Download in ZIP format.

In the last days of 2009 Amarsha, her parents, and I set off in Nanaji’s Maruti Alto for Shimla, up in the Himalayas, 2 days away by road. I drove for the whole trip, which was an experience – my first time driving on the open road in India, we had one or two “exciting” moments, but nothing catastrophic. Enroute we stopped off in Khanna, in Punjab, where we stayed the night with Rahul Bhaiya and his family. It’s a shame we didn’t take any photos with them. We didn’t take any in Shimla either, rather unfortunately, which we reached after dark the next night, having stopped to assist at the scene of an accident on the steep road up. It was very scenic, and clean. Really clean. Amarsha and I had some nice things to eat, danced away New Year’s Eve, and then I fell sick and spent the rest of my time in Shimla looking at the inside of a hotel room. On the bright side though, it was a very nice room.

On our way back to Jammu we stopped for 2 nights in Chandigarh, “the city beautiful”, where Papa managed to get us rooms in the TTTI guest house through his old links as a Principal. That was fun; the mess hall there has great home-cooked tasting food! We went boating on the man-made lake Sukhna the next day, visited a world acclaimed rock garden and Asia’s largest rose garden, and watched a slightly idiotic Amir Khan movie :)

Back in J&K, we were soon off on another trip, this time to stay with Amarsha’s grandparents in Mooni for a week. Situated in the hills overlooking a wide shingle riverbed, Mooni is one of the more scenic villages around… a peaceful, quiet place; I really loved being there. The pictures speak for themselves, I hope. Mummy was happy to show me around the village she grew up in, and a couple of times inquisitive locals stopped me to chat while I was out walking Nanaji’s dog, Kalu.

Our final little excursion around Jammu took us up to Vaishno Devi, a holy site situated inside a cave, on top of a mountain, which is visited by millions of pilgrims every year. We left the car in Katra, the nearest town, and covered the remaining 12km up the mountain on foot. Factoring in a couple of tea breaks it took us the better part of 6 hours, in the rain and the dark, before we reached Bhavan at the top, and found our room. Raincoats excepted, at least we all brought appropriate gear with us. Good shoes, for instance; I was quite impressed to see some devotees doing the entire 12km barefoot! The path isn’t soft.

We tried to dry out our gear in front of a small heater and catch a few hours sleep. It was freezing in the morning and I was the only one to take a stone cold bath (from a bucket), after a mixup with the hot water (and there was actually plenty! doh). When we went for darshan (viewing) we were lucky to get to use the original entrance to the cave, which is usually not open due to crowd volume, but we’d gone in particularly bad weather :) It’s a bit of a squeeze at the start, and you have to put your feet on the right angle to get in, but once you pass that bit the rest is easy. After darshan we had a short rest and some food, then it was straight into the trek back down. By the time we finally got back to Katra we were exhausted!

Jai Mata Di.

~Gareth

I know these are a shade out of date by now, but we want to keep posting things in order. We really had a lot of fun in these days, and there are some good memories here that I wouldn’t want to overlook :)

~Gareth

Download in ZIP format.

Then we went to Varanasi, where we stayed 2 nights on the banks of the river Ganges, right next to Dasaswamedh ghat – the biggest ghat, where they hold ganga ki aarti every evening. We visited a lot of beautiful temples, ate at interesting places, took a boat ride along all the ghats at the crack of dawn, and visited Ramnagar Fort on the other side of the river.

We visited Sarnath, which is a few kilometres from Varanasi – the place where Lord Buddha gave his first sermon after attaining enlightenment. It was an amazing place to visit. The ruins in Sarnath date back to King Ashoka’s period (approx 300 BC), including an impressive Lion Capital which once stood atop one of his famous (now ruined) pillars.

Our last stop was Agra. I finally saw the beautiful marvel in marble for the first time – the Taj Mahal. After spending a couple of hours appreciating Shah Jahan’s famous monument of love we moved on to the grand Agra Fort, from which the Mughal emperors once ruled over a large part of India. I was particularly spellbound by the beautiful marble carving work and decoration inside both the fort and Taj Mahal. Overall the trip was great fun for me, and a good chance to see a bit more of my own country. Check out the pictures below.

-Amarsha

Download in ZIP format.

Download in ZIP format.

We also made a couple of small side trips by ourselves, in an attempt to see a bit more of the country. This next set is from New York, where we spent 4 days staying in Manhatten, right next to the beautiful Central Park. Typical Time Square, Statue of Liberty, etc tourist pictures, plus the highlight of our trip – UN headquarters – which Dinesh Uncle kindly showed us around.

Download in ZIP format.

And finally, sin city – Las Vegas. We gambled a grand total of $2, and lost it all! But we did have a lot of fun seeing the bright lights, theme hotels, luxurious buffets, and especially the spectacular musical fountain in front of The Bellagio. We hired a Ford Mustang for a few days and had an exciting time driving around the Grand Canyon and Los Angeles on the wrong side of the road :)

~Gareth

Download in ZIP format.

We left our jobs, and Bombay, back in October. Since then we’ve been to Jammu, Delhi, Chicago, Minneapolis, and New York. Pictures coming soon :) We’re having a grand time in the states, in spite of the chilly weather this time of year, seeing lots of new things and nice people.

Last night we went to a broadway show beside Times Square – West Side Story – which was fantastic! A little expensive but such a high class vocal / dance / orchestra performance is an opportunity not to be missed :) The story was basically Romeo & Juliet, but set in the 1950′s USA.

Yesterday afternoon Dinesh Uncle (Titi Masi’s husband) kindly showed us around his workplace – UN headquarters! That was fascinating, and quite inspirational to see the kind of work they are doing there, ultimately helping to advance humanity & civilisation itself in many ways.

Better go now before we miss the next flight too! Having lots of fun & misadventures…

-Gareth

It rained incessantly all the time we were there but it didn’t dampen our spirits. We got ourselves some cool transparent rain jackets from a local shop for 20 rupees each. They look sort of futuristic, straight out of a sci-fi flick. They actually are these huge plastic bags cut out in 3 places to make space for arms and neck to pass through, very useful and practical. We went out on some walks and saw some amazing views, had a close encounter with a mischievous monkey who I saw coming towards me for the chikki I was eating. But Gareth hit him with his bag, just-in-time, and he didn’t dare coming any closer. It was scary! We learnt the hard way that we really shouldn’t eat anything on the streets.

What I liked the most about this place was that no vehicles are allowed inside the town. It was so good to get away from the pollution of Mumbai. The only way into the town was by walking or riding on a horse. On our way back we hired horses. The distance was about 3 kilometers to get to the taxi stand. This was my first time riding a horse; I thoroughly enjoyed it.

-Amarsha

Download in ZIP format.

We’ve had fun setting the place up, buying a few plants and cushions and what-have-you. We had a bit of trouble with the gas connection (it’s in the landlord’s name, and he’s out of town), but in the end Amarsha managed to organise a black cylinder, and things have gone along swimmingly ever since. We’ve got an official marriage certificate (at last!), and I’ve just got my visa extension, after a short trip to Delhi and a lot of help from Mamaji & his family.

Besides this we haven’t really accomplished much else – only been out of town for our honeymoon, in fact – but we’ve been enjoying plenty of fresh juice, grilled masala sandwiches, coconuts, mangoes, vada pav, pav bhaji… all the good stuff you find here! It’s been good to catch up with some old friends too, although we don’t see nearly enough of most people, living way out here in Borivali. I get daily opportunities to practice my hindi, and more intensive practice whenever Mummy Papa come to stay :)

We’ve had them here twice so far, which has been really nice. Last time we took them downtown to meet Rohan, and for a drive out over Mumbai’s flash new Bandra-Worli Sealink Bridge – a big bridge which links two parts of the city by a road out over the sea, as… ah… the name suggests.

Anyway, that’s me running out of material. I could write another page, but you wouldn’t want to read it :) They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and we have a few of those too…

Download in ZIP format.

~Gareth

The first is a short series of clips taken around the hotel and on a boat cruise from Panaji. I hope this gives a better impression of the layout & atmosphere of the place than still photographs can :)

Download in AVI format.

The second is a clip of Amarsha practicing swimming in the hotel pool. Keep in mind she's just learning. This was only her 3rd time in a pool this year - 5th time ever - so I'm understandably proud of her :) When she started she was afriad of waist deep water; now she's swimming widths of the pool unaided!

Download in AVI format.

Apologies for the poor quality; I had compress the embedded videos to a size you can feasibly load in your browser. If you have a fast enough connection you can always use the link to the AVI file, which is much higher quality, but be prepared for > 100MB apiece.

~Gareth

Download in ZIP format.

With all the chaos of moving to Bombay and searching for a house it took us a long time to organise anything resembling a honeymoon, but in the end it was worth the wait! Bogmallo beach was a welcome break from the city; the perfect spot to chill out for a few days.

We stayed in a nice 5 star hotel by the beach. Initially we booked beach huts (also managed by the hotel), but on arrival we were disappointed with an apparent discrepancy, let’s say, between price and quality. Amarsha made a few phone calls to the travel agent and managed to pull off a minor miracle; we were upgraded to a really nice room in the hotel for no extra cost :)

In the end I had a lot of fun, getting sunburnt and teaching Amarsha how to swim in the hotel pool. We took in a tour of Old Goa, went for a rather unique boat cruise from Panaji, sat on Miramar beach soaking up the sun, and even managed to fit in a quick visit to Vasco de Gamma. After our little break we returned to Bombay feeling refreshed, and at least a few pounds heavier from all the good food in the hotel’s complimentary buffet!

~Gareth

• The splendid Bagh-e-Bahu gardens and their weird half-fish aquarium.
• Our first Holi together, with plenty of colour (and egg! ugh).
• Our exciting trip to Lake Mansar with my family, over a particularly exciting road.

Download in ZIP format.

PS. Apologies for posting things out-of-order. We’re still catching up with the small backlog of photos from several months ago, and we’re back-dating posts to keep everything in chronological sequence. New stuff should appear at the top from now on.

All these pictures are on picassa – if you click a picture while the slideshow is playing it’ll take you to the picassa web album, if you prefer to browse that way.

~Gareth