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Account of travels across the world. This blog provides descriptions of travels in different parts of the world. Pictures related to many of the blogs can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/7330879@N05/ and for more information I can be e-mailed at ananda@wfu.edu
The places where we spent at least one night as a family were:
Kolkata
Windermere in the Lake District of
In addition I spent two nights in
Srijoy was on 9 different airplanes with United Airlines, British Airways, Air
The hotels we stayed at included Fairfield Inn (Chantilly), the Dulles Airport Marriott, the Slough Marriott near Heathrow, the Dragonara Hotel in
I had the “pleasure” of driving a Hyundai in the streets of
We had several logistic failures:
My computer locked me out of all my files because of a password snafu, and I was locked out from after about the first week of the trip
My old phone I had bought in
Our video camera went out of order (the dreaded E:61:10 error for Sony machines!) about 2 weeks into the trip
Our still digital camera went out of order about 3 weeks into the trip and had to buy a new camera in Kolkata
A battery in the battery charger blew up when I was charging it off the cigarette lighter adapter while driving the monstrosity. Sounded like a bomb going off. Not a good thing in
The monstrosity would occasionally show a warning light and go into ‘emergency” mode of driving and quit shifting gears properly
The other key things of the trip:
Driving in
Getting lost in trying to get to the conference and being led there by a police car (ask me about this one when we meet!)
Actually taking the car right inside an old fort along narrow cobblestone lanes at about 20% grade in
The crowded beach in
Sleeping in the balcony of the hotel and jerry-rigging a lampshade out of towel for the light outside
Being upgraded to Business Class on BA for the long London-Delhi trip
Meeting a zillion people in
Celebrating my mother’s 70th birthday with the family at Abcos
Excellent gathering of school friends
Dinner at
The presentation that went really well in Jaipur, meeting with the political bigwigs there
The afternoon drive from Jaipur to
The Kolkata rains and the monsoon in general, Srijoy enjoyed this
Watching “Dus” with Mikku in the Inox
Meeting with Biltu (my cousin) after several years
Meeting and visiting Sandip (my cousin) after a few years
The school gathering in Bhaskar’s hotel room in
Generally driving in
The sheep at the farm house
Being in UK soon after the bomb blasts of 7/7/2005 and the failed blasts of 7/21/2005 and caught in a "bomb scare" "evacuation" near Harrods Store in Knigtsbridge in London
Bebo falling ill
Generally driving the family all over the
The nice breakfast in the Fairfield Inn in DC
Being back home with everything working fine (one fallen tree in the yard)
The trip to
So, on July 15 at 5:00 am we all (my mother, Mikku’s parents, Mikku’s sister and the three of us) left from AC 140 in
I had rented a 9-seater vehicle (Ford Tourina also known as Ford Transit) from Thrifty. The Thrifty location in
The next day (July 16) I got the brood ready by about 9:00 am. Given the time change everyone was ready and up early. We all ate breakfast at the hotel and MB cleared out the bags from my minibus. Went up to Bhasker’s room for a bit and then slowly loaded up the bus and after some pictures outside the hotel, left from the hotel about 10:00 in the morning. The car behaved well, and it took me just a while to get used to the vehicle. Once I was familiar with the car was able to do up to 95 mph on the Motorways. We took motorways all the way up to exit for Sandip’s house. Sandip (my cousin) lives in Stoke on
I had rented the Bellman House though a company in
The house itself was about a couple of centuries old.
Like other houses in
I slept in the living room and was up at about 5:30 am on Sunday (7/17). Since I was using the bathrooms out doors (with nice hot water and I was not rushed since no one else was using that place!) I went off and got ready. Then as the others came awake, I began to prepare the traditional English breakfast (which I continued to do mostly every morning). This was made up of bangers, bacon, potato, fried tomatoes, toast and baked beans with boiled eggs, toast or potato cakes and juice and tea. Everyone had a hearty breakfast and I managed to kick off the fire alarm every time with all the frying. We completed breakfast by about 10:00 and then headed out. It was cool (about 17 Centigrade on the average) but sunny. We drove over to Bowness on Windermere and bought the all day pass for the Windermere lake cruise. The tickets were for about #12 per adult for unlimited use of the ferries. I then dropped off the brood by the pier and went and parked my bus. We took the 11:15 launch from Windermere to Lakeside on the south side of
The next day (Monday 7/18) started off as a slightly dreary and wet day. Anyhow we decided to head out towards the Western side of the
The next day (Tuesday 7/19) it started off being another rather dreary and wet day but it got really nice later in the day. Anyhow after the customary breakfast we headed out of the house and took the road towards
On Wednesday 7/20 we decided to head out for the day trip to
On the 21st, Thursday Bebo woke up with a fever. It was decided that Mikku and Bebo would stay back at the house and the rest would go for short trips. First, we drove over to the East and went to the market town of Kirkby Lonsdale. This is on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales and had a small Market going on. Visited the market and then walked around stopping at the antique shop and then at the chocolate shop. We then headed back to the house to check on Bebo and Mikku. He was still pretty down so we decided to leave them at the house and I took the group over to Bowness for lunch and then some shopping. Again hung around Bowness and the shops. Had lunch in Bowness as well. Eventually back to the house early. Everyone was tired and so decided to give them some rest. Mikku made dinner. Bebo also was starting to feel a little better but stayed in bed all day.
Thankfully on Friday, July 22, Bebo felt OK. We did a late start that day and left the house around 11:30 am. Went directly from the house back towards Keswick. This time took a slightly different route and went on the other side of one of the lakes. Got some majestic views of the lakes and fells and took some nice pictures. Bebo was much better too and that helped. Eventually reached the outskirts of Keswick again and had lunch at the Twa Dogs Inn. After lunch started on the treacherous drive up to the
Saturday, July 23 was the last day at the house. We packed and cleared out by about 10:00. Mrs. Allen came and collected the keys. We drove straight through the Yorkshire Dales after a brief stop at a restaurant and reached
On Sunday July 24 Bhaskar directed us over to
The next morning (Monday July 25) started off rainy and wet as well I went down to the lobby for a coffee and the others started to get ready. There was a lot of left over cereals and stuff from the house so everyone ate that. There around 10:00 we left for
This was now July 26 and the
The flight to Kolkata from
We celebrated my mother’s birthday while we were in Kolkata, this involved going out to eat at Abco’s food plaza in Salt Lake (we ate at Kipling’s) and were accompanied by Mikku’s parents and sister, my cousin, his wife, her mother and our niece. This was a nice outing for the family.
On July 5th I left for
As always Kolkata was made up of numerous meetings which included a get together of old friends from my school – Calcutta Boys’ School – which was well attended and the food was superb thanks to the organizing prowess of Kunal and others. Was asked to give a speech at this gathering which was quite odd!! Also spent a fair amount of time with my cousins including Biltu who lives in
Had a car rented with a chauffer for the 7 days from a neighborhood supplier of rented vehicles. The car was a Maruti Esteem (somewhat similar to the Ford Neon in size) and my driver was named Joy. Rented it from Sonata in BB block of
Another interesting thing that I did was to obtain an Airtel SIM card for a validity of one year using a method called Express Refill (for those who do not know, the SIM card is the technology used by the GSM system of mobile phones, a search on the word SIM and GSM would provide a lot of information about this, unfortunately while the World has mostly standardized the GSM technology, much of the US is still dependant on CDMA and even the GSM providers in the USA purposefully lock their handsets and SIM cards can not be switched between phones, most places in the World use unlocked tri-band phones that make it easy for travelers). Thus in India as long as one has an unlocked tri-band phone one can go to a local Airtel dealer and they would refill the SIM card with Rs. 3,300 with talk time worth Rs. 2,800 and the phone number would be valid for about 12 to 15 months. This avoids the need for topping up frequently and for those who travel to
Visited
The last two days in Kolkata was really rainy but that helped to cool things down some. The humidity was a factor because both the video camera and the still camera gave up working and so had to purchase a new still camera.
It was a good trip, somewhat short, but I think I got to do mostly everything I was interested in doing and that was nice. I am writing this on the plane flying over
This was our first full day in
I got up early and got some coffee and used the high speed Internet downstairs to get the e-mail downloaded. Then headed out to find the Dolmen Resort in Owara for the conference. Took the beach road to Owara but got lost in the city. Eventually got into an one-way street and was promptly pulled up by a cop, who began to ticket me, when I described how badly lost I was, took pity, and offered to lead me to the hotel. So I arrived at the hotel following a siren blowing Maltese police car! The conference went very well. I was back to pick up with Mikku and Bebo around 2 in the afternoon. They had been to the pool most of the morning. We ate lunch in one of the hotel restaurants. We then headed out to Valetta (the principal city in
We had kept this day aside to be a beach day. It turned out that this was a national holiday, which meant that the beaches would be crowded. Anyway, after the usual coffee, Internet and pipe we got ready to get to the best sandy beach at
This was our last day in
The flight was uneventful and more or less on time. The taxi was there and it took about 30 minutes to get to the hotel is Hounslow. The Best Western in Hounslow was terrible. We did a room service and then called it a day. Avoid there
Our flight was at 9:55am and we left the hotel at about seven in the morning. The taxi cost 15 pounds. Check in was smooth and we got upgraded to Business Class on British Airways, that war a very pleasant experience, spent a little time in the BA club and then the flight took about 9 hours. Watched 3 movies on the computer and eventually got to the Delhi Radisson about midnight, Indian time. The hotel was very nice and we had a small dinner with Srijoy enjoying his Dal Makhani, his favorite Indian dish in
We naturally got up late. It was a hot day outside (about 110 F) and so kept in the hotel. The room had high speed Internet and Mikku caught up with her work Srijoy and I strolled around inside the hotel after a late but excellent breakfast at the free buffet. All of us then checked out the stores in the hotel and then had pastries and tea in the lounge. The service was very good indeed.
We had visitors coming to see us from 4 pm. First it was Mayank and his parents. Mayank is coming to the Graduate Program in my Dept. at Wake in Fall, soon after they left, Parul, my student’s parents came over. We Sat at the bar. While they were there Ketoki our friend came over with her children. Srijoy had an excellent time with the kids and they wrecked the hotel room. All the kids had room service dinner as we chatted. They all left around 9:30 and then my cousin (Goutam da) and his family came over. We ate dinner at the Great Kabob Factory restaurant in the hotel. Bebo was really tired by then and so went to bed in the hotel room. We sat and chatted till about midnight when my cousin left. We were tried and called it a day.
04/01/2004 - 05/01/2004 05/01/2004 - 06/01/2004 06/01/2004 - 07/01/2004 07/01/2004 - 08/01/2004 08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004 10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004 01/01/2005 - 02/01/2005 06/01/2005 - 07/01/2005 07/01/2005 - 08/01/2005 02/01/2006 - 03/01/2006 03/01/2006 - 04/01/2006 06/01/2006 - 07/01/2006 07/01/2006 - 08/01/2006 10/01/2006 - 11/01/2006 04/01/2007 - 05/01/2007 07/01/2007 - 08/01/2007 10/01/2007 - 11/01/2007 08/01/2008 - 09/01/2008 10/01/2008 - 11/01/2008 12/01/2008 - 01/01/2009 01/01/2009 - 02/01/2009 07/01/2009 - 08/01/2009 08/01/2009 - 09/01/2009 12/01/2009 - 01/01/2010 07/01/2010 - 08/01/2010 08/01/2010 - 09/01/2010 09/01/2011 - 10/01/2011 08/01/2012 - 09/01/2012