Pani Puri – 11 days in India

India India India…

What can i say it is home to over a billion people each going 100 ways at once.  As soon as I made it out of the Airport I was once again struck with the population density as I was a year ago.  Unlike a year ago however I was not travelling with family this time.  Instead, I was touring India with 5 friends (two i hadn’t met until I met them in india) and were later joined by 2 more.  Each of my companions on the trip were just travelling to India so when I met them at the Airport they were full of energy and ready to see the city…even though it was like 10 at night.  I however was the same as I was in Thailand…eager to see thing but still eager to sleep at the end of the day.

As many things did happen in India I will not be able to give a day to day story of what happened.  I will instead just try to touch upon the highlights of the trip…and the downsides.

First Highlight: having company I know.
For the entire trip up to this point I have been on my own meeting people in each new location.  It has been great however I was at the point where I could not have another conversation  starting with, “where are you from.”  Being with friends from the states made conversations / discussions / and jokes much easier to convey.

The group consisted of 6 people for most of the trip. Me…whom all of you know quite well.  I would also like to say I am the biggest Indian I know and ever met.
Viral…a friend of mine from UNC who is really easy for everyone to get along with.  For some reason everyone gave viral a hard time on the trip in a fun way and he was cool with it never really dishing it out.  He was very happy being the second biggest indian in India…even though he is like 5′9
Omar…another friend from UNC who is amongst the wildest and craziest people I know.
Eric…a friend of common friends living in NYC (as are the previous 2) who really likes good food…he ordered many of the groups meal during the trip.
Jaleel… omar’s cousin who is from Canada.  This guy is just as crazy and wild with his cousin making me think it is hereditary.
Latif… jaleel’s friend from Canada who is working on a web start up in Calgary.

I would get to know them all better on the trip and pretty sure they will be life long friends.

Second Highlight:  The food
The food in Thailand was great and I thought I would be disappointed when I got to india.  I was however dead wrong!  THe food here was amazing right off the get go.  The night we landed in Mumbai Viral, Omar, Eric, and I went to a late night restaurant for some food.  The available cuisine was sparse but what we got were these chicken Tikka rolls and some mango lassi’s.  The rolls were slightly spicy and on a variation of Naan.   The lassis tasted of mangos that were jsut taken off the trees and put directly into our glasses.

The next day we arrived in Delhi and we met up with our driver, Khan.  We asked him to take us to a place that he likes to eat and he took us into Konat Place (spelling) to a chicken curry place.  There we each got different meals and mostly sampled out of each other’s plates…the food was once again amazing.  Spicy but not painful.  Also instead of naan’s with the curry we had fresh chapatti’s which I had not had in a long time.  That night we could continue the trend of good food to having possibly our largest meal of the trip at a Muhglai establishment.  We ordered assuming that 5 people would be eating but it turned out to be mostly 3 people having the meal.  I myself put away the food for the other two and my food induced coma for the next 12 hours was all I needed to digest it.

The rest of the trip had periods of amazing food thrown here and there.  On our house boat in Cochin we purchased 12 kilos of Fruit (Mangos, Grapes, Pomegranate, Bananas, and others) of which we consumed almost all of it in one day.  Also on the house boat we had home cooked Kerela food which was eaten by the use of hands ( a first for me).

Also in Cochin we went to the restaurant Rice Boat in the Taj hotel.  This was the best sit down meal we had by far.  The matrondee knew we wanted to try all their specialties and did the ordering for us…we were not disappointed.

Finally during much of the trip we talked about “Pani Puri” (for some reason Jaleel kept yelling it out like he had a mild case of Torrets Syndrome).  On mine and Eric’s last night in Mumbai we found ourselves on Chappatay beach sampling the fair food.  There we saw Pani Puri and decided to have some.  It was by far the best I have had and Eric liked it too.  However, his stomach did not.  I can only imagine how uncomfortable his flight back to the states that night could have been.

Third Highlight: Culture and Sights
India is a huge country with an absurd amount of people in a very small area.  To get an idea of how many people are in any given area next time you walk around a mall in the states multiply what you see by 30 and that is what you can expect in a comparable area in India.  Even with all the people and all the diversity there is a sense of one-ship that I found pretty palpable in India.  The people all seemed to be from India first and then from their specific area or city.  This meant that as we got to talk to each new individual in India we could piece together the overall pulse of the country since it was beating in everyone.

Major Annoyance 1: Pollution
I have gone from Country to Country and culture to culture not trying to judge or compare them. However, I have not seen such a blatant disregard for public lands or the lands of your neighbor as I have in india…and I am DISGUSTED by it.  Everyone on the street was treating the areas as a trash bin and it showed everywhere we went.  Even on the beaches of goa (which could have been some of the most beautiful i’ve seen) I saw a family literally throw their trash into the water.  There was trash everywhere outside of residences.  Mumbai was the worst and delhi was a close second in amount of filth that was freely floating by.

In addition, I noticed that people used any outdoors area as a toilet.  I never saw so many people urinating by the side of the road as I did in India.  I also believe that the residents of the country are fine with it.  They have the mentality that if everyone else is doing it then it is fine if I do.

I don’t understand how the population can see pristine cities in their Bollywood films and not ask why is my city not like that?

Major Annoyance 2: Travel
This one is mostly the groups lack of knowledge more than an annoyance of the country.  I would like to thank omar and viral for booking the trip once again but I think they might have been a little too ambitious on what we could see and not see.  To give you an idea I was in India from April 27th to May 10th (not enough time to scratch the surface I know).  And in this time I took 7 flights and visited 5 cities and did two day excursions (a safari and a house boat ride).  Basically everyday was a hectic world-wind of getting in and out of a hotel and making it to the next location.  As terrible as it sounds it did make for one day of complete ridiculousness.  But again I thank Omar and Viral who allowed me to stay for free in their 5 star accommodations.

April 30th…
The day started in Delhi bright and early around 5 or 6 AM.  We checked out of the Sheraton (super nice by the way) and make the way to the Airport.  On the way there I am hearing for the first time what is about to transpire this day.  Our final destination for the day was Cochin (a big city in Kerela) and Omar is pretty sure there were no direct flights so instead we are going from Delhi to Hydrabad (10 minute layover) to Banglore then to Cochin.  We get to the airport go through the ridiculous ordeal that is security at an Indian airport (another story in itself).   As we are checking in I see something on the screen and tell Viral to look at it..he does and a big smile cracks across his face.  We tell omar to look at the screen and by the time he does what I saw is gone….he asks me what was up there and I said a direct flight to Cochin….he didn’t believe me.  But sure enough a few minutes later it comes back up and he proceeds to yell at us for not telling him about the airline known as Air Sahara.  Oh well nothing can be done.

Our flight out of delhi leaves on time and we arrive to Banglore a few minutes before scheduled.  Pretty happy with the timeliness of our flights so far in India we all leave to get lunch as we have a 4 hour layover in Banglore.  We end up having this great meal at the Ebony restaurant atop the Ivory hotel.  Completely thrilled with the trip so far nothing can prepare us for what happens next.

We tell the driver we would like to go to a market before we go to the airport.  The driver gets all excited and drives like 20 minutes (even though the guy in the restaurant said it was 5 minutes away) and takes us to a Rug store! We completely flip out and start yelling at him trying to make a buck on us.  All our happiness with the food vanished.  Then on the way to the hotel he just parks the car and is like i need to have lunch.  Again we start yelling at him and he basically gives us the finger and goes to grab a meal.  Infuriated we wait for 5 to 10 minutes until he comes back.  Finally we get to the airport and give him no tip and get back to waiting for our flight.  Again we go through the ordeal of security and go wait for our plane.

Once inside the gate agents tell us we are delayed 10 minutes.  Then 10 minutes later we are delayed an hour.  Then an hour later that we are not going to leave until 10…it is about 5 PM at this time.  All of us lose our cool.  I realize i need to buy a ticket from Goa to Mumbai so i figure this is the time to do it.  I get out of security and go to the ticket office to wait in line for 10 minutes to buy a ticket.  This is what happens next:
Lady: Sorry we can’t take foreign cards or cash
Me:  Why can’t I pay cash…my friend just payed cash for a ticket
Lady:  Tomorrow
Me:  Tomorrow?  I can pay cash tomorrow?
Lady:  Yes cash tomorrow
Me:  Why not cash today?
Lady:  Monday
Me:  No cash on Monday?
Lady:  Cash on Tuesday

I wanted to yell but i was so dumbfounded at the stupidity of the system I just went to another airline that happily took my money.

When I made my way back inside I met Viral who was possibly the most upset I have ever seen him.  I asked him whats up and he told me that the guy at the snack stand wouldn’t sell him a coke.  As I am watching a person goes up and asks for a “Coke Lite” and gets one.  So i tell viral that he was just mistaken and he should ask for another.  He does and the guy shakes his head no.  Not that weird head shake just a straight no.  So I go up and ask can I get a coke and he tells me yes.  Then I ask…can I get a coke for this guy- pointing at viral; and again he says yet.  I purchase the coke and give it to viral and we walk away about to bring down the whole airport.

Annoyance number 3:  No respect for the line
Fitting with the mentality that it is all about me and I don’t care about you…Indian people do not care about lines.  They won’t form them but rather create a huge swarm around a single point until everyone is upset.  So many times we had to stare down, yell, and forcibly make people get to the back of the line that I felt often like a 3rd grade teacher.  The final time was on the flight out of Mumbai where I had to keep going up to people and forcing them to move (by literally pushing their cart out of line at times) until finally people coming in would go to the back of line.

THE REST OF THE ANNOYANCES:
Don’t have time to elaborate but;
- The head shake that means both a yes and a no at the same time.
- Men, men everywhere.  Why were there no single indian women out and about?  What is the basis for the double standard? I hate countries where women are treated or expected to act in a different manner than men.