Cooking up a storm

Bonnie told me about the cookery course she did over dinner one evening in Varanasi and since then the idea had been playing on my mind. It's practically impossible to get decent Indian food in Paris and those of you that know me know I'm not that nifty in the kitchen so I only really eat Indian when I'm back in the UK, or rare visits to NY.

Bonnie told of how she'd had a 1-on-1 lesson in a family home and not only learnt to make a wide range of dishes but also got to see how a middle class family lives and of course the opportunity to converse with the mother. Needless to saying signing up for a lesson was the first thing I did when I got to Udaipur.

Encouraged to start giving lessons by her husband, Kamini has been welcoming curious cooks into her kitchen for 3 years now and has the knack of making you quickly feel at ease and able to learn. From a long list I chose 8 stock standard Indian dishes to learn that I hoped would give me a solid culinary base; masala chai, veg pakora, palak paneer (my favourite!), veg curry, jerra rice, veg raita, chapati & halva for desert.

Veggie pakora. Bad for the hips, great for the soul ;-)

The secrets in making a good paste...

Within minutes of walking through the door I was in the kitchen with Kamini was explaining how to blend the spices and flour to make pakora whilst the oil gently heated and her 7-yr old son popped in and out, curious to see who'd come to visit the house today. "Slip the slices in gently from the side" she explained, "it makes the batter even and stops you getting burnt" as the hot oil spluttered and the air filled with the smell of cumin and chili.

...and slipping in the pakora from the side of the pan.

The time flew by as we chopped and stirred and whilst I noted recipes and snapped photos Kamini took time to explain a little more about the spices, how they make pickles when the fruits are in season, grind their own flour and what dishes are eaten when for special occasions.

Palek Panner - the real thing made from scratch! Check out her pan handle/pliers!

I learnt that 'masala' actually means 'spice' and does not refer to a particular blend of spice, that 'jerra' means 'tumeric' and how to lightly press down and 'spin' a chapati whilst it's cooking to make it puff up!

Make the chiapatti flat and even

Then it'll puff up beautifull

Teaching and cooking both come naturally to Kamini and I think the most important thing I took away from my time with her was confidence to try these dishes at home. To buy and blend my own spices to make fresh curry paste rather than buying packets and how quick and easy it is to whip up a tasty dish with just a few simple ingredients, when you know how!

Halva - doesn't look like much at this stage but it'll be yummy later ;-)

The only regret I have is that the time passed so quickly. Having cooked up a storm and eaten most of what we prepared I left Kaimni's home on a culinary high and walked straight to the market to buy all I'd need to relive the experience back in Paris. No longer will I have to wait until I'm next in London or NY for great Indian food and I can now confidently invite you over for dinner sometime. Just let me know when you're free :-)

The end result! Bon app

Kamini - a truely wonderful teacher

Perpetual Motion

I reluctantly left Varanasi in the evening time and loitered for as long as possible on a terrace cafe watching the colours change as the sun set and the hundreds of kites attached to hundreds of small boys on the surrounding rooftops.


After such a chilled out end to my stay it was with a harsh jolt that I got onto the night train to Jaipur that was full of loud drunk indian guys, each with their mobile phone playing music at full volume. Frankly though even if it had been a quiet train I don't think I, or the other 4 backpackers I was in the carriage with, would have got much sleep having been scared silly by the railway police before getting on the train. They made us each read a leaflet stating that the train was rife with criminals that would try and trick us or drug us in order to steal our bags and so they advised us not to eat or drink anything and to sleep in 'shifts' if possible so there was always someone on guard. Needless to say it was a long 20-hr train ride, but apart from the noise and lack of sleep, a totally uneventful one.

I'd visited Jaipur back in 2000 so got off the train and straight on to a bus to Ajmer, then another bus until eventually, 26-hrs after leaving Varanasi, I arrived in Pushkar where I went straight to bed. After the lush green hills of Nainital & Rishikesk, then the plains of Varanasi I was now in the landscape of the arid and rocky deserts of Rajasthan.

Pushkar is famous for it's lake, ghats and camel fair which happened about a week before I got there. It's also a place that quiet a few westerns seem to have trouble leaving and there are quite a few that have 'gone native' and are experimenting with various forms of dredlocks and facial hair.

Unfortunately I was sick for most of the 48-hrs I had there (bottle of bad mineral water I reckon) but what with it's lake being dry after the poor monsoon and the only other major activity being shopping the town had little that was of interest for me. Given that just a short while ago I was wondering what on earth i'd do for a month here if I wasn't going to trek I suddenly had only 2-weeks left and so much left still to do and see!

Where there should have been a lake... not very attractive is it!

Having already visited the 'Golden Triangle' (Delhi, Agra, Jaipur) back in 2000 i'd decided I was going to see the rest of Rajasthan and had put together a non-stop agenda for the next 2-weeks. The next morning at first light I hopped on a public bus to Jodphur and had myself a 'logistical planning' day in which I organised bus, train and an airplane ticket that would allow me to make the most of the time I had left, starting with an early train the next day to Jaisalmer. From here my Rajastani adventure would start!

Up with the sparrows to catch the first bus outta town

Finally the milkman arrives, now we can cook up that first cuppa chai...

Varanasi

Apart from being a great place to hang out for a few days one of the advantages of being in Rishikesh was the abundance of other travelers in town making it easy to get tips and info on trains, buses, and hotel and restaurant recommendations.

Looking at the map of India my 3 previous visits have enabled me to see quite a bit of the country but there were some gaping 'holes' in my travels, the most noticeable of which was Varanasi.

Listed as one of India's oldest cities and an 'must see' in every guide book I'd never got around to working it into my itinerary for a number of reasons; it's in a region i've not visited or transited through and i'd heard some horror stories about how filthy it was and the constant hassle some travelers had experienced there. There was no doubt however that at some point i'd have to work it into my schedule, and that time had come. First though I had to get out of Rishikesh, and with a festival happening further down the road in Haridwar all trains out of town were booked solid. Two days later I climbed aboard the night train to Varanasi and settled down for the 20-hour journey.

I was traveling 3rd class sleeper which is about the lowest class you can take and involves sharing a compartment with seven other people. This is how I met Anu and her family who where making the trip to Varanasi to see a famous swami (holy man) speak.



Anu was bright, confident and spoke pretty good English so the time passed quickly as we played games, drew pictures and her parents quizzed me with Anu acting as the translator. The family bore all the traits of a middle class India family; the father and uncle were dressed in Western clothes, both had mobile phones and the Auntie, like so many other affluent Indians these days, was horribly obese; not surprising as she ate constantly throughout the journey.

I arrived in Varanasi after dark and took a rickshaw as close to the hotel i'd chose as possible, but with the streets of the old town becoming too narrow the final 200 metres had to be made on foot so I jumped down and followed the driver on foot.
From this point on I felt like Alice having fallen down the rabbit hole, snaking through the streets, twisting and turning left and right, having to squash past the occasional cow and tread gently not to trip over a sleeping dog. At times we'd pop out into a well lit bazaar, only to dive down another dark alley which finally led us to the guest house someone had scribbled the name of in my notebook. After checking in and taking a much needed shower I headed up to the rooftop restaurant and caught my first sight on the Ganga and town. The view was serene with the moonlight flickering off the river and small row boats appearing, then slipping away from view through the mist. With the absence of traffic and horns my first impression of Varanasi was bewitching.



So why does everyone come to Varanasi?
Consisting of more than 85 ghats (stone steps down to the river) in just a couple of hundred metres it's a great place to people watch and see life played out before you. Bathing, puja, a game of cricket, washing cows, meeting friends and of course, death, as Varanasi is the place to die and be cremated if you want to give your soul a chance of a better deal in your next life.
Being in Varanasi and not witnessing death is impossible with more than 350 cremations a day at the main ghat. Wondering the narrow streets you're often forced to squash to one-side as another body is carried down to the ghats on a bamboo stretchers, some wrapped in cloth and silks, others not.

The stretchers are carried by four male family members and when they arrive at the river the body is submerged then carried back up to the cremation ghat. Here the family buys 450kg of wood, sandalwood being the most expensive, required to burn the body and the pyre is built.
The body is then placed on top, more wood is stacked on, leaving the head uncovered and the oldest male, having shaved his head and dressed in a simple white robe walks around the pyre four times, followed by the 3 other members and a holy man, scattering sawdust and some kind of powdered fire starter as they go. As the fourth pass is completed the holy man thrusts a burning log beneath the feet and the flames spread quickly to consume the body. The women stand and watch from the steps above and whilst the ceremony is fascinating to watch it's painful to do so with their grief and pain so close and I quickly found myself avoiding the cremation ghats for this reason.
It takes about 3.5 hours for the body to be burn't at which point the oldest son fills an earthenware pot with water from the Ganges and throws it backwards over his head to extinguish the flames. The Ashes are swept into another pot whilst everything that was not consumed by the fire is swept down the bank where its first picked through by cows before being panned through by men of the lowest possible cast seeking gold teeth, bracelets and anything else of value. Needless to say the body is not always entirely burnt and it's best not to look to closely at what they're sifting through.

There are 5 types of bodies that cannot be burnt and receive a slightly different treatment.
Those that have died from cobra bites are placed on small bamboo rafts and floated downstream so the poison can seep slowly into the river. Children under the age of 5, pregnant women, along with holy men and smallpox victims are wrapped in cloth, have heavy stones attached and are sunk out in the middle of the river. I'd spent a good 5 minutes sat by the river until I realised the rock i'd seen earlier was moving downstream and as it turned in the current was obviously the head and shoulders of a body of an adult that had bobbed back up to the surface.

With it's labyrinth of narrow streets knee deep in rubbish and shit, and it's river a soup of effluent and corpses it was clear why Varanasi had the reputation of one of the filthiest cities in India, but as I'd come expecting the worst it failed to shock me and my initial impression of it being a bewitching city remains.

Becoming a happy 'drop-out' in Rishikesh

Despite Nainital's beautiful suroundings I quickly tired of sitting by the lake and drinking chai, and having accepted i'd not being able to trek I was beginning to wonder just what I was going to do with my remaining 4-weeks in India.

I'd had the vague plan of spending 3-weeks in the Himalaya then a week in the state of Gujarat as my flight home leaves from Mumbai rather than Delhi. Now I had 4-weeks and a blank agenda in front of me so I started to explore the map and read up on some of the places around me.

When I was in Sikkim 2-years back I met, Daphna, an Israeli girl, who told me what a great time she'd had in Rishikesh. Looking at the map Rishikesh was 250km North West of Nainital, and if the Lonely Planet's description was correct it sounded like the perfect place to kick-back and relax for a while whilst I sorted out what to do with the rest of my trip.

Sunrise as I left Nainital

The local travel operators in Nainital we're all determined to send me back to Delhi (on their delux bus) to catch a train to Hardiwar that would enable me to bus to Rishikesh, but there was no way I was going to string the trip out to 24hrs or more when it really should be no more than 10 or 12. The next morning I got up at 4.30am and set off for the bus station. I caught a small bus down the hill to Haldwani, the regional transport hub, then wandered around the bus station shouting "Haridwar, Haridwar, Haridwar" and following the fingers of the people that pointed directions. After a couple of minutes I got to a bus with a man shouting "Haridwar, Haridwar, Haridwar" hanging out the door and I hopped on. After 20 minutes the bus was full, the driver jumped in and we set off.

I love traveling like this. The bus has no windows, the suspension gave up years ago, the seats are rock hard and there at twice s many people and bag as there is space, but it works! I know many of you think there's something seriously wrong with me for actually enjoying this but when you travel like this you get to meet people and have conversations that you'd not get traveling in a ' delux' bus with other westerners or affluent Indian's screaming into their mobile phones.

Riding the government buses

My first conversation was with a female lecturer from a local university. She asked me all the usual questions, Where was I from? Where was I going? Am I alone? Where is my husband? What is my job? and I asked her the same. During the 11-hour trip I met 5 or 6 different people, all of them curious and eager to share stories and tell me as much as possible about their home town or state. The time passes quickly and I learn a lot as I have the opportunity to ask questions about what i'm seeing around me, or about that strange food they were selling at the last place we stopped.

Having come down from Nainital at 2,200m and crossed the plains for a number of hours we finally crossed the Ganges river and for the first time I got to appreciate just how enormous it really is. The monsoon was poor and there is no snow melt at this time of the year so much of the river bed was dry but it was easily 0.5km wide, more in places, and you could see it snaking away for miles into the distance.

The mighty Ganga

Straddled across the Ganges a little higher up into the hills Rishikesh was put on the map back in the 1968 when the Beatles came to spend a month in an ashram here, the result of which was their White album. Since then its been a centre for yoga, meditation and healing, and also a common place to come and kick-back, relax and 'drop out' for a while, and this, I decided, was exactly what I was going to do.

Having found myself a great little guest house with some friendly neighbours and a great view I quickly settled into a routine of early breakfast with the English edition of the local papers, a wander down to town to people watch for a while, lunch somewhere quiet with my book dthen meeting up with Joy, James & Mike (my neighbours) for a stroll out of town to the 'beach' in the afternoon.

It's a tough life being a backpacker !

It was on one of these strolls that as a motorbike passed by us a voice called 'Kristen!' and I looked up to see Selina, a colleague from work! What on earth was Selina doing here! and what are the chances of us running into each other an a rather remote road somewhere North of Rishikesh?! I knew that Selina had taken a year sabbatical and at some point was going to be doing some volunteer work in Delhi but it was just by chance that she happened to be having a couple of days break and was staying at an ashram just outside of Rishikesk. How totally bizarre and wonderful to have run into her! It seems chance meetings were becoming a theme on this trip and honestly after running into Selina I would not have been surprised if i'd got back to my guesthouse to see Doug and Cama drinking chai in the garden or bumped into Matt, Katherine & Kaia wandering over the bridge or outside of a temple. How wonderful would that be. It is after all a very very small world.

Chance meeting with Selina (No matter how far you run you never escape the IHT!!)

A couple of nights in Nainital

By the time we'd snaked our way up the mountain and arrived in Nainital it was 7.30am and the town was starting to wake. The cycle-rickshaw drivers were pulling their blankets around them as they hussled for customers at the bus station and the shared taxi drivers were co-ordinating people into clumps based on their final destination.

Like many Indian hill stations Nainital is home to quite a few boarding schools, the parents and pupils of which were now pouring back into town for the return to school after Divali. I'd sat next to a school boy on the journey up and managed to squeeze a few phrases out of him in English.

Where are you from? " Gujarat" he said, "It's a long way from here." I know it! I replied, I'm hoping to go there soon, hoping to use this as a springboard for a conversation about his home state but he shrugged and looked down.

How old are you? I tried. " I am 9-years old" came the replied in textbook English before he turned and looked out of the window gloomily. This wasn't an easy conversation.

Do you like school? I said. "No, I HATE IT!!" it replied loudly looking straight at his father sat in the seat in front of us. Hmm, no wonder he's not such a happy chappy. As we nearer Nainital fat tears rolled down his cheeks and the last I saw of him he'd put his blanket over his head and was refusing to get out of the bus. Poor kid.

Rather than taking a shared taxi to the other end of the lake I walked along the shore watching the changing light on the water and the early morning mist receed up the hills as the air warmed. Nainital was a beautiful town that was becoming more and more popular with middle-class Indian's on their honeymoon and it was easy to see why.

I found myself a guesthouse, threw down my pack and after a quick wash headed back down to the waters edge and found myself a chai stand and some breakfast. My original plan had been to hole up in Nainital for a couple of days in order to quiz as many other trekkers and guides as I could before deciding which of the two glacier treks to the North i'd set my sights on. Of course Chris' verdict was fresh in my mind and I was now going to have to decide whether to heed his advise or ignore it. I'd come here to trek, my backpack was full of gore-tex clothing, thermal underwear and the Himalaya where just beyond that ridge. If I didn't trek what the hell else was I going to do here?

In most towns there is a cafe, restaurant or bakery that becomes the regular backpacker hang-out. There's usually a noticeboard where folks post recommendations and information and sitting around here for an hour or so will guarantee you'll meet someone and be able to start up a conversation. These places are usually a good place to find fellow trekkers as they're either preparing for their trek (look for a group huddled around a map, splitting up food and equipment between their backpacks and buying all the cookies and chocolate they can get their hands on) or they're just back from a trek (in which case they'll be the grubby group looking tired yet elated who have ordered every item on the menu, twice already!) I hug around the most likely looking cafe for an hour and didn't see another westerner. Hmm, i'm not in the right place I thought and wandered down the road a little to bakery that smelt great. By now it was 9.30am and place should have been buzzing with folks like me ordering banana porridge and omlettes but with the expection of a couple of newly-weds the place was deserted. Hmm, I knew this was the end of the trekking season but the weather was still great and all roads North were still open according to the sign outside the police station. Where was everyone?

There are only so many cups of chai you can drink in a morning so I left the strip of cafes along the shore and wandered about the backstreets and lanes behind the main street. The place was a hive of activity at this time of the morning and I spent a good hour watching the trading of fruits, vegetables, meats and grains before I realised i'd not seen a fishmonger in town. How strange given that we're next to a giant lake thats obviously teaming with fish as you can see them below the water! Obviously there was either something wrong with the water or the lake was sacred and so the fish couldn't be eaten. I never did find out which it was but my money would be on the former rather than the later.

After a while I found the office of the mountain guides association that the Lonely Planet was recommending, and inside I met Rik, a yound but obviously knowledgeable guide who was able to answer all the questions about the two treks I'd read about, and even advise some interesting alternatives to the standard route in some place.

"So Rik, where are all the other trekkers?" I asked, having a sneaking feeling I'd know his response.

" It's after Divali now and the shepherds have come down from the hills so the season is pretty much over already" he replied.

With Divali being so early this year it seems the shephers had taken the opportunity to come down off the hills a couple of weeks earlier than expected. Especially as the monsoon had been poor and so the grazing on the hills was not great.

Rik assured me that if I really wanted to trek he'd organise a couple of mules, tents and food enough to enable us to do any of the treks I wasnted, but I didn't want to trek with him alone, not only from a safety perspetive but also from an enjoyment and cost perspective as its always better when you can share the experience and cost with a couple of others.

So, it seemed the odds were staked up against me doing any trekking on this trip and whether I liked it or not I was going to be following Chris' advise and resting up for a couple of days. Oh well, I thought. There could be worse places to spend a couple of days than Nainital I thought, sitting back in my chair, pulling out my book and ordering a hot masala chai as I looked out over the lake.

Down, but not out.

About a month before I left for India I fell and hurt my ankle. Whilst ice was being packed around my foot I blubbed like a baby, not at the pain, but at the unthinkable thought that if my ankle was broken i'd have to postpone my trip. An x-ray showed that all the bones were intact and after a week or so of hobbling around on crutches and resting as much as possible I was pleased with the speed at which the swelling & bruising had gone, and how slowly, but surely, it was getting better.

The fortnight before my flight life was crazy though. At very short notice I had to find a new flat to rent which had Dad & I racing around Paris for a week, then I had to move and unpack, run around organising change of addresses etc and catch up and say goodbye to everyone before I left. All of this left little time for resting my leg or getting to a physiotherapists, but I felt confident I would be able to hike in a good pair of strong boots and with not too much weight on my back. I purposely packed the least amount of kit possible and was pleased when my pack weighed in at just over 8Kg at Charles de Gaulle. My first few days in Delhi however prooved me wrong.

Streets here in India are haphazard and crazy; not just with the mass of people, traffic and trading that' s going on but also the trash, animals and broken ground that are underfoot. Walking down a busy street requires you look up to make sure you don't run into anyone, simultaneously look left and right to ward off potential hagglers and keep and eye out for yummy street food, glance back from time to time to move over and let cows or motorbikes past and constantly look down so as to navigate the broken pavements, rubbish and sleeping dogs. It's an exhausting exercise until you get the hang of it, which usually takes a day or two.
As I slowly ' found my feet' on my first day in Delhi the less I had to concentrate on navigating the more I became aware of how I was walking over obstacles; unnaturally leading with my left leg putting me slightly off balance but 'saving' my right ankle from a potentially wobbly landing. Looking down I realised why. My right ankle had puffed up like a poppadom and was starting to hurt. Damn. This wasn't supposed to be happening, but still it was hot and humid, i'd spent all day yesterday immobile in an airplane and was now tramping around in flip-flops. Maybe it wasn't so surprising my ankle wasn't happy.

The next day I sent off in my hiking boots and walked a lot less, but when I pulled off my boots in the night train the result was the same as the day before. Giant swollen ankle starred back at me, inflamed and angry.

"Ouch, that looks nasty", said the westerner in the bunk across from me. "Let me take a look" said Chris, introducing himself as an orthopedic surgeon from Cambridge.
He agreed with the x-ray from Paris but frowned when I mentioned I was going to trek.
"Nothing major's broken" he said, "I'll take a look again in the morning when the swelling has gone down" and handed me some anti-inflammatories.
"Thanks!", I said, thinking how chance meetings had already had me run into Tathania in Delhi, now a drug-totting doctor on a train. My travel karma seemed to be functioning well at the moment!

As ever the night on the train was peaceful and I slept well. Traveling overnight on these old sleepers is something I always look forward to when I think of coming back to India and I often wish we had something similar in Europe.
" Chai, Chai, Chai!" yelled the tea-wallah as he made his way down through the carriage. I was wide awake and as Chris was still under his blanket I bought a couple of hot, sweet brews for the both of us. It'd didn't sweeten his verdict any though.
" You see how it's swollen at the back, and how it hurts you here when I press here". I yelped.
" That means some of the small bones in your ankle are probably broken or fractured and that's what's causing the pain and swelling. You need to rest this rather than trek if you don't want to do more damage" he said looking me squarely in the eye. " That's the only treatment there is. Rest." I tried to hide my disappointment but obviously didn't do it well. "Sorry" said Chris, looking down into his tea.

I thanked him, laced up my boots tightly, swung my pack over my shoulders and jumped down off the train trying to come to grips with what i'd just been told. My ankle sent a sharp pain up my leg as I landed as if to help hammer the point home and I trudged up the road from the station in the dark, looking for a jeep or bus on up the 36km to Nainital.

As the sun rose and we raced around the switchbacks up the hills my spirit soared at again being back in India. I love this part of arriving in the mountains and no bad news from Chris was going to change that. For now I'd found what I'd dreamed of and be scared of missing when I fell 6-weeks back- being back in the foothills of the Indian Himalaya. One of my favourite places on earth!