FOOD (part 2)

We've arrived in Diu after a long long trip. I think we were in motion for 17 hours straight on various buses and rickshaws. The sleeper bus turned out to be quite nauseating and neither of us got much sleep. Now we've got a small room close to the water right near the fruit and vegetable market. This morning we went and bought some guavas, bananas, nuts, roses, cookies and this crazy fruit that resembles a puffy artichoke and can be pulled apart easily. It tastes kind of like lychee.

We've eaten some pretty delicious stuff here in India. We've visited some ritzy restaurants where meals are expensive - but still a fraction of what it would cost in Canada. But I think some of the best meals we've had have been quite simple: sharing a couple of dishes like mattar paneer (peas and cheese) and dum aloo (stuffed potatoes) and a plate of naan bread. Yum! Fresh lime sodas are always a safe bet for drink, but fresh juice and lassis are fun too when the place seems clean. Yesterday, after checking in, I drank the water from a young green coconut Pete got off the street. Subtle flavour, quite nice. Palm trees are all over the place here and actually the vegetation growing in this province(Gujarat) seems much more lush; more cactai, more flowering trees.

Here are some food photos from the last month or so:


vegetable dosa at the Indian Coffee House, Shimla

baked trout in Minali - so so good

fancy dessert at the Crystal Restaurant, Amritsar

after dessert we went to a well known hole in the wall for amritsari fish: white fish with garlic, lemon, ginger, chilli ... deep fried - amazing

Ronald chillin' in New Delhi (we haven't eaten here - yet)

super duper sweets shop at LMB, Jaipur

while I had a lager beer, Pete had a large bear

really nice and spicy fish meal in Udaipur

Monkey Business

Before leaving Shimla we made the trek up, up, up to the Jakhu Temple (a temple for the monkey god Hanuman), which is situated around 2500m above sea level. It was a steep and tiresome climb, but when we reached the top we were thrust excitement and danger!

Monkeys! They've gone mad! They are very aggressive near the temple, since many visitors give them prasad (food offerings). They think whats yours is theirs. Oh boy!

As our guidebook had recommended, we rented a walking stick for Rs. 5 at the bottom of the climb to the temple, so we were well armed to deal with the foul beasts. We managed to visit the first temple without any confrontations, but as soon as we left, we were talking with an Indian fellow from England and a monkey crept up to him, jumped, hung off his backpack and ripped off a bag of prasad. It sat right there beside us eating the entire bag and picking up very meticulously all the little sugar balls that had scattered when it tore the bag.

It was pretty funny, since we were just spectators and nobody got hurt. Things were a bit different on our way down from the second temple when Stephanie showed her true, barbaric colours. We were alone on the stairwell which was crawling with monkeys. I began shooing some of them away with my stick, but Stephanie was awestruck by the sight of it all. I had walked maybe 10 steps ahead when I heard Steph shriek a warcry fit for a fearless amazon. She was afraid a monkey was about to jump on her, and managed to scare it away with her glorious, thoughtless, instinctive roar.

We stayed closer together for the remainder of the descent and experienced no difficulties :-)

In other monkey news, the day before we visited the temple, Steph was sitting on our balcony in Shimla when she noticed a monkey about 6 feet away from her on the roof. She called me out to come see, and out I came. Unfortunately, I had to walk directly beneath the monkey to get out to see it, but I managed to do it without harm. It looked angry. Furious, even. Quite satisfied by my short observance of the creature, I began to head back to the room, under the monkey again. This time he was scowling and I made a quick dash and just as it was about to jump on me, Steph let out an instinctive cry, "PEEEEEEEEEEEETE!!" which scared the monkey away. Thanks, Steph.

Up in the Clouds

We missed our train to Shimla, so we took the bus. Winding through forested mountains and scattered road stands that make up villages we got up to about 2200 meters above sea level. And that's where we are now, in Shimla, were the air is thin and quite chilly.

We were initally charmed by the steep and busy streets (the town is built up and down a cluster of mountains), the colourful fabrics in the street, our room with a view... but have encountered a bunch of rather unfriendly people today, and are not feeling so energetic. We did however find some wool shawls today to keep us warm, and Pete got a cute vest and hat outfit. And we had a great lunch: vegetbale dosa's at The Indian Coffee House. The place seemed to me like an old boy's club. Waiters in pouffy formal uniforms, a bunch of old Indian men sitting around in leather chairs, drinking coffee and talking seriously in the big, dimly lit space. It was funny and the dosas were sooooooooo good.

I think we'll leave here in 2 days. We've been asked to do a trek to Kashmir, and attend the Kashmiri wedding of the guide's nephew, but it is quite a bit out of our budget.