Udupi

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  Udupi, India
Saturday, November 8, 2008

Udupi is home of the masala dosa and not a lot else, so this blog entry is going to be fairly food-oriented. Udupi is famous across the country for its food and restaurants all over serve traditional 'Udupi breakfasts' or 'Udupi meals', so by the time we got here our mouths were watering just thinking of all the culinary delights we'd be sampling. We arrived in Udupi at 4.30am and were so grateful that our hotel was visible from the bus stand. We weren't so grateful to discover that our hotel 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 with fresh coconut. The food in the South is delicious - I'm biased though since it's very similar to my mum's cooking that I grew up on. The homesickness has eased a bit because of this. Lunch that day cost us 50Rs. (that's 75p) for two meals and two freshly squeezed orange juices. We were astounded by how cheap things were in Udupi, and it seems in the South in general. For one, south India is less touristy so perhaps they haven't clicked that they can fleece us (tuk tuk drivers even quote the correct price here), or perhaps they're just nicer. Whilst Udupi does cater to tourists, this is for Indian pilgrims who come to the krishna temple, and we only saw two other westerners the whole time we were there. Despite this, people hardly batted an eyelid when we walked past. We did try wandering around after lunch, but the heat was too intense so we sat in a cafe drinking juice and eating ice creams.
After an afternoon of just eating, we went back to the hotel and visited the astrologer. He couldn't speak much english so we had a translator...who also couldn't speak much english. He said some things which although weren't shocking because I plan to do them, but were shocking because he knew about them. I'll just share a few snippets with you rather than quoting the hour-long session verbatim. Firstly, I'm going to be a doctor but it will take some time. Yes, and it'll take four years (duh). Secondly, our marriage will be a success. Yes I knew that, but good. Thirdly, I have been unhappy at work for a year and a half. My employers didn't listen to me and there was a lot of tension. Only one person at work was supportive and listened. Yes, and that'll be Anita then (thanks Anita). Worryingly he did ask if I'd had an accident recently, and when I said no, he had this 'oh, that bit hasn't happened yet' look on his face before telling me to be careful around water. Another shocker is that Paul and I will have 3 children. This is not the first person to predict this, and although I know I'm likely to change my mind, right now I do feel like ripping my womb out and stamping on it for when that change of heart comes. I don't like the idea of children one bit: the most stimulating conversation being 'ooh look at the choo choo train', having a whingey whiney thing following you around all day, never being able to do what you want to do, rarely seeing friends...in short, I have no maternal instinct whatsoever. Sorry, digressing. The astrologer also predicted some very interesting things about the behaviour of particular people around me...I'll just wait and see if those come true.

After the astrologer we visited the krishna temple which was founded by a hindu saint. I didn't even know there were saints in hinduism. Inside the temple is a statue of krishna which emerged from a single chunk of basalt when this saint tapped it once. The temple was of traditional south Indian architecture, with statues perching all the way up the tall roof. I'll be honest and say Paul and I didn't have the guts to go in. The area around the temple was very calming though. We did see the famous temple elephant doing its duty by 'blessing' pilgrims. In reality this involved the pilgrim standing in front of the elephant who then thwacked them on the head. I don't really understand how this is supposed to be a spiritual experience. The pilgrims always left rubbing their heads with pleasure/pain....that's it, maybe it's the pleasure/pain principle at work.

The rest of Udupi involved eating and nothing else: fried plaintain chips, pav bhaji (little fried dumplings) with coconut sambol, butterscotch ice cream, murruku (like the big fat bits you get in 'bombay mix'), south Indian 'meals', more iddli, and of course masala dosas. Obviously this wasn't all in one go, dear no, not even Paul and I could manage that. Everything was suitably delicious and there wasn't a meal exceeding a pound for both of us. So Udupi had lived up to its name.

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