This one's for you, Boy

Hey Boy, Mother wanted me to show you these pics so that you realise how good she used to look. She hopes that will encourage you to call her!!! Actually, I just realised that you kind of look like the Old Chap and Maja looks like Mother.

Weekend getaway to Wayanad, April 5 & 6

Every once in a while, it's nice to get out of town and do something different. So, earlier this month, since I had a long weekend (for those of you who don't know, that's a weekend with a holiday on either friday or monday), I took off for Wayanad with a friend. Wayanad is a hill station in Kerala, a 5-6 hour drive from Bangalore. This is tea plantation country and the drive was really beautiful with tea estates on either side of the road, not to mention the roads in Kerala which are really good compared to those in Bangalore.

View of a tea plantation

We stayed in a resort called Meenmutty Heights which was situated on a 300 acre plantation with the Meenmutty waterfall and a river on the estate itself.

One of the colourful cottages - really neat and comfortable.

I realised how unfit I am as to get to the room from the reception/dining area, you had to climb a bunch of stairs hewn out of the hillside. It was absolute torture and I discovered that there are muscles which are supposed to exist in the top part of the thigh - came to this sudden realisation when I felt the pain. The realisation further deepened when I discovered that there was no way in the world I could do the trek down to the waterfall, I went halfway on an almost non existent slippery path before realising I'd had enough - didn't have shoes that gripped and didn't have energy for the trek back up. My friend did go ahead though, and the photos I saw of the waterfall later were absolutely amazing, a real disappointment that i missed it but it's at least provoked me to start morning walks so I can lose the weight and increase my fitness. Attaching a couple of pics of the place - don't have the waterfall one though as my friend has just been too lazy to send it to me.

View of the river from my vantage point on the balcony outside my room. The distance indicates how far I had to reach for all meals everyday as the river was right beside the dining area.

"These are a few of my favourite ...."

Remember the good old "People I like" days??? Well, it's been eons since then but this time I feel the need to share "Music I like". I have a one hour commute each way to office and back and what better company than the radio to while away the time. It's also come in handy so I can plug out of what's happening around me in office and my team's chatter. Once again thanks to my Sony Ericsson mobile with radio (to go off on a tangent, I spent a bomb to buy this phone for only 2 reasons - to listen to the radio and coz i liked the orange backlight!!).

Anyway, here's some of the music I'm really enjoying these days. The sad part is I hardly ever get to see music videos anymore and have to rely on Google search to figure out who the artists are.

In no specific order, the songs are:

Sun Goes Down by David Jordan - just saw this guy on YouTube and he looks like a cross between Prince and the Michael Jackson of old. But all is forgiven once you listen to this real peppy foot tapping number, thoroughly enjoyable.

See you again by Miley Cyrus - The 15 year old daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus whom I remember only for the one number I ever heard of his "Achy Breaky Heart". Another real catchy tune and the girl has an amazingly grown up voice.

Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis - she's absolutely gorgeous and has a voice to match. Sounds quite like the Mariah Carey of old before she took on her "I'm so sexy and sing crap avatar".