We (Des and Andrea) are departing Ireland to travel the world for several months before heading to Canada to plan our wedding! We hope this blog will be a way of keeping in touch with everyone and collecting the main highlights, reflections, thoughts and memories of our adventure! xo
The last evening in India, Des and I took a private cooking class with an amazing Indian chef, Jasmin. She held it out of her beautiful home and we learnt for a solid 3 hours all of our favourite dishes including byriani, dahl, vegetable kofta, chapatti, raita, spice-stuffed ladyfingers (or okra to us), chili fried fish (kingfish) and more! There was a serious party going on in my mouth as all of my taste buds were woken up--our tolerance for spicy food has certainly increased in these past few months---especially for Des who has always been a meat and potatoes kinda guy! It was honestly the best food by far in our 3 months in India. Here are some photos of the class and the result---aswell as some other of our favourite meals in India! Although feeling nostalgic about leaving this upside-down beautiful, enchanting CRAZY place--we are taking with us an unbelievably enriching experience and are absolutely ready to move on and see the rest of the world! Trekking in Nepal-here we come!
Our gorgeous ingredients
The master chef, Jasmin
Beautiful Indian spices
Jasmin making vegetable kofta--grated coconut and cashew sauce
Whistling while he works--easy as pie
Dessie cooking up a beautiful broth!
Spice-stuffed lady fingers
Chili, tomato and purple onion raita
Des rolling out the chapatti
Chili fried kingfish--sooo tasty
Don't break the chapatti!
Time to enjoy the fruit--or curry of our labour!
The finished result!
Vegetable byriani on the train
Thali
Cashew chicken curry
Tandoori red snapper
Fresh passion fruit
Vegetable byriani
Tofu, gouda and spinach croissant to start the day
Blow your head off prawn vindaloo
Indian banana split!
Candied aniseed (they serve after every meal to help with digestion)
Our last stop in India was Kochi--it was a lovely, quaint city with lots of beautiful heritage homes. The seaside was overflowing with gorgeous fish stalls (and hence, cats) and chinese fishing nets. We had an absolutely gorgeous fish curry with grated coconut and mango slices--a Keralan special!
At 6 am on our last day in India, we set off on a 2 hour drive to a beautiful hidden river. As the sun rose we approached the misty river and I was unbelievably excited to see 3 baby elephants! (Aged 3, 4 and 5). A female 40 year old elephant was also there. They are such adorable, elegant, intelligent, spirited animals but as I spent more time there and interacted with the elephants a feeling of guilt came over me.
The elephants were being trained for human entertainment--rides, the zoo etc. and it was obvious that the wild creatures spirits were breaking (especially the older elephant). They seemed to enjoy their bath-time and played in the water with their trunks but the fact that they were chained and the Indian trainers hit them with their poles made my heart break. I imagine it's just how a human feels in prison. I felt like I was contributing to their lifestyle, coming and supporting the tourism-serving life of these beautiful creatures--but I tried to take solace in the fact that we were playing with them and cleaning them--not using them for rides or viewing entertainment.
So, I picked up my half of the bristly coconut and scrubbed the baby elephants the best I could! We followed elephant playtime with a traditional Keralan breakfast at a home-stay where we dined in someones dining room having rice-milk pancakes with some sort of coconut curry and other tasty treats! Here are some photos of our beautiful morning.
