You are in India!

A couple days after I arrived in India a random man on the street told Carl and me that "you are in India now." It was bizarre and made us laugh so hard, of course we knew we were in India. It has been of our favorite phrase to repeat to each other ever since. Whenever we walk out of our hotel and are bombarded with sensory overload, whenever something happens we can't explain or just because, we find ourselves repeating the phrase as sort of a mantra. Since I am in India I thought you might be curious about some of the basic things like how much a hotel room is and what food costs, so let me enlighten you.

Carl and I have been staying at guest houses more often than hotels. Although I really can't tell the difference between them, but a guest house is usually cheaper (and crappier) than a hotel. But depending on location and size of the town a hotel might be just as crappy. 

Just getting directions 

Getting a hotel/ guest house room can be a bit of a challenge. It's usually too much of a headache to book or even look for a room online because most places aren't listed and it's really difficult to find the place if you reserve it online. Also it's difficult to know what the room will actually be like compared to what they say online. So we usually just wing it, with a general idea of where some guest houses might be located. Most of the time when we get off the bus rickshaw drivers swarm us in order to over charge us to our unknown location. Usually it ends up being around $2 and it's not worth the headache to haggle so we just pay what the driver says.

Once we find a guest house the person working doesn't want to tell us the price right away so usually we look at the room before hand then negotiate a price. Four or five times the person behind the front desk has been utterly confused when we ask if they have rooms available. They usually call someone else and the person who they call usually doesn't know anything more and can't find where they keep the keys to the room either. Once they show us the room we understand their confusion because the room is so terrible it makes sense they would be at a loss for why anyone would want to stay there.

It's weird, all of the hotels and guests house must use the same supply warehouse full of mismatched shitty furniture. The rooms we stay in, no matter what town, seem to be very similar. Florescent lights with no shades is a must. Bare walls with lots of marks and scrapes is really in. The rooms usually have a vaguely 70's theme and windows  that have "views" of brick walls are very popular. The bathrooms usually have a shower that is right between the toilet and the sink and nobody has told India there are these things called shower curtains. Everything in the bathroom gets soaked during a (hopefully hot) shower.

Crappy hotel room complete with  florescent lighting 

Having wifi is basically essential in order to not go crazy. One cannot complain to much though because these rooms usually cost on average of 500 rupees which is about $8 USD. Cut that in half because Carl and I share a room, $4 a night for wifi, a place to sleep and a shower ain't bad. 

Messy but probably the nicest place we stayed (it cost 1000 rupees a night)

It's crazy how fast a crappy hotel room can feel like home. India is crazy, the walkways are packed with people, dogs, cows, monkeys, motorbikes, and actual bikes. It can take a lot of energy to make sure no one is going to run you over or that your not going to run into a cow. On a side note, I did run into a cow... Actually I think I got a little to close to the cow and it ran into me. Anyway details, details. What's important is now I am terrified of cows.

Not all cows are scary - they were nice

Speaking of things I'm scared of, there are a lot of stray dogs. I have never been completely comfortable around dogs and amidst all the cows and dogs I can get a little anxious walking around. Between a young dog that was biting my assistant teacher at the ashram, the dogs and monkeys fighting in Dharamsala and a dog that was really close to biting me during our hike outside Leh, I can now conform the dogs and cows are the scariest part of india for me.

Not all dogs are scary either

Chipmunk in Carl's shoe - also nice

On a less scary note, the food in India is delicious and inexpensive. Restaurants usually open around 9 or 10am. India takes a while to get up and running in the morning. So it is sometimes difficult to find food early if we need to be somewhere (like a bus or trek). A traditional Indian breakfast food is a parantha. It is a flat bread stuffed with potatoes or veggies. Standard menu options are eggs, potatoes and toast as well as banana honey porridge and of course don't forget the chai.

For lunch and dinner some of the more tourist restaurants have pizzas and pasta dishes on the menu. I however can't tell you if Indian-Italian food is good because I have never tried it because the indian food is too good to pass up. Meals usually work out to be around 150 rupees which is $2.50 USD.  Sometimes you can find a meal for as little 40 rupees (.65 cents). Not bad for how delicious the food is. 

Monkeys are scary- this is a "monkey stick" we were given at a restaurant 

Cookin'

Carl and I have mostly traveled by bus and sometimes taxis(taxis really just means van or car). What I have learned about buses: the kind of bus you want to take is a Volvo/AC, the kind you don't want to take is an "ordinary" bus. However the nice Volvo buses don't always go everywhere so we have been forced to take the "ordinary" buses. The nice buses are a little bit more expensive but not by much. Carl worked out most buses cost around a dollar an hour. Our mini bus ride from Manali to Leh was 24 hours and the cost was 1,500 rupees which is $25. 

This is where you pay for the bus- organized chaos 

Luckily we were on the orange bus

Niiiice ride

Just  riding  the bus 

Creepy mannequins - just because 

If you have any questions please ask. Also if you have comments or suggestions about things you are curious about in india let me know. 

I hope everyone had a great Halloween!

Vegetable Momos

I know you thought this was a travel blog, but now it is a food blog because I took a cooking class! We made momos and now so can you...

Momos are traditional steamed dumpling native to Tibet and Nepal. There is a large Tibetan community in Dharamsala and the momos here are amazing! I have had them for lunch and dinner seriously everyday since we got here (that's a week of momos twice a day every day). When Carl and I saw a poster adverting a momo cooking class we knew we had to do it! I am excited to make them once I have a kitchen again, until then you guys can try to make them at home if you are feeling up it!

The vegetable momos are filled with the following:
1/2 of a medium size cabbage-finely chopped
1 large carrot-peeled and grated
2 medium onions-finely chopped
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp oil
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp finely chopped spring onion
1 tbsp finely chopped green or red pepper (capsicum)
1 tbsp finely chopped cilantro (coriander)
1/4 tsp crushed black pepper
Make sure the veggies are dry and there isn't excess water. Mix them all together in a bowl.

The momo dough is really simple. It is just 1/2 kilogram flour, 2 tsb baking powder and 300 ml of room temperature water. Mix the four and the baking soda in a bowl. Slowly mix in the water and stir with your hands until combined. 

Knee the dough for 3 minutes and then cover it for 6 minutes. 

Once the dough a risen for 6 minutes roll it out into a tube and then cut or rip it into 2 finger width pieces.

With your hands roll the pieces into small balls then flatten slightly. 

Then use a rolling pin roll the dough into thin circles. You can also roll a large thin circle out then use a cookie cutter or a glass to make circles.

Put a spoonful of the veggie mixture in the middle of each circle of rolled out dough. Pinch the edges together to make a ball (this part was a little tricky, but it doesn't matter what they look like because they are going to taste great.)

Once all the momos are pinched and sealed place them into the steamer tray, make sure they are not touching. Steam them for 15 minutes. This recipe should make enough momos for 6 people. 

Momos can be filled with anything you want but my favorite is the traditional veggies ones. Dip them in spicy chilly sauce and/or soy sauce!

We made spinach cheese momos and sweet momos in the class as well. Let me know if you want the recipe for those.

The Golden Temple

The Golden Temple

This blog post was composed by both Carl and Cara on the bus.