It's New Year's Day - and I laze around in bed, reading - a blissful slow start after a late night. Shoba rings up at 9.30 am and suggests a trip to the Napier Museum - it's her last day in town - she and Sam want to do something fun before they head back to Kuwait. I wonder shall I join them?
I jump at the chance - it's been on my To Do list since I got here more than 2 weeks ago.
I take an auto-rickshaw all the way through the centre of town - a traffic-ridden, smoke wraithed and exhaust-belching environment - and up to
the extreme North end of the Mahatma Gandhi Road (dear Bapugi, he is never far from us)! Shoba and Sam are waiting for me at the main gate and after the 30 minute drive, they are a sight for sore eyes.
Napier Museum we discover is closed till end of Jan - they are retiling the whole roof and the l
ower building is wrapped in green protective netting (see pic). Architecture is lovely and grounds well tended and relaxing.
We take this in stride as the Zoo is there as well. Such fun! I haven't been to a zoo, anywhere, in a very long time, and since reading Life of Pi I now have a particular fascination with Indian zoos.
This one is well laid out and relatively recent enclosures have been created giving animals more space and less caging.
There is still work to be done though - some of the larger birds (sea eagle etc) could be better off.
Particular favourites are the hippo Mum and baby, Bengal tiger, lion, antelope, a panther, crocodiles, snakes and a cheeky ostrich.
The elephant and zebra are hiding in their bunkers so I cannot immortalise them. And sadly, the zookeepers seem to have mislaid their rhinoceros and their giraffe. I didn't like to mention it!
After a leisurely stroll round we then attempt to find transport back to Babu's place where we are expected for lunch. After waiting 20 minutes in vain for an auto-rickshaw I suggest we take a public bus down as far as we can and take an auto from there. It works a treat. This is a first for me and is very efficient
at getting us from A to B. A 25 minute trip costs us each Rs 4.50 (roughly 6p UK).
Lunch is a bizarre affair. Shoba and Babu are not talking for some reason. Alexis and I making polite conversation to fill the gap. I encourage Babu to have a chat with Shoba afterwards, to clear the air. She is after all on the point of departure and we have shared an amazing number of adventures with her.
Alexis and I keep an eye on Sam who falls asleep watching telly. I work on SNEHA blog and share some of this with Alexis who is planning to go up to Varkala beach to find a place to stay and commute to the clinic from there. I applaud his initiative.
Before the day is out, Shoba and Sam have gone, Alexis is gone and the house is quiet with just Babu and me and the staff. I have to say the silence is most welcome.
Babu keeps mentioning that he finds evenings too long and uneventful so I suggest we watch a DVD I bought as a gift for him. we settle down to watch The Inn of the Sixth Happiness and lo and behold the A/C goes on the fritz. What a DRAG! It?s only 4 days old and is bleeping and flashing rainbow colours and not doing anything it?s supposed to. The manual is no use. So much for Whirlpool's Sixth Sense feature!
That ends the comfort and the film watching evening. I don't think Babu is getting a lot of the content as the Volume is not really very high and the language quite English! Oh well! Perhaps this was not such a good choice after all! I think Ingrid B is fab so I might just take them back with me?
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