Quotes

I've been told some pretty funny things since my trip began, here are some of them...

FOOD!

I think the time has come to talk about food. Like so many things in India (and everywhere), food is different from town to town, and it's hard to generalize, or even begin to explain the food. I'll try and give an overview of my culinary experience so far...

Northern - Southern
Northern Food is much more based around chapati and naan and therefore most meals provide enough sauce or gravy for you to soak up with your bread. Famous dishes like Aloo Gobi (potato and cauliflower), Dhal (lentil and veg mix) and Paneer Palak (cheese and spinach) are prefect when ordered betwen several people, so that like chinese and Spanish food, you can have a bit of everything. There is also a strong Muglhai influence on the food which exists till this day, so that some dishes are similar to Middle Eastern cuisine.

Southern food is heavily rice based. In the school I taught at near Trichy, it was idli's for breakfast (spongy steamed rice balls), rice and sambar for lunch (rice with mixed veg) and dosa and dip for dinner (thin rice pancake). To be honest, it was a bit too much for me, and I prefer the juicy deliciousness of the north.

Veg - Non Veg
Before I came, I really thought I would become a near vegetarian in India; and then I ate meat and I wasn't sick, so I've kept eating meat, usually at least every 2 or 3 days. However, the veg dishes are usually so flavourful and nutritious that you don't really need/want meat, and most people you meet are vegetarian, so unless I'm alone, it's usually Veg. One dish you can find aboslutely everywhere is the thali, usually served in a metal plate, with chapati (flat floury round bread, similar to tortilla) or puri (deep fried bready mix) and 4 or 5 different things to dip into, with usually a side of rice and curd (like yogurt, good if the food is too spicy) to balance it all out.
As for the Non Veg though, Tandoori chicken is the best (cooked in a clay oven) when it's well done, juicy and chargrilled, and not too dry. There's a lot of mutton available too, but what I've tried hasn't been that good. Non Veg restaurants are much less common than Veg ones, and in non-touristy towns the meat joints are usually quite dingy and dark, located in the back alleys and frequented only by men, while the veg restaurants are more the happy, family type. This adds a layer of thrill (what stomach problems will I get this time?!) and a aura of sin to the meat restaurants that is fun.

The problem is, every place will cook up their own version of every dish, so you never know exactly what you're going to get. Menus here are usally in English which is great, and many places will serve their own take on chinese and continental, which doesn't always work (I once had a chicken sandwich wrapped in cling film with ketchup poured on top, on a plate).

Although India serves up some wacky food with new, intense, tastes, it's not at all as weird as the food was in China, which had a lot more meat, and therefore weird body parts ended up being used for cooking. India does offer a massive selection of fruit and fresh juices though, which are dirt cheap and usually filled with amazingness. Usually the juice-man will mix fruits for you if you ask nicely. My favourite is Pineapple-grape: too good.

Street Food
This is another dodgy one, but I quickly fell in love with the street food here. Everything is deep fried, so if it's just come off the pan it's pretty safe, and this is mostly the kind of snack I get during stops for long bus or train rides. These vary from town to town, but just about everywhere you can get yourself some samosas and deep fried onion mixed with potato and peppers. It's ridiculously cheap and usually delicious, though it can get very greasy.

Drinks
It's all about chai here, super sweet, super milky tea. I'm not sure if it's a spinoff of the English cup of tea, or if we copied the Indians, but its really good. Chai is everywhere. There are chai merchants on bicycles, motorbikes, in every street, in stations, trains, offices, malls... It's usually about 5 Rs for a small cup and a great start to the day, and although many foreigners complain about how sweet it is, i love it. One of my favourite things to do here is hit the chai shop around 8 in the morning, buy a cup of chai and some butter biscuits to dip, and watch India wake up and everyone getting to work.
Alcohol, like meat, is very 'underground' and even illegal in some states. It's decently priced in shops but usually expensive in restaurants, and bars are pretty rare. Some shops have little back rooms that you can drink in after purchasing your alcohol, and these are suuuper grimy and grungy and fun for a quick cheap drink with the locals. After beer, most people will choose rum or whisky. As far as local liquor, I havn't really tried any. I was scared off by the amount of deaths late last year from alcohol poisoning in small towns.

The strangest thing I've eaten here (and maybe anywhere ever) is Pan. It's basically a leaf filled with all kinds of weird stuff, powders and pastes and little sweets and nuts. Really, for my first (and last) pan the pan-man seemed to apply about 15 different things to the leaf, then roll it up and hand it to me. You're supposed to put the whole thing in your mouth and chew, which results in an explosion of really crazy weird flavours and things happening inside your mouth. It was too much for me, and since the leaf and some of the weird shiz wouldn't dissolve, I couldn't finish it. Many places will put some tobacco in the leaf also, giving you a buzz and so the snack has a highly addictive element. Aside from Pan, and more regularly used is a beetle nut and tobacco mix that people put in their mouths. Many time when you want to speak to a shopkeeper here, he will just mumble, not wanting to open his mouth, because this stuff makes you salivate so much. for this reason Indian streets are filled with little red spit stains. It also makes people's teeth all red, pretty gross stuff.


Although I've been craving Western Food from time to time, the thing I really miss the most is cooking. Who knew eating out could get boring! Well, not boring, I still have many places to see and things to taste coming up (next: Bengali Food!)

Indian Colours!

Volunteering

My last week at SEVAI school was great. Just when I thought I was in an isolated little village with no other white people in sight, a team of 18 volunteers from Australian NGO Equal Health came to stay at the school. They were a medical team: doctors, opticians, dentists, nurses, physiotherapists, and a dietician. For about ten days here they set up a health camp where local villagers came to get tested and treated, and given medication and glasses, all free of charge. It was very well organized, and each day about 500 people came, so they were always hard at work. One day they left to a coastal village to set up the same camp, and I tagged along for the overnight stay, helping out giving vision tests to people and managing the crowds, which were crazy and kept pushing forward, trying to be first in line! This was really the poorest of the poor, mostly elderly, with massive eye, back, hearing, difficulties, and other health problems. It was so inspiring to see this team at work, and see some people leave happy and thankful. Here's how it worked:

And here are a few of the people who came to get a checkup:

I also finished teaching last week, here's a picture of some of my students:

And here's a map of my trip up till now:

Latest News

In the last few weeks, I’ve spent most of my time trekking in the cold hill stations of the Western Ghats (Madikeri, Ooty, Kodaikanal) chilling on the tropical beaches and in the palm fringed towns of Kerala (Verkala, Fort Cochin) and meeting the locals in Tamil Nadu.

An Israeli friend of mine told me a few weeks earlier of a place not too far from Kodaikanal, named Vattakanal, which was supposed to be just above the clouds, with fantastic views of the mountains. Most importantly, it wasn’t in the Lonely Planet!
So I managed to find my way to this little village, through a few dirt roads, and arrived to some steps leading to houses on the mountain, with some loud rave music blasting from above. Obviously I had to go and see what was happening, and was welcomed by a massive group of Israelis, most of them tripping on acid, partying on a terrace, with insane views of the mountains in front, blasting a curious but fun mix of psytrance and dubstep. Most were dressed in extreme-hippy ware, some brandishing sticks and waving them at the mountain, it really felt like I had popped into a Lord of the Rings movie, with hardcore dance music. It turns out this “village” is quite popular with Isareli bloggers and travellers, and many have moved here to stay for months, they cook their own food, chill, party, relax from their long military service. Good fun, but it was a bit weird, it was only 13:00 and little Indian kids were watching from the bushes, giggling. Can you imagine the culture shock?!Kodaikanal in itself was a strange place. There is a very prestigious (and Hogwarts-like) International school there, so loads of teenagers from around the world can be seen hanging about town. Very pleasant though, and probably my favourite Hill Station so far.

After seeing pleasant Fort Cochin I headed in a ferry through the Kerala backwaters, and decided to stay in an ashram for a few days, that a friend had told me about. This was Amma’s Ashram in Amrithapuri. Amma is very famous for the ‘darshan’ (blessing) she gives people. This takes the form of a hug, so at the Ashram hundreds of people queue up for hours to receive a token, and when their number is read out, they’ll go on stage and receive a short hug from Amma. It's pretty strange... Everyone in this place is encouraged to wear white, and it’s about 75% foreigners (so surreal) who walk about, with big smiles on their faces, conversing about spirituality, while the beachfront is full of quiet meditators in all sorts of yoga poses. Although the people there have a nice ideology (everyone is a volunteer to help keep the place clean, functioning) it wasn’t really my thing. I quickly hopped on the ferry again the next day, and made my way to Verkala, which was really just a mini-Goa: westerners on the beach, western food, western prices...

In Kanyakumari I found the India that I had missed in Kerala. After watching the sunrise over three seas: Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea, Lakshdeep Sea (you couldn’t tell them apart, but it felt cool) I headed with another travel buddy to the town, which had Tamil music blasting (really, you couldn’t hear yourself speak) out of megaphones from every street corner. It was Sunday, my favourite day in India, because everyone is happy to be on Holiday, and just chilling. Old men sit on front steps of their homes drinking chai and reading the newspaper, some heavily involved in card games; kids play with spinning tops and sing songs, housewives dust their street-fronts, old women cackle and chat to each other as we walk past; all the while the sea (which one?) waves lap up on shore and the fishermen come home in their blue boats with the catch of the day. The houses are all multicolored, usually in shades of pink, orange, yellow, purple, blue. At dusk the colours are even more beautiful and complete with the music and smells (insence, food, rubbish) it all culminates into a really incredible experience, these are the kind of mom ents I travel for.

At the moment, I’m in a school about 25km from Trichy, in Tamil Nadu. I’m volunteering teaching English, in exchange for which I’m given a bed and 3 meals a day in the school. In the morning I have a class of 12 year old girls, and after a group of mentally challenged students (and two deaf students) who range from 6 to 22 years old. My first class is fun, and reminds me a lot of teaching in China (although for obvious reasons Indian kids speak much better English); I especially love asking a question, and 40 little heads answering with the famous Indian head nod.

The second class is much more challenging, but after a week here, I’m getting the hang of it. Most of the kids are so keen and enthusiastic to learn and play, and I’m always greeted with massive smiles. It’s also quite sad, because some of the students don’t really respond to much and just stare and drool, occasionally speaking in Tamil. I’ve brought in my guitar, and taught them some drawing skills, and we play loads of games which they seem to enjoy, so it’s a very rewarding experience. After class, when I’m hanging around the school, some students will come up to me and sing the ABC song which I just taught them, or sing me some Tamil songs. It's really nice living in the school and being able to interact with the staff and students (some of which live there too) outside of class. I've made some good friends here and couldn't have asked for a better experience.
Here is where I’m sleeping (at night, complimentary mosquitoes, mice, frogs, weird flying bugs, cats, but it’s ok).

Tamil Culture is so interesting. Nobody here speak Hindi (I know more Hindi words than most people!) and there is a big arts, dance, and music here which everyone is very proud of. I'll be moving soon though - Pondicherry next: looking forward to some pain au chocolat and hopefully un peu de saucisson quand meme.

Kambala!

After seeing the incredible Mysore palace, and trekking the mountains in Coorg, I headed to Mangalore, on the coast of the Arabian Sea, to hunt down a local sport called Kambala.

This consists of water buffalo racing down muddy tracks, with a guy holding on behind, lashing and screeching the bull on, running as fast as he can to keep up with it. It developped after farmers would race their buffaloes home after work in the paddy fields.

After some research and some bus rides, I arrived at the Kambala track, basically two long ditches filled with muddy water, and watched as the farmers, each with coloured turbans to indicate their teams, presented their animals to the audience, while people placed bets, and a sort of marching band provided some tunes.

There are different types of Kambala. For some races, the whip-man will surf on a little plank of wood attached behind the buffalo, others, it is the height at which the water will splash, rather than the speed of the animal that counts.

The experience was thrilling (just look at the pictures) and, having been interviewed for two newspapers and two TV stations at the site, I really got the feeling I was seeing something special and unique.

I'm in Kodaikanal at the moment, more posts coming soon!

Karnataka

After a bangin beach party for NYE in Anjuna, Goa, I headed to Hampi. During a break from the bus ride on the way there, I decided to head to the roof to attach my bag. While I was on the roof, the bus started driving away! I was panicking a bit but another guy beside me told me to chill, gave me an orange, and lied down. So i did the same, and for about 10 minutes i was lying on the top of this bus with my blanket, watching the stars as we drove along, until the ticket man came to tell us to get down.

Hampi is a small town surrounded by incredible rocks balancing on top of each other. It looks like a land of mountains that have been crushed into giant pebbles. Loads of backpackers, cheap prices, really nice place.

Next I moved on to Bangalore, the state capital, and also the rock/alternative music capital of India. Because of all the IT companies here, young people come from all over the country to study and work, and so use English as their common language. The center is full of hip shops, cafes, bars, and clubs (that shut at 11:30pm?!) and I managed to catch a few gigs. The first one, a blues band from Shillong called Soulmate, was really amazing. I also was really lucky to meet a group of Indian friends my age all working here, who showed me the bars, and took me to a house party, where trance was booming out onto the terrace. These guys all drink, party, sometimes take drugs, very similarly to a lot of youngsters back home, and I think they had more in common with me and the west, than they did with most Indian people. It was really nice to connect with these people who grew up half way across the world, and yet knew all the words to "L.A. Woman". At the same time, it was easy to forget that I was in India here (they have taco bell!), but I couch surfed and my host was super friendly, had an amazing place so it was nice to recharge for a bit, cook some meals.

I'm in Mysore now, and will do some exploring tomorrow....

Happy New Year!

Soundtrack to my trip at the moment: The Move