Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2001 12:40
Billie Chan reminded me the other day that I hadn't said much about the food we have encountered so far so I thought I'd try and redress the balance in one fell swoop.
The Rough Guide mentions a restaurant in Udaipur called Natraj saying that it does the best 'thali' in town but warns that it is fiendishly difficult to find. So we set off on foot and discover that the complexity of finding the place is multiplied by the map in the guidebook being completely wrong. As we make our way we pass lots of the streetfood stalls at which we have been eating things like samosas, fried at the roadside in king-sized, wok-like pans, not flat like in the UK but round with a spicy potato filling the size of a snooker ball wrapped in pastry, the overall impression being of a man with a spherical head wearing a tri-cornered hat. But we are in search of the elusive Natraj and pass up the many opportunities before finally, after an hour's walk and with help from lots of people along the way, we find our destination. We walk into a large room and I think I am back in school with row upon row of Formica tables, plastic chairs, their metal feet scraping noisily across the tiled floor and the loud humming produced by lots of people eating and talking. Every downstairs seat is filled by an Indian man and the scene is repeated upstairs where we are shown to one of the few vacant tables in the corner of the room. On the table are four round stainless steel trays and four stainless steel mugs, all upside down. Most eating is done with your right hand, rather than cutlery, so everyone expects to wash their hands before and after each meal. So we wash our hands and sit down. There is no need of a menu because 'thali' is the only thing on offer. A thali is set meal, sometimes fixed portions, sometimes, like here, unlimited and the thali on this occasion is the most extensive we have so far encountered. You find thalis on offer in most parts of the country and frequently there will be two on offer, one appropriate to the region you are in plus a Southern Indian thali which is found on offer many hundreds of miles away from its' homeland. Natraj is uncommon in offering only a thali, in most places it is just one option on a fairly lengthy menu. The service is really good fun. There are six people serving on the first floor and each has a particular, narrowly defined role, upon which each waiter strives to make his own mark with a flick of a ladle twirling wrist or a flourishing of a serving cloth. So Waiter No. 1. appears and turns over our stainless steel tray to reveal 4 small metal bowls underneath, he adds a teaspoon to each tray and places a jug of water on the table. We now have all our eating equipment and the waiter departs, his role in our meal complete. Waiter No. 2. Fills the small metal bowls with: Curd, a thick white curdled yoghurt; raita, a slightly spicy yoghurt sauce; dal, a runny sauce made from yellow lentils with lots of garlic and a slight taste of ginger; and lastly, a red curry. No.3. quite low on the waiter's ladder of seniority to judge from his callow youthfulness and unfussy approach, brings chopped onion, half a tiny lemon and hot lime pickle. No.4. brings the curries. Each has its' own distinctive flavour: Okra; cauliflower, potato and mung bean. With a lavish flick of the wrist four separate piles appear on the stainless steel tray. Pretty much all of the low cost food in Rajasthan is vegetarian for several reasons: religion, cost and the difficulty of storing meat. In common with all the thalis we have had so far the curries are fairly dry, leaving you to add liquid from the little bowls according to your taste. No.5. brings buttered chapattis No.6. brings the rice which, like everything else is available in unlimited quantities from the waiters who continually circulate, trying to force more of their specialism upon you long after you are full to overflowing. All of this cost 35 rupees (50 pence). Everything is gorgeous, the spicing, as we have found everywhere, is warm but not hot and the flavours are rich and savoury. We plough through lots of food by mixing together little bundles of flavours that we then pick up in a torn and folded piece of chapatti. This is fast food Indian style and 25 minutes after arrival we are stood outside on the pavement, full to bursting and hardly any poorer than when we entered. Our girths continue to expand under the pressure of all the fried and rich food, most of which is carbohydrates, just to make things worse. In addition we are struggling to find and eat as much fresh fruit as we would like. But if any of this sounds like a complaint, it isn't! We are loving the food and having to limit how much we order because if it appears on the table in front of us we eat it all up. Before we left the UK we had a gathering of the Sausage clan and we were shocked, and delighted, when we opened our big leaving card to find it contained travellers cheques from all the family in lieu of birthday and christmas presents for the year we are away. We were instructed to give ourselves little treats along the way and in Udaipur we had our first treat, a meal at the Lake Palace Hotel. The Jag Niwas Palace was built during the reign of Jagat Singh and completed in 1646 a summer palace where the Maharana could retire to benefit from the cool lake air. It had fallen into disrepair prior to its' restoration and subsequent opening as a luxury hotel in 1963. It sits in the middle of Lake Pichola, completely surrounded by water, accessible only by boat. It is two storeys high, topped with domes and is maybe 150 metres by 200 metres in total. All white, it appears to float weightlessly on the still water and as the sun sets its' reddening beams are reflected off the lake creating a picture so beautiful that it is hard to believe that it is real and not some airbrushed parody of reality. So we pulled on our best togs, which elevate us from street urchins to peasants, and set of for our posh evening out. The Lake Palace is as beautiful inside as out, wonderfully proportioned spaces, acres of white marble and that sense of slightly sterile tranquility that you get in the best hotels. We watch a Rajasthani puppet show in the central courtyard and retire to the bar in the face of some rather uncoordinated folk dancing that follows the puppets. Sausage revels in what she accurately describes as a place 'where all the edges are smooth' and it's true that everything is beautifully in its' place and the service is top-notch. The food, a buffet, is unremarkable, but it at least offers us the opportunity to gnaw some meat, a process that has become so unfamiliar to us that Sausage awards her first mouthful of Goan fish curry an accolade of 'This chicken is lovely!' The other good news is that the drinks are not ridiculously expensive, so we treat ourselves to a couple of beers and Sausage has a vodka martini in homage to Octopussy (in which Udaipur features heavily if you want some escapist background viewing!). We sit and practice our disdainful looks hoping to be able to reflect back the disgust evident on the face of some of the older punters who, like us, are visiting Lake Palace for the evening and pretending to be posh, but who clearly think that the experience should be restricted to people of a certain age, bank balance and sour-faced disposition. But we give up, worried that if we did manage a sufficiently disdainful look Jack Frost might happen by (some chance in these temperatures, but childhood fears run deep) and the chill wind would freeze our faces forever, sentencing us to a lifetime looking like we had just trodden in a huge pile of doggie-doo. Earlier in the day we had spontaneously found ourselves reviewing our progress so far and talking through what we have learned from the first few weeks of our adventure. Rajasthan has been a good place to start because our quick moving itinerary has helped to clarify our priorities. As yet the actual travelling has been laborious and has all been simply a means to an end, none of our journeys have been great fun in, and of, themselves. We have enjoyed the sightseeing but the sights have been occurring too quickly thus far. We need to find an appropriate balance between seeing the sights, travelling and settling down with time to relax and unwind. So we have looked again at our itinerary keen to have longer stays in pleasant places and stripping the sightseeing down to its' bare essentials. We have also come to understand the total inadequacy of the time we have to even scratch the surface of what India has to offer. Accepting this frees us from the race to see everything and allows us to focus on the relaxation and time to think that has proved so enjoyable up to now. We were genuinely shocked when we sat down and worked out the logistics of the time we have left in India. We had in our minds to go to Goa, in the middle of the Western seaboard and Kerala in the far South but by the time we have factored in the travel times down to Goa and back up to Nepal we have only two weeks to play with, so we will save Kerala for another time, restrict ourselves to Goa and plan to spend a week each in Arambol in the extreme North of Goa and and Palolem in the extreme South of the state. We are both a little surprised that our priorities prove to be more concerned with being in a place and having time to relax rather than seeing lots of sights, but we're having such a good time that we are more than happy to go long with what seems right for the two of us. We both feel pleased with how things have gone so far, especially restricting ourselves to injuries rather than illnesses and we're looking forward to a couple of weeks in Goa before we go to Nepal. The spirit of reflection is clearly upon us because after our meal at the Lake Palace we retire to the bar and over a cup of real coffee surprise ourselves by talking through all sorts of long-term plans and aspirations. If you had told me that we would be sitting in a posh hotel bar, nearly a month into our trip, talking about careers, kids and pensions I would never have believed you. But we did and it's great to have the time to think about these as well as all sorts of other things. A silly story to finish. A week ago I was walking through Pushkar and, as I took in a very typical street-scene of stalls, traffic, people, cattle and pigs I saw, momentarily but clearly, a man running in slow motion. It was a very strange sensation because everything else in my field of view appeared normal and when I jerked my eyes back to check what I had seen the man was walking normally. The whole incident was so incomprehensible and baffling that I didn't mention it to Sausage because I half thought I'd imagined it. Then I saw the same thing in Udaipur and, fortunately for my sanity, saw how the trick is done. Indian towns are full of delivery men. Their barrows consist of a flat wooden bed supported on two axles and four bicycle wheels pulled along by two long wooden handles protruding from one end of the barrow at hip height. The more experienced delivery-wallahs, while pulling their barrows, build up a head of steam, lock their arms, and, bearing down on the handles which support all of their weight, allow the barrow to freewheel while they paddle the ground slowly with their feet, giving the impression of running in slow motion. Sausage was as underwhelmed by my explanation as you probably are, but it's no fun thinking that you are starting to see things that aren't real (?!) and I'm just thankful I came across a rational explanation, otherwise I might have to start to pay heed to all those people who tell me I'm bonkers! Happy Burfday Sarah Davies!!!!!!!!!!!Lots of Love
The Travelling Sausages
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