Advertisement
April 6 - Our last day at work. This evening we are starting for San Francisco on the way to our trip to Asia. We are very excited and couldn't wait for 3 pm when we both get off work. Anand's friend Randy comes by at 5 pm as promised and gives us a ride to the airport in his truck. Man, is he a very cautious driver! After checking our 4 bags in and clearing security, we have a pizza and flat bread sandwich dinner and off we go to San Francisco. We arrive in San Francisco late and check into our room at the Vagabond Inn (it wasn't as bad as the name makes it sound)! Anand could hardly sleep because of his excitement and wakes Amy up very early!
April 7 - After the free breakfast, we leave for the airport. Checking in the bags at Singapore Airlines counter is a breeze. The nice lady at the counter tells us that the flight is not full and gives us a aisle and a window seat. We do a high five as our flight gets off the runway. Anand cannot wait to sample the food in the airplane
and we get great service including a hot towel before every meal. The orange Spritzer (Sprite + Orange juice) was great and the Indian Vegetarian food was great. We are surprised to see that we are flying over Alaska and not a straight line from San Francisco to Seoul, our first stop.
April 8 - After a 12 hr journey, we land at the Seoul International airport. We are to re-board the same flight in an hour and so we take a few pictures at the airport and get some magnets from the shop near our gate. We change some US dollars to Singapore dollars and re-board the flight to take the next 6 hr flight to Singapore.
April 9 - We arrive in Singapore early in the morning. We clear the Singapore immigration and collect our bags (all in one piece still). We take the cab ride to Priya's house. The cab driver doesn't quite know where the apartment block was and so we circle around before we finally find it. Priya and Bala welcome us home and Priya has food ready for Anand. we sleep pretty much the entire day and find that Singapore is very
hot! Avanika goes to school and Priya takes Anand to Mrithula's school. The girls have grown but are as cute as ever! We go out to the Jurong Mall to eat at Anjappar, an Indian eatery, which we enjoyed. Amy loved the egg dosa (crepe).
April 10 - We are both still jet-lagged but there are things to get done. Amy and Priya leave to Little India to find an outfit for Amy to wear at the reception, while Anand and Bala go to the tailors to re-stitch Amy's pants and to the grocery shop to get cereal and milk for Amy. Amy and Priya come back in the evening after a busy day shopping and Amy has a beautiful outfit to wear at the reception!
April 11 - Bala takes Amy and Anand to some touristy places. We start off at the Botanical gardens, with its beautiful Orchid gardens which has an amazing range of Orchids. It is mighty warm our there and Amy and Anand take refuge in the Cool House before getting back to Bala, who then takes them to the biggest fountain in the world. After an Indian lunch at the food court, we
take a ferry in the Singapore bay and see the sights from the river. We loved Clarke Quay (pronounced key), the Merlion (the symbol of Singapore) and the leisurely ride in the boat. We got back home and started packing for Bintan Indonesia, Priya and Bala's wedding gift to us!
April 12 - Bala's flight to Shanghai (for an official trip) has been delayed, so we took a cab by ourselves to the Tanah Merah ferry terminal. After checking our bag in, we take a nice boat to Bintan. On the way, we passed several commercial vessels, so very huge. The immigration and customs in Bintan was a breeze and we got into the resort bus which took us to the resort. Our room wasn't ready and so we are asked to wait for an hour. We have lunch in the meanwhile and the suite Priya booked for us was wonderful! Our stay is marred a bit by Anand stepping on a poor lizard accidentally. We have dinner at the coffee shop and Amy gets served fish by mistake. However the nice waiter was very apologetic and made up for the mistake.
April 13 - We wake up
early and see the sunrise on the beach. We also see signs warning us of tar on the beach. After a buffet breakfast, we go back to the room and order an in room couple's massage. After a relaxing massage, we go to a nice restaurant on the beach and then explore some of the Indonesian art before returning back to the hotel. At 7 pm, we go with a driver to a boat tour of the mangrove forest to see fireflies but just as we arrive there, a stormy weather arrives and we
are left to cancel our boat ride and drive back in the dark to the hotel - a pretty scary ride.
April 14 - After a morning swim, we check out of our room in Bintan. At 4:30 pm, we take the ride back to the ferry terminal and are on the way to Singapore. Our stay in Bintan was excellent and we enjoyed every moment of it but we also missed the girls and are glad to go back to Priya and Bala's. We arrive in the night and spend the evening with the family.
April 15 - Priya takes us to the
Jurong Mall in the morning and we make photo books of our wedding and our home. After some shopping, we get back home and pack our things for India. In the night, we take a cab to the airport. Our cabbie was the slowest driver of the trip but we get to the airport in time and board the plane to India. We arrive in Chennai around 10 pm and by the time we are at the hotel in Chennai, it was almost midnight.
April 16 - We wake up early and wait for Anand's mom and dad to come and meet us at the hotel. They arrive around 10 am. We were so glad to see them. Anand's mother and Anand eat in the room while Amy and Appa go try their hand at the buffet. After breakfast we divide into two teams. Appa and Anand have the easy task of dealing with banks and post offices while Amma and Amy have the hard task of shopping. We meet up in the evening and spend the evening together.
April 17 - We go to Spencer's Plaza, the biggest shopping mall in Chennai. Amy shopped for souvenirs for
friends and family back home. After visiting the book store, we ended up at Saravana Bhavan, the best restaurant in Chennai for lunch. After lunch we went to the hotel to catch a bit of rest before the evening reception. Unfortunately for us, the hotel forgot our wake up call and we woke up with less than 30 minutes on the clock to get ready. Amy was panicky at first but was a trooper and got ready in time. We went to the meeting hall and for the next 3 hrs met Anand's family and friends and had a great time. A group photo at the end capped the wonderful reception.
April 18 - In the morning Amy was feeling sick and wanted to rest for the rest of the day. So after getting her food to eat, Anand left to his parents' house and spent the morning with his parents. In the afternoon, Anand and his mom came back to the hotel and the three of us spent the rest of the evening together. Mom left later that night and Amy was starting to feel a bit better.
April 19 - Amma, Appa and Anand went to
the Registrar's office for some official work that Anand's friend Kumar was helping him with while Amy packed for their trip to the Golden Triangle (Delhi, Agra and Jaipur). In the evening we left the hotel for the airport and after a few anxious moments with the booking agent at the domestic airline, we got onto the Spice jet flight to Delhi. We hated the Chennai airport but the Delhi airport was much better. We landed there almost close to midnight and by the time we reached the hotel with the travel agent, it was close to 1 am.
April 20 - After a couple of hours of sleep, we left our nice hotel room for the train station. The train to Agra arrived at 6:15 am and we got into the nice and comfortable seater class train. Breakfast was provided and since Amy didn't feel well enough to eat her spicy cutlets, Anand had to eat them for her. Amy loved the sights from the train and we enjoyed the journey. At the Agra train station, we were mobbed by taxi drivers and porters and had to almost run to our tourist agency car. We arrived at the
Trident at 8:30 am and the hotel staff were kind enough to let us check-in early. After some
freshening up we went to see the Agra Fort, which was built by Emperor Akbar. It was beautiful and the architecture was amazing. In the afternoon, we went to the Taj. It was all it is reputed to be and more. You have to see it to believe it!
April 21 - We woke up at 6 am and left to see the Taj a second time, this time at sunrise. We pay the exorbitant $15 fee for foreigners (for Amy) and the half a dollar fee for Anand. It was well worth the price and the Taj actually looks different in the morning! We spent an hour there before checking out of the hotel (after the free buffet of course!). We drove to the deserted city of Fatehpur Sikri, that Emperor Akbar built and then had to abandon 5 years later because of the lack of water. The beautiful palaces (including one for each of his three wives - a Hindu, a Christian and a Muslim) and the architecture are amazing. After the tour, we start a 4 hour journey
to Jaipur, the home to a lot of forts and castles. Due to a protest on the main highway, we had to take a detour thru remote villages without paved roads for close to 2 hrs. Amy gets stared at everywhere but we finally make it to Jaipur in one piece. We check into our nice hotel and have pizza for dinner.
April 22 - We start the day with a visit to the Hawa Mahal (Hall of the Wind) where the beautiful facade was used by the queens to look at processions without themselves being seen. Then we do an elephant ride to the top of the Amber Fort. Both of us are scared (Anand more than Amy) but laugh it off. The Amber Fort was amazing with Amy falling in love with the palace of mirrors. The next stop in the tour is the city palace and museum, where we see how lavishly the Rajput Rajas lived - from gold embroidered clothes to gem crusted swords. After this, we went to Jantar Mantar - an observatory where one of the eccentric Rajas built astronomical instruments to calculate time with only the sun as the guiding force. After
a simple lunch of lentils and Indian bread, we drive around for a bit and then board the train to Delhi - a 5 hour journey. Amy sleeps while Anand eats everything they serve us on the train. We sleep at the Delhi hotel.
April 23 - We check out early from the hotel and are taken to Qutb Minar, the big tower built by the first Muslim rulers to mark their victory over the Hindu kings. The hindu temple which was already there was demolished and some of the pillars from the temple was used in building some of this structure, which is disconcerting. After this, we go to the Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in India built by the same emperor who built the Taj. We also go to the Red Fort, again built by the same emperor. We then proceed to the newer part of Delhi to the Indian presidential palace and the India Gate - a place to honor the veterans of India's wars. After lunch, we proceed to Humayun's tomb (the second Mughal Emperor) which was a precursor to the Taj and to the place where Gandhi was assassinated. We are then driven to
the modern Delhi airport and are well pleased with our trip. We arrive in Chennai later that night.
April 24 - Mom and dad arrive to take us out to shopping. Amy buys more clothes for her and the family. We then go to mom and dad's house for lunch, where Appa shows Amy old albums (including their wedding album). After a few hours there, it was time to say goodbye to India. Anands's mom and dad drive us to the airport and we leave India for Singapore with tons of memories but sadness to leave our loved ones. We will return back soon we say to ourselves.
April 25 - We arrive in Singapore and catch a cab to Priya and Bala's house. The girls are already up and wouldn't let us sleep. We catch a couple of hours sleep and after lunch go out with the family to a wonderful animated movie (How to train your Dragon). After the movie we all eat at the pizza hut and come back home. We pack for our next morning's flight to the US.
April 26 - We leave early from Priya and Bala's after a wonderful stay
in Singapore and with lots of fond memories. We start missing the family immediately after we got into the cab. We drive to the airport and catch our flight to Seoul. We stop at Seoul to get some Ginseng candies for colleagues at work and then fly all the way to San Francisco. The flight back was much shorter than the flight there. We check into the same hotel in San Francisco and spend the night there.
April 27 - We leave for San Antonio in the morning. Our flight is delayed an hour. We reach San Antonio in the evening and are greeted by two clingy cats who wouldn't leave our side for days. we missed them very much during all our travels.
We enjoyed our travels so much and loved the chance to see family and friends in India and Singapore. We cannot wait to see them again soon!
For more pictures see the following links, Singapore Pictures Bintan Pictures Agra Pictures Jaipur Pictures Delhi Pictures
Advertisement
Tot: 0.175s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 6; qc: 43; dbt: 0.0379s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
