Lostinasia trip report

The local rajasthani dishes esp the curries are very spicy, with lots of red chillies, but restaurants in india have a variety of dishes from different parts of the country, (eg. Chicken Hyderabadi, Chicken Patialvi, Chicken Kolhapuri, Chicken Mughlai), all have different kinds of Gravy/Curry and the way they make the same dish in different parts of country will be different.
Its best to try the local speciality in such cases if you enjoy all types of curries/gravies.
The Restaurant staff in India (mostly) believe that foreigners like Bland food and will suggest the simplest food they have, which you wont like.
Dont insist on extra spicy food, the restaurants have a kind of decoction of red chilly, they'll add some of that to the gravy/curry and you'll have your nose burning.
And yeah lostinasia, the National Park close to Orchha is the one (Bandhavgarh) with a high tiger density

Tourist type restaurants are often over cautious about making food too authentically spicy,,,,,,,,,,

If you want authentic food you've got to eat were the locals eat

AMEN to that statement, Mr Hippy!

Many of the rickshaw-wallahs and the taxi drivers we met knew the best places to eat! We'd give em a 50 rupees tip and off we'd go!

One of our taxi drivers in Jaipur (Ramesh Maurya-a great guy usually parked across from MegNiwas in Jaipur-he has a tiny van he uses as a taxi) took us to a fabulous local eatery; I could find it again but not sure of the name of the place.

This shop/cafe had fabulous sweets, cakes and nuts and another shop attached to it, which sold magic curries & samosas. A feast for 200 rupees for the two of us with takeaway nuts & snacks and a treat for Ramesh.

You only have to ask and ye shall find! Be persistent! We tipped these guys big-time WOW! 50 rupees!! (because we got to eat the food we knew was there!! OMG, I went to India to eat magic food & see magic sights!

As for being stared at-get this-I'm a giantess and my partner is HUGE and we got stared at everywhere-we loved it-then I guess we're exhibitionists-and if I had been those Indians, I'd have stared at us too! What a sight we were!

Sorry your trip was not all you wished for-go back & look again!

Same thoughts here! And if/when you go back, try to slow down a bit. I usually take 1-2 days just to settle down in a place.

I agree with you that the smaller places are much nicer. I think it's because smaller places are easier to digest in small amounts of time.

It's not surprising you failed to spot any tigers at Ranthambore, Lostinasia.
Check out the following report published in the Times Newspaper today :
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspap...488969,00.html

I'd love to see the article but the timesonline seems to be a paid service only (why do the good British papers seem to do that?!)... can you give us just the gist of it?

I have no intention of there being a next time for North India/ Rajasthan--if I get to India again, it'll be either far south or far north. I'd love to see Kerala and Ladakh, although of course that probably wouldn't be the same trip! I've been to plenty of other countries/ destinations that I'd like to see again, but while I enjoyed Rajasthan, it's not on the "get back to" list, nor is it that high on the list of places I'd recommend. That's all I mean by the trip being less than I hoped for; I had a great time and enjoyed a lot of what I saw, but I enjoyed India at an "average" level for travelling, and I had a lot less fun with the people of the country than I usually do. Curiously, I read a couple of books by Indian authors ("Butter Chicken in Ludhiana" & "English, August"), and apparently, within India, North Indians have a reputation for being less friendly. I guess I'd raised my expectations too high and had been led to believe there's nothing average about India. Of course, everyone has different experiences!

Sahibcols above link works ok,,,,,,,,


*snip*
THE entire population of tigers has disappeared from a densely forested sanctuary in the Indian state of Rajasthan because of poaching, according to wildlife experts.
Last May officials counted 15 big cats in the 850sq km (328sq mile) Sariska sanctuary, a valley surrounded by mountains in the east of the state. But a search by 300 environmentalists and forestry officials during the past fortnight failed to find any sign of them.

Here is the text of the times report :
THE entire population of tigers has disappeared from a densely forested sanctuary in the Indian state of Rajasthan because of poaching, according to wildlife experts.
Last May officials counted 15 big cats in the 850sq km (328sq mile) Sariska sanctuary, a valley surrounded by mountains in the east of the state. But a search by 300 environmentalists and forestry officials during the past fortnight failed to find any sign of them.
The survey in Sariska was started after it was reported that there had been no sightings of tigers in the reserve for six months.



The team spent days trawling the forest for fresh droppings and recent pugmarks. But a report by the World Wide Fund for Nature-India, which sent representatives to supervise the tiger count, said that “not a single sign of evidence — direct or indirect — to indicate the presence of tiger” was found in Sariska reserve.
The report said that the tigers were harmed in the past seven months, that forest staff are likely to be involved and that the only explanation for their disappearance is poaching.
“It is a terrible discovery,” said Belinda Wright, executive director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India and a member of Rajasthan’s tiger task force. “What is so shocking about this is that poachers have wiped out an entire tiger reserve.”
The illegal but flourishing trade in tiger skins has become a matter of international concern as the world’s big cat population continues to dwindle.
A British conservation group found last year that the covert tiger skin trade had grown ten-fold in five years. Tigers are also coveted for their bones, which are used in Chinese herbal remedies.
India, which is estimated to have more than 3,000 tigers — more than half the world’s population — has tried to preserve its big cat population with drastic measures. Once the sport of maharajahs and Britain’s colonial elite, tiger shooting in India was banned in 1970 and since then 27 forested areas have been set aside for tigers to roam freely. The reserves are spread over 35,000sq km in more than a dozen states.
Despite those measures, hunters continue to reduce tiger numbers. In Ranthambhore national park in Rajasthan, the tiger population has halved since 1999.
Fateh Singh Rathore, who has studied the animals in the park’s 1,300sq km wild jungle scrub for four decades, says that the markings of only six tigers now match those of 16 that were randomly photographed in 1999. After allowing for natural deaths, Mr Rathore believes that the animals were poached, perhaps even by local villagers who have scant regard for India’s conservation laws.
Both Ranthambhore and Sariska reserves contain inhabited villages and pilgrims pass through Ranthambhore to temples within its boundaries, making tigers in both sanctuaries vulnerable to poaching.
Mr Rathore says the problem is one of enforcement and resources. Few parks have an established intelligence network and many lack armed guards. Forest officials often complain that they are poorly equipped to take on organised poacher gangs.
TIGERS - A SPECIES IN CRISIS
• World’s largest cats at up to 3.3m long and 310kg
• Found in India, China, Far East and Indonesia
• Listed as endangered since 1972
• Three of eight subspecies — Javan, Caspian and Bali — extinct
• South China Tiger is currently most endangered with only 59 left in captivity About 6,000 left in the wild, including 3,000 in India
• Numbers have fallen from 100,000 in 1900, when there were 40,000 in India

Bandavgarh is a long long way from Ranthambore.

Thank you Lostinasia for your comprehensive reports. We are off to Rajasthan tomorrow night and they were useful last minute reading. Good tip about going to smaller towns - I think we are going to give Jaipur a miss and go to some more chilled out places.
Will let y'all know how we get on

This website is brilliant! Thx Lostinasia. You answered many of my niggling worries and I just wanted to say thx for you obviously honest thread!

Malaysian Indian food is poor quality to good Indian food. The curries are too thin, watery and are generally meat based for me. I'm in Malaysia right now. Hindu's don't eat meat and the veg food in India is the best quality.

The problem you had its that you only spent 3 weeks there. The North of India IMO has less good quality food than the south but you can still eat very well in the North. Half the battle is going through the menus to find out what you like. Thalis were often what I ate but, where you are dictates what you get and how nice it is. You also need to take time to hunt round for the good places to eat. These are quite easy to spot after some experience doing it.

One final point, you didn't take the TRAIN!!! You missed out on one of India's great travelling moments. On the train you will meet real Indian people who aren't out to get you to their hotel or into their rickshaw. Most of the people I met who got invited to wedding etc got those invitations on the train. Can be taxing sometimes, 'what is your good name?' but I've had some really interesting conversations on there that has shed light on all sorts of aspects of Indian life.

sunray is right on with her take on trains

I've actually had phenomenal breakfasts on some trains (the Kalka Shatabdi, out of Delhi, for example). On others, either nothing or mediocre food. There must be a system to this that I haven't cracked.

The reason there were no cockroaches or ants in the rooms in Indian hotels is probably quite simple. Many hotels can't be bothered with good hygiene, but they know insects are a turn-off. Their solution? Stick small piles of mothballs all over the room - in corners, under the bed, by the carpet, on the bookshelf. I've sometimes woken up with my throat raw from the mothballs I didn't find and chuck out. Made me wish I were in Thailand.

Rohan

Great to see lostinasia on-site again, so I thought I'd bump this thread to see the kind of posts that made this member popular.