Aga Khan Palace, Pune

On the way back from all the caves we had a few hours to kill in Pune and hence decided to take in its 'top tourist attraction': Aga Khan Palace. Well lets say, if you have time to kill fine, but don't plan any detours to make it there!

The palace is pretty recent, 1892, and according to Wikipedia it is  a majestic building and one of the greatest marvels of India. Well afar the Ellora and Ajanta caves, that sis a very hard if not impossible sell. Why the place is important is because Gandhi, his secretary and his wife where interned in this palace between 1942 and 1944 and out of the 3 only Gandhi survived his stay. (because of illness, not because of the place or treatment)

In 1969 it was donated to the state by the owning family and is now a museum/memorial to Gandhi.

Ok building, bad state.

The place only has about 5 exhibit rooms, and is very very dilapidated considering its status.

From a distance the place appeared a s quite something.

 And the garden park around it was quite nice

 Including the Banyan tree

 Kaat struggled to hide her boredom

 Rick loved the tree & the sticks

 And Duuk spend WAY too much time waiting on the floor in one of the most disgusting & smelly toilets ever till everyone was done. (clearly not too bothered though!)

 So we remain, inspired by Gandhi, but not so much by some of the places maintained in his memoriam

School Awards

Tomorrow is the last day of the school year. The kids both already had their awards ceremony and got the awards below. No worries - full equalitarian system - everyone gets one -:). I am of course missing Rick's end of year presentation and had to prompt for  some time slots or an end of year parent-teacher-meeting at all, as the school changed the schedule for the last week…….only this week kind off, maybe last week, and I had already tickets to fligh out the night after 'the last day of school' Thursday as per the school year calendar. Which appears not to be very official…..(no no, not frustrated at all)

Anyway. Awards. Here they are. Rick's is spot on. And Kaat's also. As a feminist you may be worried, but don't. Despite the fact that Kaat is always always always is looking out for #1 first (Kaat), she still gets the award for 'most caring'….how fabulous is that! We think only a princess could manage that -;)

Mind you, Kaat is after all known at home as "I want to give you a BIG hug and a BIG kiss" Kaat.

Beautiful Kaat

Kaatje is becoming a girl. She is fabulous at the moment with lots of stories, chatter, own ideas and plans. She is happy 99% of the time - really. Easy, cool and gorgeous as the series below shows.

Party - confirming the prejudice

The prejudice on expat life is that it exists mainly of partying, well this month, we are more then confirming that prejudice. Apart from the parties already blogged about for May we had a few more. Usually, at the adult evening affairs we don't take any pictures, but other people do and then send them across. Credits for all pictures in this post go to the people partying with us. Apart from 1 champagne selfie - none are ours. And then there are still some events of which we have no pictures…..

The family day from our employers expat group with Rick's friend Mono (with whom he is already practicing French at his own request - as he needs it for the stick house (the Chalet in France)

 The kids having a pancake party with friends whilst we were hosting my project colleagues last Friday.

 Private champagne party on the day all for the new house in France got sorted - we have a date for keys & signing

 A restaurant opening party I went to with a few friends

and met some random new ones (the lady in blue is my friend)

 At a farewell dinner for a colleague - at our local.

 A tacky Australian Becah party, which was really a pool / farewell party. And yes no worries, the tattoo on my cleavage was very temporary

 At another farewell party with some of our neighbors

 one of our few days together in Bangalore this past month

Bubblebath party for me after a hard days work in Dubai, enjoying my upgrade to a suite ob the 38th floor in the JET (Jumeirah Emirates Towers) with a bathtub overlooking Downtown Dubai & the Burj Khalifa.

 At my ladies Pokeno evening

 Duuk playing shop at a coffee morning, charming all the ladies - I got a picture like this from 5 different ones.

Shame there are no pictures of the housewarming at the 3 story penthouse - which had a pool on 1 of its 3 balconies and life size lion & tiger statues, a massage room etc etc.

Ajanta Caves

Early May on our trip to Auranganbad we did not just visit 1 set of caves, we did 2. About 2 hours drive north of Aurangabad are the Ajanta caves, a very impressive and spectacularly preserved set of 30 caves or so, over 2000 years old. The caves are all Buddhist caves and have been well preserved as due to their location, and stories of the location being haunted they remained undiscovered for centuries. The location of the Caves on a south facing rock wall makes it much much hotter to visit then Ellora. The caves are closer together but more steps and climbing is involved to see them.

Coffee break on the road to the caves

After the initial climb up the hill, after the 2 hr drive, the 10 min bus hop on a too crowded buss and making it through the hawk stalls in 1 piece. This better be worth it! (with our guide Mr Ali)

10 min later - happy again!

 but that sun was crazy!

 The whole series more or less

 Don't underestimate the scale of the place

 If not too interested in the caves there are other things to entertain oneself with:

Some of the caves still had a significant proportion of the elaborate paintwork. Due to preservation hard to photograph well without flash. Most paint work was in full color.

Not all entirely suitable for kids -:)

Other then painting there were a lot of baud's everywhere. Sleeping Buda Buda, Buda Kaatje & Buda Mama

Buda Rick did his impersonation even better

Buda Kees, with one of the Stupa centered temples

the cave floors are soooo nice & cool!

 Rick trying to copy some of the 'moves' and poses of the statues

 recuperating in the shade

The whole row from the end looking back

 Zen Duuk & Mama

 Carriers could be hired to take you around in case you where not fit enough to walk yourself. They offered to take our kids, but as we already don't like how much everyone touches them we came prepared to carry them ourselves. I was looking on envious at the orange 'porter' jackets though. Thought I deserved one too!

 Another hot but fabulous day - what a place - magnificent! The 2 hour drive back to the hotel & its pool turned into nap & cool down time.

Rick's Bangalore 5th

It ill be another month before Rick really turns 5. However to be able to give him presents here at home in Bangalore and to celebrate with his friends we pretend it is a month earlier, namely the last Saturday before the start of the school holiday. So yesterday was Rick's Bangalore 5th Birthday.

He came happy down the stairs in the morning and was really happy all day. Lovely big grins that made me also very happy. What a handsome big boy!

 The pirate playmobil was much appreciated but first he had to read the new books - Rick is becoming a real book worm.

 Chandramma also brought him the customary birthday wear

His adventures & treasures party was only for boys - and Tandia.

 The boys where fun together, happy, nice, no fighting and no issues. Just a lot of running, sweating & play of all sorts. Below next to one of his best friends Tanish.

 Treasure!

 And another one!

 Figuring out the treasure map

 The dad squad

 And then after about 45 min we struck gold! The treasure chest was actually quite cool, the way it turned out. But we forgot to take a picture before hand, and well, no getting in now!

 It got sort of fairly distributed all -:)

 Once home the kids wanted to play first and entertained themselves (9 boys, 1 girl and 3 lithe brothers & sisters). After that it was time for the cake. Rick had ordered a pirate sword - nothing else could be negotiated.

 I think it came out exactly as he wanted

 Happy, happy, happy!

 And afterwards, out of all the gifts, it was again the books that got most attention.

Happy Rick! Emotionally to me it didi not feel like his Birthday, but it did to him and it was so good to give him such a fun & happy day.