"Incredible India" is one of the marketing campaigns that we see for Indian tourism in Sydney - probably active in other countries as well. It is interesting to see myself as a "tourist" in a place where I grew up. I suppose a few years away from home can make that difference.
Had a good short break in Singapore where the prime needs were met - family, sight seeing, shopping and of course hawker style food. A loaf of stale bread and a fish pond was all it took to keep the kids occupied. Travelling with Nandha comes with its own entertaining moments. He was quite engrossed with Tom and Jerry (mostly without ear phones) through most of the flight segments. However he had the need to stand up on the seat every time during take off and landing. Guess he wanted to enjoy the full effect. The current air travel regulations had to be enforced providing a bit of entertainment to fellow passengers.
First stop - Chennai catching up with family, friend and filling up ward robes. Had a road trip to Bangalore with a slightly (2 hours) delayed start than planned and reached Bangalore at around 3 PM for lunch. Since then our lunch timings changed to post 3 PM for the next 2 days (almost the rest of the trip). Managed to play some tennis and a quick trip to Anekal to visit our house. After a 2 day break in Bangalore left for Salem on the 29th morning. We had a quick stopover at Kaatu Aanjaneyar (Forest Anjaneyar/Hanuman) temple. It is supposedly a "powerful" temple granting many people their wishes. Each wish is secured with a coconut in a red bag and a unique identification number. I understand that once that wish is materialized you visit the temple again and break that coconut open (and probably file your next wish as well).
Salem was a short stop initially - just 2 days and headed off to Mettur. Managed to go on a movie (Raja Rani) date with Uma - thanks to her grand parents baby sitting the kids. After a day in Mettur had another quick road trip to Anekal. It was a quite refreshing trip with pleasant weather and the green fields along. Returned back to Salem on the 3rd Oct. Had dinner at Gandhi Rd with take away food from Parasakthi - a small restaurant which tops my list of favourites in Salem. A huge tick in the box for my trip.
Will stop with this for now. More to come soon.
Until then...
C
Hi Chetty
ReplyDeleteLooks like you are living in Muscat time zone rather than India.
Well done on the private cinema outing.
On the Kaatu Anjaneyar wishes, it looks this is one area which can be brought online to become more scalable. The unique ID is already the correct design, coconut can be replaced with its digital equivalent at the right local price. And follow up wishes can be filed efficiently with minimal input as user info (like name and star) are already on file.
Sounds like a business opportunity...
Agree with the Muscat time zone.
DeleteThe e-wishes for Kaatu Aanajaneyar seems interesting. However the devotees will miss out on the physical effort of having to carry the coconut around. Of course it may not be too long before the online wishes become a reality. :-)