an adventurous weekend

the golden square gang made good use of the long holiday weekend, took the day off on the24th (monday) and had an adventurous weekend from 22nd till the 25th. pawan and his family were also here this time on vacation from singapore. (read about our earlier trip to kashid here.)

we drove down to palas resort which is on the mumbai-goa highway (just a little before nagothane - check the map here) on saturday morning. (we were planning to start by 7.30 am but ended up leaving only by 9.30! tanu will never let me forget about this for life!)

we had a good time at the resort. the pics say it all. spent time in the pool, playing cricket, badminton, football, cards, dancing, watching 'the incredibles', lazing around.... and most importantly stuffing ourselves at every possible opportunity.

on monday (24th dec) we drove to kolad which is about 45 minutes away from the resort and spent a day at the z-bac adventure facility. everyone, including the kids, rappelled, rafted, climbed rocks, made pots and had a whale of a time!

the punch-line for this trip was 'jaana padta hai!' (one has to go!) people had to use this line whenever they had to excuse themselves from the group (for reasons i can't state here, since this is a family blog) or when they had to try out the adventure activities after the kids took the lead!

palas resort is named after the nearby village called palas, which in turn is named after the 'palas' tree. this tree has leaves with 3 large segments and these dried leaves are used to make 'patravalis' or plates.

this trip also showed us that -

1. food tastes much better when we are really really hungry!
2. kids are much tougher than we make them out to be.... they need more exposure to nature.
3. roughing it out occasionally is good for all of us... it helps put things in perspective.
4. fear is in our minds... and we normally transmit these fears to our children.
5. children overcome their fears quite well if they are left on their own. they get inspired by the other kids.

office picnic to matheran

this must have been the first time ever that we went on a trip over consequtive weekends. last weekend we went to jaipur with friends (trip to jaipur). and this weekend we went on our annual office picnic to matheran.

many of you who have been to matheran know it is a popular (and therefore overcrowded) weekend getaway from mumbai and pune. and chances are that 7 out 10 people you meet in matheran are gujjus! (thanks to the gujjus!)

but our team of more than 50 people from office had one of the most memorable annual trips in the recent past. and the reason for this was the adventure activities and games that we had organised for the first time.

i personally did rappelling, valley crossing and jhummering (rope climbing) for the first time. and so did my wife and prasann (my son).

here's a link to the few pics that i managed of this trip.

so, all in all, a very enjoyable and fun weekend was had by all.