Up down and roundabout

Hello and welcome to the fifth blog of the Mishra family by Aarushi.

View of the Himalayas from our Ranikhet hotel

Even though school still hasn’t started for us, we have done lots of interesting things in the past month. We went to Ranikhet in the Himalaya mountains. We drove for eight hours in a mini van on bumpy roads. Our driver was driving too fast even on the mountains. But we got great views going up. In Ranikhet we stayed at a very nice hotel called ‘Chevron Rosemount’. I think it used to be someone’s large house and then they made it into a hotel. Ranikhet was so quiet. There were not many cars there. You could just walk on the road with not a single car in your way. The sky was always very clear in the mornings so we could see the snow peaks well. The veranda in our room had a clear view but the view from the lawn was better, so we rugged up and went outside every morning to watch the sunrise over the snow peaks.

Our camp fire in Ranikhet

The hotel staff was very kind and they served us really tasty food every day. My favourite thing there was the playground. But there was an old burnt out house near the playground that was creepy. The hotel staff said that ghosts lived in it! So Bhai, Didi, Mum and Dad went in to have a look and said they didn’t see any ghosts there! One day we collected wood by ourselves and made a campfire. Baba showed us many stars and how they made different shapes in the sky. I saw a hunter with a red star in its belt, its dog, a bull, and 7 stars in the shape of a question mark. Baba said that because Australia was in the Southern hemisphere and we were in the Northern hemisphere, we could see different stars here.

Inside Mahavatar Babaji's Cave

Another day in Ranikhet, Dad, Didi, Bhai, Mum and I went to see a famous cave that Dad really wanted to see. There is a long but magical story about why this cave is famous, and if you want you can read it here. It was in the Dunagiri mountains, and we had to trek up a hill for 2km in order to get to the cave. There were lots of other people there but they were all silently meditating inside the cave. We also meditated in the cave for half an hour and then climbed down.

The tweed factory in Ranikhet

We went on many walks along the beautiful walking path outside the hotel that had a forest on one side. There was a sign at the end of the road that said that the path was one of Jawaharlal Nehru’s favourite walking trails. Jawaharlal Nehru was the first prime minister of India and you can see his photos everywhere in India. On our last day in Ranikhet, we went to a tweed factory where they made shawls, scarves, hats etc.

Boating on the Naini Lake

After a great 6 days in Ranikhet we started the windy drive to Nainital. We stayed for one night at Chevron Fair Havens in Nainital but it wasn’t as good as Chevron Rosemount (the hotel in Ranikhet). When we were eating lunch, a big dog came past our table. It must have been the manager’s pet but it was so big that I thought maybe it was a lion! I was scared!! We also went boating on the Naini Lake. Dadi, Baba and I went on a boat where somebody else was rowing but Didi, Dad, Mum and Bhai took a pedal boat. Dad got a phone call in the middle of the ride from his office and he was talking on it while pedalling!

View of the Naini Lake from our Cable Car

The next day we went up a mountain in a cable car. We saw a great view of the mountains and the Naini Lake. When we got to the top of the mountain, I looked through some binoculars and saw a bit of the snow peaks although they weren’t as clear as from Ranikhet. Bhai, Didi and Baba did some shooting with a BB gun where they had to hit any of the bottles hanging off the far away tree. Baba was so good he hit a bottle with every shot!

Us on the columbus

There was also an adventure park on top of the mountain. There, Didi went go carting, Bhai went on a flying fox, and I went bungie jumping on a big trampoline. The go-carting guy actually asked Didi if she wanted to wear a helmet!! (Of course she said yes…). Mum, Dad, Didi, Bhai and I also went on a rocking boat called Columbus!! It was scary but fun!!!

We also found the Eco Cave Garden with 7 caves, all named after different animals. It was dark and creepy inside, and we soon figured that to get through each cave, we actually had to move like the animal after which it was named! We had to twist, duck, crawl, jump over, and sometimes squeeze our way through the narrow openings. As we were coming out, we saw a group of people entering. One of them said in hindi to a friend who was wearing heels, "you will be okay - there won't be any climbing at all!!"

We had to drive from Nainital to Kathgodam (at the bottom of the mountain) and then take a night train from there to get back to Haridwar. We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Kathgodam called the “Krazy kitchen”! The food was tasty.

The Mosquito zapper

We had to get off at Haridwar at 2.30am! But when we got off, we were surprised to see SO many people at the station. They were sleeping on the platform! There was even a traffic jam outside, at 2.30am! There was a driver standing there with Dad’s name on a sign!

Since we got back from Ranikhet the weather has become quite warm and many mosquitos have also come out. So Bhai got a mosquito zapper from the shop next door. It is so loud! I get scared every time he zaps mosquitos with it.

Both the last two weekends we went to watch Hindi movies in the Pentagon mall cinema. The first one was called "Main Tera Hero" (meaning "I am your Hero") which I would describe as funny but really silly. The second one was a movie called "Bhoothnath Returns" (meaning "return of the ghost lord"), which I really enjoyed. It is about a good ghost who stands in India's elections! It was a very funny movie. There were so many people there to watch the movie – the cinema was full. Before we saw Bhoothnath Returns, we thought we would go to the haunted house in the mall. I got very scared even just at the entry when it was dark and creepy and then a mannequin jumped on us! So I came back out with Mum, but Dad, Didi and Bhai went in. Dad said that even they weren’t brave enough to walk through it completely in the dark, so they used their mobile phone torch to see where they were going!! Things kept flying at them making loud sounds. Even from outside I could hear a really loud scream in a girl’s voice. I thought it was Didi but she said it was Bhai! Dad said it was actually another mannequin sitting at a table, and all of sudden both it and the table flew at them along with the girl’s scream as they were coming out! After the haunted house, we watched a “7D” movie where there was a 3D screen and our seats also moved up, down and sideways. The movie was about a roller coaster in the desert and it was so funny and scary! There was a bit where someone on the screen sneezed and we got sprayed with water so it felt like they had sneezed on us. Yuck!

Me in the back right

Didi and I have been learning Kathak from Madhavi aunty. We had a Kathak workshop with a teacher from Mumbai, Mrs Renu Sharma. Madhavi aunty as well as Mrs Sharma are students of Pandit Birju Maharaj, who is the best Kathak dancer in the world! Just like in Melbourne, we have a Kathak concert this weekend. It’s so funny that Dad’s music teacher; Kuljit baba is visiting us that weekend from Jabalpur. So he will also sing our Kathak concert just like he did in Melbourne two years ago!

At the "world famous" Asiad Circus

We also went to see the Asiad Circus! It was very interesting. We saw acts like trapeze artists, juggling, a guy who drank a whole bucket of water and spat the whole thing out in one go (yuck!!!!), an elephant who could play cricket, dogs and cockatoos doing tricks, Kenyan athletes, a fire dance, motorbike stunts, lots of acrobat tricks, a lady dancing with hula hoops, rope tricks, and even a lady hanging off an elephant with her leg in its mouth!

And finally, I want to tell you about Shivi Bua’s wedding in Lucknow. It was so much fun with so many relatives there. Amongst Dad’s relatives, I met Shivi Bua and Ankit Fufaji (the two who were getting married), Shatanu Chacha (and Ankita Chachi - they also got engaged!), Chhotu Baba, Rita Dadi, Naren Baba, Padma Dadi, Rinky Bua, Rummy Bua, Prince Chacha, Anita Dadi, Rajiv Dada, Anni Bua, Archie Didi, Rajju Baba, Jyotsana Dadi, Badi Dadi, Bade Baba, Vikky Bua and Lucky Bua. I also met Dad’s friends Navin uncle and Saumya uncle, and their wives Sakshi aunty and Pragati aunty, and also Navin uncle’s children Anika and Abhijay. We got there on the night before the wedding and stayed at Shivi Bua's place till late. All the ladies were singing wedding songs. I also got Mehendi on my hands like all the other girls and ladies. 

All the ladies of the family
singing

Us at the wedding

The next day in the afternoon just hours before the wedding a massive storm hit Lucknow and destroyed all the outdoor arrangements for the wedding! Thankfully it only lasted a few minutes so they had time to put it all back together but still the wedding had to start a few hours late and so it finished much later, at 5am! Baba, Didi, Bhai and I came back to the hotel at midnight but Mum, Dad and Dadi stayed till the end and went to bed at 6am!

 Bada Imambada

So the next day while they were still sleeping, Baba, Didi, Bhai and I went to see the famous Bada Imambada of Lucknow. We went into an old maze called "Bhool Bhulaiya" which was specially made so that you could clearly hear someone whispering from the other end which was quite far away. It was amazing!

We have now come back from Lucknow, and I am looking forward to going to school in a few weeks.  Baba will write the next blog next month. Bye until then.





Guide:
Didi- Older sister/ older girl cousin
Bhai- Older Brother/ Older boy cousin
Dada/Baba- Dad's Father or Dad's Uncle
Dadi- Dad's Mum or Dad's Aunty
Bua- Dad's sister or dad's cousin
Fufaji- Bua's Husband
Chacha- Dad's Brother/ cousin
Chachi- Chacha's Wife