Vacation @Kabini

When we’ve gone for vacations in the past, we’ve done home stays and stayed at hotels. The recent trip to Kabini involved a first for the kid: a stay at a resort. When she asked what a resort was, I was very tempted to say, “You’ll know it when you see it”. Wisely though, I held my tongue.

On the drive to Kabini, she lay down in the back of the car and started to doze off. Unfortunately, right about then, I had to hit the brakes hard, and she slid off the rear seat. She woke up on the floor, groggy, and in a little pain. After we made sure she was OK, I couldn’t resist telling her at least this Humpty Dumpty got back in one piece. She was not amused.

She was blown away by the resort. You can imagine how good the place was when I tell you that the place didn’t have any TV, and yet in 3 ½ days, not once did she complain. Sure, she had the tablet and free wi-fi, but TV is different. Now and then, she did pester us with “What’s planned for the evening? For tomorrow?” like questions (she’s a kid, after all). My wife finally told her that the intent of the vacation was to be lazy, not to keep planning what’s next. Later, when I told her to learn to put on her dress herself, she replied, “No, amma told me that one should be lazy on vacation, so I won’t learn anything”. Anything you say can and will be used against you…

She loved using the bicycles at the resort: pick any one you like, leave it wherever you want. All the kids, including yours truly, however, were possessive about the bikes. The first reason was sensible: the size mattered. The second reason was girl specific: the love of that horrible color pink… my daughter would park “her” bike outside the restaurant, then keep checking repeatedly to ensure some other kid hadn’t “stolen it”.

My wife and I had a great massage at the resort. Unbelievably, my daughter who had to be in the same room (for lack of anywhere to leave her), did not disturb us even once. Sure, she had the downloaded cartoons and Hindi songs on the tablet to entertain her, but nothing makes you more attractive to your kid than the fact that you don’t want to be disturbed…

We went on a land safari in a group in an open bus to the Tiger Reserve. We were lucky that the driver spotted a tiger. The telephoto lenses came out, and the jockeying for the best shot started among the different vehicles. The tiger tried to retire to a better (hidden) spot to sleep, and then the wait began for it to wake up and move to a position for the best pic. It became a long wait, and my daughter announced, “This is why I like zoos better. You can see the animal easily”. What’s all the fuss about animals in their natural habitat? Eventually, we moved on and got to see langoors, wild boars, and peacocks. And lots and lots of deer. So many of them, in fact, that she remarked, “They should call this Deer Reserve, not Tiger Reserve”. The icing on the cake was a long “encounter” with a male elephant who seemed to be saying, “Get off my turf”. It was a game of blinking at the last possible minute for our driver: the longer we stayed, the closer the elephant came, and the better the view (and pics). Eventually, the elephant settled the matter by the universal jungle code to mark territory: urinating and shitting. After which my daughter giggled, “He just walked away after that, didn’t even clean himself”.

The next day, we went on a water safari in a boat. We got to see some local birds, elephants, an otter who sprawled in his sleep in a very human-like manner, and thankfully, crocodiles. Like all kids, if you say “water”, she’ll say “crocodile”.

The swimming pool at the resort was too deep for my daughter to stand in (at any location). After protracted negotiations (“I know to swim” v/s “What if you get tired midway?”), she resentfully agreed to wear arm floats. Then, to prove she was right, she demo’ed her complete repertoire of different swimming styles (freestyle, backstroke, one-handed), all the tricks she knew (under water flips and handstands), and raced and beat my wife repeatedly. I can’t swim, so I escaped that fate. I guess she did learn from all those swimming classes…

On the trip back home, she felt queasy, eventually throwing up. That seemed to get it out of her system… literally. After we reached home, I commented that we had a great trip. She stared at me and said, “Really? I didn’t feel good when I puked”. Hallelujah! That’s a first: puking now leaves a bad taste in her mouth. She enjoyed herself without TV, aligned with the food timings in the resort, made friends with the floating population of kids, let us have a massage… I guess a foreign vacation can be done with this kid after all.