We travel quite a bit as a family. Jo and the kids are easy to travel with. And we do things together that we all usually like. So when they don't travel with me, it boils down to not wanting them to miss school.
I ended up taking two trips this Fall without the family- to Mexico and India. I missed the little turds before the end of both trips.
I went to Mexico to see my old friend Bill, a.k.a Navaneet. He has settled in Baja Norte and spends his time between the beach town of Ensenada and the wine growing Valle de Guadalupe. Bill was a great host and we made a very small dent in the region's 122 wineries and restaurants in the few days there.
After the wedding, I flew down to Hyderabad and joined Alu for a week for the ostensible purpose of working on my dad's estate. In reality we ate our way through the city with much help from the Choudary's. The Charminar, Hyderabad's landmark, appears in this mural in the courtyard of the new Zaiqa-e-Hyderabad restaurant, across the street from Sunflower - the home where Alu and I spent our formative years. When we did work, hanging out at banks and lawyer's offices was made more bearable upon returning to my new best friend in Hyderabad - Messi - Sharath's cocker puppy.
I flew Qatar Airways on my way to India and back. Qatar is under diplomatic blockade by American ally Saudi Arabia because of it's close ties to Iran, with the the start of the crisis coinciding with Trump's trip to see the Saudi king in 2017. Confusingly though, Qatar hosts the largest US military base in the middle east and is pivotal for American operations in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. Qatar will host the 2022 World Cup and has a very shinny new airport in Doha through which I transited.
Getting in and out of Doha is tricky because the Qatar Airways airplanes can't fly through the airspace of any of it's neighbors. So the inflight entertainment console shows your airplane twisting and turning to hug the Qatari coast till it makes a dash across the Persian Gulf to the coast of Iran, which it follows northwestwards over the Shatt-al-Arab into Iraq and over Baghdad, Kirkuk, and Mosul, and into Turkey and beyond.
And by the miracle of modern technology, I returned home to huge hugs from Vivian and Evan about 24 hours after stepping aboard an airplane in Hyderabad.
I ended up taking two trips this Fall without the family- to Mexico and India. I missed the little turds before the end of both trips.
I went to Mexico to see my old friend Bill, a.k.a Navaneet. He has settled in Baja Norte and spends his time between the beach town of Ensenada and the wine growing Valle de Guadalupe. Bill was a great host and we made a very small dent in the region's 122 wineries and restaurants in the few days there.
I went to India for my college friend's daughter's destination wedding in Goa. We spent a couple of days in the party-crazy north Goa beach village of Baga. This is what the beach looks like at midnight. Incidentally, Sharath and his family and Jo and my dad and I had spent a few days at this beach in early 2005.
Then, we met up with the wedding party and continued our party at the Charles Correa designed Cidade de Goa hotel in Dona Paula.
After the wedding, I flew down to Hyderabad and joined Alu for a week for the ostensible purpose of working on my dad's estate. In reality we ate our way through the city with much help from the Choudary's. The Charminar, Hyderabad's landmark, appears in this mural in the courtyard of the new Zaiqa-e-Hyderabad restaurant, across the street from Sunflower - the home where Alu and I spent our formative years. When we did work, hanging out at banks and lawyer's offices was made more bearable upon returning to my new best friend in Hyderabad - Messi - Sharath's cocker puppy.
I flew Qatar Airways on my way to India and back. Qatar is under diplomatic blockade by American ally Saudi Arabia because of it's close ties to Iran, with the the start of the crisis coinciding with Trump's trip to see the Saudi king in 2017. Confusingly though, Qatar hosts the largest US military base in the middle east and is pivotal for American operations in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. Qatar will host the 2022 World Cup and has a very shinny new airport in Doha through which I transited.
Getting in and out of Doha is tricky because the Qatar Airways airplanes can't fly through the airspace of any of it's neighbors. So the inflight entertainment console shows your airplane twisting and turning to hug the Qatari coast till it makes a dash across the Persian Gulf to the coast of Iran, which it follows northwestwards over the Shatt-al-Arab into Iraq and over Baghdad, Kirkuk, and Mosul, and into Turkey and beyond.And by the miracle of modern technology, I returned home to huge hugs from Vivian and Evan about 24 hours after stepping aboard an airplane in Hyderabad.
No comments:
Post a Comment