Richey's Travel Adventures

Babymoon in the Maldives

Realizing that we have alot of travel coming up and because of our next little girl coming in late June/early July, we decided to book a last minute trip to the Maldives. We need to have a good Babymoon. A place we have always wanted to go but it was too far away. In India, its a 2.5 hour flight away (closer than Hawaii is to us in Oregon). So with less than a week’s notice we booked our flights and hotel. It all started with a 3:30am wakeup at our flat on Thursday morning. We figured get on the road to Mumbai and get to the airport with plenty of time before our 10:30am flight. But of course in India, nothing is that easy.

45 minutes in to the drive we hit a complete standstill in traffic.

There was no explanation, no emergency vehicles and it was way to early in the morning for construction to begin. We sat, and sat, and sat. Blood pressure rising. Armpit sweat dripping. Anger boiling. Constant pacing. Scenario of scenario going through my head. Roadside biological relief. All of this and still no moving. I was channeling my inner Clark Griswold. I kept looking down the stream of cars and couldn’t see any brake lights changing. It really looked like we were going to miss our flight if we even got to Mumbai at all. Finally, after 45 minutes of sitting there the cars started to move. We asked our driver, Sachin, “do you think we are going to be able to get to the airport before the 9am check in cutoff?” His response was a simple “I will try my best”. And his best he did. I have never seen him so alert and so aggressive in driving. Due to Sachin’s skill, cutting through traffic like an American on an LA freeway, we hauled ass to Mumbai and arrived at 8am with more than enough time for checkin, security, and customs. Always thinking about ways to cut costs I bought a liter of gin at Duty Free. We even got a cup of coffee before boarding our Air Indigo flight. Plenty of time! And we were off (and so was our stress levels)!

We arrived in the heat and sea air right on time. Smiles all around. Pretty effortless customs check and then……a scanner check. But what for? Ok, gotta do it. Well unknown to me the Maldives is a majority Muslim country and alcohol is not allowed.

So my “brilliant” thinking of bringing in some booze to save money at the resort? Epic fail. They took my gin and gave me a note saying I could reclaim it when we leave the country. I was pissed but respected that was the rules. I can’t believe duty free in Mumbai didn’t tell me this….oh wait maybe I can believe that. The ending to this story isn’t that great though because the reclaim of the booze was at ticketing, but then you have to go through security and they will not allow you to take anything more than 4oz of liquid through. So turns out I bought a liter of Bombay Sapphire that I left behind and is probably being enjoyed by someone somewhere. So after that stress and frustration we decided to do the only thing we could….eat beef at the first possible moment. And nothing says that more than a Burger King double cheeseburger for $12 (yes island pricing!)

We then checked in with our water taxi. The Maldives is a chain of islands so most islands usually have 1-2 resorts on them. You have to access them via water boat or sea plane. If you ever plan a trip here I suggest you check how far away your resort is from Male (the capital city where the airport is). We stayed at the Sheraton hotel which was only a 15 min water taxi ride. An American couple on our flight was going to another resort which they had no idea was so far away so plan in advance how you will get there. There is a sea plane terminal connected to the airport.

Then we arrived in paradise. The warm weather, the great sea breeze, palm trees, etc. It was fantastic.

We stayed in an overwater bungalow. The room was decent size enough for a crip to easily fit for Tenley. We had our own balcony and plunge pool It was so private and right on the water. There were stairs right off the patio in to the water. The water beneath was warmer than the plunge pool and was only about 3-4 feet deep. They have rooms on the island too but these bungalows are worth the extra price. You get so much privacy. And we had zero bug issues as well which was fantastic. We loved our room and probably spent more than half of our time there — sunbathing, reading, smoking a cigar, having a couple of drinks, snorkeling, and playing in the water!

Snorkeling just by our bungalow we saw a ton of different tropical fish as well as a shark (not dangerous) and a huge snap turtle who unfortunately was missing an arm. I have never really enjoyed snorkeling before but because the water was so warm, so clear, and so shallow I was able to really enjoy it. Probably my biggest surprise enjoyment of the trip!

We thought about working out but didn’t. We were on vacation! However I couldn’t not mention their awesome outdoor beach gym!

Another thing we enjoyed doing on the trip was playing on the white sand beaches. Easy on the toes, never hot, and Tenley loved playing with it (and sometimes snacking on it, gross!). The beaches were literally white sand and the water aqua blue just like these pictures show. It was easier to get in to the water on the beaches than on the stairs in our room and the water on the beaches was much calmer.

Because Tami wasn’t drinking we did not buy the all inclusive package which includes alcohol. So we had to pay at the bar for mine. A gin and soda was about $12 and most specialty drinks were around $20. That included a 10% service charge. They had a huge mocktail/alcohol free menu which was really cool for Tami but warning the prices are almost the same as the alcohol menu. The difference was like $1-3 difference. Looking back maybe we should have bought the all inclusive because of this small price difference. Lesson learned. Still, we always had a cocktail at sunset in the main bar where they had live music. Great time for us to unwind and celebrate the end of another beautiful day in paradise. Thank you God for all Your blessings to us!

Outside of the all inclusive you can pick different food options – pay as you go, half board (just breakfast and lunch), or full board (all three meals – breakfast was a buffet and for lunch and dinner you got 3 courses – a starter, a main, and a dessert). We went with the full board and I am glad we did because the food prices were high. Again, its an island so you understand why. Most starters were in the $22-35 range. Main courses were $40-60. Desserts were around $20. So multiply that by 2 and the fact that Tenley got free food from the kid’s menu and going full board was definitely worth it. Here is a sampling of what we ate.

There were 7 restaurants at the resort. 5 were included in the package for us the other two were not but we got a $60 credit each. We decided not to do those as the other restaurants were more than enough. They had Mexican, Asian, Sushi, Indian, Thai, and their buffet was heavy on Greek, Indian, and Middle Eastern food. All were very good. My favorite was a starter at the Asian restaurant that included 12 pieces of sashimi!

Of course anyone would probably want to stay longer but we were there 3 nights. Probably one more would have been perfect. The last day we ate a huge breakfast and took the water taxi home. We didn’t have any issues with flights or anything. So it ended well and we got in the door at home at 10pm Sunday night.

If you are ever in Asia and have the time and means, I REALLY suggest going to the Maldives. I am not much of a beach and sun guy (my wife has gotten me in to that), but I really enjoyed the privacy, the cleanliness, the water, and the staff at the Sheraton. During a few hours here and there it literally only felt like there were just 10-15 people at the resort. It was very relaxing and a great babymoon for us. We hope to go back once more before we move back to the US.

Stay tuned as the next 8 weeks will take us to London, Athens, Sri Lanka, and Nepal! For now, goodnight!

Longest Costco Trip in the World

After a winter break hiatus, I am back and look forward to another year of exciting adventures for the Kemmling household. Over the next 4 months we will be visiting 6 different countries — most of which I have never been to before so stay tuned!

Now on to business. We love Costco. I mean who doesn’t? Besides the hot dogs they have ALOT of cheap stuff that is very decently priced. I have bought everything from furniture, to clothing, to technology, to food, to yes back to hot dogs. God I love them. And they are just $1.50. Anyway I will use Costco in this blog but you could of course substitute wherever you shop at where you buy way more than you need and feel proud of yourself even though you went 300% over budget. We shop at other stores too when we need to stock up but Costco gets the most of our discretionary rupees.

Do you feel like a 30 min drive for a Costco run is too long? Would you drive 2-3 hours? Would you go to another state? Well we live in India. So our Costco runs cover over 8,000 miles and almost 30 hours of flying. But it is necessary to make these trips and I will describe why. Usually we each get 2-3 checked bags each and we can pack each bag usually between 65-70lbs. As you can see we are pros:

Each time we come back from the US it is always between 5-7am in the morning. We have been flying for almost 30 hours and have been in the car at least 3 before we get home. However, nothing comes as close to Christmas as opening up your suitcases and beholding the wonder of bringing all of our favorite US goodies to our adopted country. It is so exciting because you forget half of what you brought and you are also so happy to have some of these amenities because you no it is probably the only stash in the country. Here are some of the major items we pack:

Baby Items — Yes you can get diapers in India. However the diapers after about size one are all pull ups. They also are very light on the volume of your little ones refuse so leaking is common. Can you imagine how messy it is to change a 6 month old with pullups that couldn’t hold more than one bathroom try? The struggle is real. Lots of tearing, lots of mess. So we always get a Costco size box of diapers to bring back with us which usually lasts about a month and a half. We also bring back baby wipes. They do have them in India but they are actually cheaper to buy in bulk in the US. We also are very familiar with different children’s medicine in the US so we bring those back. India does have equivalents but we do not actually know how they will work or affect our little one. I also have never seen baby food (I think because they make their own) so we bring pack the fruit pouchies for Tenley which she loves. Its also a good way to get some veggies in her! She likes the snack melties from Wal Mart and they don’t have that here so we bring those as well. They weigh nothing.
Household Products/Hygiene Products — Most of these are just personal preference. They do have deodorant here as well as shampoo. But we just like what we use in the US and in Tami’s case she requires a special shampoo formula so we bring that and other hair products. One thing we always try to bring is a TON of Tide pellets for our washing machine. We have a smaller washer here than in the US (maybe 1/3rd of the size) so we go through a wash literally every day. This requires laundry detergent and most of laundry is done manually in India so finding the pods or liquid is very difficult. If you do find it you will pay 10x more than you would in the US for a pod.
Vitamins and Supplements — Believe it or not, at least what we take daily, is harder to find in India and if we do find it is more expensive. At this point we have enough of our vitamins and supplements to literally last the rest of our stay here in India. We also stockup on the Emergen C vitamin C mixes. It is just a good thing to get alot of Vitamin C but they do not have this mixture in India.
Cigars — Of course these are near and dear to my heart. I rarely see cigars sold in India. The ones I have seen were at super upscale hotels and were a minimum $30 a stick. There are Indian cigars I have seen at retail locations but I do not like them. They fall apart very easily and the tobacco isn’t as robust as I like it. So I always order some cigars to take back with me.
Technology — While India usually has cheaper technology products (that are just as good as the US), the items we bring back are usually more expensive in India. Any Apple product is at least 40-50% more in India. It is seen as a luxury product. So we get our Apple watches, phones, TVs etc in the US. The same is true for our white noise devices. We need those suckers loud to drown out the constant partying, traffic, and fireworks you have outside your window in India

Now on to the consumables.

Booze — Imported liquor usually costs 2-3x what it costs in the US. But even Indian brands are highly taxed where we live. What would be well liquor at a bar in the US is premium here. There is also limited selection. So you have maybe 3-4 whiskies to choose from, 3-4 gins, 1-2 vodkas, etc. We just like our variety! So we always bring back some bourbon, good scotches, infused vodka, or some wines when we come back. We probably have one the best stocked bars in all of Pune!
Candy/Sweets — Imported candy, like all the stuff we like, is also very expensive. There is the import tax but they just seem to tax sugar more too. I was paying 4x the price of a bag of my favorite gummy bears here in India. But Costco I can get a 125 day supply for $13. We have brought back other sweets as well in the past like Halloween candy, tons of bubble gum (low calorie and gives you that sweet fix), and fruit leathers.
Coffee — This is a category that needs its own write up. They do not have drip coffee in India. Starbucks will back you a pour over which is about the closest thing. Offices, hotels, buildings, etc do not make it. It is all made from cappuccino and espresso machines. If you want a regular cup of Joe, then you have to get cafe Americano. We were able to get a coffee filter machine like we have back home but NOONE sells coffee grounds. We do find small packets of coffee beans but they are about the size of a sandwhich ziplock bag and cost about $10. So even if we had a coffee grinder a pot of coffee would be $10. So we buy our coffee in bulk from Costco and haul it back with us. Makes a HUGE difference in our mornings!
Food Condiments — these are just items we can’t get in India. We can find ketchup, mustard, mayo, etc but things like sweet relish and salad dressing that doesn’t taste like a vat of chemicals is impossible to find.
Snacks — The biggest snack foods we bring back are microwave popcorn, goldfish, pretzels, and beef jerky. The beef jerky is probably pretty obvious. They do have microwave popcorn here in India but most of it has these wild spicy flavors added to it. If you do find a bag of butter it is incredibly greasy and messy. Its like they put the butter on the packaging but not on the popcorn! So we always bring back a Costco box of popcorn. It typically lasts us about two months. The foreign branded goldfish and chips here in India are marginally more expensive in India but almost all of them are stale. I am not sure how long it takes them to get in transit but there is nothing worse than opening up a bag of Doritos after a long day of eating spicy food you cant pronounce and eating cardboard. So we stock up on fresh things like goldfish, crackers, and pretzels.

Phew that was a long entry. We of course bring other things back with us like clothing we will need, cookbooks for our chef, toys, etc. But these are the major items that without the longest Costco trip on earth would make us living here alot more messy and expensive! I can’t wait for our next haul!

Diwali 2023

A belated but Happy Diwali. The Indian festival of lights that happens during a new moon. It symbolizes bringing light to the world and people traditionally hang these types of lanterns in their homes.

I know there is a more significant religious meaning, but I think it was when a god of goodness defeated a god of darkness or evil. Regardless, here we were in India for their biggest holiday. As with most Indian holidays, it follows a lunar calendar so it is never the exact same date but it typically falls between late October and mid to late November. My understanding it is a multi day festival and most people go home for the week and spend time with family and friends (similar to our Christmas).

We celebrated our first Diwali at my office. Which is good because I have no idea how to celebrate.

First no Indian celebration is complete without food. So we catered an entire buffet meal of different dishes, both veg and non veg. Don’t ask me to write the names because I will definitely screw it up — something murgh, something masala, paneer such and such, Badha Pav, and brownies!

After stuffing ourselves with spicy and sweet foods we played a game called HOUSIE. Everyone in the office participated and it cost 20 rupees per scoreboard. We limited it to encourage people to participate. The best analogy I can give is that it is like bingo. Here is me with the Mrs. and our scorecards. We both lost terribly and never got a “bingo”.

After the game, in customary fashion we did a few quick speeches on being thankful. I of course had to take the microphone to thank everyone and to talk about how the fact that both western (Christian) and Indian (Hindu) religions celebrate good over evil and light in darkness, is no coincidence. There is a higher power leading us to the right path. Then I told a story about kindness and how each of us can change everyone elses world with just the simplest of gestures and thoughts.

After the crying, we gave presents to our entire staff. It is tradition to give gifts to all the people in your life as well as candies so we gave them chocolates and a gift for their home. Here is me with my pantry boy Akash. I love this kid. Every day he serves me coffee in my office (before you get judgmental let me assure you this is common practice in India AND he serves everyone else in the office too). Everyday he has a smile. He loves talking with me to learn English and he dreams of one day being a businessman. I love this kid.

The event was a success and it was quite hard to focus on work the rest of the day…but we managed. Even Tenley took to the mic, just like her parents, and brought laughter and smiles to all.

On the actual day of Diwali we went on a walk and there were several makeshift stores selling flowers. They were beautiful.

But by far and away what came to our attention was fireworks stands. All over the place. Most of them would be illegal in most US states.

And sure enough that day the fireworks started about noon but really picked up around 8pm. There were some so loud they shook our windows. We enjoyed most of the evening on our balcony, breathing in extremely polluted air but watching an unbelievable and free fireworks show across the horizon. For a few hours it sounded like we were in a war zone.

The fireworks continued for several nights. One woke me dead out of my sleep at 3am. Just a big “POW” enough to jolt me awake. It continued for almost a week after including one Tuesday morning where some guy was up at 6am lighting off fireworks in the distance. It was crazy, us Americans and our fireworks are so tame.

Thus ended our celebration of the largest Indian holiday. Now that I have experienced the whole year of Indian celebrations I have to admit that I think Holi is still my favorite. Nothing like aggressively going after kids to throw dirt in their face. yes, I am still a child.

But we loved the theme, the lights, the celebrations, and the spirit of Diwali and look forward to celebrating it again next year!

An Indian Halloween

Tami and I love to throw parties. Tami is a certified Event Planner. We have thrown birthday parties, Christmas parties, Thanksgivings, New Years, and yes Halloween parties. We even did a gender reveal party once! So as October approached we asked ourselves “Should we throw a Halloween Party in India?” Of course the answer was “Hell yeah!”.

Now India is a country where Halloween is not celebrated. However it does seem to be garnering alot of interest. When I was here for Halloween last year I saw no costumes, no decoration, no candies. You wouldn’t know it was even happening. Most of our friends here ask us what the holiday is about. They have seen it and think it mainly involves ghosts, witches, and vampires (there is truth there).

We had to plan this in advance so we ordered what we thought were the easiest items to transport – vampire outfits – along with Halloween candy and decorations from the US. Amazon in India did have some Halloween stuff but not much. Tami also bought about 100 syringes for jello shots. So we had the basics for our party. And as time went on Tami got roped in to doing our apartment building’s Halloween festival for the kids AND I worked with my staff to do a Halloween at the office. And just like that – we are planning 3 parties over a 10 day period.

Home Halloween — we hosted this the Friday night before Halloween. We invited mostly friends from our society (that means apartment complex) and a few outside guests. We were honored to host my friend and coworker, Shivani Choudhary, fly in for the day during her trip to India with her husband and son. So you start the party of course with a scary Halloween mix of music — the X files theme song, Halloween movie theme song, Thriller, Monster Mash, etc. We couldn’t find pumpkins so we paid $5 to buy a virtual jack o lantern from Apple TV. Put up some bats and spiders and turn down the lights…

Then of course there is the food and drink. Now we set the timing of the party from 7-9pm and said we would have light snacks and drinks. Here is what Tami prepared, look at this ghoulish party table.

Everything in the picture is probably self explanatory but the red and white items in the center front are deviled eggs prepared to look like bloody brains from a half skull. Pretty good. And as for drinks – Tami made her famous heavy pour jello shots to start. Then we filled up two containers with a pre mixed cocktail. One was Gin, soda water, and seven up with lime and orange slices. The other was Rum, pineapple juice, and seven up.

I think by now all of our pancreas’s were screaming in fear as to the amount of sugar about to enter our systems.

The party probably had about 20 people and lasted until about 10:30pm but it was a great time. We had a photobooth wall and everything. Great thing about it was nobody had to drive home. For those that don’t live at our society, they already have their drivers waiting for them. Ohhh the benefits of India!

Society Halloween — This year was our society’s first trick or treat program. The kids got to go door to door to collect treats at the participating apartments. It was a fun time but even when all you have to do is use elevators and stairs it was pretty tiring! We had to quit about half way because Tenley was having a tired melt down. I think we all went down for naps. That night however was the Society Party that Tami helped to plan. It was on our rooftop around sunset. They did a great job with the decorations.

Tami had arranged several stations for games and kid activities and games like ball toss, cup knock over, witch hat ring toss, and a craft station to make pumpkins and goats. Tami led a relay race with the bigger kids with bumpkins and skulls. There was a food buffet for the kids and adults with Halloween music blasting on the speakers. We left after about 90 minutes but definitely enjoyed it. It was the first time many of the attendees have ever been to a Halloween event.

Office Halloween — I will fully admit here that I did hardly any of the work for the office party. All I told the team was, let’s celebrate Halloween, get some decorations, ask people to come in costume if they feel comfortable, and let’s set aside 30 minutes for treats and assorted desserts. Ashish, our facilities administrator, went all out and when I came to the office this is what I saw walking in. Isn’t this awesome for office decorations?

I was so impressed. Most people had some form of costume on. A face painter came by for two hours and gave alot of people a makeup costume. After a ton of pictures, we then had a “ramp walk” which meant nothing to me at the time. Now I know it means catwalk. With music blazing, our MC Ashish, led a catwalk costume parade through the office. It was hilarious and I loved how they got in to it!

We had some assorted desserts and even a little dancing. Then it was 6pm and we all went back to work…in costume….it was awesome. Here is our office group shot.

Suffice it to say, India knocked Halloween out of the park. We celebrated harder and better than probably at any point in the US. Did I miss the Halloween night trick or treating with the boys or sitting on my front porch terrorizing children in exchange for candy…yes…but this more than made up for it. We all cannot wait until next year!

Oktoberfest In Pune

It wouldn’t be the early fall if it wasn’t for my traditional celebration of my German heritage — Oktoberfest! This year is new because I am celebrating it in a place with very little German influence, little to know understanding of the holiday, and in 87 degree weather! We actually celebrated it over two weekends. I will call them Feast and Party.

Feast – We went to the Oktoberfest brunch at the Marriott Suites here in Pune. The Marriott Suites has a chef, Christian Huber, who has German ancestry but is actually Italian. He splits his time between two Italian restaurants – one at the Marriott Suites in Koregoan Park and the other at the JW Marriott near Baner. He loves being able to bring some of his cooking methods and dishes to Pune. Anyway, he loves Oktoberfest so he themed this particular Sunday afternoon brunch after it.

The food was fantastic and honestly made my month. Just to have pork sausage galore, GOOD sauerkraut, cabbage salad, ground mustard, and the ultimate joy – Schweinshaxe. It was buffet style.

The food was fantastic. Several different types of chicken and pork sausages, leberkase, and various chicken and meat dishes. In a mostly veg country it was great to sit back and feel the meat sweats roll down my brow. Chef Huber did a fantastic job putting really authentic food out there. Congrats! And of course the one thing I didn’t mention is the pretzels and cheese sauce…yummy.

In Pune it is actually VERY difficult to find pretzels even the bagged ones. So it was an extra treat to be able to eat these Bavarian styled salted bread items. They had an all you can eat pasta station and my wife figured out if you have them just cook the cheese sauce then you could use it as a dip for the pretzels. Wunderbar!

They also had spaetzle that you could choose from at the pasta station so Tenley got to enjoy kaise on her spaetzle.

We of course also had beer. I have written about this before but the beer in India is just not that good. First of all they do not allow imports, or at least they are very difficult to find. They do have international brands like Carlsberg, Becks, Bud, etc. but it is just the labeling on the can — it is all made in India. And as the Germans say, what makes their beer so good (other than centuries of perfecting it) is the water. So I am embarrassed to admit I only had 3 beers during our brunch – the only options were a light beer and a local hefe. Both were not that good. But the food more than made up for it!

Now on to the Party. This was the next Sunday at the Pune Horse Race Track. The official Pune Oktoberfest cosponsored by several German companies. Now we went on Sunday which is more the family day and we go there early as we had to leave for a Garba party that was later that afternoon. So it was fairly empty.

The big party is on Saturday night where they actually stay open until midnight and have a live oompah ban flown in from Germany. Anyway when we were there the surround sound was playing various classic rock hits which I found a bit odd but I enjoyed it.

So where the Marriott had great food, the Oktoberfest was a disappointment. The advertising flyer promoted “German cuisine” of which there was barely any. They had probably 10 restaurant vendors on site – most cooking local food, one Mexican stand (yeah shocked by that too), and one stand that did sausages. I bet you can’t guess which one we went to.

This was the only shot of what one of the pork sausages. They usually put mustard and mayo on but my wife just likes mayo. I don’t like mayo on my dogs, so just got mustard on mine. No sauerkraut, no cabbage, no schweinbraten, nothing else. Oh well, first world problems. Tenley liked it.

Ok let’s focus on the beer. A bit better than the Marriott’s selection. It was a local brewery called Kimaya. The beers still weren’t even close to as good as German beer but they were much better than the week before. Here was the selection list.

So we sampled all the beers except the Hefe. They went down well in the heat around us. Of course Tenley got jealous and wanted her cold dessert so she got a gelato ice cream, which she proceeded to share with me. Bless her gentle heart.

We spent about 2 hours there in total. I think next year Tami and I will go on the Saturday night one. More people, more energy, and real German music. However, it was worth the $10 admittance fee just to see the flags, hang out on a sunny afternoon and enjoy some somewhat decent food — even if it lacked all the “Authenticity”. We look forward to having a better game plan and also to enjoying some real German beer when we come back for holiday in the US this December. Until then Prost from the Kemmling’s!