:: DAY 2 (12/12) ::

Today is Qian’s birthday! Maybe I can use my dad’s laptop later to wish her on facebook. If there’s any Internet. And sheesh, I miss using my laptop. Withdrawal?
Anyway, I wrote in point form earlier but rewriting it now. Had a bad headache when I woke up due to poor sleep. Jaian kept opening and closing the curtains and our dad burst in and whipped open the curtains without a thought for the still sleeping Liana and I.

We were made to wake up and eat breakfast downstairs despite my mom’s misleading words about being able to “sleep until we feel good”. -.- Breakfast was buffet; and it wasn’t bad. I was slightly feverish so my mom let Liana and I sleep a while more while they swam. We woke up at 11am – late – so we had to rush down in our panjabis to set off to my grandfather’s village.

It was a 2 hours car journey where I experimented with various sleeping positions and suffered from the cramped-ness in the car. The village was along a hill, with Uncle Manoj’s house near the top. We don’t speak Malayalam so we just spent our time trying to be nice, smile and nod. :/

However, my relatives were really nice and we met 10 cousins aged 10 to 32. We went for a long walk in the forest behind the village, passing by a small paddy field and many rubber trees (the area used to be a thriving rubber plantation). We witnessed a cow being milked (o.o), saw an adorable cat and several chickens. There was a rooster too (Liana’s kin hahaha) and we heard much barking, though we didn’t actually see any dogs. We even saw several kids (the young of a goat) and a goat, plus a few oxen along the way.

We distributed the gifts my father and grandmother brought, then had lunch. It was good, though some curries were really spicy (o.o), but overall I enjoyed it.
We left after a few hours there. The farewells were awkward for us but my father and grandparents were reluctant to leave because they felt so at home there. I only found out a few of their names… And my father said “don’t worry, they can speak English”. -.-

It was a long journey back home as we took a longer but much less bumpy road and an unnecessary detour. We reached the hotel after 7pm and slacked until it was time to meet the well-connected friend of my grandfather’s for dinner at another (far, far away) hotel.

Dinner was okay; nothing too special. The whole place was so dim that I could barely see what I was eating... One thing about India; there are SO many stars at night. That made the night good. (:

Time to end! Siblings starting to think about Singapore already. I’m just thinking about One Piece and my friends. Zoro! <3 Hahahaha. Night!

+ Anita updated @ 11:26 am

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