Food!

As anyone who knows me is probably already aware, I love food.  When I think of past vacations or cities I’ve visited, often the first thing that comes to my mind is that one meal that still makes my mouth water.  For this reason, a good portion of my phone’s memory is dedicated to photographs of food.  I was surprised, then, to find that I’ve actually taken very few pictures of food since I got here. 

I’ve always loved Indian food, but it turns out that what passes for ‘Indian’ in the United States actually represents only a tiny fraction of the foods of the Indian subcontinent.  From what I’ve seen so far, the food in the U.S. is almost exclusively north Indian.  The names of foods on menus here are almost entirely unfamiliar to me, and the tastes are more foreign still.  Through trial and error (and a little help from people who know better than I do) I’m starting to figure out what I like.  With one exception, though, I’m still not blown away by any of the food I’ve eaten so far.

That one glorious exception is a ‘street food’ called dahi puri.  It’s similar to a food that a good friend once described to me as ‘Indian nachos,’ and consists of bite-sized, deep-fried, pastry like shells filled with chickpeas, yogurt, tamarind sauce, and who knows what other fabulous ingredients.  The combination is heavenly.  The best one I’ve had so far was from a small stand on the side of the road, and I was so enamored I forgot to take a picture (so I’ve borrowed one from google).  

Yummmmm

Apparently dahi puri is something that is only served in the evening (why not lunch??).  I’m still trying to figure out what exactly is served at what time of day…

For example, most everything in this picture is considered a breakfast food.  On the left are the accoutrements that come with nearly every meal, coconut chutney and sambar, a tomato-based soupy sauce.  On the right are the four things that appeared on my plate even though I only ordered two of them.  The white one, front left, is idli.  Despite having it explained to me repeatedly in broken English, it took a google search to convince me that it is in fact made of (de-husked) lentils and rice.  It doesn’t taste like much, but dipped in the chutney and sambar it’s delicious.  The two in the back are kesari bath and khara bath, which (again thanks to google) I now know are made of semolina.  One is sweet, the other savory.  The doughnut-like thing in the front left is I think called vadai?  It’s soaked in oil, slightly savory but nearly tasteless.  I don’t like it at all, but for some reason they keep serving it to me.

 The most common breakfast food here is called a dosa.  I’m not a huge fan, so I don’t have any pictures of the typical dosas (masala dosa- super fried and oily, or set dosa, basically a savory pancake), but here is an onion dosa that was actually super delicious. 

Most restaurants and households here serve food on metal dishes.  I’m not sure why this is, but it makes for a very interesting alarm clock when my landlord’s family does their dishes every day at 5AM.

 

Dessert or pond scum?

 Because this is a town that caters largely to yogis, it’s actually surprisingly easy to get western-style food, although it often has a distinctly Indian twist.  For example, this delicious homemade pasta was served with baby corn and took over two hours between ordering and eating.

I've now taken an Indian cooking class and a western-style baking class and somehow managed not to take any pictures of either, but here is a crème brulee made by the same pastry chef who taught the course.

Apparently it took him 2 years to find a blowtorch in Mysore

Another memorable meal was from when I was sick, shortly after arriving.  I was lying around my apartment in a daze, recovering, when I heard my landlord’s wife knocking urgently at my apartment door.  She burst in with a set of dishes, all stacked on top of each other and clipped together, and proceeded to take them apart and tell me what each of the foods were.  I was so deeply touched by this loving gesture and was thanking her profusely as she left when she said, “125 rupees! You pay tomorrow.”

Home cookin'

One last note on what is perhaps my favorite Indian food of all, chai!  The chai here is simply sweeter, creamier, spicier, and more delicious than you could imagine.  It (like everything else) is served in metal dishes, with a clever twist so as not to scald yourself on a regular basis.

The chai is served piping hot in a small metal cup, with a wider, shallower cup underneath.

You can then pour out the chai, either a little bit at a time or all at once into the broader dish in order to cool it and save yourself from third degree burns.  At this point I'm so spoiled I think it will be difficult to drink "chai" back in the states ever again...

I now have internet in my apartment for the first time in 6 weeks, so (hopefully) my posts will be a little more regular (and if anyone wants to skype, hit me up!).

Weeks 3 and 4

Since I last wrote, I’ve been busy.  I went on a safari, explored a cursed temple, destroyed several small children in Connect Four (and then was badly beaten in speed-Connect Four)… my thoughts seem to occur non-linearly these days, so I’m just going to post and talk about a few of my favorite pictures from the past ~2 we

Indians tend to load a lot of people on scooters.  It’s extremely common to see 3 (the legal limit), and not at all uncommon to see an additional child (or goat, or giant pane of glass??) packed on the front. So, coming back from a restaurant one evening, four people, one scooter, with no rickshaws in sight, we thought we’d give it a try…

Shh, don't tell my mom!

I was later reassured to find out that my friend, the driver, is a former motorcycle racing champion (or at least second place).  I was less comforted to know that his butt was not in fact touching the seat the whole time we were driving. 

Fun? Extremely.  Will I do it again? Probably not.  When even the locals are laughing at you, you’re probably doing something stupid/crazy.

Speaking of driving, here are a few pictures of common Indian road hazards.  Cows (who have more of a right of way than pedestrians), road-blocks, and even a “road work ahead” sign. 

Cleverly hidden in the shadows to keep things interesting for scooter drivers

yes, it's a branch

Fortunately, Indian automobiles are paragons of road safety.

I think the best part of our safari through Nagarahole National Park wasn’t the safari itself (although seeing wild elephants was pretty special), but the sights and sounds of the country roads we took to get there.  As a friend here said, the most beautiful thing in India is the children.

On another outing I visited the temples of Talakadu, which were recently excavated from under ~30 feet of sand.  The sand dunes seem wildly out of place in this fertile river valley, and legend attributes their presence to a curse.  On the way there, my travel companion and I had stopped to recharge our GPS when we were invited to a celebratory meal honoring a snake god.  We ate food with our hands off banana leaves as people all around us stared inquisitively.  It was fantastic, easily my favorite meal so far. 

The temples were fascinating, but still my favorite part of the trip was again the drive.  We got caught in a rainstorm on the return, but once it had passed, the rays of the evening sun shone through the mist… it was sublime.

 

...and here's a gratuitous monkey

I’m taking my trip one day at a time, but now that I’m starting to get more settled (and no longer ill!) I’m finally feeling truly content. 

India is overwhelming and life-changing… and I think I like it.

Week 1

I’m writing this post from bed: after a week, those sneaky microscopic bastards finally got me.  I spent most of Tuesday in a feverish stupor and in the end saw a doctor (a strange experience) and picked up some antibiotics (doctors visit + antibiotics and other medicine = $3). On a related note, I will probably never eat tandoori chicken again.  Luckily, I’m surrounded by amazing people who were unimaginably helpful in taking care of me.  I feel blessed to have received such an outpouring of kindness from people I’ve only known a week; it only reinforces what a special place this is.

Travel Ganesh says- don't eat meat in India!

Earlier in the week, I took my camera out exploring.  It’s impossible to truly capture how colorful and vibrant India is, but here are a few of my sights and experiences.

With my friend Isabel, I took a rickshaw to the Mysore Zoo, one of the “must see” attractions of the area.  

Even rickshaws have to stop for gas

I’m starting to get more used to rickshaws.  Between swerving around stray cows and weaving in and out of oncoming traffic, they require a certain amount of blind faith in your survival.

Unbeknownst to us, the day we picked to go to the zoo was also one of the biggest holidays on the Muslim calendar, so it was packed.  We soon found that we were as much of a novelty to our fellow zoo-goers as the lions and elephants.  Children were thrilled to have us take their picture, or better yet to take a picture with their whole family.

These little guys were characters 

My Indian family

Fascination with the unusual aside, I think in most cases the children are just excited to have a chance to practice their English.  The inevitable series of questions: “Hello, how are you? What country? Can we take a picture?” (followed by giggles).

On our day off from yoga practice, a group of us took a road trip to a nearby Tibetan village, Bylakuppe.  But first, we had breakfast at Santosha’s, a delicious highlight of many of my days. 

French Press and French Canadian

The land for the village of Bylakuppe was donated by the Indian government to Tibetan refugees and is now home to a prosperous community that includes hundreds of monks who gather at the famous Golden Temple.  The photo requests continued, especially since we were traveling with someone who is 6’7. 

The girls and their fan club

Take a picture with the tall guy!

Inside, the massive temple houses three 60’ golden statues.  We timed our trip so as to be present for the mid-day prayer ceremony, at which point the temple floods with monks chanting in rhythmic unison.  It was a powerful and unique experience. 

One thing that troubled me about the temple, and that pervades many other experiences in India generally, was the stark contrast between opulence and poverty.  Just outside this beautiful and lavishly decorated temple, small children in tattered rags tug at your shirt, begging for money and food.  Every morning as I walk to yoga, the servants of wealthy households diligently scrub their front walks as barefoot women from nearby slums pick through the piles of garbage that collect on abandoned lots.  An orphanage nestled amidst mega-homes has a basket for abandoned babies with a sign that tragically reads, “Do not kill your baby, leave it here.”  It’s strange to see such extreme stratification of wealth socially accepted… then again I feel that, given the brevity of my time here, there is still much more I have yet to learn.

First Impressions

Greetings from India!  I’ve only been here a few days, yet I already feel that I’ve experienced so much…

Even though from what I hear Mysore is kind of like India ‘light,’ it still feels very foreign to me, and has from the minute I boarded my flight at Newark.  Without exaggeration, I was one of 3 non-Indians on the flight (out of ~350 people).  Upon arriving in Bombay(/Mumbai) some 16 hours later, the abundance of poverty was apparent immediately.  We flew over miles of slums that surround the airport, practically spilling onto the runways.

All of the blue you see is tarps

From Mumbai I took a 2 hour flight to Bangalore, where a car was waiting to take me on the 3 hour drive to Mysore (for less than $40).  I decided to sit in the front seat for the ride, which may or may not have been a mistake as driving in India is absolutely terrifying.  Halfway there, the driver stopped to have a smoke and picked up some roadside chai, my first of the trip!  I was slightly nervous that my digestive system might never recover, but too tired to care.  It was unfathomably delicious, and I didn’t get sick!  Finally, at 2AM, 30 hours after leaving my home in North Carolina, I arrived at my apartment in Mysore.

It didn’t take long to make friends the next morning.  After wandering around for a bit, I eagerly ran up to the first obviously-western couple I saw.  They turned out to be wonderfully pleasant and helpful New Zealanders who immediately put me at ease and pointed me in the right direction.  Since then I’ve met people from Poland, Norway, France, Australia, and Cyprus, to name a few.  Everyone connected with the yoga community here has proven to be friendlier than I could ever have hoped.

A few things I’ve learned so far:

Do not disrupt a monkey that is crossing the street

Real chai is on a whole other level (and only costs about 25 cents)

Pet dogs are considered a status symbol

Loud burping, frequent honking, and blatant littering are not considered taboo (or in the words of my driver as he threw his garbage out the window, “yes yes, it is India, no problem”)

You can buy a lot with 100 rupees! (~$2).  In fact, if you try to use a 100 rupee note to buy something like, say, lunch (40 rupees!), they will often belligerently refuse it.

A good portion of the time I have no idea what the locals are saying.  This usually ends in me squinting and them bobbing their heads ambiguously (what does it mean??).  I’ve taken a few photos of my apartment with my camera, and hopefully soon I’ll be brave enough to take it out for a walk to capture the surrounding town of Gokulam. 

Meanwhile, back in Charlotte…

A week before I left for India, we unexpectedly had a new dog thrust into our lives.  Her name is Renee, and she is a former show dog whose princess antics and ‘bad behavior’ were causing her to show poorly.  We reluctantly took her for a ‘trial run’ to see how she got along at our house, and she immediately won us over.  It’s nice to know that on my return I’ll have this ball of love waiting for me!

Copenhagen

Next stop- Copenhagen, or København in Danish (pronounced Kuben-hown... where did we get Copenhagen?)

I loved this city.  With its bright colors, delicious food, and brisk pace (while also somehow remaining laid back) Copenhagen quickly became one of my favorite places.

Nyhavn in Copenhagen

We left our apartment in Reykjavik at 3 in the morning... it was painful (and confusing, the sun was so high already it felt like mid morning).  My mom, the eternal optimist, wanted to be sure that we were able to squeeze every last minute out of our first day in Denmark.  And that we did!  We crossed pretty much every item off our 'A' list of things to do in Copenhagen in that first half day.  Our efficiency was largely thanks to our fabulous tour guides Paul and Judith, family friends who moved to Denmark from North Carolina a few years back.  They walked us all over the city and gave us a taste of life in Denmark.

A tour guide with flair

Denmark is a constitutional monarchy with socialist leaning social and economic policies.  It doesn't take long to see that the people who live there are healthy and happy. What's incredible to me (and what I loved) is that the reason this system is able to work so well is the attitude of the people themselves.  It's an attitude of personal accountability... instead of trying to beat the system  everyone is just trying to play their part.  The same was true in Iceland.  A few examples... In Iceland, there are pools of boiling hot water with little to nothing to keep back curious tourists.  That's because if you stick your hand in the boiling water and burn yourself, the reaction is, well, I probably shouldn't have done that instead of reaching for your phone to call your lawyer and find out who you can sue.  In Denmark, bikes flood the street at rush hour.  If a bike mistakenly goes against the right of way and gets hit by a car, they will limp away dragging their broken bike and apologizing to the driver!  They feel accountable for their actions.  I could go on, but that's enough of that...

Sometimes you have to stop and smell the roses

We saw palaces and castles, had coffee in the sun and took a boat ride through the canals.

We even saw cute little baby ducklings! 

...and not so cute papa ducks

My parents celebrated their anniversary while we were there, 31 years and they're still best friends!

d'awwwww

It was so much fun after two years of living far away to get to spend time not only with my parents but with my cousin Katie and my Aunt Sophie.  I'm not sure how they put up with our shenanigans for that long, but I hope that they enjoyed the trip as much as I did.  

The whole Ilardo gang

After three and a half ridiculously full days, it was time to leave.  We walked so much while we were there I ended up with holes in my shoes! It was a fantastic trip and I would love to go back.  Although, it is nice to be back home, if only to finally see the sun set again.

Land of Ice and Fire (part II)

Day 2 at Budir, the day of the wedding!

View of the glacier from Hotel Budir

We started off the day by going to the top of the nearby glacier, Snaefellsjokull (Icelandic is not at the top of my list of languages to learn... although it's fascinating! It's the only language in the world to use certain letters because it has been more or less preserved since the middle ages).  We were promised snow-suits for the snow cat so we all dressed lightly, only to be given instead what was basically airplane blankets.  It was cold!

Katie, me, and the groom

Are we doing it right?

It's not a green screen, I swear

Our faces and feet frozen from the wind and snow, we rode the snow cat back down to meet our bus, which seemed to be running on Icelandic time (it is an island, after all).

Two beach girls and a Viking

Then, it was back to the hotel to prepare for the wedding! The ceremony was held outside where the temperature was brisk but the scenery was beautiful. Navigating the volcanic landscape in heels was a little tricky, and the bride's brother-in-law almost disappeared into a sink hole, but we made it.

Matt reading his vows to Kara

The Icelandic minister had a sense of humor, and when the ring bearer (unwillingly) brought his pillow up for the exchanging of the rings the minister put it on his head.

The traditional Icelandic wedding cap

The ceremony ended with everyone joining hands in a circle around the bride and groom and singing "and everyone had lots of fun, lots of fun..." to the tune of London bridge is falling down.  It was certainly a memorable occasion!  Dinner was 6 courses of fish, all fresh caught that morning.  And there were vegetables!  I've never been so excited to see vegetables in my life.  The last course and wedding 'cake' (another unique aspect of the wedding, I wish I had a picture!) didn't wrap up until after 1am.  Looking outside the eternal sun made the early morning indistinguishable from any other time of the day.  The next morning we said farewell to the bride and groom and headed back to Reykjavik, where our  next adventure (Copenhagen!) awaited us.

Overall, Iceland was a mind-blowingly beautiful place.  It reminded me a lot of the Hawaiian landscape, but tremendously more vast.  The water was unbelievable (glacial run off? yum) and the bread was some of the best I've ever had.  My only complaints were that it was cold (I'm a Hawaii girl now), every meal was meat or fish and potatoes (can I get a pepper??), and the hot water at our apartment smelled like farts.  The people in Iceland were polite but not especially warm.  Given their history (centuries of economic depression, including the recent banking crash of 2008) and the often bleak weather, even in the summer, I can't say I blame them.  Complaints aside, it was an unforgettable trip and I'm glad I had an occasion to go there!

Land of Ice and Fire (part I)

First stop- Iceland!

My cousin Matt and his fiancee (now wife!) Kara decided to have their wedding in Iceland, so I set off from Hawaii with everything I own and got on my first flight of eight in two weeks.  I met up with my parents in NC, my aunt at JFK, and my cousin Katie and the rest of the family in Reykjavik.  We went straight from the airport to a 10 hour bus tour, the 'Golden Circle' where we saw waterfalls

The Ilardos in Iceland

the geyser for which all other geysers are named

Did you know it's pronounced gay-ser?

and ate a lot of lamb.  Apparently vegetables aren't too big in Iceland.  The sights were incredible, but by the end of the tour jetlag caught up with me hard...

It's hard to be grumpy with a view like that

Day two was more relaxed, with a trip to the Blue Lagoon (a naturally heated geothermal spa!) 

and then a few hours by bus to the wedding location, Hotel Budir, in a remote part of western Iceland. We made one stop on the way, and I ran a little ways to a bridge down the road to get a few pictures of this...

Iceland is the kind of place where every picture you take looks like a painting.  Hotel Budir was every bit as stunning.

They certainly picked a scenic spot!

The locals were friendly

As everyone settled into the hotel, the wedding coordinator/bus driver/lead vocalist took my cousin Matt, his father-in-law to be, and me out for a drive.  We were looking for a cave famous for its echos, but when that proved difficult to find (and as it got closer to time for the rehearsal dinner) we stopped at a scenic fishing village to see what our guide called 'the true foundation of Iceland'.

Villages like these dot the coastline and were once the lifeblood of the nation (if you're ever bored, read up on the history of Iceland! Depressing, but truly interesting).  After a delicious dinner (more lamb...) we headed out for a beach bonfire.  This time of year in Iceland the sun never sets, which is a really bizarre experience (especially on no sleep and a 10 hour time difference!)

They call it the land of the midnight sun for a reason!

It was a beautiful night for a bonfire.  We combed the beach for interesting rocks (which in the spirit of Ilardo competitiveness turned into a game, which Katie and I tied), roasted some marshmallows, and called it a night.

That's all for now, in part 2 I'll get to glaciers and the actual wedding!