Nairobi 1 - Here we come

We are off to Nairobi, Kenya, this September. The next few posts are straight from our experience here.

First to African continent, experienceing a different state of mind. The vehemence is at seeing a culture and people still some years behind us. Gives a fair idea on how this continent is yet to pickup speed while others who have already are taking advantage of the people who are just inches behind them.

Indians can be spotted every where in Nairobi, most hailing from the state of Gujarat. South Indians also come close by with few travelling with in the same flights. The others who traveled out of Chennai in our flight were from medical tourism. With the current NEET related issues in Tamil nadu and due to which vellore cmc having filled only 1 seat this year, one feels extremely sad about the vulnerability of medical aspirants and doctors in the country. While writing this, cant help offering our deep condolences to Anita, RIP.

Now back to Nairobi, the whose infrastructure is yet to match up to its growing vehicles on road manages take you to a 10 km distance in a hour. Thats how the journey was from the Jomo Kenyatta airport. The public transportation is all packed to full and vehicles are remodeled and old. Most of are from Japan and refurbished before sent here. Cameras at signals flash regularly capture speeding vehicles. Being a hilly region roads up and downtown. Most of the areas go by English names. Drivers mostly talk in English making it easy for foreigners.

The next day evening was the first day out after this airport trip. Nairobi has many restaurants which cater to Indian and Chinese cuisine in prominence. As the Navaratri has just started, most of city's population seem to have migrated to the celebration location on the Friday evening. So the much recommended restaurant was almost empty and the north Indian food that were offered to turned out amateurish.

More to come as we unravel this city in broad daylight...

Pictures are from the apartment where we stayed

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Anjaneyar Temple - Gerugambakkam, Porur

Very recently we came to know about the Anjaneyar temple built by actor Arjun is at Gerugambakkam. On a Sunday evening we drove towards this place. We need to detour from the Kundrathur main road to reach this temple and from then on we need to face a rough and patchy road. In just 5 minutes one can reach the temple. A small residential street leads to the temple. Very near it one could see few small stalls mushroomed up to sell pooja items. The vehicles have to be parked in the street near the temple gates. First is the corridor were few trees are seen. On taking left is the entrance to the temple and you can see the Lord Anjaneyar much ahead. Here too are few trees uniformly spaced out. There is a coconut farm adjacent to this temple. There is a shelter above Lord Anjaneyar, but for that it is a open air temple. Facing Lord Anjaneyar and to the left and right corner are two shrines - one for Lord Ganesh and the other for Lord Anjaneyar's - Lord Rama, Lord Lakshmana and Goddess

Pudhumanai Pugudhal (house warming)

கல்யாணத்தை பண்ணிப்பார், வீட்டை கட்டிப்பார் says an age old Tamil saying denoting the tedious nature of both as duties. The house warming ceremony denotes the culmination of building a house and entering into it for living. In a typical Tamil house hold, buying or building a new house is a pride and a dream. Building a house involves lot of rituals. First comes the 'Adikal naattu', laying the foundation stone. On an auspicious day, Just before the sunrise Bhoomi Pooja is done and the first stones are layed by the family and the builders involved. All present are given Prasad or sweets from the Pooja. This marks the kick start of the house building project. Once the building skeleton comes up with walls built and rooms differentiated there comes a time to fix the frame and threshold of the doors. This requires Vaasakaal Pooja to bring up the Vaasal. A team of married ladies in odd numbers form the main part of this ceremony. Navaratnas are buried below the Vaasal and e

Gandikota trip - Day 2 - Belum Caves

The second day at Gandikota was again a rainy onw with heavy thunders the previous night. Seeing sunrise was ruled out but we set out at 7AM after a quick refreshment. Most of the shops were shut due to power cuts since it's been raining continuously since last night, managed to get mini cup chai for Rs.10 and went to the right of the fort where we could see a different view of the creek. The air-conditioned tent accommodations are also here. Also, adventure sports happen here. The place was shabby due to overnight rains and the tourists had littered the place completely with bottles, glass pieces and food items. This happens in most of the tourist places, unless the visitors take the responsibility to keep the place clean, government cannot help maintaining. As we went through the restaurants nearby, no food was available due to lack of power. So we decided to drive to Jammalamadugu for breakfast. Within 20 mins we reached Jammalamadugu, it was a beautiful morning owing to weathe

Our wanderings and perceptions

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