Trip to Houston, TX

I went for a short (6 days) work trip to Houston, TX in the third week of December 2012. I was pretty excited as this would be my first trip to US.

But then it was so short that I didn't get to see around much. We were staying in downtown and client office was 15 min walk so pretty much stayed in downtown only for 4 days. Everything was 30 miles or more farther from our hotel/client office.

Nishka fared a lot lot better than I had imagined. Looks like she was a total angel in my absence. I was told that there were times when she would be a little quiet and mopey kinds but on the whole pretty fine. My in-laws had come over to help out taking care of kids.

Met a cousin and his wife from hubby's side of the family. On the 5th day (Friday) they took me to Galveston, the bay area, and the aquarium. On Saturday we had about 2 hours before I had to reach the airport so managed to quickly go to the Museum of Natural History and the butterfly park in the same complex.

On coming back, when people asked me how did I like it there, I said what I liked was traffic rules being followed by vehicle owners as well as pedestrians, clean roads, quick emergency services (saw many a accidents there). Rest pretty much the same - quality of construction, the malls, the offices - we all have it as good in India now.

Lot of people had told me you might have trouble with the food but seriously I had none. In fact I ate lot more than I eat here in India :)

I hope next trip happens soon and I get to go around town more. Let see...

Pictures from the Manali Trip

Here are the pictures from the Manali trip that I wrote about earlier.

Morning sky enroute to Manali

A submerged temple in river Beas

River Beas

Hot Water Spring @ Manikaran

Evening Sky enroute to Manali from Manikaran

View of snow caped mountains from our room

Me and Betu all set for zorbing

Betu enjoying the snow

Ooh..the snow is sooo cold..brrr...

Trip to Manali - January 2009

We finally managed to plan and go for a trip to Manali after pondering and some more pondering to utilize a three day long weekend. Betu's demands of wanting to see snow actually made it easier for us to decide what place to go. Manali was the closest destination where we could see some snow. So off we went there along with another family. Their son and Anirudh have been daycare buddies since the past 3 years and now thanks to the kids we parents are quite pally too.

Jan 23, 2009
We took a train to Chandigarh and stayed over at my sister-in-laws's place overnight. She had called up a day before to ask what we would liek to eat. First she asked Anirudh and he said "Chhole-Bhature". Then he asked hubby and he said "Pav-Bhaji". So when we reached there she had made both!! :D And she had also prepared yummy gajar halwa. It was so delicious that I had to literally hold myself for not taking more after gorging on 2 huge helpings. We finally forced ourselves to go to bed at 12:30 am since we had to get up at 4:30 am.

Jan 24, 2009:
We managed to wake up by 4:30 and and Started from Chandigarh at 6:00 AM in a hired Innova for Manali. We stopped over a few times for nature calls and chai-calls and snacked on the the stuff that we were carrying with us. We were dilly-dallying whether to go to Manikaran as we were not sure how much time will it take for us to reach Manali. Once we figured we could comfortably reach Manali by 6:30 PM after stopping by at Manikaran we decided to go there.
Manikaran is famous for hot water springs and cold water flowing together. I've already written about the Manikaran visit, thanks to mobile blogging, in an earlier post so you can read the details there.

We reached our place of stay at Manali, Sterling Resorts, by 6:15 PM. The resort was quite nice and peaceful. After we checked into our rooms, the other family came over to our place for chit chatting along with rounds of chai and snacks while Anirudh and Prithvi, his daycare friend, played on. We had a kitchen in our room so hubby got some Maggi, tea laves, sugar and milk and we prepared the tea in the room itself.

Around 9 PM we went for our dinner at the restaurant and thoroughly enjoyed the food. The 'garma garam' tandoori roti's seemed so heavenly. Finally around 10:30 PM we retired to our respective rooms.

Jan 25, 2009:
We woke up at 8:00 AM. When I opened the curtains beautiful sight of snow clad mountains greeted us. We all went 'WOW' at the sight in front of us. After enjoying the beautiful view I made some 'adrak ki chai' and had it snuggled in rajai. And then we got ready for sight seeing. We started at 10:00 AM to go to Solang Valley. We rented some snow gear (body suits, gloves and gum boots for Rs 100/set) for all of us. On reaching solang, we did some snow sports such as snow-slide and zorbing. In snow slide, we would climb up till some part of the mountain and then those fellows would make us sit in the inflated tyre tube and push us down. Me and Anirudh did that and it was really thrilling. I actually closed my eyes the moment we were sliding down. Anirudh insisted on doing it again and I didn't say no to him. And the second time I managed to keep my eyes open and it was all the more thrilling. Anirudh wanted to go again and again but the each ride costed Rs. 100 and so we had to say no. Then me and Anirudh went for Zorbing (thanks to Mampi for telling me the correct term). Its a big inflated ball with two layers of walls. We slipped inside it, they strapped us inside and then rolled the ball down on the mountain slope. Me and Betu were continuously shouting 'yippee'. Betu wanted to go for it once more after we were done but I was not sure I could manage another round of it :D.

Then we went for a horse ride up the mountain while Prabha, Prithvi's mother, stayed back as she wasn't comfortable riding horses. We saw so much snow there and Betu -Prithvi had a gala time walking on the snow. But soon with their feet getting cold, they both started to cry. We saw a group of guys with a fire lit inside a tin canister. Those guys held both the kids in their laps and stretched the feet of the kids over the canister to make them warm. And I hung the socks at the rim of the canister. After 10-15 mins their feet and the socks both were warm and both of them were smiling again. And at this point Betu did a complete 360 degree turn and said "main aapko bol raha tha mujhe snow nahi dekhni. Snow bahut thandi hoti hai!" And I just rolled my eyes thinking that because of him we made this trip and now he is blaming us. Aajkal ke bachhe..baba re baba.

On the way back it started to rain a bit and was getting really cold. Thanks to the rented gear we were feeling warm. So off we carried on with our ride down the mountain and from there to our resort. But we got stuck in the jam close to 2.5 hours. Luckily we had snacks in the car because with just breakfast and no lunch, our tummies were growling. We finally reached our rooms around 5 PM.

After freshening up, we made maggi in our room and after than some tea. It was the yummiest Maggi I had ever eaten :D

After than we went to the activity center where all the people were gathered. A localite was acting as the host and we played some really interesting games there. In the end he sang some songs and he had such a beautiful voice. He could easily put all these Himesh reshamiya types and the younger breed of singers to shame. And after that proceeded to have dinner and then to bed. All of us promptly dozed off thanks to the tiring journey.

Jan 26, 2009:
We had planned to start by 7:00 AM. But we didn't wake up until 6:30 AM and were scrambling to pack things and get ready. Betu didn't want to get out of the bed at all. He said "Mujhe yahan achha lagta hai. Mujhe is new ghar mein hi rahna hai. Mujhe dilli nahi jana." :D But somehow managed to drag him out and we were on the road by 7:20 AM. Stopped by at a "Raja" hotel for breakfast at 11:30 AM and had yummy gobhi and aloo tandoori paranthas with fresh curd. We reached Chandigarh by 3:30 PM. Had yummy daal-rice at sister-in-laws place and were off again by 5:30 PM to catch our train back to Delhi.

And thus came the end to our short and quick holiday trip.

The journey of 4.5 hours

Almost barren trees with leaves sprouting on some branches.

Kids playing cricked on open grounds where the wickets were made out of earthen bricks.

Ladies in colorful lahengas with gota work embellishments, sitting in a circle chit chatting, laughing and smiling.

A calf nuzzling up with its mother cow.

A little girl, sitting on the pillion seat of a scooter, carrying a really tiny baby goat in her arms.

A farmer working in the middle of his mustard fields surrounded by a sheet of yellow flowers.

A small white temple on the top of a huge barren mountain.

Little girls in blue uniforms with red ribbons in their hair walking to their school.

Little girls selling newspapers at the traffic signals instead of begging.

And finally the jubilation of Betu when we reached his Dadu-Dadi's place.

All these happened during 4.5 hours that made me smile and feel happy at heart.


~~ Keep Smiling! ~~

Sent on my BlackBerry®.

We had a wonderful trip (contd. yet again :D )

Day 4: Dec 28'07 : Mount Abu
We had expected Mount Abu to be much colder than what it was. Everyone had told us it would be quite cold at this time of the year but I was not wearing sweater during the daytime. For a kid a jacket or a light sweater would have been fine. So it worked good for us! Rest of the story by the pics:

Sunrise

Moon @ 7:30 AM

Front of our Guest House

Ber and Boiled Amla

Jain Mandir @ Achal Garh

Jain Mandir @ Achal Garh

Guru Shikhar

Guru Shikhar

Brahmkumaris Peace Park

Nakki Lake

Nakki Lake

Nakki Lake

Nakki Lake

Nakki Lake

Nakki Lake

Nakki Lake

We had a wonderful trip (contd.)

Starting again from where I left off in my earlier post.

Day 3 : Dec 27, 2008
We started for Mount Abu with the plan to stop by at the Eklingji Temple as well as at Shri Nath Temple in Nathdwara. Since photography was not allowed in temple in Nathdwara, don't have any pics of it.

From there we started for Mount Abu. The way was breathtaking as well as a bit scary since the road was still being constructed and there would be long stretches where you couldn't see a soul. The whole route was made after cutting down the mountains. Here are the few glimpses of it!

We stopped at Haldi Ghati where Maharana Pratap lost his favourite horse Chetak in the war. A museum has been constructed there which is partially opened for public and the rest is still being developed. We saw the cave where Maharana Pratap would make strategies for the attack during the war.

Maharana Pratap's Cave

Inside the Museum

Sugarcane Juice being prepared

Chetak Samadhi

Sunset on the way to Mount Abu

Finally at the guest house! Our room!

We had a wonderful trip!

A great fun and memorable trip it was! Partially planned and partially impromptu, it worked out great!

It will be tough to write it down in words the amount of fun we had but still I will try.

Day 1: Dec 25, 2007
We started from Jaipur in our Car with In-laws around 9 AM. We stopped at Chittaur for lunch and then we went to see the famous Chittaur Fort and the even more famous Vijay Stambh. The periphery of the Chittaur Fort was about 13KMs. There is an old saying "Garho ka Garh, Chittaur Garh!" The huge walls, the beautiful but aging architecture and intricate carvings left us amazed.

Going up the Vijay Stambh was quite a task in itself. The walking area in the alleys was not more than 1.5 feet wide on the average. There were only a few alleys that were about 2.5 feet wide. The steps had a rise varying from 8 inches to 15 inches. The inside walls had beautiful carvings. There were a total of 8 floors in the tower but the steep rises in the stairs left us breathless by the time we reached the top. The view from there was amazing.

From the Vijay Stambh we proceeded to see the Meera Mandir and the famous Padmini's Palace where Allauddin Khilji took a look at the beautiful Queen Padmini via her reflection in the water.

Then we proceeded to go to Udaipur and reached there around 6:30 PM. Rested a while and then went to meet Father-in-laws friend who stayed there. They treated us so well and had at least 13-14 food items served up. We were so full by the end that there was no scope to have dinner.


Day 2: Dec 26, 2007
We started at 9:30 AM to see Udaipur City Palace. It was really huge and marvelous! It took us a little more than 3 hours to see it. And I clicked about 200 pics in the City Palace itself. Beautiful carvings, the old armours and sculptures, the beautiful art work on the walls, the sheesh mahal all were so good.

After the City Palace we went to the Fateh Sagar lake, took a ferry ride to go to the garden that has been developed in the middle of the lake. It was good to sit by the lake and relax with cool wind blowing.

There were water scooter rides also available but we didn't go for that as usually one does get a bit wet by the end of the ride which we definitely didn't want! :D



We then moved to have our lunch and also get the images form the Camera copied on to a CD since the memory card was full already and we will had lots of places to visit. Luckily we found a shop soon otherwise it would have been so difficult to chose which ones to delete to make space in the camera's memory card.

After having lunch we went to Pichola Lake, another lake in the city and had a nice ride on the ferry boat. The view of the city palace from the lake was really beautiful.

Lake Pichola

Cuddling with Dadi

View of Udaipur City Palace from Lake Pichola

Then we proceeded to see the 'Saheliyon ki Baari" which is famous for the kinds of fountains.

Beautiful Entrance

Notice the water coming out of the circular edges from the dome in the center

Striking a pose!

Artistic Fountain

(More in next post!)