A Feast for the Senses
October 15-25, 2025
Planning a trip to India has always felt particularly daunting. Where does one even start? Saying you want to travel to India is like saying you want to travel to the United States; both are enormous places that contain a multitude of distinct and disparate cultures. Vacationing in Mississippi is not the same as vacationing in Los Angeles. On top of that, vacationing in India is certainly not the same as vacationing in Western countries. Going to India requires many considerations and cautions that we simply never have to deal with in our travels throughout Europe and the US. It’s not an easy trip.
So, for years, India has remained on a special short list in our minds, along with China, and to a lesser extent, Russia: Massive countries that we definitely want to see, but would prefer to have a local guide us around and give us a specific reason to visit. Thankfully, 2025 provided this exact opportunity. Goutham, a PhD student that Mazz works with in Berlin, was getting married in Bangalore and invited us to his wedding. Now, we had a great reason to visit, a specific destination, and a local to offer guidance - everything we needed to start planning a trip to India in earnest.
Ideally, when you visit an enormous country, you are able spend ample time exploring it. On this trip to India, we simply didn’t have that luxury. With Mazz just starting her new position in Vienna, we couldn’t take a month to traipse across the Indian subcontinent. We were going to have to make do with ten days. While not enough time for a thorough exploration, it was definitely enough for a substantial side trip outside of Bangalore. We chose to also visit the state of Kerala, tucked away in the southwest corner along the Indian Ocean, as it promised gorgeous nature and was only a short flight from the wedding.
Even with these key details locked in, it felt like there was an abnormal amount of preparation and caution required for this trip. Kirb spent hours reading reddit threads about possible blind spots, Goutham did his best to explain key cultural differences, and our friend Ruthie offered multiple words of warning. We needed updated vaccinations; the Indian evisa process was particularly thorough, invasive, and drawn out - they asked for extensive work histories, parents’ places of birth, and detailed daily itineraries before we had even fully planned where we wanted to go; we shouldn’t drink the tap water or even use it to brush out teeth; to avoid the dreaded “Dehli Belly,” we shouldn’t eat any foods that had not been cooked; we needed to learn how to check every room, no matter how posh, for bed bugs; we had to be diligent about using bug spray every day, as the mosquitos in the tropics can carry a number of nasty diseases; we should only use online cab apps like Uber or we would most certainly get ripped off; some advice online said to eat only fruit you could peel, but Ruthie warned against eating fresh fruit altogether after picking up a nasty parasite on her trip. There were so many things to do and avoid that it became genuinely hard to keep it all straight.
Despite all this detailed planning, everything seemed to go wrong once we landed in Bangalore at 2am. We’d booked a hotel near the airport to get a few hours of sleep before we took off again at 10am to Kerala…we just had to figure out how to get there first. We tried to log on to the airport Wifi and found that to do so you needed to give all of your personal information to a special kiosk and then it would give you an internet voucher code. Once online, we tried to buy esims to get our phones working so we could book an Uber, but all of our payments were rejected. Goutham had warned us about this, but we hadn’t fully understood what he meant. India uses UPI bank accounts, and without one, we wouldn’t be able to purchase anything online. We asked a help desk if we could buy esims somewhere in the airport and they said yes, back inside, on the other side of security, which was now inaccessible. We checked on Uber and saw a trip to our hotel should take 10 minutes and cost around 500 rupees, or €5, so we got some cash and went down to the taxi area, where the Wifi no longer reached. Several men tried to aggressively usher us into their cabs, but we insisted they give us a price, which was unsurprisingly three times the going rate. By the time we finally figured out how to book an Uber back up on the terminal Wifi and wait in a long line for our car to actually show up, we wished we would have just paid the cabbies their tourist extortion rate. We finally made it to the hotel after 4am, laid around restlessly for a few hours, then took another Uber right back to the airport. Using a VPN on his phone to make it look like he was still in Europe, Kirb eventually tricked the esim app into letting him purchase cell coverage with his credit card, giving us all-important online connectivity for the rest of the trip.
A prearranged cab was waiting for us at the Kochi airport to make the final multi-hour leg of our journey to Munnar. Our driver, Chesin, was a kind, knowledgeable man who acted more as a tour guide than a cabbie, telling us all about the areas we passed. For lunch, he stopped at a bustling restaurant called Rasa that served a Keralan meal called sadhya, which means “banquet” in Mayalam, traditionally served at celebratory events. Multiple dishes are laid out on a banana leaf, including rice, lentil curries, vegetable and coconut curries, thorans (stir-fried vegetables with coconut), pickles, and sweet dishes called payasams. We applied some hand sanitizer and dug in with our fingers, as is the custom in Kerala. The food, unsurprisingly, was delicious, though we definitely felt self-conscious eating a whole leaf full of goops with our hands for the first time.
Chesin made the executive decision to stop at some tourist attractions along the way. Crowds gathered behind fences to look at waterfalls, while monkeys tried to get food from both willing and unsuspecting visitors. Distance-wise, Munnar isn’t particularly far from Kochi, but the roads are old, winding, and only have one lane in each direction. Drivers are constantly jockeying for position, waiting for moments to pass slower traffic and unrelentingly laying on their horns. Chesin used his horn sparingly, telling us that some Indian passengers complain if he doesn’t use it often enough because it seems like he isn’t trying hard enough to drive quickly. Halfway through the trip, we crossed a narrow bridge into the jungle and an oncoming car knocked off the cab’s rearview mirror. Chesin said it was the twelfth time that had happened so far this year.
When we finally arrived in Munnar in the early evening, there were low clouds hugging the mountainous hills, then a strong burst of rain. We knew that travel between Vienna and Munnar was going to be brutal, so we decided to splurge on the fanciest lodging of the trip right off the bat. Blanket Hotel and Spa was posh enough that we instantly felt out of place being doted upon by the staff, but we were thrilled with the panoramic view of the river and hilly tea fields from our room. After some much-needed showers, we hit the hotel pool at sunset and then watched a fire dancer performance that enthralled the small children in attendance. Dinner was an impressive buffet of pan-Indian dishes and we gorged ourselves wanting to try everything. A dry curry dish simply called “pepper chicken” was one of the most delicious things we ate on the entire trip. Bursting full and dead tired, we passed out as soon as we left the dining room.
It was good that we fell asleep when we did, because we had an early start the next day for a guided hiking trip through the Lakshmi Hills. One way that India differs from other places we have visited is that you probably shouldn’t wander around alone outside in nature. There is a nonzero chance you will come across a very dangerous creature, and it’s best to have a guide who knows what they’re doing. Case in point: only a short time into our hike in Munnar, our guide Shiva pointed to a hill in the distance and asked if we could see the elephant there. The only way we could spot it was using the zoom on our phones. He proceeded to explain that this was a very famous elephant named Padayappa who likes to come out of the jungle and into towns to eat people’s food. Apparently, Padayappa has killed more than a dozen men.
By the time our walk had taken us up to the crests of hills overlooking the tea fields, clouds blew in and obstructed the views. We stopped at a cloudy overlook and Shiva began pulling out bundles from his backpack for breakfast: plastic bags filled with lentil curry with a side of puttu for dipping - soft, crumbly patties made from rice flour and coconut. He also had fried dough balls called bonda, like slightly-sweet donut holes seasoned with cardamom and fennel. As we ate, the clouds lifted and fell again, giving us glimpses of the bright green fields below.
Continuing on the hike, we entered into proper dense jungle, passing beneath huge, vine-covered banyan trees. We came to an eco-camp where visitors could rent rustic treehouses and stopped for some tea. We were surprised to learn that tea here is always served pre-mixed with milk unless you ask otherwise. The word “chai” simply means tea (“chai tea” is completely redundant), and “masala chai” means tea spiced with cardamom, cinnamon, or whatever other flavorings that particular establishment prefers. Each cup of tea cost 60 rupees, or 60 cents, and Shiva let us know that was a particularly inflated price. When we paid for two teas and a bottle of water with a 500 rupee note, the staff struggled mightily to scrounge up the appropriate change.
As we walked past the tea workers in the fields, Shiva explained that Kerala has the highest minimum wage in India, so people travel from all across the country to work there. In these fields, the workers still only make 500 rupees (€5) a day, but their housing, food, education, and medical expenses are all covered, which for many people turns out to be a pretty good deal. Families that have been in Kerala for generations have been able to move on from tea harvesting and onto more lucrative jobs, thanks to universal access to education. It was only after this conversation that we began to notice red hammer and sickle flags flying all over the place in Kerala and started to look a little deeper into the region’s politics. Kerala is the only state in India that is openly, proudly communist, and they’ve used Marxist ideologies to great effect. Though significant wealth inequality still exists, Kerala is the only state in India where extreme poverty has been completely eradicated. Quality healthcare is readily available to everyone there, they have the highest life expectancy in the country, and nearly 100% of the population is literate. Kerala is a success story of leftist policies and ideologies that you will certainly never see celebrated in mainstream Western media.
Back at our fancy capitalist hotel, we spent the rest of the afternoon doing fancy things. For lunch, we ate delicious nadan kozhi curry and fermented rice pancakes called appam while overlooking a waterfall. Later in the evening, we attended a cooking demonstration where one of the hotel chefs showed us how to make a delicious dish called chicken ularthiyathu. Mazz visited the spa and got a very rhythmic full-body Ayurvedic massage where they rubbed gallons of oil into her hair and skin. It took several showers before her hair stopped looking greasy.
We were only slightly bummed to find that there was no buffet again for dinner that night, just regular restaurant service instead. The menu offered local dishes, Northern Indian dishes, and international dishes, and it was interesting to see how other guests ordered. Across from us, an Indian woman from a likely much-warmer region was wearing a big down coat at her table. Her party was all eating French fries and minestrone soup. We had no intention of eating anything other than Keralan cuisine and ordered a mutton curry called aatirachi malli peralan. The waitress warned us that the dish was spicy and we explained that we like spice and definitely could handle whatever they gave us. The dish was delicious, but in our opinion, barely spicy. When the waitress returned and asked how the spice level was, we told her that it was not spicy at all, and we asked if the dish was traditionally served spicier than what we were given. She smiled and nodded and said that Indian people eat that dish much spicier, not grokking at all that this was precisely what we had wanted (and asked for). We tried to constructively explain to her that we came to India to eat authentic Indian cuisine and that we genuinely enjoy spicy food, and when we tell our server to give us spicy food, it is frustrating when they don’t believe us and give us mild food instead. The woman gave us a look that said, “I still don’t believe you can actually eat spicy food,” nodded, and then simply walked away.
We’d arranged a cab the following morning to drive us a very long way to Alleppey, situated south of Kochi along the coast. Once we got from our hotel into Munnar town, the driver pulled off the main road and explained that someone else would actually be taking us, and when that man arrived a few minutes later, he appeared visibly upset with his coworkers. One guy attempted to rub the angry man’s back in consolation as he verbally unloaded on the driver who had picked us up. We learned that our new, irate driver had already been on call since 4am for a sunrise trip and was particularly uninterested in driving us all the way to the coast. It took 5:30 hours to get from Munnar to Alleppey, and if there is one positive thing we can say about our trip, it’s that there is no possible way we could have gotten there any faster. Our driver likely spent more time in the oncoming traffic lane than he did in the one in which he was supposed to be driving. He literally never stopped honking his horn the entire ride. This man was on a mission to ensure that no one else on the road was driving faster than he was, and it was honestly exhausting to be a part of. After a few hours tensed-up in the back seat, Kirb had to watch a movie on the iPad just to try and disassociate from the situation. We hated every moment of that ride but tipped the cabbie well, as he obviously hated it even more than we did.
The Kerala backwaters are a long series of brackish lagoons and canals that run parallel to the Arabian Sea, with a relatively small sliver of land in-between. Only a 10-minute tuk tuk ride separated our homestay on the coast from the edge of the backwaters. We knew getting from Munnar would take the majority of the day, so we booked a sunset ride on a shikari: a long, colorfully painted wooden cruising boat. Both the construction and vibrant paint jobs of the shikari reminded us of the trajinera boats we rode in Xochimilco, Mexico back in 2018. For €22, we got an entire boat to ourselves for 3 hours with a skipper to guide us through the canals.
At one point, we stopped for tea and found that the establishment had trained two brahminy kites, which looked like tiny bald eagles, to sit on people’s shoulders and pose for pictures. Brahminy kites are considered sacred in the Hindu religion and are associated with Lord Vishnu, representing his mount, the mythical eagle Garuda. Unlike in Morocco, where someone will stick a monkey on your head and then demand you pay them €5, the trained birds in Alleppey were just an added bonus to the delicious tea and spicy, crunchy snacks. The sunset that evening on the water was awe-inspiring. We only had a few hours to spend in Alleppey and we definitely felt like we spent them right.
Back on land, we found a dinner spot called Namaste Tiffins where we were clearly the only tourists. We ordered rice cakes called idli with ghee and a masala dosa, a big rice flour crepe filled with spiced potato. We’d eaten several dosas on the trip by this point, but this one blew the others away. This incredible meal cost around €4. Afterwards, we wanted to go out for a drink, but quickly learned that even in larger cities, alcohol isn’t really a thing in Kerala. Our fancy hotel in Munnar didn’t have a bar, but we assumed that once we got into a city it wouldn’t be difficult to find. We were wrong. So, we decided instead to go to a nearby liquor store to buy something to take back to our room, as we had a nice balcony looking over a not-so-nice stretch of beach. The “liquor store” we found was on the second floor of a strip mall, smelled like a moldering foot, and sold no cold mixers or ice. Even if they had sold ice, we probably wouldn’t have bought it, as nothing in that particular store seemed safe for human consumption. Resigned to sobriety, we tried to get a tuk tuk outside the strip mall to take us back to our room, showing the driver on google maps where we were staying. The man asked if we had the phone number of the owner of the homestay and then demanded that we call it. It was already late in the evening and we did not want to bother our host so we said no thank you and walked off. Why did this tuk tuk driver need us to call our dad before he would drive us home? To our surprise, the next driver we approached also demanded that we call the owner of the homestay, so we figured that we were surely not understanding something about the situation and handed the guy our phone. When we eventually got back to the homestay, we apologized to the owner and asked why the drivers had demanded to call him. He explained that none of the old tuk tuk drivers used smartphones and simply wanted to ask for directions. He had been expecting the call.
Over-the-top, lavishly decorated vehicles were not an uncommon sight
Our cab ride the next morning was infinitely more chill than the one to Alleppey had been. Our next destination, Munroe Island, was further south along the backwaters, and our driver cruised amicably along these better-maintained roads and only used his horn as a seasoning, not a main ingredient. He chuckled when we told him about our nightmare trip the day before and he supposed that the driver was likely a transplant from Tamil Nadu, a nearby state in India; he insisted that native Keralites aren’t nearly so impatient. When he stopped for gas, we saw that it cost around €1 per liter, which was actually more than we had expected based on how cheap the cab rides had been. Busses and trains were theoretically also an option for us to get us around Kerala, but ran infrequently and were not intended for tourists. Cabs were really the only reliable option for long-distance travel, and they only cost around €10 an hour. In a European taxi, €10 barely gets you across the neighborhood.
Munroe Island is not a bustling tourist destination, and that was precisely the reason we were interested in going there. We’d found a few travel blogs that praised the place for its charming, relaxed vibes, and one in particular sang the praises of the Munroe Island Backwaters Homestay and the family that runs it. We spent the majority of our time at the homestay interacting with Vijeesh, a soft-spoken, affable guy who seemed to genuinely enjoy sitting around talking with his international guests. The enormous property housed three generations of Vijeesh’s family on the ground floor, with eight guest rooms on the second and third floors. Meals were prepared by Vijeesh’s sister and mother and then served to the guests together in a communal outdoor sitting area. As usual, everything we ate was delicious.
One of the biggest draws of staying at this particular homestay is that Vijeesh and his father are experienced boatmen and offer to take guests out on the backwaters for both sunrise and sunset excursions. Vijeesh propelled the wooden canoe while standing on its stern with a long wooden stick, constantly pointing out different birds and plants. One fruit that looked like a mango was dubbed the “suicide fruit,” as it was incredibly poisonous. “It’s the most delicious fruit you will ever eat,” Visjeesh explained, “but you only get to eat it once.”
Vijeesh also pointed out how many of the coconut trees lining the edges of the canals were withering away and dying. Global warming has caused the water levels in the backwaters to rise significantly, and when the trees’ roots become submerged, they eventually die. In the rainy season, the canals are freshwater, but in the summer, they become flooded with seawater. As a result, the coconut trees are dying off, and mangrove trees are beginning to take over. A hundred families have already been forced to leave the island because their houses are sinking into the canals.
The trip was timed perfectly so that we emerged into open water right at sunset. Vijeesh propelled us back to the homestay in the dark, with flashes of lightning regularly lighting up the sky and fireflies flickering in the bushes along the edge of the water. Fireworks began to explode in the distance - this was the first night of Diwali, one of the biggest holidays in India. One of the reasons we decided to come to Munroe Island during this time was Goutham’s suggestion that we avoid the chaos that accompanies the holiday in big cities. Vijeesh explained that Diwali is a much bigger deal in Northern India than it is in the south, but people in Kerala still like to set off fireworks to celebrate. Once we got back to shore, we walked into town to find a restaurant for dinner but nothing was open. Back to the homestay, Vijeesh’s little niece was waving sparklers around and screaming as her family members blew up firecrackers in the courtyard. They said it was no problem for us to join for dinner, even though we hadn’t told them beforehand that we would. As we ate, the neighbors - who were originally from the north - detonated an arsenal of huge explosives.
We wanted to explore Munroe Island on foot, but we had learned pretty quickly in Kerala that walking just about anywhere was fraught with peril. If a sidewalk even exists, it is likely smashed into rubble, so you’re almost always stuck walking in the street with errant and unpredictable traffic. There was one short walking path along the edge of the river that Vijeesh sent us along, and it eventually met up with a building where four women were making ropes out of coconut fibers. They waved us over as we approached and quickly put Mazz to work turning a big crank wheel and corralling the threads together into the spooling machine. Once we left the rope makers, we were back on the streets walking around the perimeter of the island, but thankfully this was a relatively quiet place and drivers seemed careful and respectful of foot traffic. As we walked, local teenagers were thrilled to approach and say “Hello!” to us in English, and one child got particularly excited at the sight of Kirb and began to exclaim, “Cowboy! Cowboy!”
There were only a few options for eating out on the island, so we stopped at the Count of Mundro, the one with the best reviews online. The menu in wasn’t particularly specific about the dishes they offered, so we ordered a “chicken curry” without any idea which type of chicken curry it actually was. Instead of rice, this curry was served with a wheat-based flatbread called parotta. As a gluten-free option, Mazz was offered a side of tapioca and coconut called kappa vevichathu, served largely unseasoned and similar to a cut up, steamed potato. The curry was rich and flavorful and one serving was enough to share. The entire meal cost 270 rupees, or €2.70.
Once we had walked to the southern end of the island, we found that we were both thoroughly exhausted. It was hot and humid and we realized that we hadn’t been drinking nearly enough water and were surely dehydrated. We took a tuk tuk back to the homestay and spent the rest of the afternoon reading in their comfy suspended chairs, drinking filtered water spiked with electrolyte packets we’d brought from home, and enjoying the scenery in our jungle homestay. Fireworks continued to explode in the neighbor’s yard.
Our next destination was Kochi, the capital of Kerala, for one last night before flying back to Bangalore for the wedding. We learned from Vijeesh that there is a single train between Munroe Island and Kochi that runs once a day in the morning. The 3+ hour trip costs 40 cents, so we knew it wasn’t going to be the Darjeeling Limited. It was sure to be crowded, but Vijeesh assured us that since Munroe Island was one of the first stops, we should easily be able to find seats. When we got on, most of the seats were already taken, and we were naïve enough to think that only two people would sit per bench. Kirb grabbed a seat first, and not wanting to cram between him and the person already seated by the window, Mazz took a different seat a few rows away. Within minutes, not only had a stranger wedged himself in the center spot next to Kirb, but an impenetrable sea of standing passengers separated us from even being able to see one another. Kirb pulled out a book and read; Mazz made friends with the man seated next to her, an electrical engineer who was baffled by the white woman sitting all by herself on the crowded, rural Indian train.
We chose to stay in Fort Kochi, a seaside area famous for its old-timey Chinese fishing nets and architecture shaped by Dutch, Portuguese, and British colonial influences. Even though it’s a major tourist area in Kochi, it still took an hour and a half to reach by cab from the central train station. We’d booked a cheap room at Gloria Homestay due to its proximity to the old town and waterfront, and as we had come to learn well by this point, you get what you pay for in India. However unglamorous, it did its job, and the older couple who ran the place were kind and talkative, effusing praise for their son who was currently studying and living in Berlin.
Kochi looks like it’s in the middle of being reclaimed by nature; the setting of a post-apocalyptic tale, except millions of people are still living there. The city was built over a jungle, and the jungle is persistently sprouting back out through the seams. Dilapidated, salt-weathered signs on the waterfront warned visitors of “lurking danger” when walking on the beach, as the sand dunes can simply disappear at any time. We were proper hungry after a long day of travel without lunch, so we made our way to a seafood restaurant on the boardwalk that had good reviews. It was closed when we arrived, but several men were sitting outside, so Kirb approached them and asked if the restaurant was going to open soon. They nodded their heads and shrugged, saying, “Maybe tomorrow.”
Kochi had some really magnificent giant trees that looked like they were completely covered in ferns
This was our best opportunity to eat fresh seafood in India, so we found another spot with good reviews simply called Kerala Café and tried our luck there. We ordered spicy thattukada prawns, shaap fish curry made with smoked tamarind, and grilled kingfish marinated in coastal spices. This food was exceptional and worth the trip into Kochi alone.
The cab to the airport the next morning took an hour and a half as well, as there are no proper highways connecting any of the main destinations in Kochi. The owner of the homestay arranged the cab for us and told us what time he thought we should leave, which was 30 minutes later than we assumed we should. Even with such a long cab ride, we still made it to the airport with ample time to eat a proper breakfast before making it through security and to our gate in a matter of minutes. For such a crowded country, the airports strangely never felt crowded at all.
We are mortified by the prospect of coming across as Entitled Americans™ when we travel, and as such, generally go out of our way not to ask for anything at hotels. Even at fancy places like the one we stayed in Munnar, we reflexively object when the staff tries to take our bags and carry them up to our room, only acquiescing when we remember that carrying the bags ourselves will draw extra, unwanted attention. Unfortunately, we had multiple requests for the staff at the Pai Viceroy hotel in Bangalore, and it certainly made us feel like problematic guests. Their services form said they offered expedited laundry, but the front desk was adamant that we couldn’t get clean clothes back until 5pm the following day…at least until we explained that we had no more clean underwear. Upon sharing this fact, we got our laundry back after breakfast the next morning. One lay on our stiff, inflexible mattress and it became clear that three nights sleeping on it would wreak havoc on Mazz’s bad back. The staff dutifully let us test the beds in several other rooms until we finally found a workable solution: two single beds in a significantly smaller room. Kirb needed his suit pressed. When it came back with a completely different set of creases and wrinkles in it, he simply didn’t have the heart to go to front desk another time. He could iron it himself in the room.
Goutham came to pick us up and took us to a shopping district to find some traditional wedding outfits. We’d done our best to pack what we hoped were appropriate clothes for the occasion, but Indian weddings have multiple events and costume changes and we genuinely had no idea what we were in for. Goutham generously bought us each a set of Indian finery for the fanciest of the events, then encouraged us to pick up another set of not-quite-as-fine outfits for the lead-up ceremony. Surprisingly, this was the only part of the trip where Kirb suffered some mild intestinal discomfort, and it was caused by, of all things, a crappy, packaged protein bar he’d eaten for lunch while traveling all afternoon. Kirb grimaced holding in farts as men at the clothing shop took his measurements for alterations. For €20, they not only outfitted him with a kurta and pyjamas, but had the shirt shortened in the time it took us to go get dinner and return. Goutham took us to one of his favorite vegetarian buffets, and based on how Kirb’s stomach was grumbling, he assumed he wasn’t going to eat much for dinner. Then he tasted the food and ended up polishing off several plates. One dish in particular, a spicy, rich chickpea stew called pindi chole, merited return trips to the buffet line.
While paying for parking after dinner, Goutham switched from speaking Kannada to Hindi with the garage operator because he could tell the guy wasn’t from this part of the country. Goutham explained to us that Bangalore is a melting pot of people from all across India, and a lot of people in the city don’t speak the native language. There’s actually quite a lot of racism in India, but it is primarily Indian people being racist towards other Indians from different regions. We remembered how our cabbies in Kerala spoke about non-Keralites and realized we had already witnessed this firsthand. Goutham noticed that tons of people had been trying to get a hold of him while we were at dinner. He had multiple missed calls from his mother, so he called her back and she said that she had called everyone he knows trying to find him, even though Goutham had explicitly told her he was going to be spending the evening with us.
For such a big city, it was surprisingly hard to find activities in Bangalore that we actually wanted to do. Walking around the Lalbagh Botanical Garden seemed like a pleasant way to spend the morning, and it mostly was, though for a paid garden the landscaping was pretty shabby. This garden houses India's largest collection of tropical and sub-tropical plants, with a large, man-made waterfall at its center. The clear highlight of the botanical garden was an enormous white silk cotton tree that was genuinely incredible to behold. It is over 200 years old and was one of the single most impressive trees either of us had ever seen.
Kirb was particularly interested in eating a proper chicken biryani while we were in India. The restaurant we chose, RNR Biryani, ended up serving their own regional version of the dish with green, spicy rice that was fantastic. We spent the afternoon exploring the Jayanagar neighborhood, constantly having our attention pulled toward intricate temples that stood unassumingly between shopping complexes. At one point, we passed an eyeglass store and remembered that Kirb had been wanting to get his prescription checked. Eye tests were free and you could get two sets of frames and lenses for only €60, which felt like a steal. It was! Like we said before, you certainly get what you pay for in India, and both pairs of those glasses were not at all the right prescription and make Kirb’s entire brain hurt when he wears them.
We showed up at the wedding venue when Goutham said the event would begin and found that we were some of the first people to arrive. Eventually, more guests began to trickle in and it became clear that Goutham had asked his cousins and college friends to ensure that we were well taken care of. In the bottom of the building, several long tables were set up for communal eating, with food served by a procession of Brahmin men dressed in draped white cloths called dhoti. We sat down and were served multiple courses laid out on banana leaves. This was a proper sadhya, the first meal our cabbie had taken us to eat en route to Munnar, now appropriately served at a celebratory event. Our cultural guides were happy to explain the order and significance of the foods on the banana leaves in front of us. We ate carefully with our hands, trying not to get goop all over our nice new clothes.
Back upstairs, Mazz had the benefit of sitting next to Chethana, one of Goutham’s closest friends from college, who explained what was happening on the stage and the significance of the wedding rituals. Kirb couldn’t hear any of this, so he tried to make sense of it all by himself. Here is what happens at a traditional Brahmin Hindu wedding, as interpreted by someone who has absolutely no idea what is going on:
Several men with big clarinets and saxophones welcome the entire wedding party to the venue. As a truckload of luggage is brought on stage and then dispersed behind the scenes, guests are encouraged to go downstairs to eat a “snack” as large as an entire meal, served by men wearing only towels. While the stage upstairs is loaded up with baskets of food and gifts, the audience is serenaded with a 30-minute saxophone solo.
The families of the bride and groom sit on stage and give each other presents, then there is chanting while someone rings a bell. One guy in the front leads the chants while a few other guys behind follow in quick succession, almost like they’re competing with one another, so it’s really hard to understand what anyone is saying (also, because they are chanting in Sanskrit). All of the family members onstage pop handfuls of some kind of granulated snack into their mouths. The saxophone solo begins anew.
The bride takes center stage and is showered with gifts by the groom’s family; the mother adorns her with jewelry and makeup and flower garlands. There is a whole platter of bananas on the front of the stage, seemingly ignored. The groom comes forth and his forehead is given a red streak. He is handed a set of new clothes and leaves the stage to go put them on. A procession of the bride’s family carries silver trays with food and gifts as offerings. The tray of bananas is gone now, and upon closer inspection, the fruit has been transferred to a basket that is next to the officiant. Are they his bananas now? A delicious fee for his priestly services? An energy source for his fervent chanting and bell ringing?
One of the presents given to the groom is a sizable doll of…his future bride? One can only assume that this is a simulacrum representing the transference of the bride from her family to her new husband. We ask our cultural interpreter Chethana and she explains that the doll is made of chocolate and simply represents “something cute.” Surely, she must be mistaken.
With all the presents dispersed, it is time for a photo shoot. Mazz is given kumkuma - red and yellow powders made from turmeric and saffron for her face - and we are peer-pressured to eat pinches of sugar and coconut out of a bowl that hundreds of strangers’ hands have already dug around in. The room is now full and very, very warm.
Everyone goes back downstairs for dinner, which is no small amount of food after already having eaten just a few hours before. We had been told Indian weddings involved a lot of eating, and that was certainly not an exaggeration. After the meal, we try paan for the first time: a “mouth freshener” with strong spices wrapped in betel leaf, meant to be chewed and possibly swallowed. Paan is…not for us. Goutham is seated at a specially-decorated spot on the floor and when Mazz goes over to say hello and good night she is chastised for approaching him while wearing shoes. We flee in shame.
End Day One.
We were once again some of the first people to arrive the following morning, this time in our finest outfits that Goutham had gifted us, as this was the event with the actual nuptials. Not knowing entirely how things would work that day, we ate breakfast first at the hotel (they made particularly good masala dosas). Of course, breakfast was also served at the wedding, and when we informed Goutham’s cousins that we had already eaten, they looked at us like we had just ripped a big fart. After breakfast, we were again accompanied by Chethana and the ceremony continued. Here is what Kirb saw:
Everyone gathers out on the front steps of the venue and it’s hard to see what is happening, but powders are applied to Goutham’s face as a man stands behind him with an ornate gold umbrella. In the crowd, we are all handed rice, presumably to pelt the groom with. Indeed, this is what the rice is for, and the gold umbrella does little to shield the onslaught of tiny grains.
Today, there is a large video screen set up that allows the audience to see the intricacies of the rituals. On stage, Goutham eats a tiny spoonful of something and then is handed a whole coconut. A saxophone solo begins. Several men fiddle with a large, yellow rubber band. A cloth is held up and Goutham faces it. The bride is carried in behind the sheet, and everyone on stage starts chanting. The sheet drops and Goutham sees his bride, presumably for the first time. She looks only slightly similar to the doll he was presented the night before. Goutham’s back is to the audience, so it is impossible to tell if he is pleased or disappointed.
The bride and groom face each other and are chanted over as they hold the coconut together. Water is poured over the bride’s father’s hands onto the coconut, much like what we saw at the wedding we attended in Thailand. The couple fill their hands with rice and dump the contents over each other’s heads. They sit and are surrounded by string held by family members: this is likely called “the Octagon of Matrimony.” The string is used to tie two coconuts together, and more string is tied around couple’s wrists. The bride is given a new saree from the groom’s family, and then everyone claps and cheers when Goutham places a necklace around Hema. It is hard to tell if this necklace - as opposed to a Western ring - is the climax of the Hindu wedding. We ask our interpreter and she clarifies that the couple is indeed now married. Kirb immediately starts singing, “You put the string on the coconut, and then you’re married,” in the style of Nilsson, much to Mazz’s chagrin. On stage, there is more tying of strings, gift giving, and photo shoots for a significant amount of time.
Now there’s an open fire on stage and Goutham is spooning small amounts of liquid onto it. The bride sticks up her thumb, Goutham grabs onto it, and they circle the fire. They pour some rice on the flames and he leads her by the thumb around the fire again. This repeats. The bride begins stepping on multiple small piles of rice. The room is almost entirely full now and barely anyone is paying attention to what is happening on the stage. We realize that the role of the crowd in this wedding is entirely passive; at no point have we been addressed or asked to listen or participate in any way. No one is ever explicitly told what is happening or why; you just know, or Chethana helpfully explains it to you. Then, with no apparent pomp or circumstance, the ceremony is over, so everyone goes downstairs and eats lunch and then goes home.
Day 2 Intermission.
There was a muliple hour window between the first event of the day and the evening program, during which Hema was officially invited into Goutham’s family home for several more rituals. We figured we should probably spend that time figuring out what we were going to do the following day. Our flight home the next evening wasn’t until 10pm, so we had a lot of time to fill. Originally, we had booked a driver to take us out to some ornate temples east of Bangalore, but once we looked into it a little closer, we realized that all of the temples were closed for the afternoon at the exact time we would have been there. So, we walked to a coffee shop to figure out what the hell we were going to do with ourselves for an entire day in a city where there wasn’t anything we particularly wanted to do. On our way, there was a cow standing in front of the community college. We couldn’t help but point and remark, “That cow goes to college.” Another cow came up and started eating all the potted plants in front of the coffee shop and then was promptly shooed away by an employee.
We wore our Western finery to the evening program and thankfully didn’t feel awkwardly out of place. Kirb looked very professional in his suit, so much so that a man approached him and started talking about aerospace business. Kirb gently guided the man towards Mazz and the two of them connected on LinkedIn instead.
After dinner, the rest of the evening was essentially a talent show, with friends and family of the bride and groom taking turns on stage doing choreographed dances. Most of the time, it seemed like only one or two people up there actually knew the dance and everyone else just tried their best to follow along. Goutham and Hema were regularly brought on stage to participate, though Hema had her own choreographed set piece. For some reason, whoever was DJing the event kept cutting away from songs abruptly, to the clear displeasure of everyone dancing on stage. Goutham’s cousins tried valiantly to drag Mazz up on stage to dance in front of everyone and Mazz politely but steadfastly declined. We were already a spectacle at the wedding simply by being there, and neither of us relished the prospect of garnering even more attention. Eventually, the cousins took the hint and left poor Mazz alone. The night ended with another big photo shoot and we queued up with everyone else in the building one last time for a chance to give a final thanks to Goutham and Hema for inviting us to such a grand event. We will likely never attend another wedding quite like it.
With one final day in Bangalore to fill before our late-night flight, we decided to engage in a cultural event that was decidedly low-stakes: we went to see a movie. Specifically, we went to see an Indian blockbuster action movie that we would never have been able to see in the theater elsewhere. The hotel agreed to hold on to our bags, allowing us to take a tuk tuk across town to spend the early afternoon exploring the enormous Vidhana Soudha government building and nearby Cubbon Park. We were pleasantly surprised to find that this public park was substantially nicer than the botanical garden that we had paid to enter. The huge grounds were gorgeously manicured and filled with lush, tropical vegetation. For lunch we stopped at a restaurant in the Church Street shopping district that specifically sold North Indian cuisine - the typical fare found in the majority of European and American Indian restaurants. It was certainly good, though surprisingly not anything one couldn’t find at a particularly good spot elsewhere in the world. The film we saw, Kantara: A Legend - Chapter 1, was absolutely unhinged in the best possible way, completely overstimulating the eyes and ears for nearly three hours. This was our first time watching an Indian action blockbuster and we were thoroughly entertained.
Shrines inside Cubbon Park
When we left the theater, Kirb’s phone was frustratingly no longer connected to the internet, and it was time to start heading back across town to pick up our bags and make our way to the airport. Presumably, his esim had run out of data, but he couldn’t check if that was the case without Wifi, and none of the shops on Church Street would let you connect to Wifi without an Indian phone number. It took two coffee shops and a complete stranger nicely agreeing to use his personal information get Wifi on Kirb’s phone before we could finally buy a new esim and call an Uber. The first cab we called cancelled, then the second refused to meet us where we had asked. We couldn’t understand anything the guy was saying on the phone, but somehow, we ran the right direction and found him waiting down the street for us. Rush hour traffic in Bangalore is brutal. Ambulances with sirens are stuck in gridlock with everyone else and no one seems willing or able to let them pass; scooters and tuk tuks circumvent congestion by fully driving on the sidewalk. There are no rules. We grabbed our bags at the hotel and called a second Uber to the airport, and upon departure, it said our ride should take an hour and a half. Stressed out of our minds, we finally pulled up to the airport 2 hours and 15 minutes later. It had taken over 4 hours to get from the movie theater to Jayanagar to the airport. But once again, as soon as we got inside, there were no lines at the airline counter or security checkpoint and we breezed right through to our gate. Exhausted, we took our seats for the red-eye long haul and synchronized Lord of the Rings on our video displays - something calming and familiar we could enjoy while zoning out and falling asleep.
India is a place of extremes: huge, loud, vibrant, crowded, extravagant, ragged, exhilarating, and exhausting. When the vacation was done, we certainly did not leave feeling refreshed or reinvigorated, but we did feel accomplished, and satisfied with the choices we had made. Despite the myriad dangers India presents to foreign immune systems, we never once got sick, though we were ever mindful to keep our hands clean, apply mosquito spray regularly, and avoid tap water and problematic foods. Despite the strong warnings, we didn’t go quite as far as our friend Ruthie had recommended: We did end up eating plenty of wonderful fruit in Kerala, as long as it was prepared in a kitchen that was obviously thoughtful about not poisoning their Western clientele. We both assumed that getting sick was going to come with the territory of eating in India, but we assumed wrong. Instead, we were treated to some of the most consistently excellent food we have enjoyed on any of our trips; literally every single meal we were served was delicious. The scenery in Kerala was gorgeous, and the people were as kind and welcoming as you could ever hope. Getting between any two places - whether on foot, in a tuk tuk, or in a cab - was certainly always an adventure with no shortage of thrills and danger. There is simply a different flow to life in India, and you can either move along with the current or get pummeled by it. By the end of the trip, it felt like every one of our senses had been overstimulated to the point of exhaustion. We’re glad we got the chance to experience that.