For many reasons, I have to and I want to stay in India for a while.

No matter how much I bitch about India, I still find it an amazing country. I probably don’t have to explain more about how huge & diverse “Incredible India” is, as innumerable people have already done that before. India is a whole new world to me wherein each state is a separate country with different cultures, languages, religions, cuisines and even looks on people’s face. I know that I will regret if I just stay here for few months and leave. I want to stay for a long time, meet a lot of people, go to a lot of places, join a lot of festivals, (try to) eat a lot of food, see a lot of things, learn Hindi and get to know every corner of India to bits.

I arrived in India in the East - Kolkata, and traveled across the country to the West - Mumbai.

Kolkata is the kind of city that is easy to live, but it takes time to love. Bombay is on the other side. It’s hard to live here due to the high cost of living, but once you are here, you will fall in love immediately. And I did fall in love with this city, on my first day out.

Because of beautiful buildings…

Taking a walk from Churchgate to Gateway of India, passing by all beautiful buildings from the British era, I felt like I was lost in an European city sometime in 19th century.

Because of the beach…

I’m the biggest anti-fan of treacly romance. I look at those who walk in the rain as if they are straight out of “Casablanca” and forgot to change their clothes.

But I did it in Bombay, walked in the rain and along the beach

There is something about the city that melt my heart and softened my soul. It’s probably because of the beach. I love beaches. I love the immensity of ocean and the smell of fresh air. The Marine Drive boulevard surrounding the bay turns into a glamorous curve of light which is dubbed as Queen’s necklace.

I’ve always wanted to live in a coastal city, and by the time I arrived here, I docilely succumbed to the temptation of settling down here.

Due to the lack of light and the surplus of rain, I couldn’t take any photo. This a photo of Queen’s Necklace from STRAIGHT DRIVES blog.

Because of the vibe …

I didn’t see it in Kolkata, I didn’t see it in Pune. But I saw it in Bombay.

Bombay is the heart of Bollywood; the melting pot of passions, and the city of dreams.

I saw something sparkling in the eyes of an aspiring producer whenever he talks about his project, even though it’s still in the bloody procedure of finding a sponsor.

I was amazed by the enthusiasm of an aspiring actor who just came back from an audition where he had to compete with 7000 other aspiring actors for a role in a small movie.

I met a young entrepreneur who has worked days and nights, ignored all lovey-dovey stuffs since his college, because “I have a goal to achieve, and I’m almost there” – he told me.

I idolize a 25 year old guy who is already the founder and owner of a HUGE social media conglomerate here in Mumbai.

Yet night clubs are still packed every night. There are always parties somewhere to drop by and you can always call someone up for a hang out.

Young and beautiful people. Work hard and play hard. They all have dreams.

I want to be one of them.

At least for the time being

Tags: Beach, Bombay, Live, Mumbai, Vibe

When I told my friends that I was gonna stay in India for a while, they were all shocked. Some of them were worried: “How on earth are you going to survive there with only Indian food?”; but most of them were happy with the perspective that I’d lose either some weight or my food fussiness. They know I’m scared of Indian food! When I was in Malaysia, whenever I ate out with my friends, the first thing came out of my mouth was: “No Indian food please!!”. Curry makes me cry and I hate the little monster called “jeera”. If there were 1 reason why I shouldn’t go to India, it’d probably be jeera. Its strong smell can keep me 7 hours flying away!

[Jeera gives very strong flavor which many people associate with Indian food]

So I came to Indian with that curse foreshadowing my only habit and hobby [aka “eating”], and then things got worse.

Indian food is S P I C Y!!! The worst thing is that Indians use a totally different standard for spicy food. For example, when I went to a Chinese restaurant in Pune (I’ve been sticking with Chinese food for my own safety), I told the guy who took my order that I wanted “no spicy, no chilly” food and used the body language to explain “suicide”. He nodded in sympathy: “No chilly” and brought me a plate from which I could pick out that much chilly after half an hour scrutinizing. If not for I’m in India, I’d think that he deliberately did that to murder me.

When I showed the picture to my Indian friends hoping for some comfort, they all told me the same: “This chilly is not spicy.” You’re kidding me!!! In Indian standard, it’s not spicy; but in my standard, it’s enough to peel my tongue’s skin and make my jump in pain for one whole week.

Not only that, after 1 week in Mumbai, I found my stomach craving for some green veggie. When I say “green veggie”, I mean veggie which is green by nature, and still green after being cooked. In India, they eat a lot of veggie, but most of them are bulbs, wheat and the way they cook makes it far different from the veggie I’m used to. If you are familiar with Vietnamese or Chinese food, you will see that we eat a lot green veggie like cabbage, Chinese cabbage, field cabbage, cress, morning glory, water dropwort, plus many more kinds of veggie that I don’t know the English words for them.

And my body is dying for some meat!!

Even though I’m still struggling to find what I want to do, I know one thing for sure is that I will never become a vegetarian. I worship meat.

I never thought it would become a problem one day, until I came to India – a country where, according to my friend Kranti [a vegetarian himself], vegetarians account for 70% of total population or even more. Almost all restaurants are vegetarian. Almost all my friends are vegetarian. During my 3 weeks here, I’ve met more vegetarians I’d met during the course of my life!! I started to develop a phobia against eating out with an Indian as I’m afraid that I’d end up in a vegetarian no matter what. I feel deep sympathy for vegetarians in the land full of cold-blood carnivore like me.

But I never understood the reason why would someone become a vegetarian by choice. Most of them told me that they didn’t like meat which makes absolutely no sense to me,  some of them are worried about global warming (FYI, livestock – cows and pigs - is responsible for 18 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas problem). And then something changed my mind. I walked by a local market and saw the most horrifying scene ever.

The chicken was still alive.

They cut its head.

And then they did like this. The legs were still trembling in pain.

Soon it was all left of a chicken

For the first time in my life, I considered becoming a vegetarian.

P/S:

1. This post was supposed to be posted 1 week ago, before I discovered Colaba! Thanks to this wonder metropolitan area, now everyone can have meat!

2. My first week in India was awesome! Thanks to Auntie Ramitha – Antoreep’s Mom, I was introduced to awesomely amazing Bengali cuisine. I love Bengali food, I love luchi, I love hilsa fish, I love mango chutney. I shall blog about Bengali food soon!

3. Question: Hindus don’t eat meat and there are a lot of cows in India, so where does all the beef go after the cow die?

Tags: Chicken, Curry, Indian cuisine, Indian food, Jeera, Meat, Spicy Food, Vegetarian

***For more pictures, you can visit my Facebook here

Kolkata – the commercial and financial hub of eastern India – is far from what I’d always thought of India. I knew that as a part of India, it’d be dirty, busy and cheap, but I couldn’t imagine that Internet would be that scarce and getting a SIM card would be that hard in a country that accommodates so-called Asia’s Silicon Valley. And once you’ve become used to it, it’s even harder to realize that the city that symbols that poverty of India is actually home of many respected intellects – 2 (+1) Nobel laureates and a lot more of writers, poets and filmmakers.

Bird-eye view of Kolkata from the plane

India in my mind was always the heaven of tourists due to its cultural diversity and a wide range of travel products come at a super cheap price. However, I could hardly spot any tourist on my flight to Kolkata, and welcoming me to India was an old & cranky airport. I mean, really old and cranky, even more than Yangon airport.

Welcome to Kolkata

Traffic in Kolkata is another shocking story. Being born and raised up in Vietnam, I used to tell my friends in Malaysia and Thailand that if they are upset by traffic jams in Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok, come to Vietnam and they’d love their countries. Now I have to say that if anyone in Vietnam is mad at notorious jams in Vietnam, come to India and you’d feel proud of our country. Everybody is honking. Jams everywhere. Drivers never care if there is somebody crossing the road or not. Cars can hardly move faster than 20km/h. I chatted with a friend of mine who once spent 8 months in Vietnam.

Chip: Traffic here is crazy, much much more crazier than in Vietnam. My head can’t stop popping.

Friend: What!?? Crazier than Vietnam? Unbelievable!

Having spent a huge amount of my life blending into startup community in Southeast Asia, I have heard amazing tales about Asia’s Silicon Valley in India. As a matter of fact, I expected to see wifi, if not everywhere like in Vietnam or Singapore, but at least in most important buildings & restaurants. It turned out that wifi is a strange definition here. Cyber-cafes are expensive and hard to find outside tourist areas. Even though India is famous for its mobile startups, getting a SIM card here is super complicated and takes up to several hours to go through all steps. Thanks God that I have Asenla and her husband, Longchar with me, else I don’t know how I’m a foreigner would be able to handle with all those stuffs.

With Asenla

But the most shocking thing about Kolkata, as what Anuradha already warned me in advance, is the presence of poverty everywhere. It’s not coincident that Mother Teresa’s work about the destitute and poor in this city was given a Nobel prize.

Some other images about the city

Kolkata won't be the same without those super cute yellow taxis. They can be found everywhere through out the city

And crows as well

Where did they find that many people? :(

I have never seen that many banners in my whole life

Antoreep – my host in Kolkata - read my draft and told me that I seemed upset about the city. Hehe I don’t!! In fact, I’m amazed by Kolkata in particular and by India in general. Everything here is so extreme. Everything here is happening so fast. Walking on the street, I don’t dare to blink as I’m afraid that I would miss something interesting. I savor every moment I spend here, and yeah, I think I should go out instead of staying at home blogging in such a beautiful afternoon like today. My host Antoreep and his brother are taking me around the city. I will blog about how Kolkata is the cultural hub of India in my next blog post, soon!

Tags: India, Kolkata, People, Traffic

Today, when I was the only foreigner on a stuffed decrepit local bus, passing by the red light street, listening to Justin Bieber, looking out to the busy trading scene on the bumpy street, I told Mai that I would miss Myanmar.

I really do.

I miss those afternoons jostling with locals around animated street markets, trying to bargain over those stuffs from decades ago. Markets are everywhere in Yangon. I love to ask the prices in Burmese and try to guess when they answer me in Burmese as well.

I miss pork sticks, Myanmar curry, bamboo shoot. Some people might say that Myanmar food is boring, I find it simple but delicious. I love it when Chann, Khine Thi or Mai took me around, checked out all irresistible food stalls and ate like like crazy. I love it when I just paid $1 and people brought me a full table of food. Only in Myanmar that you can eat like a King with just $1.

I miss those days cycling around completely isolated temples in the middle of nowhere. I miss it when I took a nap in windy temples, hiding away from the heat.

I miss it when a cute local guy waited in front of my hotel at 5am to take me for sunrise.

I miss the gorgeous views of sunsets in Myanmar when I can feel the last rays of the day shedding on my skin. I know I wouldn’t be able to find it anywhere in the places I used to live.

I miss the smile of Myanmar people. Just now I’m in India, when I smile at people and they just stare back, I know how warm it felt to be smiled back by a stranger in a strange place. I love it when a local guy told me that he’s Joker, and told me a bunch of jokes in broken English. I couldn’t help laughing hours after that

I miss it when I traveled around Myanmar and could recognize all tourists’ faces I had met, I love it when a local shouted my name when he accidentally ran into me on the street.  Myanmar is small. It seems like everybody knows everybody. It makes me feel like at home.

Feeling so lonely in India now

Tags: Local, Myanmar, Smile