mainly found at mountain streams and rivers. Then we saw an unknown bird which looks like White-capped Water-redstart.

On the way we saw many others, being an unprofessional & novice bird watcher I was unable to capture many of them. However successfully took the snaps of Himalayan Griffon, Red Billed Blue Magpie, Whistling Thrush and Wagtail.

To identify your audiences you need to know who are your prospective buyers. Who will search for the product you are offering? For online business you should know that what information you require to add on your website and how to organize it. You should have all those information in your site, which your prospective buyers may search for.

Depending on the targeted audiences you develop your marketing strategy and business plan.

“Marketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market, as in shopping, or going to a market to sell goods or services.

Marketing practice tends to be seen as a creative industry, which includes advertising, distribution and selling. It is also concerned with anticipating the customers’ future needs and wants, which are often discovered through market research.”

You need to consider few major issues while preparing your business strategy or business plans, such as:

The product you want to sell. Product means this could be any like any consumable products, a brand, a service, a website or anything which is sellable.

Where do you like to market? I mean how do you like to position your products and services in the targeted market. You need a proper segmentation. Segmentation will help you divide your markets into subsets with similar needs. Consumer segmentation may include geographic segmentation, demographic segmentation, socioeconomic segmentation etc.

Once you have the proper marketing goal, the defined market now you should concentrate on cost effective advertising strategy.

An advertising strategy is a campaign, which is to create and to communicate a specific message to its prospective buyers. Advertising is generally to communicate ideas about the products or services among the potential buyers. Advertising is to create and cater message to its potential buyers and to convince them to buy the products or the services.

As I mentioned in my earlier post for those who are having online businesses and those are interested to make a mark on internet world, they should trust Google. Google Adwords can be the most profitable advertising strategy for online business owners and effective use of Google Adwords can give you the best return on investment.

On my next post I will explain how to use Google Adwords effectively. Till then you might be interested in the following articles:

Tips for Adwords Optimization – What is Google Adwords
Tips for Adwords Optimization – Phase I – Define your business

Now when you know what is Google Adwords, you should know few other aspects on the overall process.

I have segregated this process as the following:

• Know your Business
• Know your Market
• Know your Audiences
• Know your Advertising Goals
• Start work on Google Adwords

Define your Business: Business is everywhere. Every economic activity that takes place can be defined as business. There are no specific thumb rules to define business. It’s the cumulative effort of many, which brings together time, effort and money to generate profit can be defined as business. However every business is not meant for generating profits like cooperatives; non-profit organizations are few to mention.

Different options are there to classify a business:

Service Business, Manufacturer, Retailers & Distributors, Financial Business, Real Estate Business, and Transportation or might be simple pull car service for school going little angels.

Whatever it is, you must have build up your business with passion. RIGHT!

Now this passion needs to be packaged with focused plan. Without a plan means you are working without a goal. So basically you don’t know all your effort should reach where.

So you must have proper business PLAN.

Once you have the proper business plan, your plan should be equipped with quality resources like good and reliable financer, quality support services like vendors/suppliers etc. Channel their business goal through your business goal.

Now its time for competitor analysis. Who are the other players in the market? Who are the winners? A SWOT analysis is also recommended here.

“Try to get a realistic view of what you’re heading toward”.

Since last two years I am using Google Adwords for my site. Now I believe I should share my experiences with you all.

Google is a great tool to use. Starting from search to using its latest Google trend options all are very much helpful to make your business successful. Effective use of Google Adwords can give you the best return on investment, at the same time this can drain out your money at the max if not understood properly or not used competently.

For those who are having online businesses and those are interested to make a mark on Internet world, they should trust Google. You might be thinking that why I am promoting Google, no I am just sharing my experiences.

Whoever is searching something in net means human activity is taking places. This is the first point where I would like to ponder. To make my online business a profitable entity I need quality traffic or visitor daily. To have the most quality traffic I need to ensure that those who are landing on my pages are not software based crawler or non-human crawler.
To conform the above, only thing I can believe is that Internet user using search engine to search for their desired results and landed up in my site. Hence if I can trap the search engine users, I am assured of having genuine visitors. The most reliable way that I can use to bring quality visitors is search engine advertising and I want a cost effective way to bring more visitors.

Here I start thinking of using Google Adwords Campaign. With the presence of Adwords tool I can target the prospective targeted market at the very moment when they are start thinking about their desired service. For example if some one is searching for “Ladies Jeans” Adwords will only show results related to “Ladies Jeans”. This is what I called as Most Targeted Advertising (MTA) or Effective Targeted Advertising (ETA). These are my own terminology.

NOW! What is Google Adwords?

Open Google.com in a browser and type “Ladies Jeans” in the search box and hit the search button. You can see two types of results are found. The major parts of the search results are known as organic search results and the results showing at the right panel and placed under the heading of “Sponsored Links” is known as the Adwords results or paid advertisements.

Each and Every advertiser is bidding for the keyword “Ladies Jeans” or with keywords like “Jeans”, which targets a broader market or audiences. Higher the bidding values, higher are the ad rankings, i.e. the way ads appear. However advertisers goal should be to generate lowest CPC (Cost-Per-Click) value or to achieve lowest CPA (Cost-Per-Acquisition) value and the highest quality clicks (Leads, sales, members).
Now once you know what is Adwords, its time to optimize your advertising goal through Adwords.

Tips for successful using of Google Adwords:

I have segregated this process as the following:

On my next post I will describe the above-mentioned processes in detail.

Let me explain you what is special about it.

One day I heard about the name Linkedin and I heard it helps finding old friends, old colleagues and also help you to build up your professional network. It was what I knew all about Linkedin. Then one day on free lazy moments I started browsing Linkedin. I joined Linkedin with simple most registration process and then started searching my old friends and old colleague. I continued for long but was unable to find any of my friends and I left. But I crawled profiles of few unknown people and which left me with unknown curiosity.

Sooner or later I came back and started crawling Linkedin with more inquisitiveness.

Initially it was bit confusing and I was unable to understand that what exactly I was supposed to do. Only one think driven me madly to fill up my profile details was a green progress bar. More I was completing my profile the green progress bar was getting filled up with more percentage. And then slowly as I continued providing all my school/college information and professional details and got my profile updated till date it started showing me 100% profile completion message. Once I completed my profile details it was time for searching for my friends and ex-colleagues. I imported my email address book; I found few of my old friends whose id was eventually there on my address book were also registered in LinkedIn. You must be thinking that if old friends mail ids were there in your address book, so why did not you try to connect them? YEA, good question indeed. May be I tried but there was no response or might be they had tried and they didn’t receive any response from my side. We all know this reluctance kills every relationship.

Anyway I imported my address book and sent them invitations. Magically all of them accepted my invitations and they replied to my mails on the very next day. I had also found that they are all well placed. Adding them in my network left me with pride.

I felt that why not showcasing my profile through Linkedin. I optimized my profile with more details and at the same time continue growing my networks through my mail contacts.

It was the first attempt how I learnt about Linkedin. But just after few days I started receiving invitations from others, who are willing to add themselves in my network. Oh, it was having a cumulative affect. Do you know how? Linkedin is having a feature called “People you may know”. Suddenly I found a name there. It resembles one of my close relative’s name with whom I lost connections since last two and half years and I had very less ideas about his whereabouts. I checked the complete profile and was confirmed that yes it was he, whom I knew very well. I was happy seeing him there. Now we have ideas that what we are and where we are. My dear it’s not end here.

As time passes I received recommendation from few of my ex-colleagues and also added them in my network. Then one day going back home I met my ex-boss. I thanked him on that day being making me webby and helping me knowing Google, Yahoo from different aspects. Later on he accepted my Linkedin invitations and recommended me with his overwhelming words. Now my profile is worth showcasing.

Till here story was good to share, but now there are more to reveal.

One fine morning when I was checking my mails I found somebody sent me networking invitation. I checked the profile and added, then after I received a mail asking me to give a call to the given number or else to provide my number. As usual no exception I was curious and made the call from a public phone booth. The person on the other side informed me regarding a position, which was available in a reputed company. Though the position was based on Mumbai but I appeared for the impromptu telephonic interview. Booth owner was happy but the customers on the queue were not at all happy. No matter whether I joined there or not but I was impressed with the LinkedIn success of “Over 30 million professionals use LinkedIn to exchange information, ideas and opportunities”.

Guys believe my words I got three other offers only from Linkedin. Don’t you feel this information is worth sharing?

Anyway I invite you all to join my professional network in

We came back at hotel and have a good but not so good dinner and then we found that room is too small and the bed was even smaller than that. Thank god we were married. J I set the alarm at 4 a.m. and slept. Sankho was busy discussing on debtor lists with his boss. These guys will never change. I hate thinking about office on vacation. I slept, but Sankho and his boss spent long time over the phone discussing their business. Dark, cold night was not much comfortable as the bed was too small for both of us. We didn’t have sound sleep.

I woke up before 4 a.m. and prepared myself for going outside. I was ready wearing jeans, pullover, gloves and sneakers. Then I went outside silently and obviously there was none. Outside was cold and darker than the darkest night I had ever seen. I looked every corner of the horizon and found endless darkness and silence. I looked at my watch and it was 15 minutes left 4 a.m. Then suddenly I found two bright light spots. Before I understand, two lights vanished. What’s that? Lights were looking like two points, as we used those points in geometry in our math classes. I was spellbound with the beauty and the mystery of the darkness and I became numb. Don’t know how long I was standing there. Suddenly those two points of lights were again visible, this time I realized that points are moving and two absolute straight lines formed with the light rays. It was impossible to understand that how far those lights were but I could realize that a car was climbing up. The car was far, far away from me and the height differences of these two places were huge. It was 4 a.m. then, I was starring at those two light points as it was still visible and points are now larger than before. Suddenly a frightening feeling sweeps through my spine. Something is standing just besides me. I knew I was alone there on the terrace. Then what’s that? I turned around. Oh! My gosh! A black bear! No a black leopard! No a huge black dog. Thank God! At least I can fight. But it was working as a responsible night guard. It was following me and watching every here and there for any suspicious activities. I realized that I am safe here and basically it was guarding its guest. It was 4.15 a.m. then. I experienced every bit of moment of conversion of light. Soft rays of light were emerging from the endless dark horizon. I saw, I experienced the Himalayan beauty of dawn. Yea it was only me who experienced that moment alone. So many other days may be much more beautiful than 9th October’2008. Many other events must be more remarkable than what I had experienced there on that day, but the beauty I experienced on that day is unforgettable for me.

First the whole exposed valley turns to unmatched purplish blue color. May be that is the next shade of dark black color. Then bluish valley turns into lighter blue color revealing all its beauty slowly, slowly. It was extremely beautiful when I saw an unknown power was painting its own imagination with different colors and shades. Very slowly the complete valley was emerging from the darkness with proud Himalaya standing at its border. It turned greenish with a beautiful reddish halo at its back. Now it’s time to wait for that moment which I craved for long. When the first rays of light will touch the Himalayan peak. Its already morning 5.30 and now I am accompanied by my husband and few other visitors. Suddenly we saw the peak of Trishul was glittering and it turned golden. We were yet to see the sunrays but it was the first daylight touched the glorious Trishul. It seemed to me that liquid gold was flowing from the peak.

As time passes the whole Himalayan range was visible and it turned milky white. Wow what a beauty.

We all gathered on the terrace of the hotel, we cheered up, as it was a great success viewing Himalaya. It seemed to me that all journey turns to a jubilant moment when we saw the whole range of Shivalic Himalaya.