If you go to a desert, you will hear this mysterious voice: Be wise, protect your forests…

- Mehmet Murat ildan.

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I took this shot while we were coming back from a short visit to the Periyar Tiger Reserve forest. As a child this short trip of 20 miles used to be one of my favorite. The road here snakes through and climbs straight up the Sahyadri Mountains (also known as the lower Western Ghats) and in to the Rain forests. These mountains and their forests receive one of the heaviest rain falls (over 250 cms per year), and it often rains for six months straight. The area is one of the world's ten "Hottest biodiversity hotspots" and has over 5000 species of flowering plants, 139 mammal species, 508 bird species and 179 amphibian species; it is likely that many undiscovered species live in the Western Ghats. At least 325 globally threatened species occur in the Western Ghats.

The Western Ghats are not true mountains, but are the faulted edge of the Deccan Plateau. They are believed to have been formed during the break-up of the super continent of Gondwana some 150 million years ago. Geophysicists Barron and Harrison from the University of Miami advocate the theory that the west coast of India came into being somewhere around 100 to 80 mya after it broke away from Madagascar. After the break-up, the western coast of India would have appeared as an abrupt cliff some 1,000 m (3,300 ft) in elevation.

We took this trip while the rain took a break after thumping the place for three weeks continuously and the dams in the area were all issued threat warning since the last time 22 years ago. This particular location was also famous for blinding thick fog at any time during which it will completely halt traffic and other activities as visibility drops down to a zero. I had experienced it almost every single time I was there and It was cool to show my wife how awesome it was see the fog completely engulf a mountain and the forest.

Done