All posts tagged bus travel

Traveling…Yet Again Part 2

Okay, to pick up where I left off. We rested as much as we could that day because we knew it would be a late night with the party. Regretfully I didn’t take ANY pics there. Why? Well, I just didn’t have the presence of mind to go around and stick my camera in strangers faces. And besides, I had to be in the group pics that were taken. So those are my excuses. I’ll see if I can get pics from those who were there. I did get two of Logan. The only two pics I took the whole evening.

He went around at the end picking up pieces of confetti and sticking it into the tube it had been shot from. Everyone watching him was laughing.

Lila had a great time at the party, being passed around from one aunty to the next. Everyone wanted to hold her. She was also the only baby there so you can see why she had so much attention.

That night the kids were in bed by midnight and I took advantage of the time to have an undisturbed bath in the tub. That is something I haven’t done in ages as we don’t have a tub at our house.

The next day we relaxed and rested some more. Then we heard that we had to go to Bangalore to pick up my visa. We knew we had to do that, but hadn’t expected it so soon. So we made plans to leave that night.

In the afternoon we took the kids to a mall for some play. Logan got to ride on some rides but I think he most enjoyed watching the people who were bowling. He kept reaching out his hand for the ball.

This is the same horse he rode when 10 months old.

Okay, so he didn’t ride everything but he did sit in all of them, just to see what they were like.

Here are Logan and daddy waiting for the bus.

And my cuties all ready for the cooler Bangalore weather.

We stayed there longer than expected due to unforeseen delays. But the work got done. We also met with Amar while there. Wish the rest of you had been there too. Maybe some day we can work that out.

Well, there isn’t much more to say about the trip. We relaxed and took it easy, then headed home Diwali night. Yes, amid the fireworks we were boarding a bus. Well, it was good in a way as then we didn’t have to listen to the noise. But we didn’t escape it as it continued for the next two nights at home.

And I will end there. The trip itself was rather uneventful – my paperwork got done and we just chilled while waiting.

I do have lots of other pics that I will try to post over the next few days. See you soon.

1 Comment

by Mercy Langille on October 24, 2009 • Permalink

Posted in India, life, travel

Tagged Bangalore, bus travel, Mangalore, my kids, photos

Posted by Mercy Langille on October 24, 2009

https://dayslifedreams.wordpress.com/2009/10/24/traveling-yet-again-part-2/

Our Trip to Bangalore and Home Again

Ahhh, it feels good to have the keys under my fingers again. Since the drive crash I’ve not dared even turn the computer on again lest some other problem befall me. Yesterday Glad took the computer to be fixed and yes, the guy was able to retrieve everything. I’m so happy! The first thing I did was back up on CD all my most valuable files. Why didn’t I do that before? Well, I feel better now, so relieved that I didn’t lose what I thought I did.

About our trip: we didn’t go home when I thought we would. In fact, we stayed 5 more days. We didn’t want to have to make another trip back for some small detail so we waited until everything having to do with my legal work was done. I didn’t mind being gone for a while as we got to visit people we hadn’t seen in a while and we also sort of got a break, meaning we didn’t keep our regular schedule. We did things like watch movies in the morning (before breakfast, mind you. We had to wait for the maid to arrive and cook.) But it was fun because it was different. The person we stayed with had a house that wasn’t by any means child-friendly so I had to be on my toes with Logan and the winding metal staircase, plus the steps to the sunken living room. He learned to crawl down to the living room feet-first but I kept him off the staircase. The gaps in the railing were too big. Didn’t want to take any chances.

So now we are home and I am catching up on the stuff that fell by the side while I was gone. There are always pieces to pick up when you get back from a trip somewhere. I have also caught the cold that Lila got while traveling. The weather there was mostly cold and rainy and she is used to hot weather so I think that is why she got sick. Then Logan got it and now I have it, quite possibly due to being too close to my sick babies. Ain’t that always the way it happens to mommies? Okay, now I’ll close with a few pics for you from our trip. Enjoy.

“I got my wheels and I’m ready to roll.”

Mr. Ice Cream Face

What do you think of this beautiful dress? I love it.

On the swing, his favorite part of the playground.

Looking cute.

“Sitting up is fun!”

Ready to start crawling. “Won’t be long until I can escape and be free.”

Fun with daddy at the playground.

On the bus, ready to go home.

Our Chennai Trip

We landed in Chennai and had one day to rest and get some extra sleep. I never sleep well on a bus and to top it off, Logan was up from the time the bus arrived around 5:30 in the morning. So when he went to bed, I did too and we both slept for hours, me out of tiredness and he due to being sick. He had a fever the night before but was much better now.

Here Logan is dressed up for Halloween. Not that it is celebrated here but a hotel here had decided to celebrate and we were asked to make balloon sculptures and paint faces.

But as you can see, his makeup didn’t last. Here Logan is having lunch at the hotel restaurant.

This is the apartment we will be moving into in Chennai. The family we are moving in with had this fish tank and Logan loves crawling up to it and trying to catch the fish.

He also had fun in the rocking chair.

Well, I didn’t get any pictures of the city itself but that will come in time. We plan to move there soon, sometime in the next two weeks after we wrap things up here in Bangalore. So moving time is coming up. I’m excited about being in a new place.

Some other news is that Logan is going to be one in three days. Already he is almost weaned, not that I wanted to wean him so soon, but because I couldn’t keep up with nursing him while being pregnant. Now he takes bottles before his naps and during the night and eats solids well at meals and snacks. The only time he still nurses is before bed. He knows that is the time he can and doesn’t like to take a bottle then, though I try to get him to take at least a little bottle so his tummy is full and he can sleep better.

Another new thing is that I started him on the potty. This picture is the first time he went doodoo in the potty. I was excited because every doodoo in the potty is one less I have to wash out of his diaper. And as you can see, he already knows how to clap for himself.

Updates

Here are the promised updates from the past month. Logan is finally sleeping so I have time to do it.

The first thing was that we made a trip to Mangalore to visit Glad’s family.

Daddy and Logan sleep on the bus.

I’ve never seen buses like this anywhere before. They have beds instead of seats that are fairly comfortable but if the bus is taking the curves too fast, you may fall off. For that reason, many buses have bars on the bottom bunks as well as the top ones.

After an extra long ride (for some reason the bus was late), we arrived and got settled.

Waiting for breakfast.

We spent 4 days visiting grandma where Logan got to meet his cousins Brandon and Alysia. Here is an interesting tidbit: Logan has 16 cousins. Let’s see if he will ever get to meet all of them.

Daddy and Logan playing on the balcony at Grandma’s house.

Then we took the train to Chennai. Logan had fun on the train, except that he didn’t want to sleep with me on that narrow bed, so I had to lie on the other end and block him with my legs as we were on a top bunk. Every time he woke up I had to sit up, nurse him, and put him down again before I could go back to sleep. I didn’t sleep very well that night.

Happy boy on his first train ride.

Logan and mommy on the top bunk.

See how small the bunk was?

Waking up the next morning.

We arrived in Chennai the following afternoon, and spent a week there. (Sorry, no pics from Chennai, but I will have some in the future.) Logan got to play on the beach. I sat him in the sand after a big wave soaked him and daddy and I let him get as dirty as he wanted to. I wish I had had the camera with me that day. He had sand all over him from head to toe, and he even tried to eat it. When we came back to Bangalore, I got sick with a bad cold for a week and couldn’t do much, but I am much better now.

And I have saved the best news for last. In case I haven’t personally told you yet, I’m pregnant again! Just two months along, but enduring morning sickness that lasts all day. Ha! Actually, it is doing better as long as I can eat. I am hoping for a girl this time. Let’s see what happens.

So all in all we had a busy month. I’ll do my best to make sure I keep you posted more frequently.

1 Comment

by Mercy Langille on October 4, 2008 • Permalink

Posted in India, me, travel

Tagged bus travel, Chennai, Logan, Mangalore, my kids, photos, pregnancy, train travel, updates

Posted by Mercy Langille on October 4, 2008

https://dayslifedreams.wordpress.com/2008/10/04/updates/

Logan’s Visit to Grandma

Logan got to visit his paternal grandmother for the first time last week. We took an evening bus to Mangalore, during which we hardly slept, especially me. I had Logan on my chest and the seat in front of me down almost on my lap. Here they like to fill the buses as full as possible so the seats are rather close together. When the seat goes back, you are quite literally lying in the person’s lap. Anyway, I was squished and Logan was the only one who had a good nights sleep.

We arrived around 5:30 in the morning. I put Logan in bed hoping he would sleep a while longer. Well, by the time I got out of the shower he was awake. Thankfully I was tired enough to fall asleep with him babbling and kicking next to me but it was only for a short time since he wanted to nurse. Needless to say, I was dead tired that day.

It rained most of the time we were there (it’s the rainy season, you know) so we didn’t go out much, except for a walk in the afternoon and we got caught in the rain. But the weather is warm so it didn’t matter.

Of course the highlight was that Logan and grandma got to hang out together a lot. They both had a great time.

He has finally learned to sit up, though he still falls back regularly. Here he is playing at grandma’s house while daddy sleeps in the back.

His first time in a cart.

Logan and grandma together.

Here he is in his new booster chair. I was trying to get him to look at the camera but he was watching a video and would only look away for a second and by the time I clicked the camera he wasn’t looking any more.

Here is the busy little boy having fun. He much prefers to sit up when playing now instead of lying down.

Vacation Highlights

Well, I finally get to sit and write about our vacation. I am only going to put the highlights as most of the 10 days were spent doing routine things – mostly things involving the care of the baby. So here we go with what we did on vacation.

Glad drove some people in the car while Logan and I went with the rest by bus. We took a night bus that had beds instead of seats all along the sides. I’ve never seen anything like it. The aisle was no more than a foot and a half wide and the beds were about 5 ½ feet by 2 ½ feet. It wasn’t very easy to sleep in as I spent most of my time hanging on and trying to not fall out of bed.

The trip takes about 14 hours so most prefer it to be while they are sleeping, which in a way is good as you get something done while you are sleeping but it was hard to nurse the baby while the bus was swaying side to side. There is one portion of the road on the way to Goa that is very winding and it takes a good two to three hours to drive it. On the way back it was easier as that portion of road passed before I went to sleep and I slept better on the way back than on the way there.

Once we got there we made our way to our hotel. It was a simple place, mainly just set up for sleeping, though we also had a fridge and TV in the room.

The view from our balcony.

The beach was just a 10 minute walk away. Logan had his first experience of being on the beach. Well, he didn’t like it too much but he put up with it, mostly because of the wind and heat. Goa is extremely hot and you have to have an aircon in the room to just feel comfortable. Every time we stepped out of the room it was like walking into a sauna, the humidity was so thick.

Down on the beach Logan got his first taste of waves splashing on him, sand on his feet, and being sticky and tasting sandy milk. After the second or third time at the beach he didn’t mind it so much.

What he did enjoy was the pool. Every time we took him in, he would kick and have a great time, and he would also tire himself out enough that I would put him on a sunbed (in the shade of course) and let him sleep while we swam. His after-swim naps were some of his best.

One highlight to remember is the night that Glad sang to me at dinner. Every night they had a “band”, a man who could hardly sing, with his guitar. So one night I’m sitting eating. Glad had gone to get more food from the buffet and I was about to put the baby into the stroller when I heard “Sit down, Honey, I’m going to sing for you.” So he sang for me in front of all the old couples who were there and afterwards they were all congratulating him. It was so sweet. He was nervous during the first verse so he couldn’t get the cords but kept playing anyway and got them on the second verse. Oh, you want to know what song he sang, do you? It was “You Fill Up My Senses”. Such a beautiful song.

Another highlight was going to the Saturday Night Bazaar, something they have every week. Our band was playing so we went to see them as well as do some shopping. I found a Goa shirt Logan’s size and Glad had to get him a superman shirt, so Logan did the most shopping that night. I got a nice top and Glad got some too. Then we got a whole roast chicken to take back to the hotel for dinner. This bazaar is full of all kinds of things, and not just ethnic Indian things either. There are many foreigners who go there to sell their wares. Items range from clothing to jewelry to bedding to ornaments, food and more. The big thing about it is you don’t pay the price they first give you. If you do they know you must be a dumb rich tourist who doesn’t care about the price. Everyone bargains to get the lowest price possible. It’s tricky but some people get real good at it.

On our last day there we wanted to do something special so we set out to the beach and on the way met someone representing a major company here that was giving away prizes. We got a top prize so decided to walk to the hotel to claim it. On the way we met two others doing the same thing and each time we got a top prize. The last guy took us to the hotel and in order to claim the prize you had to take the tour of the property and listen to them try to sell you on their holiday package. In the end, we didn’t qualify for their packages, which we didn’t mind, but we did get the prize (all the prizes we scratched on the cards were the same) – paid stay at one of their hotels for up to 14 days in Goa or 7 days in Singapore. Well, we might use it, you never know. And of course, being that a beer company was hosting this, we got a large bottle of beer. This outing took most of the morning but it was something different and we did enjoy ourselves.

The only nice thing about coming back to Bangalore after being in Goa is that the weather here is much cooler and not so humid. Otherwise I didn’t really look forward to coming back to work. What am I saying? My work traveled with me. He was a very good boy for the whole trip. Actually, he loves going out in the car and seeing new places. He gets bored being in the same place for too long.
Well, I can’t think of anything more that stands out. Most days were spent sleeping, eating, resting, going to the beach, and of course caring for the baby.

Oh, one thing comes to mind. Twice I got to go shopping without the baby. Glad kept him in the hotel while I went to some nearby store to indulge in the womanly art of shopping. I think that was so sweet of him. Once the baby was sleeping and once he was awake but happy. Glad hates shopping and I think Logan does too, since the last time I took him, he gave me a hard time. He fussed and cried and I ended up buying something that didn’t fit. Oh well. And I made sure to not be gone too long (1 ½ hours max.) so the baby wouldn’t freak out when he got hungry. It felt nice to be able to shop without bouncing him and trying to get him to be quiet at the same time.