When culture calls…

The blog is getting a series of travelogs, from the recent ?! Jaipur trip. Things have started to blur already and I have to go look at photo time stamps, to recollect what we did in those 4 days!

Day 1 was just landing there, visiting the city palace with a tour guide and having dinner at Choki Dhani.

Day 2 was spent going to Pushkar. It was a 2+ hour drive from Jaipur and the kids pretty much went on a fighting match right after we got into the van.

It was one of those days!

The adults in the van decided that we would physically separate the kids, by using daddy as a divider. That worked out well for all parties in the van, driver included, except for daddy!

Simply could not move as they slept with their mouths open, on either shoulder. 

There was really nothing scenic on the drive to Pushkar. A large man made lake near the town of Ajmer, which was full of garbage as far as the eye could see, and a temple that did not look that old.

It kooked more like a recent addition, within the last 100 years. I expected a temple that was a few thousand years old. It looked like a replica of the Mahalakshmi temple in Mumbai, without the beautiful ocean view in the backdrop. 

It definitely did not live up to the hype as a "one of a kind" temple for the creator, Brahma. Someone needs to build a better temple for the dude. Also the vendors outside the temple, both at the stores and the ones hawking stuff off their hands and shoulders, were not nice. They were rude and bitter, with all tourists. We were so turned off by the experience, that we did not bother to go take a look at the Pushkar lake behind the temple. 

Some temples give you goosebumps. Let's just say this was not one of them and leave it at that. We drove back and had to find lunch somewhere and this sign board caught our eye!

Now that our interest was piqued by the Sweaming Pool, a little closer inspection showed more details..

The kids who usually are very cranky when woken up in mid van sleep, were laughing at the prospect of having Tost and Burgar's. We were sold! 

So off we went to the counter of the Family Garden Restaurant and the kids got another education.

Now you try and explain a gramaphone record and a rotary phone to kids who think CD's are a relic! 

We paid, went inside the Family Garden and sat down to see if the food was going to be good..

When the food came, we were not disappointed! It was yummy. They made a very nice dal, jeera fried rice, nice rotis, gave us fresh dahi and some side dishes to go with the rotis. It was simple dhaba food that was delicious.

After a full meal, we got back to Jaipur and did a replay of the kids sleeping on my shoulder. There is a famous Mosque in Ajmer where everyone is allowed inside, but we passed on the chance.

I was wearing shorts and the kids were in skirts. Our driver mentioned that while everyone was okay to go inside and it was not restricted to Muslims, there were clothing restrictions. We had already had the same experience with clothing restrictions, a few days earlier in Kerala, where I had to go get a dhoti to enter a Hindu temple in Kalady, which was only restricted to Hindus in dhotis.

We then came back to our hotel, for a short break and also explored the hotel better. Looked at the artwork displayed in various entrances etc.

This one sculpture of dancing folks was really beautiful.

Then we went on, to an evening of Bangle shopping in the old city market of Jaipur aka "Jewelery" Bazaar. They say "Like a kid in a candy store", but I suggest that it should be replaced with "Like a girl in a bangle store" after going through this experience. 

Wife, MIL, Jr. and the Little one, spent a full hour in a bangle store, while my FIL and myself fidgeted patiently outside, saying polite "no"s to guys who were trying to sell us everything from hand puppets to Hello kitty bedroom slippers, all at discounted prices.

While this was going on, did take some pictures of the bangles from the displays outside the next store, with the iPhone. My camera was given the equivalent of a "gag" order by the ladies when it came to shopping. A 5D Mark II around the guys neck, ruins the bargaining power of the ladies, or so they tell me. 

Finally almost an hour and a half later, the ladies walked out with a small subset of the bangles they started out to buy. We were really not sure if we got ripped off, but the smiles on their faces was priceless!

Then to round up day 2, we walked quite a distance to LMB which is short for Lakshmi Mishtan Bandar (sweet shop). Walking into the shop was like walking into heaven. 

There is a quote on the walls of the Cupertino Library from Jorge Luis Borges that says "I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of Library".

Here is my quote. "I have always imagined Heaven will be a kind of Mishtan bandar".

We were ushered into an AC hall through the sweet shop to get our dinner. The service was nice, but the dinner got mixed reviews from the family members based on what dish they ordered. The side dishes and Naan and paratha were excellent. The chaat items were okay (based on what they said). 

We went back to get some rest and get ready for more sight seeing on day 3, a post for another day...

Village Safari, Rajasthani style

Let us say that you want to see wild animals in the wild but in a safe way?  What do you do? You go on a wild animal safari. You are in a caged jeep, the animals are doing what they do.. you watch, hoping there is minimal impact to them from the jeep and come back home. A lot of us have done that..

Now, lets say you are in a place that is not your natural habitat. You want to see the people of that place and culture, but in a very controlled fashion. How do you go about doing that without having to deal with a lot of unknowns?  You go to a Village safari, at least that is what I am calling it. 

A Rajasthani town created for tourists where you get to see a village in action with some added entertainment. Add to this an authentic dinner in a shared setting and night lights, and what you have is Disneyland meets Burning man. It goes by "Choki Daani" and it is guranteed fun for the whole family.

I have always wanted to go to Burning man to take pictures. My family thinks I have some deviant gene that was part of a mutation experiment done after I came to the USA.

That said, Yes! I still want to visit Burning man someday. Maybe after retiring. I digress again..

The whole lantern lighting and bright colors, dancers, camel rides and gigantic props made this place have a surreal feel to it. There are not that many pictures because I wanted to take photographs without the flash and given the natural light was bright only in certain places it reduced a lot of options.

Also the fixed fee at the entrance and "no need for tips" boards everywhere made it easy for us as tourists to enjoy this place. That said San went and bought some "kurthis" in the crafts section of the village only to realize the very next day that she overpaid.. a lot! That overpayment did have some value, in that it provided comic relief to a van full of weary travellers on day 2. We did see some real art work. An old man making print blocks from wood. He was so fast it was unbelievable. 

We also saw how the "hand printed" sari's are made using natural vegetable dyes.

The dinner itself was interesting. Five types of Roti's, a few select Rajasthani dishes that we had never heard of, lots of sugar and Ghee (clarified butter) in everything, in short, an extremely delicious and unhealthy meal that still brings back great memories. Also thanks to the iPhone 5S and the willingness of the service staff to take pictures for you there is at least one grainy picture of the dinner.

The service staff guy says to me "I can take a picture for you". Gave him my cell phone and I am about to start explaining to him what to do and he goes "I know what to do on iPhone 5. Have taken lots of pictures for people. Please go sit down". These guys knew every type of cell phone camera. Guess that is a skill that comes in handy to keep the crowd moving fast.

The only thing I did not like was the turban. It was on his head and he put it on everyones head before taking the picture. It was a germ factory. It is a miracle that we came out of that place without head lice!

It started raining like crazy when we just finished the dinner. We barely made it to our vehicle before the roads started flooding! Never realized it rained like that in Rajasthan or that roads could be flooded so soon. It reminded me of those National Georgraphic Specials where the Kalahari desert has rivers flowing in it all of a sudden. 

Strongly recommended for an evening of fun and a great dinner.

Athirappilly Falls - Kerala

After having a ton of fun at Thekkadi on our recent India trip, we moved on to visit the Athirappalli (Tamil pronounciation) or Athirappilly (as they say it Malayalam) falls with a short stop at Kalady. 

Kalady is the birth place of Adi Sankara, the man who rejuvenated Hinduism across India when it was under threat from invasion on all sides. However cute as Kalady is as a small village on the banks of the Poorna(now Periyaar) river, I did not see anything special there. It was just another temple that was not even maintained to the standards of other important temples. The place could seriously use an upgrade. Moving on... 

Athirappalli is amazing! It was worth the drive on the windy Ghat roads, the trek on slippery stones down to the bottom and walking with plastic ponchos through and through. Totally worth it!

We get to see a lot of tall falls, but few wide ones here. One notable exception was Burney McArthur falls. This one is like a supersize version of Burney McArthur falls when it comes to the volume of water flowing down. Given that we were there in the middle of the monsoon, it was breathtaking!

I did take a slow motion video with the iPhone5, but somehow uploading it to Youtube makes it lose the slo-mo effect. 

If you visit Kerala, this place is a must see. On a touristy note, the ponchos are sold by vendors a good kilometer before you approach the ticket booth entrance for 100 to 120 Rupees. The store at the entrance sells it for 50 Rupees. Our kids learnt an economics lesson there which was interesting. 

Some pictures from the few hours we spent there. It was challenging to get anything there. Even if you have weatherproof 1000 dollar lenses with fancy hoods, the water just forms a fine mist in the air and hits you from all directions. I used to wipe down with a cloth, then aim, shoot, repeat. 

We came back up with happy thoughts and smiles on our faces. Just look at the little ones face on that last picture. It sums up our emotions walking in the mist!

When I post a picture on Facebook of how many states I have visited in the US over the last 21 years of staying here and many friends who were born and raised here tell me that is a lot more than they have seen! There are folks I know who have not seen any state other than California, Nevada or Oregon! 

India is also a vast country. When I was growing up, there was not a lot of time or money to go see the country. Our parents did take us on vacations within the state and to neighbouring Andra Pradesh using their LTC( Leave Travel Concession) tickets every summer. We used to love those trips, have fun visiting temples, taking bath in pristine rivers, etc. but they were like local travel. Not a wide exposure to the rest of the country.

Studying in Varanasi helped break that for me. 

Now that we have the ability to plan trips better and see more things in a short time, we are discovering a piece of India on every trip, even if the trips are few and far between.

This trip was after a gap of 3 years, so we covered two places that were on the list. Kerala and Rajasthan. 

Have finally started looking at photos from the Rajasthan trip.. will post them soon.

The birds and almost bees, not to mention a few animals

En route to Kerala from Tamilnadu, we stopped overnight at Theni, a beautiful and cool place in itself. On the way to Thekkadi preserve we stopped by Suruli Falls. It was a waterfall about 50 feet tall and 150 feet wide and it had an artificial look to it. 

They had put steel bars everywhere to let folks bathe and that gave it a very man made feel. The water though was cold and refreshing and given it ran through a bunch of herbs, was supposedly medicinal. 

Those of us who decided to take bath in the falls had a great time. There was no photographing this falls because of the bathing folks! On the way back from the falls (it is almost a mile hike one way with some steep steps at the end to get to the falls), we saw a bunch of vendors selling fruits, cut mangoes, beads etc. 

It was a treat to watch the kids go check all this out.

Took a chance and got a "towel" for the bathing thinking it would be a good souvenir. It has turned all my baniyans and other white garments that went to the laundry load a nice purple! 

Did get to take photos of the monkeys near the falls. They were such a menace, stealing waterbottles, purses and even trying to grab at little kids.

and this one posed nicely for his portrait!

We saw firsthand the problems of having wildlife interact so closely with humans. It was neither good for the monkeys nor us!

Later we were rewarded with sightings of lots of different birds, deer, wild buffallo. On this trip we got to see bee hives that were thrown in the ground, possibly by the monkeys!

The boat ride!

It was raining on and off  every 5 minutes and that made the bird photography challenging, but the weather resistant 70-200mm lens proved itself!

The cormorants (if I got that right) were amazing. They are smaller than the ones we see in US or the ones we saw in New Zealand, but they make up for their stature with speed! The wild buffallo we saw were huge. This is my first time seeing them in the wild in India. 

We got to see baby birds crying out to their parents!

Kerala, is truly "gods own country!" The scenery on the way to Suruli falls was pretty much this for a good 25 miles. 

The Thekkadi lake itself is a sight to behold. The colors are vibrant, the sky was perpetually ominous and the constant rain makes it difficult to forget that even though you are on a large boat, you are not secure..

and my favorite photo in HDR of the lake!

It is not easy to do multiple exposures on a moving boat in the rain. It was worth a try. Unfortunately it did not work out. This shot though is a single exposure tone adjusted using PS5.

We had a great time in Theni, Thekkadi and on Thekkadi lake. Would strongly recommend this as a three day trip without time deadlines.

This is not one to be rushed. We will definitely try to revisit this place in this lifetime!

Two elephants, two hours, memories for two lifetimes

We did two trips within trips this year. The first one was a trip to Kerala with my parents, brother and sister and families. 

We stopped first at Thekkadi and went for an elephant ride to view the Western Ghat mountain range from vista points along a ridge. 

There were two elephants, one male and one female that took the family in batches of four through a 30 minute ride. The male elephant is apparently the fourth largest elephant officially known in Kerala. 

They were magnificent creatures and were happy to take the 4-5 kilograms of bananas divied up and distributed through everyone in our group. 

There were pictures.. lots of them.. here are a few.

Throughout the trip Jr. was a very serious person. The only time I saw her smile, even blush was when she was on the elephant! 

Then came the session where we fed the elephant and the kids got blessed by them. They were happy and scared to go near the giants but soon realized that the animals were gentle creatures. 

That was a kid who is scared and happy at the same time! Should caption that image "Scrappy"! 

Jr. did warm up to the elephant and fed it first. Did not expect her to be that bold. She surprised me.

and once she did it, was all proud. "Did you see what I just did?" 

The little one was really scared and needed a little help from the adults to go near the elephants. 

Then she was their "best friend"!

She got up close and personal !

There were many unforgetable moments on that trip. My parents who were not sure of joining us because of their health concerns, jumped in last minute to join us. Watching them go around on an elephant made my day! 

The views from the ride were breathtaking as well. You could see the mountain ranges, the towns and farmlands below and the sunlight doing a spotlight show through the break in the clouds. 

This reminded me of the views on the way back from Whittianga to Auckland in New Zealand. There is so much sightseeing to do in India. Don't know when we will get time to go soak it all in..

After this we went on a boat ride in the lake to spot wild animals and birds. That is a post for another day!