Tag: itinerary

Start of a September vacation!

Hai to all my readers,

I had been in and out of hospital in June and had to take some time for myself. So, naturally,  the blog took back seat. Now that I am up and about, I am getting my blog game-face on and back here.

Now for the actual post…..

What with lots happening in our lives, Mr.Bee, who has the most cortisol in our family, since he is the central pillar post, decided we need a long overdue vacation in September. (Both the kids have schools and all, but we decided to take a chance at going on vacation!)

Since Mr.Bee has always been a fan of Coorg like almost all software engineers, we charted our plans, made itinerary, jotted down the list and finalized our tour plan.

Day 1 :

We had Mr.Bee’s cousins visiting us and our house was buzzing with activity.  We made some last minute additions to our luggage,  went to my parents house to bid them farewell before our 11 day vacation.

Initially, the bus we were travelling was supposed to start at 9:30 p.m. at Kukatpally, Hyderabad. But, they called us at 7:30 p.m. to inform us to reach the stop at 8:30 p.m., as the departure has been pre-poned! (The sudden change in time meant we had little time for dinner!)

We got ready, made it on time and occupied our seats. Mr. Bee and KBee, I and GBee divided into teams of two. Thanks to the bus driver  constantly reminding us of the existence of the break pedal, I felt nauseous! Mr.Bee bought me some mango candy and Kurkure at the first stop after boarding, to help me beat nausea, but it didn’t help me at all.

The only idea I came up with is to sleep and that subsided my nausea. (Since it was MIL’s birthday, we had biryani for dinner and that caused me nausea. Word of advice, eat atleast an hour before travelling and eat light!)

Before sleeping, KBee , GBee and I had played ATLAS game, which was like Antyakshari, except here we tell any nouns starting with last letter of a word. So if we start the game with ‘S’ as in (A-T-L-A-‘S’), a word like Singapore,  the other player needs to think of a word with E (last letter of the word, Singapore), like an Elephant and so on.

Later, GBee and I chatted and played “country flag” game, where we guessed the flags of different countries.

We called it a night at 10 p.m. and slept.

Day 2 :

The next morning, at around 6 a.m. we reached the outskirts of Bangalore and GBee and I enjoyed looking out of the windows at the windmills, hills and the tiny towns, which were in the midst of nature. (The townsfolk don’t even know that some people like me are envious of them!)

By the time we reached our stop, at the Silk Board, it was already past 10:30 a.m.!

We reached R’s house, who is a close friend and colleague of Mr.Bee. He wondered why we had booked a bus service, which had been recently involved in a major fire accident! The bus driver was going slow for a reason,  their service was under scrutiny, thanks to the fire accident  and Mr.Bee had booked us in the same service, without any idea!

I should say I was actually worried about fire accidents in buses, but I refrained from sharing my concerns with Mr.Bee. Interestingly, I didn’t recall that the fire accident had been in the same bus service we were travelling in. If I had known, I wouldn’t have slept the whole night, like a scaredy cat!

Anyway,  we had a hearty breakfast of idli sambar, had our baths, because it was nearly 11 a.m. and eating breakfast after bath seemed stupid.

We bade goodbye to R’s family, got into the taxi we had hired for the whole trip and started for Mysore.

P.S :

1. I admire the outskirts of Bangalore, with a tiny town, hills in the background and wind mills doing their job! It looked so beautiful that, it reinforced my desire to visit Mount Fuji, Japan. Once I visit Mt.Fuji, I can check it off my bucket list. (I checked off Australian Kangaroo in 2016, which had been in my list since my 10th grade.)

2. Although I admire the scenic beauty, I wonder how it would be to live in a scenic town.

3. I pity the Generation Alpha. Even when the scenery outside our bus window was exquisite,  GBee wanted nothing to do with it. He kept demanding for the Samsung Tab, to play his Minecraft! (He got good many scoldings, so early in the morning)

Bengaluru Beckons!

Mr.Bee and I had planned a short vacation, way back in November 2022. But LIFE happened and we cancelled our trip at the loss of some hard earned money. So this time, we wanted to travel, but with a flexible itinerary, to avoid cancellations and to not be disappointed. That is how we started our 14 day vacation, with 2 year old KBee , 6 year old GBee on our nearly 6 year old Vento!

Since Hyderabad felt like a sauna, we decided on a cooler destination and immediately zeroed in on Ooty. (I have fond memories of Ooty from my teens and Mr.Bee had never been to Ooty.)

Our trip started with buying loads of healthy snacks for our drive, a 10 litre Milton cooler for water needs of the kiddos, emergency medicines, medical kit and 4 suitcases full of clothes for all the 4 of us!

Day 1:

…..Started with our drive from Hyderabad to Bengaluru . We started at around 6 a.m., (originally planned on starting by 5 a.m.) drove to Kurnool, on time to have our breakfast. (Both the kids had fallen asleep on the car-bed we had installed on the back seat. ) I had masala dosa and it is the best I had in recent times. GBee demanded cell phone to have his breakfast, but thanks to the dozen or more police officers having breakfast at the Hangout, he stayed away from throwing tantrums and had his plain dosa in silence. (GBee is afraid of the police.)

Even though it was still 8:30 a.m., the Sun was already showing his might. So we kept ourselves and kids hydrated by drinking water and Gatorade in alterations.

At Ananthapur, we bought the juiciest and sweetest guavas ever. I ate two in a sitting. They were awesome. Thanks to the seller, we also had some guava leaves, which I placed on top of the dash board, to test my theory. Plants and flowers attract heat and cool the surrounding areas, so the leaves on dash board meant, they took the heat and the passengers have none. (If you are going out during peak summer heat, place an onion in your hand bag or shoulder bag and get on with your business. The onion prevents sun strokes by absorbing the heat, especially in tropical climates, it is very helpful.)

We reached the outskirts of Bengaluru at around, 1:30 p.m. and had our lunch at Nandi Upahar, near the road to Nandi Hills. There was a waiting line and although the restaurant needed a face-lift, we had our lunch and started our drive into the City of Traffic, Bengaluru! (Don’t get me wrong, I love Bengaluru and its pleasant climate, which is similar to that of my second home, Charlotte, NC,USA.)

We reached Mr.Bee’s colleague, R‘s house, at BTM Stage 2, took our time to freshen up ourselves and by the time it was 5 p.m., we went to the nearby park. GBee and KBee had a blast playing there. Once it started drizzling, we ran out of the park and rushed home. Our dinner that night was Dominos Pizza, because, the food delivery showed a waiting time of more than 1 hour, thanks to the heavy rain that night. We had a Vegetarian Gourmet Pizza, with added basil seasoning and it was good. GBee was over the Moon thanks to the junky dinner!

We slept, for a night of peace. Both the kiddos slept like logs, a long drive can do that to anyone!

I woke up at 7 a.m., as usual and was mesmerised by the silence of Bengaluru. I saw atleast fifty people going for walks, jogs in fitness gear. A retiree continued with his stretches, all the while, nodding his head to one or two familiar faces. Everyone was going about their business in silence. This pleasant scene tempted me to ditch Hyderabad and move to Bengaluru. But then, I am a pukka Hyderabadi.(Also, I had temporary lapse in judgement!)

R even tempted us guys by saying that the plot nearby was ready for sale! As if! We just enrolled GBee into a new school and that’s when it hit me, how easy it is to take decisions before having kids and after! We moved to India, in the blink of an eye from Charlotte, but something like that is unthinkable now.

Anyway…..

For breakfast we had scrumptious thatte idli (first time eating it) and medu vada with tasty pudina chutney.  

Thatte Idli –  Image Courtesy Google Search Engine

With that done and stuffing some Mango leaves onto the dashboard, Mr.Bee, I and the kids bid our farewells and started for Ooty! Chalo Ooty! That’s how we started our Day 2!

P.S:

  1. Interestingly, if you want to convince your mom that you don’t want to go to school or college, an onion in one’s armpit, raises the body temperature and causes fever! Now take a blood oath that you won’t tell your mom, this is where you read it. I don’t want any mothers cursing me!
  2. It is always better to check leaves for caterpillars. Thankfully, GBee was quick to observe that the mango branch of Bengaluru tree had a very active caterpillar. I jumped out of my skin, car came to a sudden halt and the branch went right out of the window! No one was hurt by the above incident!
  3. I couldn’t post for more than 3 weeks, because, we were busy with the vacation, the return, the laundry, the school induction programs, the books, the uniforms and the likes.  Hopefully, I will bore you guys silly with more posts. The next post will be about Udhagamandalam, Ooty for short!

Cheerio till the next post.

© 2026

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑