Last Third of PhotoadayMay

I am taking a picture each day in May, for an online photo challenge. Here are the final eleven days of May's contest. For each, I am digging up an old photo for each day's inspiration as well. My first ten days and second ten are available for viewing as well. Finally, a slide show of the entire month's photos.

The Best Ride I Never Had

Bike Ride to Kerala

A while back, some guys at the office came up with a plan for a group of us to ride our motorcycles to Wayanad, in the Indian state of Kerala. I decided not to go, then came back to going, then on the evening before leaving decided to ride in a car. Monsoon in Kerala is likely not the best time to be on the back of a bike for more than ten hours in one weekend. Anjali and I joined the bikers at a few points along the way, since we were all going in the same direction, and I snapped a couple pictures:

Just outside Mysore on Saturday

Lunch stop on Sunday

Blue Ginger
Since I had flip-flopped between going and not going on this trip, I lost the prime real estate for the resort where most people were staying. A search for an alternative lead me to Blue Ginger Resorts, and I was able to secure their Cascade Cottage, which overlooks a river and has a waterfall view.

To get to Blue Ginger, a 4x4 Jeep had to pick us up from the main road. We spent the next hour bouncing around for the four-kilometer ride up to the resort, at an elevation of more than four thousand feet above sea level. All the water we drank was a bad idea: we should have emptied our bladders before heading up the mountainside; painful.

Meals at Blue Ginger were not the best, but we had ghobi "65" with lunch on Saturday, which was really good. I had to ask what the sixty-five meant and have subsequently looked it up online.

Cascade Cottage

The Cascade Cottage

We stayed in the Cascade Cottage, which is located in the far back of the resort property, built over the river. The views out our windows were amazing:

Waterfall View

River View

Never a bad view, no matter which direction you looked out. In addition, the sounds of the water rushing was great to fall asleep to.

But Wait, There's More...
After coming back from lunch on that first day, we were discussing how great a memory staying in Wayanad is going to always be. We talked a bit about future memorable trips we plan to embark upon and how long into the future we see ourselves happily remembering the moment we were sharing. I asked Anjali if she would always want to recount memories of us as we were building new memories together, and when she said yes, I told her how much I wanted that as well. It was then I got down on one knee and presented her with a ring, asking her to marry me.

The Proposal Site

Relationship Status Change

The Happy Couple

Sunday meant a long ride back to Bangalore, but the time was filled with many phone calls, updating loved ones on the change in our relationship.

Engaged

The next steps have not really been considered, but we are engaged and happy. We are looking forward to our life together and that is really all that matters.

To read about what the other folks were doing, check out the experiences of Dagan and Bree or Michael. Oh, and more from Michael here.

Love Aaj Kal

Sunday - What To Do?

Sunday, we were feeling stuck at home. Anjali had a mending broken arm and I had a sunburn. We just wanted to get out for a while. Aha, Gold Class!

Gold Class

I could watch paint dry or grass grow in Gold Class. This is a movie theater experience where you sit with approximately thirty people in reclining leather chairs. A butler brings you food. It is nice to enjoy a movie while nearly falling asleep in an easy chair.

The Movie

Love Aaj Kal was not my first Hindi movie. I had viewed Delhi-6 a few months prior. For that movie, I had just heard the story of Rama and Sita, so I could draw parallels between the movie and what I had learned. Dialog was something which escaped me completely. In fact, I only remember identifying one phrase, "phir melange", which equates to "see you soon."

This movie was a typical chick flick. Two people are in a relationship in England, but the woman is moving to India for school and the man wants to move to California. So, they decide to break up, but never really get over each other. The guy strikes up a conversation with a restaurant owner, who reveals over the course of the movie to this young man his love story in India. Disclaimer: I may get a lot of this wrong, so gimme a break. The older gentleman, Veer, explains how he fell in love with a girl while they lived in Delhi, but she moved to Calcutta. He followed her, but found that she was engaged to another man. Likewise, the young, broken-up couple in the movie had moved on and the woman tells the man she has accepted a marriage proposal. She tells him that she will be getting married as they are flirting with each other via SMS, while both are sitting at dinner with their significant others. Anyway, the chick gets married and the guy lives out his dream of moving to San Francisco. The guy finds himself bored in San Francisco and thinks of the young woman. Perhaps it is just me, but he comes off as a jerk the way he only thinks of his ex-girlfriend when he shouldn't: when he is in a relationship with someone else and when his San Francisco life is not as great as he thought it would be. The young woman leaves her husband during their honeymoon. So, the broken-up couple end up together. Veer, the older man, ends the movie by returning home to his wife, whom you discover to be the woman he went to Calcutta for and was beaten by her fiance (and his friends) for his pursuit.

Understanding the Movie

I was able to keep up with a few things during the film. It was also cool to find out that some of the dialog was Punjabi and a phrase I have been saying for a while was revealed as something which makes sense (thanks Adi). When dialog passed me by, I focused on costuming, menus and other surroundings. I paid attention to locations in the movie which I might visit some day in the future. Who knows, maybe I will visit Calcutta some time soon, although a trip to Delhi is likely in my immediate future.

Rating

We got out of the house, enjoying some comfort snacks while sitting in an air conditioned theater. We watched a movie, a chick flick, and shared an experience. All in all, I would call that a good deal. But, Anjali has apologized a time or two about the fact that I had to sit through a foreign movie. Should I tell her that I have seen many foreign films without subtitles? Perhaps she will feel compelled to treat me to an evening movie with explosions, babes and/or spaceships...