The visit to the exhibition - RBAMNS Grounds, Bangalore

On April 17th, it was holiday for our school and for our parents at it was the election day.  We decided to go to the exhibition in the evening and my grandmother also decided to join us.
Initially, I was not keen on going as I thought it will be boring.

My parents had to vote near my grandparents house in Ramesh Nagar.  A glass of milk later, we went to the voting booth.

Breakfast was at our grandparents house; so was lunch.
After lunch, we returned to our house and everyone took a short nap.

The exhibition was at the RBANMS grounds near Ulsoor.  We picked up my granny from Domlur and reached the grounds at 4 P.M.
The shopping area was at the entrance of the exhibition and the playing area at the back.  There was a book shop near the entrance.  We decided to go inside and have a look.  We picked up a few books White Fang (by Jack London; which we had read on my father's mobile), and a few books for me and my sister.
In a nearby enclosure, there was a Taj Mahal which they had made of sand.  It was a pretty sculpture.
The shopping list included two bed-sheets for granny, some drinking glasses, kids clothes, etc...  We also got some pop corn to much on...

My sister and I started to feel bored with all the purchases and luckily, we came to the interesting part of the exhibition - the play area.
There was the dashing cars and others booths where there was a lot of crowd.

The first game we entered was the "Farm House" where it was an inflated farm.  It was fun to play around with inflated animals and slides.
After a lot of fun, we purchased some corn and slowly made our way to the exit.  At the exit, there were some remote controlled helicopters etc... which we did not buy.

It was a tiring day, but lots of fun.

Fun @ Murudeshwara

During the Diwali vacations of 2013, we made a trip to Mangalore.  It was a big family trip that included my grandma, parents, sister, my uncle and two cousins as well as my small uncle (Abhi paapan), aunt and little Avantika.

Most of our holidays have been by car, but, this time, for a change we went by train. We boarded a train from Bangalore City Railway station on the night of 31^st October, 2013.  The fun started right from the train journey !!  The dinner was on the platform, and with so many of us sharing the food, it was almost like a picnic – A picnic on platform No.4 :-)

<Inside the train..> The girls on the upper berth ...

From left to right - Adu, Avantika, Tanisha and Taanya.

The train chugged off and my uncle ‘allotted’ the seats and berths and soon everyone had retired for the night.  Taanya and I spent time playing on the tablet till about 11:30 in the night.

Next morning, I was awake by 7 a.m., and soon after breakfast, the train reached the ghat section where there were numerous tunnels through which we had to pass.  Some of the tunnels were quite long and it was fun!

A station on the way ... (Mangalore station)

We got off at the Murudeshwara station in Mangalore.  We all packed into two autos and went to our booked lodging at RNS Residency.

While the elders went around confirming our three rooms and checking the facilities, we kids went around looking at the swimming pool, play area, etc.

Everyone settled down and unpacked, freshened up and had an early lunch at the hotel restaurant. Some of us took a short nap and all of us then hit the swimming pool.

Grandma supervising the swimmers..

After a lot of fun-time in the pool, we trooped to the beach to continue the fun and games.  Beach football, sea-shell collection and running races… We threw the ball into the sea, but the waves always brought it back to us.  We played till it became dark.

The walk into the beach...
From left: Taanya, Arnav, Avantika, Advika, Tanisha, Pappan

At around 7PM, we had an early dinner.  There were plenty of frogs in the area.  While walking around, I stepped on a frog and immediately Taanya raised an alarm.  My uncle took a picture and distributed it to his friends in WhatsApp with the caption “Frog killer”.  I was feeling bad when I was told that the frog was actually killed by some passing vehicles.  :-)

After dinner we visited the nearby Murudeshwara temple which had a huge statue of Lord Shiva.  The story of the temple is depicted in a cave around the temple.  We took pictures of the entire story.

The temple and the Shiva temple - view from the beach.

The next morning breakfast was in a nearby hotel which was built into the sea.  After breakfast, we booked a Toyota Qualis to visit the Jog Falls nearby.

On the way, we visited the Idagunji Ganesha Temple.

http://idagunji.org/

http://idagunji.org/story.html

There were some beautiful view points on the way to Jog Falls.  After a brief halt to take some pictures and much some oranges, we continued towards the Jog Falls.

Raja, Rocket, Roarer and Rani – the four falls of the Jog Falls looked beautiful, especially with a rainbow across the four falls.  We had a lot of monkeys for company, a slow-coach snail and munched on cucumber as our cameras clicked away..

After almost an hour in the Jog Falls, we had a quick bite at a small restaurant at the Jog and returned to our hotel for a hearty meal.

Afternoon time was shopping time and everyone hit the beach after that.  Dinner was at the same “frog” hotel – this time, no frog killing… :-)

The next day was the check-out day, and everyone finished their packing.  We all got a chance to try out the famous GadBad ice cream.

Afternoon, we checked out of the hotel and reached the Murudeshwar station for our journey back.

Everyone had a lovely time and we all dispersed at Bangalore to our respective homes.  Looking forward to the next trip with the same crowd !!

The Guruvayur trip ...

It was the Dussera vacations and we had planned that we will make a trip to Guruvayur during the holidays. Once we made the hotel reservations at Guruvayur and decided to drive in our car, we started to pack early.
My sister and I started the packing early and was ready 2 days before we started the journey.

On 4th October, we started from Bangalore after our dinner.  My sister and I were sleeping in the car throughout the trip.  When we woke-up, we had reached our destination.
The drive was just over 500kms, and the route was Bangalore to Guruvayur through Hosur, Krishnagiri, Salem, Coimbatore, Palakad and Shoranur.
We had some difficulty in finding our hotel.  Eventually after asking a few people, we found the Gokulam Resorts hotel.  The hotel was neat and decent.

We freshened-up and by 9am, went to the nearby Ganapathy Bhavan for breakfast.










We then went for our first visit to the Guruvayur Shree Krishna temple.  We did not go inside the temple, but took a walk around the temple.  It was quite warm and humid compared to Bangalore.
We returned to the hotel, and my father took a short nap (After a non-stop drive from Bangalore throughout the night).  My sister and I watched a movie on my dad's laptop.

In the afternoon, after our lunch, we decided to visit the Punathur Kotta (Also called 'Elephant Fort' or 'Anakotta').  This is the place where all the elephants of Guruvayur temple is kept and taken care of.  We heard that there were more than 60 elephants in Anakotta !!  After paying an entrance fee, we went inside the gates of the Anakotta.
There were at-least two keepers (mahout?)  to take care of each elephant.  Some of the elephants were being given a bath, while some others were being fed.  There was an elephant which seemed to be trying to break it's chain.
We took some pictures and videos of the elephants.

Video 1: Elephant being fed

Video 2: Eating time... !!

My father's favourite picture.  He calls it "4-elephants".








The humidity and heat of Kerala made the four of us thirsty in no time.  At the exit gate of the fort, there was a tender coconut seller.  3 tender coconuts later, thirst satisfied, we went back to our rooms to change.
The Guruvayur temple has a strict dress code and I had to change to white mundu along with my father (Pants and shirts are not allowed in the temple).  There was a long queue to enter the temple for the darshan of the lord.  It was a very pleasant experience.  After we came out of the temple, we went to the nearby KTDC restaurant and had some good dosa and idly with chai.  We did some shopping in the temple shops (drums for my sister and cousin, some devotional and kids CDs,  That night, we all retired early to bed.

The next morning (5th Oct), my mother visited the temple for the early morning darshan.  After our breakfast, we gave two vilakku (traditional Kerala temple lamps) as vazhivadu to the temple.

We then visited the nearby Mammiyoor Shiva temple.  It is walkable distance from Guruvayur temple.  The temple pond had plenty of fish and was very clean.  The temple auditoriom had a cultural program in progress.  We watched for a little time.  After purchasing the prasadam (Nei/Ghee Payasam), we took a short food break at a nearby bakery with cake, juice, ice-cream and chips.  While eating, my father told us all the story of Mammiyur temple.

Story: http://www.mammiyurdevaswom.com/history.html

The nearby theater had a Dileep movie on show and we decided to watch it. (Shringaaravelan)  Mother and I enjoyed the movie, while dad was bored and my sister slept through the show - with a wake-up during interval for a pop-corn. :-)

In the evening, my sister and I went shopping around the temple shops with my father.  We visited almost every shop in the vicinity and purchased some books on the history of the Guruvayur temple, some pictures of the famous elephants of the temple, etc..

The next day, after breakfast, we started for Thrissur.  A short drive of about 30 minutes later, we reached what is called as the cultural capital of Kerala.  We visited the zoo and the Thrissur museum.  We saw the rose ringed parakeet, white necked strok, common indian monitor lizard, spotted deer, bisons, indian python, lion, tiger, cheetah and several other animals and birds.  The museum had the skeleton of a huge elephant, horse, tiger and other animals (including a human).  The museum and several other interesting articals like different kinds of stones and sand found in India, clothing of olden india, weapons of old India, etc..
My mother's friend and colleague, Shipla, is a native of Thrissur.  She was on holiday in Thrissur, and we visited her home.  After that, she was our guide for the day. :-)

Her flat was a neat house with pretty pots maintined by uncle.  She helped us in all our purchases (including chips, cooking clay pot, some beans seeds, knives for my grand mother, etc...).  After a chai at Shilpa aunty's uncle, we went to the famous Vadakkunathan temple.  All the important details of the temple and the stories of them were explained to us by Shilpa aunty.

We returned to Guruvayur later that night.  We packed and started back for Bangalore just after midnight and reached our grandfathers house for breakfast.  Once again, my sister and I slept through the entire drive.

This was our first visit to Guruvayur, and we enjoyed it to the maximum.