Tag: Travel
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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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A Monkey’s Tale
A Monkey’s Tale: a pre-dinner entertainment show, courtesy of the monkeys outside our hotel window.
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Where’s Waldo: Goat Edition
Today, we spent the afternoon at the Eravikulam National Park in Munnar, Kerala. Eravikulam has two claims to fame: first, it was the first national park in Kerala. Second, the park is the home to the Nilgiri Thar (Nilgiritragus hylocrius), an endangered species of goat. Visitors to the park wander…
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What is in a Surname?
When a women gets married in the west, there is an expectation that she takes her husband’s last name (what we also call a ‘surname’). So if John Smith and Jane Doe got married, Jane would become Jane Smith. This is not, however, a universal practice. For my husband’s family,…
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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).…
Ginger Without Borders 