A Muslim Wedding in Ooty

I can safely say that I have attended more Indian weddings than any other types of weddings. If the last Indian wedding I went to in Goa was way too hot, this Indian wedding in Ooty was slightly too cold. Nonetheless, it was beautiful and a lot of fun, despite catching a bad cold. It was a good excuse not to drink shots.

Ooty, where the air is crisp and the skies are (occasionally) blue.

Day 1: The Sangeet

A nicely choreographed Bollywood-style dance by the bride's good friends.



Day 2: The Brunch & The Manjha Ceremony

At brunch.


Bride in a beautiful white saree.


Live band at brunch. This is "A"'s dad singing a Louis Armstrong song.


Manjha ceremony area. Manjha ceremony is when the bride is smeared all over with haldi (turmeric) paste usually provided by the groom's family. I think this is also when the bride gets all the wonderful gifts from him and his family.

Day 3: The Nikah (Wedding Ceremony)

The bride and her entourage.


Traditionally, the women and men are to be seated separately, but we didn't do that at this wedding. The bride has to stay under the veil until her husband unveils her.


Bride taking a peek from under her veil, for a group photo.


And finally, the happy newly weds.

For more photographs on the wedding, click here.

Note: To drive from Bangalore to Ooty, if you leave by 6 a.m, it will take about seven hours. Any later than that, with the bad traffic, your journey, like ours, will be an additional two hours or more. If you are prone to car sickness, like me, you should take a motion sickness pill before the start of your journey. Or if time is not an issue, I highly recommend you stop and spend a night at one of the resorts in Masinagudi (a forest reserve in Tamil Nadu). If you're lucky, you might spot a wild animal or two.


A wild elephant at Masinagudi


Jungle Retreat at Masinagudi. Click here for their website.

Ladakh: Nubra Valley

Traveling from Leh to Nubra Valley has got to be one of the roughest road trips I've ever taken. Riding on the Toyota Innova that we hired for this trip felt like riding on a rickety train. Roads slips and slides for a couple of hours until you reach Nubra Valley. We want to see you drive through this, Top Gear!

Khardungla is en route to Nubra. At 18,380 ft above sea level, it is the highest motorable road in the world. We were told not to stay here for more than a few minutes or we might start feeling altitude sickness. We, of course, didn't listen. It's hard not to hangout since it's one of the few places in the world where you'd get birds view of the Himalaya. It was simply spectacular.

We met some people who drove all the way from Leh to here and turned back because the roads were flooded from melting mountaintop snow. Traveling in Ladakh is really based on luck.

The road to Hunder, Nubra Valley has the most amazing views but also the most dangerous - definitely not for the fainthearted.

Some didn't make it.

Nubra Valley.


Rolling sand dunes of Hunder, Nubra Valley. This is as far as foreigners can travel and till this day, as close as I have gotten to Pakistan.


Bactrian camels left behind from Silk Route days.

These bactrian camels and the people who run the rides have a pretty good deal going. Every evening at 6 p.m., the camel walas (camel managers?) will feed the camels some atta (wheat dough) as a form of "payment" and then release them back into the forest. We noticed at exactly 6 p.m, the camels would start becoming antsy, which reminded me of office people who were ready to punch-out. The next morning, the camel walas will go into the forest and gather the camels again for "work".

Nubra Valley at almost sunset.

Accommodation

There are no hotels or resorts here, only campsites. We stayed in one that was run by a monastery. These camps were pitched next to this 300 year old palace that used to belong to the Nubra royalties.


Inside the 300 year old ruined palace. These paintings have not been restored.


"A": This is the ultimate sandbox!

Warning: Do not play in the sand if you have electronics (cameras, iPhones, etc) in your pockets because you might destroy them.

Foreigners are only allowed to stay up to seven days. I don't need seven days but if I ever come to Nubra Valley again, I'll definitely plan for more than one.

Random Tips:

1 - Foreigners need an Inner Line Permit, which can only be obtained through a travel agent in Leh.

2 - There are no proper recycling facilities so take your trash (plastic bottles, wrappers, etc) with you when you leave.

3 - Pack appropriately - it's fairly warm down in the valley but the stop at Khardungla can be chilly.

Click here for more pictures of Nubra Valley.

Ladakh: Pangong Lake & Engagement

My condolences goes out to the family and friends of the recent tragedy in Leh, Nimoo and Choglamsar. Please email me if you would like to make a donation to help.

I’ve stopped using the phrase “the most beautiful place on earth” on my blog because there are just way too many beautiful places out there, but Ladakh is something else. Amazing, spectacular, majestic, unreal, heavenly, the list goes on. This place is like no where else I've been in the world and it has truly changed my life in more ways than one.

I'm still sorting out 3000 photos taken during this trip but here are some photos taken at Pangong (or Pangong Tso), which is a lake in the Himalayas situated at the height of 4,350 m (14,270 ft).


Pangong Tso. See those lines - they are roads without guardrails, very common in India but illegal in the US.


Scenic drive from Leh to Pangong.


Depending on the conditions of the road (most of the time, the conditions are scary) the drive from Leh to Pangong takes about 4.5 hours, via Chang La - the 3rd highest motorable road in the world.


A quick toilet and snow-throwing stop.


40% of the lake is in India and the rest lies in Tibet, now China. To date, this is the nearest I've ever been to China.



The water in the lake is salty and has very little aquatic life. It's strange how these seagulls managed to live up here.




Place where they shot a scene in the annoying Bollywood movie The Three Idiots.


Our camps next to the lake.


Sunrise at the camp.


Buddhist prayer flags. You'll see this almost in every household and hotels in Ladakh.


"A" testing out the water, which he found out was freezing cold!


Sunset at Pangong Lake.


Sunrise at Pangong Lake.


Place where "A" and I got engaged.


And place where I blew my nose from crying out of joy.


My new family.


As much as I’d like to share this trip, apart of me is selfishly wishing that this place would never become a tourist spot. Just promise me if and when you get here, be a responsible traveler and do stuff like avoid using plastic bottles (drink local water), save energy and minimize your impact on areas that you pass through.

Random Tips:

1 - Foreigners need an Inner Line Permit, which can only be obtained through a travel agent in Leh.

2 - The air up here is pretty thin. Most of us had a hard time sleeping because of the lack of oxygen and some of us developed a migraine and some other respiratory issues. Make sure you bring necessary medications and a few cans of oxygens.

3 - Trash left behind are burned. Take your trash (plastic bottles, wrappers, etc) with you when you leave.

For more Pangong pictures, click here.

Yamini's Bharatanatyam Recital

Yamini is my beloved yoga teacher. I've been learning from her since I landed in India about 2 years ago and I think I'm only as good as I am in my practice today because of her guidance (that should earn my some brownie points!).

Yamini also teaches Bharatanatyam and dances it professionally. Just in case you are unfamiliar, Bharatanatyam is a classical dance form originating in Tamil Nadu, India. Read more about it here. As much as I want to learn this dance form, I think I'm a little overaged. I heard that most people start at 4 years old.

A couple months ago, I went to one of Yamini's recitals and it was simply beautiful!

Backstage with Yamini







The Performance






Naturally, it is only fair that some yoga asanas have to be incorporated into the recital.

The dance was super awesome! What surprises me about classical Indian dances is despite the techniques and beauty of the dance, it is so under appreciated, even in India. I wish the younger generation would spend less time watching MTV and more time exploring local arts.

Sa Re Ga Ma Pa

There is Indian Idol and then there is Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, which is the Indian equivalent of "do re mi fa so" and is also a television singing competition.

Sid, a TV show/movie producer and "A"'s bff, was helping with the production of the Karnataka finals (the state where Bangalore is located) for Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, and he invited us over for the shoot. Of course, none of us understood Kannada (the official language of Karnataka), but we thought it would've made an interesting evening anyway.

To convince Sid's bosses and clients that we were not just some random people off the street, "A" and his parents were posing as local musicians and producers and I was to be a popular singer from China, which is funny considering how I have never been to China and the only phrase I know in Mandarin is "woh pu huey jiang hua yu", which translates to "I don't know how to speak Mandarin".

The event was held at one of Bangalore University's halls. Sid gave us a tour of the production room backstage.

Contestants prepping for the contest.

View from backstage

The audience. We were seated on the first row from the stage.

The host started the show off with a song. We later found out she was lip-syncing.

One of the contestants. Check out the four drummers and their drum sets. Pretty elaborate, huh?

The experience: too shockingly loud both from the volume of the music and the random firecracker explosions in front of the stage. Two hours later, after the fifth and final contestant had sung, I thought it would be a good time to leave. On our way out, Sid said that that was only Round 1 out of 5 for each contestant for the night. I think you have to be a fanatic to stick around for that long. I'll leave that to the local Kannadigas to enjoy the show. It was interesting to see the "other side" of Bangalore though.