About that trip to Malaysia

So, I got back last Sunday from a week's trip to Malaysia. It was an interesting trip - started with a thunder, ended with a whimper.

We reached on Saturday, and left for a beach resort in the South China Sea on Sunday (early Sunday morning). The beach and it's surroundings were everything I had imagined - clear blue water, amazing coral reefs, relaxing atmosphere, not too crowded and good food. A new thing I learned/did while there was snorkeling - took me a few tries to get the hang of it, but once I did, it was one of the most fun, exciting and interesting things I have ever done. Seeing those beautiful corals, and swimming among the fish like you were one of them was truly amazing.

A side effect of the water, or fish, or corals or the sun (take your pick) was that I had a pretty bad allergic reaction/sun-burn on my last day there. I had weird looking boils all over my face and down my back - which made me look like the second coming of Frankenstein. I visited the doctor on our arrival back to KL who gave me a couple of pills and some gel to apply to the affected spots. They cleared up in a couple days, but for that time, I had locked myself in the house - too conscious to go out - even to the local grocery store.

So anyways, the trip, up until Tuesday evening was god fun. Then came family - first my mother's sister, and then my cousin sister (with 2/3 of her kids in tow). Their arrival played a bit of party pooper. I guess meeting them after all this time was fun too - but I think I would have enjoyed it more had we been alone - just for four of us. We didn't do much after Tuesday - some shopping, some sightseeing, some talking and then some more shopping. Anyways, it was a pretty long trip (I was there for a total of 9 days) so I guess I couldn't have expected all those days to be as rosy as the first few.

One of the things that I was looking forward to the most was seeing my brother after a while. I had this notion (perhaps misguided) that we'd be the same as we were back in Austin - when he was living w/ me for a couple of months. That didn't end up happening. We were squabbling often, didn't talk all that much, I was regularly pissed at him and in general was not enjoying this time together as much as I did our time in Austin. Perhaps that notion that our relationship had changed was wrong - or maybe I was just looking at it through rose tinted glasses - either way, I was hoping for a ecstatic reunion, but it ended up being less than that.

Well, in anycase, the trip was an overall success - it was nice having all 4 of us together, after quiet a long time - and given the prospect that it'll probably be just as long before we are together again, I guess it was one to cherish.

So...things have been happening

Well, not really. Things have been pretty much the same since my last post - work, home, sleep and work again. Not to say I'm a workaholic - it's just that I don't have much else to do. Well, that's not exactly true either, but I'm being a bit lazy about working on something I thought up during my trip to Ooty.

Another thing in the motions is Ayush and mines' trip to KL. It's our mother's 50'th birthday on the coming Sunday, so we both reach there on Saturday morning (there were no convenient flights reaching KL on Sunday morning). Sshhh about that though - it's supposed to be a surprise. So, anyways, we reach there on Saturday and will hopefully go out somewhere (papa's supposed to be planning something). Then family (my sister with 2 of her 3 kinds, and my aunt) arrive, rather un-fortuitously on Wednesday. That's a whole other story that I'd rather not get into.

So, this whole trip thing has got me excited (what's new right??). But what's odd is that the source (well on an existential level anyways) of this happiness is different than usual. Usually, I'm just happy about getting away from wherever I am. Getting a break from the status quo - the daily routine. But this time around, I'm actually happy about being and meeting with my folks and my brother. That to me is very abnormal - these things have never really excited me, made me look forward to the events with great anticipation, as I am doing now. I guess my co-worker Ravi put it best - we realise that we derive pleasure from sources we didn't know existed, as we grow older.

Anyways, that's for this post - not much to talk about - but there you have it.

Pardonnez moi for the interruption

So, excuse me for the absence. I don't have internet at home (anymore) and since that was where most blogging was done, things have been slow here. Hopefully this should be remedied soon (I've been told I'll get my connection sometime this week).

The trip was REAL fun. We ended up going to Ooty and even though the first night was a wash (we ended up getting ripped off for INR 3000 for a room that would otherwise not have fetched INR 500 - freaking peak season time), the rest of the days were awesome. We ended up driving through some of the best roads (views wise) I have driven on - walked through tea gardens, lived on a step hill overlooking a valley et al. Real fun.

The highlight of the trip was that I got an idea to work on something - which has been in action since I have returned - and could might be the reason why blogging has been slow too.

Anyways, hopefully once I get a connection at home, things will return back to normal. In the meantime, some pics from the trip (the ones taken from my phone) are available here.

Visit to Mysore - Day 2

I described the first day of our trip to Mysore here. Now to talk about our second day. We got up kinda late - I got up around 8am. Did the regular morning duties, got dressed up, waited for Manu B and Shilpa B and headed down for breakfast, which was exhorbitantly priced and so, instead, we decided to check out, head out to the "city" center, grab a bite to eat and then go for some shopping - since the ladies were adamant about it. We had a buffet breakfast for Rs. 45 - not the best in the world, but it filled our stomachs - and then headed out to some store fronts. Bhabhi wanted to buy a table for her house, while Ma wanted to buy some stuff for hers. After wandering through a couple of handicraft emporiums, we ended up going about 2kms away from where we had our breakfast, to the official Govt. of Karnataka store.

That place was huge. They had clothes (and rolls of cloth to make clothes from) on the ground floor and the handicraft stuff on the first floor. We initially ended up going to the first floor where those guys took almost 1.5 hours to buy all they needed (I would describe the place, but it was like a run of the mill handicraft emporium you see in India). We then headed down where another 45 minutes or so were spent sifting through clothes. By the time we were done with all this, it was close to 1pm so we decided to head back to Bangalore.

I forgot to add that by now, Manu B and I were sick, We were both having trouble swallowing stuff, my nose was running and both of us were generally feeling pretty drained out. Nonetheless, the ladies decided to stop by at a place called Srirangapatna to see some historic parks/monuments built by Tipu Sultan. Though we never ended up going inside any of these, we drove past them and saw some lush green gardens inside. We did, however, stop at the Sangam of Kaveri. That was pretty tight. The water was nice and fresh, there wasn't too big a crowd and the view was pretty spectacular. A pretty serene place - one where I would want to have a house some day.

Anyway, that was the end of our trip. From there on out, we slept while bhabhi drove and ma talked till we reached the outskirts of B'lore. When we did finally reach there (~5pm) we decided to take the Hosur road - a new highway which connects the outskirts to the main city. It started off pretty well - it was quiet, had a good road, had entry and exit ramps, was away from everything and hence did not have people crossing from any-which-where and was in general a pleasure to drive on. Up until where the road ended. And beyond that, was nothing. No directions, no half broken road nor anybody to tell you which way to go. All there was, was a mud track, not even suitable for rally driving, with big stones and huge holes leading to nowhere (as far as I could see). Bhabhi was driving initially, and hence the underneath of the car got banged up pretty well, until Manu B took over. He drove more cautiously, and somehow or the other got us the hell out of there and onto a main (and I use that word liberally) road which we followed all the way back to their house. By the time we reached there, we were all pretty tired and I was royally pissed about that last part of the journey. I mean, how hard is it to tell people at the toll booths (which were manned, BTW) that this road leads nowhere, and that you're much better off taking the regular road into town. Also, why give directions to various parts of town when you know the road doesn't connect to them. If we hadn't had directions to a place close to our house, we would have taken a long past exit.

Anyway, to sum up the trip, it was pretty nice - though it didn't end quiet as well as it could have. Mysore was a nice place to visit - an enjoyable, quaint and nascent town. I have no doubt that soon it will be built up and busy just like B'lore - and that's just as well for the residents - but for us travellers, it will be a shame.

Visit to Mysore - Day 1

So, my mom came over last weekend, and it being a long one (we had monday off due to Ugadi) we (my cousin, his wife, me and my mom) decided to head out to Mysore and check it out. I've been in B'lore for the last 6 months, and one of the first things you're supposed to do is go see Mysore, so following tradition, I did :).

The drive there was pleasant. As usual, getting out of Bangalore was a royal pain in the ass - even though we were driving out on sunday morning. However, once out of Bangalore, the highway to Mysore (aptly named "Mysore Road") was quiet pleasant. It's a 4-lane highway which is better than most roads I have seen in India. It's not broken, nor is it too busy. The only kink in it's armor is that it runs through a bunch of small towns and everytime you get to one of those, your speed reduces significantly. I guess I should complain about why they can't plan these things better, and why they can't have proper entry and exit ramps instead of having sudden turns _ON A HIGHWAY_ but I've learnt that none of that matters now. Good roads should suffice. It took us about 4 hours to get there - we stopped on the way at a Coffee shop to (obviously) grab some caffeine and take a break. It also allowed us to change drivers.

We had booked a hotel in Mysore the night before, so we knew where we had to go. However, for some odd reason, we did not take any directions to that hotel within the city, from the highway. No biggy though - all we did was call up the hotel, ask for some landmark and then ask people along the way for directions to that landmark. I was pretty surprised (and for a long time thought that we still hadn't entered the city) to see that the place was pretty un-cluttered. There weren't too many people, not many cars on the roads, almost no taxis (heaven!!) and the roads were pretty clean and more importantly, not broken every 2 meters. Driving into the city, I got the feel that I was in-fact driving into a hill station. We didn't have too much trouble finding the hotel, one wrong turn along the way is all. The hotel wasn't half bad either. It was a branch of Ginger Hotels and as such was pretty clean, close to international standards and pretty convenient as far as regular amenities go.

So we parked our car, checked in, took a break, and then headed out again for some lunch before going to the Mysore Palace. Lunch was consumed at the Pizza Corner close to the palace following which some window shopping was done. Finally, we headed out again, for the palace.

We parked our car, walked up to the entry and paid our entry fees (oddly, "foreigners" were supposed to pay Rs. 100 for entry whereas "Indians" were to pay Rs. 20. I don't think this kind of discrimination is justified. Even if we assume that somebody can afford to pay the money, doesn't mean we should make them do it. I have not seen such practices anywhere else in the world - definitely not in the western world) and walked in. The first thing that confronted us was the number of guides hawking us for their services. The prices they quoted were too high so we moved on towards the palace thinking that we'll just buy a book and read through it (and indeed we did, later on). We were required to take our shoes off before entering the place (which again was very weird - they're called cleaners - what they do is clean the floors in the evenings - when people are no longer allowed into the place - besides it's not like you're doing such a stellar job anyways keeping the place nice and spotless) which we did - and had to pay for. We then moved into the line to finally enter the place. As soon as we did so, we were again hawked by a guide to give us a tour, and since he quoted a price my cousin was willing to pay (I wasn't too interested in hiring the services of one) we acquiesced and started the grand tour. Going from room to room, he would show us various things, that maybe we wouldn't have noticed, but even so, weren't that significant that we were really losing out on something. For example, he made a big deal of all these paintings done on the walls which were supposed to be 3D. What that meant was that all the eyes (in the paintings) followed us as we moved across the room. Not rocket science - but he made us see the each one of the paintings from various angles repeatedly. Then, once we came into an alleyway where two mirrors were fixed facing each other and he goes "Wave your hand", and we did, which was followed by "see - an infinite number of hands are waving back at you. Isn't that great". I mean seriously - this is something I can replicate in my bathroom - I don't need you to tell me this. Going through that tour, I could kind of relate to a quote I had once I heard in The Wire - "The whole world shines shit and calls it gold".

Anyways, after we had finished our tour of the palace, we walked out, made a quick stop at the souvenir shop for the place, collected our shoes and drove out towards Brindavan gardens. The drive there was decent for the most part - up until the last stretch spanning about 2 kms. The road was broken more than an old woman's face is wrinkled. That shit was so bad that you were basically hopping from one pothole to another, inevitably banging the underneath of your car. And what was even more surprising was that even though the quality of this road was so bad, they still had new and renovated speed breakers - as if any asshole would be driving at the requisite speeds on that road to warrant the creation of a speed breaker. Anyhow, we entered the place, parked our car, hit the head, paid for entry into the park, and strolled in. Now this apparently is the place where a lot of songs in 70's bollywood movies were shot - and once you walk in, you immediately realize that that's true. You have all these small fountains, and then streams of water falling down stepped stones followed by more fountains followed by an even steeper and longer "Waterfall". The whole garden is surrounded by a dam which holds out the river Kaveri, and since my cousin was adamant, we made the hike up the ramp to the top from where we could see a huge well of water on one side, and the dam releasing some of that water on the other.

We then walked back down and went to a Hotel constructed there, where we cooled down (it was a pretty hot day), had some snacks and shakes and generally just relaxed and took in the view for a little bit. Once the evening started to come in, we began to head across the park, where on the exact other side, was a "musical fountain". That hike was torture. There were way too many people, cramped up on a narrow walkway which lead to increasing perspiration, body odor, rubbing against others and an unbearable amount of heat being generated. We finally reached the place, picked out a spot to see the show, went through it (it wasn't too bad, but nothing spectacular either - I couldn't see any co-ordination between the music and the water) and then hiked back to our parking spot. By the time I sat back in, I was dying for a cold one. And, perhaps a smoke. I was burning up, wanted to just jump into a shower, and sit in there for the next two days - just to cool myself down and rid me of all the sweat. Alas, that was not to happen, since it was getting kinda late by the time we got back to the city and hence had to hurry to find something to eat. After some searching, we found a restaurant called Olive Garden (ironically) where we camped up and had our dinner - not the best food I've had, I might add, though what made it better was the surroundings as well as the fact that it was attached to a pretty fly lodge. I had my beer here too - which made things better some.

Finally, at the end of a very long day, we went back to our hotel - and as soon as I entered my room, I just flopped into the bed. My mom took a shower first, after which I took one and then went to bed.

That was the first day of our trip - quiet a long post, but I wanted to list out everything. I will (hopefully) write about our second day soon.

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Edit: The second part of this post is available here.

A nice time in KL

I got back from visiting KL last night, and it has to be said, it was one of the best visits I've had with my folks. Primarily 'cause there was no fighting or squabbling involved, but also probably because I was waiting to get out of Bangalore, and these past 5 days provided an excellent outlet.

We didn't do much, just went out of town on thursday to a "resort" which had various themed parts. One was french (which really wasn't) while another was Japanese. The latter was quiet impressive. We got to see a traditional Japanese house, where a women was sitting all dressed up in her Kimono. We had the option to go get some tea in traditional Japanese style but I refused (I have issues with people just attending to me - I don't like too much attention I guess). The rest of the days were spent shopping, driving within the city, or otherwise just hanging at home.

Which brings me to another point - my folks now have one of the sweetest pads I have seen in my life. It sits on the 16'th floor, overlooking the city and the hills in the background. The house is spacious, which helps with their surround sound TV. The kitchen is probably bigger than my living room. They also seem to be happier than before. I have never seen my dad this chirpy, or my mom as merry (what with her dancing and singing and all that). I had thought that with all the stress that accompanies managing the audit work for 25 countries, my dad would be stressed out beyond recognition, but, it was the opposite. He seemed calm, happy and was enjoying the things he did. Maybe he was the same back in The Hague/Geneva, but I have to say he was noticeably more perky this time around.

Finally, on a somber note, my laptop charger went for a toss out there. The first day was fine, but the second day, while I was setting it up, I heard a distinctive noise, which, as soon as I had heard it, I knew what had happened. I was worried that maybe the laptop itself had lost it's abilities to charge (:)), but fortunately, it was only the charger that had fucked up. So now I have to go buy a new one, or get this one fixed. On the plus side though, it allows me to start reading again, which I have wanted to do for a long time. So, I picked up a bunch of books from my folks place and have started the process off with reading Memoirs of a Geisha. That is what my next post will be about.