Back in Darwin

In KL as house guests and they were such lovely people
Swish KL

Not so swish but excellent Bukit Lawang Forest camp dinner

River crossing in Bukit Lawang

Forest camp Bukit Lawang

Majestic Orangutan

Bechak ride in Bukit Lawang

We are finally back in Darwin. We took a flight from Tiruchy to Kuala Lumpur by Airasia. Mahima joined us at KL. We flew Medan in Indonesia and were driven in taxi to a place called Bukit Lawang. This was Radhesh's wish to see the Orang utan in the wild. We stayed there for nearly 5 days. The place was beautiful with wild forests on very tall steep mountains. Radhesh and Mahima walked with Murdoch and Williams for nearly 5 - 7 hours in a single stretch

Kate and Shirley are here

Henna applied

After washing the henna offFrom atop Tiruchengode

Huge granite mountain at Tiruchengode

Temple at Bhavani

Temple elephant "blessing" worshippers

Kate and Shirley turned up after all after much expectations. However, their arrival was not without drama, thanks to Kate. Kate missed the flight to Hong Kong from Melbourne - well, you should believe that. So she became late Kate and Shirley early Shirley (Radhesh came up with these).

K and S are enjoying all the attention that they missed out at home. They are also going through interesting times in terms of food. More than the item of food, they normally ordered many more from the menu with the result they ended up eating only once in a day. Also a few problems with the type - when they wanted poori, they got parotta or vice versa. However, the best part is they didn't get a Shane Warne belly by strictly following the advice on just eating only vegetarian food. Otherwise, imagine getting baked beans from Woolies.

K and S got a nice henna tattooed. The colour and design turned out to be great. Manoranjitham did a great job on them too.

They are both in Ooty and they return on Saturday.

NT Forensics

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/10/2487760.htm?section=justin

NT forensics personnel Kym Chilton and Gino Rob are off to Victoria to help identify the victims killed in the fires. This is indeed a very tragic time in Australia and NT forensics personnel are highly skilled and experienced from performing forensics during Bali bombing and East Timor tragic events. We have worked with Kym and he is a very efficient and meticulous man. All the very best.

Figure this one

All university exams and classes in Tamil Nadu have been suspended indefinitely to protest against the killing of Tamils in Sri Lanka. The local Tamil Nadu Government has been protesting strongly against the war in Northern Sri Lanka and political parties of all hues have taken up this protests of conscience. However, on Telly we are now watching the third one day international cricket test between Sri Lanka and India! Go figure that.

Kurai ondrum illai

Radhesh played this song on the flute. The song was composed by Rajaji and became famous through MS.

Murali's Inner Peace

Murali has produced a flute album titled "Inner Peace". The album was recorded entirely in Chennai. The album has melodious music played in the Hindusthani style. Murali also hired a tabla player in Chennai to accompany him. The music is indeed very peaceful. Murali, Keep it up. The recording is very clear and crisp. Here is a short snippet.

Ananth's Wedding

The traditional music party at the wedding playing the Nadaswaram and Thavil

Murali and Rad at the wedding. Murali taught Radhesh to play the flute

Ananath and Darshini on the oonjal (swing) as part of Tamil wedding

Ananth and Darshini got married in Chennai on 21 Jan. They both make a gorgeous couple. We met up with our friends from Adelaide some of whom we are seeing after about 4 years. Radhesh and I went to the wedding and Mythily couldn't come as she had to conduct Uni exams for her college.

We also met up with Murali and family. Murali taught Radhesh to play the flute when we were in Adelaide. Murali has brought his first musical album. I will put up a few snippets from this album hopefully tomorrow.


At the Wedding we met up with Tahlia and Gary, Ananth's mate, who had come all the way from Melbourne. My special interest Tahlia is vegetarian. Keep it up Tahlia. She probably had a great time in India as far as food is concerned as India is the heaven for vegetarians. Also check out their blog http://tahliaandgarylostinindia.blogspot.com/, They have got some cool photos of the wedding.

Reunion

With Harry at KREC beach

St.Cecily's

Snake in the grass

Radhesh playing the flute

The reunion group

We had a reunion after 25 years at KREC, Surathkal with my batchmates who studied engineering course with me. However, out of about 300 of us, about 20% only could make it and others still were attached to it from a distance. Although I am seeing most of them after 25 years it was remarkable that I could recognise most of them. With some it was easy, like Shankar, Navin, Revankar (he actually looked better with age), Madhukar rao, Baba, Raju, Venkataramani, etc., hadn't changed very much at all. Others had a completely new look about them. I had completely forgotten most of their names and needed a bit of help. Mythily knew most of them and so we had a great time. The guys who organised this had done a neat bit of organising. We are in touch with each other through Yahoo groups.

The guys had come from far and wide. From Australia there was just Harry and myself. There are 2 others who live Sydney who couldn't make it.

The best part was Radhesh thoroughly enjoyed himself.

The college, it is on the same terms as an Aussie Uni, has a lot of concrete dropped on the campus at a number of places. Like any other Government establishments in India, this one also needs a lot of looking after from some responsible people. Only question is where are they. Can you believe this college has its own beach.

We watched a cricket match between St Aloysius and FRMCC, Moodabidri. Nothing much has changed there. We also saw a snake behind the Chemical engineering department.

I think it is NH 17 - what a sorry state it was in. How could people put up with this type of nonsense from the Highways Department just beats me. The whole place was dug up, then a good stretch of road, suddenly bad stretch, then no road, etc. Why bother paying road tax for this treatment. The bus drivers were driving like those from Mad Max and produced situations fit to be scenes from American movies with car chases.

Mythily went to St Cecily's the school where she studied at Udipi. She was totally thrilled and took a photograph of her being pushed by her sister from the steps in her school.