Steve's Weird Food for Nepal: Yak Cheese Fondue

Time was running out on the SWF: Nepal timeclock when we went for our last supper as a group, in Kathmandu. So imagine my delight when I opened the menu at our chosen restaurant and saw “Yak Cheese Fondue”. It was an excellently odd mash-up of flavours and cultures that seemed very appropriate in Kathmandu, where on the same menu you might see a traditional Nepali meal of dahl baht, or pizza, or fish meuniere, or a cheeseburger and fries, or chicken cordon bleu. (In fact, that list above is the exact order placed by our group for dinner.)

(Aside: This diverse menu phenomenon was common all over Nepal and India. We could generally be guaranteed traditional local foods, pizza and pasta, Chinese, and “Continental” anywhere we went. Emblematic of this was the place next to our hotel in Varanasi, whose sign proudly proclaimed “Authentic Mediterranean, Mughlai, Continental, Indian, South Indian, Chinese Food and, in parenthesis: Special Pizza.)*

But there was one small problem – the yak cheese fondue was only available for two people or more. Apparently the delicate intricacy of the yak cheese fondue is simply not scalable to a single serving. And, inexplicably, no on else in the group was interested in sharing with me. Dejected, I ordered the traditional Nepali meal, but when I thought about it I realized that two orders of yak cheese fondue would only cost 760 Nepalese Rupees, or about $11.00. With the integrity of the Steve’s Weird Food Project at stake, there seemed to be little debate about what was to be done. I called the waiter back over and changed my order, though it took a while to get the idea across that I was ordering two meals, but I was only one person. (Clearly these are a people not accustomed to the North American appetite.)

Nevertheless, the order went through, and fondue preparations began. A second table was pushed up to ours so we could spread out and make room for all the necessary fondue paraphenalia, and there was quite a bit. The Nepalese don’t waste their time with wimpy little pots of sterno for keeping the fondue warm. Instead, a large gas burner was brought over, accompanied by a two foot tall cylinder of compressed gas.

The set up – no fooling around.

This occasioned much merriment in the group, and anticipation was high when the actual fondue arrived. It had been described in the menu as yak cheese flavoured with rum and cinnamon, served in a clay bowl. And that’s exactly what it was – an enormous clay bowl full molten yak cheese, bubbling away like a science experiment.

Bubbly fondue

It was accompanied by a large bowl of cubes of white bread, and a big plate of coleslaw-like salad. Thankfully, the Nepalese fondue tradition has not evolved to include the ridiculous and non-functional two-tined spear-like fondue fork, so I was able to use a normal four-tined dinner fork.

And the taste? Mild, pleasant, no discernible flavour of rum, and mercifully little essence of yak. Everyone tried it, and they all had the same reaction, “Nice.” It was a thinner mixture than I’d expected, but I think that because yak cheese doesn’t seem to melt very well. This makes it an odd choice for a cheese fondue, but I can only surmise that the supply of Gruyere and kirsch in Kathmandu is probably not ample.

Me and the fondue

With SWF: Nepal safely taken care of, a second round of drinks was ordered and the cards came out for another game of Presidents and Assholes. It was a really nice time. The dinner conversation was as good as ever – that night it was about the common Indian practice of arranged marriage. The general consensus was that it might not be a bad idea; certainly the divorce rate for arranged marriages is much lower than the overall divorce rate. We also discussed the best live concerts we’d ever been to, and asked Akshay why toilet seats in India never seem to fit the toilet bowl to which they are affixed and therefore always give an unpredictable sideways lurch when you sit down. He had no real answer for this burning question, so we wandered back to the hotel with that and other imponderable mysteries in our heads, and went to bed.

Per the request from Rob H, here's a photo of the gang taken in Sauraha. From left to right: Jonno (with Sheila cleverly hiding behind, though you saw her on an elephant yesterday), me, Akshay, Adam and Patti.

* Rob H.: Notice how I did that aside without using an asterisk?

The first days in Nepal

Astute GSRED readers may remember that Nepal was not originally on my itinerary – it was only added when I found out that Patti was game to meet me in India and was keen to take an Intrepid tour of the area. Since I was busy with Italy at the time I asked her to wade through the seven zillion options Intrepid offers in India and narrow it down to three or four that fit with our dates and general idea of what we wanted to see. (She had loads of time for this, I’m sure. All she was doing was running her own company in Calgary. I was busy trying to sample as many different flavours of gelato as possible, so clearly I had bigger fish to fry.) Anyways, one of the tours on the short list was called “Delhi to Kathmandu” and as soon as I saw Kathmandu, I was hooked. How could you not be? Kathmandu? I mean is that even a real place? It occupies the same place in my head as Timbucktoo or Mars – somewhere so impossibly exotic that you can’t be sure whether it’s real or not.

So even though I was sad to leave India so soon, I was also excited about seeing Nepal and getting to Kathmandu. We drove from Varanasi to a tiny border crossing, schlepped our bags across the border, and got into another minivan on the other side for the drive to Lumbini. The difference between India and Nepal was striking and instantaneous. For hours that morning we’d been driving through India – crowded and filthy and accompanied by the incessant honking that is required at all times in India. After crossing the border things were instantly calmer. There was less garbage on the roadside, and less honking, and a lot less people. Patti was quick to point out that though Nepal may be a very poor country, but it’s a lot easier to keep things tidy when you’ve got a population of 28 million, as opposed to 1.4 billion. I guess you have to cut India some slack.

We had a quick overnight stop in Lumbini, mostly just because driving much further on that day would have been too much. There’s really just one thing to see in Lumbini, and any Buddhists reading this will probably know what that is – the birthplace of the Buddha himself. We visited the site early in the morning, and though I don’t know a lot about Buddhism, I really enjoyed walking around the site. There were lots of people visiting, some as tourists and some as adherents. And there’s an enormous banyan tree near a large square pool that seemed to be the centre of the site. People were seated under the tree chanting and singing, and there were thousands of brightly coloured prayer flags strung from the branches of the tree. In fact, the whole site was festooned with prayer flags and the effect was beautiful.

Prayer flags strung between the trees in Lumbini

The whole site was really peaceful and it was a nice start to the day to wander in among the flags and listen to the chanting. Then it was back into the van for another few hours of driving to get us to the small town of Sauraha, near Chitwan National Park. Sauraha reminded me a lot of Orchha, it was small enough that it was a relaxing place to be, but big enough to have restaurants and beer and internet access. My kind of place.

Besides restaurants, beer and internet, the other big thing Sauraha has is elephants! There’s an elephant breeding centre near the town and the afternoon we arrived we rode bikes out to visit it. It was excellent! I never had a chance to get up close with elephants while I was in Africa, so visiting the breeding centre was a real highlight. It’s run by the Nepali government and has produced 34 babies, most of whom have survived. We even saw their exceedingly rare set of twin baby elephants! (Note to Kathryn: No, I cannot bring you a baby elephant, twin or otherwise.)

At the centre we met Suk, who was our guide and who gave us some interesting info about the centre and about elephants in general, and then let us loose to take pictures. The elephants were all behind fences and chained by their legs to big posts in the ground. The chains seemed depressingly short, but Suk later assured me that the elephants didn’t mind, and the reason that some of them were doing a sort of sad, repetitive little dance pulling on their chains is because we saw them close to their afternoon tea break when the handlers come around and give them balls of grass. They’re also let loose to forage in the park twice a day, since keeping twenty or more elephants provided with all the food they need in a day would be a formidable task.

A mom and baby elephant.

Interesting elephant facts from Suk:

• Elephants eat 200 kg of food and drink 200 litres of water each day.
• They live to about 75 years old in the wild, but well cared for elephants can live 90 to 100 years in captivity.
• Elephants have a complete change of teeth six times in their lives.
• An elephant’s trunk has 40,000 muscles in it!

The next day we were scheduled for a guided walk through Chitwan National Park, ending up at a “rustic” guesthouse in a very tiny village of Ghatgai. We downsized to daypacks only, left out main bags at the hotel in Sauraha, and set out at about 9:30 in the morning, once again guided by Suk. The day turned out to be… challenging. It’s not that the walking was particularly strenuous. Akshay had warned us we’d have two hour ride in a canoe, and then a six hour walk - that was not a problem. The problem came as we were sitting in the canoe on the Ripta river and it started to rain. I was clever enough to have packed my rain jacket, but it was still pretty cold and miserable sitting in the rain in that canoe.

A boatman in one of the long dugout canoes that took all eight of us downriver

Things were better and worse once we got ashore. It was nice to be out of the boat, but the rain continued and knowing we had six hours of walking on increasingly muddy tracks did nothing to improve my mood. Patti later said that she preferred the rain to the hot and sunny weather we’d had the day before, which strikes me as slightly insane, but perhaps I’ve become acclimatized to the heat after getting through Africa and the Middle East. Whatever, it was miserable. (I later found out that I was the only one who felt this way – everyone else was just fine with trudging though the mud, which leads me to think they might be slightly off, or maybe haven't been traveling long enough to get properly bitter about this kind of turn of events.)

We were supposed to be watching for exciting wildlife like rhinos and tigers, and we’d even had a briefing on what to do if confronted by an angry rhino (In short: run away, in zig-zag fashion, until you can find a tree big enough to hide behind or, even better, one you can climb. We were specifically discouraged from pushing other members of the group in between us and the rhinos.) Unsurprisingly, it turns out rhinos and tiger are too smart to hang around when it’s pissing down rain, so mostly we trekked quietly. Suk, our guide, pointed out some different birds and we saw a lot of deer, and I made up cryptic crossword clues in my head to pass the time. (Best effort: Hill country plane crash (5). Anyone?).

We passed the spot where these walks usually stop for lunch with nothing more than a sad comment from Suk, “This is where we usually stop for lunch. But today… raining.” Instead we pushed on for an observation tower that offered a bit of shelter where we could eat our lunches out of the wet. And to get to the tower we had to cross a small river, which required a trip across the dodgiest bridge I’ve ever seen.

The dodgiest bridge. Ever. (Terrence, if you’re reading this, that picture is for you.)

We all managed to get across, though Sheila elected to take off her shoes and socks and wade, which was probably by far the smarter option. After lunch things improved a lot, mostly because it stopped raining. There still wasn’t much to see in the forest, though, so I don’t think anyone was disappointed when we got to our final destination earlier than expected. There was another short canoe trip across the river and then we settled in to our exceedingly basic rooms. It promised to be a chilly night, and the mattress on the bed was thin enough to see through, which only added to the anticipation. I put on every layer of clothing I’d brought, unfolded all the blankets provided and spread them out onto the bed, and then added the large pink Barbie towel that came with the room for good measure. Then I joined the gang for cocktails.

The rustic washing-up facilities at the guest house. Needless to say, it was cold water only.

It actually turned out to be a very fun evening. We ended up sitting around playing a stupid card game called “Presidents and Assholes” and the whole group took part – me, Patti, Sheila, Jono, Adam, and even Akshay. We actually postponed our scheduled Village Walk (there is a always a Village Walk) because we were having too much fun. We did go eventually, and it was nice. Suk was there again to tell us about the local flora and we exchanged “Namastes” with lots of local villagers, and we got back to the guesthouse in time for dinner and another long round of cards. Patti and I even invented a new drink called either Super Chai, or Chai Plus, which is made up of a nice hot cup of masala chai laced with a generous measure of cheap local rum.

Looking down the road on the village walk.

The night passed surprisingly comfortably, and the next morning we had another few hours of walking to reach a crocodile breeding centre. Things were pretty slow there, mostly because it was still quite chilly and the crocodiles were understandably docile, being cold-blooded and all. After that was some more walking and then a very breezy ride in the back of an open jeep to return us to Sauraha, hot water and blissful free time. We even got there early enough that I had time to go for a run before our last scheduled activity in Sauraha. This is a good thing because my mood was getting increasingly black. This is a good thing, becasue by the time Patti and I were finally ensconced in our room (our third attempt – the first came equipped with a double bed instead of two singles, and the second came equipped with people already in it) I was in that kind of frame of mind where anything other than a private foot massage from Harrison Ford would have left me grumpy and swearing.

Clearly I needed a run, so even though my motivation to drink a beer and have a nap was much greater than my inclination to lace up my shoes, off I went. Of course I felt better right away, though the day was quite hot and sunny by the time I went out. I ran along the road we’d cycled to get to the elephant breeding centre, and it was lovely. I got a few odd looks, but as soon as I gave a friendly “Namaste” the funny looks would always turn into smiles, and I’d get a “Namaste!” right back. Little kids were especially excited by this. And I’m sure I saw more different animals on this run than on any other run, ever. There were: dogs, horses, chickens, ducks, cows, buffalo, oxen and goats. By the time I got back to the hotel, stretched, and had a hot shower, life was much better.

Then it was time for our last activity in Sauraha – the elephant safari! Just seeing elephants wasn’t enough – this time were were going to ride them through the forest for an hour in the hopes of spotting some more wildlife, specifically – rhinos! It turns out that riding an elephant is pretty uncomfortable. Four people were crammed into the sort of saddle/cage that was strapped to the top of the elephant, and there was an elephant driver who rode in front, straddling the elephant right behind its head.

Jonno and Sheila and the back of their elephant.

The elephant drivers were each equipped with a stout length of solid bamboo and an evil looking steel implement that looked like a heavy fireplace poker. Every once in a while our elephant would make some imperceptible error and the driver would wind up and give him (or maybe it was a her… I couldn’t tell from where I was sitting) an enormous thwack on the top of the head. The sound was really alarming, but I had to remind myself that the elephant’s skull is probably about 3 inches thick, and I really didn’t want to be on top of one that was out of control. At least he only used the evil steel thing once, because it made a sickening dull thud.

The parade through the forest

We bounced along with about eight or ten other elephants, all loaded up with tourists and on the hunt for rhinos. We did see quite a few more deer and even saw a crocodile sunning himself on an island in the river. What surprised me most was that the animals were largely unconcerned with us being so close. I suppose that they focused on the elephants, and since none of them were prey for elephants, there was no reason to be alarmed. I was with Patti, Adam, and a woman we didn’t know who had a small child with her. I think the baby was about two years old. She enjoyed herself for a little while, but before long she got fussy, and then the whole forest was treated to her inconsolable wailing for longer than I’d care to remember.

However, all that was fine because eventually we saw RHINOS! The elephant that Sheila and Jonno were on spotted them first, and the cry went out for everyone else to come over. It was a lot like the traffic jams on the Serengeti when a good lion or leopard spotting happens. There was, literally, an elephant jam in that forest. However, the rhinos were completely indifferent, even as the elephant drivers maneuvered to get closer and closer. It was a mother and baby (K: no baby rhino either) and they were fantastic. They were smaller than I expected – bigger than a horse, but smaller than a bison (I know, I know, everything is smaller than I expect, but I thought they were more like elephants). And they looked positively prehistoric – all that tough armour and the horns reminded me of a triceratops. I can’t believe how close we were able to get. See?

Yes, there was some zoom involved here, but really, we were about twenty feet from this rhinoceros.

It was definitely a highlight. After the rhinos we saw a nest of wild boar, most of whom were sleeping. That is to say they were sleeping until our little passenger bumped her head and commenced to wailing again with such fervour that the frightened piggies ran all the way home. Lucky pigs. We had a bouncy ride back with the poor fussy baby, and all involved were immensely grateful when she and her harried mom de-elephanted (well, if getting off a plane is deplaning, then isn’t getting off an elephant de-elephanting?). We got to ride the elephant back into town and got off at a conveniently located de-elephanting stand near the centre of the village.

That night there was a sort of street food festival in town so we camped out at a table and sampled all kinds of different food, and drank beer and rum and played more of the stupid card game. It was another good night, and I’m really grateful that our group is small, and everyone is fun and easy going and remarkably like-minded. And the next morning we were off to Kathmandu, which is definitely another story.

Steve's Weird Food for India: Pan

My first thought for Steve’s Weird Food: India was a nice but unexpected dessert item called petha. It’s the flesh of unripened pumpkin, cut into bite-sized pieces and then cooked in a sugar syrup. (Pretty much all desserts in India involve either lashings of sugar syrup or improbable quantities of sweetened condensed milk or pounds of ghee – clarified butter. It’s my kind of place). Petha was nice, and odd, and I thought it would do nicely as a Weird Food. That’s until Akshay introduced us to pan (pronounced pahhhn, with the long A sound like in “wash”). (Also, the Wikipedia article about it spells it paan, but notes that the Hindi spelling is pan.)

First, an apology. When I decided that pan was going to be SWF for India, Akshay went out specially and bought me a fresh one so I could take some good photos and show you what it’s all about. I carefully tucked it away in a bag of other snacks and then promptly left the whole bag in the van that drove us from the Nepali-Indian border (I also lost a big bottle of water and a Dairy Milk and two bags of Masala Munch which is a yummy snack food that tastes a lot like curry Cheezies). Any photos here are crummy ones I dug up on the internet that don’t really look especially like what I had.

But back to the pan. As I said, Akshay introduced us to it, during our afternoon cruise in Varanasi. It’s a specialty of the city but I’m not even sure what category of food it would fall into. It’s kind of part snack, part breath-freshener, part chewing tobacco. Some of you might be familiar with the Indian after-dinner practice of having a small spoonful of aniseed and sugar as a breath freshener; I found it sort of like that.

Here’s a great excerpt from a website I found when I Googled “Varanasi pan”. It’s such an excellent mashup or English that I include it here without correction. (Note: “Banarasi” is another name for Varanasi.)

Banarasi pan is world famous betel leaves. Banarasi Pan (Betel leaves) to whole world in fresh natural. Banarasi paan which is renowned all over. Paan is also an alternative to mouth refreshner. Banarasi paan is offered with gulkand,grated coconut and dry dates flavers All rolled in an betel leaf. Preparing paan is very artistic, correct proportion of the ingredients make it delicious.With a shelf life ever 4 month, it is an ideal product to served at weddings, parties etc.

The tradition of chewing pan (betel leaf) is deeply rooted in India. From times immemorial, pan has remained a part of sacred Hindu rites and is always offered to the deities. Pan has great significance in the wedding rituals and all other important functions where its offering is a mark of respect for the guests. The earliest known mention of Pan have been found in the inscription found at Mandasor, Madya Pradesh.

Pan popularly known as tambula in Sanskrit is often consumed after the meals as it helps in digestion, also it gives fresh feeling the mouth and relieves the bad breath. Some important facts are that it reduces the blood pressure assists in digestion, relieves hunger, eliminates bad breath, strengthens the teeth and decreases menstrual bleeding. In unani tradition it is used as household remedies.

How could you refuse?

A bundle of pan is small – fitting neatly into the palm of your hand with lots of room to spare. Inside the bundle is a mixture of aniseed, fennel seed, dried rose petal preserved with sugar, dried rose petal powder, mint, kewra powder and katha paste (two things Akshay didn’t have an English translation for), a small amount of limestone paste and betel nut. The betel nut is softened with water and the whole concoction is wrapped in a betel leaf. All that is then wrapped in another type leaf that’s held shut with a toothpick. You open up the outer wrapper and the bundle inside – leaf and all – is what you eat. The whole bundle is about an inch or an inch and a half square, so it would be a big mouthful to have all at once; we each tore a corner off the one Akshay passed around. It seemed like the kind of thing you’d chew and then spit out, but you are actually meant to swallow it, so swallow we did.

And it was quite nice – crunchy and minty, with a bit of licorice flavour from the aniseed. I really couldn’t taste much betel nut, though I’m not sure I’d have recognized the taste anyway. I think (or at least I hope) that the amount of betel nut in a bundle of pan is relatively small, which is a very very good thing. Chewing betel nut is a popular past time in India, and is completely disgusting. Similar to chewing tobacco, it’s supposed to give a sort of buzz. Also similar to chewing tobacco, it requires you to spit out big gobby sprays of betel nut goop all the time. The streets of India are stained all over with red-orange spatters of betel nut juice. It’s also a known carcinogen and leaves your teeth looking like a horror show. Mr. Sunil from the textile shop, proudly displayed his pan-blackened teeth for us when Akshay ribbed him about his pan habit. For me, one bite was plenty.

Pick of Pics: Varanasi

One of our boatmen, lighting the floating candles we released onto the Ganges

Traffic, more Ganges, and … Bollywood!

We arrived in Varanasi after a two hour drive starting at the tiny village where we’d come ashore from our cruise down the Ganges. I didn’t have a great start – we had about 45 minutes in the hotel to freshen up before reporting back downstairs. I was looking forward to a hot shower, but our hotel room failed to deliver that luxury, and I was feeling a bit cranky and frayed by the time we set out for Sarnath, the place where the Buddha gave his first sermon. We were to travel there by autorickshaw, about half an hour each way, leaving us an hour or so at the site.The traffic in India really has to be experienced to be believed, and in Varanasi it was as bad as we’d seen anywhere. I think the fundamental problem is that no Indian driver will tolerate spending even a few seconds behind a slower vehicle. This means that everyone is constantly jockeying for position, squeezing through the tiniest spaces in a never-ending cross between ballet and demolition derby. At any given moment your autorickshaw might be overtaking three bicycles and a cow, while simultaneously being passed by six motorcycles that magically slide into a space that appears impossible and disappears immediately. Sometimes this means shortcutting around the near side of a roundabout, and in the most extreme cases can even involve slipping over to the other side of the road and travelling for a while in the opposing lane. It’s… invigorating, to say the least.

The number of different vehicles, people and animals on the road is amazing too. We saw: bicycles, cycle rickshaws carrying people, cycle rickshaws carrying cargo (including 12’ lengths of 4” diameter plastic pipe, refrigerators (plural), bananas, carpet, propane cylinders, car batteries, scaffold braces, 20’ pieces of bamboo, steel plumbing pipe and rebar), autorickshaws carrying people, autorickshaws carrying cargo, motorcycles, scooters, cars, buses, trucks, horse-drawn carts, pedestrians, street vendors, dogs, cows, goats and, in one particularly memorable moment, an elephant. And because it’s India of course there’s garbage everywhere too.

Not something you see at Portage and Main every day. (Photo by Patti)

And the honking. Every action is accompanied by not one, but about seven honks. Coming up behind someone? Honk honk honk honk honk honk honk. Passing them from behind? Honk honk honk honk honk honk honk. Approaching an oncoming vehicle? Honk honk honk honk honk honk honk. Basically any action other than proceeding forward on an empty stretch of road requires a long string of honks. And because there are no empty stretches of road, there is NEVER a time when there’s no honking. Multiply this by the number of vehicles on the road and you can understand why driving in India is as much an assault on the ears as the nerves. My favourite are the horns that sound like dying ducks – it’s like they’re so overworked they’ve gone hoarse.

All this is not to downplay the smell of course. Exhaust, pollution, smoke, incense, dust… I could almost picture my lungs shriveling and turning black. If I clean out my nose with a bit of white issue the resulting black smears are disheartening, and Patti has been coughing up a lung since she arrived.

As I mentioned, our trip to Sarnath was supposed to take about thirty minutes, but the traffic in Varanasi on that day was exceptionally bad so we spent an hour in transit both ways. That left us about twenty minutes at the actual site before we had to turn around, with heavy hearts, to get back into the autorickshaws again. The whole event ended up being much more about the journey than the destination, which was pleasant but certainly not worth two hours in an autorickshaw.

That evening before supper we went out onto the Ganges again, this time in a small rowboat, to have a look at the famous ghats. A ghat is simply an area along the river with steps built right down to the water’s edge – a place where you can get down to the Ganges. There are 102 spots like this in Varanasi, and they sort of blend one into the next.

Janki Ghat, as noted on the wall in the upper left.

The most famous of these – the burning ghats – are where devout Hindus bring their loved ones to be cremated. The Ganges is the sacred river of Hinduism, sometimes referred to as another of the 330 million gods: “Mother Ganges”. Varansi is the most sacred spot on the river, because the river is believed to have changed its course to flow around the city. To bathe or offer prayers or be cremated at the Ganges in Varanasi is most auspicious for Hindus.

We floated past one of the burning ghats as the sun was setting and you could see four or five bonfires in different stages, which was sort of chilling. Then our boatmen started lighting up a whole series of little floating candles which were were meant to release into the river, each with a wish attached. However, there were 101 of them (it’s an auspicious number), so eventually we were just getting through them, or releasing them with wishes like “I wish the mosquitos would go away”, or “I wish we could go have dinner.” (At least that’s what I was doing… everybody else was probably wishing for world peace and a cure for cancer and stuff.) Eventually we ended up at a ghat where a prayer ceremony was underway, and we watched that for a while, listening to the chanting and watching the priests – 5 of them – who performed a series of choreographed actions with large burning braziers and candelabra that left one impressed with their endurance and forearm strength, if nothing else.

Our little floating candles

We were back on the Ganges again the next morning to have a look at the ghats and travel all the way down to the largest of the burning ghats. It was a nice paddle, but I would have preferred to forgo the “sunrise” portion, which meant we had to be up at 5:00 am. What’s the big deal about sunrise anyways? Why not place a greater emphasis on getting a few more hours of sleep and a nice breakfast?

Actually, we did have a nice breakfast, and then went into the old city for a quick look around and a visit to a silk and cotton shop. Mr. Sunil gave us a nice little chat about the handloom process and taught us about warp and weft and how to tell pure silk from fake and about the different kinds of dyes and methods of dying. His business is one of the few left that still weaves on handlooms and prints on cotton with carved wooden blocks. It was another in the carpet factory / paper factory series of visits, but like the others it was fun and interesting and the pitch at the end was a nice soft sell.

Knee-deep in samples, as Mr. Sunil writes up another order in the bottom left

After that it was back into a cycle rickshaw for the trip to the main event of the afternoon – a movie! Akshay picked out one of the latest Bollywood blockbusters for us to go to, so we spent three hours in the theatre while the splendor of Bollywood splashed across the screen. But first we had a quick lunch, and just like anywhere the place to have a quick lunch in India is McDonald’s, of course. However, because India is a Hindu country McDonald’s serves no beef or pork products. In India, the Big Mac is replaced by the Chicken Maharaja Mac, which is what Patti had. In keeping with my status as temporary vegetarian, I had another popular offering, the Chatpata McAloo Tikka – a potato burger! It tasted just like you’d expect – a fried patty of mashed potato on a bun. And it came with fries. Let’s just say I had my full ration of carbs that day.

Patti and the Chicken Maharajah Mac

The movie we saw, called “Veer” was a historical piece about our hero, Veer, the son and heir of the Pindari clan, and the struggle against British rule (Boo! Bad British!), and Veer’s Romeo and Juliet-like love for the daughter of the head of a rival family. There were lots of musical numbers and fights and songs, and Veer spent a good amount of time with his shirt off, and it was long enough that there was a decent amount of time for napping. The movie was almost all in Hindi, but since the plot was not exactly intricate, it wasn’t hard to keep up. At the end Akshay clarified a few points, but mostly it was just fun to watch it all go past, and it was a great break from the pace outside on the street.

That night, in the street outside the hotel, a wedding procession called a braat ceremony went by. We saw a few of these and they looked like a lot of fun. In the hours before the actual wedding, a big crowd of family and friends moves through the streets, accompanied by a sort of DJ truck with speakers a sometimes even a live band. And there are always lines of other people carrying big lamps on their heads – some of which just look like ordinary table lamps – strung together by their electrical cords and powered by a little generator truck that tags along behind the whole business. (And boy, I would not want to be one of those lamp-carrying people, not only because they looked heavy, but also because I had a close look at the wiring on a generator trucks and let’s just say it was not exactly up to code.) Every once in a while the procession would stop and you could just make out the people in the middle of the maelstrom, dancing and puling others in from the circle to join them. The groom follows along behind riding a horse (the bride misses all the fun because she’s tucked away in a secret spot with her closest attendants, awaiting the wedding ceremony). I think they also set off fireworks too, because we heard a few loud bangs from inside the hotel later that night. It all looked like a lot of fun, and it was cool that it was right out in the street.

A fuzzy shot of the wedding procession

And that was Varanasi. We had a few nice dinners, and I managed to have one hot shower (out of three) and very very very early on the morning of the 10th we squeezed into a little minivan for a long and uncomfortable drive into Nepal, country number 22. Our time in India was laughably short; to spend only nine days in a country of 1.4 billion people is ridiculous. I saw a fraction of a fraction of the country, but I’m glad I saw what I did. And I still have to write about Steve’s Weird Food for India, so for you at least, it’s not over yet.