Car insurance? In India? You
are weird.
I heartily suggest you find a good curry place though, the stuff's great. I don't know of any places that will give you the kind of wonderful we're being served here, but you can at least get some idea if you go to a good Indian restaurant.
It's best if you're into spicy food, because curry will generally be at least somewhat spicy. Here, it could go anywhere from "Sweet, not spicy" to "Help, my head is on fire!", but in the states they generally only serve the spicy-ish types (so far as I can remember, haven't been to an Indian restaurant in a long time).
But, if you find yourself in England, your luck in finding a good curry spot might be a bit higher. Again, I don't know of any good British curry houses, but it shouldn't be too hard to find one.
No India updates quite yet. Haven't done anything interesting today.
Well, aside from a masterful mosquito death-swipe earlier...
EDIT: Updates!
Well, today was interesting. After spending some time randomly wandering around the apartment and drinking some very healthy tea, we went out to do some random wandering outside.
We got hungry around lunchtime (imagine that) and decided to head on over to the "Satyam Hotel", where we'd eaten the chapathis and parotas before. For a change from bread with curry, we ordered the "meal" (that's how it showed up on the menu) where we got a few different dishes of curry/chutney/other sauces, plus some crispy flatbread, plus rice (infinite refills).
Since the traditional way of eating is to use the fingers of the right hand (due to the inherent uncleanliness of the left hand), we decided we were going to eat with our fingers as well.
It's amazing how much goes into eating something with your fingers properly. I say properly, because there is apparently quite a bit of etiquette in eating with your hand, and the owner/head waiter was more than willing to stop by our table and give tips on how to eat his food.
I would also like to add how incredibly difficult it is to eat lumps of sauce-coated rice without making a total fool out of yourself. Especially when half the patrons in the restaurant have turned their chairs around to get a better look at the foreigners.
Despite the various pitfalls of Indian dining manners, the food was absolutely wonderful. Spicy sauces, savory sauces, sweet sauces, and yoghurt-like curd all contribute to making an exceptional meal.
The curd is supposed to be eaten last, as it is meant to soothe the mouth (basically just cool it down after the hot peppers) and settle the stomach for easier digestion. And, since it came from a cow, it is inherently good for you somehow.
As I was putting some curd onto my last little lump of rice, the owner came over, noticed the apparently inferior amount of curd I was putting on, and told me to please put more on so that it would be healthy for me. Apparently, half a spoonful of curd for about one and a half spoonsful of rice is not nearly enough.
It was then that I realised how Indians eat. They don't really eat the bread or the rice, they merely use it to transport the curry or other sauces to their mouth. The rice is supposed to be completely drowned out by the sambar, rasam, curry, dal or curd before it touches the lips. Silly me.
After eating this lovely meal (each of the three dishes cost one dollar, plus tax) we went back to the apartment and sat around aimlessly for a while longer (I did a little reading in a Stephen King novel I brought along).
At some point in the afternoon/evening, the lighting was apparently well suited to taking photographs, so we went out for another walkabout to take some pictures.
We took some good pictures, and quite a few not-so-good pictures. And then the light faded and we got hungry again. Take a wild guess where we went.
So, we're back at the Satyam Hotel, and we want to have either the same or something different. Things haven't quite been decided yet.
Having learned the names to some new Indian dishes (thank you, wikipedia), we looked in the menu to see if we could find any. Having found two bread dishes (it was agreed upon that we'd all like some more bread), we asked for the first one. Found out it was a breakfast bread, and not served in the evening. Asked for the second one.
And that's how we ate our first "dosa"s. They're essentially non-sweet potato crepes, served with a soup-ish thing (hey, it came with a spoon. It counts as soup) and a bowl of some spicy dip/sauce that we'd never had before.
After finishing the crepes, we were noticed by one of the kids we'd bumped into before a couple days ago, when we were passing by the playground/park that's next to our apartment building.
Recognizing three pale-skinned blondes sitting in a room full of dark-skinned dark-haired Indians. Pretty impressive.
Anyways, she invited us over to her house (insisted, really) for a visit. So, we cleaned up and followed her and her friend (who I don't think was part of the original group that saw us) on the road to her house, which happens to be across the park from ours.
On the way, we met up with her mom (who we assumed had gone out looking for the girl as she was taking longer than usual to come back with the idli (rice/lentil cake, very popular) for her grandmother.
So, we're walking along, the girl is carrying her idli takeout bag and jabbering nonstop (in fairly good english), her mother is beaming silently and we're just trying to understand what all's going on so we can provide a halfway-sensible reply in good time.
So, we spend some time sitting around in her flat (which is only slightly rattier than our own), and the girl is translating for her mother and grandmother, neither of whom speak english. The girl makes up for this though, by filling the air with as many things a six year old can think of to say to strange people like us, with occasional help from her little sister (who was the very girl who asked me whether or not I was a girl when we first encountered the group).
After the visit was over, my mom had earned the title of "auntie", my dad the title of "uncle" (everyone's an uncle in India...), and I was being given the various titles of "brother", "cousin", and even "hero". I think the girl is infatuated with me or something.
Anyways, we've got pictures! Not many good ones, but still...
Here's a picture of a fruit and vegetable stand that's across the street from our apartment building. Haven't actually bought anything there yet, though...
Here's some abandoned mosque or temple that was sitting in the middle of everything:
This is a sugarcane press. You run through a batch of cane, and then serve up the resulting juice to a waiting customer.
She was smiling and looking right at the camera, but then she got distracted by one of us...
And finally, a dosa with me eating it. (The other patrons started snickering when this picture was taken)
Would someone be kind enough to tell me what the picture cap is? I'd like to know so I don't have to think about going over the limit.
[ January 27, 2008: Message edited by: Kagus ]
[ January 27, 2008: Message edited by: Kagus ]
[ January 28, 2008: Message edited by: Kagus ]