Nothing goes as planned...

Joshua and Ruben are back from their school trips, which was not as straight forward as it sounds. Ruben came on a bus/touring car/coach from Pondicherri and arrived back at school at 20:50 instead of 17:30 as planned. He came of the bus, said hi and hardy uttered a word after that. He was exhausted and seems to have had a great time (even after a night's sleep he is not telling much).

Joshua was supposed to arrive at the airport at 19:45, but he landed at 9:30 this morning. The flight from Kathmandu was delayed by 4 hours because of bad visibility, so they missed their connecting flight in Delhi. The teachers managed to get the whole group (35 pax) booked in a hotel and on 2 different flights today.
Joshua had a great time in Nepal and he has been telling us what he has done and seen at least ha ha.

Since it is my parents' last weekend in Bangalore, we had planned to take them on their last tour through the city, to Commercial street and Russel Market, but when I came home from the airport Dad was still in bed and Mum was sitting on the couch, both not feeling well. The stomach bug has hit them. Not an ideal thing to have when walking through town, so we decided to stay home.

The boys are lazing around, too tired to do anything other than gaming, Mum & Dad are staying close to the bathroom and I have a stack of smelly boy's clothes to sort and wash. At least that's the plan.....

Photo overload

I did it! I finally finished the photo book with the pics of our trip to Mysore and Kabini. 64 pages filled with memories have been sent online to the HEMA and will be delivered at my parent's house next week. It was a huge task, but it was also fun to do.
Next one is the album with photo's from our tours around Bangalore. It is Mum & Dad's last week here and with Dad being trigger happy, it looks like it will be another fat book.

Here is a taste of the safari shots, only a few, but you will get the picture haha.

Busy week

This week has not been very productive on the blog front, but I have been busy with lots of other things. I have sorted all the photographs that were made during our trip to Mysore and Kabini. My task for this weekend is to get them into a photo album.
We came back home on Monday afternoon, with Joshua and Mum not feeling well. On Tuesday Simon stayed home with the stomach bug and on Thursday evening the bug hit me. It's only a one day thing, but it hits hard.

Tuesday I went to the slum to teach English and had great fun with the ladies that attended my class. They even taught me some Tamil.

On Wednesday I went to the hair dresser with a friend and we had lunch with Mum & Dad at Leela Palace afterwards.

On Thursday we went in to town to see some churches. The Infant Jesus Church is always very busy on Thursdays with continues masses in different languages. Mass is not only attended by Catholics, but also the Hindus join. The atmosphere is great and the combination of rituals from different faiths is wonderful to see.
We also went to see the Cathedral and had a walk around Russel Market afterwards.

Today Adriaan and Mum & Dad are going to Nandi Hills, North of Bangalore. Tomorrow we have been invited to have dinner at Baburaj's house.
Monday morning I have to drop Joshua of at the airport at 5:00 AM (!) for his school trip to Nepal and Ruben has to be at school at 6:00 AM on Tuesday for his school trip to Pondicherrie.

Guess I better start with that photo album now... Enjoy your weekend!!!

Home again

We arrived back home again this afternoon, after a 5 day trip to Mysore and Kabini (south of Bangalore). It was a great trip. We have seen and done a lot and made approximately 1200 photographs (with 3 cameras). The highlight op the trip was our first safari in Kabini, when we saw a Leopard!!!!

Adriaan is now going through all the photos and is being "Mr. Vandelete" as our friend Sean calls him.

The suitcases have been unpacked again, we have washed the dust from the dirt tracks out of our hair and are now ready to sleep like a log. Unfortunately tomorrow is a school-/work day again.
Still have to see who is feeling well enough to attend school tomorrow, since we seem to have a vomiting bug doing the rounds (Simon, Mum and Joshua had the bug, Dad had the beer...).

The next blog entries will be filled with trip reports and photos I am sure.

Walk in the park

Yesterday we went to the Lalbagh park to see the flower show that is on this week in honour of Republic day (26th Jan). The flowers show was nice but not very big, so we went for a walk in the botanical gardens too.
On the way back home we had lunch at Leela Palace.

Tour of Bangalore

Today we took my parents on a tour to see some high lights of Bangalore. The boys opted to stay home.

Our first stop was the big Shiva Temple behind the Total Mall. You can only enter via the underground car park of the mall, through a covered walk way with souvenir stall on both sides. The whole thing felt very commercial, not what you would expect of a temple. The main 'attraction' is a huge Shiva statue that squirts water from it's head.

Shiva



Next we went to the Bull Temple, where a big statue of Nandi is worshipped. At the entrance is also a Ganesha Temple.

Ganesha Temple 

Dad being blessed at the Bull Temple

After both temples we bought some coconuts to drink and eat and then had a walk in the park behind the temples. In the tree tops were big groups of huge bats.

 

Next on the list was Tippu Sultan's Summer Palace.

Mum & I on the Sultan's balcony

We then did a drive by of the government buildings (can't visit them) and had a lovely lunch at Olive Beach. A great day was had by all (the boys enjoyed their 7 hours of peace and quiet at home too).

Celebrity bench!

When we visited the Taj Mahal I wanted a photograph of us sitting on the same bench as Lady Di. So we had several made, but this is the one I like most.

Look at what I saw on NU.nl today.

Smart girl Oprah!