On the recent India trip, we visited Amritsar for two days. It is a family deal now that we do a trip within a trip to go see a place that the four of us have never been to within India. This breaks the monotony of visiting the same relatives on a tight schedule in Chennai and Mumbai and flying back. It also gets us to interact with family in a "non-home" setting in India.
This time it was Amritsar with my in-laws. As soon as we landed at the airport, the tour guide/ driver took us to the hotel which was 15 minutes from the airport. We checked in and the plan was to go to the Wagah border right away with a quick stop for lunch.
For some reason, he decided that we should go to an upscale "bar" type place. Why, we dont know.. maybe he had a deal with the place. So we went to "The Yellow Chilli". It had Sanjeev Kapoors face everywhere and the ambience was definitely not a "family restaurant" one, but a couples place to get drunk. We were definitely the only family there and there were no kids in the place.
I amused myself by looking at the Pathanjali "super store" next to the restaurant. I did not know there were stores like this. Over the last year, have become a big fan of Pathanjali shampoos. Rate them highly right along Loccitane! I digress. Pathanjali products are great, but this post is about The Yellow CHilli.
Once the menu items showed up at our table, we really didn't care what the restaurants customer base was. We were hungry and the food looked and tasted great!
Every item was better than the previous one or so it seemed. Then came the final dessert. This thing was downright divine! The hot/cold combination was amazing.
The video says it all..
We gupled the thing down and were off on a drive to the Wagah border. We also told our driver, "this was good.. but next time.. dhaba ka khana!"
Day 2 of the Peru trip started off at 3:30 AM. We had to get ready as the car was going to pick us up at 4:30 AM. There was no breakfast open at the time, but the restaurant was nice enough to box us cute little cheese sandwiches (just mini buns with Cheese), some fruits and milk at 4AM. The driver showed up promptly and took us to the airport and we said our byes. He did not know at that time we would meet again!
We were flying into Cusco. After a one hour flight delay we reached Cusco around 10PM. There was another 45 minute drive from airport to the hotel. We stayed at Mamasara, a cute place on the edge of the mountains but walking distance from the Cusco historic Plaza. We were told to get ready in an hour for the tour!
The hotel was beautiful. Full of cute things..
By now we were only in day 2 but the kids had had enough of this waking up at ungodly hours, skipping meals because the "tour was going to start" and this waiting on a bus for "all parties to show up" etc.
We calmed them down, thanks to leftover idlis and chappatis, curry which had been packed. We ate whatever survived the heat thus far and went on the tour.
We were not disappointed. We got to go first to the Plaza and see the Basilica.
It was in three parts. Every painting was a gem and the altar piece was just spectacular, not to mention that everything was gilded in gold. There was no photography allowed inside which was unfortunate as I did have a camera that could take photos without a flash. . . they couldn't police it, so they banned cameras altogether.
After walking through the churches we walked to the temple of the sun! We also got some interesting perspective on these buildings. The base is always Inca. The top is Spanish style. They literally built the Churches on top of the open Inca temples.
However, they were not winning the people over. So the Jesus is wearing local clothes, the last supper has a guinea pig in the center, Mother Mary is in the shape of a triangle (mountain - Inca god) and Jesus and Mary have Sun and Moon behind them everywhere.. the Inca gods were fused into Christianity to get "customers".
We also saw a cleverly done painting of a Madonna. If you walk across a 100 foot line, she looks at you no matter where you are on the line. This optical trick was used to convince the natives, that they had "sinned".
There were a zillion mirrors in the basilica. They are not usual in european churches. They were put in to attract the Inca people to come as they had no mirrors and seeing themselves in the mirror was an amazing experience.
Then we walked along the plaza streets to go visit more cute places.. streets and street signs were welcoming!
We took a short break at a small grocery store to buy water and snacks. We found "fryums" Peru style and loved it. It was made of some soy bean type flour and local spices. There was lot of Gatorade. Given how much we were walking in the hot weather (yes, it is summer in the southern hemisphere in December, although there was no direct sun, it was quite warm), we decided to stock up on gatorade.
After a brief wait we got a larger bus to take us to our next stop.. Saqsayhuaman (they say it like Sexy Woman). For a few minutes I was like "why does he keep saying we will go to see sexy woman?!" are we on the right tour?! maybe not a family friendly tour?!.. then we saw the sign board and all was revealed..
This is one amazing place. They set up a city on the mountain top with stones that are not from the mountain. Some of these stones are 200 tons. They had a tiered city with priestly folks, city dwellers and farmers with terraces built into the mountain side for farming. They had elaborate systems to get bath water and sewage into separate streams, a nice drain system for water to go to public baths, etc. etc. They didn't destroy this and build a Church on top, thanks to Jesus.. instead there was a separte giant Jesus statue built on the adjoining hill overlooking Cusco. You can see it in the far left in the picture below. Our tour did not take us to that statue. It reminds you of the statue in Brazil. Given we don't know when we will go to Brazil, I wanted to go see the White Jesus (they call it Christo de Blanco) up close and personal.. tour guide said "no time".
We were given 30 minutes to roam around Saqsayhuaman including hike to the top of the bath area to get pictures (one above was taken there). Kept clicking..... processed them over time. Here are some HDR shots which bring out the detail and the depth.. no photographs can do justice to the experience of walking by those walls.
It was worth the rushed hike up to the bath area because we got an amazing view of Cusco from Saqsayhuaman!
Then we walked back to the bus. Somehow word had gotten out that the buses had come I guess.. there was a sudden increase in number of vendors selling stuff to the tourists! Women in colorful local clothing were wandering around with alpacas and llamas to take pictures with the tourists. You had to pay them a Sol each to pose (3.2 Sols to a USD). They gladly pose for a Sol as do the animals!
Some of the vendors just let you take their picture. We did buy some trinkets for the kids.. all three of them.
I wanted to buy some colorful things and was promptly vetoed. I did get a nice cap the next day which is banned in the house now.
From this place we went to another place called Qenqo! That was a priestly sacrificial site on an adjacent mountain where the weather gods were literally present. One minute it is warm, next minute the clouds roll in so fast and we had a hail storm. It was surreal! Most of this site was unfortunately desecrated. There was a 50 foot stone Jaguar that was beheaded. It was one thing for the spaniards to kill the Jaguars, did they have to do this?!
You also had an amazing view of Cusco from Qenqo!
A video of the hail storm...
Finally it was time to go back to the hotel. We had a pit stop at a place that sold Alpaca sweaters and there was a small demo on how the stuff was made starting with how to get the wool and process it. There was free Coca and Mint tea for getting rid of altitude sickness and stomach cramps. It was a local Eucalyptus added to mint tea. Would have failed every drug test with all that coca tea. However it did help me cope a little bit. The eucalyptus made me throw up later that night though.
We found the place to be very expensive, so we went back to the bus and to Cusco Plaza. By then I had a pounding head ache and skipped dinner. The wife and kids decided to eat at the only Indian restaurant in the Plaza. The food was disappointing according to them. We went back to the hotel and dozed off.. as it was going to be another wake up early day..
The kids were inconsolable when the driver told us "we will pick you up at 6AM. we have a lot to cover". The little one said "you call this a vacation? I would have happily just stayed home. All we see is a bunch of giant stones piled on top of each other on mountain tops.. we have to wake up at 5 to go see this over and over again?!"
Everyone has a perspective!
Jr. suddenly started siding with her sister, which has not happened in the history of time! We were worried that there was a mutiny on our hands. San did her little lecture thing about how many kids don't get to see anything and how fortunate they are etc. etc. and we hit the bed...
Day 3 post tomorrow.. (I am reasonably sure becasue I finished editing the pictures!)
Day 2 of Pittsburgh trip over summer, we started off with a visit to Laurel caverns (not to be confused with Luray caverns in Virginia, which I visited 21 years ago as a young hippie). This one was a family owned local deal. It did not have any stalagtites or stalagmites but was more of a natural cave with two distinct types of rock. One on the walls and one for the ceiling.
We checked in and went out to have lunch at the picnic tables they had outside. The view from the tables was just amazing!
Before going into the cave tour which was around 45 minutes, they had a little gem panning area for kids.
Jr. and the little one had a lot of fun panning for gems.. (they were more like gem stones) and there was an eye chart given to the adults to find what the stone was.
This was a good way for the adults to get involved, with identifying the stones and realizing "sapphire in the raw" is not what we are used to seeing, or quartzite looks more like a gem as a stone but is worthless, etc. etc.
Then we went through the caves, which was interesting but not exactly breathtaking. They had one amazing display in total darkness where lights come on inside the cave to a classical music piece.
There are places where the lighting makes you realize how nature works quietly underground to create amazing landscapes!
If you want to experience total darkness with a large group, this is the place to go.
Apparently there were 2000 plus bats in the cave and they got a virus which makes their nose go white, and now they have less than 70 bats. That was sad to hear.
We had a lot of fun going through the narrow passageways and it was a good walk through steep slopes. A decent workout!
The family group had a lot of fun. We had fun cracking jokes and walking back up after the guide had finished. Reminded me of trips around temples in India where we would go in large groups and the fun part was the group dynamics, except this was nature's temple!
We were on the clock to go to our next destination, so the timing for the tour and lunch was perfectly planned. If you have more time, they do have a tour that takes you into the tunnel, but that one is 4 hours and you need gear (and you will get wet and muddy).
Definitely recommended this place for a half day trip, if you happen to go that area, with kids!
After visiting the Leo Carrillo Ranch, we moved on to Double Peak park. This was a beaufiful park with some play area for kids and a trail path for everyone in Carlsbad/San Marcos area.
Reminded us of Hunters point in Cupertino. The views were awesome and the kids had fun with a triple fulcrum see-saw! It was interesting and we have never seen a see-saw like this where 4 or 5 kids can walk up and down.
Then we took a short break and drove to Old Town for New Year's eve dinner, at El Coyote! Most of the shops were closed but we got to watch the window displays in this area.. some of them were quite interesting!
Then we watched ladies make tortillas at Guiness book record speeds.
The dinner itself was quite interesing with a couple of guys with guitars singing for the ladies! My three girls were either not amused or were embarrassed by the attention.
El Coyote has a separate "vegetarian menu" and they give it if you ask for it. It was good that our friends knew that and made ordering a breeze.
It was a memorable evening and we all slept well. On first we had the last stop on the trip. The San Diego Zoo!
First time visit for everyone in the family and there are still hundreds of photos from that day that have yet to be edited. Will take a break and post them next week. By far the best Zoo we have seen..
As most of you know, every trip presents subjects that are amenable to HDR (High Dynamic Range) processing. HDR does not appeal to everyone. In our house Jr. and my mom appreciate it. They think it brings things closer to "3D" or realistic view of detail. My wife and the little one think it looks too "made up" or artificial.
To each his own. Nevertheless, here are some HDR pictures from the Boston trip..
but first, pictures of two plants that we don't see on California parks.. these two were on the sides of every walkway in the lighthouse parks..
This one reminded me of egg plant..
Clouds make a big difference on HDR shots of buildings. Not much luck this time..
another tip to self and others.. you get great shots in HDR just before sunrise or just after sunset..
A little movement of some folks and cars makes for better HDR..
Before I turn this post into a full blown "how not to do HDR".. this one was taken from a moving boat.. er.. moving duck.. that creates a better effect also..
City skylines will work only with clouds. Still worth a try, no?
Loved the Yacht's in the water.
This shot had clouds.. but instead of trying Tone mapped HDR, I should have shot multiple exposures on this one and combined them into a single image.
Same here.. but the trees made up for it..
Brick buildings really work for HDR..
as do Flags and really old stone buildings and shiny statues..
Photography is a continuous improvement project. You take the pictures, you process them a month later, try to connect your thought when taking the picture to what you are doing at post processing and hope to connect the right dots in your brain to get the result you were hoping for a month ago.
The good thing is, you always learn from your shots and apply it another time. Some of these photos stand out in a black background. Have to figure out how to change background color for select posts on squarespace.
On the plus side, almost felt like I was in Boston yesterday while going through the photographs.
Sunday, September 3, 2017 at 8:55AM ;)
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