That is the port city of Aqaba When I went to Jordan, I did not get a chance to visit this southernmost city of Jordan. Next time, I have to make sure Mahmoud Al-Ramaneh (محمود الرمامنه) takes me there. You can see four countries from here – Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia – all meeting near and about the city of Aqaba.

The beaches must be beautiful. Look at the color of the waters in the magnified pictures.

Pulled up the window and what a sight it was. You can see the dry barren desert. But look at the crazy crisscrossing of all the rivers and tributaries all over the landscape. Almost looks like magnified fingerprints. I need to study up the climate of this area. I assume they get rainfall sometime during the year when the rivers are full and then dry up for the rest of the year.

Feels very strange to fly to India with family and not having Natasha with us. She is there somewhere in those bright light below that we can see. She cannot see me but I am waving at her.

“It is beastly hot”
“The weather is certainly oppressive, sir!”

The PG Wodehouse aficionados amongst you will remember this exchange between Bertie and Jeeves from “The Sermon Handicap”

Well, turns out Nikita does not only want to see Didu, but she wants to visit the small water tank Dadu (grandfather) had built with all the small fishes in it. Not sure how small things stick in early minds, but both the girls are totally taken in by the small fish in that water tank. Every time they visit, the fish in general tip the weighing scales way past their limits thanks to all the food that they feed them thru the day.

So, the plan is after we are done getting holed up in a hotel with Didu, we will all go to Durgapur to get her back home.

In case, you were wondering how hot Durgapur will be, the following might help.

Some cold Thums Up, anyone?

Niki had a special request after graduating from high school. “I want to go see Didu“.
Didu means grandmother (maternal) in Bengali.
That started some desperate planning trying to squeeze some days between house moves and office work.

Didu, herself was very worried about our trip. “How are they going to be here in this heat?”.
The solution was that Didu offered to to travel to Kolkata where the four of us are going to be holed up in a hotel.
That would be some quality time between the granddaughter and grandmother.

The journey commenced an hour back.