|
Post by onlyMark on Nov 29, 2014 12:29:01 GMT
Long hard drive today, 6am – 4:30pm with one small stop for sustenance. So only one photo, but it was a lovely morning –
|
|
|
Post by questa on Nov 29, 2014 13:11:18 GMT
Beautiful!
|
|
|
Post by onlyMark on Nov 29, 2014 13:29:43 GMT
You called?
|
|
|
Post by onlyMark on Nov 29, 2014 13:33:25 GMT
Anyway, thanks for the info on Sri Lanka. I'll look in detail at it when I get back.
Lola, areas of Goa are well known for parties. Christmas and New Year there though is horrendously expansive compared to other times of year.
K2, I know of where you mean and I would like to go one day. Time is getting against me though.
|
|
|
Post by onlyMark on Nov 29, 2014 15:56:02 GMT
I went out to stretch my legs this evening and rather than go to a restaurant for a meal I decided to sample some of the local street food. I passed by some stalls selling what I’d eaten before and came across one doing a variation on a theme of eggs. I’d actually already stopped at one and had a snack of samosas so with eating this ‘egg bhaji’ as they call it, would about do me. First a bit of ghee is added to a pot over the gas flame and onion, chilli and spices are cooked for half a minute or so. A couple of eggs are swiftly added and stirred vigorously until it all cooks together – Two small soft white rolls are warmed – And plated up. Notice the mossie/insect homing in at the seven o’clock position. I managed not to share any with it. A total cost of £0.30 –
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2014 17:03:49 GMT
Long hard drive today, 6am – 4:30pm with one small stop for sustenance. So only one photo, but it was a lovely morning – Ah, to see an empty well-paved road in India! What a rare treat. (No offense to Anshjain who has probably seen thousands of them; just laugh at my ignorance, ansh!) I am amazed at how perfectly white those eggs are at the food stall. When I was little, the eggs at my grandparents' house came from local farms and most of them were speckled with traces of chicken shit. I would have expected eggs on an Indian roadside to look like that rather than having been processed industrially.
|
|
|
Post by mossie on Nov 29, 2014 21:13:08 GMT
I do not approach Indian street food
|
|
|
Post by questa on Nov 29, 2014 21:47:11 GMT
Spicy scrambled eggs, with rolls instead of toast...come on, Mossie...what could possibly go wrong?! I make my own version of this to use up the last of the veggies in the fridge.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2014 21:59:51 GMT
I imagine that one's reaction to street food is based on two major things -- 1) one's upbringing and if one's mother was extremely cautious and rigorous about "food safety" and 2) regrettable personal experiences after eating a questionable item or two. I have never had a bad street food experience myself, but probably if I had ever become deathly ill from eating something in a place like that, I would be much more hesitant. My own take on such food is that the vendors sell their entire stock every day (unlike restaurants), so their stuff is more likely to be fresh and uncontaminated.
|
|
|
Post by questa on Nov 29, 2014 22:45:48 GMT
The devil is in not completely cooked food, or cooked food left to stand. Street food is cooked in front of you and eaten immediately. One tip I can pass on is don't go for pieces of food larger than about 3cm diameter (think of the old 35mm film canisters) Bigger than these may be too big to cook all the way through in the short time.
I worked with a food hygiene inspector who told me that it doesn't matter if the meat/fish has had flies and hands on it in the market as long as it is completely cooked right through. Also the dreaded bain-marie in hotels and restaurants where the coaches stop for lunch are the cause of most problems. Protein food cooked at 10am, then held warm for 4-5 hours will grow all kinds of bugs.
|
|
|
Post by onlyMark on Nov 30, 2014 13:21:28 GMT
I’ve slipped up the Indian version of a motorway today from last night at Pune(ish) and ended up about halfway back to Delhi. The town I am in now is just another convenient stop off point and seems to have no foreigners/tourists at all. I think this because I’ve just been out for a walk as the sun is going down and I’ve been approached numerous times by people and kids asking me questions. It isn’t something I experience in the tourist areas like Goa. Also, when I checked in to my hotel I was asked three times by people at reception as to which company I was with. It seems out of the bounds of possibility that I am just a private individual travelling around. From the palm fringed beaches of a few days ago I am back in ‘India’. So, a couple of shots of what is near my hotel. First, you’ve seen the market trader at home that is selling something and does a bit of a spiel to the audience? Things are the same here. This guy was giving it all he could to sell his wares. Shame I couldn’t understand him – This is the street I’m on. It is bordered by shops and stalls of all sorts. What cannot be conveyed is the sheer cacophony of sound from the vehicle horns – There are smaller access roads that run parallel with it – Various shops and apartments – The ubiquitous cow eating the rubbish – The local fashionable clothes seller – More cows and behind all the stalls, more of the same – At least they have plans for improvement. I’m not sure how close to reality it will get though – Down the side streets (it is handy that if you want to repair your tuk tuk (the three wheeled taxi things) you can just tip it on its side) – Lastly, in contrast between what I am comfortable with as an aging westerner with what is perceived to be an unlimited amount of money and with a room costing 30 euro, and what a local traveller would see as about the only alternative that he could afford. My room – Then two doors along. A dorm bed costing equivalent of euro 2.70 – 3.20 –
|
|
|
Post by onlyMark on Nov 30, 2014 16:25:43 GMT
The phrase “I am too old a cat to be shagged by kittens” comes to mind. I went to the hotel restaurant tonight rather than eat outside and perused the menu. A fillet of fish seemed a reasonable option and the menu stated “served with chips and tartar sauce”. Aha! thought I, fish and chips. Shame there won’t be mushy peas but we’ll try it anyway. I waited the requisite amount of time for them to make it and it was served. Yes, there was a fillet of fish, yes, tartar sauce. Chips? No. Just about half a packet of plain crisps. Mind you, they were ridged. Now, I am sufficiently well travelled to know that in some countries chips are French fries (even ‘freedom fries' I suppose) and what the British and a number of other nations refer to as crisps are called chips. Not in India though. Chips, especially on a menu with fish are finger sized pieces of potato deep fried. I asked the waiter to see if the restaurant manager could call by my table. The man duly appeared and I explained to him my problem. I also told him that I wouldn’t be paying the menu price as the crisps were valued out on the street at about ten rupees (£0.10p) and I felt as though they were trying to trick me. I asked him why he would do this. He said that as it was Sunday he couldn’t buy potatoes. I argued that if he cared to walk directly outside into the street he would see a number of vegetable carts (as I had seen earlier) all selling fine potatoes. His answer was the best impression of a Gallic shrug I’ve seen in ages and left the table mentioning he would adjust the bill.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2014 16:43:12 GMT
It's amazing how often such people will deny such things even when the contradictory proof is right in front of them. Since India still speaks mostly British English, I still find this deception rather surprising unless the majority of clients to that hotel come from places where they may speak or have learned American English (Japan, North and South Korea, Iran, Russia...).
Regarding the street noise, when I went to Karachi, I was staying with the family of a Pakistani colleague and I had the "privilege" of being in the family car when the colleague's brother was giving his 20ish daughter a driving lesson. He insisted that she honk at any and all occasions: I'm in the car, honk, I'm starting the engine, honk, I'm pulling out into the street, honk, I see another car, honk, there's a side street, honk, there are people on the footpath, honk... you get the picture. She tried to resist a little bit since she had been in university in Canada, but it was after all her father who was giving the orders, so she obeyed most of the time. He was ready to hit the horn at any moment in case she didn't. In a horrible and cruel irony, since she was an absolutely wonderful person whom I saw every time she came to Paris for a visit to her cousin (yes, obviously the family was well off) where we all had a lot of fun, she was killed in a traffic accident in Texas a couple of years later just before she completed her medical degree.
|
|
|
Post by onlyMark on Nov 30, 2014 17:23:16 GMT
I don't know if that is tragic and ironic or just tragic.
It is common here for to be written on the back of trucks in big letters (and if you want to overtake) BLOW HORN OK. I'll try and get a picture of one sometime, not whilst I'm driving though. Also written on many is WAIT FOR SIDE. This means to overtake you must blow your horn. The driver of the truck will then put on his indicator, be it left or right, to indicate which side you must overtake on. It can be very confusing here as there are no common usage for indicators. Whatever permutations there are, you will see. Some will put on a left indicator - to indicate you overtake on that side, whilst they turn right. Sometimes right to turn left etc. Some will put the left side on, or vice versa, to say they are moving that way and for you to pass on the opposite side. Hazards are only ever used, that I have seen, in a tunnel to warn others behind there is a vehicle in front of them because frequently the lights don't work anyway. I frequently see/hear vehicles that are peeping their horn for no reason whatsoever. There is nothing near them and they aren't approaching a hazard. It is like a tic they have.
Whilst on the subject of traffic and for those who've never been, India is one of the countries that drive on the left (the correct side of the road by the way), however, it is one of those countries where if there are two or three lanes the thinking of drivers is that the slowest will drive as far to the right as they can get. Thus, they drive in the 'fast lane' at 20 - 30km/hr forcing you to overtake and weave left to right as needs be. If you ever want to have the impression of speed, without speed, drive on a dual carriageway in India. About 70% of traffic is either trucks or slow moving vehicles like small delivery wagons and small people transport things. They tend to do less than 40km/hr so, like today, I'm driving at 80km/hr and it feels like I'm doing 140 in Europe and whizzing past everything. I did reach 110 one time, downhill, and felt like I was driving a Bugatti Veyron flat out in comparison to everything else.
|
|
|
Post by questa on Nov 30, 2014 23:08:36 GMT
Do the proper airport taxis still have a tendency to burst into flames? I believe it was something about the weight of luggage in the back caused something to press onto the exhaust system and catch alight. Welcome to India!
|
|
|
Post by questa on Nov 30, 2014 23:20:59 GMT
This was the wiring leading to my hotel in Delhi (Remember the crazy décor?) I wasn't sure if this was an art installation or a chaos theory power supply. Actually you could really tell at once by the arc-ing from the wires.
|
|
|
Post by onlyMark on Dec 1, 2014 12:03:45 GMT
questa, taxis in flames? Don't know, not took one for years. The electrics look very familiar, like on every street corner. I may well have posted a photo of something similar in the previous India thread I did. Not sure though.
|
|
|
Post by onlyMark on Dec 1, 2014 12:15:59 GMT
Yeah, ok, I was driving when I took it, but we were only doing 10km/h, honest.
|
|
|
Post by tod2 on Dec 2, 2014 5:02:29 GMT
So Mark, it's back to reality I see. Seeing those cattle munching on garbage makes me wonder what happens when they fall ill from not being able to digest the plastic. Here it is a call to the vet if the animal is owned by a farmer with means, or in the far off hills, a quick sharp knife to the throat and the whole community gets fresh meat. I know that a lot of Indians do not eat beef and it looks that way where you are now. Did you ever see a dead cow?
That 30euro hotel room looks bloody marvelous!
|
|
|
Post by onlyMark on Dec 2, 2014 10:07:09 GMT
I see dead cows but usually because they've been run over. I know they are cleared up pretty fast though. As for an ill cow, I'm not sure I'd even recognise one. What is one of these? - It's a truck wearing a nappy (excuse the reflection on the windscreen) -
|
|
|
Post by tod2 on Dec 2, 2014 10:54:02 GMT
Ha Ha Ha! The bloke can't even see anything behind him in his side mirrors let alone the one inside the cab! That is what I call overloaded in a BIG way I bet no thought was spared for the poor old engine....
|
|
|
Post by questa on Dec 2, 2014 11:37:03 GMT
or suspension...
and his steering must be extraordinarily light. Actually, the truck is sitting fairly level...any guesses to what the load is? Must be a light stuff...I'll pick kapok.
|
|
|
Post by onlyMark on Dec 2, 2014 12:23:00 GMT
I don't think there is kapok here. It's probably just normal cotton.
|
|
|
Post by tod2 on Dec 2, 2014 17:47:18 GMT
Whatever....so unbelievable! Mark, you being a Pom and all, could you see that being allowed on British roads? Ha Ha all the way to the clink I'd say. Funny thing is, you could quite likely see that on poor roads here in South Africa! It would be shifted during Cop Sleepytime Hours and there you GO!
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2014 17:56:47 GMT
I don't know if they have really optimised the load because they could have put 20 or 30 people on top.
|
|
|
Post by bjd on Dec 2, 2014 18:58:13 GMT
Do you call it "shifting" in S Africa too, Tod?
|
|
|
Post by questa on Dec 2, 2014 22:16:18 GMT
It would only get past the police points in Indonesia by contributing to the policeman's benevolent fund, even then using back roads.
|
|
|
Post by tod2 on Dec 3, 2014 6:13:12 GMT
Yes Questa, moving or shifting are one and the same here. The only good thing about that overloaded vehicle is that is is probably crawling along and not belting down the road at top speed.....am I right Mark!? If so it would mean an accident could happen in slow motion
|
|
|
Post by questa on Dec 3, 2014 7:31:43 GMT
kinda looks like a soft landing, though
|
|
|
Post by onlyMark on Dec 3, 2014 8:50:51 GMT
On UK roads, as long as it wasn't above its designed carrying weight, it'd be allowed. But it'd have a Police escort. It was going slowly, but then they all do anyway. If any truck is going above 60km/h it would mean it is going downhill and the brakes have failed.
I'm now back in Delhi awaiting a flight tomorrow. I sorted out the car permit thing on the way down to Goa but never bothered on the way back. So I passed through Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Haryana states without getting any. Every time I crossed a border there is a check point either on the road or just at the side of it. I managed to slip past all of them without drawing attention. I also didn't hit anything and managed to avoid anything hitting me. I don't think the rental agency guys could accept there was no extra damage. They kept chatting and then going round it again three times. I've driven just about exactly 5500km which includes 90km of going wrong a few days ago when I accidentally got on probably the best dual carriageway in India and couldn't get off it or turn around for 45km (If anyone wants to know it's between Ahmedabad (Amdavad) and Vadodara (Baroda).
|
|