indianwaterparks - Tumblr blog

[indianwaterparks]

[indianwaterparks]

[indianwaterparks]

John S Lens, Blanko Film, RedEye Gel Flash, Taken with Hipstamatic

[indianwaterparks]

India by numbers

Kilometers_travelled: 9.023 (aprox)

Busrides_on_the_roof: 0

States_visited: 7

Steaks_eaten: 5

Nights_on_the_street: 1

Nights_with_AirCon: 4

Indian_FB-Friends_aquired: 4

Chickens_eaten: all_of_them

Yoga_lessons: 4

Money_given_to_beggars: Not_enough/way_too_much

Times_being_hustled: ∞

Temples_seen: ∞

Sacrifices given to Ganesh: 1 (Coconut)

Rickshaws_that_used_meter: 2

Words_learned_in_Tamil: 1 (Vanakkam)

Words_learned_in_Hindi: 1 (Namaste)

Words_learned_in_Norwegian: 1 (Sau)

[indianwaterparks]

Chicken 65

”Der vil aldrig blive en anden som dig. Aldrig en anden som dig. Aldrig. Skønt der vil blive mange. Det ved jeg her hvor vi skilles.” - Dan Turéll

Tæt på vores hus på Canteen Street stod der en mand på gaden og lavede Chicken 65. Han var der circa fire dage om ugen – dog sjældent de samme fire. En portion kostede 50 rupees, men jeg købte aldrig under to. Jeg har spist Chicken 65 mange forskellige steder her i Indien, men ingen nærmer sig den her specifikke kyllings niveau. Marinaden er helt fantastisk. Bjørn og jeg købte ofte vores aftensmad her og blev efterhånden gode venner med kokken. Chicken 65 er små stykker kylling på to til fire kubikcentimeter. I starten troede vi at 65 referede til den specielle og stærke krydderiblanding som kyllingen bliver marineret i. Siden fandt vi dog ud af at navnet var af en mere makaber oprindelse, da 65 referer til kyllingens levetid før den blev slagtet. Efter at kyllingen har ligget i marinaden i så lang tid som kyllingen skal ligge i marinaden steges den i sydende varm olie. Chicken 65 manden har mange ar på sine hænder og arme fra den glohede olie – såret i en gods sags tjeneste. Over den færdige kylling strøs rødløg og det hele pakkes ind i et bananblad og dernæst i avispapir. Jeg glemmer aldrig den Chicken 65. 

- Kasper Pape

[indianwaterparks]

Jodphur er nu malet blå

[indianwaterparks]

You know you've been in India too long when...

When stories about diarrhea becomes a good icebreaker...

When you become a vegetarian...

When you stop expecting any nightlife in a city with a million inhabitants..

When you feel a need to repeat every noun ("Do you have any biryani biryani?")

When you start doing the indian head wiggle...

When you have as many words for different kinds of sweat, as the eskimos have for different kinds of snow...

When 39 degrees in the shade is a quite pleasant day...

When 10 young beautiful norwegians just doesn't seem like enough anymore...

When kr. 50 for a hotel room is an outrageous ripoff...

When you'd rather walk 4 km in the baking sun than pay kr. 1 ekstra for the rickshaw...

When warm milk on the cornflakes becomes acceptable...

When a few ants in the milk doesn't hurt either...

When Mumbai and it's traffic start to seem clean and civilized...

When you start using sugar in your coffee...

When all memories of Dansk Folkeparti and Pia Kjærsgaard start to seem like a long, gone bad dream...

When your idea of animal welfare consists of feeding holy cows cardboard and flushing the cockroaches in the toilet down before defecating...

When you don't have a problem with a rat and a few lizards in your apartment...

When you start considering rickshaws a safe mode of transportation...

When sharting doesn't seem like that big a deal anymore... 

When you start asking for salt in your lime soda or lassi..

When pickpockets stop being a concern...

When it takes more than an elephant or a camel to turn your head...

When you stop using cutlery, and hand disinfectant...

When you consider a six hour bus ride "short"...

When you're tired of eating a restaurants...

When you don't expect said restaurants to have more than half the items on their menu...

When you're no longer surprised to see weed on the menu card...

When you don't consider eggs to be vegetarian anymore...

When you stop missing rugbrød...

When you drink seven liters of water a day...

When it only takes one beer to get you tipsy...

When you stop fearing malaria and dengue fever...

When you don't think twice about throw plastic garbage out of the train window...

When you miss freezing...

When you start bargaining in a supermarket...

When you automatically assume any dripping liquid to be urine...

When you celebrate rainfall with song and dance...

[indianwaterparks]

"You want to buy some nice white opium?"

[indianwaterparks]

Mark Twain was there, crying

In 1894 Mark Twain was almost bankrupt, and did the only reasonable thing. He travelled through the wast British Empire and wrote a book about it. He wrote the following about Varanasi, which sums up my experience of the city if you add a little writing about Sri Lanka and some bedsheets:

"Benares was not a disappointment. It justified its reputation as a curiosity. It is on high ground, and overhangs a grand curve of the Ganges. It is a vast mass of building, compactly crusting a hill, and is cloven in all directions by an intricate confusion of cracks which stand for streets. Tall, slim minarets and beflagged temple-spires rise out of it and give it picturesqueness, viewed from the river. The city is as busy as an ant-hill, and the hurly-burly of human life swarming along the web of narrow streets reminds one of the ants. The sacred cow swarms along, too, and goes whither she pleases, and takes toll of the grain-shops, and is very much in the way, and is a good deal of a nuisance, since she must not be molested.

Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together. From a Hindoo statement quoted in Rev. Mr. Parker's compact and lucid Guide to Benares, I find that the site of the town was the beginning-place of the Creation. It was merely an upright "lingam," at first, no larger than a stove-pipe, and stood in the midst of a shoreless ocean. This was the work of the God Vishnu. Later he spread the lingam out till its surface was ten miles across. Still it was not large enough for the business; therefore he presently built the globe around it. Benares is thus the center of the earth. This is considered an advantage."

[indianwaterparks]

All human rules are more or less idiotic, I suppose. It is best so, no doubt. The way it is now, the asylums can hold the same people, but if we tried to shut up the insane we should run out of building materials.

Mark Twain in Following the Equator 

[indianwaterparks]

"Special price today, city is breaking..."

[indianwaterparks]

Cities of Lightning

After 24 hours covered in sweat on trains and busses through the state were everyone says goodbye, the traveller discovers Hampi. The temple ruins and massive boulders of the city traps the traveller in a maze of barbers and cows, only to make him seek shelter in himalayan inspired restaurants. In these rathskellers mesmerizing songs are played as food from all the worlds six corners is slowly prepared.

…Perhaps this extremely slow serviced, cushion covered restaurant overlook only the lake of our minds…

  … and however far our troubled enterprises as students may take us, we both harbor within ourselves this silent shade, this conversation of pauses, this afternoon that is always the same.

  Unless the opposite hypothesis is correct: that those who strive in street stalls and rickshaws exists only because we two think of them, here, enclosed among these cushions and fan, motionless since time began.

  Unless toil, shouts, sores, hassle and stink do not exist and only this veg. manchurian.

  Unless agents, stonecutters, rubbish collectors, cooks cleaning the lights of chickens, washerwomen bent over stones, mothers stirring rice as they nurse their infants, exist only because we think of them.

  To tell the truth, I never think of them.

  Then they do not exist.

  To me this conjure does not seem to suit our purposes. Without them we would never remain here swaging, resting on our cushions.

  Then the hypothesis must be rejected. So the other hypothesis is true: they exist and we do not.

  We have proved that if we were here, we would not be.

  And here, in fact, we are.

  Only the observant traveller notices that when he exits this restaurant, the has wrapped and the city is now breaking. Monkeys will eat plastic, tea will be spilled and the sky will fall. The winds will now shake the city and lightning will illuminate everything, which has become less than naught. 

[indianwaterparks]

24/7 Pondy People

[indianwaterparks]

Shoehand (Salem Salem)

[indianwaterparks]

Mit Pondy Digt

Der sad en pige under en fan i Pondy

Ud af radioen strømmede alle hjerters kor i Pondy

Jeg danser om natten i Pondy, helt klædt i sølv

Jeg drak engang en øl i Pondy

Nogen spiser hellere nudler i Pondy

Sko fremstillingen er den vigtigste industri i Pondy

Jeg tænder en beedi i Pondy

Jeg ryger den langsomt, imens jeg ser på en pige under en fan i Pondy

Man skal ikke spise pizza i Pondy

Pelarginierne blomstrer i Pondy

Himlen er gråhvid i Pondy

Alle drejer ned af misison street i Pondy

Chicken 65 findes kun i Pondy

Findes der strålende lys om natten i Pondy

Findes der en drøm om sølv og guld, om natten i Pondy

Jeg har været i Pondy engang

Pondy har jeg kun været i een gang

Jeg kender Pondy

Jeg har været der engang

Jeg sad engang under en fan i Pondy

Det var mig der sad under en fan engang i Pondy

Bjørn Zäll kender Pondy

Han var der engang

Bjørn Zäll var engang i Pondy

Jeg sad engang under en fan i Pondy

Jeg kunne se Bjørn Zäll

Han sad og drak en øl

Nu er der ikke mere internet i Pondy

[indianwaterparks]

Cruising the backwaters