There are new attractions in Banda Aceh. Now when you go to local park with your children, Mickey and Minnie will come to play. You can talk to them, dance with them, and finally have a picture with them. But in the end, you know what happens with the children- they started pulling Minnie’s panties!

Finally, I flew in and out of the new ‘Rajeev Gandhi International Airport’ in Hyderabad during last week of April. We, the residents of Hyderabad were eagerly waiting for the inauguration of the airport, and brought some property around that.

During the introduction, there was much hype about the airport, being compared to world class airports of Singapore and Hong Kong.

For me, this is the smallest airport I have seen which are built in modern times. It’s pretty similar to Kuala Lumpur airport, but have just 7 aircraft hangers for both international and domestic. There are only two baggage belts for International and two for domestic terminals, which are of course, looks different. But, may due to the initial days, it takes an hour to get your bag!!

There are electronic feedback terminals, from which I have given my feedback, but still I am waiting for an acknowledgement through my email.

The airport is way out of the city, far from the civilization, have a steep landing angle (33 degrees) and very expensive. But its cosy, tidy and world class. The good thing is that its just the first phase of construction. Looking forward to see a ‘Aerotropolitan’ which spreads like a wild fire from the airport area!

Banda Aceh city celebrated its 803^rd Anniversary. There were week long celebrations starting from Elephant Ride by the Governor of Aceh.

The most interesting thing is the ‘Fashion Show’. Since it’s a conservative area, all the women need to cover their head, arms and feet. So the girls in the fashion show were dressed beautifully with out violating any dress code. The head is covered with beautiful throne made out of flowers, and they look quite pretty. The girls are students of Senior High School.