Niagara!!

“When the water from the sky touches the earth, it creates heaven”.

The name itself evokes a mystical association for most of us. Right from the time I heard about an unclassified wonder of this world in my geography books, I had always wanted to visit this magnificent place. It is one of two most visited places by Indians in USA, other being Statue of Liberty. No American trip is complete without it.

For the uninitiated, Niagara Falls is the collective name for three waterfalls that straddle the international border between the Canadian province Ontario and the American state of New York. They form the southern end of the Niagara Gorge.

My wife and I had great opportunity to visit this magical wonderland in 2013 right after we had gotten married. Our first tryst with this waterfall still lives with us and we longed to come back again.

Last year, we had the opportunity to visit this gorgeous place again, courtesy my father-in-law and our best friend and his family (Ravi, Akshaya and Aahna kutty). With the music of AR Rahman humming in our ears, Ravi geared us through the 8 hour journey in our 15-seater minivan. Though we were all exhausted by the time we landed (close to mid-night), we could not let go of the opportunity to see this waterfall in beauty of the night lights.

We head to the ‘Maid of the Mist’ (boat tour right up to the base of the horse-shoe falls) in the morning the next day and were greeted by a million gallons of pristine water falling down, which spraying us with its cool mist. We skipped the ‘Cave of Winds’ (which gets you right up close to Bridal Veil Falls) this time around. Collecting all our magnet souvenirs we head back, not without promising this amazingly water-falls another visit very soon, when our princess would have grown up to collect all the memories of this place.