A land of contrast

Sorry about the typos. Technology dodgy so doing this on my phone

The drive to Rajasthan was uneventful and pleasant, wide highways, no rubbish to be seen, courteous drivers going at a sensible speed and a comfortable vehicle. Our driver Mr Singh will be with us until we leave Mumbai in about a week. He is lovely. 

Our guide Baggi gives us updates on everything and anything as we go. Whoever would have thought that the word cow comes from the sanskrit gow. And I though all words came from Greek. There are many gow here; different breeds including buffalo and all are sacred and cannot be slaughtered however their milk can be harvested and used. 

The destination of the day is the Pink City of Jaipur, known for high end jewellery/gem stones, medical research, colours and spices as well as marvellous food.  We arrive in Jaipur, the capital of the state of Rajasthan. 

Mr Google can tell you all aboit Jaipur, a city of around 3million people. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaipur

I feel as though I am in a new country when we arrive. The air is breathable, the streets are cleaner, there are trees everywhere. It is pretty and colourful. But the traffic madness is still with us.

Our first stop is for lunch. A bustling shop that has been in the city for generations. Mainly takeaways but there are about three bar height tables for those that want to eat in. The place has a far reaching reputation for it’s amazing kachori. Basically fried pastry stuffed with a variety of veg. We had Pyaz Kachori, about the width of a small saucer and a couple of cm thick. The outer pastry type layer was super crispy, so crispy that it was hard to break open when the heat if burned your fingers. Patience was required. Eventually I broke off a small piece and had a taster.  Pyaz kachori are a traditional snack from Rajasthan, and have transcended many borders with its spicy filling of onions, kalonji, bay leaves, coriander leaves, garam masala, green chillies and fennel seeds. It is believed to have been first originated in Jodhpur before becoming popular in almost every nook and corner of neighbouring states.

Damn this was good and I eagerly devoured the rest of it in record time. The warmth of the spices gave be that feeling of a fond embrace and my mouth popped with joy. I could have devoured more but I didnt want to be rude. 

We move on to our new hotel; The Wall Street, right in the heart of the hotel area of Jaipur. 

Checked in and rested we then move on again, through crazy traffic, with lots of tooting but funnily enough no one shouts or screams at one another. Its exciting but very draining with the constant noise. NZ drivers could learn a lot from the drivers here who fit their vehicles through spots they should not be able to. 

Eventually we arrive at our destination: a fabric/tailoring/garment outlet. 
We are shown the art of block printing onto fabric, where hand carved stamps are used to stamp designs onto cotton fabric. Each new colour needs a separate stamp which is overlaid onto the previous.  It was fascinating. 
Two of the girls in our group are off to a wedding in Goa so we got to see them resplendent in their beautiful wedding clothes; one a sari and the other a lengha. Just stunning. 
From there we go into the store! OMG, they have anything and everything made of fabric, samples of each bought out to wow us. Wowed I was and immediately bought a beautiful hand stitched white table cloth. It needs a posh dinner to christen it. And then I was persuaded to have a Punjabi made. (Long tunic over baggy pants). Totally unecessary but I fell in love with some fabric and well, as they say, the rest is history. The finished artickecwill be delivered to the hotel tomorrow. 
It was getting dark by the time we left there, for me a few hours well spent, and we made our way to the home of a young lady who used to be the producer of some bollywood movies, a model and now a wife living with her husbands extended family. Her name was Bohradivy and she was a delicate, quietly spoken and polite beautiful young lady. Her husbands family had a strong cricketing connection and the house was full of cricketing memorabilia. 
Bohradivy showed us how to make some traditional dishes all of which later formed part of a lavish feast with us sitting around the dining room table. 

She explained about the seven spices that are in virtually all of the meals of the region:

Cumin, Coriander (ground), red chilli powder, turmeric powder, salt, mango powder, mustard seeds. I usually grind my spices ready for use but I suppose if you use the same spices all the time they would not have time to lose their pungency over time. Interestingly she also keeps them in one partitioned container where I would have thought that each would be tainted by the smell of the other. Maybe if you use them fast enough you dont have to worry. 

Some of the delicacies we tried/made were:Vegetable pakora with coriander dip. The pakora are deep fried dumling made of a mix of veg, onions, potatoes, cabbage, cauli, with spices and were absolutely delicious. I could have eaten them all. 
Ker Sangari - desert beans with desert berries. The desert beans were very hard to chew through and despite the lovely flavour did not excite me. Khada Mogar - my favourite - yellow lentils with spring onions. It looked like safron short grain rice but tasted like heaven, the lentils barely cooked with a bit of resistance and the spring onions popping with flavour when I bit into them. Yummo. Masala Baingan - Aubergine Curry. Dry Mango Laungi - a side dish like a chutney. Very yum
Panchmel Dal. Every indian meal has dahl in some shape or form, this one with mixed pulses and all the spices plus some. Fried bread (Poori) and Chapati were there to mop it up. 

A veritable feast with wonderful company and the opportunity to meet and talk with some local people was a great way to spend an evening. 
Our day concluded with a drive/walk through the city. I could have wandered and people watched for hours but with the hotel quite far away and no idea how to get there I had no choice but go ‘home’. A lovely day had come to an end.