Chasing the clouds - III

The night temperature dropped suddenly and rapidly. I was okay when I was outside. But once inside the room, I was shivering and wore two cardigans over  my thermal wear. I put on woollen socks and also a woolen shawls covering my head. Then I tucked into bed which was nearest to the room heater.I spread the woollen blanket on the bed and pulled the thick cotton quilt over. In this position, I felt comfortable after about 15 minutes.I was feeling nice and cosy and quickly went to sleep. ile

Next day after hot hot puris and potato sabji for breakfast, so lovingly served and downing it with several cups of tea, we checked out and went to a beautiful park nearby. It had a very large lake with boating facility. In every tourist spot where there is a lake and there is a boat, we want to go in there, never mind that we have done this in umpteen places. S offered to pedal and so we sat comfortably and enjoyed the beautiful view. A very cool and misty morning, with the sun streaming in through the tall tress and making patterns in the water surface. Ducks floating about in the edge of the lake, busy and minding their business. It was bliss.

We came out and took a walk around the garden.It was undulating terrain, and put a bit of strain on me. We sat down for a while near a tree and were treated to a big retinue of resting white ducks. They were pleasantly resting with a few of them cleaning their backs and not a care in the world. The scene shifted with a small kitten starting to stroll across. There were 13 ducks and one small kitten. Each duck was atleast twice the size of that kitten. But still when the kitten was at a distance, one duck got up and as if on cue, all the ducks got up  and were in full battle readiness. The kitten made a big arch and did not for a minute falter or change its path. After it was out of their range, he quickly made a trot for a short distance and again into a leisurely walk. It was beautiful play of 'who is bigger, me or you" played out in their animal kingdom.

We had a short glimpse of the golf course. There were leisurely gentlemen putting and security guards shooing away us petty tourists who were using public roads! The golf course was spread across both sides of the road, so. We had some litchi juice from a roadside kiosk and were on our way. We had spotted  a huge lake before entering Shillong, and we wanted to try our luck to go near the waterfront. It was only later that we looked up and saw that Urumi lake is a famous tourist destination. It is really really huge and is nicely nestled between mountains on all sides. What a view that was. It was not just another lake, I can tell you. They had speed boats and we immediately opted for one and had a wonderful ride with the chill breeze hitting our faces and the water splashing all around us. That was very good.

We were just in time to get back to Guwahati before 5pm.What is the deadline you may ask. The whole of north east observes hartal on both independence day and republic day from 5 pm the previous day to 5 pm on the day. So back home just before 5pm.

No traffic jams this time.Anywhere.And that was a wonderful gift!