Raspberry, Blueberry picking in New Jersey

We happened to be in New Jersey for the 4th July weekend. There we visited a local farm - Stults Farm - for pick-your-own Blueberry and Raspberry.

It was fun and we filled in two small baskets. The raspberries are very delicate and do not last long even when stored in a refrigerator. The blueberries were great too. Both taste fantastic if you get to eat them fresh.

Delta Airlines - Travelling with Infant & Kids

For those who may be travelling with infants on Delta Flights internationally, here is some information about the bassinet, including pictures.

Seats for the bassinet area are available only on first come first served basis. So be sure to reach early for check-in. Check for the age restriction, but a child beyond age 1 will most likely not be comfortable in the bassinet. Please post your experience regarding this below.

If your international flight out of USA contains a domestic leg, in that case the bassinet won't be available. Only when the international flight segment begins, the bassinet will be installed once the flight reaches the cruising altitude. Again, it will be removed before the flight begins to descend down for landing. It is a good idea to carry some small sheet which can help in 'padding' the bassinett, which is made up of netted and plastic type of material. Of course you can use the blanket provided on the flight.

For us, the availability of bassinet was a boon as our baby slept quite well in there.

For older kids like 3-8 years old, the on-screen personal entertainment can help a lot. There are a few cartoons films and also games they can play (for free when the international segment of the flight begins). Then there are full length movies too, many of which are for family or kids. So all this will hopefully keep the kids (and their parents) from getting bored for quite some time.

The only disadvantage for these bassinet access seats are that the food tray is stored into the armrest. So the middle armrests cannot be lifted or raised, they are fixed. Also the food trays are relatively less stable.

What have been your experience on Delta or other airlines? Please post your comments below.

Athrapalli Waterfall

We visited this waterfall on the last day of our Kerala vacation. The road to this area is lined with huge palm tree & vanilla plantations. The falls area is very beautiful and heavily wooded. There is a large parking area by the roadside.

The river and the falls is marked as 200 meters from the parking area. This place may give you a okay view of the falls. However to get a full view of the falls you need to trek down a small hill.

The walk to the falls, though a short one, is made difficult as the path is made of large sized stones or rocks which appear to be roughly setup. So instead of being able to enjoy the surrounding nature and huge bamboo growth (see picture), one has to watch every step to avoid stumbling and falling. So this short walk is very difficult for senior citizens or similar individuals. To add to this, there are a lot of monkeys around which can be a bit scary at times as they will attempt to grab at any food items and small belongings you may be carrying. There are toilets and a small beverage stall near the river. However, in general, I feel the concerned authorities should have done a better job in providing proper access to the falls area.

I took one of the photos near the bottom of the falls. The other one - a long shot - is taken from the approach road towards the parking area. The bamboo growths are found along the access path.

This is my last post on Kerala vacation. Subsequent posts would be assorted ones - about new and interesting things and findings & observations at the other places I visited.

Kovalam Beach

Kovalam beach is about 16KM from Trivendrum. The public beach we visited was nice, but also crowded. The beach slopes into the sea steeply. So we could not venture out further into the water.

There was a noticeable police presence and also lifeguards were on duty. We also happened to witness a person who got pulled into the sea and was helpless against the water current and waves. However the lifeguard and some other people rescued him out of the waters. There was also active monitoring done by security personnel who were warning those who used to venture further into the water.

The sunset was wonderful and you can see that in the above pictures.

In my next post I will put some pictures of the beautiful Athrapalli waterfalls and our experience there.

Munnar Photos...

We visited Munnar, a hill station, and stayed there for 2 nights. It's a very beautiful place and has a large tea plantation. We visited a tea museum and also went to the backwaters area near Echo Point.

The weather was excellent. The nights were cooler while day time temperatures were mild.

Munnar is a 'plastic bag' free zone. So the shops we visited did not provide any plastic bags for the purchases we made. Overall the town and surrounding area was noticeably free of any plastic garbage. As against this plastic bags, bottles were very much visible along most road stretches we traveled. This, I guess would be true in most parts of India.

In my next post I will put a couple of pictures of the sunset at Kovalam public beach.

A bit of a setback for the upcoming Blog Content

Yesterday I discovered that the file system on the flash memory card on my phone got corrupted. Which means that some of the photos taken on my phone are lost permanently.

Among those were some interesting photos like those of an elephant riding on the back of a flat bed truck. A truck overloaded with coconut tree leaves. A 'jeep' loaded entirely with bananas, etc. Also there were photos taken at Munnar hill station. I had also captured a couple of videos of street food vendors preparing Kerali Paratha and banana chips.

However all is not lost. Now, back at home for the time being, I have the means to pull out and post some photos taken on my regular Canon Powershot camera. I will do that in my next post.

Allepey Backwaters - More

This was my first time at the Allepey Backwaters. I did not know that people lived their daily life around the backwaters. Homes, schools, small access roads all appear to be part of the backwaters area.

There was a waterway tranportation system with stops at a number of locations for people to board and travel to nearby places. You can see the stop and waiting area in a couple of pictures above.

I also saw a small boat carrying school students back home. You can see this in one of the pictures. The school building is seen on the canal bank in the background. One of the school boy is sitting in the front of the boat and navigating it with an oar.

We had a great time there and I hope to visit it again.

In my next post

Allepey Backwaters - Houseboats

In Allepey, we were able to rent a houseboat for the entire afternoon to go out and see the backwaters.

We, a group of 12, took the houseboat instead of regular boat as it provided a greater comfort level and amenities. It was a three bedroom houseboat, which allowed us to take an afternoon nap after the lunch, which was cooked and served in the houseboat.

Apart from the bedrooms and their attached bathrooms, the houseboat typically has a kitchen, refrigerator/freezer. The open area on the houseboat has a large seating arrangement with sofa and traditional Indian seating. You can also find a surround sound system installed there. A TV for watching videos may also be present. Electricity is available from an 'invertor system' with the boat motor charging the batteries when it is running. Some of the house boat had a set of solar panels installed which can charge the batteries during the day.

The backwaters area is very beautiful. The lake is huge and there are rice/paddy fields visible along the stretch.

Overall we had a great time in the houseboat and backwaters. In my next post, I will put some more pictures of the backwaters and surrounding area.

Kerala Greenery

The places we visited in Kerala were lush green in these months of December and January. There were banana, coconut, palm, vanilla, cashewnut plantations that we saw when travelling by road. There were also long stretches of rice fields visible. The above picture were captured while driving down the roadways.

In my next post I will put some pictures of the Allepey backwaters where we rented a houseboat for a few hours. This was one of the two best nature places in our Kerala trip.

How am I updating my blog during travel.

Before I post some picture of greenery in Kerala, let me brief you about how I am managing to update or post to this blog as I travel across Kerala.

I am using a HTC Hermes Windows Mobile 6 phone. I have an Airtel SIM card with unlimited data (GPRS) connection.

When I started out, I was a bit skeptical of whether this Airtel GPRS would work in different towns, villages and cities across Kerala. But to my surprise, I found it quite reliable and available in most areas where I wanted it.

There were a couple of places we went where there was no Airtel service. One was a hotel/resort which was 6 KM away from Munnar market place. So I could not update this blog during the 2 days we stayed there. The service was available in proper Munnar market area, though.

I am using my Gmail account to send email with content & pictures, which the Blogger or Blogpost website will automatically post to this blog. This allowed me to create the email on the Pocket outlook client on the phone at leisure. I took all the picture using the phone camera. Sending the email took about 3-4 minutes for a 500KB size on the GPRS connection. I generally tap on the 'send' button/link and then the email gets sent unattended. So I can place my phone back in my pocket and continue with other things.

I will write more about the technical and related details about my mobile blogging experience separately.

Assorted Pictures from Kerala roadside

The roads we traveled in Kerala were dotted with a variety of small local shops.

I particularly noticed a lot of fruit stalls or shops, many of which exclusively sold fruits only. Unlike fruit stalls in cities of Maharashtra, these were not temporary or portable stalls but proper permanent shops and a whole lot of them. The fruits were also well arranged. Most carried the local bananas of different varieties (small, long, green, yellow, orange-red), and also other fruits like grapes, apples, oranges, etc. Of course bananas were in plenty as there are a large number of plantations, big and small, visible all along the roads we traveled. Bananas could also be found for sale at other local shops. Banana plants can also been seen growing in the 'wild'.

There were innumerable local coconut vendors or stalls in the open along the road sides. They sold green coconut water. The guy simply chops of one end of the green coconut to create a small opening to the coconut inside and then inserts a straw. This is one of the most fresh and nutritious drink you can get. So aerated drinks did not get much attention from us. In addition to coconut vendors, pineapple vendors were also doing brisk business serving pineapple slices peppered with salt-chili powder mix.

Many tourist attraction places had small shops with handicraft items. There were wooden carved items like monkeys, cars, jewelry boxes, kitchen items, etc.

In my next post, I will put some pictures of the greenery in Kerala that we saw.

Kannyakumari Visit

This is the first time I visited Kannyakumari. It was a long drive from Ernakulum and we took our own time. Having traveled by road mostly in Western Maharashtra state, I noticed a huge difference while travelling down NH-47 highway. In Maharashtra, once you drive outside the city or town, farmlands or barren land stretches all the way with a few villages or small towns in between. However, all along NH-47, the entire stretch was populated! There were beautiful green rice farms and banana & coconut plantations visible as we neared Kannyakumari.

The next day morning we visited Vivekananda Memorial. We saw the sunrise and then took the ferry boat to the memorial, which was just 5 minutes away. Local fishermen were up working and getting their first catch. The market was also bustling with activity.

After visiting Vivekananda Memorial, we visited a local wax museum. A local artist had created was replicas of a dozen famous Indian personalities. It was a very good effort.

Overall we had a good time at Kannyakumari. The picture above were taken during this visit.

In my next post I will put some assorted pictures which I capture along our way.

Indian Railways - Assorted Pictures

Here are some assorted pictures from Indian Railways. Some posters promoting national unity can still be found inside some of the coaches.

Emergency contact phone numbers of railway regional offices are also posted inside the coach. I do not remember seeing them 10-15 years back. But these make sense today with the proliferation of mobile phones. A couple of decades back, there may not have been any official means of communicating with the railways staff from a moving train other than by pulling the emergency chain.