When you visit an un-familiar place, and that too on a tight schedule, you try to pack in as much as is possible into the time you have. This means hitting the spots you’re interested in seeing, and darting between them as fast as you can, while sqeezing in the necessities of sleep and food. What ends up happening is that your memories of your trip are reduced to the big events and all else is forgotten due to the information overload. But every experience is made up as much, if not more, of the little bits that hold it together, as it is made up of the large dramatic events. Having written about all the big stories on my trip to Bangalore, I thought it was time to finish with some of the little bits that come to mind.

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After our day at Nandi Hills and a bit of driving around Bangalore, we thought we were done. Set to leave the following afternoon, we had little to do on the one Sunday morning that remained, besides relax, spend some time with the family, and say our goodbyes. The evening before, we were sitting around the house talking to our cousin, discussing such important world issues as camera equipment, when he mentioned that he was going rock-climbing in the morning. He said his favourite spot was close by, it was a nice bit of wilderness, a decent place to take some photos, and that there are usually plenty of birds to spot. With our trips to Mahim Nature Park and Borivali National Park on the previous two Sundays, we were now on a hat-trick of Sundays spent in nature. It seemed a shame to break a good streak, so plans were made for everyone to take one last sojourn in Bangalore to a little hill in Turhalli.

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The day after our quick trip to Lal Bagh was our only full day in Bengaluru, so we decided to explore further afield. That morning we set off for that ubiquitous bastion of Bangalore city tourism, Nandi Hills.

Nandi Hills is a small mountain away from the city which is a popular weekend visit amongst the locals, and a common destination for visiting tourists. It has some temples and historical fortifications at the summit, stairs and paths you can climb through the trees, and wonderfully dangerous hairpin bends you can drive through to the top. What’s not to like?

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After an interesting journey into Bengaluru, we drove homeward. Once reunions were done, and some lunch was had, we made plans to move out. Since we only had a few days to work with, we didn’t want to waste it sitting around. But, we also didn’t want to push ourselves too much, so we chose a safe destination within the heart of city and headed over to Bengaluru’s ubiquitous Lal Bagh botanical gardens.

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Our trip to India was to last a little over three weeks. Our last two weekends had been fruitful, starting with our visit to Mahim Nature Park. The third weekend was ear-marked for further travelling, but this time it was away from the city, to Bangalore.

The weekend sojourn to Bengaluru, as it is now called, was set to be a very quick one, just three days. We’d booked tickets before hand on a budget airline, SpiceJet, which we had never travelled by before. And some of our photographic cohorts from previous weekend trips were also along for the ride.

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After a week of bus rides, we were starting to miss the buzz of our Mahim Nature Park adventure. To make sure the following Sunday would be put to good use, we set our sights on a larger target, Sanjay Gandhi National Park.

Sanjay Gandhi National Park is a protected forest area in the Borivali suburb of Mumbai. Commonly referred to as Borivali National Park, it is the only national park in the world that lies inside the confines of a city. Considering Mumbai is one of the most populous and dense urban environments, that’s quite an astonishing thing.

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We arrived in Mumbai just before the weekend. After the requisite day of lazing, and a mandatory visit to my favourite part of the city, we had our first Sunday there. Since everyone was free, my cousin arranged that we spend the morning at the Mahim Nature Park. She, her husband, and their friends are all photography buffs, and had visited the place before, but I had never even heard of it. Another cousin had just bought a new camera that he wanted to take through its paces, and since Vishal and I are old camera-junkies, we all heartily agreed to the early sojurn on Sunday morning. We were to meet directly at the place, and we were told the nature park was right opposite the Dharavi bus depot.

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