India Highlight - Day 6

Dreams blur with midnight trains motioning us to sleep. You keep appearing in dresses, shades of chili powders and turmerics season your shadows, while I'm tap-dancing in the heat praying for it to rain.

Last day in Udaipur and it shaped out to be an adventure. Anni and I started the day off with a 4 hour cooking class. The class was in V.J.'s home about 20 minutes outside of the cities and we learned 10 Indian dishes. We made curries, masalas, chapati, parathas and a special Indian dessert called Halva. We were running late at this point, in between picking up my tailored kashmir suits, final packing, and trying to figure out what our hotel manager did with our laundry and it was suddenly 5:00pm. Our train leaves at 5:20, and we were 20 minutes away from the station.

We ran through the street searching for a cab. Every other minute in the last 4 days there were always two outside, none today. We kept running with travel packs slung over shoulders and laundry in hand, we hailed down a cab and were on our way. 5:15pm.

We pull up to the station thinking that we had already missed the train and it was 5:30 at this point, we casually strolled up to the station and saw through the crowd what looked to be our train. We scrambled to get through, people were walking in all directions and I lost sight of Anni for a moment. We made it through alive, running toward the train and suddenly it started to take off.

We start yelling "9288, 9288?" trying to confirm that this is indeed our train to delhi and it is. People all around are cheering us on, "Run, get on" and a huge rush comes over us. We are moving with the train inches from the door and Anni gets her hand on the door, pulls herself up quickly just in time so that I can jump on. We made it.

So now we are in Delhi, flying out to Kashmir tomorrow morning to meet Anni's friend for a week. I'll send another update as soon as I can. Below is a great yogurt curry recipe that would go great with a tofu or a chicken for you meat eaters.

1 cup yogurt
1 cup water
mix together
1 tablespoon yellow lentil powder (dry lentils and blend works fine)
1/2 tablespoon red chili powder
1/4 tablespoon corriander
pinch or turmeric
1/4 tablespoon of garam masala
1/4 tablespoon salt
mix together

Separate bowl
2 tablespoons oil over medium heat
1/4 tablespoon mustard seeds
1/4 tablespoon cumin seeds
2 tablespoons chopped onions
mix first bowl into this with splash of water
1/4 tablespoon garlic paste
10-12 minutes to desired thickness.