Nom Nom Nom

"Oh wow you're going to India, the food will be interesting!" Said lots of friends, before we came out here.

They weren't wrong.

Food in India is like everything else in India.  Contradictory.  I could say portions are huge but often they're not. But then sometimes a Thali (mix and match big plate, with rice, dahl, veg and chapatti) will be big enough to feed an army. I could say the food is spicy, but most of the currys have been pretty tame. A lot of people eat raw chillis on the side to spice up their meal.

Travelling around as a tourist you get to see the best and worst food on offer. We have been to many local Dhabas (literally means "box", a cheap and cheerful restaurant) where we've had some really authentic, local cuisine. The kind of meals people are going home to eat with their families.

In Lucknow we sampled very very tasty Nawabi Kebabs, made from lamb (and beef!). These were brought over from Persia in the 15th century, and are fantastic. Lucknow has quite a large Muslim population - there's no way beef would be served in a Hindu area.

We have also eaten some fantastic deserts and sweets, mostly handmade in small shops. Jess has fallen in love with jalebi,  which are deep-fried sugar swirls, very sweet and a bit addictive! A lot of the sweets have rose water in them which I absolutely can't stand, but it's potluck most of the time. I enjoy living on the edge.

Eating on the tourist trail we've also had the worst, most terrible food imaginable.

In Udaipur I ate the world's worst pizza. It was like someone had put yoghurt and ketchup on a two-week old slice of bread. Some of the worst food has been at tourist places which look nice, but serve terrible food.

Below are some photos - I'm afraid I can't label them properly on my phone, but they include a man making Jalebi, the Ohm symbol in the top of a tasty cappucino made by a belgian man, Pawan, our friend in Dharamsala next to his tandoor oven with racks of chicken, and some photos of people making roti, kebabs, Jess holding aloft the best lassi (yoghurt drink, we have had some revolting ones) in Jaipur and other things in various places in India.

In summary, street food is good.

Guidebook Culture by Martyn

So we set out from Gatwick all those months ago with only a few things in our hand luggage: money, phones, some of the hand sanitiser stuff and a bit of sun cream, oh and our trusty Lonely Planet India book.

Once we left Dharamsala,  we hit the tourist trail and looked to our guidebook for handy advice about hotels, restaurants and the prices of trains and taxis.

We met many tourists in bars, hotels and restaurants, all with their copies of Lonely Planet - in French,  German and Hebrew, amongst others.

We soon realised that so many tourists and travellers spend their time with their nose in the guidebook, looking up what you are *supposed* to do in a town. We've been guilty of it as well.

Here's am example. In Jaipur, on MI road, the main road in/out of the tourist area there are maybe 25 restaurants, 10 lassi shops and countless small dhabas serving food. In LP, it suggests you visit 1 restaurant and 1 lassi shop on this road in particular. There are scores of tourists walking past restaurants and shops working out whether "this is the one in the book" or not.

This is good in some ways- the string of lassi shops only exists now because of the one original, made popular by guidebooks. More people are able to open businesses because of the increased footfall.

I also understand that people travelling to unknown places will want recommendations for places to eat.

But. It is such a shame that so many tourists seem to be blind to all of their senses,  and use their LP book as their Bible, Torah, Koran or Ramayana (delete as appropriate).

So many restaurants trade off their mention in the guidebooks that standards slip in other areas. We've been to places recommended by LP with awful food, service and it often feels as if now they've got in a guidebook, the food doesn't matter so much.

The best food we've had on our trip has been in small Dhabas in and amongst the chai stalls, fabric shops and jewellery shops.

Ok, I know I am ranting about restaurants on the internet, and moaning about a book I chose to buy, and could get rid of. I suppose I'm cautioning other against not looking beyond their guidebooks, and missing out on experiences that you only get by taking a chance. Going to the same air-conditioned restaurant as every other tourist isn't taking a leap of faith.

On the road Mk2

We've just arrived in Varanasi after a 4 hour train journey from Allahbad. It was a different type of journey to what we've experienced before so I thought you should know.

We travelled by train (for a recap on classes see my post on Delhi) in sleeper class which we hadn't done before. It's basically the same as 3AC but without the AC. Surprisingly comfortable, as we left early before the heat.

The thing about sleeper class is that tourists don't tend to use it as they can afford 3AC very easily, and for long journeys especially it's nice to be cool. By the time we'd booked our tickets 3AC had soldout, so sleeper it was!

We found our bunks ok and sat down with a group of locals who were all very friendly and wanted to chat. For the first half an hour this was ok, by the 2nd hour I was a bit fed up. We were definitely a novelty, they wanted to know all about us (which is nice) there were smiles when we said we were married, cries of confusion when we said we didn't have children and frowns when we told them that men and women drink together.


Through their pigeon English and our attrocious Hindi we had a lovely conversation, but by this point the rest of the carriage had been listening and we turn round to find 10 or more people standing round us wanting photos, it was like being a celebrity!

When the chattiest man started reading Martyn's palm, it all got a bit much for me and I had a fit of the giggles. I didn't know what to do for the best! Apparently the verdict from both our palms is that we are both clever but Martyn is more so (well he is a man), we are both rich but I am more so, so I have to give money to Martyn (we'll see about that) and that we'll both have 2 children, initally there was some concern as I was going to have 1 and Martyn 2, but luckily for us the man found another line on my hand. Phew!

Oh I forgot the food! There are wallahs (Boys selling stuff) every where. They walk up and down the aisle shouting about what we can buy.

If we'd have wanted to we could have had:

Chai, peas, chickpeas, newspapers (in English or Hindi), samosas, icecream, whole cucumbers, carrots, bottles of water, silk scarves and socks!

Plus the bonus flute playing and singing...

All in all sleeper was fine, and we would travel on it again, but more than any other carriage we've been on there has been more chatting, awkward questions, no personal space and generally the feeling that you are "up for grabs" (hopefully not literally).

Lucknow and Allahbad

I've grouped these two together as that's the order we visited them! We only spent a couple of days in each so theres not enough info for 2 posts...

Lucknow
On arriving in Lucknow, we noticed how different it was. We were in a new state (Uttar Pradesh) and everything was green, unlike the desert state of Rajasthan. We grabbed a Rickshaw to our home stay (like a BnB) and settled in. 

The homestay was in a very rich area with not many tourists around, well actually no tourists at all. We found this an odd place to have a place for tourists to stay but never mind, although when we went out later that day to go and explore it was virtually impossible to find  rickshaw to take us!

Lucknow itself is a very Muslim city and this was reflected in the archetechture and food. There were delicious meat kebabs on offer, althugh when we actually had them instead of being minced meat it was ground to a paste, like eating fried pate. Not altogether bad, but a bit odd.

We visited the tourist hotspots, a few mosques dotted around, a couple of tombs and a labyrinth. They were very interesting and were different to the Mughal art that we'd already seen. We don't tend to have guides as they can charge a lot and they set the pace of a visit which we don't like. However this doesn't seem to stop guards and random old men following us around and telling us the history of a place and then expecting payment, even when we say we don't want a guide. A particularly over zealous man followed us around a tomb telling us the info, I however walked off as I wasn't that interested and definitely didn't want to pay him. he had other ideas, shouting "Madam, will you please listen" across the very echoey hall! I slouched over like a teenager and glared at him the whole time. Needless to say we didn't pay him...

At the homestay we met a few lovely people from America (everybody say hi!), Aaron, Melinda, Josephine, Chelsea, Anastacia and Schuyler. They're students that have been given an opportunity to study in India as a partnership program with their college. So we all went out together the next day into the markets to see what we could find.

Allahbad
On arriving in Allahbad we were virtualy ambushed by all of the different rickshaw drivers wanting to take us to our destination. Even though we could walk to the hotel! We were followed by one particularly persistant cycle rickshaw driver the whole length of the road and up to the hotel car park!

After we settled in and sorted ourselves out we went for a walk to go and explore only to find out that a lot of places are closed on a Sunday. D'oh! We found the Indian Coffee House ( a co-op business that has branches all over India) so at least we knew what we were getting.

After a tasty coffee and an icecream we hopped in another rickshaw with a guy that looks like the Indian Robin Williams! We went to the Nehru's house, who are the first family of Indian politics. They have produced 3 Prime ministers including the infamous Indira Gandhi, only the 2nd female leader of a country after Maggie Thatcher.

It was interesting as the house has been kept as it was when it was used as a political base ad so all the meeting rooms and bedrooms have been kept in their respective times. There's even a small plaque showing where Mahatma Gandhi used to meditate on the balcony.

Strangely there is also a planetarium on site, which we went to. It was mainly in Hindi but it was quite therapeutic to sit under a dome and look at the stars above us. There was a 20 minute section on alien life, which we think may have been speculating on what aliens look like... A little odd but nevermind.

Low and behold when we walked out, our friend Robin Williams was waiting to take us home!

(No photos I'm afraid as this PC won't let my phone hook up)

Some thoughts from Martyn ( finally)

We've been in India for nearly 3 months now. It sometimes feels like no time at all, and other days (when we are tired, or have been on the road for a while) like we have been here forever.

A quick recap of the trip so far: we spent 9 weeks in Dharamsala, in Himachal Pradesh volunteering with an organisation called CCS. Since finishing there in July, we have been doing a bit of a tourist thing, visiting Delhi, Agra and Jaipur ("The Golden Triangle", that an awful lot of tourists visit), and then onto Udaipur, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer in Rajasthan. We're currently sat in a homestay in a very nice part of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh.

What I want to blog about is the things I've learnt  or noticed since we began travelling in May; which wasn't that long ago. I think the learning curve has been pretty steep!

Anyway I need to blog more often, and so here are some things that came out when I started writing...

1. I can be pretty confident with strangers when I need to be. Back home I would rarely ask a stranger for directions, or talk to someone in a shop in passing, or even ask someone to take my picture at a tourist site. The fact that we are in a different country, just the two of us and we're travelling so much means that not a day goes by when we have to ask for directions in Hindi, or bargain for a tuk-tuk ride, or try to order train tickets at a busy station (again, mostly in broken Hindi). This has meant that we have to be confident and have to talk to new people. This has been one of the best bits about our trip in India. This way we have met some great people.

2. India has taught me to be more patient. Jess has probably already blogged about the concept of "India Time". Some things happen very slowly here. Some things don't work, and some just aren't happening today, for some reason. What these things are changes all the time, but we have learned to greet these occasions with "well, this is India". I think that we could all do with a little more patience. I think we shouldnt think "well, this is India", we should think " ok, well, what's the rush?"

3. India has changed the dynamic between Jess and I when we are out in public. Jess has already blogged about her experiences as a western woman in India, but I can see that the arguably male dominated culture has changed the way we work together. Because I'm a man, men in authority such as police officers, ticket inspectors etc only talk to me. Men in shops hand me change, not Jess. People touting for business, be it outside restaurants or at taxi ranks only talk to me , and ignore Jess, to the extent that she can walk 3 paces behind me and get no bother from touts/taxi drivers at all.

The effect of this means that although the two of us are a single unit, working together and sharing our views, coming to decisions together - Jess rarely has to represent us.

I feel like I end up doing more, taking the lead for the two of us, without Jess getting a look in. I don't really know how to fix this, considering it is these men who have the problem, not us. Perhaps the two of us can work better together and I will correct these men if they talk to me and overlook Jess.

I would be interested to hear if anyone can identify with any of these experiences, or has any thoughts about my thoughts...

Udaipur

We were in Udaipur 2 weeks ago so sorry for the delay!

We arrived in Udaipur at 530 in the morning not quite sure what to do. So we hopped in a rickshaw and got dropped at our hotel. We didn't figure it would be open but that we could go for a walk nearby. The rickshaw driver had other ideas. He got the light from his phone and shone it in the face of the poor boy who was sleeping behind the desk (common practice). He mumbled lots and told us to go away until 10. Fair enough! Apparently satisfied that we wouldn't get into our hotel the rickshaw driver then tried to offer us hotels all over Udaipur! This is pretty common, everyone is trying to get commission from somewhere so we replied with our stock phrase 'no, no we've already paid! (we hadnt)' and he eventually let us be.

Udaipur is surrounding a very big lake so we went and sat on the shore for an hour or so just enjoying watching a town wake up.

Udaipur is the home of the Bond film, Octopussy. We didn't know this until we got to the town and it was EVERYWHERE! There's graffiti and signs and offers of film viewings whereever you go. (yes that is a photo of a man weeing up an octopus. Men in India wee where ever they like)

We were finally let into our hotel and chilled on the rooftop terrace overlooking the lake for the whole day. In the evening we thought we'd take up the offer of a free viewing of a bond film. We ate a pretty cheap crappy dinner of Iceland standard pizza (the shop, not the country) and were moved into a small room with a big tv and a German family and sat and watched Octopussy.

At the time we thought we'd seen the film, turns out we hadn't. A film made by a British company set in India made in the 1970s turns out to be a recipe for disaster! There were so many cringe worthy rascisty moments! All in all not the best bond, although Roger Moore dressed as a clown isn't something I'll forget in a hurry.

For the first time since leaving volunteering Martyn and I had a seperate morning. He went off walking and I had a course in miniature paintings. These are famous in Rajasthan and have a very set style. I enjoyed it so much I did 2! The first is a peacock, the national bird of India and the second is Lord Ganesh, the Hindu God.

(mine are the bottom 2)

The rest of Udaipur is a wash of relaxing on a terrace and getting boat rides. A beautiful little town that we didn't want to leave....

Makes you think...

I rode a camel today.

That in itself was so much fun and so different to anything I've done before. We rode across deserted sand dunes, towards the sunset, wearing a 'laurence of Arabia' turban (dupattas really can be turned into anything!) with our guide and camel wrangler David (not entirely sure if that's his real name).

David lives in the desert. He doesn't own any camels himself as they are very expensive (25,000 rupees) but he is employed by 'the boss'. The boss has 50 camels and several camel wranglers and when hotels say they need camels he gives them to people like David who then takes out tourists.

Because David has a boss he also has a monthly salary. Before I continue, yes I know where this is going and yes he probably sold us a sob story, but I still think this is worth telling.

David's salary is 4000 rupees a month. A paltry amount at around £40-45 depending on the rate.

We tipped him 200 rupees for an enjoyable and exciting new experience. This is his daily pay. We increased his salary that day by 100%. I can't imagine anyone at home tipping any professional their daily wages, yet that's exactly what we did. And all it cost us was equivalent to 1 coffee.

I don't have any startling opinions or witty remarks just... It makes you think.

Jaisalmer

Well I can't say my time in jaisalmer was very productive. I spent 3 days in the hotel room and didn't do very much apart from take walks from the bed to the toilet and back again. Woo!

However our 3rd night was lovely. It was the first time I'd actually been out in jaisalmer and we went to a lovely restaurant. Martyn had been out by himself that day and met up with some people we'd previously met on the train. So after our meal we went to their hotel and had a few drinks and a lot of chat.

Meghna, Prashant and Jasem (everybody say hi) are architects from Bombay (NOT Mumbai) who decided to holiday round Rajasthan for a couple of weeks. They're not that keen on Slumdog Millionaire and like a good beer and chin wag. We chatted well into the night and met up again for lunch the next day.

After lunch we went on a camel safari, we were driven by jeep out of Jaisalmer to cenotaphs, which were beautiful and commemorated the many wives of maharajas who on his death, would jump into a fire to die with him. This last happened in India in 1843, far too recent for my taste.

We were took on to a deserted village, that the guide introduced to us as the vegetarian village. I was mildly confused as most places have vegetarians and there are many vegetarian villages too!

Turned out the evil Salim Singh was head of the State and the people didn't like his he was running the show so one night 84 villages across the state emptied at once! Hopefully that got the message across! 

No-one lives there now as at night you can allegedly hear the villagers wailing and crying as they left their beloved home.

Then we met our camel man, David, and hopped somewhat ungracefully onto a camel each. I remembered Meghna saying that the best bit of a camel ride is them standing up and sitting down. I think I respectfully disagree! The standing up was ok, camels are pretty leggy! They stand with their front legs then their back so that you almost see-saw backwards then forwards. But after a short time of David leading thr camels on foot he then needed to get on mine with me so it had to sit down again! This is a bit daunting as you feel that youre just going to topple off the front!

The walk across the desert was beautiful, and nothing like anything I've done before. Once you get used to the camels' gait it was ok, if a bit wibbly.

After 2 hours or so trekking we stopped at the end of the dunes and had a delicious dinner of curried potatoes and cabbage with rice and chappati, under the moonlight. What an experience!

The golden triangle

We leave Jaipur tonight to head onwards into Rajasthan to udaipur, and I can't lie; I can't wait. It's not that the golden triangle (Delhi, Agra, Jaipur) haven't been fun. It has! We've seen and done so much is these beautiful and bustling cities. But it takes its toll. Hurtling from one destination to another to see the next sight is tiring.

This culminated in this morning not knowing what to do, we wanted to see sights, experience new things, eat and drink to our hearts content but bed was just so comfy... I did what any person of my generation would do, I googled it.

Turns out not only are we not alone on these thoughts, it's also pretty common especially in long trips. There are 2 solutions to the 'backpacker blues' as I like to call it.

1. Mope. Mope till you can mope no more. Wallow to your heart's content, and then move on tomorrow.

As this wasn't an option to us, we had to be out the hotel by 12 we plumbed for:

2. Get off your arse, suck it up and fake it till you make it!

Turns out this works pretty well. There's a small walking tour of Jaipur in the guide book we had so with no better options we did it. And it was great. It takes you through all the main bazaars, sights, smells (oh god the smells!), sounds were overwhelming but as welcoming as going home. We window shopped till we dropped.

Crossing a particularly busy road I had a bit of an argument with a motorbike. As I got to the other side a young guy came over to me and started explaining the etiquette of crossing the road. He then asked us the now infamous line "why don't foreigners talk to the locals? You want to learn our culture but not from us" Well... We tend to like our money in our own pocket until we give it to someone rather than them take it, that's why!

He wasn't connected to a shop and he didn't have any produce he just wanted to chat over chai. We figured why not? And it was just as lovely as we'd hoped. We had chai, we chatted and we parted ways pleasantly with no spending at all :)

2 minutes down the road another guy stopped us with exactly the same line. Ah shit. There's a scam somewhere but even now we can't see where it was! Funnily enough we didn't have chai with him and carried on!

We took an auto rickshaw to a fort high in the mountains that gave spectacular views, even if the ride up and down was a bit bone shaker-esque. My poor girls didn't know what hit them! 

Now to the bus station to overnight to udaipur. Who knows what we'll find...?
(written 8/8/13)

Only in India

It's hard to explain everything, as there are some things we see/experience that would at home be strange or offputting but here we just shrug and say 'only in India' and it is instantly forgotten as anything strange. I'll try and remember as many as I can.

Only in India can you:

See a man squatting doing his business in the street, having a conversation with his friends.

Find the hotel staff sleeping on a mattress behind reception.

Share the street with cows, I have a bruise down my thigh from a cow headbutting me when I tried to shoo it out of our Dharamsala garden...

Have the smell of urinals and food stalls mingle in the air.

Get stuck behind a broken rail crossing barrier, but instead of waiting for officials to sort it just get your tool kit out, 6 able men and take it off the road.

Use your horn to: alert other drivers you are there, you are over taking, you're going round a corner, you're going straight, you're changing lane, staying in lane, have a cough, generally that you own a vehicle, warn a pedestrian you'll run them over, you just think the road is too quiet.

On the metro, women have their own carriages. If men try to ride in that carriage there is a fine. I think this should be brought to the uk!

Small trucks that are designated as 'goods vehicles' tend to carry people. Lots of people. They hang off the back and sit on top of each other.

Large trucks have musical horns.

Extra large trucks carry hay in giant sacks that overhang the sides and back of the lorry bed. 

Seat belts are not mandatory. Most cars don't have them in the back.

Tuk tuks (autorickshaws) are the most convenient way to travel around cities. They are basically motor trikes with a cover on them that can hold 3 people if you don't mind getting cosy (If you're Indian there is no limit to how many people fit). They fit through gaps you didn't think could exist and you take your life in your hands when you get it. The only way to travel! 

There is no limit to how many people you can get on motorbike.

Have the Taj mahal, THE Taj mahal behind you and yet you want to take a photo of 2 sweaty white people.

On the road again...

After an interesting 5 days in Delhi with Karen and Melanie (everyone say hi! We also met volunteering. Melanie finished her program a week after us so we met up a couple of times in Delhi before she left. Melanie is a student in Virginia, studying foreign affairs) we're back on a train, this time to Agra where the famous Taj Mahal is... Oooh!!!

Delhi was great fun, and we managed to tick off a lot of the touristy sights. We now feel like we have a better understanding of Delhi and would now recommend people to visit :)

..........

We are officially tourists as we went to see the Taj Mahal. It is as amazing as you think it is from the photos. And oh so big!