LIFE UNLEASHED

Although not every meal can be a South Indian engagement extravaganza, we can heartily say we’ve been eating well!  South Indian food is a good rival to our favourite Thai and Vietnamese.   Our first love is the Masala Dosai which is a crispy lentil flour crape stuffed with a delicious mashed potato filling.  Then there is idli -  a steamed rice patty that is perfect for soaking up coconut chutney.  On top of that you can have Vadai a clove spiced donut again for dipping in your favourite curry, sambal or chutney. 

If you’re still hungry after a dosai breakie, practically every restuarant in south India servers it’s own “Thali” meal set.  Served on a banana leaf or on a silver tray fit for a king, you are presented with anywhere from 5-15 different dishes — vegetable curry, lentil dahl, sambal, coconut chutney, lime pickle, sticky sweet fruit conserve and plenty of papads, chapatis and heaping mounds of rice to scoop it all up with.  Yummo!

Once you are sick of all that you can move on to the great seafood and choose from beautiful white pomfret fish, shark or huge prawns.

And of course, no meal is complete without Indian sweets.  My god are they good.  The Barfi fudge (okay it’s a bad name) is fantastic and come in many flavours including carrot, coconut, pistachio and chocolate.   Small diamonds of compressed milk and sugar kaju katri are covered in edible silver and look as good as they taste.  Galub Jumuns are deep fried cream cheese sponge balls that are then covered in sticky sweet syrup are defiantly unhealthy but are also a path to divinity.  If it’s too hot for tea and sweets you can always head for kulfi which is Indian Ice cream and comes in great flavours like cardamom, pistachio and mango.

A note for our friends back in Toronto.  Our favourite restaurant that we have visited so far in India is a chain called Saravana Bhavan.  And guess what?  They have opened one in Mississauga, Ontario.  If you want to experience a little bit of our travels go there and have a dosai or a Thali (set meal). You will love it.  Their sweets counter was also the best we have had …so far.  In case you live in the east end of Toronto and have never heard of a place called “Mrs. Awgga“, we also recommend Udupi Palace on Gerard in Little India.  Ask for a Paper Dosa and be embarrassed at the sheer size of it when it is served.

 Your walking down the street and all of a sudden a loud band starts playing  and people start rushing into the building in front of you. 

What do you do? 

Go in of course. 

That’s how we found ourselves sitting in the congregation of a huge wedding in the town of Mallaparam.  We then wondered if crashing a wedding was a good idea, especially considering most of the men in the room had their heads cranked around to look at us (or more specifically at Lisa) sitting at the back of the hall.  Soon however, several smiles were exchanged and assurances that we should stay for the ceremony. What a ceremony…a huge alter with crimson velvet curtains and thrones for the bride and groom, loud drums, exploding fireworks and food for about 400 guests. 

Of course, you can’t go to an Indian wedding and leave without eating!  So we were ushered upstairs by our new friends to join the feeding frenzy on the 2^nd floor.  The food was home cooking at it’s best.  Rows of tables spread with banana leaves to which numerous waiters would ladle endless portions of 4 types of rice (each with a distinctive flavour), 4 different curries, several chutneys, curd, and 3 different deserts including ice cream.

After  all that we found out it wasn’t even a wedding but merely an engagement.  I guess we will have to come back next year for the BIG event.

“Now what do I do with my coconuts?” I asked.

“I don’t know but the sign says you are not allowed to feed them to the elephant.” Brad said, with an air of disappointment.  

This was how our trip to our first Hindu temple ended and we were no more enlightened coming out than we were going in.  That being said my coconuts were blessed so it couldn’t be all bad.

It all began on a lovely sunny stroll down the leafy French colonial style streets of Pondicherry in Tamil Nadu (Southern India).  As we looked down one street we noticed a particularly well decorated live elephant just hanging out in front of a doorway.  Always the sucker for well dressed pachyderms Brad said “Holy *#%&, an elephant, lets go look!”  

We found ourselves beside a 2m tall elephant, in front of a large temple dedicated to Lord Ganesha, the four armed son of Siva (the top Hindu god).  As the streams of worshipers slipped off their flip flops, the entered the temple carrying little wicker baskets of bananas, wheat grass and coconuts.  Wanting to blend in a bit (who am I kidding?J), we bought our own little offering and were ushered into a slow moving line of devotees. 

As we admired the frescoes of Hindu guides lining the walls, one of the shamans in the temple, takes our basket into a room where he cuts the coconut, says a few prayers, sprinkles our basket and us with a few powders and flowers before were pushed out the back end of the room. We figured we were in luck — our offerings were now blessed! But what do we do with them?

So we left the temple, had our basket dumped into a takeaway plastic bag and proceeded to leave.  But then it occurred to us.   Just because the sign out front said you could not feed coconuts to the elephant, maybe bananas and grasses were fair game.  The elephant turned out to be extremely gentle (as you would expect from any well dressed beast) and easily took the bananas and grass from your hand before resting his trunk on top of your head to thank you for the offering (and bless you, yet again). 

As for the coconuts, we still have them.  So now I throw out a very loaded question -

“What should I do with my blessed coconuts?”

After 3 weeks traversing the Himalayas, it was time to head back into warmer weather, richer food and a new culture in Southern India.  With Nepal’s peaks still visible outside the plane window, we had indeed already entered India during our flight to Chennai.  

Ding, Ding, Ding…..Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding (with ever increasing frequency and seemingly loudness). 

Only on a  plane to India would every single passenger push the Flight Attendant call button as soon as the rear wheels leave the ground.  As even more of a reminder that we had left the quiet Nepalese for the vibrant Indians, the first passenger the attendant visits starts yelling at the top of their lungs.  While 6 of his friends and 1 western guy walk towards the front of the plane and join in on the ‘discussion”, Lisa gradually tightens her hold on my arm.  More than a little unnerving and makes you wonder what you are in for once you reach a land of 1 billion!  But in the end, everyone  ended up smiling.  It seemed the passenger was upset over the tiny little water cups that were ‘free’ while everything else you had to pay for (as with any discount airline).  They seemed to settle it by offering an extra mini cup and a bit of grumbling on his part. 

As expected, India is a culture onto its own.  And of course, this is why so many western tourists visit.  The first thing we noticed was the ubiquitous Indian head waggle which is a rough equivalent to an Australian “No worries, mate!”.  However, sometimes it can be hard to coax out this comforting, affirmative,  puppy dog tail like, head waggle.  For instance, if you were to arrive 2 hours before a flight and ask for two seats together on a plane.  No seats except single middle seats many rows apart and no head waggle.  If you were to ask for any ticket on any train in India going anywhere tomorrow.  No tickets, no head waggle.  Seats in a movie theatre for tonight’s showing?  Not possible, no waggle.  But if you have enough patience, if  you are crafty enough, if you keep smiling rather than beating someone with a cricket bat and simply move a few counters over and ask the same question again, all of a sudden there are seats, tickets, spaces available and everyone is waggling!  I would waggle too if I could. 

And of course, seeing the cultural differences is the fun of travel, both ‘bad‘ and good.  All to often India is portrayed as being full of thieves who are ready to pick pocket every foreigner they see if they can’t think of some better way to “honestly” scam them of their money.  As in every country we’ve visited, there are always a few bad people but of course for the majority it seems just the opposite.  Very peaceful and honest people who are often more than happy to help.  On our second day in India I accidentally left my camera on a step, in the middle of Chennai, where I had been sitting.  No less than three people ran after me yelling to me that I had forgot my camera.  It immediately changed my view of the people in India.  I have had many more positive experiences because I changed my outlook.  A lesson that all travellers should remember.  Especially when told there are no seats left on the train J

After 8 days of tough trekking we decided to take it easy with a 3 day course on Buddhism, meditation, yoga and good clean vegetarian fun.  The core concepts of Buddhism are great and easy to understand - like though shalt not kill (not even a flea) and though shall not lie (not even a white) but some of the underlying philosophy is tough for the western mind to grasp.  Buddhism teaches that there is no “I” or “me” since it is in a intangible concept and something that is always in flux.  An example is if you see a picture of yourself at 2 years old are looking at a picture of yourself?  Or is the reality that  an adult is looking at a picture of a baby.  The cells and tissue that were in that baby are not the same as the cells and tissue in the adult holding the picture (as they would have died, been discarded and replaced many times over) and you certainly don’t have the same mind as an infant.  So what is it that makes you?  Or is the idea of you just that…an idea?  So maybe the  course wasn’t as relaxing as we thought it was going to be!

We enjoyed three days of arguing and hashing out ideas on concepts that were really quite difficult. Good to put our mind to work after 4 months on the road.   And meditation…it looks like your resting, staying perfectly still with you eyes closed but brother you aren’t resting.  It’s incredibly tough work to keep you mind focused on one thing (unless it’s my current desire for a veal sandwich), so focusing on just watching my breath for 30 or 40 minutes was a challenge.  The cool part — after only three days we both achieved enlightenment and reached Nirvana.  D’oh, that’s a lie. We’ve still got some work to do.

It’s been a while since our last post and indeed, over a month since we left Burma.  After a few weeks tramping through Nepal we’ve finally had a chance to tell you about our trip to the “Top of the World”……

Enter The Maze

There might be nothing more imposing than arriving in Thamel, Kathmandu, Nepal at 11 pm at night.  Picture a series of dark and narrow laneways covered in trash with steel walls making up a maze of  mythic proportions.  I was sure a Minotaur lurked around every corner.  By daylight you can get Thamel figured out. The steel walls are nothing more than roller doors concealing  shops filled with backpacker gear and souvenirs where most foreigners’ get there  equipment organized before they trek in the Himalaya.  The darkness was just a side effect of Nepal’s lack of power because a large storm destroyed there main power plant a year earlier.  The trash everywhere was made worse by a garbage collectors strike.  And the narrow, claustrophobic feeling of the maze…well, that doesn’t go away in Thamel, no matter how hard you try and make it.    So after a couple days lost in the maze getting sorted with Chinese knock off  North Face warm weather gear we headed off by bus to Pokara in the Annapurna mountain range.

 The Top of The World

The bus ride from the Kathmandu Valley at about 1800m down to the Pokara plains at 800m  is a white knuckle, underwear ruining, ride down a series of winding switch backs where the bus drivers routinely overtake each other on blind corners.  In fact, we found out later, it’s not all that uncommon for a car or bus to plunge off the side!  But what a relief the wide open spaces and fresher air of Pokara was.  (Kathmandu is one of the worst polluted cities in the world due to the practice of cutting Kerosene into their petrol).

We set out from Pokara with our trusty guide Raj and porter Toya another hour by taxi to the foothills of the Himalaya.  From where we stood at the base of series of stone steps we could see the roof off the world!!!  Some 7000 m above us stood some of the tallest mountains on earth.  Things could only go up from here!  We donned our light day packs and grimaced as our porter Toya picked up an oversized duffel that could only have been packed by young, inexperienced, rookies with their skin died green and tourist stamped on their foreheads.  We immediately asked “Toya - did we pack to much?”  He squeaked “Normal” in his limited English.  Later we learnt that “Normal” was a standard reply by any porter as not to offend the client.  You could make these guys climb a mountain with a refrigerator on their back and they would say “Normal!!!”  

Up to this point we had had very limited contact with our guide Raj.  As it turns out that he wasn’t laughing at everything I said because he thought I was funny -it’s that he spoke even less English than Toya.  This could prove to be a long walk in the woods!  But up we went, over river and hills and donkey dung, up and up about 1000 meters.  It was quite warm when we started but nightfall came with a chill and our first Tea House stop.  We were given a little room and heaping plates of Daal Baht to warm us.  Daal Baht is a delicious dish including steamed rice, Lentil soup, potato curry, fried spinach, and pickle and it the slightest notion that you have made any headway they plop down more of each onto your plate.  Now, Daal Baht is delicious the first time you have it, and even the 8^th time, but it is all the Nepali’s eat and pretty much all we ate - twice a day for 2 weeks (with a little variation here or there).  Sometimes we got a plate of vegetable momos (dumplings), french fries once or twice, there was some delicious fried corn bread or Tibetan bread kind of like a donut and if you were lucky and someone recently milked their yak, goat or buffalo you might get some curd or cheese.

On Yaks and Yeti’s

Of yaks and yeti’s we saw neither!  After all that hiking you want to see at least one or the other.  We did get excited at a rather woolly sheep sighting (but maybe I shouldn‘t have typed that). But apparently Yaks only operate above 5000m and below that it‘s all donkeys.  Oh, and Yeti‘s aren‘t real.  Although some kids did scream when they saw me after not shaving for a few days.

By The 3^rd Day You No Longer Care If You Step In Donkey Poo!

So back to the climb.  Our second day took us up another 1000 m to about 2800 m above sea level.  At this point we were tuckered and we new the next morning would bring us a 5am wake up call for our final push to Poon Hill at 3100m and a view of Annapurna 1, one of the 14 mountains taller than 8000 m in the world.  And what a view it was.  A 360 degree panorama of stunning mountains that takes your breath away.   It was after that point that we no longer cared if we stepped in donkey poo! You try and be careful for the first few days but once your legs and butt start hurting you step on whatever is easiest.  It was a series of ups and downs from there that lead us through villages and forests for 3 days back down to Pokara.  We knew as soon as we headed down our last trail that it wasn’t enough hiking to satisfy us so as soon as we hit Pokara we began a hunt for a new guide and porter and a more serious out of the way trek.  Enough of this easy tea house stuff lets hit the back woods and small villages that haven’t seen a tourist in a while.

“Isn’t that cute?  They take there goat in at night to keep it warm!” 

We headed off with our new (and English speaking) guide Lale Bahadur and his short and old porter Ram for our first stop - Lale’s house.  Lale’s house was a 6 hour hike up hill and along a ridge and set in a small hillside village.  On the way we past through a primary school on a high hilltop that must have the best view in the history of primary schools.  You could see half the Annapurna range from there.  As it turns out the school was having a quiz day where children from all the other local schools had come to participate.  We were immediately mobbed by throngs of smiling children yelling PHOTO!  PHOTO!  It’s a good thing for 4 Gig memory cards.  We filled them! 

From there it was on to Lale’s village and his house.  It was a beautiful little home although rustic by our standards.  They gave us the main room on the 2^nd floor that included a little balcony to sit on and then proceeded to bring us food.  First came super sweet oranges, then  Tibetan bread, then popcorn, more Tibetan bread and then they said they were starting to prepare dinner!!!  Daal Baht of course.    Lale’s mother also hand a fondness for animals.  They had a buffalo, a mother and baby goat, a dog and brand new puppy and countless chickens.  That night as they were cleaning up they brought the goats in to a special room at the side of the house.  “Isn’t that cute?  They take there goat in at night to keep it warm!”  To which Lale quickly replied “We take the baby goat in to keep the Tiger from eating it!”  “Oh” I replied thinking quickly of the out house around that you have to use in the middle of the night, “OH!!!”  Yup, they got wild tigers in them there hills.  We knew that, of course, but figured far off, you know, in the other hills.  But, as it turns out, every once in a while as someone pee’s in the dark.  it’s their last pee!  And probably as they realized what was happing, their last  poo!  About 10 years earlier they had to set traps for a tiger that had killed 7 children, including one from the village where we were staying.

The trekking got pretty full on from there.  We dropped back down to the valley at 800m and then up to the Kokar Forest Camp at 3400m in one super long 9 hour day.  These were areas that rarely see tourists.  Any locals that did see us had a bit of a look of shock as did the 4 inhabitants of the forest camp when we turned up.  It was a pretty cold night and we had to huddle around a campfire to keep warm before jumping into our -20 degree sleeping bags.  A full day of strolling along a ridge top and down hill with gorgeous mountain views after that and our trekking was over.  Again, too soon but it was all the time we had and any higher climbs would put us into the snow line which we wanted to avoid for two reasons.  Every couple years a group of French tourists die in an avalanche in Nepal.  I don’t know why all the stories are about French people but I assume it’s because they talk so loud.  Secondly, it is bloody cold past the snow line.  Maybe one day I will return in the peak summer months for a crack at Everest base camp.  Anyone want to join me?

Finding our way out of the Maze

Coming back to Kathmandu we were both kind of dreading it because of our previous experience there.  However, we found that once you get out of Thamel (The Maze) Kathmandu has some pretty amazing qualities.  There was old temples and bazaars to explore, ancient palaces and small hilltop villages to visit and more.  It’s still not our favourite destination in the world but a lot of people probably miss the better parts of it in there rush to get into the mountains.  We leave Nepal having thoroughly enjoyed it though and are extremely anxious for our next destination - South India!!!