Hi Tiffany,

Thanks for the post about food and health. Very helpful info for anyone planning a trip to India or anywhere. Yes, the old 'tap water in the Aquafina bottle' trick! Saw this in Paris. Some kids were selling bottled water at the Eiffel tower. After spending a good bit of time relaxing and enjoying a site, you begin to observe things the faster paced folks miss. Like noticing the kids were collecting the empty bottles-- for recycling? Yes, to refill them at a large puddle. It rained the night before.

I'm with you about choosing local over westernish restaurants. In Beijing the best is to go deep into a hutong and drop into a small family run place. If you can't read the Mandarin menu, no probs. Just look at the other tables and you'll see something good. Point to it, smile, and the cook begins his wok banging and hissing for you. Wonderful--- I think the cook in a place like this usually only feeds his neighbors and I like that.

Like you, I was a bit suspect of the food in places catering to westerners. Although the servers spoke Ingrish, they were a bit surly- perhaps tired of the high maintenance diners around me. The cook and servers had no connection with the customers, just a bunch of strangers to them.

But of course you are right that luck and rain dances are very important.

Thanks for taking the time to elaborate on food for us. I go nuts over local cuisines, drawing the line at monkey brains as some of them may be my relatives. Could you and Andrew post some pics of the food? Whether ordinary or fantastic, all us readers would love it!

Also, where next for you two after India?

Aaww ... no monkey brains? No fun!

One of the odder Shanghainese delicacies we got into on our last trip to China were the 'drunken prawns' - the poor loves are writhing around raw and uncooked (ie, still living!), but marinated in alcohol, so they're quite woozy and very delicious when you pop them in your mouth! I have to say they were yummy, but oh my lord, I don't even want to think what bad karma such an act might have attracted - eating live animals is surely bad ...

Photos of food definitely to come - glad you are into travel eating too :) The connection here in Udaipur's pretty good, so that's a help in uploading piccies (you just have to allow for the fact that there's a town-wide blackout from 10am til 4pm - every day!)

hey folks
why grumble about delhi belly and dirty india. did anyone put a gun to your head to go..hell atleast no one tells you to go back to your country just coz of color of your skin(as i am reminded by people all the time in YOUR country). well all of you are racists in one way or other..i wish you would leave india alone to her miseries....but then maybe it makes people feel better when they see peoplemisrebale than themselves

hey folks
why grumble about delhi belly and dirty india. did anyone put a gun to your head to go..hell atleast no one tells you to go back to your country just coz of color of your skin(as i am reminded by people all the time in YOUR country). well all of you are racists in one way or other...i wish you would leave india alone to her miseries....but then maybe it makes people feel better when they see people more misrebale than themselves

hey folks
why grumble about delhi belly and dirty india. did anyone put a gun to your head to go..hell atleast no one tells you to go back to your country just coz of color of your skin(as i am reminded by people all the time in YOUR country). well all of you are racists in one way or other.cricket sucks..taj mahal is too gandiose..and why is football better??? or burminghman palace great???..i wish you would leave india alone to her miseries....but then maybe it makes people feel better when they see people more misrebale than themselves

Hi Gill,

It seems that you find what I've said offensive. Sorry that what I've written has come across so poorly - a racist, xenophobic, 'everything-Western-is-better' blog is hardly what I'm wanting to write!

I think you may have misinterpreted my comments in some places. In others - like the Taj Mahal stuff, for instance - I have made criticisms based on my *personal preferences*; nothing beyond that is intended.

I have thought hard about the stuff I've expressed qualms about; this isn't intended to just be a big bitch-fest. In the case of things like the Taj, my feeling was that the Taj (and its squillions of admirers) were waaaay big enough to cop a little bit of flak from this insignificant blog!

For the record, I DON'T think 'football is better' or that 'burmingham palace is great[er]' than things in India. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth!

I'm loving my time here and am looking forward to writing about those feelings more fully when we leave India and I can reflect on the time spent here. I can promise you that writing will express both the love *and* the not-so-love of the things I've seen here. It's an intense place - and all the more amazing for it.

As for being a white person travelling pretty much anywhere in the world - your point that my life is easier than many others' is one hundred percent valid.

It *would* be shameful of me not to acknowledge that white people enjoy many concessions that others do not.

I hope your view of Australia as an unremittingly racist country can be changed, as it's my personal opinion that it's not so stark a portrait as you paint.

Good luck!