Indian Burger King

My visit to Burger King in India was delightful.  Hash brown was spiced with red chilli flakes.  Ice lemon tea felt very local.  So much of vegetarian choice with local flavours!!  

Chennai, Grand Park - a Boutique Hotel

We had to stay around this area for convenience. With so much of road works around area, getting stuck in the traffic was pretty easy. We were very happy to chose this hotel.

A small hotel we found on agoda.com with a couple of reviews. We were hesitant. We were sceptical. We checked-in middle of the night with very little expectation of any quality of food or service. However, as our couple of days work stay stretched to almost couple of weeks,  we didn't even think of finding another place.

The food was good! My most favourite was South Indian thali at lunch. Simple. But very tasty, healthy and truly Tamil. Breakfast was sumptuous. Soups, pastas were more tastier than expected.

The staff were attentive prompt and helpful. The ambience is good. The rooms were kept clean and tidy.  The linen were crispy.  I truly relaxed in the room after a tired day's work.

The attitude of the management is remarkable.  They seek constructive feedback.

All in all, good positive vibes and I recommend to anyone who are not brand and star conscious and f

ussy to try their hospitality. 

Restaurant on the way to Mount Nebo

As a vegetarian, and being a diabetic, I always worry about options on my tours. Though compared to many of my family members and friends from the same community, I am much of an adventurer when it comes to food. I like to taste new varieties of food from around the world.

When we planned Jordan, though many write ups on net mentioned amazing food available, I was skeptical. However, after the trip, I decided to visit middle east more to explore their culture and cuisine as their spread of vegetarian food is unimaginably colourful and delicious.

Though every restaurant was hesitant, offered vegetarian options as they were not sure what they were offering will be of my liking or not. For them, the main course is meat based and the "vegetarian" preparations are on the side. For me, those salads, dips, baked or steamed vegetables, breads, etc were more than enough.

This Restaurant Souk near Mt Nebo was the only restaurant for the tourists. Many Christians visiting Mt Nebo were like on pilgrimage. We observed many of them were fasting or on diet restrictions or somewhat were like vegetarians as they were picking food from the buffet was mostly vegetables.

The restaurant staff were very service oriented and were quick to every request.

Restaurant Terrace Souk : https://goo.gl/maps/TD6Cq7yK3662





 

Best Kunafe in Aman City

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanafeh

On the second day of our Jordan tour, Nabil, our guide challenged us to a quick food tour for our lunch. After a hefty lunch at the famous Hashem Restaurant, we walked down the street towards Habibah Alley to grab dessert just like locals. As we approached the alley, we started bumping into people standing around with plates, scooping out something like caramel topped with pistachios. 

This is the first time I tried a middle east dessert and threw in towel, and bowed to their sweet obsession. As an Indian, I was always mocked for my sweet tooth. Here, I felt that Indians and their crazy obsession with sugar is nothing!

There were a few varieties. What we have tasted was a very soft cheese, topped with deep fried crispy noodles dipped in thick sugar syrup and topped with pistachios. 

We felt that, the portion was big enough to be a snack not an after meal dessert. None of us could not complete our take. 

Next time, we will be prepared.

Best cooling drink in Jordan

Madaba, Jordan - Christian Pilgrimage

Contact for the Pilgrim
stay at
Church of St.George

Church of St. George or Church of Map is one of the primary locations in Madaba Jordan for Pilgrims. Since late 19th century, the place is well known for the wonderful archaeological findings dates back to 5th Century CE.

The earlier Churches in the region are famous for their mosaics which tell stories from Bible.

The pilgrim house is believed to be the best place for rest and rejuvenation for the devotees who wants to explore the roots of the faith.

You can visit the FB page of the Pilgrim House for more updates.

https://www.facebook.com/pilgrimshousemadaba/

Inside Church of St. George

Tree of life - Petra

Tree of life is the first from the right

Petra - in Latin it means Rock. The name is given by ancient Greek merchants witnessing the wast mountain ranges in the desert.  The place was believed to be inhabited as early as nine thousand BCE. Nabataeans, one of the nomadic tribes of Arabian desert, were the occupants of this area.

Nabateans were polytheistic and worshipped a wide variety of gods. The Gods were represented mostly as abstract stone sculptures and their sacred places are adorned with geometric designs. Nabateans believed in afterlife, practiced ritual sacrifices. Petra, mainly the siq has many temples and worshiping places which clearly show the regular habitual life of Nabateans filled with religious practices. 

Petra was a multi cultural hub. Being a trade hub along the ancient silk route, the place witnessed cultural interaction, religious diversity, philosophical patronage along with exchange of material wealth. This small stone carving of "Tree of life" as believed today, represents the later part of Nabateans life, when Christianity was adopted by the inhabits.

However, the question still remains as is it really the "Tree of life" that is mentioned in the Bible or is it just another worshiping symbol of Pre-Islamic religions from the desert?

Shopping in Ahmedabad

My daughter always wanted to buy something very traditional in Gujarat. We went looking for some nice gaghras, something bandhini or bandhani work material etc etc and some jewellery specially metal.

Our friends, arrived a couple of months earlier in Ahmedabad, called two autos for all nine of us and we were bit skeptical. My husband even insisted for an aircon taxi to be safe from all the dust. But our friend insisted that we go by auto.

As we reached Relief Road, I completely understood my friend's point. This part of Ahmedabad was so crowded that if left alone, I will prefer to walk. I was told that because of the holiday (24th Dec) the crowd is a little bit more.

Very skillfully the auto fellow drove us to Central Bank of India and asked us to get down to take a walk. I was too scared even to think of getting out of the auto. He pointed to the road opposite and asked us to walk around and look for everything and anything we want to buy. He promised to pick us up when we finish our shopping. He gave us his number.

As we crossed the road, I started seeing colourful sarees, dress materials hung on the shops. The street is so full of shops with displays that we barely saw any physical barrier between the shops! The walk was pretty interesting with vehicles on both the sides AND pedestrians trying to make their way.

This place along the Ratan Pole Road, Tankshal, has variety of fancy material. However, when we asked for something more authentic, with a touch of ethnicity, we were told to go to Rani no Hajiro. For me, who has no knowledge of Gujrati, all I could I understand was Rani and Haji. Where is it? Non of us understood how to go there.

We said many thanks to a kind shop fellow (he is kind and angel because he spoke to us even after we told him we are not interested in his merchandise. Others just ignored us)  who told us in clear Hindi to move forward and go to the end of the road.

We reached the end of the road to Gandhi Road. We asked a few around and didn't get any reply. May be they didn't understand our Hindi. We marched ahead past a huge 'Mukhwas' shop into a smaller lane. Here, NOBODY knew where is Rani no Hajiro!!!!!

We all started getting tired and irritated. Then an old man pointed his finger towards a small lane, which in normal circumstances we would have walked past without a second thought. 

Whola!!!! There inside this small lane, we found what we wanted!!! Hand made jewellery, very ethnic style gaghra cholies, and shoes. Lovely collection and reasonably priced. The shop owners were not at all pushy in their sales. They were very patient to show us almost everything they have!!

Citizen safety taken seriously - TamilNadu, India

Woodlands Interchange is temporarily moving!!