Joe Camel, and the food Bonanaza.

Hello Hello Hello....

We just got back from 3 days Camel Desert Safari that was just great! We spent a night before and a night after in a small village called Khori which in the words of a local "Is very nice but only desert". Indeed only desert (it hasn't rained at all for 2 years) and what a beautiful one... lots of Sahara like sand dunes.
Riding the camels was a bit hard on the butt, especially on the third day (you can tell the little Yoav that we too have dipper rash), but we went slowly and had lots of chai stops. If we were lucky there were goats around and the camel drivers would milk them and we would have milk tea, like its supposed to be.
We ate vegetables and dhal (lentils) and had chapatis and rice with each meal - very unexciting. The scenery was great and most of all it was soooooo peaceful and quiet and the weather was great - not too hot in the day and not too cold at night.

The 2 nights in Khori we spent with a local family (Badal's Homestay), which we found by accident. They are a lovely family, simple, warm, and Badal has good English, so he explained about the local village life and the Rajput caste, which he is a member of. The Village was founded by a Rajput (worrier, noble cast) seven generations ago, so all the Rajputs in the village are descendants of that guy. The males of each family stay in the village and only marry Rajput girls from other villages (so they are another branch of Rajput) and the females marry Rajput boys from other villages and move to live with their husband’s family. Marriage is only inside the cast - it’s like that all over India, also Muslims marry only Muslims and Hindus only Hindus.

We even found a new mascot - a baby camel that we found in the desert. The female camels roam freely in the desert with their baby camels, and the males are used as riding camels. They are trained once they reach around 2.5 years and the training takes a whole year. We named him Joe (sorry Tommy, but the name fit so well). He wasn't too big and he wasn't too smelly either (unlike the ones we rode on - they were a stinky bunch). But sadly he didn’t want to go on the local bus back to Jaisalmer. We could understand why - it was packed full and smelly (Hila wants to buy a deodorant spray for every local bus - the locals should queue up and each receive a spray... not very likely - they will probably just try to sell it back to us for double the price ;) and Joe couldn't fit on the roof, so we left him with Badal, and we think it was better - he is more suited for the desert life, but we promised to send him pictures of Nepal and any nice young female elephants we meet there....
(dunno, he has an elephant fetish I guess...)

Now we are back in Jaisalmer and will finally have the opportunity to see the sights in the city. We are again staying inside the lovely fort and there is a palace to see and several havelis (villas). Also on the 21st there is a desert festival and we will stay here to see it - it’s supposed to be a nice one.

Before we spent a few days in Jodhpur (we hope we are not confusing you guys with all these names...) which is the blue city - lots of the houses are painted blue (its a Brahmin tradition to paint the houses blue) and the view from the fort (which sits on a huge rocky hill in the middle of the city) is amazing (we know pictures pictures...). Walking through the small blue alleyways is magical and all the restaurants are on the rooftops so you see the fort rising from the city all around all the time (it’s of course illuminated at night, which is even lovelier). Of course every Indian city has its share of weddings all the time, which means lots of parades in the alleys with drums and trumpets, lots of colorful saris and men in colorful head turbans and generally a huge racket in all times of the day and night (especially at night). But the highlight is the fireworks at night - each wedding tries to outdo the former one, with the fort in the background the fireworks are even more spectacular.
The fort is indeed a highlight, it has a really professional audio tour as you walk through the various rooms and displays inside and all the juicy Maharaja gossip details and battles. What can we say, a really lovely, magical city.

Now we promised some food bites from India, so we have made a little collection of the things we like to eat here and some of the things that we don’t really like but should be in the list anyway (just because we think so):

Malai Kofta - Potato and paneer (their version of cottage cheese) balls stuffed with cashew nuts and raisins fried and served with an onion/sweet potato cream sauce an all time favorite - can be found at most restaurants and is usually a good bet for something filling to eat.

Chicken Wajed Ali - Chicken breasts stuffed with paneer, cashew nuts and raisins dipped in batter and deep-fried. Served with a honey cream sauce. Mmmmm yummy... We had this only once, but it was a real treat, in a restaurant in Udaipur - Savage Garden - we literally licked our fingers and the other food there was also excellent.

Stuffed Tomato - stuffed with mashed potatoes, onions and cheese. Hila likes this one :)

Chana Masala - Chickpeas (Humusim) sauteed with chopped onions and tomatoes Goes well with rice and a good nan.

Jerra Aloo - Diced potatoes sauteed with cumin seed and Indian spices and herbs. Not a bad way to eat some potatoes.

Paneer Tikka Masala/Butter Masala - Paneer cheese cooked in tomato gravy and cream. Also always a good bet for a nice Indian meal - of course with rice and a good nan or chapati. Hila doesn't like it... dunno why...

Gatta Curry - Gram flour dumplings cooked in a yogurt based curry with Indian spices. A Rajstani specialty - was also a nice one.

Pakora/Pakoda - Chicken/Paneer dipped in a humus batter and deep-fried (similar to Japanese Tampura). Good for a light lunch or dinner - goes extremely well with cold beer and a game of cards.

As you can see no meat.... sadly that is true there is little meat in the dishes and the ones that have meat usually don’t satisfy our carnivorous needs - so no need to worry Yossi - your stakes are in our hearts for ever. Even a good schnitzel does the trick.

Now every good Indian meal comes with some sort of bread:

Nan - Similar to a Lafa in Israel but a little more crispy is best with garlic/cheese/butter or paneer - or all of them together :) the best of them all - they make it better in the south but here too you can fall on a good one.

Parantha/Paratha - Fried unleavened bread in butter with garlic/cheese/butter/paneer or stuffed with masala vegetable mix. Reminds us of mallauach because it’s fried in butter but it’s not exactly a mallauach. Hila's favorite :)

Chapati - Baked unleavened bread - similar to a flat dry pita. The usual addition to every dish (besides rice)

Papadam - Fried crispy thin potato bread - usually comes with the Indian Thali (meal) We didn’t have this lot because we prefer the Nan ;) but also good with cold beer - like crispy chips - it usually has all kinds of spices in it too.

Dosa - Fried paper thin batter - like a crepe but even thinner (like a very very thin Lachuch) - a southern specialty comes with a vegetable Sambar (soupy dip) and coconut Chutny (creamy dip) - can also be filled with vegetables (Masala Dosa). I like this one for a light meal.

Idly - Steamed fermented rice puffs - another southern specialty that we didn't like (it has a sour taste) but the locals love it for breakfast (we stick to the butter toast or cornflakes with yogurt honey and banana) also comes with Sambar and a Chutney.

Utappam/Appam - Fried (only on one side - like a Lachuch) coconut pancakes served with coconut milk, sugar, sambar and chutney. Can't always be found but when we can its a good snack.

Most of this stuff is spicy, verrrrrrry spicy, but if the place is tourist its not so bad, and yes Hila has gotten used to the spicy food and if its not too bad has a big smile when she cleans her plate ;)
Well this is more or less the main list of local food we eat but of course there is a lot more. I hope you read the descriptions because I am getting hungry just describing them... ;)

Now about the photos - We know we have been using the same excuse, but there just isn't an option to put the photos on CD here, so even if we did develop them we couldn't show you them anyway. So we will develop them either in Jaipur (the capital of Rajastan) which will be our next stop after the festival or in Delhi. We have 11 rolls already... and are dying to see how they came out.

We were disappointed with you all on not commenting on our last post - 2 comments is very poor (thanks Yogi and Neely&Shlomy&Sooky&Clara) especially since you had enough time to write...
We hope that you will comment more in the future as we love to see your replies. Also for those of you that have been in these part we would love to see your additions and impressions on these places and if you also remember some food favorites please write them too!!

See you all after the Desert Festival - we hope we won't be run over by a stampede of crazy camels :)

Lots of love and kisses,

Hila & Mr. Morphhh Sleazy.