Flight arrived on time at LAX. Plenty of time left to catch the 12:50 pm flight to Dallas, TX. Hopefully it reaches on time. There is only 55 minutes of connection time at DFW for the RIC flight. Can't wait to get home.
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Back in the USA
I planned on going out in Tokyo, but Sahaj was in deep sleep so had to ditch that idea. Simply waited out at the Narita airport to catch the flight to LAX.
Sahaj passing time with the Nook tablet at LAX
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
A Day in Kaula Lumpur
In Hyderabad from 8/16 to 8/25, time was spent in visiting cousins, shopping, health check ups for parents and attending a few work meetings.
Towers during the dusk hour
Arrived in Kaula Lumpur the morning of 8/26. Rented a SIM card that works in Malaysia at the Hyderabad airport itself. Exchanged some currency and took the trains from KLIA to KL Sentral and then from there to the KLCC station which is in the basement of Petronas towers. Appointments to go upto 86th floor are available only for the evening. Took the 18:15 appt.
My B.E., classmate from Pondicherry, Sunil, is the head of Pepsico for Southeast Asia based in KL. Took a cab from KLCC to the Sunway Pyramid mall where I met him at an Indian restaurant for lunch. Sahaj was in deep sleep. :-( We met after 25 years! It was nice to catch up with him after such a long time.
I planned on doing some sight seeing via hop on hop off buses after lunch but, with Sahaj in deep sleep, Sunil was gracious enough to ask his driver to take us to his home so that we could relax for a few hours. So we got a chance to meet his family as well. He even arranged to drop us back at KLCC in the evening.
KL is a wonderful city. Infrastructure is good. Roads are clean and the traffic is orderly. Population is diverse.
Petronas towers are fantastic. Very robust construction. Views from the top were awesome.
Took the trains back to KLIA to catch the 11:30 pm flight to Tokyo.
Reaching my Native place
After spending a night in Bangalore with family, took a flight to Visakhapatnam the morning of 8/1. One of my middle/high school classmates, Ramesh, picked us up at the airport to take us to the train station to catch a train to my native place, Tadepalligudem. We stopped at a restaurant on the way to get some light lunch. It was nice to see him in person after over 30 years.
It is a four hour train ride from here. You certainly get a coming home feeling after seeing the familiar sights of coconut trees, and the rice fields along the train route.
Rooster being raised for fighting
We all left the same night by train to Hyderabad.
My dad and uncle came to the train station to pick us up. Finally reached home for dinner. Spent the next two weeks meeting my high school friends and traveling to the near by villages to visit family. In this part of the world, during the harvest festival, betting on cock fighting is a common place. The bets are typically in thousands of dollars!
Not too long ago, there used to be a lot of boat traffic, transporting goods, in the canals. There is hardly any such traffic now a days.
Disappearing transportation boats
My dad was also in the process of closing the tractor spare parts store after running it for 44 years, which was named after me. The doors were finally closed on 8/14. Donated some sports equipment to the elementary school behind our house. Participated in the Independence Day celebration function at the school on 8/15.
Stay in Mysore
The train arrived in Mysore on 7/28 a few minutes late. Checked into the hotel for a four day stay. The room has a view of the St. Philomena church.
The main purpose of visiting Mysore was to introduce Sahaj to play Indian classical music on a keyboard with pitch bender. Sahaj's music teacher in Richmond who is 86 years old, takes violin lessons from this teacher, Mr. Amba Prasad, in Mysore via Skype! In between lessons, we fit in some sight seeing.
We took a horse buggy ride from the palace to the hotel. This buggy has a built in DVD player in the ceiling!
One of the days we visited Sri Rangapatnam, Tippu Sultan's capital and the famous Brindavan Gardens.
Tippu Sultan's fort occupied the whole town but pretty much only the ruins remain now. One of his captains betrayed him and as a result died in a battle with British.
Caught a train to Bangalore on the 7/31 evening.
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