Ashy's on-line vegetarian cookbook
Delhi - 16 December
We arrived in our winter quarters without incident, reaching Delhi airport on schedule on the evening of the 14th. That was rather surprising, because in the past the flight has invariably been delayed for some reason. It's usually been the weather - either snow in Kazakhstan or fog in Delhi - but sometimes it's been due to technical problems (on this route most of the planes seem to be well past their 'fly by' dates). Occasionally it's both (One thing I've learned about travelling, however, is that as long as you're on the way, you always get there. The 'how' and 'when' variables just add to the adventure). For the first time, our flight took off on time and we had no hassles at customs. Our hotel of choice in Delhi was, as usual, Ajay Guest House in Main Bazaar, Pahar Ganj. It's about the fourth time we've stayed here and it is just as welcoming as ever. It costs R280 for a double room with hot water and Star TV (a novelty for us)and check-in is on the 24 hour system (check-in time is check-out time). The hotel is close to the main railway stations and has a travel desk, shops, restaurants and e-mail facilities. (It's starting to sound like a travel brochure isn't it? I thought that as we're staying in hotels and using transport, I might as well report on what's particularly good and bad. Someone might find the information useful.) Apart from this, we've been eating and sleeping since we arrived, so I don't have much to report yet except that the food is, as usual, fantastic.
Tonight we take an overnight train to Ramnagar, for the Corbett Tiger Reserve and thern on to Nainital. The main purpose of the trip is to do a bit of bird watching but I won't be upset if we see a tiger too. There are said to be quite a lot but I don't think they're spotted very often. How do they know the numbers then? Easy, they count the paw marks and divide by four.
It might be a little while before I get some recipes together. We'll be staying at my daughter's house in Chennai over New Year, so I should get a chance to put into practice any ideas I pick up on the way. In the mean time I'll keep updating the diary and I'll link to a couple of reports on the bird watching for anyone who's interested in that.
Delhi - 28 December
Merry Christmas everyone. We just returned from Nainital in the north, where there's often snow and the internet is slow. That's why I didn't write from there - because of the internet, not the snow.
We also went to Ramnagar and the main focus of the trip to both places was to do some bird watching and I'm working on a report combined with some travel advice for anyone who's interested. We didn't see any tigers. We didn't actually go into the Corbett Park. The foreigner's prices are getting way out of control and the worst thing, apparently, is half the time you don't know what you're paying for, or when another charge will suddenly pop up. A lot of the reports we heard were from people who felt they had been well and trully fleeced so we skipped it.
We've done a lot of good eating on the road but I haven't discovered much of interest recipe-wise except for spinach pakora. It basically involves dipping small bunches of fresh unchopped spinach leaves into pakora batter mix and frying them. You can find the recipe for the mix here. Once I try the spinach recipe myself, I'll update the pakora pages to include it.
The scenery round Nanital is beautiful and there are lots of good hikes in the forest. We spent three or four days exploring (I did more as Sveta had a cold and stayed at the hotel most mornings).
Our intention had been to leave earlier than we did but the day before Christmas there was a student protest where someone died and it turned into a bit of rioting which lasted a few days. It also spread to surrounding villages and transport links were cut. We found ourselves stuck in our hotel with no money because the banks were all shut. I managed to cash in our train ticket to get some food money (there was no local transport to the train station 35 km away, even if we had had the money to pay for it).When the banks opened again and we got some cash, we decided to take a taxi to Delhi to make up time as we had already bought train tickets to the south. The trouble was none of the taxi drivers wanted to move as they weren't sure of the situation in other villages. We eventually took a round about route involving back tracking to Ramnagar and using three taxis.
Tonight we leave for Chennai - a thirty hour journey. I'll update again when we've settled in there and been around a bit.
Best wishes to everyone for the new year.
Chennai - 7 January 2003
I hope everyone had a good new year. I spent it by the beach just south of Chennai with my wife, my daughter and her husband. It was quiet and peaceful.
We went for dinner to the home of some nice people we met recently, but they assumed that we would want to eat meat and made a special effort to prepare some non-veg food. They also had lots of beer and whisky which seemed to be especially for us. It was a little embarassing having to explain that we prefered veg food but in the end we sorted it out and had a great evening. It was a bit of an adventure getting back from the old city at midnight.
I've managed to get a couple of recipes together and I've picked up a few ideas which I haven't tried yet. Here's what I've got so far:
I got an e-mail from Sylvan Korvus who put me straight on the spelling of the word 'roux'. That's the flour and butter thingy you start a white sauce with. So now I know how wrong I was. I'll fix the spelling when I get back - it will mess up the site if I do it from here. Sylvan has a rather interesting vegan site you might want to take a peek at. It's called Vegan in Vancouver but there's a lot to interest even non-vegans not in Vancouver.
Our next stop is Ooty in the Nilgiri Hills. The next update should be in a week or so.
Puri - February 1 2203
Happy February everyone. This would have been dated yesterday, but there was a power failure and I lost everything I had typed on this page, including the links to a couple of new recipes. Here they are:
Avocado custard
Paneer
slices with pinapple and tomato garlic sauce
Updating the site on the road is proving less productive than I thought. The internet is generally very slow and power failures are common. I miss my web building programme too. I'm not doing much cooking but I have gathered a lot of ideas for new recipes. I guess I'll have a bout of serious cooking when I get back to Almaty and some results will come from that.
Puri is in Orissa on the east coast and it's a very relaxing place to stay. Nice beaches, temples (it's a very holy town with a lot of pilgrims from all over India) and extremely good food.
We spent the last 3 weeks wandering around Tamil Nadu with my daughter and her husband. My daughter had her holidays from college - she's studying Indian classical dance and has to learn Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu languages as well as music theory, singing and at least one instrument. I think she enjoyed having a break, but now she's back banging the boards (or the concrete floor). I took a few photos of her in her dancing kit. I'll put one or two up on the site if they come out okay. I'm very proud of my daughter. I think she's got tremendous dedication and stamina.
That's it for now. I've been warned the power is about to go off.