My Paradise

This is a place called Belapur. A  paradise in Navi Mumbai. This is one place where I have a few unforgettable, extremely special memories. I go there quite often to trek, for photography and sometimes just to be alone and enjoy the serenity.

I love trekking and Belapur is the ideal place to go for it. The mountains are steep and the forests are pretty dense. So the trek is quite challenging and during the trek you get to see many kinds of reptiles, birds and insects. On 31st of December 2008 I wanted to celebrate new year in a completely different way. I didn't want to go clubbing or go for a house party like every other new year night.

And so I decide to go night trekking at 11 p.m. I set out into the forest along with 3 friends of mine. The atmosphere was magical! The darkness of the night was filled by the subtle silver light of the moon, the air was chilly and only the things that fell within the radius of the torchlight were visible. Everything else was pitch dark. As we walked through the forest we saw owls perched on the high branches of trees, well camouflaged frogs and scorpions. But to our disappointment we didn't come across even one snake.

After an hour or so we started returning from the forest when a friend of mine who was walking ahead shouted loudly. We all came running and to our utmost excitement it was a python lying motionless on a rock. We took photos of the python and resumed our walk back when we came across another python! It was unbelievable. Finding a snake in the wild sometimes takes a week but finding two of them in one night, that too rare one's was like a jackpot. This was a baby python and it was injured and so we decided to bag it and take it home. As we were exiting the forest in between two rocks i saw one of the rarest snakes found here. The cat snake.

I shouted my lungs out in excitement. Never in my dreams had I thought that I would come across this snake in Belapur.  It was a jackpot night for me. Who would have known that the first night of the year had such surprises in store for me!

                                               (A few other images I clicked at Belapur)