Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Ok ok i know i sound like a broken record but I swear time's been scarce for me.....
The recent trip to Assam n Meghalaya was great! Yadav's wedding took place in Vijayawada - and i reiterate the fact that wedding planners is a booming biz. India desperately needs them - my husband should open a service maybe, given his experience in the area. And no give ur dirty minds a rest - he planned his friends' weddings, and quite a few of them. Vijayawada was really quite hectic but the week after tht was great.

We took Howrah Mail till Kolkata - Yadav n family joined us in Vijayawada. The train journey was fun - ate the whole way there :) My kind of fun. Thankfully no rains to delay our arrival, were off to the airport after refreshin at the CSIR guest house. Kolkata's NSCBI airport was an absolute disappointment - absolutely no food counter and yes my world revolves arnd food, if there's food arnd - u will not hear me whine. Two snacks bars, one inside Arrivals and the other inside departures - can you believe it. We chked arnd with someone working at the airport and he said 'Medame, khane ke liye kuch bhi nahin - bahut mehnga hein wahan pe'.

Guwahati from the airport was nice - we only got the see the place on our way back. Jorhat is a hot place during this season, supposedly no summers there but two months which are quite sultry and guess what we were lucky enuf to be there then! The RRL Campus is awesome, quite and green with birds all arnd and fireflies at nite. The reception was a hit - the hall was beautifully done up - extremely colorful.

We visited Sibsagar and a couple of old monuments built during the Ahom dynasty - Talathal Ghar and Rang Mahal.

The visit to the tea estates and manufacturing plant was informative - couldn't take pix there but got some grt shots at the tea gardens.

The drive from Jorhat to Guwahati was the only downside to our trip - rain-damaged roads are definitely not what u want to experience.

Oh this is getting continued after a coupla days .....
Guwahati was warmer than we expected - Kamakhiya temple is really quite nice - for someone from South India, the North Indian temples are very different. I'm used to huge gopurams and tall structures with large sized deities inside . Kamkhiya was an eye-opener - really dark passages with steps leading down to the main part of the temple - its very easy to identify those that have been into the main temple and those that are on they're way in -the face has a red portion on top - an no that is exactly how we all looked - i've yet to get the pix from my dad but they will speak for themselves once they're up here.

Shillong was a pleasure - the accommodation was superb, the weather was wonderful and the food was quite alrite :)

The HQ of the Eastern Air Command of the Indian Air Force as well as tht of the Assam Riffles , one of the oldest paramilitary forces in India.

Our day in Shillong was really relaxing and a great way to end the week long vacation.

Work has been hectic again - now i've moved full-time into Consulting and hoping tht the next couple of months go grt. Finally found a place and we'll be moving over the weekend - kinda smaller than our current place in T-Nagar but it cannot be helped. I'm not even going to start with the issues of rental costs in Chennai these days.

Gai's lil angel had her 1st birthday this month and so did Karuna's Manav. The evenings went off really well. In the midst of all this, we did get Mathu her housewarming gift but forgot to give it to her. Tht's another excuse for us to meet up again :)

Will blog again more in the days to come