Our new car :)
Queensland’s Sunshine Coast
Back in India for Pulkit’s Wedding
Hello world! It’s been a while, but this month I have something exciting to write here. At the start of February I took a short break from my everyday life here in Sydney, and flew back to India for a week-and-a-half of scenery, socialising, surprises, and shaadi instead. Yes, a wedding – and all the fun that goes with it! Especially in India. Amarsha’s cousin Pulkit was getting married, so this was a good chance for me to attend my first indian wedding. Well, not counting my own of course :) But attending someone else’s wedding is different; you’re free to enjoy yourself without anything important to do. Something like being a guest at a really grand thanksgiving dinner, I imagine. Versus being the host. Or perhaps the turkey :P
Ok, but seriously, it was also a great opportunity to visit Jammu again, and spend a little time with all our family there. Amarsha would’ve loved to come, but sadly she had to work, so in the end I made plans to go alone. I didn’t have a lot of time – departing Sydney on the 4th and returning on the 14th – but I planned to make the most of it. And there was an unexpected surprise too – at the last minute my sister in law decided to join me :) Didi came all the way from Chicago, bringing almost-4-year-old Myra with her, and we met up at Mamaji’s place when I reached Delhi on the 5th. That really made the trip special. Not just for me, but for everyone back in Jammu, who had no idea they were coming!
Together the three of us really did pack a lot into nine days, going from one place to the next by train, plane, car/jeep, autorickshaw… and even a helicoptor. We barely stopped to breathe in Delhi (although I’m told that’s not always a great idea anyway), heading out to the station on the same day and catching an overnight train to Chakki Bank, in Punjab. Or a train to India, from Myra’s point of view, who doesn’t really count Delhi :)
Nakul had come to pick us up at dawn, with two of Pulkit’s friends, and a jeep. Weaving our way through the cows occupying the quiet lanes behind the station, and coming out into wide green Punjabi fields, this feeling of happiness and tranquility descended upon me. We were properly away from city life now. This was India; even Myra had to agree. It was quite surreal to think that just two days ago I had been sitting in my office in Sydney working at a keyboard. Thinking about that only made me happier.
After two hours on the road we arrived in Pulkit’s village, Bhaddu. Everyone came out to the gate to greet me, but they got a big surprise when Didi and Myra got out of the car! Up until then everyone had been under the impression they were still in Chicago. Well, with the exception of Papa, who we’d asked to quietly organise it, and Nakul of course, who had come to pick us up. And Pulkit, who had somehow come to know even when he ought not to have. We thought someone might’ve let the cat out of the bag, but the three of them had done a great job of keeping a lid on it, and it was really a moment to remember. Some peoples’ reactions I won’t easily forget. Mummy was quite emotional seeing her daughter and granddaughter turn up out of the blue :-)
Then it was all systems go, as the wedding shifted into top gear. Everybody put on good clothes, the bride’s family arrived for Shagun, men cooked tasty food in huge pots over a fire in the front yard, and the crowd at the house swelled until the people I could not identify far outweighed those I could. Didi and I were treated as guests of honour, having travelled the greatest distance to be there. We were really really well looked after :) I mostly spent my time sitting around chatting to people, improving my hindi and getting to know some relatives a bit better, which I really enjoyed.
This would be the story for the next few days, which were filled with good food, warm people, music, singing and dancing (lots of dancing!), and general chaos that you just won’t find anywhere else :) One day was filled with heavy rain too, but luckily it was the one day without any function planned. Didi and I had intended to visit Nanaji & Naniji (her grandparents) in Mooni, an even smaller and even more scenic village than Bhaddu. But it’s a tricky drive out there at the best of times, so we decided not to try it in the driving rain. In the end we still managed a brief visit another day, in the morning before the reception in Bhaddu. You can see a couple of pictures in the set above, but they really don’t do it justice. It was lovely to see Nanaji & Naniji again, and I think we both wished we could’ve stayed longer.
One night in Bhaddu I was taken to a “cocktail party”, where I was greeted with much enthusiasm, and a bit of whiskey too ;) A unique experience for me involving a large field, a big group of men with whiskey and rather tasty grilled chicken, a big sound system, drums, and crazy dancing. I didn’t get any photos (it was dark), but I guess it’s just one of those “you had to be there” things anyway.
On the day of the Barat we all dressed up in our finest clothes and made the two hour drive to Pathankot, where the bride’s family are from, back over the state border in Punjab. Didi, Myra and I went in Doctor Uncle’s car, with Bhoomi and Akriti. We had a bit of fun trying to get home again too, after midnight, when we lost sight of the car we were following and missed a turn!
We all had lots of fun that night actually, dancing in front of the horse as Pulkit approached (er, he took a car from Bhaddu and only switched to the horse near the end of course!), and in front of the DJ, who was blasting rocking beats and strobe lights at all the poor old aunties and uncles sitting in front of the stage waiting for the proceedings to begin! I got a few good stares from people who weren’t expecting to see a white guy there, which I’ve really missed since I left Bombay. Ahh…
What else is there to tell? I’m sure I’ve missed out a lot, but I’m, um, running out of paper. Or electrons, or something. I felt a little sad to leave once everything was over, but the time had to come, so we got in the car and I drove Mummy, Didi and Myra back to Jammu. Papa followed us by bus the next day, as he wanted to stay and help with the cleanup, and there just wasn’t space for him with all our luggage in the car anyway! We had one full day in Jammu, before our flight back to Delhi on the 12th, with which we decided to visit Vaishnodevi, Jammu’s famous mountain-top shrine. You have to leave your car at the bottom, in a town called Katra, and from there it’s a 12km climb up to a place called Bhavan, at the top. I’ve done it once before.
This time all that legwork wouldn’t have been realistic, being that we were pressed for time and had a 4 year old with us, so we opted to use a helicoptor instead. We thought that’d save us a lot of time, you see :) But things didn’t exactly go to plan, and just getting back on time for our flight to Delhi the next day turned into quite a mission! We set off from Jammu around midday, and had hoped to be back in the evening. In reality it would be 5am the next morning (the morning of our flight!) when we finally stumbled in the door again.
The helicoptor flight itself was really exciting though. An experience to remember for a long time. For some reason everyone gets on and off of helicoptors in real life just like they do in movies – bent over and running, like a commando. It seems a little silly to think about now – the blades are easily higher than even the tallest human (although they do advise you not to wave your arms in the air) – but at the moment when the skids touch the tarmac and they slam open the doors, it really feels like the most natural thing to do, I assure you :) The view was just amazing (sadly, for security reasons, there are ‘no photography’ signs up everywhere), and the machine feels so nimble… manuverable, even from the passenger seat in the back. Gee, I’d love to fly one of those myself one day.
Ahh, well… getting back to the story. It was at the helipad that our problems really started, in fact, where it turned out we had to wait in a crowd for a few hours before getting a flight (how we didn’t manage to predict that, I can’t imagine). We were up the top by 6pm, just on time for the evening aarthi to begin, which means the shrine is closed to public viewing for three hours. By the time we had queued up and gone for our viewing, it was already 10pm. And did I mentioned that we weren’t able to book a return flight? That’s right, we took one-way :) They don’t fly after dark, but walking down is easier than walking up, and we’d initially been feeling ambitious. So at 10pm we had to set off walking the 12km down! By midnight everyone was zig-zagging and stumbling around like zombies. It’s a good thing the path is wide and well paved. Mummy actually lay down on a bench at the 6km mark and slept for a while! Myra had also fallen asleep, and the poor thing couldn’t have walked so far anyway, so I ended up carrying her in my arms. All the way from Bhavan to Katra. That was difficult. The next day (well, the same day at 10am, after about 5 hours sleep) I had aches in all kinds of places I didn’t even know existed. Then we had a mad rush to pack our stuff and get to the airport for our midday flight to Delhi. We made it, but not without drama :) We started out by going to the wrong entrance at the airport!
But for real drama, you can look past the absolute stupidity of booking one’s flight for a date other than the date one intends to travel on. Yes – after all that rush, I got to the international checkin counter in Delhi on the 13th, only to be told they didn’t have a reservation for me! It turns out that I’d somehow booked my return flight to Sydney for Sunday the 13th of March, instead of Sunday the 13th of February. DOH! I couldn’t believe it at first, but there it was in front of me, printed in black & white, straight off the website on the day I booked.
Luckily Emirates kindly agreed to fix it for me, for free (can’t say enough good things about that airline). Although I did have to wait two more days in Delhi for the next vacant flight. If only I’d known sooner! We didn’t need to rush back from Jammu. Ahh, but in the end I got to enjoy Mamaji & Mamiji’s luxurious New Delhi house and warm hospitality for another two days, do a little bit of shopping with Didi, visit Shashi Masi again… and we even managed to visit Niti Masi’s family out in Mayur Vihar, which I otherwise wouldn’t have had a chance to do.
So all’s well that ends well :-)
~Gareth
First months in Sydney
Autumn in New Zealand
Should have really posted this much sooner but as always we aren’t very good at keeping this blog up-to-date. Hopefully, in future we’ll be better organised at this. Here are some of the memorable pictures from our holiday in New Zealand.
We arrived in Christchurch in the last week of February. It was the start of autumn at the time but the weather was surprisingly still very good. We spent the first couple of weeks just relaxing at Gareth’s parent’s home. We celebrated our first anniversary at a unique restaurant on the top of Mount Cavendish. The gondola ride to get up to the top was great fun. The views from the restaurant were just stunning.
The next morning Dafydd, Gareth and I set off on our trip to the North Island in Dafydd’s car. Traveling by road is perhaps the best way to explore the beautiful country. We drove through some amazing scenery. Stopped at some beach near Kaikoura on the way up, took some pictures and drove on to Picton where we boarded the ferry which took us and the car across to the North Island. We drove off the ferry at Wellington harbour and found our way to Gareth’s Uncle Glyn & Aunty Alli’s lovely place in the downtown. Wellington is the capital of New Zealand. It’s a charming city with lots of character and perhaps home to a lot of arty people. We caught up with some of Gareth’s friends he worked with while in TCS.
We visted Te Papa museum to see an exhibition, ‘A day in Pompei’. The most fascnating part was looking at plaster casts of people and animals who got trapped under the lava. By pouring plaster of paris into the excavated sites, geologists have uncovered minute details of the state these people were in when the volcano erupted. We also saw a 3D movie which showed the recreation of the day that Mt Vesuvius destroyed the civilization of Pompei in 79 A.D.
After spending a few days in Wellington, we drove up to Taupo where Gareth’s granddad lives. Taupo is a popular tourist destination in the North Island. We spent about a week in Taupo. The weather was particularly good all through our stay. It was nice to get to know some more of Gareth’s family. We stayed at Gareth’s granddad’s place which is not so far from the beautiful Lake Taupo. Granddad was very happy to have all of us stay with him. We went on a lot of day trips in and around Taupo. For me the most fascinating were the visits to thermal parks where you can see hot steam coming out of the ground, smell the sulphur, and the stark contrast between the green bushes and burning hot earth all in the same place. We also relaxed in some hot pools, went to see Uncle Glyn’s batch and admired the collection of bonsais Granddad has in his lovely garden.
Our journey back to Christchurch was interesting too, especially the storm at sea during the ferry crossing from the North Island to the South Island. Dafydd managed to get some spectacular pictures of the storm setting in.
For the next couple of months in Christchurch, we relaxed, exercised, studied a bit for job interviews, saw some more of the city, caught up with some more of Gareth’s friends, played plenty of badminton, watched movies and just chilled! We both miss the wonderful holiday we had in New Zealand and how Mum and Dad took such good care of us.