Its Holi Time!!!

We celebrated Holi in the 'zone a week early because this weekend (which is actually holi) conflicts with the Cricket Tournament.  Just like last year...  it was a BLAST!!!  Color was flying everywhere....  everyone had a really great time!!

The kids have already planned that the first Holi home will be with colored snowballs!!

An Evening Out!!

We went out last Saturday night with some good friends of ours... Minal and Dipesh...

Minal and Vim actually know each other from Loughborogh..  Small world isn't it....

Here are some pictures of our evening out..... 

Mumbai...Gate Way To India

Here are pictures from our trip to Mumbai...

The trip was good. We got there on Friday morning.... the flight was a short 1 1/2 hour trip from BLR.

First stop after we got settled in was to the Chinese Embassy. Yes.... we are off to China... We needed to drop off our paper work passport to get our visas. This was supposed to be a 10 minute job... unfortunately, typical Indian style... it did not go off so smoothly.... Let me take you thru the adventure. First, I was very thorough to make sure that I got all the documents as they had listed on the 'official' website. I thought that was good to go.... not so much!

They asked for a 'cover-letter' which was not asked for on the website. Now, this is where things get complicated. They insisted that I needed a 'typed-cover-letter'. They then suggested that I go to a cyber cafe 15 minutes away to type my letter and come back.... I then kindly insisted that I was not going to do it since the website did not specify that I needed one... I asked if I could use one of their computers... they were not going for that idea. After about 20 mins of going around and around, they finally said that I could hand write the letter. That was not it... I brought the payment just as the website stated... demand draft for the right amount (at least it was the amount that was on the website). They only take cash (not demand draft)... and the amount was different!!! It was such a mess. I was so mad at the end of it all!! I wonder if the Chinese officials with their communist views would approve of the operation being run in India!!

Then we were off to see the Gateway to India and all of South Mumbai. Since my last trip to Mumbai back in 1996, a lot has changed. There is a big effort to address the pollution and really clean up the streets. They have made a lot of efforts to address the traffic with 'flyovers'. The 'chowpatty-beach' and 'juhu-beach' have been cleaned up. You can actually see the beach!! Don't get me wrong... there is still a lot to be done, but you can see that it has improved. It is good to see the progress moving in the right direction!!

Shopping here has such a buzz.... I could really go crazy here. I think that it was good that I had Vim and the kids holding me back, or else I could have dumped some serious cash!!

Check out the pics....

Our Trip to Kerala

Our trip started on Saturday Morning. We landed in Kochin and headed to the small town of Fort Kochin. Here we stayed at a little boutique hotel. It only had 17 rooms, and it was charming. Except for the little visitors in our room. These were lizards....!!!! Yuck!! We had to call the hotel staff to 'take care' of the situation. As the guy proceeds to take care of them... we discover that there were 5 lizards hiding behind a picture frame!! Ewww is right!! I kept telling the guy 'are you sure that there aren't any more back there'.... I took his word for it and didn't dare check. It was only one night at this hotel, so I figured we could handle it.

We had a random run-in while we were Kochin. We were leaving the hotel one afternoon to get some shopping done, and we ran into our friends from Bangalore that moved to Mumbai a year ago. These are the friends that hosted the Thanksgiving dinner the first year we got here - Robert and Sussana.

In Kochin we managed to spend some money in 'Jew-town' This is the area where they have a lot of 'antique' shopping.

After one night there, we headed to Kumarakom Lake Resort. This is the hotel that we really fell in love with when we were there last. We had to make another visit there. Unfortunately, we only got one night there since they were booked. The 3rd night of the trip we moved to Zuri hotel. It actually was a really great hotel too.....

Back to Kumarakom Lake Resort... Our mission here, to chill out in the pool. It was great. And the best part, our friends Robert and Sussana came out to visit with us while we were here.

The last night... we were in Zuri. We managed to get upgraded to the Presidential Suite.... I know, pretty impressive, eh..... I think that I learned a thing or two from the Patel's from ATL during the Christmas Trip.

The Zuri was GREAT! The Presidential Suite was even better! We had our own private pool that overlooked the lake. We could see all the 'house-boat tours' pass by. Milan loved waving at each of the boats as they passed by!!!

Check out the pictures and you can see for yourself, trip was great!!