Christmas Eve.

I know what I want for Christmas. I'm just too scared to ask for it, because I don't think I'll ever get it.

Coming back home after an outing to Plaza Singapura today, I felt worse than I've felt in a long time. I'm supposed to have been happy. And it's not like there aren't things to be happy about. And I was too. Until I stepped into Dhoby Ghaut station alone and was suddenly engulfed by a gazillion people who weren't alone. In order to save myself more agony, I just put my head down throughout the entire journey. And walked really fast.

Think I might just open that wine bottle I bought from PS tonight.

Motherland Magic Part II

Omg rehearsals have been LONG and tiring and but they've been fun. :) Anyway, I'm finally back to continue my India entry.

Day 7, Satuday

So. Post crazy headache, I woke up, thankful to be rid of it. It was maddening. I thought I might have brain tumour or something. The flu was still bugging me, but I was on holiday and I wasn't going to let a little runny nose ruin my fun! So I popped a few pills and I was all set.

That day, our 12-seater van came back, but with a different driver. And we set out for Thalacauvery and Abbey Falls. The road was supremely shitty as it was on the way to Coorg, and our driver was not gentle on the potholes at all. So we were bouncing around the van, trying to hold on to our belongings as well the seat in front so that we won't fly upwards. Anyway, we went to some temple first (I keep forgetting the name of this place), where the cauvery flows through and we kinda wet our feet there. Then we used the toilet, which I really needed after that horribly bumpy ride, and thankfully the toilets were clean and un-smelly. Which is RARE in a public place in India!

We then proceeded on to Thalacauvery, where we camwhored a lot.
Saw the source of the cauvery river, which is this tiny little pond like thing, under which there is apparently a spring (which is the source of the water). I was like ARE YOU SUREEEE. It looked implausible! But I guess it's true :/ Then a few of us (athimber, mum, dad, Nikhil, Adi and me) climbed another 365 steps to the top of the mountain just to see the view and take photos.

But we came back down pretty quickly because the top was covered in little rocks and we couldn't go up with our shoes on. SO, it was POKEY and painful.

Next stop was lunch. We drove back down the mountain to Madikeri town, where we had lunch at this little restaurant, where cleanliness was terrifyingly average but the food was not bad tasting. We all missed our homestay's buffet spread like mad :P Then we proceeded on to Abbey Falls. At the entrance of Abbey Falls, there were these little chai stalls, and one stall which sold this cucumber thing. They cut the cucumber into quarters and sprinkle chilli powder or something.

Some of us ate that and drank coffee/ tea, before climbing down a path to get to the falls.

It was pretty nice, but they didn't let us go anywhere near the falls! Pity. :( After that everyone was really tired so we just decided to skip the rest of the itenary (some gardens) and head to our homestay.

Got back before dark (the sun set at like 6pm) and played badminton and cricket outside while sipping hot tea, courtesy of the wonderful helpers at the homestay.

They were really fantastic, catering to our every need with a smile (and for one, with a hummed tune- he was ALWAYS humming as he worked, be it cooking, doing laundry, bringing out the food, ANYTHING... it was adorable). As darkness fell, we retreated indoors to play card games like UNO and Rummy. But soon, Yogesh uncle called us out because they had lit a bonfire. So we all went out and sat around the blazing hot bonfire in the chilly weather.

It felt super nice. Then Dad asked uncle something and suddenly, out came a few cans of beer and two bottles of Bacardi Breezer. You can imagine how my face lit up at that! I mean like, BREEZERS! Brilliant :D The other family staying there joined us too and we all sat around the bonfire playing a different version of Antakshari, drinking and stargazing. It was a perfect holiday moment :)

The rest of the night was spent eating the fantastic dinner and a post dinner round of Rummy games with the family. I think there were like 8 of us playing and we had to mix 3 decks and it was mega confusing and each game took super long, but it was fun. :D

Day 8, Sunday

Sunday morning, and it was time to set off for sight seeing again. Omg, I just realised I forgot to talk about their brilliant breakfast! There was bread and spreads like honey, butter, jam, sauce, etc. There was cereal and milk. There were juices. And they'd make you egg, the way you like it-- scrambled, omelet, masala omelet, you name it. On top of all that, there'll be a south indian breakfast dish, like dosas or upma or idlis etc. With sambar and chutney. We all ate very well. :)

Luckily, on this day, we had our first day driver back, who was much friendlier and much gentler on the potholey roads. Our itenary contained 3 places. First up was the elephant sanctuary, where you could bathe elephants, feed them and watch them play a game of football. Which was nice.

Nothing spectacular, but it was nice. The boat ride across the river was nice too, though the fact that we had to alight on the humongous roots of a TREE kind of dulled that experience.

Second place we went to was the Bamboo forest. Now this was a lot more interesting. It was literally a bamboo forest, but it also had a little deer sanctuary and you could feed the deers and one of them happily licked athimber's arm (all the way up to the elbow) after he had given it food.

But the most exciting part of this stop came at the beginning. We all bought ice-cream and brought it into the forest, because outside they said it was allowed.

Little did we know that there would be a welcoming committee on the other side of the bridge at the entrance. The moment we walked into the forest, several of them descended on us from above. Yup, monkeys. Snatching merrily at our ice creams. My cousin got super freaked out and dropped his ice cream, which the monkey happily finished :P

And they were not yet satisfied! They continued stalking us until several of us gave our almost finished ice-creams to them, and then they left us alone, going back to scare other visitors. It was highly amusing though and also reminiscent of Bali in 2001, where we got attacked by monkeys for a bag of chips. Oh, here in the forest, we made a toilet stop, but the toilets were horrifyingly bad. Super smelly and DIRTY and omg I wanted to throw up by the time I had finished peeing.

Oh btw, the ice-creams I mentioned, they were actually what we used to call "ball ice-cream". It comes in a little hollow plastic ball, with a lid. When you open the lid, there's vanilla ice-cream inside. I used to love eating that as a kid whenever I went to India and my parents have fond memories of it from their younger days. But recently, we all realised that my brother had never tried it. So we were kind of on a mission to make sure he gets to try it. And lo and behold! We found it in Coorg. :) Now let me set one thing straight, there's nothing special about the ice-cream itself. It's just the thrill of eating it out of a plastic ball, which you get to wash and keep later. I know it sounds lame, but when you try it, you'll enjoy it!

After that, we went to the Tibetan monastery nearby. This was something different. It was really colourful and pretty, but the thing that struck us was the peacefulness of the place.

We took a group shot in front of the structure that bore a huge portrait of the Dalai Lama, but just as we finished taking the picture, we all felt weird yellow coloured rain falling from the sky. Weird, yellow coloured, SMELLY rain. Flipping out, we looked up and saw a buzz of little insects hovering a few meteres above our heads. THEY WERE SHITTING ON US OR SOMETHING OMG. So we made a dash from the place, got chased for a short while by the insects, but finally found refuge inside one of the temples. Yikes. Interesting experience though. We all spent a while wiping dots of yellow goo off our clothes, hair, bags and cameras. Bleargh. Took more group pics in and outside the temple and set off towards the souvenir shops.

After a while of souvenir hunting, we returned to the van and headed back.

When we got back, it still wasn't dark, so again, we took the time to play outdoor games, including blind man's buff.

Hahaha. It was quite amusing. And again, we were served tea by the helpers. Dinner that night was awesome too, but Revathi aunty had left to visit her sons in Bangalore and to direct a drama production. So we all really missed her! Post dinner, we played rummy again, and this time dad had bought beer and 7-up and made shandy for all of us as we played. All of us drank a bit, since shandy is only like some 0.5% alcohol.

Day 9, Monday

This was our free day and we made full use of it. Spent the entire day hanging around the lovely gardens of our homestay and taking a lot of pictures and playing games at the veranda of the house, where they had games like chess, snakes and ladders and scrabble etc printed onto the stone seating area.

It was really relaxing and nice.

I also used the time to start transferring pictures to my computer and editing them. We also spent time watching HIMYM and other things on TV. That night, we lit the bonfire again and sat around it talking. And after dinner, we had a mass photo-seeing session, where we put all the photos taken on the trip onto a thumbdrive and plugged it into the TV. So we could view all the pics on a big screen.

Oh, and of course, we spent a substantial amount of time packing, because we were leaving the next morning.

Day 10, Tuesday

Sadly, this was our last morning there. After having some breakfast and packing lunch, we all bade farewell to our wonderful hosts and all the helper boys, took a LOT of photos and very very reluctantly left the homestay at about 7am. Unfortunately, this time the van that came to pick us up only had 11 seats so Athai, Niks and I squeezed into the front seat. Uncomfortable, but we managed. The roads were TERRIBLE as usual and some of us got quite uncomfortable and nauseous so we had to take a couple of stops. Plus of course, we all needed the toilet and some tea/coffee on the way. At our toilet stop at a petrol pump, we saw a whole bunch of rabbits hopping around and some in cages. I think the owner of pump owned rabbits too. Omg they were adorable and we were all filming them hopping around and nibbling on stuff.

We reached the train station with an hour to spare. However, we had to cross an overhead bridge to get to our platform on the other side of the tracks. How to do that with all our luggage?! So we paid a couple of porters to do it for us. And you know how they transported the luggage? By climbing down onto the tracks and walking across the tracks to the other side. Crazayyyy.

Anyhoo, we got all our luggage, our train arrived, and after a looong wait, they finally opened the doors. We all got on and loaded our luggage into the train. Luckily, this time we had two adjacent cabins and all of us got to sit together. Also, half the train was empty and the journey was only 13 hours long. Woohoo. We played some card games, read a lot, actually SLEPT and soon enough, we were in Bombay.

Day 11, Wednesday

We all alighted at Thane, where the train stopped for barely a couple of minutes, but all of us managed to alight in time and get our luggage off as well. We had hired cars and drivers to pick us up from the station and they drove us home. We all crashed for a few hours at home, after which, Nikhil and I got ready to head to Pinku (our cousin)'s house. I packed up all my things because I was supposed to go to the airport straight from there on Saturday. Their driver, Babu uncle, came to pick us up. We dropped Mum and Dad at Ghatkopar and reached Mulund, where she stays, around 3plus in the afternoon. Spent time watching HIMYM and then the two of us set out to eat vada pav (a fried ball of spicy mashed potato placed in a bun and sprinkled with super spicy garlic chutney). Ahhhh so delish! Dammit I miss Bombay food :( Then we gulped down a bottle of 7-up and took a rickshaw to Nirmal Lifestyles Mall, where I bought a pair of Levis jeans and a couple of books from Crossword (The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown and Krishna Coriolis: Slayer of Kamsa by Ashok Banker).

Then we returned home, to more HIMYM. Hahah.

That night, Pinku and I stayed up talking until like 1.30am and so obviously the next day we only woke up around 9.30am.

Day 12, Thursday

I have a feeling we spent almost this entire day watching HIMYM and talking rubbish and playing Chess/ UNO etc. Whoa.

Day 13, Friday

Rangan chitthappa left for Bahrain again. We went to R City Mall in... Ghatkopar I think. Pinku bought me a pair of shorts from Marks & Spencers. Then Niks, her and I wandered the mall for a while, had lunch and dropped Pinku at her tuitions (she teaches geography!) and returned home. Dad also left for Singapore that night.

That night we went to watch No Problem! in the theatre, which was totally brainless but really funny! After the movie, we ordered Pizza home and ate that as a really late dinner. And then it was time to turn in.

Day 14, Saturday

My last day there. Mum sent Dad off the previous night from Andheri and then came over to my cousin's house in Mulund that morning. Post lunch, we both rushed around the nearby market area buying last minute jewellery, souvenirs, snacks etc. Then we both drank sugar cane juice at the famous place there. Sugar cane juice in India is RLY different. It's really nice and thick and sweet and they like foam it up for you and you can add this masala powder to it and it tastes super good. Not like the sugar cane here, which is really diluted. And the famous shop there, it's just a rundown little shop at the corner of a street, but it's been there as long as my mum can remember and they sell really good sugarcane juice. :)

Anyhoo, after a rushed shopping trip, we came home and packed my suitcase to bursting point. Packed my hand luggage as well, which turned out SUPER heavy. And then at about 8.45pm, after some light dinner, we all left for the airport. Shobha chitthi, mum and Pinku came to send me off, but in Mumbai airport, all we could do was talk from either side of a glass wall :( Not like Singapore airport where you can send someone off all the way till immigration. In Mumbai, even check-in and everything is restricted to passengers only. So it kinda sucked. But oh well. Filled in my departure card and stood in super long queues at immigration and security checks AND at the duty free shopping. But I had the time anyway.

Then I sat at the waiting area and enjoyed free wifi for an hour plus, when my laptop battery threatened to run out so I switched it off.

On the flight I spent time reading and catching up on Season 5 HIMYM episodes and I slept for like. 30 minutes. And by that time, it was already time to land.

Back in S'pore

Got off the plane looking like a mess, met Dad at the airport (he was leaving for Sydney), talked to him for like 5 minutes, then cabbed home. Came back and died for a few hours, then dressed up and went for AA's engagement, which was fun! :) Took some pics, came back and realised I was far too tired to drag myself to hall. So just repacked my suitcase and slept at home that night. The next morning, around 11am, I took a cab back to hall, in time to attend rehearsals and all.

Whew. Finished the entire story at last!

Motherland Magic Part I

Ok so I was supposed to be folding clothes, but I started checking my mail, then FB and then it just went on and on and now my laundered clothes are still lying all over my bed. Welcome to the life of a slacker. :) Anyhoo, I know I have not updated for EONS and I have a perfectly good reason for that-- I was in India, where the internet connections are unreliable (and reliable ones are not very cheap) and there was far too much else to do (like shopping and hanging with relatives and compulsively watching HIMYM). And then I came back and I had AA's engagement to attend and rehearsals to go to and all and long story short, I just haven't had the time to post a proper entry. And I wanted to post a proper entry. Soooo I am going to compensate by posting all about my India trip. But first, my clothes shall get folded.

(five minutes of very hurried folding later...)

Ok clearly this entry will not be finished very quickly. Might be done over a couple of days even. But yeah, let me get started at least.

So on the 27th of Nov, after the end of my last exam, I almost wanted to weep with joy. It had been like, the LONGEST week ever. Rushed back and started frantically packing. Packed and packed and facebooked and whatever else all at the same time. Then went around saying goodbye to people and finally mum's call came saying that she was here to pick me and my luggage up. We hauled everything home, went out to Swensen's for dinner, came back and then continued the frenzied packing. Finished around 11.45pm, about half an hour before we were supposed to leave.

Ok honestly, I was really very excited, because I had been suppressing my excitement for the last one week! So yeah. But let me say this, late night flights are not as fun as they used to be. When I was young, late night flights meant staying up past my bedtime for legit reasons and having everyone stay up with me. But now, staying up is like homgnoooo I have been doing this all semester, IWANTTOSLEEPRAWR. Well ok, that night was especially bad 'cos I hadn't slept much the previous night (or all through the week) due to the stupid exams and so obviously I wanted to crash. But nope, it didn't happen. And I really can't sleep on planes. So when I landed in India, I was hella tired. But we landed pretty early so I thought, yay I can go home and sleep. BUT of course, the universe was conspiring to not let me sleep, and so, it turned out that Dad hadn't brought a certain document that contained his visa into India (I would explain all this, but it's a long and tedious explanation, so just take this at face value). Long story short, he had to get a visa on arrival and well. It's India. Do they ever do anything in a convenient and time-efficient way? Nope. THEY DIDN'T EVEN HAVE A FREAKIN' COMPUTER TO KEY IN ALL THE INFORMATION. They had log books. To be written in by hand. And not one or two, but like one for every action they took. Oh lord. I swear I wanted to strangle someone. It took Dad 1.5 hours to get the visa and we FINALLY managed to hop into a cab and get home to our colony in Andheri.

Home was like sweet sweet relief and Parvati athai (dad's older sister) was all ready take care of us weary travelers :). A cup of hot ovaltine and a change of clothes (into FBTs) later, I happily crashed for 2 hours or so. Woke up at 9.30am and showered and ate breakfast. Day 1, Sunday was pretty fun. We went around to nearby shops and shopped a bit. I didn't buy much, but Mum did. That night we also grabbed some pani puri before dinner. Oh the wonderful experience of eating roadside pani puri. I have elaborated on this here, when I blogged about my India trip 2.5 years ago. Haha. We ate out for dinner and turned in early that night because we were all tired.

Day 2, Monday

Was visiting day. We rented a car and a driver who drove us to Shobha chitthi's (mum's younger sister) house first, where Nikhil and I found it hard to leave because we wanted to stay with our cousins and catch up. But of course, we were on a strict time limit. So it was breakfast there, and then on to Raji athai's house for lunch (where there was some kind of SPREAD and it was mega filling), where we also got to see my little niece (my cousin's daughter) for the first time :))

From there we went to my dad's cousin's house for tea and then finally we went to my cousin's house in New Bombay for dinner. The same cousin who was in Singapore just the week before! :) So I got to see my twin nieces again and also Jindha periamma (mum's older sister) after super long.

After that, it was back home, insanely tired again and we just crashed.

Day 3, Tuesday

Was a wake-up late day. Finally. But the windows had no curtains so the sunlight kind of drilled into our eyes and woke us up anyway. :P Bummed around for most of the day and then around 4pm, we walked to Andheri station to take the local train, which is an adventure of sorts. Firstly, the trains are usually SUPER crowded, it's a struggle to get on and people run with the train and hop on because it only stops for like 10-12 seconds at each station, during which time passengers are expected to get off and on. Some even alight from a moving train because the moment the train stops, people will push and shove to get out and in. Plus, due to the crazy crowd, people have to literally hang out of the train, clutching at the handrails for dear life. And people do this on a daily basis. But we went at a non-peak time so luckily we did not face that kind of trouble.

The handles in the train

The seats.

We took the train to the last stop, at Churchgate, because Dad went to work that day (it was a part-business trip for him) and we were going to pick him up/ tour the cityside. It was fun! The city side is like much cleaner and more organized and full of old british architecture and stuff.

I had fun walking around and clicking away and I finally got to visit Marine Drive, or the Queen's Necklace (due to the way it looks at night, with all the lights). Marine Drive is very popular with Indian authors, for some reason. They always write about the place. Plus, those famous four-pronged rocks feature in tons of Bollywood movies. So I've always wanted to see it for myself. It was pretty but so much light pollution omg. Couldn't see a single star in the sky.

We ate at this pizza/pasta place along Marine Drive and took the local train back home. It was a lot more crowded this time around, but still managed to get seats. Oh btw! We traveled in the men's compartment, which is also a kind of general compartment, both times because we wanted to be together as a family. Yes, local trains in Mumbai, to this day, have separate compartments for women, where men aren't allowed. Women are allowed into the men's compartment though. :P

Day 4, Wednesday, and it was shopping and packing day. Because the next day we were going to Coorg! :) We went around and I found two pairs of jeans (achievement, because everyone knows I cannot find bottoms that suitably fit my bottoms. Must.lose.weight.) Threw a whole bunch of clothes into my suitcase, along with shawls and sweaters and what not, while discussing on the phone with my cousin about what to wear on the train. And we were set!

Day 5, Thursday

Early start because the train was at 11+am and we were supposed to reach the station by like 10am. Got stuck in traffic for super long on the way, but made it in time anyway. The porter helped us lug all our 4 suitcases and one big duffel bag onto the platform where we met up with the rest of the family-- Shobha chitthi, Pinku, Adi, thathi (grandmother), Raji athai & athimber (dad's older sister's husband). I must say here that the platform STANK. Really. There was trash and waste on the tracks and flies everywhere and rats running around the tracks and everything *shudder*. Hygiene out the window then.

Oh, between the 11 of us, we had tons of luggage and we had to load everything up onto the train by ourselves.

I found this all very strange... being used to airport security and everything, travelling by train was so... free. You could keep all your luggage with you and there were no restrictions on what you could bring, there was absolutely no security to check on anything but the downside was that you were responsible for your own suitcases, from loading them onto the train to taking care of them during the journey.

To travel on Indian trains, you cannot be a clean freak. Because you will flip. Ok I mean, it's not filthy or anything, at least not in the airconditioned compartments. But. It is most definitely not CLEAN. In fact, you'll find all sorts of creepy crawlies sharing your sitting and sleeping space. Cockroaches, spider, bed bugs etc. And the toilets are not.clean. They smell and they really are just a fancy structure around a hole in the train floor. So yes, your waste does fall onto the tracks as the train runs. Also, the squatting toilet's hole is not small, and I refused to use it because I was scared I might lose my balance and fall in and get stuck LOL. Am I totally grossing everyone out? Haha. Don't get me wrong, taking a train like this in India is something everyone must try at least once. Especially when you're travelling in a big group. It is mega fun. Sure, the journey is long and tiresome, but you can sit around and play games and talk and laugh and use any electronic equipment anytime you like and climb up onto the upper berths for the fun of it and play charades with those in the lower bunks (by leaning over so they can see you) and buy random snacks and tea and coffee from vendors who keep walking through the corridor and get out everytime the train stops to stretch your legs or buy something from the vendors there or anything. And the snacks will be NICE. And you can actually lie down when you sleep because in the sleeper class, there are berths. Like the one in this picture.

6 people can sleep in one cabin-like thing and you can draw curtains for privacy. Not like in airplanes, where you can't walk up and down the corridors randomly, you can't cram more people into fixed seats, you can't gather in a big group and play games and you definitely can't make a whole lot of noise (which my family did on the train). And if you're in economy class, you totally cannot lie down and sleep is very elusive (ok it's not particularly great in a rattling and shaky train, but it's better than in an airplane) and privacy is non-existent.

Pinku, Shobha chitthi, Mum and I laughed A LOT while we were lying down trying to fall asleep. Because Mum and chitthi kept pinching and bullying each other and mock-fighting and I bet the woman who was sharing our cabin with us was cursing us to the depths of hell for disrupting her sleep, but ah who cares, it was FUN. In the end, I think we had about an hour of sleep before we were woken up because our station was approaching. We gathered all our things and got ourselves off the train. This took some careful planning and some time because we had A LOT of luggage and we had old folk amongst us (like my grandma) AND the station was like... very dimly lit and it was 4am. But everyone and everything alighted in one piece and we exited the station, only to find that our pick up vehicle wasn't there yet. After some frantic calling, we finally got the driver, who was at the wrong train station. He drove over in 15 minutes and we all kind of died in the vehicle because we were super tired.

Day 6, Friday

The drive was supposed to be 4 hours long, but I think we took longer because omg the road was BAD. There was less road and more potholes and the vehicle was jumping around pretty badly. I felt like my innards were being rearranged. My mum found it fun and almost like a free massage -__-. Actually I was more worried for my DSLR. Wasn't sure if it would withstand so much violent movement, but it did, luckily.

Five or more long hours and a good shaking up (literally) later, we finally arrived at our homestay, which was this really really pretty house + 2 smaller cottages wayyy off any main road. Smack in the midst of forest and coffee plantations.

In fact, the owners of Silver Brook Estate (that was what our homestay was called) owned the coffee plantations. The owners, Revathi aunty and Yogesh uncle were EXTREMELY welcoming and friendly and they were Iyers too, so they spoke our language and totally related to us and everything. We had booked out almost the whole place, and they showed us around and then helped us settle in.

The homestay also had a really pretty garden, with tiny ponds and flowers and fruit and vegetable plants and everything. They also had a little outdoor temple with a small Ganesha and a temple bell.

That day was nice and sunny so they even hung out a couple of hammocks where we whiled away the day until lunch time.

I was so totally in love the place, I spent a lot of time clicking away madly. I took a lot of photos that day, and my brother took plenty on our little canon ixus too, so we have loads of photos of the place.

Then came lunch. Oh, that first lunch. It was a buffet spread in their very cosy dining room. Like 5 different sabzis (vegetable dishes)/ curries, rice, rotis/chapathis hot off the stove which they brought to us as they made them, yoghurt, and dessert to top it all off. All of it was DELICIOUS. At first I thought maybe it's just the first meal, to welcome us. But hell no. Every. single. meal. Was that elaborate and that tasty. And the desserts were so mildly sweet, and so so nice. We couldn't stop singing the praises of the cooks to Revathi aunty. It was wonderful. And she was wonderful too, so bubbly and totally the life of the place.

Post lunch, we all walked down to the nearby brook that ran through their coffee estate.

There was something else special about this homestay. They had gone completely green. All their doors and windows were taken from old demolished homes in southern India, hence reducing their use of new wood substantially and saving trees. They also had no water heaters, they heated the water by burning fallen leaves and twigs and branches and so hot water was limited to certain hours. But we could always ask for hot water if we really needed it outside the usual timings, and they'd bring us a big bucket of hot water. All the washing water and the water in the toilets was from the brook in their estate, and they also harvested rainwater. They had very few and dim lights in the rooms to conserve electricity and if the power got cut before 7pm or after 11pm, they would not even switch on the generator. So it was really a very green place, and it felt good contributing to that cause :)

So after a walk to the brook and a walk through the coffee estate, we all came back and napped for a couple of hours. I was rudely awakened by Dad who was insisting that I get up and get to the other cottage where my cousins were staying. We were all a bit bewildered, but we went over anyway and Mum was making us some tea. Then suddenly Dad was all like, I have an announcement. A very special guest is here to see all of you and I'm sure it will make all of you very happy etc. And we were all like whuttt who?? And in walks Rangan chitthappa (mum's younger sister's husband). See, he works in Bahrain, and he was supposed to fly down for this family trip but in the end he couldn't make it. So seeing him there was a TOTAL surprise to all of us, but it was awesome! But how had all this happened? Turns out Mum and Dad had planned and orchestrated the whole thing. They had convinced him to come and planned to keep it a secret. :)) They hadn't even let on to me and my brother! But yay. Now the group was complete and it felt great. We all rested and got ready for dinner, which again was a spread. The dessert was amazing! Fruit salad with custard and sponge cake. Yums.

Then Pinku and I explored their small library (which had a really nice collection of books) and she picked up a book to read (I had my own). We spent an hour or so reading/ watching TV before bed. Then I returned to my cottage and turned in.

Ok something I missed out. I wasn't feeling very well on the first day there. A nasty flu, which had all the usual symptoms, but on top of everything I had been having this maddeningly bad headache. Like as though someone was playing a huge drum inside my head. It was pounding and extremely painful and almost unbearable. But the niceness of the place and the excitement of being on holiday kind of numbed it, until post dinner. That's when it kicked in real bad. So halfway through the night, I woke up, freezing and with a headache that made it almost impossible for me to stand straight or see anything. I clutched at a few things and walked over to my parents' room and woke them up. Mum got super worried (the whole day, she hadn't really taken my complaints about the headache seriously :P lol) and gave me medicine and let me sleep beside her, shooing my Dad off to the other room. I couldn't fall asleep for a long time, but I finally managed to, and thankfully the headache was gone in the morning. All that was left was a strange heaviness (like a hangover) and an annoying flu.

---To be continued---