Sravana.us

A beach in India after sunset: all the kids are on their iPods, while all the parents are on their iPhones (a distanr reference to a Monty Python joke, remember anyone?)

Naaaah, only joking. But it applies to us as I write.

Cheers…

We are staying an extra day at Varkala and have decided to visit the Neyyar Dam Sanctuary as a day trip from here, saving us the hassle to move down to Trivandrum and find a hotel, etc. This way we can catch the coast train to Kollam from Varkala after tomorrow. We hope to find a houseboat and explore the backwaters slowly up to Kottayam. We’ll avoid the much sought after Kollam-Allepey trip as it’s crowded and long. We’ll favour more local means of travel such as ferry crossings which are less glamorous but more colourful. You also see a more diversified landscape. Breakfast is served. Must love you and leave you for now. PS: the Tumblr app fails at completion, with these weak data connections, so we are reverting to email for uploads.

Ir’s 16:30 and we haven’t seen the day go by. Granted, we did start late, but nevertheless, good moments do fly by.

I’m laying on my bed, facing the sea, listening to the crows fighting over a leftover and the sound of the waves relenlessly smashing on the rocks.

But was really makes it for me is to hear Mamalayam spoken again. I love the eay these people talk, move and interact. Slowly, past memories are resurfing, springing into light as bright as on tge day tgey were stored.

The sound of a builder resonates through the afternoon heat as he chops his stone block in rythm.

We haven’t done much except getting used the place, heat and food. We barely managed to get through our meal last night as we were all falling to sleep waiting for the dinner. Mathias and Emma have been very opened minded regarding food until Mathias bit into a chilli of his veg biriani…

Talking about food, it’s time to go and find something to bite.

Slept 15hrs+. Going for breakfast before the beach. Bad data connection. All of yersterday’s posts failed, sorry.

I have just figured out what all the coming and going around an advert for Networks Media Solutions is all about: it’s a mobile phone charging station equiped with every power cable you can imagine, including a iPhone’s 30 pin connector.

Not sure I’d plug mine in and walk away to buy a cup of tea though..

I tend to worry more than I would when Itravel with my children. Striving to provide a seemless experience, I tend to anticipate more than I should or would if I was faring alone. The fate of parenthood?

So what if the luggage doesn’t make it tonight… things will sort out in due time.

Hell, this is India. Things happen when they should. Remember?

It’s good to be back मदर इंडिया.

Took off an hour late in the rising sun only to meet winter chaos at ZH airport. Let’s hope the luggage made the short connection. Boarding for India at last. Om.

There is less than 72 hours left before we take off on our family adventure back to beloved India.

This is when the pressure increases as you list all the thing remaining to do, and start deleting those you won’t manage to complete. I remember previous journeys when I worked up to the last minute, and jumped into the Air India 747 as I would have jumped into the bus to work. Adrenaline rushing while I tried to remember what on earth I’d forgotten to do or take. That lead to unforseen surprises…

But not this time. Having children helps you get organised ahead of time if you want to avoid chaos. Not that my children generate any particular chaos, no, it’s just that in order to enjoy the moment, you need to be a little prepared.

Lessons were learned and this trip was planned well ahead of time, in our hearts and then in our heads. We’ve booked hotels, guesthouses or homestays at strategic landing points, leaving the in betweens to be discovered en route.

The gear was sorted out last week. We reverted from our initial choice of taking off with our faithful backpacks in favour of a couple of new duffel bags. The contents will be arranged in small to medium cordura stuff sacks, incredibly light and compact.

I bought extra memory flash cards and batteries as each member of the family is leaving with at least one camera. Unfortunately, I also needed to pack 5 different power chargers, one for each type of camera, iPod and iPhone or Kindle.

I’m still not sure about the Kindle though. It’s packed with books and guides and reveals to be really useful in bookmarking the relevant information. But I have a habit of using my travel guides as a doorstopper, a money concealing device, a notepad or a mosquito terminator. The Kindle is feature rich, but lacks the latter.

I’m not quite fixed on my personal camera gear either. Especially the lense choice. Versatility vs weight. We’ll see.

Otherwise, I closed the studio well ahead, enjoying the free time to sort out my favourite or personal projects. Such as pimping up the look and feel of this weblog.

The travelers checks should be delivered any minute now, and that will complete the initial setup.

Either I’m getting old, or I’m getting better at this…

Apparently, the Indian Embassy and Consulate visa application forms aren’t compatible…

After having spent the better part of an evening searching for and completing the three page visa application form for all the members of the family, the Consulate made Fabienne start over as the heading was incorrect.

The forms I managed to find were those of the Embassy in Bern, not those of the Consulate in Geneva. Eventhough their content was approximatively identical, the former were not acceptable.

It had to make me laugh. Indian red tape. I can’t say I’d forgotten it, but I didn’t anticipate running into it this way, in these early stages.

I wonder if a copied/pasted local header over of the Embassy one woulf have done the trick. Probably not.

Never mind, it’s all part of travelling to India.

This weblog was designed to aggregate data from different sources during our trip back to India this winter.

We are leaving laptops and netbooks behind, so our iPhones will be our sole mean of sharing information with you. Tumblr is well designed for this kind of situation. The Tumblr iPhone app (iTunes link) enables you to post text, pictures, sound or video directly to your weblog.

Moreover, I’ve setup services to aggregate the Tweets and Flickr pictures we shall also try to post on a regular basis.

I didn’t intend to talk much about sravana.us to anybody, and keep it to myself as a personal tumblelog. But the word got out and spread among friends and family, so now not only must I brush up the look and feel, but I’ll need write real phrases with real words in them as real people will be reading…

I hope to get Fabienne posting bits and bobs too from her iPhone, so expect multilingual entries.

Otherwise, there is no rule to what will appear in here. Chances are nothing will be posted once we leave Europe. Postings might be few and far apart, or frequent. I don’t know. The bottom line is that I’ll do my best to post moments, but the words might all end up in my real world physical diary instead.

So don’t rise your hopes.

Most of you must wonder what Sravana stands for. Well, it is the birth star (in Indian Vedic astrology) of our trip to India this winter.

I thought it was appropriate to name this weblog after it.

Sravana (or Thiruvonam) is ruled by Vishnu, the pervador. This is the star of listening, also called the “Star of Learning”. The mercurial planet Moon owns this nakshatra. This Constellation spans from 10°-00’ to 23°-20’ in Makara, owned by the planet Saturn. Sravana usually means “hearing”. The symbol of Sravana is three foot-prints. It is the birth star of Saraswati. Sravana enables to link people together by connecting them to their appropriate paths in life.