How to Cross an Indian Road

This movie is true for the big cities and it is totally terrifying, particularly the first time! ...still terrifying the second, third and fourth times. However, you see little kids do it, so I should be able to do it too, right? I took the advice of others: go slow and never run.

From indiamike.com

Bangalore Market, India

Anthony Bourdain says that the best way to feel the pulse of a place is to visit the local market - I like this advice. The market in Bangalore was massive and packed with people selling produce, kitchen goods, candy, and cheap kids toys. Many sellers don't have stalls but rather sit on the ground and spread their produce out on a tarp to sell.


Betel leaf - which is chewed like tobacco and works as a stimulant

Indian Street Food

I love street food - I wish we had more of this in the states.

Pressed sugar cane juice mixed with lime and ginger! Fantastic - would make a great cocktail with rum.

Gobi Manuchurian - cauliflower battered and fried then mixed with a sweet and spicy sauce. Dinner for a whopping 6 cents.


Samosas - straight out of the fryer - dough stuffed with peas, potatoes, curry and sometimes meat.

Jinli's (?) - like a mini-funnel cake. Dough is squirted into the fryer, then dunked in a sweet orange glaze.


Battered and fried hot green chiles for breakfast - spicy!

Hampi, India

Hampi was my favorite of all the places I visited in India. It was laid back, beautiful and quite unique. The landscape consists of giant boulders that somehow balance on top of each other with ancient temple after temple scattered all about with locals living within and around the ruins.

Elephant stables from the 15th century - see the people sized and elephant sized doors.

A herd of goats being led through town

Thali (Indian Food)

I love variety and getting to taste a little bit of everything, so thali was one of my favorite things to eat in India. Six different dishes: curries, dal, spinach and potatoes, vegetable yogurt with rice and bread. Yum!

Sidewalk Art

Outside of many Hindu homes, women draw religious symbols to invite god into their home every morning outisde the door with chalk. Quite cute.

Indian Beer

Kingfisher - the king of beers in India. It is really all you can find here and tastes slightly better than a budweiser. 'Giant' is the only size they usually come in - probably two and half beers in one bottle. I did learn that the kingfisher is a colorful bird that dives for fish in the water - I saw a few on my backwaters tour.

Ancient Chinese Fishing Nets - Fort Cochin, India

Chinese fishing nets built in 1400 AD still in operation today. They are on a cantilever balanced with rocks and are lowered down into the water, then pulled back up by four men every ten minutes - hard work!

Houseboat Food

The food on the houseboat was so fantastic! Right after walking onto the boat they handed me a coconut with a straw in it. Lunch consisted of a small river fish cooked whole after rubbed in this fantastic spice blend with garlic & ginger paste, a coleslaw of sorts made with cabbage and coconut mixed with curry, a spicy green bean and tomato dish, a lentil stew, salad, bread, rice and an entire pineapple (the fruit here is so good). They were quite disappointed in my eating ability as I couldn't even come close to finishing it. A few hours later there was afternoon tea with plaintains that were battered in a mix with whole fennel seeds then fried (I have also seen this as street food). Dinner was another large spread, but I got to pick it out the main course at a water side fish stall. I went for the fresh tiger prawns (yum). We also stopped at a toddy shop - which is a homemade coconut beer which they poured into my water bottle..... sounds good, but not. It tasted like coconut water mixed with old straw.

Lunch

Tea

Tiger Prawns

Toddy

Kerala Backwaters

The Indian state of Kerala is just fantastic - beautiful nature everywhere from mountains to sea. I took a one-night houseboat cruise on the backwaters around Allepey, which was just fantastic - just the captain, the chef, and me! Life here is so interesting, as water serves as the highways (no roads). Kids go to school on a boat, to temple, grocery shopping, a boat ambulance - you name it. People wash clothes, fish and bathe in the water and you lazily cruise by and get to watch everyday life. Oh, and the food on the boat (wow) ... I post more about that later.

The houseboat


The backwaters


Transporting goods (hay?)

Kerala Cooking School

Look at all the yummy food I learned to make with the help of my chef - Rahul. Fried vegetable parkoras for an appetizer, butter paratha for bread, coconut chutney which comes with everything here, kerala style fish curry and paneer masala. Delicious - I just hope I can find the ingredients to repeat on my own when back home.

Varkala, India

Ahhhh, Varkala. A beachy town perched up on a cliff overlooking the warm arabian sea where all forms of motorized transportation can be avoided for weeks thanks to a footpath along the cliff. I intended to stay here only 2 nights - which stretched to 6.

Happy Birthday Kathie!

The Arabian Sea and I wish you a fantastic birthday!

Kumily, India

Kumily is a lush green tropical mountainous place in the western ghats complete with monkeys and geckos that walk on the ceiling of my room. The hills are beautiful and covered with tea and spice plantations. I really loved seeing how all the spices (pepper, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, vanilla, nutmeg, coffe, cocoa, etc) are grown and harvested. Oh, and rubber trees too... very cool!

Tea plantation

Bulk spices are sold at stores in town.

Elephant Ride

Colorful Oxen

In the state of Tamil Nadu, India almost all of the work oxen had their horns painted different bright colors. Festive!

Sri Meenakshi Temple (Madurai, India)

This temple was the highlight of Madurai....beautiful and similar in architecture to the last in Trichy. The outside of the temple is covered in level after level of these painted sculptures of Hindu figures.


The temple had beautiful paintings on the ceiling and some temple camels (= stinky).

India Railways

Apparently if you are not a planner, you do not travel in comfort in India. If you are, then you can get a first class ticket with AC and a guaranteed seat on the train. However, my non-committal traveling style left me with this seat on my first train ride in India.....yes, the luggage compartment where occasionally people sit or sleep. I made a local friend at the station and climbed up there (barely) after his suggestion.

Rock Fort Temple - Trichy, India

The second temple I visited in Trichy was the Rock Fort Temple which sits on top of a massive rock mountain overlooking the city. It was a 437 step climb (barefoot as shoes are now allowed) to the top on steps cut into the stone mountain. The top gave some beautiful views of the city at sunset.



A temple elephant giving me a blessing by touching the top of my head after putting some spare change in its trunk.

Sri Ranganathawamy Temple - Tiruchirappalli (Trichy), India

My first visit to a Hindu temple was the Sri Ranganathaswamy, one of the largest in India. It was beautiful and colorful and my pictures don't really do it justice. It was a huge complex with several major buildings, numerous statues and carvings.



Women who wish to be married place a lock on this alter at the temple and pray for a husband. Once married, the couple comes together to the temple to remove the lock. Cute.

Traditional Southern Indian Breakfast

Before I left Pondicherry, I had my best meal yet in India, a traditional southern Indian breakfast. A surprise for me, as I'm not really a traditional american breakfast person. It consisted of four idlis, which are moist spongy bread-like cakes made from fermented rice. They were served with sambar and coconut chutney. Sambar is a soup of sorts with vegetables, lentils and curry. The coconut chutney was my favorite, and surprisingly did not taste like coconut at all. It was hummus-like, but with more texture and a garlic and lime flavor. It had some large black seeds like a poppy but larger in it and some bright green leaves, which I think might be fresh lime leaves. The idlis spongy texture makes it perfect to soak up the sambar. Also, some masala tea to drink, which is a warm spiced tea served with milk all outside on a roof patio in a lounge chair under a palm tree thatched ceiling.... loved it!

Pondicherry, India

Pondicherry is a different kind of place. It was colonized by the french for quite sometime and therefore feels like half New Orleans half India (never been to France so I can't compare). Many buildings have the intricate gateways and nice porches like you see in the French Quarter. French food has been left behind too and I believe this is one of the few places in India where you can eat a steak.



Pondicherry is famous for the Sri Aurobindo Ashram (a spiritual community where they practice yoga & meditation). The town and the drive into town is dominated with pictures of 'the mother' who founded the ashram.... so I assume the residents here adore her. I assumed she was a politician running for office at first. My guidebook states that she died in 1973 at the age of 97.