Author: rdraxter
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Day 8 continues: Kerala beaches and relatives
Our driver on Day 8 was Kingston’s Uncle (Mom’s brother) who has a business that provides transportation, which is why he had a van big enough for all our luggage when we arrived in Kerala. As discussed in my previous post, our first stop on Day 8 was at the…
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Day 8: Kerala: A Vulture Story
In a time long, long ago, when the gods still roamed the earth, Rama, the seventh incarnation of the supreme protector of the world, fell in love with Sita, the daughter of the Earth, who chose him to be her husband. Several years after their marriage, Rama’s half-brother, Lakshmana, was…
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Day 7: Trivandrum
Our 24 plus hour Rail Adventure from New Mumbai finally arrived in Trivandrum at 2am on Day 7. On those rare occasions when I arrived at an airport that late (or early, depending on your view), the building was largely empty but for the few employees needed to arrange baggage…
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Days 5 to 7: New Mumbai to Trivandrum: the 24+ hour train adventure
Both of Kingston’s parents are from the State of Kerala which is a long narrow state (think California or Chile) on the Southwestern Malabar coast of India. Kerala is nicknamed “God’s own country” because of its beautiful sand beaches and lovely Western Ghat mountain range. It has been named as…
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Day 3 Mumbai: The Complexities of Indian History
Brother had meetings on our third day, so one of the employees of the family building was our driver for the day. Kingston refused to take on the challenge of the chaos that is Mumbai traffic even though he learned to drive in Mumbai (and we agreed that it was…
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Day 2 Mumbai – Monsoon maybe and Back to shopping in the 1950s
[Prologue: You may notice from the date of this entry that it has been almost a month since my last post about our India adventure. We are now back in the US. Please reread my last entry to see that Kingston’s travel plan did not get back to our hotel…
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Day 1 in Mumbai on the Kingston tour
Kingston recognized we needed “some” rest from the long air journey, so he gave us the morning to eat a leisurely Western breakfast. Our hotel is a Western chain, but their buffet offered Asian and Indian sections in addition to the English breakfast section (the bacon was thick and tasty).…
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Mumbai
The site where Mumbai grew was originally an archipelago of seven islands. Records indicate that there was a settlement here as early as the third century BCE. The Greek mathematician and geographer Ptolemy described the island settlements in 150 CE. In 1535, the Sultan of Gujarat ceeded the islands to…
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My Philosopy When Traveling
History has been my lifelong companion and friend. It can result in loads of “comments” from my family. I am just as happy in the corridors of a history museum as my daughter is in a zoo, my wife in an art museum or my son on a beach. It…
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Gateway to India
The Tour: The world closed within months after my last post. Now, almost four years later, both our children have gotten married. This tour will be shared with our daughter (the originator of this blog) and her husband. We are visiting India, the land of his birth. Our tour will…
Ginger Without Borders 