“Things We Forget” in Cafe Moshe, Colaba, Mumbai
Jan29
Monthly Archives: January 2012
Jan13
Tandoori Chicken & Naan
Indian dinner tonight: self made tandoori chicken with butter naan.
We buy a small chicken (like those in India), cut it into pieces, apply some lime and salt and keep it for 15 min. During this time, we clean some ginger (which I bought in Colaba market in Mumbai) and some garlic and mix it with the special tandoori chicken masala (which I bought in the one large supermarket in Mumbai), some curd and salt. We take the chicken pieces and marinate them with the mixture. Put it in the oven and in 5 minutes a terribly delicious smell will be spread throughout the entire house. After one hour it’s done and ready to be eaten 
While the chicken gets ready in the oven, we prepare the naan, which we make according to a receipe from good old google. We mix flour, salt, sugar, yeast, yoghurt, milk, and one egg, leave it for a one hour rest and then make small pancakes out of it and fry them in the pan with some butter and oil. It did not look like the naan I ate in India, and it also tasted different, but they say it’s naan and it tastes soooo delicious.
बोन अप्पेतित
Jan12
Alleppey Stadtfest
Am 23 Dezember feiert Alleppey Stadtfest… und wir sind herzlich eingeladen. Unzählige Hindus und Christen sind auf den wunderschön geschmückten Straßen. Eine Kerzenkette auf unserer Straße verbindet den hinduistischen Tempel an einem Ende und die christliche Kirche am anderen Ende. Dieses soll die guten Verbindungen zwischen Hindus und Christen symblolisiren.
Wir haben versucht Euch ein bisschen in die Atmosphäre einzubringen – viel Spaß dabei!
Jan11
“Bas, bas”
Die Rikscha, the ricksha (or rickshaw), ricşa… the name of a three-wheeler which we get to know very good and which we liked very much in India. It comes originary from Japan and was at first a human powered vehicle. In India it became motorized very early and is commonly called auto rickshaw.
We traveled every day by ricksha, also on December 19, when we went from TATA Institute for Social Sciences to Sunny’s for lunch. On the way, we passed by the market which we visited on our first day in Mumbai. Enjoy our second filmed ricksha ride 
Jan3
The Bus Experience
We’ve been taking a couple of buses since we got to India, from Trivandrum to Kovalam and back, from Trivandrum to Kanyakumari and back, from Trivandrum to Alleppey (a breathtaking ride), from Alleppey to Ernakulam, from Palolem to Margao, from Margao to Panaji and back, from Panaji to Old Goa and back, but the most amazing one was in Margao, when we arrive from Panaji and take a city bus from the bus station to the railway station. We’re already used to the fact that, due to our white skin (still after so much sun) people recognize us in the bus stations and direct us to the right bus. Either they ask where we want to go, or they guess and believe me, they guess right.
So, we are in the middle of a bunch of relatively old looking busses and the driver of a small bus in front of us looks at us and asks: “railway?”. We nod and get to the other side of the bus where we meet the ticket person (every bus has one, because tickets are bought inside the bus). The good man takes care that our luggage is properly stored in the driver’s box and sends us to the back of the bus. We’re the only ones standing, but it’s fine since the ride shouldn’t take very long (we hope). We learn then, that the ticket man is the announcer in the same time. He is standing next to the bus and continuously shouting something very loud (perhaps the destination station). And his shouting is successful, because in very short time the bus gets full, and with full, we mean really full. The bus starts slowly and finds its way out from the middle of many other chaotic parked busses. Now we meet the mid-day traffic of Margao, but we’re so used to this already, and to the way of driving, so we don’t care anymore. Instead we care for the fact that our bus, still full, stops quite often and people fit inside somehow. We observe the management skills of the ticket man / announcer who make sure that everybody gets into the bus, takes the bags of the school kids and stores them with ours into the driver’s box, walks around the bus and tells people how they should stay or turn in order to make more space for the others and somehow finds one more spot to get himself into the bus, even if the door doesn’t close anymore entirely.
After about 10 minutes almost everybody gets out, except us of course, so we’re moving to the front since we’re told by a nice school girl that the railway station is close. Some people get in but the bus is not completely full yet so we keep waiting and the announcer keeps shouting. Vera got a seat and I have a perfect place in front of her, right next to the door, so we can have the full experience. Since more and more people get in, I see Vera getting squeezed down and I am almost hanging outside the window. We continue driving and at the next stop we see the ticket man holding a scared little girl in his arms. Her mother is somewhere in the bus, but she needs to get out with the ticket man, every time the bus stops and gets squeezed in his arms when they get again into the bus. So, we decide to take the girl and sit her on Vera’s lap. Suddenly her scared eyes lighten and the only worries she has are her small shoes, which she tries to catch in order not to fall out on the window. Everybody in the bus is looking at us like we’ve done something amazing, and to be honest, we feel the same way. The little girl is so cute and we are happy that we could integrate so well in the scenario. Unfortunately after two more stops, we had to get out and half the bus made space for us to get our luggage and the girl and her mother got our seat.
Perhaps there are thousands of children getting squeezed in busses all over the world, but with helpful people like in India, nobody will miss the bus or will be left behind.
Photo Source: http://globecornerbookstore.com/blogs/2008/11/01/you-know-youre-in-india-when/
TweetJan1
From Sunrise the Sunset
It’s 3:30 a.m. when we arrive at Margao railway station on December 27. Margao seems a nice city, also by night, but not when you don’t find a hotel and the city is empty… it’s just us and a young taxi driver, which we’ve woken up at the train station to get us to the nearest hotel where we plan to spend few hours before we go to Palolem. Since we couldn’t find any hotel, the young man brings us for 900 Rs to Palolem. The road to Palolem is beautiful… we’re driving through the West Ghats Mountains and small palm forests, passing by beautifully decorated houses, which still keep the Christmas spirit alive.
It’s 5:00 a.m. when we reach Palolem, a cute little village with countless numbers of hotels, guest houses and coco huts. The riksha driver in charge that night meets us on the road and brings us to couple of places to choose from. He is very helpful and gets a room for us for the night. We hear the sound of the Sea waves and some dogs barking when we wake them up walking around the cottages and huts.
It’s 11:00 and even if we like the room we found in the early morning, we decide to look around a little. Our first stop is successful because we meet Franky, a Goan boy who loves his work at Zappia Cove Resort and whom we get the chance to know better the next days. We’re walking with him through the neighbors’ yard – some cute little black pigs running around – and reach to an iron gate. Passed that gate is our place: a large green garden welcomes us, as well as one of our future French neighbors who is having breakfast in the garden, above us tall coconut palms, our feet feel the coolness of the colorful tiles floor in Portuguese style, in front a cottage (where our room will be) and the bungalows behind – an image you can only have it right after you’ve been there. We don’t know it yet, but the beach is 2 min away, the main streets where we meet all nice people from Kashmir 1 min, but still we have our own paradise here, so we move in!
It’s 14:00 o’clock when, after check in, we have lunch on a terrace with Sea view on the beach of Palolem. We’re speechless: a two km long beach with white smooth sand, surrounded by coconut palm and nice cafés, the dark blue warm Arabian Sea… yes, we decide to spend the day on the beach, as well as the following day and the following day and probably all other days until January first when we continue our trip to the North.
We enjoy Palolem to the fullest for 5 days and we will miss every single piece of it. We will miss the warm sun and the smooth beach, the amazing sunrise and sunsets, the chilly cows and dogs on the beach, the friendly people of Palolem as well as the salesmen from Kashmir, who taught us the art of negotiating and whom we promised to visit in the North one day. We will miss also the persuasive saleswomen who want to “show us their shops” every time we pass by, especially the lady with the sweet 7 weeks old baby where we bought lots of beautiful stuff. The riksha drivers are funny too, they are standing at the beach and ask every time they see us whether we’d like a riksha now or “maybe tomorrow” (first, why should we want a riksha to go to the beach, if we are already in front of the beach and second, where should we know if we want a riksha tomorrow? Do we look that German?). We will miss the uncoordinated waiters in Cafe del Mar and Cuba (“Where … times takes a break” literally!!) where we enjoy the long and delicious breakfasts and very good masala chai and free wifi as well as the beach book store where you can exchange old books with new ones. We will also miss our Chinese waiter “friend” at the cocktail bar, with the really bad cocktails (but hey, it’s happy hour, so buy one, get one free), but a great terrace in front of the Sea. And of course will we miss the handsome waiter with the cute British accent in Cheeky Chapatti, where we had the best Piña Colada of Palolem and the amazing New Year’s Eve dinner (Seafood and the most delicious cakes of all times). And last but not least we will miss our cosy room at Zappia Cove Resort and chatty Franky, who makes sure that we’re fine and have a good time and is all day long there for a good chat. And of course we will remember the great dentist, Dr. D’Souza, who treated Carmen on December 31st – God bless him!
Palolem is THE place which made a difference to our trip!
Check also the photos updates on Flickr