Derrick & Jillene's Adventure: March 2009

Oh Indian food, how we'll miss you the most!

With single meals for 2 starting around $2, and really only climbing up to $10 it would be hard not to miss Indian food purely on economy... but there simply more to it that that; they're incredible! India is mostly vegetarian, however you can still find meat, and one of the best by far is Tandoori Chicken (below). But the Indian curry's are incredible, vegetarian or not.

This is masala dosai. A typical breakfast we ate. A thin crispy pancake wrapped/filled with potatoes ~ and sometimes other vegetables.

A common lunch. This is a Thali, and every restaurant offers a different Thali... assorted curries, rice, and bread. This is supposed to be a single serving for 1. I rarely finished them, I can't believe how much Indians can eat!

And just a few shots at more good meals filled with curries, rice and bread...

Ode to the cows of India!

If there is any animal that rules the roost in India, its the cow. The only thing the madmen whom drives India's buses will bow out to. They wander the streets freshly coloured or washed eating whatever they can find including the products of your lowly farmer selling vegetables on the street when he turns his back ~ of which we witnesses on a number of times. Those of you whom say cows are stupid and don't have personalities I challenge you to come to India! Well they may be stupid but they command the respect that we in the western world give our dogs, and they in turn act like them! You can pet and scratch them, and get them to do tricks for food ~ don't believe me, check out Gunnar's travel site when he had a cow on his hind legs reaching for food! I share a whole new opinion for these mammals, however that doesn't mean one of our first meals when we get home won't be a nice juicy steak! :)

They're often getting into the garbage lying around...

This guy just loved me, and LOVED getting his neck scratched. I kid you not, I had a friend for life. He followed us for 2 blocks after this picture was taken until we finally lost him.

Ode to the goats of India!

These lovable little creatures can be found everywhere in India ~ and I mean everywhere. They'll be in the temple that you're required to remove your shoes to enter, they'll be climbing on the ruins of a world heritage site you're not allowed to touch. If you're at a bus station, just look for them at the front of the bus (or any other vehicle) eating the flowers the drivers put on the front grill for religious reasons. They get into and eat anything you allow them, and in India they have free rein! Good ol' goats, you were always good for a laugh...

This shrine was put here for my lunch wasn't it?

Delhi

Last stop in India... Delhi! We're glad we saved Agra, Varanasi, & Delhi for the end as India's worst con artists are found here and we considered ourselves pretty street smart by the time we reached them. They tried, and failed, and it got a bit exhausting at times, but we certainly won't let that affect our opinion of this country. In short, we love it. We had tons of stuff to do before we fly out tomorrow morning (currently 12:40am as I write this), so we didn't a whole lot of site seeing; which was fine with us both. We're a little temple/fort'd out at the moment, but we made time for 2 more.

India's largest mosque... or so we're told.

The crazy busy streets (like all other streets in Delhi) leading up to the mosque.

And the Red fort, yes that is right... another one!

Good bye India. We had a great 2 months and 10 days here. Can't believe how fast the time has gone, but I daresay we'll be back again.

Varanasi

Oh Varanasi... the craziest place we visited in India. A dirty city along an even dirtier river; the Ganges. The holiest of holy places for the Hindus of India. I won't go into the importance of the Ganges as I'd probably just get it wrong, but 75000 people come here everyday just to bath in the polluted disgusting waters of the Ganges and wash away all their 'bad karma', and even drink the water... out with the bad, in with the good. KINDA... Also, the lesser attractive draw to the Ganges is that this is THE place for Hindu funerals, and body are cremated in the open on wood fires 24hrs a day. Although the real highlight here is purely Indian culture at its best, and the daily routines which occur along this auspicious river. You just walk up and down the ghats along the Ganges and take it in.

Who said dogs are colour blind... these ones know its the white skin folk whom will give food when they have it! I wouldn't share my raisins with Jillene, but these guys were pretty cute and just loved them!

One of the many holy men we'll see along the ghats...

Owners bring their water buffalo down here and give them a good scrubbing...

Kids playing a game of cricket along the ghats.

We were told these were pilgrims from an ashram in the Himalayas, and below their guru being carried up to a temple.

India you may have heard has many cows just wandering around... what happens to all their poop you may ask? Well let me show you. It is a source of income for the poor. They collect it, make nice standard size poop pies out of the collected poop, dry it in the sun, and then sell if for fuel to cook on. YUMMY!