A social facial experiment

It has been a month since I deleted the folder on my iPhone that said "social" and also deleted the entire history and autologin for all sites on my laptop.

The accounts are all there, but with two easy steps I cut off the urge to go click on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin etc. 

This is not the first time I have tried this, probably the longest in recent years though..

Still kept blogging and am reasonably sure that deleting the cross post into Facebook/Google Plus for the posts made sure no one actually read any of my posts! Blogging is pretty much dead and other platforms have taken over. Those of us who still blog, do it for their own reasons. . . 

The world is doing what it is doing, my work kept me more busy than usual and I managed to do another 60 challenge, the first time in summer, against all odds. The absense of social media helped. 

Still had to check gmail and everyday would be getting emails from FB and Linkedin etc. saying "have you seen so and so's comment on so and so's picture?", "we miss you. please come back and login" etc. etc. Even my mom was not that concerned when I stopped calling her during my Ph.D qualifying exams in those days!

Given no one was going to see my face in pictures over this month absence, I decided to stop shaving. Everytime I try to grow a beard, there will be so much negativity from parents, inlaws, friends, not to mention San and the kids trying every trick in the book to get me to shave.. the pouting, the "dont kiss me with that beard" routine .. 

Also given the travel to Asia every three weeks, my face has to resemble my passport picture or I am sure there will be some "extra checks". Thought there would be a longer break between travels this time, but that was not meant to be. 

The beard growing was going reasonably well, till this morning. You see there is an activation energy for beard growing. It takes at least 21 days for me to get the beard looking like a real beard instead of patch facial hair. Once it crosses that point, there is some chance of making it with continued maintenance. It is my face, but apparently I have no rights to it per wife and kids! 

This morning I had to shave it off. It was a good experiment while it lasted. It is interesting to watch how people react to this.

Most people at work thought I was mourning something or someone. 

Most people at Yoga said "look different. it kind of suits you, but learn to trim it"

Most friends who saw me said "mid life crisis?" followed by "this too shall pass" or something to that effect.

Then there was one person who assumed I was a muslim because of the beard. That one was interesting in a funny way.

Asked Jr. to take a few snaps, with and without the beard this morning...

Apparently I look a lot better without the beard and look younger per the little one. I am allowed to kiss the family again and that is a big plus point! 

Now it is back to the routine. It is time to login to Facebook again and see who has been born, who has died, who has changed marital status, who has gone where etc.

Will be like visiting Chennai after three years! 

Golden temple by night

After visiting the Wagah border we drove straight to the Golden temple. We were told that the temple is open 24 hours a day and the view is mesmerizing at night. 

There were hundreds of pictures from the one hour spent in the temple that night.. but these three are my favorites. They go first!

We were not disappointed. Walking in through the cleanly swept roads was in itself an amazing experience. The cute statues gave the MIL and Jr. some ideas..

It was almost 9 PM when we got to the temple. The minute you see the temple from the entrance, it takes your breath away! We also got to walk past "appu bakers" and were giving the little one a hard time with jokes about her baking and staring a store there. 

There was a long line and the wait to go to the inner sanctum was more than an hour. So we took pictures and walked the outside perimeter. The standing in line would have to wait for early morning.

We got to see the temple again, bright and early the next morning. . . 

Peru - Day 3 - First stop - Sacred Valley, Pisaq

Peru Day 2 post link is here.. and Peru Day 1 post link is here..

Day 3 started again early for the kids. We went on a long bus ride with a few stops for "restroom breaks"! The restrooms were all paid ones with 1 Sol per person per use and they hand you two sheets of toilet paper as part of the service. No soaps or hand sanitizers in the restrooms, so recommend you grab your own. They were also reminding me of the duty free shops at airports. You have to walk through them to reach the gates. You had to walk through the shops selling local stuff before reaching the restroom. Same concept! Let's just say we bought some stuff! We also had fun trying stuff and taking pictures..

We then were told about the two cows (bulls?) on every rooftop.. Apparently they are for good luck and they have some symbolism which is Christian mixed with Inca.. the animals and rooster signify prosperity, the ladder for upward mobility and the cross is self explanatory.. 

  

 Finally after a few stops, we were on our way to the sacred valley. We rode along the Urubamba river which is the heart of the valley and everything else around the place. It starts in the high Andes between Cusco and Puno and eventually comes down the valley, goes into the amazon and ends in the Atlantic! Almost goes from Pacific to Atlantic. The river with many names was in full flow..The views were amazing!

Then we reached Pisaq after climing back up. We were getting glimpses of the terraces on the mountainsides which we knew were made by the Inca. The ones on the side looked eroded and not well preserved. We were in for a surprise after reaching the entrance to the site.

 This was again built in three levels across the mountain slope. Everything was stone walls, perfectly aligned stone walls and tatch roofing, nicely designed for water flow. Not as advanced as what was going on in other parts of the world at the same time, but given these guys were isolated in harsh conditions, what they built was amazing! Here are some pictures.. 

They found some gold in one of the holes on the mountainside and realized they were tombs. They dug out everything and found a lot of mummies. However it was apparently beginners luck and the first mummy was that of the important person and the rest were common folk. Now we have a mountainside riddled with desecrated remains! This also reminded us of the same thing on Cook point in Hawaii! 

Kept thinking of Ozymandias!

We got nice views from the top of the settlement as well as on the way out.. 

By the time we were done with this place it was early afternoon. We were on our way to the next stop, which was Ollantaytampo.. we had no idea what it was about, other than it had an interesting name and a lot of the folks on our bus were going to get down there and not coming back to Cusco.. 

The entire bus got off at a restaurant for lunch enroute as they had a different "coupon". For everything you hand over coupons given from your tour company. We had a special coupon for "vegetarian food" at a restaurant 10 minutes away called Tunupa. We were dropped off separately. The driver said "you get 40 minutes to eat. I go get the rest of the group and pick you up on way". 

So we rushed into the restaurant and were not disappointed. They had enough veggie options including bread and Chole (Peruvian version!). It was delicious. We finished lunch in 20 minutes. The back of the restaurant had steps that led to the Urubamba river. It was gorgeous. We got to pet some Llamas and Alpacas in the lawns and this kid was selling us stuff under her mom's watchful eyes. Apparently it was school holidays so this was part time for the kid!

We got one family picture with the river in the background, a few more shots at the entrance to the restaurant and were reunited with our "group".

We had bonded with some of the folks in the group over the previous days and by now we were talking in a mix of English and Spanish. 

Then we drove on to Ollantaytambo!