The trip
The trip was coming up, and there was excitement in the air for weeks, nay months before! Questions as to what to do and how to do them were up in the air. Rajesh had come up with the idea of everybody writing annecdotes and memoirs, and loading pics. He was going to make a memory book for us to present to Appa and Amma. As we started writing, the stories were so good, that it seemed like a good idea to make several copies. Prakash was going to bein India a week ahead of the rest of us, and so volunteered to take on that immense task.
In the meantime, Jayanthi started working on a newsletter, Sanjana started working on T-shirts for everyone, and also started working on writing a skit so that the kids could perform it out there in Munnar, and I started working on some Jeopardy games. The excitement building up to the trip was palpable. Then we had a huge bonus to this already wonderful trip in the making. Sundar and Manka worked out their scheduled visit so that our stays would overlap by a week. What a wonderful bonus!
Then I had a panic attack!
Once in India, we went to Babu Chithappa's 70th b'day celebrations. Kavitha and Karthik were throwing a party at MCC. I'm glad we went as we were able to see a lot of people. Imagine seeing Muraly and Nandu in India! Next morning, we were up early ready for the big family onslaught! We went to the airport, and saw Mo and Giri. The endless fun started then, and went on for a week! The kids immediately took to Mo and Giri who made it a point to sit with each kid and get to know them. They endeared themselves to the kids so much that their absense was keenly noticed later in B'lore.
The Trivandrum experience was certainly worthwhile!
My increasingly cynical nephew has more or less accurately alluded to the drive to Munnar in his blog. What he left out was the packing the pottis on top of the traveller scene the morning we left for Munnar. We looked on in amazament as several people were recruited to put all the bags together such that they not only fit on top of the tempo traveller, but they would stay for the duration of the traversal from Triv to Munnar - especially on the winding mountains. Rajesh and Srikanth retired hurt, and so Mohan bravely took on the task of tieing it all up together. While Prakash orchestrated, and kept Appa at bay. The trip itself was fun until the last part which turned out to be quite dicey - what with winding mountain roads, slick roads due to rain, and fog that reduced visibility considerably. Mohan stuck his head out of the traveller, and warned Thangachan as each curve/turn was coming up. Needless to say - reaching Club Mahindra Resort was a huge relief. What took us "forever" the first day, took about 15 mins the rest of the times we took that road! The winding roads in Munnar DID cause some "avomil" dependancies in people. At Munnar, there was no dearth of entertainment.. be it games, trips, plays, talent shows. Everything planned and unplanned just worked out wonderfully. The book that we presented to our parents is now on my brother's blogspot. I am now motivated to create more "jeopardy" games. I have more requests! We'll see what I can churn out.
We decided to take a taxi to Madurai from Munnar, to save some time on the return trip. This turned out to be fortuitous because we reached Madurai, had a brief 1 hr rest, and then were in Kodai at 3:30. The rest of the folks reached Madurai only close to 3pm! The Kodai fiasco was unfortunately a let down compared to Munnar.
We went back to Madurai and enjoyed the Meenakshi Temple before heading out to B'lore. Rajesh had already told me to get the 100 buck tickets for each person. So I was able to enjoy the architecture a lot more in Madhurai. The same commercialization occurred as in Trivandrum, but in a more organized fashion. Here the temple trustees took care of the money, and the priests took care of the poojais. They were even guides set up everywhere to herd you from one spot to the other. It also helped tremendously that we went on a weekday. I'm sure the weekend would have been a totally different story! A train trip took us to Bangalore.
My father had an inspiration to throw a party to celebrate his anniversary. So the day was spent concentrating on the party. The next evening, there was another get together for the sober folks at home. We even managed to meet my friend Sonal in Bangalore. What a thrill! The rest of the Bangalore trip (1 and a 1/2 days) was a whirl of shopping and packing and gearing back for Chennai). The most pleasant surprise about B'lore was the weather. It was a cool 20-24C, and best of all, the mosquitoes weren't the force that I thought they'd be! I was able to get my mom's ona vilu (yet to be displayed) which took some packing ingenuity on the part of Amma and Asha.
Chennai was wonderful because of the company but horrid because of the weather. We did manage to get a little bit of shopping done, and even managed a party to meet all the relatives again. There were about 50 people who were all relatives, and this is with a few no-shows!
On the whole this was one of the trips I really enjoyed, and wish I could have more of!
Thank you for reading!
In the meantime, Jayanthi started working on a newsletter, Sanjana started working on T-shirts for everyone, and also started working on writing a skit so that the kids could perform it out there in Munnar, and I started working on some Jeopardy games. The excitement building up to the trip was palpable. Then we had a huge bonus to this already wonderful trip in the making. Sundar and Manka worked out their scheduled visit so that our stays would overlap by a week. What a wonderful bonus!
Then I had a panic attack!
Once in India, we went to Babu Chithappa's 70th b'day celebrations. Kavitha and Karthik were throwing a party at MCC. I'm glad we went as we were able to see a lot of people. Imagine seeing Muraly and Nandu in India! Next morning, we were up early ready for the big family onslaught! We went to the airport, and saw Mo and Giri. The endless fun started then, and went on for a week! The kids immediately took to Mo and Giri who made it a point to sit with each kid and get to know them. They endeared themselves to the kids so much that their absense was keenly noticed later in B'lore.
The Trivandrum experience was certainly worthwhile!
My increasingly cynical nephew has more or less accurately alluded to the drive to Munnar in his blog. What he left out was the packing the pottis on top of the traveller scene the morning we left for Munnar. We looked on in amazament as several people were recruited to put all the bags together such that they not only fit on top of the tempo traveller, but they would stay for the duration of the traversal from Triv to Munnar - especially on the winding mountains. Rajesh and Srikanth retired hurt, and so Mohan bravely took on the task of tieing it all up together. While Prakash orchestrated, and kept Appa at bay. The trip itself was fun until the last part which turned out to be quite dicey - what with winding mountain roads, slick roads due to rain, and fog that reduced visibility considerably. Mohan stuck his head out of the traveller, and warned Thangachan as each curve/turn was coming up. Needless to say - reaching Club Mahindra Resort was a huge relief. What took us "forever" the first day, took about 15 mins the rest of the times we took that road! The winding roads in Munnar DID cause some "avomil" dependancies in people. At Munnar, there was no dearth of entertainment.. be it games, trips, plays, talent shows. Everything planned and unplanned just worked out wonderfully. The book that we presented to our parents is now on my brother's blogspot. I am now motivated to create more "jeopardy" games. I have more requests! We'll see what I can churn out.
We decided to take a taxi to Madurai from Munnar, to save some time on the return trip. This turned out to be fortuitous because we reached Madurai, had a brief 1 hr rest, and then were in Kodai at 3:30. The rest of the folks reached Madurai only close to 3pm! The Kodai fiasco was unfortunately a let down compared to Munnar.
We went back to Madurai and enjoyed the Meenakshi Temple before heading out to B'lore. Rajesh had already told me to get the 100 buck tickets for each person. So I was able to enjoy the architecture a lot more in Madhurai. The same commercialization occurred as in Trivandrum, but in a more organized fashion. Here the temple trustees took care of the money, and the priests took care of the poojais. They were even guides set up everywhere to herd you from one spot to the other. It also helped tremendously that we went on a weekday. I'm sure the weekend would have been a totally different story! A train trip took us to Bangalore.
My father had an inspiration to throw a party to celebrate his anniversary. So the day was spent concentrating on the party. The next evening, there was another get together for the sober folks at home. We even managed to meet my friend Sonal in Bangalore. What a thrill! The rest of the Bangalore trip (1 and a 1/2 days) was a whirl of shopping and packing and gearing back for Chennai). The most pleasant surprise about B'lore was the weather. It was a cool 20-24C, and best of all, the mosquitoes weren't the force that I thought they'd be! I was able to get my mom's ona vilu (yet to be displayed) which took some packing ingenuity on the part of Amma and Asha.
Chennai was wonderful because of the company but horrid because of the weather. We did manage to get a little bit of shopping done, and even managed a party to meet all the relatives again. There were about 50 people who were all relatives, and this is with a few no-shows!
On the whole this was one of the trips I really enjoyed, and wish I could have more of!
Thank you for reading!
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