Tag: Ooty

Jannaram and Kadem!

December 16, 2023 / / 1 Comment

GBee’s school had given the students 15 day Dussera holidays and we didn’t plan any travels, because of it being an important Hindu festival. We stayed back home and spent 10 days doing nothing much, except what we do in our daily lives.

Just 3 days before the end of the Dussera school break was coming to an end, we decided that we were extremely disappointed about not visiting any new place. That was when Mr.Bee zeroed in on Jannaram! (We had other destinations in our mind too. But both were more than 6hr drives from Hyderabad and 3 days is very little time for such sort of vacation.)

Mr.Bee brought out our car bed, inflated it, prepped it for our travel and I was incharge of packing the luggage. (I forgot to pack Mr.Bee’s evening shorts and he had to buy it at Jannaram, turns out it was the best mistake I ever made. Mr.Bee bought 3 new shorts and they were way better in quality than those he bought at Hyderabad!)

Day 1:

Aadi Yogi in our car, with beautiful flowers of Paarijatham!

We started by 7 a.m, (we woke at 5:30!) carried the kids into the car, even though they were sleepy and cocooned them in their blankets. But the kids were wide awake, it seems, our kiddos like us, love travelling. They were hyper to say it mildly!

We stopped at Minerva, Siddipet for breakfast. I ordered pesarattu, GBee his usual dosa and Mr.Bee ordered the breakfast special which saved our lives and mostly, energy. The breakfast special consists of an idli, a puri, a dosa and upma. This is the best choice when you have no idea what your kids might eat.

GBee’s dosa never arrived though! Mr.Bee scolded the waiter thrice and at last, the waiter packed a dosa for us, even though we said we were going to dine-in! We didn’t leave him any tip because we were vexed with the attitude. Imagine having to eat breakfast when your kids dosa hadn’t arrived. You don’t feel like eating by yourself.

At Karimnagar, Mr.Bee bought greenest of the green mandarins (Kamala pandu in Telugu) and surprisingly, they were yummy. Fresh fruits in towns and villages are generally of top quality.

We reached Haritha Resort, Jannaram by 1:45 p.m., gave the boys hot water baths, since they didn’t have one in the morning. We rushed to the in-house restaurant for two bowls of fried rice. The hunger we had, made the food taste heavenly. Even my picky eaters ate in silence!

At 3:30 p.m, we were ready for our Jungle Safari! (Always dress warmly and wear caps, sweaters if you are going for a safari. It gets cold in the forest.) A private safari for 4 is for 3500 bucks, a duration of 2 hours. We saw deers, eagle, wild boars(Adavi pandhi in Telugu), baboons (Kondamuchu in Telugu) and Cheetal deers.

The Three heads!

By the time we returned to our rooms it was 5:30 p.m, with dark sky and cold climate.It was only 21’C yet, it reminded me of Ooty!

We had our dinner in the room, phulkas, dal tadka and curd rice. (Our staple menu at any hotel stay)

Day 2:

After having our breakfast at the Udipi Hotel, Jannaram, we started for Kadem, a nearby town. We didn’t like the Udipi hotel, but that was the only mediocre one in Jannaram! We ate idli and vada. We drove 25km, to reach Kadem and the boys entertained themselves by watching the hundreds of monkeys which sat on both sides of the road, checking out the vehicular traffic. While the kiddos were half expecting to see elephants, like we did near the Bandipur forest reserve, I was reminded of my childhood vacation in a similar town of Wyra, where my paternal grandmother used to work. The most unexpected things remind us of deep rooted memories!

Anyway, we reached the Kadem Head Regulator to ride boat, but the boats were not taking tourists or anyone that day. I fail to remember the reason. We then went to the Kadem Dam, to look at it closely, mostly for my sake, trying to re-live my days as Design Engineer inspecting the site! But the dam was still not safe to drive on, deadly, in fact, if you have hyper kids, who think with their legs! (No parapet walls, even the stones which were placed on the sides were not of the required height.)

We decided to check out the Kadem Haritha resort, which is way better compared to the one in Jannaram, solely on basis of the play area for kids and food in the in-house restaurant. Kadem Haritha Resorts has the beautiful dam as background.  We had our lunch and returned to our room at Jannaram.

The beautiful Sunset

The funny thing is that, the vegetarian cook at Jannaram resort was on leave that day, so we had to travel 25km again, to have our dinner at Kadem Haritha, again! (we drove through the forest reserve at night and it was only 8 p.m. but looked like it was midnight. Even the town dwellers were surprised to see vehicles moving about after 8p.m.)

The dinner at Kadem Haritha was a bust, because, the waiter forgot to bring our rotis. We waited a whole half an hour, before we demanded him what happened. He had them made, but placed them on another table and forgot all about it. He was busy feeding his own 5 year old child!  After realizing his mistake, he gave us Rs.20 off on our bill!

We returned to our room, after travelling through the tiger reserve. (Rs.50 toll for late night travels. We should pay as well as risk facing the tiger too! Injustice!

We reached our room and slept soundly, making our room completely dark, since it was the night of Lunar eclipse.

Day 3:

Breakfast at the lone bearable hotel, Udipi, of idli and vada, again! We took a detour to Dharmapuri and reached Hyderabad by 6:30 p.m.

Our short and sweet trip had come to an end!

P.S:

  1. We didn’t see any tigers in the forest reserve during our jungle safari, because most of the roads inside the forest were flooded during the rainy season. The tour guide told us, it will take atleast 3 years to completely mend it! He suggested us to visit Kadem. Thanks man!
  2. The play area at Kadem Resort is huge. I played on the swing for 20 minutes or so, till KBee discovered that I was enjoying! I love swings.
  3. At Dharmapuri, GBee bought a toy trumpet and on our way home, we felt our ear wax melt!
  4. When we stopped at the Mayura Veg restaurant and the food was good. The cricket world cup had already started and on that particular day India was playing against England. We selected a booth in the restaurant, which was near the big screen!
  5. The Aadi Yogi that adorns our car is from Subrahmanya, Karnataka! We are hopeful, that someday, we will visit this original at Coimbatore.
  6. The incharge at Jannaram resort took immense liking to KBee and wanted to keep KBee for himself! The surprise was KBee, being a 2.5 yr old trying some stunts and surprising us all! (I don’t know where he picked it up!)
  7. I have a tiny cartoon regarding this trip, which I will post later, because, this post is already long. Till the next post, cheerio!

Ooty to Coonoor and back!

July 13, 2023 / / 0 Comments

One of the first things we decided very early on is that, our main stay would be at Ooty, in our 14 day vacation. The other thing we were sure about is to ride the train from Ooty to Coonoor, to take in as much nature’s beauty as we can, to last a year or until we took another vacation, whichever is the earliest!

Day 5:

We woke up early, got ready. Mr.Bee and I wore matching jeans jackets whereas the kids, as usual, were stuffed into their rain proof, winter jackets, thanks to their mom being a scaredy cat! (You would too, if you too had a toddler who has an affinity to catching cold at the drop of a hat!)

We, GBee, KBee and myself,  stuffed ourselves silly with toasted wheat bread and grape pudina(mint) juice. The juice was a little bland for my taste. Only Mr.Bee didn’t have bread toast. The three of us were bored of eating the dosa. (I can eat toast everyday!)

Mr.Bee wanted to surprise me, by taking me to the famous Murugan temple at Elk Hill. The statue of Murugan/ Subramanya is famous and similar one exists in Singapore!

Murugan @Elk Hill

We started for the temple, thanks to Google Maps. But the over enthusiastic Ooty Traffic Police, diverted us to some other road. From there, we were re-routed by Google Maps, only to end up at a dead end. (The French people call it a cul-de-sac!) We cursed under our breaths and ditched the plan of going to the Murugan temple, because, with the snail paced Ooty traffic and the Traffic diversions, thanks to the government servants, we were getting late for our train.

At the Ooty railway station, we wasted another 20 minutes, to park our car.  We ran into the railway station just in time for our train. As soon as we got in, the train had started! I played the Dilwale Dulhaniya le Jayenge and Jab We Met train scenes in my head and rushed towards the window seat, making the petite lady who occupied my window seat to sit elsewhere.  We started at 11:25 a.m. and were to arrive at Coonoor by 1:00 p.m.

Nilgiri-Railway – If this pic doesn’t fill up your heart, I don’t know what will!

We started for Coonoor. The train route showed us the beautiful mountains, the tea estates, waterfalls, tunnels. Mr.Bee also looked outside the window to search for our hotel. He spotted it at last and took a couple of pics too. He spent the entire ride taking photos and videos of the scenery surrounding us.

Spotting the Hotel from the train – Fans of La Montana!

The scenic railway stations on the way from Ooty to Coonoor looked like the ones from foreign movies. (Such beautiful spots exist in India, we can find them at some unlikely places!)

Picturesque and ‘clean’ Coonoor Railway Station!

We took a couple of cute family photos at Coonoor Railway Station, which I am not sharing. We exited the railway station by 1:40 p.m. People were waiting for cabs and cab drivers were eager to be hired! We reached the exit and hired a taxi, to show us around Coonoor. We had little time window, as we needed to catch similar meter gauge train at 4:00 p.m. to return to Ooty by 5:10 p.m.

First and foremost, we reached the restaurant to have our lunch, as the kids and I were famished. (The view was amazing from the window and I forgot the name of the restaurant.) We wanted to waste as little time as possible, but it was already 2:30 p.m. by the time we got out of the restaurant.

Even though, it was not a part of the itinerary, our cab driver took us to Tea and Chocolate Factory in Coonoor!(He wanted to earn his commission) It was already drizzling and it being a Sunday, was a holiday and so we had a private, unofficial tour of the Tea and Chocolate Factory. The old gentleman, who acted as our tour guide, showed us the Eucalyptus Oil Factory too, for good measure. (We didn’t hire a guide, it was hardly needed, but the gentleman offered his services and told us we could pay him as much as we pleased.)

We also tasted the Chocolate Tea, famous in Ooty and Coonoor, didn’t know what all the hype was about and got into the cab, after buying some chocolates and Eucalyptus oil. We took a few pics in a jiffy, trying not to get any more wet than needed! (It was drizzling.)

We reached the Sim’s Park, where there was a fruit festival in full swing. Fruits were arranged in various shapes of worm, pyramids, giant pineapple made with pineapples, fruit basket made with a variety of fruits and so on. We could hardly take any pictures, what with our kids running about, a prolonged drizzle of rain and also the sea of tourists demanding Mr.Bee and my attention, simultaneously!

Queen Bee posing for pic @ Sim’s Park

Finally I got a few pics taken at Sim’s Park, away from all the bustle, once the rain subsided a little.

There were old trees in the park, as old as 100 years. One tourist found himself a Rudraksh bead near a century old tree. I don’t recall the scientific name of the tree, but I went ahead and looked around, hoping find any stray Rudraksh. (The park keepers were so thorough in the cleaning and maintenance that I could hardly find a dry leaf, let alone a Rudraksh!)

With that, we rushed to the train station, with 10 minutes to spare. The Coonoor railway station is well maintained, in spite of the steady flow of tourists and vacationers. We took a couple of photos, hanging from the train, like in the Prabhas starrer, Radhe Shyam! (Our photos were a little less glamorous!)

We shared our compartment with a beautiful Bengali family. GBee tried talking to them, in the little English that he knew. Even KBee tried to start a conversation with them! Everyone in the compartment were older to him and KBee tried to baby talk his way into the conversation! (He is yet to learn talking coherently.)

Each compartment can fit 10 adults. There are two classes in the toy trains too, First Class and General!

On our return journey, we came across some mountain Bison and the train operator had to ‘toot‘ the horn for at least a dozen times for them to move away from the train tracks.

Bison, finally moving away from the tracks and going into the forest

Sorry for the bad quality of the photo. We had to zoom in to get a pic! 40 MP cam is of little consequence!

We reached Ooty on time, checked out the shop to buy return gifts, but everything was super pricey and we returned to the car empty handed. By the time we reached our hotel, it was already well past 6 p.m.

After a sumptuous dinner, we retired to bed, early than usual. Of course, I continued reading my e-book, finished reading it and loved it too.

P.S:

  1. My sincere advice to anyone who wish to visit the Tea factory and Chocolate Factory is that, instead of visiting them in Ooty, you can do that in Coonoor as well. The Ooty factories have heavy rush and the Coonoor ones have lesser number of visitors. It is especially useful if you have toddlers!
  2. The temperature in Coonoor is higher than in Ooty. We won’t even require sweaters or warm clothing to stay here. I think even from the traffic and tourist stand point Coonoor is preferable, if you have already visited Ooty, that is!
  3. It is always better not to bring your car to the railway station, if you don’t have kids below the ages of 5 years.  It is better to catch a cab. We almost missed our train, waiting for free parking spaces.
  4. One round trip from Ooty to Coonoor reminded me of three movies and their scenes. But did you know the song Chaiyya Chaiyya from Dil Se was picturized on one such meter gauge train near Ooty? By the way, we were also given goody bags with chocolates, Maaza, Bourbon biscuits and a keychain. The kids ate the biscuits on the return journey.
  5. I have been to Araku Valley in Andhra Pradesh, but it pales in comparison to Coonoor, as far as I can remember.

Thanks to GBee’s home works (they call them Home Fun in his school!) and my own interest in watching Gossip Girl, I have been late in posting here. Cheerio, till the next post.

Ooty : Of Birthday, Boat House and Botanical Garden!

July 1, 2023 / / 2 Comments

Day 4:

Mr.Bee and I started our day early at 12:00 a.m., to kiss our GBee a happy birthday, who was oblivious to our wishes and continued sleeping peacefully. (The kiddos look cute in their sleep and when they wake up, I end up looking like a devil, thanks to their hyper activity!) After a couple of minutes of reminiscing our first born, Mr.Bee and I dozed off to sleep.

At 7 a.m., hot water baths later, we had our breakfast at the hotel, spent fifteen minutes in the play room and returned to our room.

I wanted to have a photo shoot of both my little heroes, who wore matching t-shirts and pants. But thanks to GBee, who always avoids looking at the camera and KBee who always runs towards the camera, we could hardly take one good picture to capture the moment! (I don’t understand how people have Instagram worthy pics with kids, beats me!) Nothing, absolutely nothing can tempt them to stand still for a photo together, until and unless its a selfie, where they can look at themselves in the phone!

As per our travel itinerary, we got ready for the boat house, with raincoats, umbrellas, sweaters and caps. (Ooty weather is similar to that of London, which is said to be unpredictable!)

We wasted a good 15 minutes, trying to park our Vento, waited in line for entry tickets and once again had to wait in the queue for boat rides. By now, we got used to the heavy rush throughout Ooty. Luckily, we met two families from Telangana at the Boat House, so together, we bought the 16 member boat ride tickets. The 8 member and 4 member boat rides had bigger queues.

Boating in Ooty – Pic source – Google!

The boat ride itself was fun, with both GBee and KBee howling like a pack of wolves, which they learned from watching the Wolfe videos in Youtube! (Throughout our vacation, they made me and Mr.Bee, howl along with them, like a pack of wolves.) The others in the boat ride were surprised by us howling, but that didn’t deter us any!

During our boat ride, we also saw a toy train, in the woods. We weren’t ready to stand in the toy train queue, so ignored the ride. (There is another reason for avoiding the toy train, which you will know in the next post!)

After the boat ride, we were craving for some snacks. Water sports cause food cravings! We bought fried spiral potato and masala sweet corn. That was when we checked the time, it was time for lunch!

Spiral potato or Tornado Potato – Pic Source: Google

We exited the boat house and it started drizzling, as we ran towards our car in the parking lot. GBee and I giggled as we ran. Mr.Bee ran carrying KBee in his arms which made KBee laugh out loud in excitement and merry!

We had our lunch at the Angaara, which turned out to be the go-to place for us in Ooty. I don’t remember what we had for lunch, but Mr.Bee wanted to surprise GBee, so he requested for a cake for our first born.

The staff didn’t disappoint us. They attached two brownies together, decorated it with a ‘Happy Birthday’ cake topper, colourful sprinkles were sprayed judiciously and a few red cherries on top, caught our attention. (GBee hates cherries, so he made us remove them!)

Impromptu Birthday Celebration with a brownie cake – Pic Source : Mr.Bee

The birthday boy blew the candle, as soon as we lit it and began to sing the usual, Happy Birthday! (He wanted to get back to his game in the cell, which  Mr.Bee had given him earlier, as a birthday treat!) The birthday brownie was yummy. Both the kiddos filled up their stomachs with the brownie and left the lunch for us, the parents to complete!

Mr.Bee asked me where I wanted to go next and what I wanted to do. I wanted the kids to go to the Botanical Garden and enjoy it, just like I did, many years ago. Mr.Bee was apprehensive, but then, we ended up going to the Botanical Garden. (I promised Mr.Bee that we would not be staying in the Garden for more than an hour. We wanted to retire early to our room.) Travelling with two kids is no mean feat!

The grand old trees of the Botanical Garden! – Pic Source : Google

As soon as we entered the Garden, we knew for sure that, spending more than an hour would be very difficult, what with the huge crowds. We let the kids run helter skelter. Both of them had no worries in the world, when they ran far away from us, breathing in the fresh mountain air, as far as their tiny legs took them, without tiring them out.

The beautiful, undulating grass terrain was the perfect setting the kiddos needed to play.

Bunch of college going kids started rolling downhill on the gentle slopes. GBee soon caught on and had the time of his life, rolling down the garden landscape, along with them. KBee didn’t want to be left behind. He started rolling on the grass turf in circles! It was fun watching both of them enjoy. I had my eyes set on KBee and Mr.Bee had to follow GBee around, trying not to let them out of our line of sight.

Rolling down the hill – Pic source : Google

We let them play for as long as they wanted to play. Thankfully, there was an in-house photographer there, waiting to click pictures, we got our photos taken and returned to the exit, with the laminated photos in our hands.

At the exit we saw a Bharatanatyam recital by a group of 4 girls. I felt happy. I loved the idea of watching a classical dance recital in the Botanical Garden!

Bharatanatyam Dancer Dolls – Rose Show – Pic Source: Google

We returned to the room, after battling the perennial traffic. We had originally planned on ordering a birthday cake at the hotel, near the campfire, but then, we decided to have the cake at lunch, with just the four of us!

I had a piping hot chai, while I got back to reading the murder mystery e-book! GBee and KBee entertained themselves with the stickers again, too tired to run about. We had an early dinner and called it a day.

I was ready to sleep, eager for the next day to start already! Bring it on, day 5!

P.S:

  1. It is always a plus, if you have the right kind of book to read!
  2. GBee and KBee tired themselves silly, running in the Botanical Garden, they had hardly any energy left to fight.
  3. Since the weather in Ooty is generally low, there are no ACs and fans in the hotel room.
  4. If you are an amateur ornithology enthusiast, you can find Hornbill birds in Ooty. I saw most of them at the boat house and a few at the gardens and on scenic roads.
  5. If you thought the hotel may provide you with hair dryer, just like I did, you are mistaken. If you need a hair dryer anywhere, you need to take it with you in India! (Hotels in USA provide dryers, but not in India. I found it the hard way!)
  6. Most people speak Hindi or English in Ooty. Language barrier is not an issue, at least for us.
  7. All the photos in this post except the one with the brownie cake have been freely used from various sources. Mr.Bee and I had to run about everywhere and taking beautiful pics for the blog was least of our concerns!

Till the next post, cheerio, folks!

To Ooty, at last!

June 24, 2023 / / 2 Comments

Day 2:

Originally we had planned on starting our drive from Bengaluru to Ooty at 6 in the morning but ended up starting little after 9:30 a.m. Inspite of that, there was little traffic. Thank Ram, Sita, Lakshman and their gang! (Just saw trailer of Adipurush and no wonder I keep remembering the said Gods!)

Mr.Bee rode us through the Nice Road, from Bengaluru to Mysore.  It was a good road and a drive on it felt like flying on the clouds! (I am scared of high speeds and Mr.Bee is a fan of speed racing.)

We made a brief stop near Mysore City Bus Nildana. I wanted to reminiscence the good old days of my life at Infosys, Mysore campus. My friends and I would come out of the campus every weekend to Devaraja Wodeyar Market and enjoy hours of retail therapy, called shopping by mere mortals! We would buy fresh fruits to last the week and I also remember buying a number of books by Agatha Cristie, along with clothes and accessories.

I showed one of our regular haunts to Mr.Bee, the Cauvery Emporium. He loved all the Rosewood furniture on display there. GBee refused to leave the Rose wood sofa set on display, whereas KBee was mighty impressed with the Rosewood inlay frames of Lord Ganesha on display!

Karthikeya(KBee) admiring the Ganesha Inlay!

The above pic is sourced from search engine, but KBee kept pulling at my kurti, to make me move towards this one frame of the elephant headed Lord Ganesha, all the while uttering the words, ‘It’s an elephant, it’s an elephant, mommy!’ (KBee couldn’t differentiate between my favourite God and an elephant. He is only 2 years old, so, Saat Khoon Maaf!)

I really really wanted to have my lunch at Das Prakash, since it was already late, we rushed to the Kamat  Madhuvan, Ittige Gudu, which was nearby. The Kamat Hotel at Lakdikapul, Hyderabad is a personal favourite, so we gave this Mysore Kamat restaurant a chance! (Next time Das Prakash!)

Although we had to wait a little while to get seated, I loved the food that was served there. We had the North Karnataka Thali. The menu had Jowar roti, methi leaves and cucumber salad, sprouts curry to name a few. It is a win win for health conscious people. We bought a paan at the end, to round up our meal. (I worried myself silly, that Mr.Bee may feel sleepy behind the wheel, what with such a hearty meal!)

The brief lunch halt turned out to be more than a two hour break, but never mind, who is rushing us? No one!

The Mysore to Ooty road is a pleasant drive.  We hardly met any traffic and the beauty was scenic. Just before entering the forest area, Mr.Bee and I bought Kala Jamun and Choco Bar ice creams respectively. (The kids were fast asleep in the car-bed and we enjoyed our ice creams!) We drove to Ooty via Bandipur Forest as well as Mudumalai Forest, saw deers, stags, elephants, monkeys in huge numbers. We also saw a couple of peacocks too. That’s when we woke up the kiddos, who were excited to watch the animals up close. In the middle of the forest, among-st the flora and fauna, I felt at peace! (in-spite of two hyper kids shouting at the top of their lungs!)

Since, all the deer are ignoring the camera, enjoy the scenery!

The Baby Elephant with its two legged friend.

The drive in the forest was the best. We took the longest possible route to Ooty, hoping to spot more and more animals and to entertain the kiddos. The ghat roads are a fun drive and after every 3 turns, there would be a tiny stall, selling boiled sweet corns, wild baby carrots, pickled Indian gooseberries (Amla in Hindi, usirikaya in Telugu) , jack fruits (panasa in Telugu) in varied sizes. The mountainous region looked over-populated, if the traffic is any indication!

By the time we reached our hotel in Ooty, La Montana it was already 8 p.m. and the temperature was 14 C. Since the dinner would be served only till 9, we rushed to our room for a breather and rushed to the in-house restaurant to have our buffet dinner.

La Montana – Heaven on Earth

The buffet was memorable because, there was a musician playing live music on his tiny piano. He was playing a recent hit song from the Tamil movie starring Dhanush and Samyukta Menon, Sir, to be exact. I even recorded it in a video, but it is not presentable, thanks to my kids running here and there, in front of my cell, trying to distract me!

Anyway, we reached the room, tried to watch a little t.v., but soon dozed off into a deep slumber, thanks to the cold climate, cozy bed and comforters.

Ooty, we will check you out tomorrow! That’s my last thought before sleeping away.

P.S:

  1. My precious little gems, my chocolate filled muffins, GBee and KBee talk mostly in English, even if I talk in Telugu to them. Looks like the pink Peppa Pig is a bigger influence than the stay-at-home-mom! They even have Peppa Pig night wear, those little tv addicts!
  2. La Montana – The heaven on Earth, because, the view is to die for! From the balcony, we could see the beautiful estates, the rose gardens, people going about their business, the nearby mountains, the huge trees and far away valleys, look at the Sun Rise, feel the mild breeze and what not! If you don’t have your cuppa tea here, in the balcony, every morning during your stay, I don’t know why you even planned your stay there!
  3. I forgot the shop, but in the Devaraja Market, Mysore, we get the best asafoetida or hing. My uncle showed the store to me, but I have forgotten it with the passing of more than a decade of time! (Any Mysore locals reading this post can direct message me. Any help is appreciated.)
  4. While we were passing the Mudumalai forest, I remembered Oscar winning documetary The Elephant Whisperers which was shot here and wondered if I would meet the now famous duo! We didn’t, obviously!
  5. I wonder who named the jack fruit, it feels like cursing the poor fruit!
  6. This is not a sposored post. I am just naming the eateries and places, which I really enjoyed.

Wait for the next post. Till then, adios!

Bengaluru Beckons!

June 19, 2023 / / 2 Comments

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.

Sketch Please!

April 24, 2023 / / 1 Comment

If all you have with you are different pencils, a couple of white papers and time to kill, then , sketching is a good hobby for you! I started to sketch during my class 8 summer vacation and continued it well into my early twenties. But then, life happened and my hobby took a back seat!

For S, let’s go with Sketching!

According to the great internet God, Wikipedia, Sketching is the process of drawing of a rough outline  of a final piece of art.

Drawing a rough outline of fighter figures! – Basics of Sketching

Sketching is also about using different strokes to complete the drawing. The different strokes of sketching are..

A sketch made with basic pencil strokes…

Tree during the Fall

One fine day, Mr.Bee and I decided to see who was better at sketching and the winner is obviously not me! Mr.Bee and I decided to sketch Marilyn Monroe and see who was better, but mine sucks. I have refrained from showing my piece. This one is Mr.Bee’s sketch.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Marilyn Monroe! – by Mr.Bee

While I am not posting my Marilyn Monroe sketch, to save my face, I would like to post, something else…

Girl in a Flower Crown – by QB

The easiest of all the sketches are the ones of nature, landscapes and hills. I have loads of those in my sketch book. Will post more of my sketches in later posts.

Sketch of a Hill Station – Probably Ooty! – by QB

All you need to start sketching are H and B pencils. H is the hardest pencil and so lighter in drawing, whereas, B is for darker shading, since they are softer.

Graphite Drawing Pencil guide

If you want to start sketching, why not start with a simple one like this …

Fallen leaves – Best beginner’s sketch for learning to shade

Go ahead, get sketching!

P.S:

  1. The other hobbies starting with S are Sky Diving, Soap Making, Star Gazing (or Amateur Astronomy) and Snorkelling.

Mr.Bee tried his hand at Sky Diving, in Charlotte,NC,USA and enjoyed it thoroughly. You can watch the video here.

2. The images which don’t have my logo on them have been freely copied from the internet. Thanks to all the sources.

3. During our stay in USA, when Mr.Bee was busy in his office working, I would either go and make dozens of pottery or sit and watch movies.That is how I ended watching some of the movies of Marilyn Monroe, Cary Grant,  Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, from Netflix. I loved watching Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the Seven Year Itch, Roman Proposal, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Good, Bad and the Ugly,to name a few. (I need more time to refresh my memory to remember the other movie names!)

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