Faith Faith Faith

Faith is an interesting thing.. it makes you do things that are ingrained in you from childhood. Everytime I lose something and I have to find it in a time sensitive way, subconsciously say a prayer to Ganesha and say "will light a camphor light(karpooram) for 10 paise at the local temple".. 

a. we don't get camphor lights in the US that easily

b. there is no 10 paise anymore

c. local temple can be anything but was originally intended for Vembadi Vinayagar, a little ganesha under a pipal tree that I have circled with prayers to remove obstacles real and imaginary..

But it gets done.. and we are not even talking about if we actually found the thing on time or not.

In 2014 my MIL was going for a bone marrow test and in pure panic mode I prayed to my family deity (Gunaseelam perumal) that if the test came negative for cancer, will go shave my head in the temple. That was more of an extreme case of the camphor lighting thing.. 

Have made at least 6 trips to India since that time but never got the opportunity to go visit Gunaseelam. Faith is interesting.. seeing your family deity is not up to you, it is up to your deity.. or so the saying goes! Guess on this short trip to see my dad, there was no agenda. 

Three weeks ago, was lying in a hospital bed myself, dreading some worse case scenarios, which fortunately turned out to be something a lot less threatening. While there, the thought of unfinished business with god somehow bubbled up to the top of the already buffering thought process.  What if I died and did not do the "mottai"? After all the bone marrow test for MIL had come out negative! 

The original plan was to just go alone with a driver and get things done and get back. Then my parents said the words "Can we come with you?".. In case you didn't get the reason Faith got mentioned three times in the title, "you cannot say no to someone when they ask to come to a temple with you".. My dad was bedridden two weeks ago and he barely started walking again. An adult in diapers who just started walking, coming on a day trip where we spend 11 hours in the car and 3 hours in a temple is no joke. 

Somehow, we told ourselves, if it was meant to be, we will make it. I did a risk mitigation plan that would make any project manager proud and we left at 3AM. It was still raininig in Chennai but we were off to a flying start.. We had one stop for 25 minutes and were back on the road. 

Given this is my n'th mottai at Gunaseelam, the whole thing was done in 7 minutes.. then came the best part. There was water in the river that flows to the temple! Had a great time taking a dip in the river and have the fishes nibble at me. We were on a deadline and I had to pull myself out of the water to go in and finish the rest of the prayer. 

Our driver and some total strangers helped me navigate a wheel chair through the temple. The priest knows our family and was extremely nice and made sure my dad got to see the deity up close. 

On our way out a puppy came up and lay down under our vehicle. This one knew how to put on a sad face like a pro..

It was time to drive back. My dad is like a kid who just got his tonsils out and knows that his parents won't say "no" to anything... we just got out of the temple and he mumbles "elaneer.. I want elaneer". He wanted coconut water. Was not even sure if this is coconut water season and we were watching the road for it and sure enough we found a vendor selling fresh coconut water. It is not a good idea for a person of his age to drink that instead of lunch. We stopped at an A2B for lunch and it was really delicious. Had a full course meal. As an added bonus this place had a wheelchair ramp!

Then came the bombshell from my dad "I want to use the restroom". That was not part of the plan. It was going to be diapers all the way. But a kid without his tonsils... is a kid without his tonsils. The restrooms here are not typically wheelchair accessible. They are simply not for anyone who is not fit and can manoeuvre around a potty, a door that swishes past the potty with millimeter tolerance and a bunch of taps and buckets on the floor that are trip hazards. In what can only be described as a houdini move, managed to get my kid to go potty and get him diapy changed. That coconut water was a bad idea. Our driver concurred. 

The rest of the drive back was calm and serene. There were cops every 100 feet. So I started counting cops. After 270, I stopped counting. That was only on one side of the road from Dindivanam to Melmaruvaththur. My mind boggled at the efficiency of this whole security apparatus with so many cops just standing on the roadside doing nothing.. then again, maybe this system works, who knows! We actually slowed down to ask one of the cops to find out what the big deal was. He proudly answered "The Chief minister of Tamil Nadu is making his way back to Chennai on the same route!"

We made a dash for it to avoid his motorcade and made it back in exactly 14 hours. For a few minutes after reaching could not find my legs.. had let my dad doze off on me. . . which reminded me of my kids dozing off on me on another recent trip.

It has been another interesting day. 

A picture that says it all..

and a short video of the days experience.. 

It is always a great feeling taking a dip in the river.. mottai or not. Was glad to see my parents smiling again, even if for one day! 

Now the only thought in my head is "the mosquitoes are going to get me good tonight with this exposed scalp.. they will suck my brains dry and I might actually wake up smarter!"

My head feels lighter already, both literally and figuratively...

Butts up!!

The previous post in the series on the Belize trip is here..

On day 3, our schedule was supposed to be a visit to ATM. However, the Spa manager told us that due to some conflicts we were only confirmed for ATM two days later. My heart sank and I told her that our main reason for coming to Belize was ATM and she has to make sure that we visit on that day. 

They have to get drivers out of the Spa to various locations.. given we were the only family going to ATM from the Spa and there are a limited number of people who go through ATM a day, our Day 5 became the new confirmed date. On Day 3, we were going to do Cave Tubing and Zip lining instead.

We had the same guide who went with us to snorkel and that was a good thing. We started at 8AM and were at the tubing place,  Nohoch Che'en reserve, by 9:30 AM. We had to rent Crocs to wear as the tubing involved carrying a large tube and wading through water on slippery surfaces. We also got a helmet with a light on it and life vests. For the most part the tubing was in shallow water that was 3-4 feet deep. Only in a few places it was 5-6 feet deep. 

There was a 45 minute hike from the parking lot to the starting point on the river where we entered the caves. During this hike our guide gave us a lot of information about the local forests, the type of plants etc. etc. It was interesting and was like listening to a talk on Ayurveda. We saw some smaller caves on the way to the starting point.

One thing that was common to all caves was the bats on the cave roof.. there were lots of bats.. and the caves smelled of the bats!

Walked past a lot of ant hills.. red ants, leaf cutter ants, fire ants.. the entire biting family was there. As long as we kept walking, we were fine.. or so our guide assured us. We learned about the various poisonous plants, snakes and antidotes available from other plants.

After 40 minutes or so we reached the river.

Then our guide tied up all the tubes (there were 8 of us in the group) and tied that to his tube and pretty much pulled us or navigated the group with the flow of the river. 

We got to see a lot of rock formations created by the flowing river and a waterfalls inside the caves. It was a two and a half hour deal and we got our butts kicked by the rocks at places.. 

Every now and then our guide would shout "butts up!" and we would have to pull our butts up within the tube. San and me had front tube seats (or the absence of it) and the kids deliberately went to the last row to avoid the camera. Was not happy with that. Someday they will look at these pictures and appreciate them.. or so I hope!

A video highlights of our tubing experience.

Here are two slideshows from the Cave tubing..

 

We had lunch at the parking lot picnic tables after a quick shower and change of clothes. Then the four of us went to Zipline while the rest of the group was asked to shop around or go for a walk in the trails near the parking. 

The Zipline was only 45 minutes with two steep hikes and 4 zip lines, but two of those went across the entire river we had just tubed across. It was my first Zip line experience. 

There were no phones, go pros, nothing allowed on the Ziiplines as you needed your hands free and your undivided attention on the Zipline. Fortunately our guide took my phone and said "I will walk to the end of the first line and take photos of you guys. So we got some photos! 

On the longest line, San got her glove stuck on the line and that automatically made her brake and she never made it to the other side. She was still a good 10 feet away. I was behind her but the guy who was clearing us could not see the other side of the river. He said I was good to go. I see a bunch of people waving on the other side and the employee asking me to brake. Had to break a good 20 feet from the other end while they threw San a line for her to be pulled up. That line was not going to reach me. 

Was basically hanging out there and the attendant shouted "Sir, can you go flat along the rope and use both hands and pull yourself towards us?".. It was not like I had a choice.. Did everyone proud by pulling myself one hand at a time all the way to the end. That was an interesting experience. Was 200 feet above a river and was doing Tom Cruise style stuff. Was not expecting that. 

After we came back, it was a quiet drive back to the Spa. There was just enough time to get a shower, get ready to join the rest of the groups for dinner. Dinners at the Spa were becoming almost like a family feast. It was the same bunch of folks we were meeting every night. We shared stories of the day from the different groups and showed pictures and videos. Got to make a lot of new friends. It was fun..

The next days plans were still being made.. but we knew what we wanted to do!  The Spa manager had to juggle some logistics to make it happen.. 

Would strongly recommend the Cave tubing even for smaller kids 6+ as long as they can stretch themselves across the tube. We thoroughly enjoyed it. The Zipline, you have to be above 40 inches tall and the last two legs were scary. So it may not be for smaller kids. 

Another day well spent in Belize!