This is getting difficult. At this rate I'm not going to make it. It was bad yesterday, today it's even worse. I feel like if this continues I'm not going to make it.
Today I had to walk 2km to find meat for dinner. To the one and only non-veg restaurant in an entirely vegetarian town. It felt I could eat a goat. Now that I think about it, I might have. And maybe half a chicken.
Just kidding. The food is pretty good so far, although I was not kidding about the 2km walk in search of meat in Godhra. That was very real. Yesterday we caved and had KFC for dinner at Surat.
 |
| Fried chicken never tasted so good |
We're also starting to get more adventurous with food. It involved us walking around the streets and ordering anything that struck our fancy, usually with a combination of pointing and hand signals. So far no problems from the Bowel God. Looks like we're getting the hang of this.
 |
| Clockwise from top: Rasawala Khaman, deep fried potato chips with batter, fried salted chillis |
The potato chips were heavenly. Kinda how I imagine potato chips tempura would taste like. The little balls were just flavoured dough balls. I tried to Google Rasawala Khaman but it required quite a deep search which was tough on my bad Internet. It tasted a little similar to couscous with raw onions and tomato diced in and curry gravy. Oddly tasty despite being completely made of vegetables. Fried salted chillis were completely inaccessible to me although I'm sure it's not hard to imagine.
Surat was a really interesting city in the sense that it was
not like any other city. As we crossed the bridge into it the first though that struck my mind was, "wow, this place looks just like Singapore. How odd."
 |
| Some newly built HDB estate in Sembawang? Nope |
In fact, Surat goes one step further at blowing our minds.
 |
| Yes, that's "Sentosa" and a Merlion |
A friggin' Merlion. There were straight, wide roads, plenty of streetlights (at the same regular spacing), a dedicated public transport lane (for buses) and even traffic lights! If not for that nobody actually paid attention to the lights it would almost pass for a Singaporean HDB suburb.
In the morning we hit the city centre for random breakfast (shown above) and we were chanced upon by a radio station producer who asked us to record a talkshow about our adventure.
 |
| D-list celebrities! Woo! |
The endless trek continued, but the usual crowd that appears every time we stop for a break seems to be getting even more intense.
 |
| That's us stopping for a meal |
There was also a strange fascination with selfies, and
every single one of them wanted a selfie with us. It made it a little difficult to eat, although it did make for an interesting experience.
Celebrity Wenwen, of course, had to bear the brunt of the assault.
 |
| Different place, same situation |
At some point someone came along and asked if we could wait for about 15mins while he
cycled home to get his phone so he could take pictures of and with us.
It's nice to make someone's day by just
sitting there and having lunch, so we obliged for a photo.
By nightfall we hit Godhra, a really unique city east out of Ahmedabad. It has one of the highest literacy rates in India at 89%, as opposed to the national average of 50-60%. Also a unique confluence of religions, having Muslim, Hindu, Jainese and other religions all in a fairly small city. The south side of the city had very distinct architecture, looked Persian / Central Asian / Middle Eastern to me, which was very different from everything else so far.
Also that prompted the 2km trek for meat. I wondered how good meat would be in a almost 100% vegetarian city, but it really delivered. At least, it was really fresh and had good cuts.
 |
| You can trust a fat chef |
Internet is really spotty up north now so I'm gonna have to leave you with a parting shot. See you in Udaipur, hopefully.
 |
| Sunset over Godhra |
Cheerios, Jik
https://give.asia/movement/rickshaw_run_-_driving_for_charity
No comments:
Post a Comment