Beautiful Nature

Mother Nature is so beautiful. The chirping birds - music to my ears. The turtle, my favorite, only comes out when it needs food. It doesn't disturb anyone else; it's in its own world. We humans eat two or three meals (only one meal is enough). How much hassle and disturbance! Oh we must start learning from Mother Nature!

Visakhapatnam

On my 70th birthday, I wanted to spend some time with my mom at Visakhapatnam - my birthplace. Even now, I continue to learn from my mom. She lives with such discipline and I admire how straightforward she is. Still to this day, she is my role model in every way.

We went to Novotel, which is located near the beach, for breakfast. After eating, I spent some time on the beach with my mom, children and grandchildren. My mom made halwa (Indian sweet) for dessert. I really enjoyed the day.

Bannerghatta National Park

Bannerghatta National Park is about 30 km away from the city of Bangalore. I went with my grandchildren. One of my granddaughter's favorite animal is the tiger, so I wanted to show her the special white tigers at Bannerghatta. We took so many pictures. The best part was that instead of caging the animals, we were in a caged vehicle, and the tigers and lions were able to roam freely and happily.

My personal favorite was watching the white tigers with their cubs and family. Those who are interested in tigers and lions must visit Bannerghatta National Park! 

Mount Rainier

In the year 2000, I happened to go to Seattle to my daughter. They took us to Mount Rainer. After traveling a little while, my daughter showed me, pointing at a snow mountain, that is Mount Rainer. Such a magnificiently standing snow mountain. Beautiful! It seems they call it the Rani mountain. Queen of all the mountains at the Pacific edge. As we going nearer and nearer, I felt like getting down and walk in the snow. At last, the time came to walk in the snow. My seven year old grandson started running towards the mountain. I followed him. We walked and walked till we are tired. My husband sat down and said no more. Flags were posted along the way to show the safer way to walk. We went further. Me, my grandson and my daughter made a snowman and played in the snow till we were hungry. As we were eating, I was thinking Mother Nature has given us so much to enjoy. On the way back we stopped by a waterfalls. The name is Narada Falls. Oh to my surprise! Its named after our sage Narada. There is a board. Its written on it AS. Its uncontaminated. Its named after a sage Narada. Great!!

Our next visit was to Olympic National park. We had to go by ferry. In India we go by ferries. But here this is huge. Our cars could go in. When we reached there, it was 12 in the noon. Everywhere green mountains and on the top of it snow. As I looked around, the green pine trees covered the mountains as if mountains are dressed in green velvet, and the snow covered tops are looking like they are wearing white glittering diamond crowns. Oh! To me this is paradise on earth! Its Darbar of Mother Nature. All are sitting around in their Royal Poshak (dress) enjoying the mother nature's divine energy silently. The silence here is giving a kind of peace to my heart. No external sound is disturbing me. Like that I was experiencing the bliss as mother nature blessing me with her uncontaminated love. Like that how much time I spent I don't know. My grandson came saying, "Ammamma, its time to eat." This is the beauty of Mother nature. No where it repeats. Though we observe nature, its different everywhere, and more and more beautiful. My heartfelt Salute to mother nature.

ORC

ORC, Gurgaon - near Delhi. It is a place for a meditation retreat.

After visiting the busy city of Delhi. My kids, grandkids, and I traveled 30 kilometers away from the city to peaceful Gurgaon. ORC is a vast, serene land that contained green meadows, gardens, peacocks and squirrels. It truly was a beautiful sight and made me feel like I was entering an entirely different world!

The meditation sessions start as early as 4:00 AM in the morning, and other activities occur throughout the day. There are lectures in the morning and cultural activities in the evening. While I was enjoying all of these, my grandchildren were able to enjoy playing in the park and on the green lands.

For every meal we were given homemade food prepared with organically grown fruits and vegetables. My grandchildren liked the ice cream the best because it was made with the milk of cows who were well taken care of and loved. Every bit of the food, my kids, grandchildren and I enjoyed.

Madurai, Rameshwaram, and Kanyakumari

Few months back I had been to Kanyakumari (cape comarin), southern tip of India. Its a historical place. Swami Vivekananda Rock is there. He came here all the way from north east of India, and did meditation. He swam to the rock, which is in the ocean, in the middle of the night and did meditation just to get out of these worldly things.

First we went to Madurai. There is a temple Meenakshi. It is a very big temple - the biggest in the south. Indian sculpture is displayed in that temple. From Bangalore to Madurai over night journey by train, and from Madurai we went by road to Rameshwaram. It took 4 hours by road. There we visited a big Shiva temple. Inside the temple there are 21 wells, which contain water from rivers all over India. We are suppose to take bath from all the well water. The procedure is like this: there are people ready who pour water over our head. We ask one person to take the water from each well and pour it over our head. He started asked us to follow him. We did and he took us to the first well (I forgot the name). He asked us to stand near the well, so we did. He, with a bucket and rope, pulled the rope and the water poured over our head. One each. All our dresses were now wet. The next well he named and poured water over us. I went with my friends. My friend liked this, and she wanted one more bucket of water. The same thing was repeated for the next well and next and next so on all around the big temple! We did all the twenty one wells. In the end, he showed us to one place that is Brahmaganga. We are suppose to put water on ourselves. We did and thought that since this is water coming from all rivers all around India it might have some herbal effect, which is good for our health. We walked here and there until our Sarees were dry. Then we went inside the temple to have darshan of Lord Shiva. Afterwards, we came back to the lodging and had lunch and had good sleep.

Rameshwaram to Kanyakumari is around 2 hours  by road. Early in the morning we wanted to see sunrise from Kanyakumari. But that day it was cloudy, so we could not see that because by the time we saw the sun was up already. I was a bit disappointed, but to me the sunrise at Darjeeling is the best. That is my life time memory. Then, we came back to other shores. We were in the water for quite some time. My friend doesn't like to leave the beach. We named her Machali jal ki hai Rani (Fish, you are the Queen of the water). We went back to the lodge and got ready for a ferry ride to Vivekananda rock. Already, a big queue was there. Then, we were on the ferry. I was so peaceful on the rock even though we were surrounded by many people. The meditation hall where the echo "Om" is, makes us forget everything - even ourselves. We are in that divine energy of Om for a while! We came out all around water. One side of water was green, one side was blue and the other was little mud color. Any color anywhere, water is beautiful! I was watching the waves. It goes on and on like our lives. Goes on and on like our births. Bodies and relations we keep changing! My friend came to tell its time to go to another rock which has a statue of a Tamil philosopher. Here the ocean is roaring as if the philosopher wants to tell some thing to the mob.

Taj Mahal

After a long wait I happened to visit the Taj Mahal, a great historical monument! The Taj Mahal is located in a northern part of India, near New Delhi, in a town called Agra. The road to Agra was bumpy, but once we arrived the sights of the Taj Mahal were simply incredible. The inside of this huge marble structure was filled with spectacular jewels - hand crafted jade, rubies, emeralds, etc. The amount of laborious work it must have taken to create such a structure is beyond explanation to me. It really is a wonder that everyone should see and enjoy!

I enjoyed this marvelous beauty with my children and grandchildren because the weather that day was pleasant. It was neither too hot nor too cold! The ideal time to visit this sight is 8:00 AM. You can stay for as long as you want at this wonder of the world.

Mount Abu Universal Meditation Hall

This is the Universal Meditation Hall, which is situated in Mount Abu, Rajasthan, India. It is on the Aravali Mountains. While visiting Mount Abu, peace seekers or meditation lovers can not only enjoy the scenery but also visit this place.

Red Wood Forests, San Francisco

Last Sunday I happened to go to my brother who lives in Belmont near San Francisco. We all went trekking to Red Woods. First we drove to Skyline Boulevard which is just fifteen minutes drive from home. From there we started trekking down the mountain.

The trail was so smooth by the fallen leaves of the trees it felt as if we were walking on the carpet. As we keep trekking down it was so quiet, it felt very peaceful. We forget about everything, just enjoying the quietness. The citric fragrance of the leaves is so aromatic it gives a soothing feeling. It is very relaxing to walk through these woods. Once in a while the dry leaves shower on us as if the tall trees growing towards the sky are showering good wishes and blessings from heaven.



Look at this tree burnt down to its stump. If you look closely right next to the stump it looks like a person is guarding the woods.



Enjoying the nature while having some simple lunch.

Niagara Falls : one of the wonders of the world!

I first visited Niagara Falls back in 1987. I came to visit my brother's family in Vermont. My brother drove us to Niagara. It was a long drive. We stopped at Ottawa on our way to the Canadian side falls. I remember vividly the horse shoe shaped falls... roaring .... pouring down! We also looked at the falls from Skylon. Water everywhere. While watching these falls it reminded me of my childhood visit to Dhuvan Dhaar water falls near Jabalpur, India.





Almost 20 years later I got to see the falls again last year when I was visiting my youngest daughter in Easton, Pennsylvania. This time it was a different experience. The falls have not changed much, but this time I got to go with my grandchildren. That is something special. This time we visited the American side of the falls. We all went on the maid of the mist. It is simply superb. It takes you so close to the falls .... the feeling is simply amazing ... no words can describe this feeling. My children and grand kids enjoyed this tour too. In fact my youngest grandchild just turned a year old when she went on this tour. She was very brave (her mom too)! all of us were completely drenched in our blue rain coats. Once we got back from the "maid of the mist" we went climbing up some stairs which took us qite close to the falls. We were all exhausted after this climb. Then we went food hunting and were lucky to find a punjabi dhaba. The food reminded me of home. It was quite tasty. That evening we went back to see the falls in all it's glory and color. We got to see the falls in all different colors like red, yellow, green and so on ..... My grandchildren and I were delighted by these colors. After that we returned to the room.



Next day we stayed on the American side and started taking a lot of pictures of the waterfalls and all of a sudden a huge rainbow appeared right in front of the falls. It was simply spectacular and I took a lot of pictures. Then I saw the "maid of the mist" boat passing through the rainbow. I took a picture of that too. Next we went to the cavefalls where you get to hike all the way very close to the falls. It's quite slippery there. Initially I was a bit hesitant to go too close to the falls, but my husband forced me and I did go to the nearest point. It was very thrilling under the falls. I was the last one to come out of the falls. Niagara is one of those places, no matter how many times you visit it always looks beautiful and breathtaking.

Kabini National Park, Mysore, India

Kabini is named after a river in Mysore. It is a forest resort about 80 kilometers from Mysore. We started from Bangalore around 8.00 a.m. in the morning. It took us two and half hours to get there. As we approached Kabini we saw lot of greenery any where we looked. Rooms are spacious and comfortable with no outside disturbance of any sort since there was no television or telephone in the room. We are not supposed to wear bright colored dresses and perfume. We were given steaming hot coffee and cookies as soon as we arrived. That was the only food served in the room. For all the other meals all the guests had to gather in a dining area called "Gol Ghar" where we were served our meals. The food was simply delicious and was more like home made.





By 2 p.m. we got ready for our safari ride. we went in an open jeep. It was a thrilling but at the same time kind of scary as the jeep was completely open on all sides and there were lot of wild animals in the jungle. While on the tour the first animal we got to see was Bison, followed by deer, some peacocks, monkeys, elephants and many more. In fact one of the elephants came charging towards our jeep. The driver just stopped the vehicle and waited. It then went away to its family. It was bit unnerving. After the safari we headed to Gol Ghar where our dinner was served around a camp fire. It was warm and cozy.





The next morning we went on a coracle ride in the Kabini river. There were not too many animals near the river. The tour guide said in summer the river is flocked by all kinds of animals, especially tigers, cheetahs and other wild animals. The ride was short but fun.

My Trip to Malaysia

Last summer I went to visit my daughter's family in Johar Baru, Malaysia. This was my first visit to Malaysia. During this trip I had been to different places like Theoman Islands, Malaka Port, Twin Towers to name a few. Of all the places I visited the one I enjoyed the most was Tioman Islands. We had to take a ferry from Mercing to Tioman Islands. It took us an hour and a half to get there. We stayed there in a beautiful cottage and got to taste authentic Malaysian food (It was steaming hot). We went on a steamer and it took us to the middle of the ocean. There you could snorkle and my daughter and my grandchild got to see corals and colorful fish and she said it was very colorful. I was kind of scared to try that. My husband and I went for long walks along the beach. It was so peaceful and serene. The view was breathtaking.