Holy Haridwar and Rafty Rishikesh

I went to the Himalayas!! How cool does that sound? This remote place that always felt like a million miles away with the highest mountains of the world and I have been there… Turns out I didn’t make it beyond 500m above sea level but I’ve checked a few times and we were in the foothills of the Himalayas.

Let me take one step back though and actually tell you about our first trip in India. I happened to have to travel to a place called Haridwar with work so Indiadam decided to take some holiday to come along and make it a long weekend. To get to Haridwar, it’s a bit of a track in European standards. A 2h flight to Delhi, change planes, one hour flight to Dehra Dun and then a good two hours in a car. One thing I have learned pretty fast here is that distances work very differently. Travelling in Germany, you could be pretty sure to cover at least 100km in an hour (likely more thanks to the Autobahn). In India, that is probably closer to 30km per hour so distances that don’t seem very far can actually take quite a long time. So door to door, it took us around 8h to get from Mumbai to Haridwar – not sure we would have ever taken 2 flights plus a couple of hours in a car for a weekend trip in Europe but it was definitely something we were willing to take on for our first trip since moving to Mumbai.

So while I spen some time working in Haridwar, Indiadam had a chance to explore Haridwar. Turns out it is one of the holiest places to Hindus. It’s right on the river Ganges, which itself is considered a Goddess in Hindi culture and every year millions of people come to the town to take a dip on the holy waters and perform the “Ganga Aarti” – a religious ceremony in the morning and evenings which unfortunately I could not attend because of work so sadly no pictures. Every 12 years, there is a special festival (Kumbh Mela if you want to research it) and my colleague told me that 80 MILLION people come Haridwar for that. EIGHTY MILLION – that is the population of Germany and believe me it’s not a small place. Just type in Kumbh Mela Haridwar in Google and you might get an idea. It sounds mental…

Indiadam had a look around during the day and went up a hill on a cable car to visit Maya Devi Temple. He said he would recommend it. What he would not recommend though is buying a Samosa from a dodgy looking shop that knocked him out for the next two days. Another rule in India – if you have a bad feeling about a place selling food, best to leave it. Most places are fine and we have eaten at many stalls and cafes that probably don’t look great at first sight either but if they have some proper cooking facilities and somewhere to wash your hands, that is usually a good sign. Here are some snaps Indiadam took as well as some from the next day when we had a quick look around before heading to Rishikesh.

So from Haridwar we got a driver to drive us to a place called Atali Ganga that we had booked for the weekend which is a 45min from Rishikesh into the foothills of the Himalayas. It’s a beautiful drive as you can see, a very well maintained windy road right on the Ganges. If you can enjoy it… As mentioned before I get very car sick but on this journey I was so focused on hoping we would make it around the next corner that I only realised I felt sick when I got out of the car. The driver was truly crazy, overtaking on blind corners, speeding, hooting and although the road is very well maintained, it doesn’t really have barriers everywhere. Luckily we were on the “mountain side” of the road and we made it in one piece.

Atali Ganga is an “active” holiday home with around 20 cottages overlooking the river. It serves very nice food (buffet for breakfast, dinner and lunch) and offers different activities like wall climbing, hiking (more of a walk) and rafting on the Ganges, something Rishikesh is quite famous for. I first thought it was quite pricy but we called up a few days before and got a good quote plus all food and activities are included. We had a very relaxed two days there with yummy food and lots of chilling (Indiadam still recovering from the Samosa) combined with a few fun activities thrown in. The best thing though was the cool and fresh mountain air and quietness of the nature around you. Sometimes Mumbai just consumes you with its constant noise, pollution and heat that it becomes quite normal – so it was really refreshing to get out of it and I just love the mountains so waking up on the morning to the view below was just so nice. 

On our final day, we went rafting on the Ganges and it was great – we had gone rafting in Canada in the summer on Kicking Horse river and although this was different, it was just as much fun. The cool thing is that you can raft non stop for close to three hours without having to get out of the raft. The rapids might not be as thrilling as some of the ones in Canada but they were strong enough that we hit the wall pretty full on with our raft in one of the rapids. Nothing happened but if I thought the rafting was a bit more on the chilled side until then, it gave me a wake up call. We also got the opportunity to swim through one of the rapids which we both happily did. Unfortunately most other people decided to get in the water as well but hand on to the raft which meant it took the raft about 20mins to collect us from the freezing cold water. My feet were white…

After the rafting, it was already time to leave – 8 hours after all to get back to Mumbai. Despite the long journey, it was definitely worth the travel and I really enjoyed seeing a very different part of India. Not that I have a bucket list but if I had one, the Himalayas would have been on it. Not sure I could tick this off with Rishikesh but at least it’s a start.

A-Z guide to London's markets (or rather B-C)

Visiting Chor Bazaar reminded me of how many great markets there are in London and I used to love spending my weekends there and one of them would feature on every weekend tourist tour I would go on with visitors. I'd like to give you an A-Z guide but turns out most of the start with B or C so I'll just go with the ones that come to my mind

-         Borough Market: Close to London bridge, this is probably the best place for foods lovers. It has an amazing selection  of fruit and veg and bread stalls but also places where you can grab a proper lunch and also small restaurants in close proximity. We once went to Elliot's Cafe which was an amazing dinner in a nice atmosphere. Two pieces of advice - don't go on a Saturday if you can avoid it. Fridays and Thursday are much more quiet and a lot more pleasant. And it's worth hanging around until the end when you get a good deal on fruit and veg baskets

-         Brick Lane: I don't think I ever liked Brick Lane as much as it probably deserves. It's probably a bit too hipster for a South London girl like me but they do have a good variety of food, shops, random stalls and of course cream cheese bagels.

-         Broadway market: Open air so don’t come on a rainy day but nice food stalls with some cafes nearby and located close to the river so perfect for a stroll afterwards. I’d say less touristy than Borough market but then also a bit more out of the way but worth the trip

-         Brixton Market (ever wondered why they all start with B? I’m starting to): Located in proper South London, Brixton market is a place to get a taste of jerk chicken and some more exotic food. It has lots of butchers and other small stores and is definitely less done up than many other markets. The best thing though is Brixton Village and Market row which has been the starting point of many small eateries that have expanded or even become chains (think Franco Manca, Honest Burgers, KaoSarn or the Joint for some pulled pork to just name a few of my favourites). A great location for breakfast, lunch or dinner!

-         Camden Market: From south to north, Camden is probably one of the most famous London markets with its arty houses, tattoo studies and 50,000 stalls selling “I love London” T-shirts. There is more to Camden though and the Camden lock and the Stables have some cool shops and food for every taste. It gets very busy so I always took people for a walk along the canal and then up Primrose hill. Regents Park Road has some very nice shops and is beautiful to walk along and you can even see a real Banksy if you pop into “The princess of Wales”

-         Covent Garden Market: Another very popular tourist place less of a market than a collection of proper shops these days, Covent garden attracts people all day and all night. Even if you don’t like the tourist crowds, the market halls are very pretty (particularly around Christmas with some great decorations). There is no shortage of places to eat and drink around but two of my favourites are “Le pain quotidien” (right in the market hall) and Balthazar, a French brasserie concept from New York on Russel Street but with prices on the much higher side. The tartare de boeuf is amazing

Right, these are some of the ones that came to my mind immediately. This covers only two letters so you can imagine how many more markets there are but think it is a good start for now. Hope I can find a few more in Mumbai and will report back on them as well…

Chock-a-block at Chor Bazaar

One nice way to explore a city and get a feel for it, is to visit the local markets. Doesn’t matter whether it’s for food, clothes or sometimes even small stores that offer tacky tourist souvenirs. When I lived in France, I loved shopping on weekend for cheese and olives on the local market and London markets… well there are a lot and I will share a few of my favourite ones later.

So after two weeks in Mumbai, we thought it would be nice to explore a local market I had heard of called “Chor Bazaar. The name was already very promising, actually translating as “thieves’ market” so on a Sunday morning, Indiadam and I decided to go and have a look around. Chor Bazaar is famous for lots of things, some less interesting (for example car motors) but some more appealing (antiques and other stuff that might be nice to kit our new Mumbai home with).

It’s not the most straightforward place to find but if you head to Mutton Street, you’re in the right spot. Mutton street is the “nice” part of Chor Baaar where you can find the antique shops. When you arrive it doesn’t look too inviting and definitely not touristy – Indiadam even asked whether I was REALLY sure that we were in the right spot. But after walking a few meters down the road, you start seeing some of the small stores and the “stolen goods” they have of offer.

Going into the various stores, you can find stock of antique or not-so-antique furniture piled up to the ceiling. Every bit of space will be filled with a chair, chest or some colourfull lamps. However, don’t expect to find a perfectly done up antique piece as you might expect to find it in an old colonial house. Everything is dusty at best and often not in the best shape. If you happen to buy anything though I am sure you can trust them to give it an amazing polish that make them look like new (we saw some guys outside the shops turning some old wooden pieces into something that looked like new (ish).

It was great fun browsing around, Indiadam checking out chess boards disguised as a coffee table while I was admiring a super comfy Indian chair, they have super long arm rests that you can put your legs on. Sounds and looks weird but we had some at the place we stayed in Kerela a few years ago and I loved them. It felt a bit difficult to get a feeling for prices – you will obviously get quoted something that includes both, the foreigner and the bargaining tax. We weren’t really planning on buying anything but casually asked for a few prices which seemed expensive but with a bit or negotiation can probably become quite a good deal.

Popping into the various shops, we kept bumping into two ladies who clearly knew their way around. At some point we started chatting to them and turns out they run an antique shop and come to Chor Bazaar for getting new pieces so there must be some good stuff (even for someone who actually knows something about antiques – i.e not me).

Mutton street itself isn’t that long so after a while we decided to venture to the side streets. Well that was when we hit the proper thieves market. Car pieces, whole cars (barely recognizable), fans and a lot of other rubbish. Definitely nothing that was on my shopping list… That included a small family of rats that was happily having their lunch on the road side. Fun to have a look around though. Mutton street is actually a Muslim area so there is a mosque right in the middle of the hustling and bustling streets which is pretty cool and made for a nice picture with a typical colourful Indian truck in front of it.

Before the long drive back, we wanted to grab a little bite and right opposite the entrance to Mutton Street is a place called “Café Paradise”. The name might be a bit exaggerated but we had some very yummy Samosas, daal and roti for less than the cost of a Starbucks. Indiadam dared to order a local Cola variant which I thought was very brave and turned out to be the wrong choice. I was much happier with my Sprite J I was probably also the first ever woman to venture into the café which was pretty busy with men who had just come from the mosque. Everyone was very smiley and friendly though (as in most places I have been to in India) so we quite enjoyed the experience and you will be pleased to hear that no Delhi belly incidents were reported afterwards.

So overall Chor Bazaar is probably not your typical tourist stop and not necessarily for the light hearted but it’s very interesting to visit and once we actually find a flat, I am sure we will be back and who knows, we might actually buy something. Will keep you posted….

Take me to the circus – the London way

After writing about no elephant island, I started wondering whether there are many places with misleading names to tourists everywhere and I realised London has its own fair share of them. When I first moved to London, I found the naming of tube stations very interesting and entertaining. “Elephant and Castle” for example sounds like an amazing place– if you ever had to get off there though (not many people would do so voluntarily) you will realise it doesn’t do its glamorous name any justice. Seven Sisters has no more sisters than any other station and although Mile End sounds like the end of the world, you will realise half of the central line is still to come after Mile End.

Two places that do live up to their names, although not in the sense most non-native English speakers might think are Oxford and Piccadilly Circus. While most of us Europeans think of artists, clowns and maybe elephants, a circus can also be “a rounded open space in a town or city where several streets converge” and this is what you will find at the London circus. Lots of streets, lots of people and lots of shopping. As I am not the biggest shopping fan myself (Indiadam might disagree with that), I will not be writing a shopping guide for central London but thought I would share a few places around Oxford and Piccadilly Circus I have learned to like despite the tourist crowds over the years.

One quick word about shopping though – Lillywhites is a big sports warehouse right on Piccadilly Circus and in a year when the Pound/Euro exchange rate is a bit more favourable you can get some good deal there – everything is always on offer and then have an amazing collection of football shirts which I always enjoy browsing through.

Regent street is the main street connecting Oxford and Piccadilly circus and is as busy as a shopping street can get – however it is very famous for its Christmas decoration and has a lot of decent shopping. During the summer, quite a few Sundays become traffic free for “Summer Street” which makes it a lot nicer to walk around and they also do sponsored days through the NFL or Magnum which are quite fun.

I however prefer walking the side streets like Carnaby and Kingly Street where the shops are maybe a tiny little bit less main stream and no cars! A nice place for a break is Kingly court which is hidden away between Regents and Kingly Street – take a look at the shops on the various levels and if you feel like it, pop into Camellia’s tea house on the top floor for an English cup of tea and a piece of cake of if you feel more greedy a proper afternoon tea (though I still struggle to understand the English love for cucumber sandwiches).

If you prefer venturing West rather than East towards New Bond Street there is a nice little lane called Avery Row which feels like a long way away from Regent Street with its art galleries and I particularly enjoyed stopping at Evergreen café – nice and relaxing with yummy bites to eat.

Walking down Piccadilly towards Green Park, it is also worth dropping by Fortnum and Mason – don’t think you can go wrong with a nice pack of tea for Christmas or a birthday and they really have an amazing offer in very pretty and colourful tins which are also nice London souvenirs. Walk 10m further and you come to the cute little Piccadilly arcades where I now have to mention the Maille mustard shop. Through Indiadam’s great Foodie connections, we once had a mustard tasting evening session there and even people who didn’t like mustard enjoyed the different flavours. If you want to splash out, you can buy some Truffle mustard for £30 or one of the very pretty gift sets they have (also a good Christmas present – I miss the Christmas feeling here in Mumbai so I think about it even more now).

When I was in London, I always loved the variety of museums, shows and plays London has to offer amongst lots of other cultural highlights. The Royal Academy of arts is just opposite Fortmun and Mason and always worth checking what is one there when you are in the area.

If you feel hungry or thirsty after a day at the circus, I would recommend leaving the immediate circus area and heading towards Covent Garden – a lot more choice and even though it’s very busy as well it probably is a bit less touristy if you know where to go. But more on that when we come to Mumbai and London gardens. But again, don’t be fooled – no garden at Covent Garden.

So as different as Mumbai and London might be, as a tourist you might be deceived by the names of places. As a general rule, sadly places with elephants don’t have elephants.

No - Elephanta Island

Two weeks after writing my first ever blog entry, I am starting to realise that finding the time to write is actually harder than expected. My original idea was that I would have lots of time sitting in a car commuting (as I did know Mumbai traffic was going to be bad) but that was before I experienced it for real on a daily basis. It’s fair to say I’m not great with any type of public transport as I get travel sick very easily – most people I have traveled with would have had to witness me being very unwell (and worse) on some bus, train or boat or at least had to give up the front seat in the car (trust me, it’s in everyone’s interest) because I frankly don’t like ground transportation. Underground and in the air much better but sitting in stop and go traffic where the driver would accelerate from 0 to 50km/h for 10 meters just to slam on the breaks and start hooting again because out of NOWHERE a car had appeared in front of him is not the environment I can put any thoughts on paper (the internet) or really do anything else. I tend to get through half a news article on the BBC app and then resign myself to watching the traffic, people and Mumbai madness around me (more on that another time).

But here I am with blog entry #2 and I wanted to go back to our first weekend in Mumbai when Indiadam (aka boyfriend) and I decided to go to Elephanta Island. To be clear – I absolutely love elephants, both real ones but also ones that are printed on postcards, scarves or mugs and I am a very loyal owner of a 28 year old elephant cuddly toy called Dumbo (he has moved to Mumbai with me). So you can only imagine my excitement when I heard of an elephant island off the coast off Mumbai. Does that sound great to you as well? Let me stop you here because Elephanta Island does not have elephants, real or fake. It once had a statue of an elephant that was removed years ago but the name has stayed.

Luckily I read up on it a while back so I knew there was not going to be an elephant (just imagine the disappointment) but stone caves which sounded interesting anyway and we thought we should check out the local attractions so we would know what to recommend if we (ever) had visitors.

So to get to Elephanta Island, one needs to take a 1h ferry from the Gateway of India. We arrived in the middle of the Saturday rush to see the main tourist attraction of Mumbai, so it’s fair to say it was rather busy. A lot of guides and touts will come up to any non Indian person offering tours to Elephanta island but you can very easily buy tickets just to the right of the entrance to the Gateway. Tickets are 150 rupees for a deluxe ticket and the regular ones are even less. The “deluxe” tickets from my understanding guarantee you a space on the boat upstairs but whether that actually is the case is a different question. After buying your ticket, you then need to find/join the queue for the boats. For any English people reading this, please be aware that the English idea of a queue probably doesn’t meet your expectations in most countries but in India it doesn’t seem to exist at all. After Indiadam spent 5mins trying to find the end of the queue for a while (it looked quite far away from any boat), I decided we would go with the flow and join the crowds somewhere close to the boats. The last boat had just left so everyone was quite relaxed until the moment the next boat arrived. And from that moment it became a bit like a scene from Noah’s Ark (or what I imagine it might have been like). Shuffling, pushing, making sure your family gets on the same boat as you and as soon as you are on the boat, fight to get a space on the top deck (not sure anyone checked for deluxe tickets). We decided to stay downstairs and despite all the pushing and rush, the boat was not crowded, you could quite easily get a seat and once the boat left, we were treated to the most stunning view of the Gateway and the Taj hotel in the background. The boat ride is quite nice though I advise you just choose to ignore the lack of safety barriers that stop you from falling off the back of the boat. You go past some islands and some big boats and the air is a bit fresher than in Mumbai. We also felt like minor celebrities as about 50% of the boat asked to have photos taken with us J

Once you arrive at the island, there are a lots of little shops selling snacks and veg as well as sun hats which is clever because you arrive in 35 degrees heat with no shade. So when I saw the lady selling hats I though “what a good business idea”. Turns out there around about 25 clever ladies (or likely one big company) selling hats so you can walk for a bit to where there is more choice and the further you walk, the lower the prices get. I bought mine at the 3^rd shop and bargained from 100 to 50 rupees which I was quite pleased with but I’m sure you can get them even cheaper.

To get to the main part of the island, you can take a mini train for a few rupees or walk down the pier which isn’t very far and the train is very busy. You then have to go through various gates paying various (small) fees. Indiadam wanted to buy a guide book about the caves and he thought it would be best to buy it through the official seller, the guy at the entrance of the park. Turns out this isn’t the cheapest option (despite the chap saying “prices same everywhere”) so as with the hats, keep walking for a bit and prices will come down.

After some hat and guidebook shopping, we made our way up the island. And up means up. To get to the caves, you have to walk up hundreds of steps that are lined with souvenirs stalls on both sides, none of it looked that nice and as it was a weekend it was very busy so not the most enjoyable part of the journey. They do apparently offer carrying you up on a chair on wooden sticks but I didn’t see anyone do it or could imagine anyone asking to be carried up the stairs either. But there must be some people who take up the offer as there were a lot of these stools standing around.

Once you reach the top, there is the final gate with the final entrance fee. However, there are two entrances – Indian and non Indian. The only difference is that you pay 5x the price an overseas tourist (which is still not that much at 250 rupees to be fair).

The caves are actually quite impressive, carved into stone with different gods carved out on the walls, some really well maintained, other less so but all of them pretty. Unfortunately, many people seemed too busy taking selfies of themselves rather than looking at the ancient art but if you go to some of the smaller caves a bit further away, it gets less busy and more peaceful to have a look around. At the same time, you can sometimes catch a nice view of the sea to the side and while enjoying the company of many cows and monkeys.

 

On the way back we decided we would do the walk to the other side of the island as well which takes you to two old Portuguese cannons that were left on the island. Although the cannons itself are nothing special, there are a lot less people this side of the island and we enjoyed the 20min walk to the second canon. Feeling a bit peckish after walking and sweating in the heat, we stopped by a little restaurant (the Raj Mahal Restaurant) on the way back which served Dosa and veg Thali and had some very welcome fans which meant it was a nice break from the heat. We sat squashed onto a little table with a big Indian family which I felt we made friends with through lots of smiling and head wiggles over a Dosa. After that we were ready to head back, getting on the boat was a lot more civilised on Elephantha Island and we managed to get a seat on the top deck of the boat.

 

So overall, it was an interesting yet quite exhausting Saturday afternoon spent on Elephanta Island. For visitors, we would probably recommend not to go on a weekend as there were lots of families and tourists on weekend trips which made it very busy. But during the week it is definitely a nice way to spend a few hours on a boat and island – even without elephants.

From Hops to Spice

So how do you start a blog?

Before we moved to Mumbai, I always jokingly said I might start writing a blog but staring at a very blank screen now seems a bit scary. This isn't helped by not being the most technically gifted person - it took me about 15mins and 3 cookies (like biscuit cookies, not those internet ones) to discover where to update the "about me" section - which means I nearly gave up before I started.

Combined with the dissapointment that the website (not sure that is the right blogging terminology) I wanted (hopsandspice) wasn't available, blogging and I haven't had the best start. However, when I saw that the guy who had stolen MY website only ever wrote two posts, I was determined to do better than him and with a much cooler name: Hops'n'Spice. So I promise to write at least three posts (no guarantee for the fourth).

Credit for the name goes to my PlayStation obsessed boyfriend by the way... Hops and Spice seems like a fitting name as it combines two things that are very defining of the country I lived in and the country I have just moved to. The English love a pint of beer and with hops a key ingredient it sums up a lot of fun days spent in a cosy English pub. And if there is one way to sum up what Indian food is all about, it's spice, spice and a bit more spice.
Back in London, there was also a nice little restaurant around the corner from where we used to lived called "Hops and Spice". Although it was a great place, I wasn't too sad when it closed down and was replaced by a Franco Manca (THE best pizza place in the world). So much for the name.

I thought it would be nice to share what we get up to with friends and family in mental Mumbai but then also realised that I lived in one of the most amazing places for 5 years and never even thought about writing a blog about London. So this blog will not only be about Mumbai and India but I will also share some of the places I loved discovering in London and the UK. And I am sure the differences will be quite entertaining (for myself more than anyone else) but I might also find some surprising similarities...

Finally,it might be worth poiting out that although I haven't lived there for nearly 10 years, I am still very German after all and according to people close to me can display the occasional sign of German rudeness so if any readers (British or Indian) ever feel stereotyped or misunderstood, I apologise in advance - it probably is just the German humour the rest of the world doesn't seem to understand...

So hello blogging and "chalo" (Hindi for let's go)