Back on July 17th (about a week before we left India), I asked the kids and Adam to tell me words or phrases that would help remind them of India. Words that we could read later to help bring to our memory some of the awesome adventures we’d had, things we’d seen, or things that had stuck out to us that were different or unique. Below is what we came up with.
We ended up doing the same thing for our trip to Thailand and Sri Lanka as well.
(Side Note: I know most of the readers on the blog won’t really care or understand what many of these words or phrases mean, or the memories behind them, but I wanted to record them anyway, for our family journal so that years from now we can read through this list and have our hearts flooded with memories that may of otherwise been forgotten).
Memories of India:
We ended up doing the same thing for our trip to Thailand and Sri Lanka as well.
(Side Note: I know most of the readers on the blog won’t really care or understand what many of these words or phrases mean, or the memories behind them, but I wanted to record them anyway, for our family journal so that years from now we can read through this list and have our hearts flooded with memories that may of otherwise been forgotten).
Memories of India:
- Rick Shaws
- Indian Instruments (Flutes)
- Traffic
- Honking
- Naveen – our driver
- Spicy food
- Peacock Feathers – Naveen bought each of the kids one to take home as a Southerner.
- Fresh Juice – Mango, guava, pomegranate, mixed fruit, kiwi, lime, etc.
- Coconuts
- Different Fruits
- Mangos – anytime we wanted them and in all sorts of varieties.
- Omelettes for breakfast on the first floor – in an old apartment converted to an office/cafeteria.
- Trips to get ice cream at Big Bizarre, forum mall, or little stands with pop-cycles and ice cream bars.
- Indian clothing (especially Sari’s)
- Late Night eating (usually after 9pm)
- School work (say what? We hardly did ANY!)
- Day Care (Little Bloomers I think was the name and we’d drop the kids off 2x a week so Ad and I could go on a date or have a few hours to go shopping etc.)
- Merry Go Rounds (unheard of anymore in USA)
- Teeter Totters
- Climbing the Rock wall at Phoenix Mall
- Going to Chili’s and getting bottomless chips and salsa with the Blairs
- Hot Hot Days in May, Rainy Days in June, and Cooler Days in July (heavenly)
- Cheap movies at Forum Mall (1x to see Rio 2, 1x to see Malificent where we ran into the Blairs at the movie! So cool. And 1x to see How to Train your Dragon II with the Blairs for Harry’s birthday).
- Getting waffles at the Hole in the wall Cafe (1x with the Blairs)
- Shutes and Ladders (ball pit & play area the Blairs introduced us to)
- Going to Pirates of the Caribbean for Bransons birthday and having kabobs, getting a free picture, and cake!
- How often the Indian people have festivals and are on “holiday”
- Indian decorations above all the doors or writing.
- Buying our first Crispy Creme Donuts ever and loving and devouring every bite! $10 (600 rupees) for a box of an assorted dozen (best money ever spent!)
- How everyone pinched Ady’s cheeks and wanted to take her pictures, the boys picture, or Mommy’s picture, but never Daddys picture! ha!
- “We are the zoo” feeling like everyone was staring at us and taking pictures during our trip to the Mysore zoo. Maybe it was because we were walking the wrong direction the whole time to avoid crowds? ha!
- Getting invited to so many wonderful peoples homes and out to dinner. Geetah our maid, Naveens home to meet his family, Prabu, Vikas, Nagesh, & Rajesh!
- Team activity at the resort where we played minute to win it games, cricket, went swimming, and had a disco dance, and ordered Chinese food. So fun! We spent the night to extend our fun and Adam got a message the next day.
- The beautiful trees all over. Mom’s favorites were the ones with purple flowers, orange flowers, and pink and white flowers. Also loved Jackfruit trees and mango trees.
- Seeing garbage all over (no trash cans around the city)
- Having really awkward moments in the bathroom when needing to change tampons and discovering there are no garbage to dispose old tampons, no toilet paper to wipe or put tampons in, and you get blood all over your hands. So gross! Really looking forward to clean bathrooms with all the works!
- No car seats in cars!
- Squishing as many people into backs of trucks, rick shaws, cars, or any other vehicles.
- Collecting garbage on the streets with baskets. Workers would scoop garbage into the baskets and then dump the basket of garbage into a truck and start all over again.
- Moving dirt with baskets that move from head to head of men, women, and sometiems even children. No heavy machinery for such tasks. At least that we saw.
- Seeing he/she’s (men dressed up at women) at traffic lights begging for money around Bangalore.
- Giving food out to the elderly or Mom’s and babies at traffic lights.
- Feeding monkeys at Lalbaugh Park (or having them jump on your head! ha!) Loved the babies! And the monkey man who has been feeding the monkeys 3x a day for over 20 years.
- Taking a train around Cubin park and riding on rides, or playing at the many different playgrounds.
- Having monkeys try to steal our Mazza Mango drink on Nandi Hills.
- Fish Therapy (where fish eat the dead skin off your feet) Tickles so much!
- Cow poop on sidewalk (remember the time we walked to Forum mall and Adalynn slipped and fell into a huge fresh pile? Right before we were supposed to meet up with the Elders for lunch? We ended up throwing Ady’s shoes in a plastic bag, Adam carried her, and then we went to the bathroom at forum mall and tried out best to clean up her shoes, & dress. But she REEKED of manure.
- Seeing cows everywhere (in the city or countryside).
- Flashing lights as you drive at night. Honking as you drive during the day to let cars around you know you are there.
- Putting your hand out to stop cars so you can walk across the street. Or trying to dodge in between cars, who don’t stop for pedestrians.
- Driving on the opposite side of the street and having no rules for driving. Being grateful everyday that we had Naveen to get us around!
- Having random people take pictures, wave, or smile while we pass them.
- Getting bit by mosquitoes in our apartment and discovering Odomos – an Indian mosquito repellent lotion that actually smells good! LOVE that stuff!
- Having the power go out all the time (until our last few weeks in India when they put in a new breaker for us). Remember the trip on the backwaters when the power went out 17 times and we were all dying of heat because there was no A/C every time it did.
- How we loved seeing all the different flowers as we traveled and visiting beautiful parks full of beautiful vegetation, etc.
- Having Naveen call Adalynn Puti and Dawson Puta and having them both get so mad about it! (means cute girl and boy).
- Lightning Storms where you can see lightning flashing almost every second. So cool!
- HUGE rainstorms.
- Oatmeal with honey or Quick for breakfast (when eating at home)
- Plain Dosa’s with Jam, Nutella, & peanut butter (downstairs)
- Free breakfast every morning downstairs (juice, different Indian food everyday, and omelettes and toast).
- Having people give Adalynn or the other boys gifts all the time (balloons, chocolate, bracelets, cookies (at subway) etc. Just cause the kids are cute).
- Going to the Apartment pool almost everyday the first couple of months and learning to swim.
- Using our pool toys in the pool (6 colored rings, blow up space ship, boogie board, orange arm floaties, life jackets, colored octopus toys (4), goggles, balls, etc.)
- How we never saw Mom’s or Dad’s playing with their kids in the pool or wearing normal bathing suits – just wet suits or full body suits.
- How we got yelled at almost every time we went to the club house. (1st time was because they didn’t know we were living there. Again when I didn’t wear closed toed shoes to weight room. Again when I didn’t have the right kind of closed toed shoes. Again when I didn’t wear a swimming cap to cover my hair (but it was ok for the kids and Adam not to wear caps). Again, when the kids were too loud (really? Its a swimming pool play area with a kids play area next to it). Again when we brought friends to swim (we had to pay to get them in apparently). We can’t count the number of times we got in trouble for something…
- Adam and I practicing lifts in our apartment pool and teaching the kids how to stand on our shoulders and do tricks.
- Playing lots of water games trying to involve Ady and Dawson. They would stand on the side of the pool and throw pool balls at us. We would try to catch them with our hands or a round floaty toy (like water basketball). The kids loved it.
- Attending the Convert Road Branch and having half of the members be deaf. Loved learning and getting to use sign language again and seeing the smiles of the deaf members when they could communicate with you.
- Getting called as advisors to the Branch Presidency and RS presidency (don’t think we helped much, but it was fun!)
- Puking 15 times (between the kids and I) during our 7 day trip down to Kerela because of crazy driving, windy roads, stopping and going, and speed bumps! Thanks goodness for the little blue throw up bags I’d taken from home that I got at the hospital when I was pregnant. We ended up washing them out with water and using them over and over and over again during our trip and had people throwing up at once at one point too! SO grateful for those. Only one accident in the car total – which is pretty good considering the number of times we threw up.
- Having 6 hour journeys take 9 hours and 7 hour journeys take 13! Welcome to India as we liked to say! Indian driving times DO NOT translate well on google maps! ha!
- Having Adam lose his phone (or have it stolen?) at work and not having internet during our week long trip to Kerela. REALLY bad timing for that to happen.
- Walking on what we can only call “puff grass” in Wyanad that looked like round puffy chunks that had air under them. When you stepped on them you’d sink down about 6 inches to a foot. It was sooo cool!
- Getting diarrhea several times, fevers, and an Indian flu bug (where Mom was sick for 4 days and felt like death had knocked on the door not able to keep anything in her). Luckily Dad and Naveen finally found some Imodium and Mom was able to finally start feeling better.
- HARD beds that even big fluffy mats didn’t help (they just went flat and hard too)
- Maids stacking our pillows & stuffed animals and putting all our blankets outside every time they came to clean on the drying racks. To air them out maybe? It made us laugh.
- Small white marble sized rock like things in all the drains (to keep bugs out we hear? Still not sure).
- Brushing our teeth with bottled water every night.
- Having an oven with a dial that was on backwards and where we had to leave the door open to not burn everything to a crisp (but it still burned no matter what you did).
- Microwaving everything without the glass plate (which we broke our first couple weeks in India and never got replaced despite asking several times).
- Breaking about a million dishes our first few weeks in India due to marble floors before our “paper goods” arrived from Utah.
- Bringing over car booster seats for the boys that we never used once (only Adalynns and only on long drives) since you never drive very fast in India due to bad traffic.
- Bringing over all our kitchen appliances, curling irons, radios, etc. and never being able to use a single one.
- Only cooking maybe 10 times our whole time in India due to not being able to find American ingredients (that weren’t ridiculously expensive) and having a food per-diam of $75 a day from Adobe. Which meals did we cook? Potato soup, Cream of broccoli soup, BBQ chicken mashed potatoes, and green beans (for Fathers Day), Macaroni and cheese, Spaghetti, Fettucini alfredo, crepes, egg sandwiches, boiled eggs, pancakes, french toast.
- Going out to eat everyday and trying out lots and lots of new restaurants. Using Zomato.com to find most of them as it gave us ratings of how people liked them.
- How excited we all were when our shipment from America came! It was like Christmas!
- How people would but in front of you to get to the cash register/front of line faster, and how you’d have to stand up for yourself and ask them to wait their turn.
- How so many people would say you couldn’t use a credit card, until you told them you’d have to go to an ATM and then they’d let you.
- Bartering for good prices when shopping!
- Getting toy rick shaws, cricket bat & ball, sari’s, courta’s, shoes, jewelry, bangles, squash balls, books and maps as souvenirs.
- Swimming at the Blairs awesome apartment and going to lots of fun places with them. Loved our best friends in India!
- Putting deodorant on our mosquito bites to help stop the itching. 🙂 And how the maids would leave the windows open to clean even though we asked them repeatedly not to so that we could keep the mosquitoes OUT!
- Eating mangos almost everyday.
- How many plates of french fries, waffles, pancakes, and french toast we all eat! (tastes like home)
- Favorite foods in India: Roti, Purri, Kerala Parata, Dosa, butter chicken, curries, biryani, Naan, BBQ chicken from our favorite Arabian Indian place.
- Favorite Restaurants we eat at: Hole in the wall Cafe, the Only place, California Burrito, California Pizza Kitchen, Papa Johns, Chili’s (Mom’s favorite), Barleyz (Dad’s favorite), KFC (kids favorite – Mcdonalds was SO gross!) Seashell (for Indian food), Truffles (for desserts and pasta). Cafe Maangi (in the UV City mall for Spaghetti aglio e olio), Crispy Cream donuts.
- Favorite things we did: Shutes and Ladders, Swimming at the pool for hours, Riding bikes around the apartment complex, Going to lots of different parks, Feeding the monkeys at Lalbaugh, Our homestay in Wyanad, Elephant sanctuary in Courg, Bird Sanctuary, Going to fun restaurants, Listening and dancing to Indian music, playing Squash ball and tennis, rock climbing, attending church on Sundays.
- Tourist prices vs. resident taxes. Example Tourists pay 400 rupees to get in. Locals pay 40 rupees.
- Camera Charge: Usually more than your actually ticket tax and this allows you to take pictures in said places.
- Not being allowed to take camera’s into movie theaters. If you are caught with one you have to remove the battery and pick it up after the show.
- Assigned seats with EVERYONE on the same rows at movie theaters, even if there are only 20 people in the whole show. Oh and you aren’t allowed to choose your own seats.
- Having to remove your shoes almost everywhere you go.
- Going through lines at the Bangalore airport. They check you as you walk in (have to show your tickets and passports). They check you at the counter (tickets and passports again). They check you before you ride up the elevator. They check you before you get on the bus on your way out to the terminal. They check you at the gate. They check you before you get on the plane, and then again to find your seats. Serious security!
- This is also the case in almost every store. Just leave your receipt out until you are basically in your car! You never know when you’ll have to pull it out again.