Category: Travels

Anyone reading my writing will think that all I do is eat. No, I do work too.

Today is day one of the PhotoReading course here in Bangalore, I am about to prepare myself, pressing my suit, cleaning my shoes, ironing my shirt, getting my course aids together. Just as much work goes on prior to the start of the course as does in the presenting of the course itself.

I love my job, but I have to eat, and Ashlesh and Monica have really looked after me.

I was taken to the Samarkand Restaurant, Registan Square in the Gem Plaza, Infantry Road, Bangalore, for food that has its’ roots in Central-Asia, Samarkand, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. Though a heavy wooden door, opened by a traditionally dressed guard of the region, we entered a dimly lit restaurant, with low tables.

The menu was in the form of a four page newspaper, the front page giving information of the origin and style of restaurant, the inner and back pages listing the menu as news items, with interesting snippets of information of health, food and culture of the region.

A small starter of colourful sticks and a creamy cheese dip arrived, the sticks hard as rock, followed by stuffed mushrooms with a variety of spices, not too hot or spicy.

The main course was ghost Ki Dum Biriyani, cuts of baby lamb, cooked with the finest basmati rice, “Dum” style. This is the rice and lamb, cooked in a container covered with a pastry, which is cut open at the table. The lamb was so tender, and the flavours mingled together. Wonderful.

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We have infinitea tastes available to us.   

The flight from London to India was just another flight. The more I fly the more it becomes like catching a bus or train.

It is good to sit back and observe the personalities and states of the people who take their seats. Why do people insist in bringing into the flight cabin their roll-on bags, why not put them in the hold. OK some airlines have restrictions on the number of bags you can check in, and if the main luggage is over the weight limit of say 25kgs, load the heavy stuff into hand luggage, often that is not check.

I had a friend in Saudi Arabia who would carry his scuba divers weight belt in hand luggage, as this one item would weigh more than his total allowance.

This weight allowance does not take into consideration the weight of the person,  I have in the last few months lost two stone, 28lbs, 12.5Kg, but my baggage allowance does not reflect this. I heard pf a report of a man turning up at check-in, only to find that his baggage was well over weight, and the airline wanted to charge him excess charges, or he was to leave his extra clothes behind. He emptied his bags of his clothes and put them on, wore them. His baggage now was below the limit, it full filed the airlines requirements. Once through security, he took all the extra clothing off and placed them in his hand luggage, and nothing was said.

These extra pieces of hand luggage are never opened during the flight, they are difficult to stow away, heavy to lift up, and stop me putting my coat, computer bag as other people take all the space.

We had two meals on board, being an Indian flight, I suppose I should have expected Indian cuisine, because that was all there was available. My body cannot tolerate too spicy food, I like it, the taste, the heat, but for some reason, my body does not. I could have requested special food, as it seemed the flight attendants had a lot of special meal requests, unlike me who does not like to make a fuss, and goes with the flow. The couple next to me finished their special meal eating with relish, (perhaps they had not eaten for weeks), before my standard meal arrived. I did get a choice, vegetarian or chicken. I like meat.

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At 4am in the morning, I just ate another airline meal. I love flying.

After arriving in Bangalore, I was getting very hungry, but I had food on British Airways flight BA119 landing at 4:30am in the early morning. At least I will miss the rush hour.

After a couple of hours sleep, Ashlesh my host collected me withe his wife Monica, a lovely sincere couple, and took me to the hotel where the PhotoReading Course will be held, to arrange the layout of the venue.

It took quite a bit of discussion to convince the hotel conferencing manager what I wanted in table layout was going to work, perhaps they had not such a strange trainer as me.

The pangs of hunger got to us all in the end and we ventured to the roof garden, and the catering manager chose the food for us with instructions of not too spicy.

An array of foods arrived, a chicken dish, bitter god vegetable dish, something else in a sauce and rice, followed by a chocolate fudge with ice cream. I did not find the chocolate fudge, but I assured it was. Perhaps it had gone the same way as my chocolate cake I left in Istanbul one night. The meal was finished by mouth refreshers, small seed-like items, the best tasting of aniseed, and certainly refreshing.

Stay & Work hotel I am staying in. Again chicken, this time with chips and garlic bread. Interesting. I am hungry again and it is only midnight.

                                             

My arrival back in the UK will give me two days of rest before the trip to Bangalore for a PhotoReading course, on one of these days is a Bank Holiday.

The work that I do now means I have left the 9 to 5, Monday to Friday working environment. I work any day, any hours, anywhere. So I do not know what day it is sometimes.

It seems that I do not sleep in the same bed, the same town, the same country, for more than ten days.

The food that I eat changes. Although the ingredients are the same, with variations in ingredients and in the vegetables (grass), I will eat the same meat, mostly tasting of chicken. What differs is the way the food is prepared and presented, the combination or selection of the food on the plate, are there potatoes, chips or rice, and the spices used to change the tastes, from salt to chillies.

Where am I, what day is it? Sometimes I do not know.

One of the first exotic (to me) countries I traveled to many years ago was Singapore, on a trip to South East Asia.

As we came into land at Singapore’s Changi Airport, we flew over hundreds of ships moored at sea, waiting to take on fuel, load and unload goods to be shipped to all parts of the world. 

We drove into the main city center to my hotel, passed high rise apartments, on what seemed to me a very crowded populated but extremely clean country.

I felt I was breaking into new worlds, like the presenters who produce the travel documentaries on TV.

The illusion was broken when I came across a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant take away. It should have not been there, this is not Great Britain, how can KFC be in another exotic country? I get the same in Turkey. How can there be a Domino’s Pizza take away, Marks and Spencer, Top Shop, Zara in these far away countries?

It is said we are becoming a global village. It is true. Walk down any High Street in the UK, and you will see the same shops, selling the clothes, electrical equipment the same good, at the same price. Walk down the main shopping streets in major international cities in the world, you will see United Colours of Benetton, Zara, Top Shop, McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, they are all there, charging the equivalent prices. No longer it seems do you get cheap goods, unless there is a change in currency rates, or they are counterfeits.

But you do get consistency, the food is the same, the presentation is the same, the taste the same, I know what I am going to get, and if I cannot speak the language I can point to the menu. Sometimes like a bit of the UK, what I have grown-up with, what I am used to.

So I had a Nado’s Chicken yesterday. Their restaurants are in many town in the UK, serving the famous PERi PERi sauce, made with some fiery little chili combined with special herbs and spices, lemon and a touch of garlic, giving its unique flavour. Chips, oh chips. My mouth watered.