Last day in India

Spent my last day wondering around Mumbai, I've come down with a cold which sucks, but I'm trying to press through it till I get home and can sleep it off. I hope everyone has enjoyed following me on my trip, it's been great. Now I'll spend the next 24 hours making my way back to Atlanta, oh joy.

India Gate Mumbai

Awesome hole in the wall

I was debating about going to a restaurant in a five star hotel for a fancy dinner, then I found a few reviews of a really small (6 tables) place that specializes in meat. I chose the pork meatloaf with an egg on top. It was great, love these little places. I'm the only tourist here. Dinner for 300 rupee, $5. Have to say I'm lovin Mumbai.

Slum Tour

I just took a slum tour in Daharvi, a slum of one million inhabitants in Mumbai. It was incredible. It really wasn't what I expected, it was just a cramped city within a city. There was a industrial district and a residential district separated by a drainage ditch. In the industrial portion was the largest recycling center in mumbai, with plastic and aluminum as the main components, they also had a leather industry, pottery, and clothing. The annual economic output is almost $600 million. Yes that's US dollars every year, just because they are a slum does not mean they don't do anything. The working conditions are atrocious to say the least, as we passed through the aluminum section, one of the workers asked our guide if he could get them some face masks. You could see their bodies covered in chemicals, no protection at all. The same in the plastic reclimation, the workers stand inside of the scredder and feed it by hand. Our guide told us the life expectancy of the workers is very low, I looked at the other American on our tour and said "OSHA would have a field day". I joke, but it was really sad. As we were leaving the industrial district a camera crew approached us. Apparently only foreigners are interested in the life of a resident of the slums, it is a taboo subject among the greater mumbai population. So this film crew was making a show to help unveil the lives of the inhabitants of the slums. We then proceeded to the residential district by navigating through alleyways that even I had to duck, and at times my shoulders would touch both sides. It was very similar to caving, no light, and I have no idea how our guide navigated the maze. Every few feet were open doors to people's homes, most were about 10 foot square with entire families living in them. In all it was a three hour tour, and it was amazing. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take many pictures, only from the rooftop of the plastic recycling area. The tour ended in the community center set up by our tour operator. All the funds from the tour go back towards helping to educate the children in the slums, even our guide is a resident of the slum.

The funny face was because the sun was in my face, not because of the smell.

This guy was spreading out the plastic shreds for drying after washing them. 

Commit no nuisance

That's almost $15

Burger and Beer

So I caved once I got to Mumbai. I had not had any beef since arriving here in India. There is actually a push to outlaw beef consumption right now. But once I got to the trendy bar near my hotel with all the local micro brews, they were having a beer and burger festival, so I caved and had a beef burger (about on par with five guys and the like, good but not special). I'll try to partake in the street food scene tomorrow.

Mumbai

Wow, unimaginably huge. It really is a Indian version of New York City. Twenty million people in sixteen hundred square miles, that's eleven thousand people per square mile.

I have just arrived at my hotel, and I have mixed feeling on my up coming departure. India has been an incredible adventure. These three weeks have flown by, it feels like a few days ago I was leaving EuroWerks for the airport.

One thing I will miss is the quality of customer service, I have felt like a king here, being waited on hand and foot everywhere I go. Other things like the trash and sewage in the gutters I will not miss so much.

India is described by many as a land of contradictions and now I see why. The rich and poor live side by side, the brightly colored shops, next to ancient red sandstone forts, and the wonderful smells of herbs and spices mixes with human excrement from across the street.

Goa

Sorry I haven't posted in the past few days, just relaxing in Goa. Its pretty quiet during the day because its so freaking humid and hot. I went exploring on my first day here and climbed up to the forts in the area for these views. Afterwards I had soaked through my shirt and pants. At night the parties start and everyone comes out, its mostly electronic/trance music, which is not my favorite. 

One nice part about Goa is I can wear shorts and a t-shirt without getting stared at, because Goa is frequented by international travelers it is much more relaxed in its dress code. In the rest of India shorts are only worn by small children. Pants and long sleeve dress shirts are the norm for men. 

We had a nice storm pass through last night, only the second rain of the trip. I had hoped it would clear out some of the haze so I could take better pictures but this morning it was still there. Small camp fires are the standard cooking method for most of India and it covers the country in a constant haze. Even in New Delhi there were fires on the sidewalks with people cooking their meals. 

Pondicherry Promenade

During the day the seafront is quiet, but from 7pm to 6am the street is closed to cars and bikes, and the locals fill the entire street. I arrived on Sunday and there were at least 3,000 people, since then for the weeknights there have been 7-800 people milling around. Its nice and calm, mostly families walking together and some groups of teenagers behaving quite well.

This is a statue of the Joseph Dupleix a popular French governor of Pondicherry from 1742.

The Gandhi statue in the center of the promenade.

A French memorial to the fallen Indian soldiers of WWI.

Just a random street in the French quarter. Very pretty by Indian standard.

The governor's house.

There are thousands of signs with odd English phrases on them, here is just one I found funny, 

"fancy items available here"

SITA cooking class

I just took another cooking class, this one in Pondicherry. 

It was done very well by the cultural center, SITA. The class consisted of six students all around my age mid 20's to 30. There were three French, two Australian, and me. So the instructor said everything in both French and English, then spoke to the locals in Tamil, it was very impressive. 

The class started off with going to the local market and purchasing all our ingredients, a few of us watched as they slaughtered the chicken, it was so foreign to see all the animals alive before buying the meat, American markets are so sterile and desensitized to where it all comes from. 

One funny thing that happened at the market was the teacher told a vendor the countries we were all from, and they looked directly at me and said they would paint their daughter white and send her with me to America. This is not the first time a parent has tried to pawn a child off on me in India. This time though, it was in front of French and Australian people, with no regard to their countries. I'm no Gung ho American, but it's nice when everyone is impressed I'm American. Even though I didn't actually do anything to achieve that status.  

I took pictures only in the market and got so wrapped up into the cooking I forgot to take more during that time. It all turned out very well, it was interesting to hear the differences in cooking in general from the three different countries. 

I have the rest of today in Pondi, then off to Goa tomorrow.

(various lentils)

(tomatoes)

(lots of coconuts)

Delhi Belly

One of my biggest fears of traveling to India was getting sick. There are many names for TD, Delhi Belly, Montezuma's Revenge, and so on. Before I left the US I ate as much spicy food as I could to build my tolerance to the heat, but I knew I could not build my tolerance to the microbes. But I was not going to let it stop me from enjoying the trip, so I ate street food in Delhi, had a communal dinner sitting in the sand eating with my hands in Rajasthan, and had the spiciest dinner I could find in Agra. For a week and a half, no problems. But yesterday I had a seafood pizza on the beach in Pondicherry, the cleanest city I have been in yet in India. I regretted it seven hours later. It was a rough night, but after a light breakfast I am feeling much better. I am now going to tour the french quarter, and the churches of Pondi, I'll post pictures tonight.

Rajasthan

Well I am now on the southeast coast of India in Pondicherry, the old French colony. Saturday and Sunday turned out to be very long days. 

I befriended my tuck-tuck driver in Jaipur and after showing me the typical tourist sights he took me to Shekhawati and his hometown. Shekhawati is a historic collection of villages in north east Rajasthan. It was a traitorous three hour drive on some of the worst roads I have every been down. Because the drive was so long, Sumere let me drive the car for a while. At first I was nervous about driving in India but I got the hang of it pretty quickly, the horn is applied at every intersection and when passing. Oh and the whole driving on the left. 

Once in Shekhawati he showed me the havelis that they are famous for. Basically in the 17-1800's merchants built large houses and competed with each other to make theirs the most beautiful. The merchants used half of their house as a meeting place for business, and the other half to live in. At that time there were many Persians in the area and they brought fresco style painting to the region so all the havelis were covered in beautiful paintings. There are more frescoes in the Shekhawati area than anywhere else in the world. 

After a very hot afternoon touring the area we went to his grandparents house and slept until dinner. His aunt made an amazing goat curry with rotis and rice. After all of that we drove back to Jaipur. I did not get back to my hotel until 1 am, then I had to pack, and at 5 I checked out and went to the airport. There was one stop in the middle of India, which made the entire flight a four and a half hour journey to Chennai. Once in Chennai I had a three hour taxi ride down the coast to Pondi. 

This morning I went to look through my pictures to post a few and all of my pictures were gone. I freaked out and downloaded a recovery app and was able to rescue most of my pictures but some were corrupted, so I will post what I have, and backup my phone more often now. Thanks for all the comments, hope all is well. -Jon

Amber fort

Rajistani cooking class in Jaipur

Had a morning class in rajasthani cuisine, the instructor was a chef I'm dubai before returning home and starting a cooking school in jaipur. Was impressed with my knowledge of Indian cuisine, no American had known what asafetida was in his 4 years of teaching. I cooked laal maas (lamb curry), chicken soweta (chicken curry with corn), pachkutta (veg w/ cumin and mango powder), missi roti (flat bread with spices), and malpua (fried pancake soaked in sugar syrup).

Afternoon with elephants

Spent the afternoon riding and feeding elephants in Jaipur. They were magnificent.

Flaming Wok katchup

I don't know why but I laughed pretty hard at this one.

Unexpected Agra

Well I've been in country for one week today, and have experienced Delhi, and Agra. Now I'm on my way to Jaipur to complete the "golden triangle" the standard tourist route.

It's hard for me to separate feelings about a city as a whole from the interactions with the individuals who live there. In Delhi I stayed at a lovely house in a nice neighborhood and had a good taxi driver that made sure I was seeing the standard tourist sites, while giving me the usual touts that all Indians do in one way or another. Delhi just didn't connect with me, no soul. That or possibly I had just not yet been fully emerged into indian culture.

While planning the trip most recommendations had been a day trip to Agra, see the Taj and move on. But I decided to give the secondary sites a chance, I also wanted a sunrise viewing of the Taj, which meant an overnight stay.

All I can say is the people of Agra blew me away, I have never been to a house where I have felt so welcome in so little time, anywhere. N. Home Stay, which I originally thought meant north home stay, but actually is short for Naghma's Home Stay, is a true home away from home. I can't even put to words how good it felt to spend an evening in the kitchen learning the local culinary magic of a wonderful woman. She was incredible, and her cooking truly heavenly. I had great conversations with her two sons about anything and everything. Their tuk-tuk driver, Mukul, went above and beyond to ensure I had a great experience seeing all Agra had to see. I leave Agra with a heavy heart and only hope the rest of India can live up to that experience. Thank you Naghma

Taj Mahal

I took many pictures, I will post later. They only allow pictures from outside the mausoleum, the inside in sacred and no camera are allowed. These are from my cell phone, I took more on my camera, I will upload once I get to Jaipur.

Ok, here are the best of my camera photos (cheap point and shoot, no fancy DSLR for me)

These picture were taken around 6:30 - 7:00 in the morning, that is why there are so few people there. I was able to walk around inside the mausoleum freely. By the time I left at 8:30 it was getting quite crowded.