Tucson pics

So Blogger finally let me load some Tucson pictures from my trip last weekend. It was a flurry of family activities: graduation, graduation party, and Mother's Day.

Cutest nephew ever! (Who calls me "Sissa") sitting with his grandpa ("Papa")

This folks, is what we call a park in Arizona...a 20ft by 40ft patch of grass surrounded by desert :). Mother's Day picnic in the "park".

Bobby and his cake...I ate SO much cake! (Costco makes yummy cake)

Bobby's Graduation

This morning we woke up at 4am (blegh!) and drove to Tempe for Bobby's graduation. He graduated from ASU with a double degree in Molecular Biology and Molecular Bioscience and Biotechnology (yeah that is a mouthful!). Congrats bro! I am super proud of you!

Siblings

New Haircut

I got a new haircut! And a new color. I'm loving it!

India Trip Summary

Okay, so my few posts from India were pretty pathetic, so this will be a long post, but I hope to summarize a lot of what I saw and have now downloaded all of my pictures as well.

First of, I am just so thankful to have had the opportunity to go visit the Fraziers. They are such a fun family and God really paved the way for the trip- both during my travel to/from India and also as we traveled around the country. I so enjoyed playing with the kids (Hokey Pokey, airplane, thumb wrestling and dredging up countless songs from childhood up to sing with them (like "Father Abraham" and "The Ants go Marching...")). Fun times.

As I said before in my first India blog, a video camera is really needed to capture all the sights, sounds and smells. In Bangalore, the scents of burning trash and car exhaust are the strongest with the sounds of car horns honking to lull you to sleep at night. I will also associate mosquito repellent smells with Indian nights, as I doused myself nightly to ward off the little pests. There are millions of them here.

Mosquito carcasses the night after the apartment building sprayed

As you drive along the streets there are so many sights to take in- men pedaling bicycles (or sometimes walking beside the bicycle-as it is too full of sacks) loaded with things to sell, motorbike dodging between cars to get to the front of the line, store fronts brightly lit (until the power goes out and then lit by candles if no generator is available) showcasing cuts of meat, bedding, biscuits, sugarcane juice, fast food, furniture- they range from Western style stores to what can only be described as a pile of boards haphazardly nailed together-, women dressed in beautiful saris, noisy rickshaws spewing clouds of black smoke, gigantic trees that look like they belong in "The Jungle Book"...

Here are the full albums of Tipu's Palace, Bangalore Fort, and Lal Bagh Gardens.

Lal Bagh Botanical Garden

Tipu's Palace and Bangalore Fort

We went to Kerala, a state in the southwest of India for 4 nights. This was definitely a trip of a lifetime. We landed in the city of Kochi (British- Cochin) and drove to Fort Cochin, which was founded by the Portuguese. This was definitely a touristy area, but for good reason. After dropping our bags off at a new little B&B called "The Mother Tree" (by the way- awesome B&B- I'm going to recommend it on Trip Advisor), our driver followed a local rickshaw driver around the town to view the sites. We saw a Dutch Palace (not much on the outside but had some interesting history), the Jewish Synagogue in which King Solomon was to have traded goods in, the Chinese fishing nets on the beach (so cool!), a couple of churches with some great Portuguese architecture, and ended the night with a show of traditional Kerala dancing and martial arts. The next day we drove to the town of Kumarakom and boarded a house boat. These boats were once used to haul rice around and were refurbished for tourists (by the way, we never ran into any Americans in Kerala- most of the tourists were Indians, Australians, Germans, and we also met some people from Lithuania). Our house boat had two rooms, a living/dining area and a kitchen in the back. We had three guides- two took turns driving and the third was our cook. We had amazing Kerala food three times a day, with delicious snacks of fried bananas and fresh lime sodas in the afternoon. The scenery was outstanding and so was the tranquility. And best of all, we were blessed with mild weather and almost NO mosquitoes!

After two nights on the houseboat, we met our driver back in Kumarakom and headed to Thekkady for our last night. Thekkady is high up in the Western Ghats mountain range and situated in the Periyar Wildlife Reserve. I have never in my entire life driven on such a scary twisting, turning mountain road. Thank God for Dramamine- it definitely took the edge off the motion sickness (that should tell you how bad those roads are). It was only a 80km drive or so, but took us almost 5 hours. There are tea plantations throughout the mountains and the view is breathtaking- however, the steep dropoffs (with no barriers I might add) didn't give a lot of opportunity to pull over for photo ops. There was this awesome moment where we rounded the corner and had to stop, because there was an elephant in the middle of the road working to move a large tree. It was one of those "We aren't in Kansas anymore" moments. Amazing. We dropped our luggage off at the hotel, scarfed some lunch and booked it to the Periyar Wildlife Reserve. Again, God led the way because we managed to get seats on the upper level of the boat even though it was sold out (granted, we did pay double :) ). The best way to see the wildlife is to take one of the multi-day treks into the jungle, but with our limited time, we settled for sailing around the man-made lake the British made in the 20s. It was well worth it as well, since we saw....ELEPHANTS!!!! And they even swam across the lake! I have a video of it...it was impossible to zoom in, but those moving bumps are two elephants. We also saw birds, deer, bison, and peccaries.

The next day, both Colette and I took Dramamine and really enjoyed the ride (all 5 hours!) back to Kochi and the airport. It was a fantastic excursion and one that I highly recommend to everyone.

Kerala

Monday and Tuesday were spent doing some last minute shopping and just hanging out and chatting. My last meal was beyond delicious (don't go to India if you don't like Indian food- there are very few other options :) ).

Before dropping me off at the airport, Colette, the boys and I, strolled through the gardens and shops at Leela Palace- a beautiful hotel next to the airport.

Leela Palace

The flight home was blessedly uneventful- all 32 hours of traveling. I am now going to pamper myself with a hot shower and then do some laundry. I can't wait to go to India again- God willing!

On the road again (in the sky again?)

My trip to Kerala? ... FANTASTIC!!! Lonely Planet says riding a houseboat through Kerala's backwaters is one of the top ten things to do before you die and I heartily agree with them. And I saw elephants! I'm headed to the airport in a few hours and will blog about it when I am back in Houston. Two weeks went waaay too fast. I am bummed to be leaving, but excited to see my family in AZ for my brother's graduation.

Lal Bagh Botanical Garden

Today we went to Lal Bagh Botanical Garden. This place was amazing! They had such different looking trees and flowers than I have seen before. There was a lot of shade too, so it wasn't hot (well too hot :) ) walking around.
Here are a few pictures:

Lal Bagh Botanical Garden

The full albums will be posted when I come home.
Tomorrow morning we are flying to Kochi, Kerala for 4 nights. We will stay two of those nights on a houseboat!!! and also go to Periyar Wildlife Reserve, where they have tigers and elephants (I'm keeping my hopes low for the tigers and elephants...I'm set to enjoy the scenery, which is supposed to be amazing).

Sights, Sounds, and Smells

Betcha ya wish you could buy your chicken from this store...

I've decided that India really requires a video camera- one in 4D- to capture all the sights and smells. Pictures just don't seem to do it justice. Every time we go out driving, I just gawk at all the people, animals, cars, bikes, etc. Of course, all the people are gawking back at us too! Today Colette and I were talking in the car and she said "Look over there" and I turned and this rickshaw driver was just staring at us. And there is no such thing as averting ones eyes once they have been "found out". It's a bit unsettling. Colette says it is pretty unusual to see a white person driving (they usually have drivers) let alone a white woman driving. One guy shook his head at us in a way that I interpreted as "what is the world coming to?" . That made me giggle :).

Brian stopped after church and bought one of these purple coconut things. The man machetes them and pulls out this oval clear blobs of what looks like gelatin and then you eat them. They don't taste like much, but the texture was interesting...kinda like eating a jellyfish- without the stings of course!

Corban, Vino, the top of Kai's head, and Haddon

The women's saris and sarwars are so colorful and driving along the streets, your nose is assualted with gasoline fumes, the stench of burning trash, sewage, and yummy friend lentil donuts...your stomach can't decided whether to growl in hunger, or empty its contents. Store signs are in both English and what I assume to be Hindi and there are shacks made from tarps and cardboard boxes right next to nice apartments and shops.

Driving down Hoysur Road

I've seen a family of three on on a motorcycle and a man riding a bicycle so loaded with palm fronds that I have no idea how he was able to see where he was going!

I found this sign funny...it really isn't the speed that kills because the traffic is so bad you can't go very fast, but not looking when you pull into someone else's lane!

Cows wander the street

I'm really enjoying my stay here, despite the bout of sickness. It is so very different from any culture I've ever been in and is turning out to be a great experience. I have lots more words to write down, but Druvika is coming to babysit and Colette and I are going shopping for a couple of hours.