Granny Amma and Thatha

Granny Amma giving the girls some African jewellery

There's been a great deal of excitement today in Mayaworld because her grandparents have arrived for a ten day visit! They flew in this morning from Tanzania and Maya has been beside herself with excitement. She was even sick in the taxi on the way to meet them ("300 rupees please sir'mam, for cleaning costs") and ended up having to wear Lily's tiny trousers. She also flung herself into a water fountain before they came out, so Granny Amma and Thatha were greeted to the sight of a wet, grubby little girl in short trousers aswell as an unrecognisable toddler, Lily. I say unrecognisable because Granny Amma and Thatha, for those of you who don't know, have been on the road since January 2008 (yep, nearly 2 years) driving from Cambridge to Cape Town down the west side of Africa (as you do) and now they're on their way back up the east side, having reached Tanzania. Yes, they are truly intrepid travellers, not like us living the life of riley in Bangalore! Click here to see their website.

A quick note on their rather peculiar grandparental names.....my mother said she never liked being Mum as it made her feel like a deoderant and I didn't feel, as I got older, like calling her Mummy. So by the time I reached India in 2000, I started writing letters to her calling her Amma as I was in Tamil Nadu and 'Amma' is Tamil for Mummy. The name well and truly stuck and she's been Amma ever since. So it seemed like a good option for her to be Granny Amma to Maya and Lily (ok, so it translates to Granny Mummy, but who's checking) and grandpa in Tamil is Thatha - and there you have it!

I must say we were fairly amazed to even see them at the airport as the poor things had a bag stolen last week in Dar es Salaam, filled with money, passports, Indian visas, camera etc etc - nightmare. But by the skin of their teeth they made it! We're taking the travellers to Mysore tomorrow for the weekend so they can see something other than the highly unrepresentative Indian city of Bangalore. Let's hope Maya manages to contain her excitement on the train and not vomit. Fingers crossed.