The Wandering Cloud I See

Continuation of the journey undertaken by a birder.  The bitter-sweet journey that brought him closer to himself.  The journey that will be his forever! I was finally able to make it to the hospital in time. The doctor was not amused to see me play with a feral dog outside the hospital barely minutes after he had given me shots for dog bite.  but.... you cannot blame the dog. I am sure I would have done something unknowingly irritating to the dog, who bit me. It was time for me to move on with. Next stop was Sikkim. It is a tiny Indian state between Nepal and Bhutan. I flew into Bagdogra in an attempt to save time. In Bagdogra figuring out the means of reaching Sikkim was soon turning out to be a nightmare as everyone was giving conflicting information. I was told that I would be able to reach Jorthang but could not go further as the season was over and there was no transportation. Finally after hours of haggling with various shared jeep drivers ( Shared Jeeps...

This is a story of the journey undertaken by a birder.  The bitter-sweet journey that brought him closer to himself.  The journey that will be his forever! Himalayan red crossbills, the elusive bird that has never been studied in the history of man-kind. Red crossbills are being studied all over the world but not in Himalayas... Why? Why is no one studying them in Himalayas? This question hounded me, day in day out, until I gave in and said I want to study Himalayan red crossbill for my Ph.D. dissertation. We all decided that I needed to do pilot trip to check the feasibility of the project. One and half a month to cover Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh. Starting from central Himalayas to the Eastern Himalayas. Lets do it! I started the journey from Kathmandu. I had barely reached Kathmandu and I was hounded by various tour guides and tour companies asking me to go on a tour with their companies. Finally I decided to take a cab to the loca...