Dad's Travel Journal

Here, in its entirety, is the journal Dad kept during our Dubai/Delhi/Chennai trip. I like comparing our notes; he wrote about the killer B.O. on the Kingfisher flight attendants which I had entirely forgotten about.

He has given me permission to post it. All statements and opinions are his.  :-) My only edits were for formatting and to remove names of J and C.

J & Bob, Dubai & India, 2011

Today at Chennai, India, at 12 degrees N. latitude, 80 degrees E. longitude, I dipped my feet in the water of the Bay of Bengal, part of the Indian Ocean. I’m a long way from home at 43 N, 83 W, in Ortonville, Michigan.

Our travels end in Chennai

Dad, J and I arrived in Chennai from Delhi in the late morning. We were greeted like VIP's with flower necklaces by Mr. R, and whisked off to our house. After dropping their bags and getting the tour of the house we settled in for drinks and snacks on the outdoor balcony overlooking our yard. At 4:00 PM we walked out to the beach and were pleased to find it clean and quiet. None of the evidence of locals' morning rituals to be seen. I guess the trick is to come out in the late afternoon after the tide has swept everything away. Dad, J and I walked in to the water to get our feet wet. But the waves, as always, were crashing in to remind us that this is not a beach for swimming.

So we went back to the house and  lounged at the pool for the rest of the afternoon. Of course, our ritual is to drink champagne at the pool on visitors' first day in town, and this day was no exception. The cork flew beyond the far side of the pool into the yard. We haven't gotten one over the yard wall yet- but I'm sure that's coming. After all our running around and travel it was nice to spend the afternoon relaxing. In fact, J was asleep before 8:00 PM!

Dubai and other travels

It's been a while since I blogged about our life in India. We have a routine down and things aren't so surprising to us anymore. We've been very busy with travel and visitors- we have visited the Chennai airport way too many times. January was our calm before the storm, although we did have some visitors. My cousin made a business trip to Chennai so we saw him for breakfast one day. Plus one of the women from my team at work was here.