The world has changed

I am just thinking how much the world has changed during the past decade or so.

Who would have expected to bump into more Chinese than Westerners at famous tourist destinations and air ports.

Who would ever thought that the 'Super' power could face a debt crisis.

Who would have thought protests which were earlier considered as a disruptive tool be converted into a revolutionary tool and educated youth will be running them to topple leaders who had conquered for decades.

Who would have thought that there would be riots in London.

Who would have expected the English Cricket team of being capable of winning series' and winning the world cup or being number one in any form of cricket.

Who would have thought that an Australian Cricket team could actually loose matches.

Ah the list is too long. I quit, but the world has changed!

Pigeon pics

Taking pictures of birds is not an easy task, but pigeons are usually an exception. They allow human's to get close to them and also are relatively slow moving. I took these two pigeon pics at Treetops.

Sighting the leopard at Aberdare

In Kenya leopard sightings are very rare. From what I have heard out of the big five, leopard sightings are the rarest. Our guide for the game drive told us that this was the closest sighting he has had in his almost 25 year old career. He quipped that usually we say that we sighted the leopard even when we get a glimpse of its tail. As usual even the leopard didn't want to miss the date with us. So it turned up and did all the posing for us!

As usual I had a field day taking pictures till the others said, dude its time for us to leave.

Last Home of Lord Baden Powell

Lord BP lived his last 3 years of his life at Nyeri, Kenya. His humble one room home has now been converted into a museum and the adjoining part converted into Hotel Outspan.

As I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs I did get a chance to visit the place and these are the pictures I managed to capture there.

[picture on left]The plaque at the outer side of the house	[picture on right]The house as it stands today

The scout and the Girl Guide badges engraved on the walls

Lord BP's office room

From two angles

Collection of his sketches

The Royal story

We came to treetops and I was told that my room number was SB and Harsha's one was SA. His was on the 2nd floor and I was told that I need to go one floor above. I walked around the floor and couldn't find a door marked as SB. I was more interested about picture taking hence forgot about the room and went to the roof top.

After some time when Harsha inquired something about the room I remembered that I have not sorted it out. So I went and told the staff I cannot find SB. They replied, so you are the King, I replied no I am Sayanthan. All of them laughed and said you are going to stay at the queens suite so you are the King. I was still clue less, then they took me to the room marked as queen Elizabeth suite and explained to me the history of the place. Apparently its at the old tree top which is about 100 meters away from here where then princess was on Holiday when she descended to the thorn. The room I had been given, I was told is the one in which she had stayed during her visit in 1982 and hence named as her suite.

I am not a fan of Royals and monarchy, but one thing that still fascinates me and fascination increases the more I travel is on how they managed to rule the half the planet with such a small number of people from a relatively small country. Its something which I had not been able to understand or interpret. Right now I am not worried about the nostalgia about the room I am typing this from but happy for the splendid views I am having right in front of my eyes.

Plus I have just returned from a game drive at which too we were lucky. I would write and post pictures of what happened there during the next few days. Keep reading!

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Nyeri->pedro->scouting->Lord BP->Nyeri

I am seated at a balcony on an elevation facing the rows of pine trees on chilly Nyeri night. Behind me is a fire place, for which I am planning to make a request to have it lit for me later in the night. For now its very relaxing and I cannot stop making comparisons to the Pedro camp site in Sri Lanka, which was the place to which I went on my first camping as a 11 year old. There is something similar, perhaps the coldness, perhaps the wooden furniture, perhaps pine trees, perhaps the ceiling and the wood work reminds me of Mr. Gnanaprakasam, who was our legendary scout master.

As a kid one of the best things I choose to do, is scouting. I choose to do scouting not because I understood anything about it, but it was because my siblings were scouts and I have heard too many tales from scout camps, hence I wanted go and experience the same.

As soon as I joined, I realized that I was a junior and I am not really a scout till I passed tender foot. Initially I was told that I will be given four weeks and if I don't pass the exams; I cannot make it to the camp. I tried hard but still I couldn't pass all the exams on time. I struggled to pass the history of scouting exam. It was not easy to pass for two reasons, one because my hard disk has always been bad secondly, when Mr. Gnanaprakasam asks those questions its impossible to recall what you memorized.

By being a scout I learned a lot of things which are helping me in each day of my life. Starting from travelling, cooking, getting along with people and above all it has contributed in crafting my value system. As a child I was thankful to scouting for giving all the fun. Today as an adult I admire the contribution that it has made to make what I am. At that time Lord Baden Powell was just the founder of the movement, but today I realize what an admirable man he is, to have started such a movement and enriched the life of millions ( or is it billions).

Although I was weak in the history of scouting, right at this moment here I am seated at Nyeri in Kenya, right at the scenic place at which lord BP picked to spend his last three years of his life and doing the best I can do by writing a blog to pay tribute to the great man!

Tomorrow I plan to make a visit to the lord BP museum and then a game drive in to the adjoining nature park and spend the night there. Be prepared to read my post tomorrow.

Note: Nuwan has been chasing me to write about our days of scouting for many months, I guess it was fittingly postponed and probably meant to be written from this historical place!

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How a mother's treatment differs

After a lot of research I had concluded the following as the biggest difference between Sri Lankan monkeys and African Monkeys (or is it Baboon?). Interestingly local ones (as long as I had seen) carry their little ones below the belly, where as the African ones seems to carry them on their backs!

African ones - I called this picture the "parents meeting"

Our ones - This one is called as "lil one"

But irrespective of the continent or species the mothers love doesn't change!