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Shallow brass bowls with flowers and/or petals can often be found in India –in restaurants, hotels, boutiques, spas, corners of stairwells, homes, etc. Larger bowls (some are big enough to be kiddie pools!) are often placed on the floor or in courtyards/gardens, medium ones are found on pillars or table tops and small ones can be found anywhere — on stairs, next to bathroom sinks, on bedside tables, etc. They add a lovely pop of color and, depending on the flowers used, the presentation can be quite fragrant.

I am on a quest for the perfect medium size bowl – something with a nice patina, nothing too shiny/new to distract from the flowers. I found the perfect one on our June road-trip to the hill station of Coonoor — but I didn’t buy it for fear it was over priced (apparently, it wasn’t). I found another nice one in Pondicherry – for more money than the Pondy one and I’d have to squeeze it into my airline luggage, so I passed. I have seen a couple in Bangalore, but none with a nice finish/patina. LESSON: when you stumble across the “perfect” thing, get it! You never know when/where you’ll find it again!

Lovely brunch with friends from near (Bangalore) and far (New York & London) at Olive Beach. Thanks for a wonderful afternoon M, M & D! (D was the photographer, thus she’s not in the photo.)

I am guessing this is Lord Vishnu, based on its blue colouring. The statute sits in a tank, filled with lotus, just outside the Shore Temple in Mamallapuram. The blue is crazy intense and very eye catching….

Some places in India have world class customer service. Really, too-good-to-be-true service. They aren’t the subject of this post. But it is worth recognizing that this CAN be done!

Over the past week or so, there have been more than the average number (and intensity) of customer service SNAFUs. So yes, this is a compliant post. Hopefully, this will be seen more as a call to arms to encourage service providers to raise the level of service. And a reminder to visitors that a deep well of patience, forgiveness and firmness are needed to help you enjoy your visit.

Here are some examples, from this narrow time frame:

• A 2 different restaurants in 2 different cities near the coast, a patron orders fish. In both cases, the waiter declares, “That fish has bones. You won’t like it. Order [X] instead.” Patron thanks waiter for the warning about bones, but wants to order fish from the sea nonetheless. In one case the waiter relents and brings the patron the sea fish (at it was yummy and indeed boney). In the other case the waiter won’t give an inch –suspecting that there is a bigger issue (No fish that day? Fish looks unhealthy to the waiter?? Who knows!) at play, the patron relents and orders something else. In any event, it’s better to say something is unavailable (which waiters often do say), rather than presume to know what a customer will “enjoy.”

• Saleswoman refusing to get a clothing item in the customer’s requested size. Even though the customer frequents the store & knows the sizes well. Even though the shop has plenty of stock in the requested size. The saleswoman would rather argue with the customer in the middle of the store about how she “must” purchase the larger size. Embarrassing and insulting customers is an odd approach to making a sale… (Eventually the requested size was obtained, although a — more polished –manager had to be engaged to make the sale.)

• Waiter tells female patron that the next time, she really must bring her husband to dine at the restaurant. Granted, this may have been an attempt at word of mouth marketing (along the lines of “bring all your friends!”). But I think that is an overly generous rationalisation. It fell flat when combined with otherwise unimpressive service on the current restaurant visit. The focus should have been on making the current visit a wonderful experience to which we’d love to bring friends/relatives, rather than demanding we produce men (which, by implication, may have gotten us better service). Moreover, this approach failed to take into account possibility that the woman was single (she was) and could be offended. And, well, keep reading…

• Same restaurant, another waiter (they are all men) attempts to hand feed food to an adult woman dining with other women (no men in the group). This continued for several minutes despite the woman’s unmistakable objections– sliding back in her seat to get away from the invasion of personal space; holding both hands in front of her face to block the attempt; and clear verbal objections in a Indian language the waiter understood. It was not cute, funny or charming. It would have NEVER had happened if we had a man dining with us. It was just plain creepy in my observation. However, I was told by others that the waiters had a strong rural accent — perhaps they have had limited/no exposure to women outside their immediate families; perhaps they’ve not meet professional women on a business lunch. But when a {relatively expensive} restaurant opens adjacent to a massive office park, they REALLY ought to coach the waiters –wherever they are from — on how to deal with business professionals, including women. No one wants to leave a restaurant feeling accosted by the waiters or under the impression that the only way they’d be welcomed back is with a man.

• Hotel front desk clerk/concierge in a beach town known for its beaches & known to be a tourist beach destination for both foreign and local tourists adamantly advising hotel guests against the beaches. Telling the guests that the beaches are “truly awful” and “no place you want to go.” This despite the fact that the guests were adamant that the whole purpose of their trip was to visit a beach. There were no oil spills, Tsunami warning or sharks spotted that would explain this behavior in the hospitality sector. I am guessing the hotel employee had no idea how to direct tourist to get to the beach so, rather than refer the question to someone else, he figured he would just make the question go away. (When we raised the issue with more senior staff, they explained he was very new and would get additional coaching. And directed us to a lovely beach!)

Maybe Mercury is in retrograde or something…

It is Ramzan (as Ramadan is called around here) and our Muslim friends & co-workers are fasting until sun down. But at around 6:40pm, the party starts! At the aptly named “Mosque Road” in the Frazer Town neighbourhood of Bangalore food stalls pop up for the month and its a whole scene — for hungry Muslims and foodies of all religions.

Vendors cook all day (most of whom are fasting themselves whilst they are preparing the food). Then, at sundown, the street becomes a strolling Thanksgiving-like feast of people gorging on food. Although this is one place & time in India that is truly not veg-friendly. The Muslims eat meat — and apparently lots of it! And some of it pretty unique… in a Anthony Bourdain reality food show sort of way.

Here are some of the things people in my party sampled (but the people requested that I hide their identities, to shield them from teasing):

• We started at the “famous” Albert Bakery, on the way to Mosque Road. This bakery does more than just cakes & pastry. Albert is famous for 2 things: (1) killer mini samosas (filled with meat or veg) and (2) “bheja” or goat brain puffs. Yep. You read that correctly. {I guess my friends were right about the teasing: the brain eater – I mean bheja taster! — was immediately subjected to zombie quips.} The Zombie reported that the brian puff was over-rated; s/he prefers the traditional mutton or chicken puffs. (“Puff” is puff pastry with savoury filling.) I can confirm that the veg mini-samosa lived up to the hype. (Samosa is a triangular fried pastry pocket with meat or veg filling.)

•On to our first food stall: grilled fish marinated in spices. It was red in color, like tandoori cooking, but cooked — like almost everything in the stalls that wasn’t fried– on a metal grate over charcoal. Tasty! No bones. I enjoyed it.

•Kheema Paratha: Paratha (tasty fried bread) stuffed with cooked mutton and fried again. It appear to be folded like a big envelope, but the vendors cut it up like a tray of brownies to eat by hand. A big Ramadan hit. Everyone in our party who tried it gave it a thumbs up.

• Haleem, a Ramzan delicacy. This is a creamy meat dish served in a bowl and eaten with a spoon. It is slow cooked mutton with herbs and wheat — cooked for 8 hours or so. It is a real labour of love, which explains why people only make it for Ramzan. Again, everyone in our party who tried it enjoyed it, although a few commented that it was a very heavy, filling dish. The version made with spices from Hyderabad is widely considered to be the best.

•Grilled “sea” fish and onion samosa. Variations of the previous dishes and also yummy. We’ll never know what type of fish it was, but it had long thick bones.

• DRUM ROLL PLEASE….. Camel. Yep. And you thought we were not going to top goat brains, right! This seemed to be a novelty even among Indians. There appeared to be only one camel meat vendor, and he had quite a crowd. Locals were breaking out their cell phones to take photos. Our group critiqued the camel along side another group of camel tasters. The general consensus was: heavily spiced to the point you couldn’t really taste the camel (although everyone conceded that may be the point!), slightly chewy but surprisingly not as tough as everyone anticipated.

I used the “I’m a vegetarian” (ok, pescetarian) defence to get out of tasting the camel. However, I was holding the bowl of haleem which caused some confusion with our camel sampling peers. Once I explained that I was merely holding the haleem so that my omnivore friends could use their hands to eat the camel, the camel tasters were cool with me. I was deemed a much more fun veg than their token veg friend, who they left standing outside beyond the stalls of grilling meat. OMG, that poor veg person. This is really not the place for a strict veg…

• Kulfi — a denser than ice cream like diary dessert. At the shop we got our kulfi, it is stored in flat patties and cut up into bite size chunks just before serving. Our party shared 3 flavours: fig, pistachio & dried fruit. Fig was my fave.

• Dates. There was a shop on the corner by the mosque that sold nothing but dates from all around the world. I bought Tunisian & Irani dates, and sampled a Jordanian date. Yum! Great take away to end the evening.

*I elected to overlook the fact that the guy who squeezed lemon over the fish and added some raw onion garnish with his bare hands was also the guy collecting payment and had a stack of bills in his other hand. I mean, that happens at fairs and farmers markets in the US, too, right? In any event, I ate a whole dinner from various food stalls and am no worse for it. Touch wood!

Over the weekend, M & I visited the the former French Colony* of Pondicherry, often nicknamed Pondy. (Recently, it has been proposed to change the name to Puducherry — although that doesn’t seem to have much momentum in causal speech.) Pondy is also the hometown of Pi, the character in the novel/movie Life of Pi.

Aside from the heritage buildings in the French Quarter (aka Ville Blanche and White Town), the Sri Aurobindo Ashram (reportedly one of the most famous & wealthiest ashrams in India) and the Auroville new-age-world-peace-commune outside of town, Pondy is know for its 1.5 km beach promenade. The length is almost always cited, as if it is part of the name!

In the morning the promenade is less crowded. There are old men strolling for exercise, couples sharing breakfast on the rocky shore, homeless slowly waking from their sleep under the giant, watchful statue of Gandhi…

But the promenade comes to life in the evenings. The fresh fruit, ice cream and cotton candy vendors dotting the path so that a new refreshments option is available ever 50 feet or so. Hawkers with toy drums, decorative metal garlands, postcards and other wares. TONS of families, young couples holding hands, and groups of teenage boys (in India, it appears that there are never corresponding groups of teenage girls) meandering down the path or seating on the rocks.

With the sea and the fishing boats as a backdrop, it’s quite picturesque from a distance.

However, in a shameful omission of urban planning, there are no trash cans to be found along the whole promenade. (This is no unique to Pondy, it’s a rather common state of affairs in India.) Years of plastic fruit cups, plastic ice cream spoons and other trash have been accumulating among the boulders that make up the rocky shoreline. It’s a real disappointment to see the most prominent feature of the town — something valued by locals and tourists alike! — treated so shabbily. I chose to focus on the big picture and tried not to allow myself to get too distracted by the trash. The big picture really was beautiful.

*Pondicherry was a Roman trading port dating back to the 1st century. It was under the rule of various Indian dynasties until it became part of “French India” — at one point a rather large % of present day India! Pondy was part of the French East India Company from the 1600’s until the 1950’s. In fact, it remained French well after the rest of India won Independence from the British. (That was news to me!). Many of the locals still speak French today. There seemed to be a presumption that Western looking people in this town are French: I was greeted often by local Indians in seemingly fluent French. (I use the qualifier “seemingly” only because my own French is pathetically limited.)

After some initial confusion brought on by an inexperienced hotel clerk, M & I found our way to Paradise Beach. Thankfully, the local driver we used during our stay, K, was able to explain everything (10 min drive south of the French Quarter, then a 5 min boat ride to a tiny barrier island).

Boat ride to beach island:

The Indian Ocean side beach was lovely, with small waves, refreshingly cool water, white sandy clean beaches. On the leeward side, the water was perfectly calm — which seemed to attract those “swimmers” fearful of the waves.
Indian Ocean/Bay of Bengal:

Aside from beautiful sand & surf, this was a unique beach experience. There were only half dozen or so other western (mainly French) tourists. Less than 30% of all the people on the beach were female. The Indian ladies modestly wore their saris or jeans & T-shirts to go “swimming”; not one Indian lady had a western style suit. On the opposite end of the spectrum, most of the men just striped down to their underwear to “swim” — some had western style board shorts or speedos, but the vast majority were in their skivvies. (I carefully avoided taking any photos of THAT!) A few –seemingly true gentlemen — wore their own jeans & tshirts as they went into the water with their girlfriends. Very gallant!

I’m using swim in quotes, because I didn’t see anyone actually swim. Or even float. People mostly stood around, knee- or chest-deep in the water. The life guards (ahem) were dressed like traffic cops (epaulets, belts, etc) and mostly walked up and down the beach with whistles and bull horns — and inexplicably, waving a big stick! They also seemed pretty old (perhaps beach duty is a plum pre-retirement gig?). I had no faith that they knew how to rescue swimmers – or that they could do so effectively in their get ups. Also, there was none of the traditional lifeguard apparatus in hand – no row boat, rescue board, life buoy…. Their main goal seemed to be to shout at “swimmers” to keep them standing very near to shore.

All and all it was a great day at the beach. Although I remain the whitest, most pale creature on sand or sea:

Okay, I am pretty sure I don’t want to know the other option for attorneys…

View of the Bay of Bengal in the Indian Ocean as we drive from Chennai (aka Madras) to Pondicherry. It’s a little overcast — hey, it is Monsoon season! — but it refreshes the soul to see the coast.

A few weekends ago, en route to a (relatively) nearby hill station called “Ooty”, we drove through Bandipur national park. It’s sort of like driving thru Yellowstone — nature is everywhere!

From the our car we saw these critters.
Monkeys (these are not indigenous — they follow the tourist all over India as far as I can tell. Like an invasive species…):

Other Monkeys (these are the indigenous “jungle” monkeys):

Deer:

Boar (with babies):

Peacocks (a wild peacock, sitting in a tree!):

Trained elephants (when we asked C how to tell the difference between trained and wild elephants, he sagely responded, “The ones wearing bells are trained.”):

Wild elephants (sans bells, but with babies!):

We didn’t spot any tigers or leopards (although both are known to inhabit this park). All in all, a pretty good drive-thru safari!