And welcome back to my blog. It's been a long time since I've written because I went home for Xmas & New Years, which was amazing. Then I made a few great weekend trips, but have been sick for the last week so didn't have the energy to muster up any witty comments for the blog. So here you go - the last few weekends!
Sankranti (Kite Flying Festival) pictures
The first weekend back was the kite festival welcoming the harvest called Sankranti. The kites are supposed to be offerings to the sun God to help that year's harvest. All weekend there was kite flying and fighting. So if you haven't read the Kite Runner, kite fighting is awesome. They make string out of little shards of glass so when you cross kites, you can cut the other person's kite loose.
My favorite chef Gnane invited me, Vik & Dmitry to his home to fly kites on their roof. It was so cute - when we got there, Gnane immediately started showing us his wedding pictures & then served us lunch. His entire apartment for him, his son, and wife was about as big as our living room, which is crazy. After lunch, we went up to the roof and experienced a legit Indian tradition in a legit Indian neighborhood (we don't really see a ton of "real" India where we live). Dmitry said it was pretty much the coolest thing he's done in India. It was pretty cool to see how the entire neighborhood goes to the roofs and everyone celebrates together. And getting those kites off the ground weren't so easy as evidenced by my attempts :) But I was able to actually cut another person's kite - very exciting! Gnane's extended family were possibly the nicest people ever and were amazing hosts.
Oh - and once again, I managed to offend most Indians by wearing a very conservative tank top. Gnane wouldn't let me on the roof or stand outside his house without wearing one of his jackets. What a scandal! It's so funny - there are ads all over with half naked women on them, but my shoulders are just too much...
Srisailam Tiger Trip pictures
I know all everyone wants to know is if we saw a Tiger. The answer is no. Those bastards are great hiders :) But, it was worth trying! We left Hyderabad at 2am to get to the Tiger Reserve at 7am, which is when they were supposed to open (and is the best time to actually see the tigers). But seeing we're in India and nothing is reliable, the reserve didn't open until 10am. Thankfully, since this is India and you can pretty much get whatever you want if you have money, we bribed the guard to let us in with our own cars (which is illegal) for our own private tour. Best $50 the 8 of us ever spent :)
We proceeded with directions from the guard and saw Sambar (Indian deer), peacocks, monkeys, etc. on the drive. Then we hit a dead end when we thought the path was a loop and would lead us out of there. Thankfully the dead end was a gorgeous cliff and ideal picture spot. So we got out, took some pictures and walked in the jungle a bit. The guys saw giant 5 foot monkeys that were unreal, but I missed out. In order to see them, you had to get about 10 feet away from them and I wasn't about that :) So we were 3 hrs into the tour when we were supposed to only be in there for 1 hour so we headed back the way we came. The guards were pretty pissed and there was a lot of arguing in Hindi, but our drivers were able to get us out alive!
The rest of the day, we went into the town to visit a famous temple, which was an experience. If you ever want to be almost trampled, you should go there. The funny thing was the biggest offenders were elderly people! They kept pushing us and cutting in front of us. What the hell?! Needless to say, we were all excited after we were out of the temple (it was about 20 min of sardine-ville).
On the way home, we found ourselves driving through a herd of cattle. Just another day in India :)
