29 January 2012

Kite Festival Weekend

I can't believe the kite festival here in India was two weekends ago. Where have the last two weeks gone?

As I noted last year, January 14 is Makar Sankranti, which is a Hindu solstice-harvest-new-year festival. Different states and regions have different ways of celebrating the holiday. Here in Andhra Pradesh we have ceremonial burning, rangoli chalk drawings, decorated cows, and most importantly, kite flying. Last year we did not see a single kite, but we didn't really look too hard. Muffin wouldn't have appreciated the kites so we spent the day at home, running up to the roof every few hours but not seeing anything, rather than going to one of the parks.

This year I took Muffin to the kite-flying party at Mike's office and then a couple days later we went to one of the parks to watch hundreds of kites. It only took Muffin about one hour to pick up the word "kite" and it took her even less time than that to be perfectly delighted by them. She got bonked on the head a few times but she did not give up on her kite.






06 January 2012

Winter Holiday -- Shillong, Meghalaya

Last week we escaped the city and headed north into the chilly weather of Shillong, Meghalaya. It's in the northeast of India, that little part that sticks out between Bhutan and Bangladesh.

Overall we had a great time. The resort was nice, with plenty of nature for Muffin to explore. It was chilly enough to need fleece jackets some of the time, but not so cold as to be uncomfortable. That was a relief to me, wondering how Muffin would fare in weather colder than anything she'd experienced before. By the last day, she was picking up her fleece and walking toward the hotel room door whenever she wanted to go outside.

We flew from Hyderabad to Kolkata to Guwahati and the drive from Guwahati to the resort, Ri Kynjai, was a couple hours. It's usually estimated to be two hours, but it took us nearly three hours to get there and almost four on the return trip. The biggest complaint we have for the whole trip, but there's nothing anyone can do about it, was the traffic. Apparently in the winter dry season, the state comes alive with mining and the roads have "double trucks," as our driver put it. Drives that should have taken forty-five minutes took hours. But if we wanted to leave the resort grounds and to walk around other parks, we had to sit in the car. We were able plan a bit so that the bulk of our car time happened during Muffin's nap times, which made the rides a little more bearable.

Once we got out of the car, though, wow. Nature like we haven't seen in a while.

Lake view from our room.
Morning stroll around the resort grounds.
Why I always insist on seat belts in our rental cars.







Like I said, the resort was nice, and if you just wanted to hang out on your balcony and wander around for a day or two, it would be perfect. Only once did Mike have to get up and ask the kids playing in the lobby at ten o'clock at night to please quiet down. (And that was only because the private cabins were booked so we had to stay in the main hotel. Get a cabin if you can.) The resort does a package deal with the meals at their restaurant (which had pretty tasty food, especially if you don't mind Indian and Chinese) and they handle payment of the drivers as well, so there's no negotiating prices all day long. We really liked our driver and would recommend him to anyone else going. For diplomats, they offer the VAT exemption right up front so there's no blank stares or arguments or paperwork.

Photo Friday is hosted by Delicious Baby.com.

This Week

This week I also posted at Coffee Mommy. And I'm working on my post about our recent holiday. I'm at a coffee shop, away from grabby little hands, so hopefully I'll have it completed and posted here soon.