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It is the world’s biggest crater in basaltic rock. Located in Buldhana district of Maharashtra, India. Co-ordinates: 19 degrees 87 minutes longitude (N) and 76 degrees 43 minutes latitude (E). Scientists estimate its age to be ~50000 years. The meteorite hit the Deccan basaltic trap near Buldhana. The thickness of basaltic rock around this region is believed to be between 30 to 1000 meters. The basaltic rock is in many layers or flows in this region[1]. These flows were created by volcanic activities over several million years.

The meteorite hit created the crater which is about 165 meters deep and 1830 meters in average diameter. This meteorite hit exposed a few basaltic layers at the rim of crater. The elevated rim around the crater is 12 to 15 meter in height. It is covered with 5 meter ejecta over it. The rim can be clearly seen in the satellite image[3]. The rim is mostly made of ejecta blanket spread over the distance of 1.5 kilometers around the crater with slope of 4-7 degrees and approx 15-30 degrees inclination at the inner edge of the rim.

Early in the 19th century, when a scientist pointed out this crater, it was believed to be a volcanic crater. Almost one and a half century this belief was intact. In 1961 two scientists named N. C. Nandy and V. B. Deo. They found breccia in drilling done at site. Breccia is another feature of shocked rocks found in impact craters.

This inference was reasserted by the studies conducted by Eugene C Lafond and Robert S Dietz in 1964. They conducted a survey and studied the crater. Based on their study they concluded that the crater is not of volcanic origin but it is of impact origin.

For the support of their conclusion they provided several reasons.
1 The crater is highly circular in diameter and has a characteristic depth-to diameter ratio of an impact crater.
2 The crater has a raised rim, about 20 m above the surrounding.
3 The surrounding rock dips away from the crater edge at inclinations of 15-30 degrees.

The theory of impact crater was further affirmed when V. K. Nayak of Center for Advanced Studies in Geology, University of Sagar, M.P., India, found glass like objects near the site. In drilling he also found breccia with shocked features, broken and twisted, highly oxidised. All these features indicated towards high velocity impact.

In 1973, some US scientists along with India scientist from GSI worked together to establish its impact origin. They discovered breccia with shatter cones and material containing maskelynite. Maskelynite formation requires very high pressure almost 4 lakh times the average atmospheric pressure on the Earth. And this is created only during hypervelocity impact. No volcanic process can form maskelynite. Thus impact origin of Lonar crater was proved. Three other scientists estimated its age to be about 52000 years.[4]

[1] http://www.virtualexplorer.com.au/journal/2003/12/tewari/
[2] http://www.mantleplumes.org/Deccan.html
[3] http://www.whoi.edu/hpb/viewImage.do?id=20170&ppid=153&sid=67&cl=2&isProj=1
[4] http://www.khagolmandal.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=4

After quite a long time I traveled to an amazing destination - Lonar Crater. On this evening of 25th June ‘06, me and Chetan were having an evening tea at Bandu Bhau’s tapri :-), pondering over our long-back-planned visit to Lonar. Both were really unsure whether we should go or not. After passing almost half an hour we finally decided to have dinner first and then rethink about after getting revitalized with ’saojenergy’ (’Saoji energy’).

On the dinner table(?) after having a little more brainstorming, we finally decided to visit Lonar. You see, we are the biggest believers of the great optimist, Edward Murphy, who said “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong”, so why be afraid? Immediately we started to our respective places to gather very necessary stuff like toothbrush, paste, Binoculars, Camera and other stuff.

Having gathered everything we went to Chhatrapti chowk to catch the bus to Wardha from where we were to board the train to Shegaon and from there, our destination Lonar. It was little too late to discover that there were 3 travelers and not 2, third being our beloved Edward Murphy. We missed the bus and so the train. In an effort to catch another vehicle we lost our map as well. With these two incidences we were about to drop the plan. Thats when Anup came to help and suggested us to catch a bus to Washim and from there find a bus to Lonar.

With this new plan we again went to the bus stop. The bus was already there about to leave for Pusad, which is located just before Washim on the same route. So we boarded the bus with smiling faces. Afterall its Murphy’s law’s another derivation which says “Smile, tomorrow is worse”. Reached Pusad at around 6 in the morning. The bus dropped us in front of ST stand of Pusad. Luckily there was a bus to Lonar in an hour. Thanks to Murphy (not being sarcastic here, really!).

We boarded once again at 0700 Hrs and left for Lonar. Reached there at 1130 Hrs in scorching heat. There we bought some water bottles and Haldirams’ packets, took an auto to reach the rim of the crater. From Lonar bus stand, Lonar crater is 1.5 Km away. Autorikshaw took 15 Rs to drop us there.

Just near the rim there is a Restaurant named Gulmohar where we dumped our extra luggage and left for the Lake Lonar. At around 1230 Hrs we reached near the Basin of Lake and started to take a walk around the Lake. In 3 hours we finished the round (6 Kilometers) about the Lake. Climbed back to the rim, reached the Restaurant and collected our stuff. Rested there for about an hour, had some food. By this time the weather turned good and it started raining bringing a little relief for us. We reached back to the bus stand at around 1800 Hrs.

According to plan we would have reached Akola directly from Lonar. Here too we missed the bus and Murphy’s law of late-comers which says “those who have the shortest distance to travel invariably arrive latest” came true. There was no direct bus to Nagpur or Akola until next day. So we decided to reach Akola by any means. Finally at 1730 Hrs we boarded a bus to Mehekar from where we were supposed to get a bus either to Akola or Amraoti according to some locals.

We reached Mehekar at 1900 Hrs. There we came to know that were not going to get any bus direct to Akola so we had to take the bus to Washim. We took the bus to Washim from there and reached at 2030 Hrs and from there to Aakola at 2245 Hrs. Till Akola we were totally exhausted so we decided to take up train which would have let us sleep in the night. According to the decision we reached Akola Railway station and luckily found a suitable train. So we bought tickets for Nagpur and boarded the passenger train.

The train took freekin 10 hours to reach Nagpur (which is actually 5-6 hours’ journey) but in the night we got good sleep - the best part of entire return journey. That was end of another freak travel decision.

At 2350 Hrs on 24th night I saw the news about hot air balloon fiesta reaching Jaipur on the Net. I went on reading and discovered that 25th is the last day. In the spur of moment I decided to go to Jaipur to see the event. Amol tagged himself along. We got ready at 0030 Hrs and set out for Jaipur. At 0100 Hrs we boarded the Jaipur bound bus from Iffco Square, Gurgaon.

Just before dawn we reached Jaipur’s Central Bus Terminus. Before leaving our place I made a futile effort to search the info on the net from where the hot air balloons will take off on 25th. I also tried to ask a few locals about the fiesta but they were clueless so we bought some local news papers in hope that they might have some coverage about the event. No newspapers had any news of our interest so we went to the spot from where balloons took off last. We somehow reached to the location near Sawai Mansingh Stadium to find that balloons took off an hour ago. Balloons were scheduled to land about 10 minutes so we followed to the place where they were expected to land and captured a few snaps of landing balloon.

It was 1000 Hrs in the morning and the day was already getting hot, we were hungry too. We found a good restaurant named Surya Mahal on railway station road. The food was testy and reasonable. We then went to see Hawa Mahal, one of the major landmarks of Jaipur, located near Badi Choupad.

After visiting to Hawa Mahal we boarded the bus to Delhi. The bus driver was nothing less than the pod racer “Sebulba”. He brought us back in 4 Hours flat, with 30 Minutes break on one of roadside dhaba.

All the photographs of my Jaipur visit cat be seen in this album.

Hawa Mahal

Hawa Mahal also known as “Palace of Winds” was built in 1799 by Maharaja Sawai Pratap Singh. It was an integral part of the City Palace. It was built for Royal Ladies so that they could enjoy the royal processions and day to day activities on the mail avenue of Jaipur. This majestic facade is located at the corner of Badi Choupad (big square). This five storey building of unusual architecture designed by Lal Chand Usta. It is a stunning example of Rajput artistry made of red and pink sand stone, beautifully outlined with white borders and motif’s painted with quick lime.

The monument with a spectacular view of Jaipur city with road avenues, intersections and colourful crowds in the market, was originally conceived with the aim of enabling ladies of the royal household to watch the everyday life and royal processions in the city without being seen by others.

Its facade from the road side makes Hawa Mahal look more like a delicate screen than a palace. This five-story, pyramid-shaped structure has tier after tier of 953 niches, 152 windows, which are exquisitely encrusted with lace fine screens, overhanging latticed small balconies and arched, curvilinear roofs with hanging cornices, exquisitely modeled and carved. These small windows circulate cool air (Hawa) even in hot months. The pyramidal outline is even throughout by cramming and multiplying casements; and uses repetition of motifs to enhance its beauty.

The entrance to Hawa Mahal is from the City Palace side, through a stately door which opens into a spacious courtyard. The courtyard has a double storied building on three sides. There is a small archaeological museum here. Only the eastern wing has three more stories above, which are just a single room thick. The building, standing on a high podium, is a fifty-foot high thin shield, less than a foot in thickness, with small intimate chambers , which give this palace its unique facade. There are no regular stairs to reach the upper floors, but only ramps.

Finally this weekend arrived with freezing cold. We (me and Vinod) were planning to travel to Haridwar and Rishikesh since almost a week. Dip in the temprature put us in a dilemma whether to postpone the trip or move ahead according to plans. We decided to move on and travel to Haridwar so we packed our bags on friday and moved out in freezing cold towards Bus Terminal.

Found a Qualis that dropped us at Daula Kuan from where we got a UP Road Transport Bus at around 0045 Hrs. Till this time we were almost froze waiting for bus. Later we came to know that this was the coldest day in Delhi in last 70 years and the temperature was 0.2 degrees Celsius. The bus was mostly empty so we took our favorite seat (near driver) and tried to take a nap but the cold did not let us. At around 0630 Hrs we reached Haridwar.

Just after the bus reached Haridwar, a poor person traveling by the same bus asked for remaining money to bus conductor. The conductor was amazed to hear that as he never took any money from that person. Actually the conductor changed at Merath Bus Depot and the old conductor should actually have returned the money to this person. But he neither returned it nor informed about the money to be returned to the changed conductor. The poor person was on the verge of breaking down.

Apparently the former conductor tried to gull the poor guy. But the new conductor helped him and did all he could. He was angry over the act of his fellow conductor and expressed his concerns over giving bad name to UP Road Transport. These small incidences show humanity and honesty isn’t vanished.

The town was just waking up at 0630 Hrs and people (travelers mostly) were moving towards Ganga River for rituals.

On the ghat it was a very pleasant scene. People paying homage to the rising sun, some taking a dip in cold water of Ganga, some performing Aarti at the bank of river..

After spending about an hour on the bank of Ganga, we moved to see “Mansadevi Mandir” which is on top of the mountains. On the way we took a few snaps of town down the mountains.

At 1000 Hrs we decided to move to Rishikesh. You can take a shared autorick to Bus Stand from any point on the main road. There you can find many Rishikesh bound buses. It is a one hour journey from Haridwar to Rishikesh (35 Km).

In Rishikesh we dumped our bags in a cheap “Dharamshala” (Rs 200 a day) and went on to climb a mountain nearby. From a distance it looked an easy task. Soon we realized that its difficult to climb-on till top before evening. So we found a relatively comfortable place to sit, rested and took a few photos. The Gangetic vally and entire area looked very beautiful from this place. From this point we saw a temple high up the mountain on the other side of Ganga and we decided to find out the name of that place and visit it. The photos taken from this place must be one of those rare images of Rishikesh.

We descended and reached back. It was 1700 Hrs by then, so we decided to take a dip in river. The water was prohibitively cold so I scrapped the plan and sat there watching calm and quiet Ganga. The next morning we had breakfast at one of two Chotiwala’s near Ram Zula and moved towards the temple on the mountain. A little search and inquiry yielded a name “Kunjapuri”. It is a place on one of the highest peaks nearby.

To reach there, you have to take a bus going to “Ananda” (a small town) from Rishikesh bus station. Taxi can take you directly to Kunjapuri from Rishikesh, cost: Rs 800. After traveling for about 2 hours (25 miles) in the Ghats of Uttaranchal you will reach to a diversion from where either you have to take a taxi (which would mean another Rs. 150 for 3 Miles) or climb up the mountain for another hour using those shortcuts.

The first view of Himalaya was exciting. Kunjapuri mountain is the place from where you can get a glimpse of Himalaya and a beautiful Gangetic terrain. Sad part is all along the beautiful road travels a grid of electrical wires and plastic wrappers lying around which comes as a harsh reality, that even the “Land of Gods” is not really so much so anymore.

The descend is always quick from a higher ground as compared to climb. Isn’t it true in life as well? We reached back to Rishikesh in 2 hours. It was already 1630 Hrs of Sunday. So we decided to reach to Haridwar where we could find some vehicle for Delhi. Reached Haridwar at 1800 Hrs. Had food at Sindh Dugdh Bhandar and Restaurant. It is a good place to have food in Haridwar. The food is reasonably priced.

We took bus back to Delhi from Haridwar. The return journey ended faster. Reached Delhi at 0030 Hrs on Monday. From there we got another bus direct to Gurgaon and then to home. We reached back to home at 0130 Hrs Monday. That was the end of journey to the beautiful land of Uttaranchal.

More photos of this trip can be found on my flickr account.