Chaos inside outside

My garden initially. Over the years these have grown into small trees.

My garden sometime last year, you see small trees in the background

My husband is a little workaholic and rarely works from home. There were few times when I desperately needed him at home, I request him to work from home , he doesn't citing the disturbances from the children. Often he wished for a separate work space for himself( Also to sleep peacefully on the weekends). So we(read him) decided to utilize the existing terrace space to build a new room, a very small one.  This could be used as home office, small hobby room or may be a study room to our children.
We stay in a residential lay out there very few countable houses. Due to the architectural plan we didn't have a high wall compound. People who built after us have high walled compound. Seeing them, our house is less secure and there were few instances where petty thefts have occurred in our community.

Above reasons made us to slightly renovate the house along with painting of the house both interior and exterior.

To gain something, we have to loose something,  isn't it? The thing we lost was our beautiful garden.
The garden that we cherished for long years is almost gone now. It would take few months to rebuild it back. 

So my dear husband I hope the newly constructed room is worth all the destruction. He says we would set it right in few months time and I am already set to work on the resurrection of the garden. Umm, I have a long way to go before I do this. There are chaos both inside(painting) and outside(construction/renovation).  Hope the dust settles down soon.

Cement and sand everywhere



Few broken pots and all hindrances to construction like trees are cut off

Sakrebail, The Elephant camp

Every time we drive to our native( Udupi, Kundapur) we usually pass through Shimoga. My children regularly complain about not stopping by to see the the Sakrebail elephant camp or the lion safari.

While deciding on what to do in 10 days of Christmas vacation, we decided on Shimoga. It is about 270 KM from Bangalore, Karnataka. There are many places of interest(small comparing the number of tourists visits) near Shimoga apart from the coffee estates and areca nut plantations.

Sakrebail elephant camp is located about 11 kms from Shimoga town and it takes about 15 min drive to reach there. Whenever we mention the word TRIP my children would expect to stay  in a luxury hotel. We stayed at The Royal Orchids hotel in Shimoga. After having royal breakfast we set out to the camp. We were happy to see that only few people had arrived and only one elephant was in the water which is the back water of the Gajanur dam.

The specialty of this place is that they bring elephants from the jungle and you can give them bath, pose with them, talk to them and know all you have to know about the Asian elephants. The whole ritual starts as early as 7:30 AM and if you are late you may miss everything.

 

These elephants are bought from the nearby Shettihalli forest. The camp elephants have a chain tied in the legs, so that the mahouts can trace them and bring into the camp early in the morning. There also days when they do not find their respective elephants. After giving them the bath, they are fed and left back from into the forest for grazing. One mahout was TRAINING an elephant to raise and sit, for the people to ride on him. So people, soon you can expect elephant ride in there.

 

We could take a close picture of the elephant's mouth. The mahout explained that if the teeth are well then the elephant is considered to be healthy and it lives a longer life.

 

This baby elephant was just 1 and half months old and was clinging to its parents. While in water it was just behaving naughty not knowing what to expect outside in the world. My children were just curious about this baby elephant 'Parvathi' and following it's movements very keenly.

 

We saw around 20 elephants in the camp and around 9:30 AM they all had finished bathing and were left under the sun.

Soon after finishing we headed towards the Tyavarekoppa Lion and Tiger Safari. This is again 15 minutes drive on the Sagar road. Here you can expect 3 lions, 6 tigers apart from other animals like sloth bear , cheetahs, jackals. Lions, tigers and few deers were only the animals available in the safari, rest of the animals are caged.

So if you are in the mood of long drive with something to do with animals[And in the state of Karnataka] head to sleepy town of  Shimoga.

Wishing a happy year 2016

Wish all of readers a happy, prosperous and blessed year.. I am just back with couple of short vacations and down with severe cold and fever. What a way to start year!!!
I and my husband like to travel a lot and we make sure that we go and see new places every year. How I love to share my experiences of my visit, but sometimes do not get enough time or too lazy to post it. One of resolution for the year is to pen down my travel experience whether short or long. I am soon going to write about my two short trips which kids will enjoy for sure.

I am looking forward to January, the month where we plan to get the whole house painted.
The color scheme would remain same as present but I was thinking of getting one wall of living room painted in orange. Trying to imagine how it would be but not able to finalize on it.

In the month of February, I am planning on enrolling myself for the art classes. This was something that I always wanted to do but never gave it any serious thought. I am just curious to know whether I can paint or not -:))

While we were away for 10 days during the Christmas holidays, I had kept all my indoor plants outside for watering. My helper just bought few of them in yesterday and kept at one place on the terrace staircase. This make a cute scene, don't you think so?

Once again wishing you all a good year ahead. Hope it brings you lot of joy, your dreams and aspirations be fulfilled.