Smokey Mountains...

After a long debated vacation plans, when checking the flights found some very good deal to Atlanta and made the plans to most visited national park in America! The smokey mountains national park.

I was little bit skeptical at the start about the number of days that we want to spend there. Finally decided 4 days should be good as there seem to be quite a few points and quite a few things to do there. Our journey started with flying from houston to Atlanta on Saturday. Its a nice short two hours flight and we reached there in no time. We visited Downtown Atlanta, checked out few places and had made a plan to celebrate 20th Anniversary of Olympics in Atlanta. Unfortunately there seem to be tornado forecast and seems like the organizers didn't want to take a chance and they postponed the program at the last moment that was quite a bummer for lots of people who gathered there including us.

Well that's ok, we started walking in downtown and few of the volunteers come to us and requests us to leave downtown and go home as for them it looked its going to be pretty bad. Well finally we decided enough for us and we started driving back home. (Btw don't think any tornado or even any rain came!). Checked-in in to the hotel and was looking for some halal places to eat found a gem of a place. PizzaWali, as surprisingly and shockingly our kids love pizza! We decided to visit this place and it was a small place, giving mostly takeout orders. They make mostly fast food, pizza, wings and subs and everything halal. Its an Afghani owner, more about him later and wonderful food.

Day 1:
Next day we started our journey to smokey mountains. Smokey Mountains national park is a park that's divided in to two states, North Carolina and Tennessee . North Carolina end is town called Cherokee and Tennessee end is with Gatlinburg. We had booked our hotels in Gatlinburg as that's supposed to be the main town to visit and stay. But since we were coming from south, google map showed us the way to pass from south end at Cherokee and pass completely through the park and reach to Gatlinburg. One pretty neat thing about this national park is, there's no entrance fee to the park. They expect donations when you pick up different materials from the visitors centers. There are quite a few visitors centers across the park. And each center is pretty neat, with lots of activities going on surrounding it. Showing lots of history and about the wild life in the park. Each of the centers in must visit when passing to it. It will also give the details about the different hikes and points of interest.

We decided to take a detour when going to the park by going via Blue ridge Parkway. This is considered as one of the most beautiful road in america to travel through, We drove about 15 miles of it and with lots and lots of overlook this is just an amazing drive. We were visiting middle of the July, peak summers so didn't expect to see any colors and while the views are really beautiful, I can bet this roads will be way to heaven in the Fall time.

Blue Ridge Parkway

On the Blue Ridge, we got bit adventurous and took a detour. There are lots of points with some funny sounding names and we started climbing in the car, completely unpaved road hoping to reach some nice view point. However after driving for about 20-25 mins and few miles we couldn't see end in sight and also one 7 year old scary little girl screaming in the back-seat we took a very tricky U-turn and went back. Luckily we had a small rental car so turning back was not a big deal however again having a small car driving on the mountains on unpaved road without 4 wheel drive was not a great idea either!


After driving slowly taking many stops and clicking lots of pictures our first stop to the park was Oconaluftee Visitor Center. We took a stop there and understood the map of the park. We visited the farm museum on the back of the center. Gave a glimpse on the life of the people staying in the park years ago. It was quite something looking at their houses, barns, mills, black-smith demo, chicken coup and meat house!. They really had a big storage house where they stored meat! And guess what we saw here, when standing on the veranda, I tell my daughter that look at that deer on the far end of the open field, and a lady corrects me that its an elk and there are few wild turkeys too. Both kids are excited and want to go closer to take a look, however you are not allowed to walk on the open fields as this seems to be a season for Elks and they come out quite a bit.  I checked in the visitor center about any gas stations in the park and she tells me there's none, So I should get gas filled before entering the park. I go to Cherokee town and ooh la la there are many many elks in the open fields. It was some sight. And Kids were on top of the world!

Elks elks elks

After that we drove through the park. The road has a very funny sounding name, "Newfound Gap Road". This is a very interesting and beautiful road that passes through center of the park, one end at NC and another at Tennessee. This is a very interesting road where you are climbing up the mountain till you reach the highest point Clingmans Dome and then goes down. And its a mountain creates lots of scenic points all the way. Temperature also varies up to 10 degrees when passing through the mountain.

Newfound Gap Road

Clingmans Dome, as I said is the highest point in the mountain and in the whole state of Tennessee. They have built a really nice dome like structure from where you get  a 360 degree views of the mountain and the park if you are lucky and day is clear. Unfortunately they say due to pollution most of the days you will really see a smoky! view of the park. Also the catch to reach this point is a nice about one mile steep hike on the really smooth concrete road. We are already in the park and in the mountains so get ready, take out your hiking or tennis shoes if you have not already and let's start walking! :)

Clingmans Dome

After spending some time on Clingmans dome we decided to head to our hotel. However not before we took a stop at the Newfound Gap spot. Again nice beautiful serene views and lots of photo op. There are some really nice hikes also, we just did one small one as kids were tired but these are the places worth exploring!

After that we finally started driving to Gatlinburg. I was thinking it must be small cute sleepy little mountain town that we have been in our Colorado trip like snowmass village but ha! how wrong I was. As soon as I entered it looked like I have come to Vegas! Its a full tourist place with lots and lots and lots of family activities, surely family friendly version of Vegas, thousands of people roaming on the street and tonnes of places to eat!.

We were tired for all these and decided to head back to hotel and take some rest. As the next day is going to be equally tiring with still lots of things to checkout in the park!

Day 2:
Next morning our trip started with visiting Sugarland Visitor Center. This is at the Gatlinburg end of the park and very close to the town also the most crowded and most visited one from the looks of it. It has a nice museum on wildlife in the park, our kids had fun visiting it and planning to meet those animals in the park. It also has a theater where the nice video about park's history is shown and also a nice gift shop with lots and lots of brochures about the things to do in the park. We decided its time for us to visit the marquee point, Cades Cove, in the park today being a nice day and forecast of rains on other days! Cades cove is a one way loop that's close to Townsend and about 1.5 hours drive from Sugarland Visitor Center. Its a very beautiful scenic drive, with lots of points of interest, different houses of the people who stayed their in the past and also quite a few hikes on the way depending on your capacity and interest. Also this is supposed to be the best place to see wildlife and most sought after animals, Black Bears! We started driving through the road, we can see lots and lots of falls all the way decided to visit them on the way back.  And just before entering the  Cades Cove, We see lots and lots of traffic with people walking on the street. That surely means there's an animal in the nearby bushes. We immediately spotted a black bear walking in the bush. How exciting! We got down from the car  and to our delight there was a small baby cub with the bear. It was a beautiful sight to see animal in its natural habitat and not in the zoo!

My proper camera broke down when my son fell down at Cligmans Dome, an he was carrying it in his hands as a budding photographer :) So these are the pics from my phone's camera.

We spent some time here observing the bear jumping from one tree to another and then continued our drive to Cades Cove loop. As I mentioned before this is one of the most visited place in the park so expect lots of vehicles and crowd on the way. But this is really a beautiful place too. We visited few of the houses, it was a pretty hot day but we all had lots of fun. We also visited Cades Cove Visitor center where again there were lots of things to see and lots of things to do for kids. They have a junior ranger program going on in the summer and it was pretty hot with the kids where Rangers take few classes and you have to attend them and get points and finally get a nice certificate.

Beautiful Cades Cove loop

This trip will take about 2-4 hours depending on how much time you will spend on each pints and doing hiking. It was bit hotter than our liking that day but we still got lucky to see bear, deer and wild turkeys.

Returning back from the Cades cove to Sugarland visitor center, there are lots of scenic views and quite a few small and big water falls. We had decided to hike Laurell falls, one of the really beautiful falls in the Cades Cove area. This is about 1.3 miles hike one way but its climbing up on the hills so would go in to moderate level. We had small kids and we decided to take stroller with us as most of the pathway is paved though there are patches where its not possible to really drive the stroller. Umberlla stroller came out to be pretty handy. My 7 year old daughter was all gung ho and she climbed the mountain and did hike pretty easily but my 4 year old son who has become bit of a lazy boy, we had to bribe him with candies and make him walk for bit and some way we pushed the stroller. Just a warning, pushing a stroller does make you tired more! But once we reached the water falls let me tell you it was worth the hike. Very beautiful and magnificent waterfalls they were!

Laurel Falls

As you can see kids were pretty excited to reach to the top (or bottom) the way you look at it. Its about 80 feet tall and beautiful sight to behold. Going down was pretty easy an smooth as you will expect and as I kept saying Lulua, say thanks to gravity for that :)

After a wonderful day we were not really done yet as there was a small hike still left, Cataract Falls. This was really a very easy hike for everyone just 0.8 miles round trip and no climbing up or down. Lots of vegetation on the way but very relaxing. Kids and all of us had lots of fun doing this.

Cataract Falls

The fall itself is very small but nice little walk.

Now we all were done for the day. Time to go back to hotel, have some dinner and sleep!

Day 3:

Today we decided to visit relatively lesser explored area called Roaring Fork Motor trail. This is a nice trailing loop not very far from Gatlinburg town itself.  As the name suggests its a motor trail and there are lots of points of interests where you can park and trail around. Its relatively smaller compared to Cades Cove loop but lots of history associated with and a very nice places to hike around.  The best place to hike is Grotto falls. Its a bit steep, I would say about moderate hike of 3.8 miles return trip. Its a beautiful place to visit and may be the only place where you can get your picture clicked just behind the falls. If you have small kids like we had, keep some candies handy to keep them motivated and also wonderful discussion about PBS cartoons will take you long way !

Grotto Falls

After visiting few points of interests that includes few historical houses and in the end a very nice souvenir shop we decided to head back to hotel and have lunch and relax a bit, also kids were really looking forward to lazy river in the hotel. We spent couple of hours in the pool and decided to visit the charming town of Gatlinburg. As I mentioned its a strip made for tourist with tonnes and tonnes of stuff to do and places to eat. We decided to first visit the Ober Gatlinburg. This is actually a ski area in winter but there are many tourist activities that can be done over summer. First thing to do is take a aerial tramway to reach on the top of the mountain. This will give wonderful views of Smokey and Gatlinburg. The guides are super friendly and funny and its pretty ok price wise. Once you reach on the top there are few amusement park type activities but in the mountain settings and quite a fun. You can pay for individual rides or take a pass depending on the time and interest of your group. 

View from ober

After finishing up with Ober, we took a nice little stroll on the strip by walking, The city provides tram service that's either free or just 50c one way for air-conditioned. The only and big problem is there are no fixed timings and its hard to really make a guess and wait. Its a Ripley's strip, so lots of activities includes Ripley's believe it or not!

Gatlinburg, TN

After having some pizza it was time to retire to the hotel and also almost coming to our last day of vacation.

Day 4:

Its time to end our vacation and start our return trip but not before we visit last beautiful sight in the Smokey mountains region. We discussed that we have an option to either stay in the smokey and do some more hiking or visit some of the other beautiful regions towards Atlanta or visit a very less explored area called Cataloochee that's part of smokey mountains. Cataloochee is a valley surrounded by many mountains in the smokey area. It is situated bit of south east side of main smokey area. This is relatively less explored mainly because of about 3-4 miles of unpaved road. It is still really confusing to me that why this 3-4 miles of road is not paved, if I have to think one reason might be to keep the inflow of tourist in control! We decided to go via blue ridge again and its about 2-2.5 hours drive from gatlinberg. Blue Ridge is always pretty and as I mentioned I was warned by at least 2-3 rangers that drive to the valley is bit risky. However, when we reached there, I have to tell that though road is unpaved and bit uncomfortable I would not say this as risky. Of course you need to be careful but that's for driving anywhere! Anyway, once we reached, this is a beautiful valley and there were people staying here for up to late 40s and early 1950s. It was again a beautiful drive, with lots of houses and some wildlife to see. We saw Elk, Wild Turkeys and lots and lots and lots of butterflies. Kids really had a great time catching and holding the butterflies.

Finally a drive back to Atlanta and meet my new friend Wali.

Vali @ Atlanta

They say when you travel you learn a lot. You learn about the world, about different cultures and you see and experience things that you can not sitting in your couch. One of the best part for me when travelling is meeting people and talking and listening to their stories. I am not bit extrovert like many of my friends, and I take my time when talking with people but still I try my best to make people comfortable and listen to their stories and tell my stories to them.

So this is a story about a man, may be in his early 50s. When in Atlanta, we were looking for some nice different pizzeria as my kids love pizza like any kids. I found this place called Pizza Wali. It has some very interesting food combination and very close to our hotel. So we decided to give it a try. Food was awesome but when visiting second time as I promised to owner, I will just call him "Wali", we started talking.

Wali bhai is a Pathan from Afghanistan/Pakistan area. He is in US in atlanta for about 40 years and has got 4 kids. I have two and he expects next time when I meet him I should have other two :)  He really had very interesting stories to tell about his life and his business in Atlanta. He goes for Hajj every year and takes two of his kids alternately. He like most people I meet is frustrated with the politics in the religious places and religion in general. Tells me he makes sure to server and get halal food in all situation. He has decided to follow the path that he believes is right and doesn't make compromises there even if he has to make losses in the business sometime. It was a wonderful chat about life in general. When bidding good bye, we hugged each other and he actually insisted that we stay at his home that night. He mentioned he has a big home and I think he has a bigger heart! It was really sweet gesture and I would've taken the offer if I didn't have to catch a flight very early in the morning.

I don't know if I will ever meet this wonderful person again in my life, I sincerely wish and hope I do but one thing is sure that I will remember him for rest of my life. 

Texas Renaissance Festival

23rd Oct 2011

It was one of the rare beautiful weekends that we had in houston in long time and as they say here in houston you should enjoy the good weather while it lasts as you blink your eyes and it might be gone! So we decided it was perfect timing for us to visit the "Texas Renaissance Festival", one of the most coveted event in houston, almost as much as Rodeo if not more. And what more it was a Pirates Theme weekend which is supposed to be one of the best one. People dressed in cute and sexy pirate dresses can't go wrong, can they?

Texas Renaissance festival is the European style festival where people from all around the world gather at the place near Plantsville TX, around 50 miles from houston creating the atmosphere of ancient European countries. There are lots and lots of shows for the audience to enjoy. Some of which includes puppet, dance, music, free style, ballet and lots more. It runs from second weekend of October till the Thanks giving weekend and It only runs on the weekend. I wonder what they do during the weekdays. Thousands of performers around the wold come here and create a small town for almost two months. There are lots and lots of things to do besides the shows, like face painting, henna, tattoo parlor, unique hands in wax, rock climbing, paint ball, shooting, darts and children activities also like pony rides, elephant and camel rides, petting zoo and lots of games for the kids. You have to pay each of these activities of course, but its surely a day full of fun and enjoyment. We had a very nice time together as a family.

There is of course food, yumm. I always wanted to try that turkey leg from the day I saw it on Rodeo, though I didn't get a chance to eat there, I made sure my desire gets satisfied here. Its a full leg of turkey barbecued on charcoal grill with some spices and its delicious for a meal. We also tried Greek Gyros that was pretty good too. There are hundreds of eateries all around with different kind of food and one can eat whatever he wants.

Important thing here is though to reach there early. It opens at 9:00 am but if you really want to avoid traffic try to reach there much before that! We had a really hard time on one stretch as it is just a single lane, as you would expect in a small town of mangolia and it was one of the worst slow moving traffic I have ever seen. Also  while coming back, one can not leave early without missing excellent night fire and laser show which ofcourse happens after the dusk. So one will anyways have to get stuck while coming back.

Tickets are not that cheap 25$ if you buy at the gate. Though it makes sense to buy it at your local HEB grocery store for 20$. Food is not that expensive inside the village, and most rides and games are 4-5$ each. So we should make sure to have some cash. Though there are enough ATMs inside the village, if one doesn't mind paying those "extra" fees. We are surely the ones who mind it !

Overall a great way to spend a day on a weekend, if possible one can even do the camping at night and spend a full weekend . I'll surely go back next year!

In a war ridden country

In the spring of 2011, we were on our once in a two year trip to India. This time we had decided that we'll travel via Dubai and Iraq. In Iraq specifically for the pilgrimage to the holy shrine of Karbala and Najaf. Karbala is the resting place of Shia Imam Hussain (AS) and his 72 martyrs. And Najaf is the resting place of Ali (AS), the most important figure for Shia muslims after the Prophet(SA) and  Father of Imam Hasan and Hussain.

Shrines

For the breif history of Ali (AS) and Hussain (AS), and to know their importance in the Shia muslim's life, please visit  Ali and Hussain.

But I am writing this post specifically of my impressions of the war ridden country for a small one week that I stayed, most of the time was spent in pilgrimage but I had got good enough time to observe the lives of Iraqi people. What I understood though was that Baghdad is the most affected place and you can't really compare Karbala and Najaf, the places I visited, to see the real effects, and I humbly agree. And that's exactly my point here that watching CNN and those discussion, you can't really generalize that whole country is in the highest trauma.

While traveling around different places, first thing you notice is people, they are as calm and collected as in most places in the world. All the routine business is as usual, businesses look like thriving. Country is surely coming back on its feet. I see the rail tracks being laid everywhere, there are quite a few broken buildings, of course because of wars and missiles, but much more construction work in progress. The country is very much like sub-continent, dusty, and full of people and energy. People are truthful and trustful. Though they don't like Indian tourist much, as they do lots of bargaining. 

work in progress, shoppers and road side assistance

Some places directly accept the US$. So I didn't try to get the exchange much. But while shopping at the local vendor for Tasbeeh, (after doing some bargaining!) when I gave the $, he didn't accept it and he wanted IQD, so I asked him that I will put the my items back, which he had already packed and will get the exchange and come back, he instantly told me to take the things with me and get the money. All this communication happened, via sign language of course, as I don't know Arabic or Persian and he doesn't know English. Just thinking about this, I don't think I will see this kind of trust in the most places, I was one of the thousands tourist and he might never see me in his life. Though I agree that what I purchased was not much but then also it was touching.

Oh btw, foreign exchange is pretty different, as Iraqi deenars are quite low in value and you will pay around 1200 IQD for a bottle of water, which is less than a Dollar.


Look at those school bags, surely the pictures there reminds of their version of Dora and Cindrella!

One night, while waiting for my wife, outside the shrine of Abbas Ali (AS), with my daughter who was sleeping, one boy, may be around 17, came and started talking in broken english. He introduced himself and his younger sister, I sadly forgot their names. He was wearing Barcelona FC shirt, and I asked him, is he fan of  Messi, and he replies he is Real Madrid's fan. He told me he was from Iraq and I just thought he spoke Iran. He immediately aggressively replied no IRAN, Iraq. Still these neighbors have bitter emotions. But boy was really sweet, he welcomed me in his country, gave compliments on my daughter and  he told me he's coming from some 10 hours away, in the south of Iraq and he and his family visit this shrine regularly.

Another thing I noticed is, dresses for women. Though you can't see anything as women are wearing "Burkhas", I noticed that the shops, which were selling these clothes, were very much western. Jeans, T-shirts, short, tight and mini(!) dresses and lots of  different types of stockings . So inside their burkhas, these women wear all the modern dresses. Iraqi and Irani women were insanely beautiful btw, oh you can see faces as they wear burkhas but don't cover faces!

Though don't think that I didn't see anything unusual. There are thousands of check posts everywhere, the distance between Najaf and Karbala is hardly 15-20 miles, but it takes more than 2 hours if you are lucky because of lots of check posts. They don't normally ask you to get down of your vehicles and drivers just shows them the Iraqi Visa. K-9s will be moved around your vehicles to check that things are fine.  There are few posts near both the shrines, you are not allowed to take cameras, phone or any electronic devices inside the shrines and they properly frisk you before allowing to enter the shrine.And you see armed military personnel everywhere. In some sensitive area near shrines they have even high tech guns, kind of which comes as a part of tank. I even noticed some quarrel in the market.

On the streets there are hundreds of street vendors selling the Chinese made consumer items like we see in India, Chandni chawk at Delhi or Churchgate at Mumbai. They just sit on the roads and sell the things during the day and till late nights.

One thing I missed though was eating the local street food, as my body was still getting used to the new environment, I had an upset stomach. Though I made sure buying some sweets at the local sweet shop and took it with me to India to enjoy later. They were quite awesome. But no worries I am sure, God willing, I will visit these places again.

West Coast - Travelogue

After quite a bit of planning since long time, we decided it was a time for us to get out of hot and humid Houston and visit some of the very famous tourist attractions on west coast of America. With the labour day weekend passed and the kids back to school, we thought this should be the best and possibly cheapest time to travel. With our Ramadan fasting also just getting over, it would be nice little break for us too. So luckily we found that continental was running some promotion to fly to beaches in California if you take the weekday flights. We booked our flight, booked the hotels and started our journey.

September 2011:
Started the journey on 7th - Wed

We left home around 3:45 pm, parked car at the eco zone @IAH and reached the airport at around 4:45 pm CST, Flight was at 6:00 pm, Continental Airlines.
Reached LA around 7:30 pm  PST, took a shuttle to Enterprise Car rental, rented the Chevy Avio and  Reached hotel, Howard Johnson, Fullerton at around 9:30 PM

8th Sept - Thursday ( Universal Studios, Hollywood, Los Angeles)

Day started around 7:30 am, had a breakfast in the hotel, went to Walmart which was nearby to purchase some fruits and other things. Left for Universal studios around 8:30 am, hoping to reach Hollywood by 9:30-9:45 max for 30 miles drive.. First mistake of under estimating LA traffic, reached hollywood and universal studios at around 10:30 am !

Nice day at Universal, enjoyed most of rides and shows, Lulua also seemed to have a good time. Enjoyed Shrek 4D and Simpsons rides most. Also the tour of studio for 45 mins was just great. King kong 360 4D and scene creation for earth quake and flooding was mind blowing. Got some ideas on how the movies are made! Over all a good day.

Left  the Universal at around 6:00, to go to very famous Hollywood Blvd, visited all the famous land marks like Chinese theater, Kodak theater, Madam Tussuad (didn't visit the studio), Hollywood sign!.  Had dinner at California Pizza.

Reached hotel at around 10:00 pm, retired to sleep.

9th Sept - Friday ( San Diego):

Left for San Diego, early at around 8:00am after having a breakfast at hotel. Traffic relatively OK proably because took car pool lane, Took a I-5 South. What a beautiful drive, with mountains at one side and sea coast at other, just amazing. Reached San Diego, Balboa park at around 10:00 am. Weather was really pleasant, much needed relief from Houston's 105 degrees weather. Visited couple of free museums, botanical garden. Wanted to visit very famous San Diego Zoo, but didn't have enough time! On the local's suggestions, went to Old town, San Diego. Nice little laid back historical place with lots of Mexican food joints. Had a lunch, nice Tex Mex at state park and visited couple of beautiful shops selling souvenirs.

Took a late decision to check out the very famous San Diego Downtown skyline. After some research, realized the best place to see it is, from Coronado Island and the bridge that connects the Island and the city is really cool. Took a nice drive at the Coronado Island. Took some photographs. Traveled back to LA

San Diego from Coronado Island

10th Sept - Saturday (Las Vegas):

Took a 3 days 2 nights, tour bus to Vegas and Grand Canyon South rim. Left at around 6:30 am from hotel after having breakfast, parked rental car at holiday Inn La Miranda, and bus journey started from around 7:30 am. Reached first to factory outlet malls, stop for 45 mins, and then had a lunch at In and Out burger. Reached Vegas, Tropicana hotel at around 2:30, for Sight seeing the strip and taking photographs. Reached hotel Stratosphere at around 3:30, checked-in to the hotel, relaxed and took a short tour of hotel and casino. Took a night tour via travel bus. Went to see, Mirage, Venentia, Ballagio and Old town, oldest hotel golden gate casino. Watched free shows of foutains near Ballagio and Men made volcano at Mirage and the Fremont street show on the Ceiling. Reached hotel at around 11:00 pm

Eiffel Tower, Paris hotel

Newyork Newyork

11th Sept - Sunday ( Grand Canyon -SouthRim and Vegas):

Left early at around 5:30 to Grand Canyon, South Rim. Checked the Hoover Dam in between. Real nice work of man made architecture and continued to Grand Canyon, heard news on the way that its raining in south rim and if its cloudy and rainy, it will spoil our plans as you don't get the best view and you can't enjoy much. Reached South rim around 11:30 am. Rain has just stopped and its bright and sunny, watched the brilliantly made IMAX movie for Grand Canyon. Had lunch here. And as soon as we came out, well its raining cats and dogs!. Though everything got cleared up in 15-20 mins thankfully, Its pretty common there I suppose as Grand Canyon being at the very high altitude.Then entered the Grand Canyon National Park and the view of Grand Canyon is just breath taking, literally, no words to describe. Just beautiful. Spent around one and half hour and journey back to Vegas.

This says it all!

Reached Vegas around 6:00,  Left for the Strip again. Checked out some of the hotels like Eiffiel Tower at Paris and checked some shows. Reached to hotel back, went to the top of the Stratosphere hotel, spectacular view of vegas.

12th Sept - Monday ( Back to LA):

Checked M&M and Ethel M Chocolate factory and Cactus Botanical garden, very close to Vegas. Time was given 1 hour which was quite less for the things to do there. Had a chinese unlimited buffet brunch on the way. Again 2 hours stop at the factory outlet.. Mostly because of their commitments with the shops owners.

Reached LA at around 6:00 pm. Went to Disney land and Disney down town. Nice but nothing compared to the one in Orlando.

Reached Chirag's sister's place at around 9:30 pm. Had a nice time with the family and proper gujarati delicious dinner after a long long time.

13th Sept - Tuesday (LA - Back to Houston):

After spending some time with Chirag, left for Santa Monica Pier. Around 50 miles drive from Irvine. Very beautiful beach and Pier. Had a good time on white sand beach after spending lots of time on galveston's dirty, black sand beaches with weeds. Left back for houston, retuned the car and flew to houston. Reached houston at around 10:30 pm CST, and home at around 11:30 PM.


So overall a good vacation, went as per the plan, could've clubbed couple of more things may be, could've seen the San Diego zoo, if planned little properly. But took it little light because of 3 year old and BOW :)

In the future, would like to go to Vegas with friends and would love to do a camping, hiking boating trip in the Grand canyon.

The Poster

When you sit idle, your mind wanders, it wanders to the distant old memories and most of the times those memories make you smile. So around 10 years back, I was in college (TEN years!!!). We used to stay in the hostel. One morning when I got down from my room, the security guard, who knew us, caught me and gave me a package. I asked who gave you, he mentions a girl on the scooter came and gave him and asked him to give it to me. I asked A GIRL!!! Well that was a surprise if not a shock for sure. Well packaged looked like a poster or calendar of some kind. I went to my room and opened it and found it to be a poster of:

This is not the same poster. I couldn't find originial on google! 

None other than Aishwarya. Now I had a big crush on the ex miss world Aishwarya (I still like her but I guess I have moved on!), and most of my friends were aware of that fully, so that could have been one of them (though I would be really surprised then too!). But who was this mystery girl, I asked all my girl- friends, around in college and some of them even ridiculed me that a GIFT for YOU! why would I do that! So here is the mystery that I am still not able to solve. That poster is still with me though in my cupboard at my home in India, but I am still waiting for that mystery girl to come out one day and tell me it was me!

PS: In a hindsight I think there is a high chance that some of my friends have pulled a trick on me by may be just bribing that security guard and tell him that a girl gave it to him.. Though I would still like to think otherwise :)

Amne hatu ke kai pan kehvay tamne,
Nahoti khabar nahi sehvay tamne

Tame to jivi lesho amara vagar,
Tamara vagar nahi rehvay amne

-by myself (somewhere around 2003)

Translation:
I thought I can say anything to you
Din't know it will be unbearable to you

You will be able to live without me,
How will I live without you