Semmozhi Poonga (park) in Chennai

We were back in Chennai after our Amritsar trip. Had a full six days before I had to return to the US. It has been three years since I spent that may continuous days with parents and brother's family. Last two years, it has been a two days or three at the most, squeezed in at the end of business trips to Asia.

One day we decided to cool down at a local park called Semmozhi Poonga. We have visited this place as kids but not in its current form. The park is a great place for kids under 12 and older people who are still kids at heart. 

There were at least two dozen parrots that had made their home in the trees in the park and it was a treat to watch them. It was also great to watch the kids play together. Something we would like to see every day but have to wait for every three years..

The light during sunset combined with the greenery made for some perfect portrait backdrops..

and finally, sometimes the best photographs are the unplanned unposed for ones.. when you catch someone playing with kids and you happen to be standing far away with a telephoto lens trying to capture parrots, but capture something more magical instead! 

I did take what is possibly the best shot of my wife in recent memory. It does not go on this blog, but it is a note for everyone. Keep a telephoto handy and stay far away and you might end up with some memorable "people" pictures!

If you are in Chennai on a hot summer day, strongly recommend this park to take the kids to and have a fun time!

Sadda Pind - a great end to a great trip

The previous post on this series is here..

After a late, heavy and amazing lunch, we went shopping for clothes. There is a street in Amritsar where women can pick cloth, get measurements done for a "patiala" and get it delivered in 6 hours. This information should have been restricted from the ladies in our Van. Our tour guide/ driver who had to that point secured an A+ brought down his grade to a C by just disclosing this information and volunteering to drive there. The FIL and me knew what that meant and gave ourselves a nod "this guy's grade is coming down fast in the finals"!

So there we were Patiala shopping and after giving our hotel address, we decided it was time to get some rest in the hotel. There were two more places to visit. A rock garden and Sadda Pind, a cultural village that gave us a sneak peak of Punjabi village living (we visited a similar place in Rajastan called Choki Dhani three years ago and had some idea what to expect). We decided to skip the rock garden and go to Sadda Pind. 

It started raining on the way back to the hotel. By the time we were ready to leave, it was raining like crazy. We called the driver and he said "why don't we drive there anyways? the rain comes and goes. you might get lucky. worse case come back and eat in hotel". We were glad that we took his advice and went to Sadda Pind. A few mintues after we reached there, it was not even a drizzle and the skies cleared. We had an amazing time at this place. There was something for everyone!

Here are some pictures.

 

 

as you can tell from the photos, Jr. took the "I am going to try being a Punjabi girl for 3 hours" very seriously and posed for all the pictures and tried every activity available. Then there was an all you can eat dinner that was part of the ticket in a nice closed restaurant. The food was "heavy" and the roti's while not as buttery as the dhaba's earlier, were still thick.... 

Happened to catch Jr. eating and immediately got flashbacks from years ago. While editing photos for this blog post, got the deja(deja vu)vu's and found the old picture from this post for a comparison.. you can see not much has changed! 

and finally a video that captures more of the activities. There were a lot more things to do and see, but it was already 9 PM and we had to rush back to the hotel.. we had an early morning flight to catch and more importantly.. the Patialas would be arriving! 

Amritsar is cute. It is a great place to do this "trip within a trip" and you can pretty much cover everything in two days provided you have a good plan and are ready to walk a lot. The food is simply amazing and you come out happier than you went in! If you put on some weight, there is always the Patiala suits that can do some packaging magic to make Photoshop obsolete!

What more can you ask?

Strongly recommended as a vacation spot!

I have finally managed to finish blogging this part of the trip. Have two more posts to write about the India trip itself that are still in "draft". That does not seem to be a daunting task anymore!

Dhaba food in Amritsar

Previous post in series is here..

We were about to have a late lunch after a lot of walking all through the morning. Walked through Golden temple, Jallianwalah Bhag memorial, Durgiana temple, then Gobindgarh fort and finally lunch at 1:45 in the afternoon.

Have already mentioned our first taste of Dhaba food (La Roma Dhaba which serves Maggi noodles that is apt for its name and the Shudh Dhaba right outside Golden temple the previous evening).

There is something to be said about the butter Naan in these Dhaba's. Just like the Sikh's go bathe in the water around the golden temple and come out pure at heart to worship god, the naan's in these dhabas take a dip in pure butter (I am sure there is a butter lake somewhere in that kitchen) and come out ready to make the hungry taster see god. One minute you see a bunch of naan in a basket and the next minute it disappears.. have never seen the kids eat so fast in my life! 

For the afternoon lunch we went to Bharwan dhaba. This one just one upped the Shudh dhaba when it came to the butteriness of the butter naan! it was spicy, fatty and just plain yummy. If you want to die happy, make sure your last meal is at this dhaba! 

After being stuffed to the throat with food, the waiter came and asked us about dessert. We asked him what was special and he knew how to hit my weak spots.. He said "we have mutka kulfi" and "phirini, which is a local delicacy".. we said "okay bring it" and there was a fight for the items across the table. It was that good.

We did however restrict ourselves to some limited sweets so we could move on. The plan was to do some shopping for clothes for the ladies and then go for a break at the hotel and if weather permitted, go see Sadda Pind. We were up for an interesting last evening at Amritsar. 

Durgiana temple and Gobindgarh fort

The previous post on this series is here..

There was a reason Amritsar fit our "trip within a trip" concept perfectly. You could cover all the attractions in the city within 2 days, provided you had a good driver / guide. 

We had one more site that got added. Gobindgarh Fort, which used to house the Kohinoor diamond, was open to the public after 157 years! We just were fortunate to be there after it opened.

We did a quick stop at the Durgiana temple, which was rebuilt to mimic the golden temple. Only the "willing to walk in the hot sun" subgroup went for this. The "rest" stayed in the Van under the shade. This temple also has a gold roof, silver doors and reminds you of how rich things were "once upon a time"!

Given Jr. had spent almost a month in India by the time we visited Amritsar, she had been trained by grandma to walk around temples. She was willing to walk in the sun and that to me was an interesting change! 

We spent a litle under an hour at the Durgiana temple and were off to the Fort. At first we were disappointed to learn that the actual fort was a good mile or more from the parking lot.

That meant half our party would refuse to go citing leg weakness and heat! Fortunately, one of the guards said that for a fee they can get us inside on a vehicle, provided we can wait for 10-15 minutes. So we gladly paid and took the ride. 

There were not that many visitors, it being a week day and we pretty much went through all the history of the place, watched a show in the theater within the fort, have San and the little one go on a "camel ride" and come out in time for lunch.

there were a few horses in the fort that were used to give rides. One of the horses was an albino (I think). It was beautiful to see..

and did I mention the "camel ride"? The little one for some reason, wants to go on Camel rides every chance she gets.. maybe because she missed out in Jaipur a few years ago... this time she was not disappointed!

The camel ride, short and sweet.. smile on their faces, priceless! 

Then there was a late lunch. That lunch deserves a special post in itself ! 

Golden temple by night

After visiting the Wagah border we drove straight to the Golden temple. We were told that the temple is open 24 hours a day and the view is mesmerizing at night. 

There were hundreds of pictures from the one hour spent in the temple that night.. but these three are my favorites. They go first!

We were not disappointed. Walking in through the cleanly swept roads was in itself an amazing experience. The cute statues gave the MIL and Jr. some ideas..

It was almost 9 PM when we got to the temple. The minute you see the temple from the entrance, it takes your breath away! We also got to walk past "appu bakers" and were giving the little one a hard time with jokes about her baking and staring a store there. 

There was a long line and the wait to go to the inner sanctum was more than an hour. So we took pictures and walked the outside perimeter. The standing in line would have to wait for early morning.

We got to see the temple again, bright and early the next morning. . .