The Perfect Winter Holiday: India 2012 Part III

For the first two parts, see these posts:

http://mindmorphemes.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-perfect-winter-holiday-india-2012_21.html
http://mindmorphemes.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-perfect-winter-holiday-india-2012.html


:-)


From Bangalore, we left for Chennai by the afternoon Shatabdi Express. As soon as we reached Chennai Central Station and barely put a foot out of the train to get off, the humidity just hit us. But since it was November, it wasn't too bad. My sister in law's family, including her then close to 2-year old were at the station to pick us up. It was exciting because the two little cousins were meeting each other, practically for the first time, because in our last trip our boy was just over a year old and the little one was a few days old, so that really didn't count as a "meeting".

The ride back home when our son sang "Wheels on the bus" and his brother did the actions is worth remembering. :-)

We got home to meet all the grandparents. And after spending a couple of hours chatting, etc. we reluctantly went to bed.

The next day the two boys played. It was interesting to see them getting to know each other. The boys didn't take long at all to get completely comfortable to bully each other. :-) This didn't end till the end of the trip. They couldn't stop fighting for the same bike, the same car, the same toy, etc. etc., but at the same time couldn't stay away from each other!

Mahabalipuram

On the second day we decided to make a trip down to Mahabalipuram. The highway connecting Madras to Mahabalipuram is beautiful. It's a great drive, and just about an hour or so.

I'd been to Mahabalipuram years back as a kid and didn't remember anything at all. I was absolutely impressed by the magnificent carvings on the rocks and the monument by the beach. We were there close to sunset and the sky and the water looked gorgeous.

As we walked around, we ran into a (slightly eccentric) artist. He's a stone sculptor who lives very close and also runs a school. We met one of his students as well. They are supremely talented. The teacher invited us to visit his workshop.















It was great to look at their collections. I also chanced upon a book that had diagrams explaining the proportions to carve Nataraja, Buddha and many other things. It was quite interesting.

But this sculpture. I wouldn't have expected to find. :-)

Pondicherry

The next day we again decided to do a day trip, this time to Pondicherry. My in-laws took us there and it was a fun drive. We walked around the promenade, saw the Gandhi Mandapam, had  a nice lunch at a restaurant, and visited the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, where I got to sit peacefully for about 40 minutes. It was a very nice experience. It was a visit after about 12 years for me. It was only after the trip that I got to know about Auroville unfortunately. Got to check it out next time!

The promenade

A cute family scene: Mother and son getting their picture taken by the sea

Before we left, we also checked out the little museum about the history of Pondicherry and a Ganesha temple, where we were blessed by an elephant outside. That was fun. :-)

Diwali

 

After a day or two, we got to celebrate Diwali in India after 13(+) years! It was quite something.

I didn't miss any of the fun- did some Kolam, had my hair oiled by my mother-in-law, and in the evening, lit lamps and walked over to my uncle's for some good fire cracker time!  

And I shouldn't miss mentioning the new clothes and the sweets, both of which we enjoyed as well. It was just awesome! :-)

Goa

 

The day after Diwali, we celebrated our nephew's birthday in style with a Spiderman cake! And the next day, we packed off to Goa, with all the family- both our parents, and my sister in law's family. It was one merry trip.

This was a three day visit to South Goa. We stayed at a hotel called Lalit Palace, which was quite nice. It has huge open spaces full of lush lawns, and opens out to a private beach at the back. The food was also pretty good. I remember stuffing my face at the buffets. :-)

Here's one of the gorgeous sunsets we caught at the beach right behind our hotel. The picture doesn't completely do justice to the real magnificence of that evening, but captures my memory somewhat, at least.

 

The next couple of days we did some "sightseeing". We saw the Bom Jesus Basilica in old Goa, a nice old church of St Ignatius with some good architecture, Dona Paula beach and Sahakari Spice Farm.The last one was the second plantation tour for us this trip, but it was not the second for everyone in the group, so I tagged along. :-) It was fun anyway.

I was amazed to learn about allspice, which comes from the raw fruit of a single tree and has a flavor equivalent to that of Garam Masala, which typically has at least five different spices ground together. I bought some allspice from the plantation and I'm liking it! Been using it in various recipes.

The only thing I really wanted to do in Goa that I didn't get to do was to go paragliding. Since most of the good beaches for paragliding are up north and we had these other places to cover, and two kids, and the interest of the group to consider, it was not feasible.

But a very nice trip nonetheless. And definitely great family time.

Vandalur Zoo

We had just a day left in Chennai after getting back from Goa and we had agenda for that day as well. We took the kids to Vandalur Zoo. It was fun. The lion safari was a good experience, but could've been better. I think at the time we went the lions were a little sleepy. But here's the best shot I got of the best animal I saw that day- a Royal Bengal White Tiger-

The End

We got back to Bangalore the next day. We had another day in Bangalore when we visited the lovely ISKCON temple and did some shopping at a mall. 

Early the next morning we were supposed to board our plane, and so we all set off in a call taxi, my parents were there too of course, to see us off. And then came the eventful return story. I had bought the tickets through Expedia to fly Lufthansa. Lufthansa very coolly moved our departure date to the next day because they canceled the flight we were booked on that day, and didn't bother to inform us. After spending nearly 5 hours at the airport on phone calls, getting bounced around various customer service people, not getting through, having cellphone hiccups, and having some senseless staff cancel our ticket without rebooking us on a different flight for the same day as we had requested, we finally had to return home all the way across the city, spend another day and then travel the next day. But oh well, we made it back in one piece, and we hadn't lost the excitement from a great vacation. Well in fact, my high still hasn't worn off, especially because I mentally played the whole experience back writing this. :-)

Wish we could just keep traveling all our lives!