A South Indian meal

What you see here is a South Indian (Tamul to be precise) festive meal. It means you don't have it everyday, and you can only have it in Tamil Nadu. This sort of meal is called a Thali (Hindi for plate) meal, but this one is a special one:

Here is a little breakdown of what is on the banana leaf (used as a plate in most places):

• You should start with something sweet. This is what the fruit salad is for (SE of the picture).


• The little doughnut-shaped thing is called a vada. It is a little spicy and a little salty. You dip it in sambhar or chutney when you have it.


• On the North East corner of the plate are pickles (red). They're very spicy. Just to get everything a little hotter. Indians are like that.


• In the center of the plate is dal. You should eat it with rice.


• South-South-West: Potatoes in a masala mix.


• There is a spoon, too.


• South is cabbage poriyal. It features coconut and it tastes good. By the way, I ate all this! Yeah.

In general, you eat with your right hand. Use it as a little shovel then approach your mouth with food and use the thumb to push it all the way into your mouth. Left hand can be used to drink water. But you shouldn't really use it. It is unpure. More on that later. He hehe.
So it goes like this: Start with something sweet, eat all the spicy things, and finish with a sweet dairy product.

That strange animal outside my appartment

This is what you find, crawling around on the pavement, when you're waiting for your friends to come down.
Funny thing is: It looks like some stupid toy we used to play with when we were kids. So it did exist after all!

A little more on Indian roads

Here is a nice car. An Audi one. The driver wish it was one. This type of car (very old looking) is everywhere. They are all white. This is the regular taxi in Chennai (if you do not want to take an autorikshaw).

People in India like to enhance the look of their cars by adding stickers, ribbons and/or a little painting. Well the painting is more for trucks.

And here is a typical street pattern:



Last week end was a three days week end. We went to Kanchipuram (Temples place), Bangalore (IT place) and Mysore (Palace place). I have many nice pictures to share with you.

Please bear with the scarcity of my reports. I still don't have either internet at home or even a computer.

Hash on ice

(I'm going to get thousands of google hits with such a title)

Pete has posted an awful picture of me on his blog. Bad Pete.