As we’re finding out, India can be a crazy place to backpack through, so we were extremely lucky to start in Bangalore, the southern city where my parents grew up and where much of my extended family still lives. And even better, my mom flew over from the U.S. to see us!
My parents were generous enough to get us a hotel for a week, an Indian cell phone, which has really come in handy for booking hotels and whatnot for the rest of our India trip, and as is standard practice for NRIs (non-resident Indians), a hired taxi to take us wherever we wanted each day. For two backpackers who were totally sick of researching, planning, booking, etc., we were more than ready to play puppets. Tell us what time to be ready, and we’ll go wherever you tell us.
That said, it had been 10 years since I had been in Bangalore and most of my fond memories have been clouded by the fact that I always, always, always, always got sick. On previous visits, I rarely got to do anything fun because I was too busy throwing up. TMI?
This time was different. I think traveling in Third World countries beforehand prepped me because I didn’t get sick!
So, armed with a robust immune system and a more well-rounded knowledge of the world we live in, I could finally appreciate nuances of Bangalore that I never before realized. For starters, the people are incredibly kind and mild-mannered (probably because it’s not a big tourist spot). The food is crazy good. The streets feel open and airy even with the notorious traffic. There’s greenery everywhere. The list goes on. The point is, the more I travel through India — I’ve previously never been outside Bangalore — the more I realize how special Bangalore is.
It was amazing to have a bit of a homecoming here — to see my family, including my 90-year-old grandmother, spend time with my mom, shop for Indian clothes, eat outrageous meals and most importantly, show Eaman what my motherland was all about.
So what does a week in Bangalore look like? Well, our days consisted of eating, shopping, seeing family and watching Animal Planet in our comfy hotel room. It was grand.
Welcome flowers.
To grandmother’s house we go…
Her cook made us fresh dosas.
My aunt and uncle live next door, and they whipped up some tender coconut juice and fruit salad for us.
A walk through my grandmother’s neighborhood.
Hundreds of Ganesha statues lined up for sale for the upcoming Ganesh pooja.
Psychotic monkeys who invaded my grandmother’s driveway.
We were always well-caffeinated in India. The filter coffee there is my absolute favorite.
And let’s not forget snacks…
We didn’t have a single bad meal in Bangalore — a feat we had never before accomplished in our travels. My mom took us to the best places, and from veg thalis and chapatis to chicken tikka and panner manchurian, it was all divine. Even the hotel’s breakfast buffet was incredible. But I never took pictures of the food, that’s how ravenous I was at each meal. And it was during this week that I forgot what it felt like to be hungry.
And one night, when we were too tired to go out, we ordered Domino’s in.
We couldn’t get over how such a big city could be so green.
The most fragrant jasmine in the world can be found just about anywhere in Bangalore.
A walk through Lalbagh Garden.
Around the city.
Eaman deserves a really big cookie for being so patient while I shopped for saris and salwars, Indian clothes I wear for weddings and parties.
My aunt and cousins.
Lunch at my uncle’s house, where we had my favorite dish — jasmine flour idlis, a specialty that’s not common at this time of the year, but somehow, my uncle managed to find some. We ate our meals on the traditional banana leaf “plate.”
My cousin Ashwini and me. The top picture is from 10 years ago. The bottom from a week ago.
Weekday temple visit.
Eaman also celebrated his birthday in Bangalore! We went to lunch at a 5-star hotel, played at an arcade and had a party, but all that deserves its own post…next.
Everyone we talked to about traveling in Laos glossed over Vientiane, as if it were just a transit stop along the way. We beg to differ. We loved so much about Laos’ capital city during our four-day stay there — seven things in particular.
1. The pace. Everyone calls Vientiane the world’s most chilled-out capital, so I said, I’ll be the judge of that. I’ve changed a lot and get really overwhelmed and uncomfortable in big cities — my NYC days are definitely behind me — so if I think it’s chilled-out, then it really is. And as it turns out, this is the most quiet, laid-back, lazy capital in the world. There were times I felt like I had to whisper, times I wondered where everyone had gone and times when I took a three-hour mid-day nap and missed out on nothing. If I had to pick an Asian city to live in as an expat, it wouldn’t be the ever-popular Chiang Mai, Thailand; it would Vientiane. (By the way, the expats in Vientiane are refreshingly not-annoying. They speak Lao pretty well, mingle with locals and don’t eat just cheeseburgers.)
Wandering through wats.
Sleepy riverside. OK, this segment of the Mekong isn’t picture-perfect, but I liked these two men lazing by the water.
2. The food. Having come from a strict rice-lettuce-egg regimen in Ban Kong Lo, we were ready to eat, and Vientiane did not disappoint. There are plenty of cusines to choose from but some of our favorites were Turkish food at Istanbul, Vietnamese pho at a nameless restaurant, sweet street-stand parathas, fruit shakes at PVO, and Jamil and Zahid, a divey Indian restaurant so good we went back twice. And it was the only place where the return trip was just as tasty as the first visit. We had chicken curries, chana masala, samosa, outrageously good pakora, pineapple shakes and garlic naan made from Zahid’s own tandoor. The semi-outdoor restaurant sits at the front of Zahid’s house, so don’t be surprised to see his young son, Jamil, cycling around the restaurant — or walking around naked before his bath. And don’t be surprised if the owner starts videotaping you either. He films everyone who eats at his restaurant and puts them on his YouTube channel. My favorite part was when he said to me, “You look like me. Where you from?”
Riverside street by night.
Street parathas (Indian-style bread), pan-fried, filled with chocolate and drizzled with condensed milk. Holy moly.
Jamil and Zahid.
Fruit shakes at PVO, a Vietnamese restaurant in the lovely suburb of
Talat Sao outside the city center.
3. COPE Visitors Centre. Did you know Laos is the most bombed country per capita in the world? Did you know cluster bombs dropped during the Vietnam War are still littered throughout the country, inflicting serious damage to people who weren’t even alive during the war? If not, you should consider making a trip to the COPE Visitors Centre. COPE has helped rehabilitate victims of cluster bombs and other post-war-related afflictions through emotional support and professional prosthetics. On display are exhibits and mini-films as well as longer documentaries you can watch in an air-conditioned “cave,” meant to replicate the caves that Laotians had to hide in during the war. I’m not one for museums, but this place is so engaging and powerful. During our visit, we also met Peter, a 20-year-old Lao boy, whose hands were amputated after he came into contact with a cluster bomb. Having learned English on his own — and quite well, I might add — he talked to us at length, but not once about his injury. Instead, he hit on me, asked me to hook him up with one of my many cousins and told us about his favorite soccer teams. What an inspiration.
Prosthetic legs (left) and cluster bombs (right).
A child’s drawing with a translation of the caption.
4. Lao massages. These aren’t found only in Vientiane, but we did have our first Lao massage in the capital city. (We had less skillful massages in Luang Prabang.) For $5, we had our bodies stretched, pulled and cracked for one hour. Torture for some; bliss for me. I think soft Swedish massages are pointless; when I get a massage, I want to feel it. And in a Lao massage, similar to a Thai massage, muscles aren’t so much rubbed as they are pressed, and it was just what we needed after walking around the city and sitting in meditation for an hour the previous day. See below.
5. Free meditation. Every Saturday from 4-5:30 pm, Wat Sok Pa Luang — a peaceful temple hidden in a forest with one of the most beautiful settings for a wat I’ve ever seen — offers free Vipassana meditation sessions. One monk leads the meditation with English explanation and time for Q&A. This was a good primer for a 10-day Vipassana meditation we’ll be doing in India…in that it revealed how painfully hard those 10 days will be. Ouch.
6. The night market. Luang Prabang’s night market can claim the best products, but Vientiane’s claims local cred. Of course, you’ll see tourists, but you’ll see more locals — families, couples, teenagers splayed out on the lawn. I haven’t been too impressed by the souvenir shopping in other countries, but Laos sucked my wallet dry, and at this market, we picked up quite a few goodies.
7. Alms-giving. Every morning at dawn, saffron robed monks walk barefoot through the streets to collect food donations.This will be the only food they eat that day. It’s a sacred experience and happens all over Laos, but in Luang Prabang it’s now a flashy tourist activity. (Travelers in our LP hotel told us about tourists chasing after monks to get their pictures and getting up in their faces. Totally disgusting.) We were staunchly against doing it there, and I was even more adamant about not taking photos. Instead, we woke up at 5:30am one morning in Vientiane, hopped our hotel fence (which was padlocked) and headed out with a bag of lychee. We settled onto the sidewalk of a quiet street with just one old lady. She let me kneel on her mat — I didn’t know to bring one — and lent me a cup of water, which is poured onto the ground after the food collections have been made and while the monks chant a prayer. It felt real and special. I have no pictures to show of it and, in my opinion, that’s the way it’s meant to be.
We’re now in Vietnam, and I’m realizing just how hard it is to do as the locals do without a friend to guide us through the chaotic streets. It reminds me how lucky we were to have Fareesa hand pick all of our restaurants in Hong Kong. We named the cuisine, she found us a hidden gem. And as all good dining experiences should go, we learned a lot about HK culture in the process. (In general for Asia, I try to be vegetarian, but if there’s no other choice, the place looks clean and/or the meal looks that good, I’m happy to deflect.)
Cha Chaan Teng. This literally means tea restaurant, but cha chaan teng is better described as Hong Kong’s version of a diner. It’s affordable, eclectic and full of locals, young and old. We let Fareesa order for us and she did good — condensed milk buns, crispy noodles with tiger prawn, the famous fishball noodle soup and very traditional iced milk tea, called tong lai cha. I’m usually weary of things called fish ball soup, but this is a year of trying new things, and so I just went with it. And you know, it was actually really good, though my favorite was the garlic and chili chicken soup.
Dim Sum. We tried dim sum once in New York, and it was an epic failure. That’s probably because we had no clue what to order. In Hong Kong, Fareesa took us to the Michelin-starred Din Tai Fung, a branch of the famous Taiwan restaurant, and she and her friend ordered us plate after plate of amazing food, including vegetable buns, Dan Dan Mien (noodles in peanut sauce), beef noodle soup and the specialty, Xian Long Bao, which even comes with instructions on how to best enjoy each dumpling. It’s made of pork, which I usually don’t eat, but obviously I had to sample the best if it was in front of me. And yes, it was the best thing we ordered.
Paisano’s (top) and Pubblico (bottom):
