Valley View International Udupi

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... referred us we would have ran, ran far away from this place. But, I gotta say the chaat was incredible and if we pay the price gastrointestinally, it still would have been worth it!

After we picked up the kids, we did a little more shopping and we had dinner at home and packed. It doesn’t sound like we did much but it was a great day, we accomplished a lot and got a great feel for this city.

... had fun and took lots of pictures.


After the farm, we went out for sushi (surprising to have sushi in India but we were missing non-Indian food and it is always nice to be with friends who know all the hot spots. Had they not have been there, we would never have tried sushi here for fear of getting sick.

After sushi, we did a little bit of shopping. And then we went ...

We ended up sleeping at 4:15am, and got up at 6am to leave for the airport at 7am. We were emotional and we were tired but I think we felt the connection we made with everyone was so strong that it would be up to us to make sure we keep it going.

We arrived at Bangalore and Vijay picked us up. Vijay and Nita are our friends from Portland and Nike. Nita's brother Ravi is married to my cousin Madhu, so our kids and their kids are both cousins with Madhu and Ravi ...

... It was only a 15 minute drive to the airport. We cleared security, and boarded our 1 hour and 20 minute flight to Bangalore, India's IT capital. I settled in with a newspaper to relax and read a bit.

To my surprise, I found a small article several pages into the paper that told of a recent incident on a Jet Airways flight. It seems that there was a check Pilot on board a flight with full flight crew and 100 passengers bound from Delhi to ...

... operated a 24hr checkout policy, in other words, we had to check out by 4.30am the next day. So we paid for another night..what's 4 quid when you need to sleep eh? After a long sleep, we ate our first lunch in Udupi. Udupi has a number of 'meal' joints which serve a limited range of 'meals'...which are, errr, meals - everything you need all on one plate. So our first lunch was iddli with sambar and sambol. Iddli are steamed rice cakes, sambar is a tangy stew, and the sambol was made ...

... only allowed to view the image bare-chested! Women however, are allowed to see him fully-clothed. Very gracious of him. (R). Just to note that proceedings in the temple came to an abrupt halt the moment I removed my shirt and the visiting schoolgirls got sight of my rippling abs and pecs. Some fainted; others screamed and lunged for me. Not really. Ah well...too many Masala Dosas obviously. (T)

... an easy life, and so one that is hard to leave even after the time comes. The season is winding down, however, having had my experience with Arumbol and the End-Of-Season Madness there, I am well prepared to read the signs here, and the vibe has changed. There is a palpable difference to what it was a week ago (or was that two weeks? I don't know, somehow. . .), and it is getting to be time to mount my trusty steed, Rocinante, and head for the hills. Even this ...

... and does not make too much of a fuss about it when "Sheep head," as Stu is nicknamed, wants to toss one more back. There was also a rather short and stout Scotsman whose nick name was "Numty," or something like that, I think a private joke or one of those Brit slang things I just do not understand. We all took to calling him "Benny Hill" after a while anyway, as he does bear a slight resemblance. "The Sheriff" got his nickname when they were all sitting around having a bit of a ...

So I finally did the Enfield trip the 100 km down to the beach everyone talks about, Palolem. It is quite beautiful, I must admit, but even better, the "vibe" here is much more "shanti" than Arambol was becoming. Had all my gear packed the night before, and loaded up Rocinante with my guitar sticking up on the sissy bar, bungee corded and chained up. Driving in India is not for the faint of heart. Though the Enfield is one of the fastest things on the road, there are ...