No-one wanted to go to a spice shop. "It's on the other side of town" muttered Ravi. "Do you REALLY need to buy MORE spices?" groaned Alan unhelpfully. Needless to say, Alan is not overly fond of curry.

I ignored the protest. After all, I had mentioned this request on many occasions. We had done very little shopping and the purchase of some real Indian spices was the only thing I wanted to do before we left India. I am a devout food lover and adore cooking. And I take much pleasure at re-creating meals we have eaten during our travels when we return home to Australia.

Fortunately for me at least, the unhappy trip was worthwhile. The spice shop was well set up for tourists, providing a wide array of wonderful packaged spices ready for transport. Australia has some of the strictest quarantine regulations in the world and I was relieved that the spices were fully sealed. The aroma of the shop was out of this world - well for a curry lover. Alan, Ravi and Ajay sat purposely in the car while undeterred I bought a variety of mixed hand ground and whole spices.

OK, I got the message: "It's boiling hot, we have had enough so don't frig about".... The spices were expensive (350 rupees each packet) but I am still using them a year later and they have remained fresh and fragrant - and make curries to die for. I am including my recipe for a simple chicken and sweet potato (or taro) curry using my Jaipur bought Indian curry masala spices (see below).

The spices I bought were labelled with the "Vatika" brand name. The store name and address is: Bhagat Vatika, Hawa Sadak, Jaipur, Rajasthan.

After a long morning's touring and some very swift spice shopping, it was wonderful to return to our lovely Samode Haveli Hotel and flop on the bed in the air-conditioned luxurious comfort of our beautifully appointed room. And drink some ice cold beer.

The temperature was again in the mid forties and far too hot to contemplate even wandering around the Haveli. For the first time during our travels I decided to have a swim in the hotel pool. Alan told me I was mad and would surely contract some shocking exotic skin disease, or even worse become infested by some ghastly enteric nematode. Despite my revulsion of providing a personal hotel venue to a family of blood sucking Helminths (Ascaris species or large roundworm I know can grow to 35 cm and can actually end up hanging out of your nostrils as well as your anus...), I was too hot to worry. And I need not have worried.

The huge crystal clear rectangular pool was flanked by a delightful colonial styled building housing a pool bar and shaded sitting areas with sparkling white marble floors. Beautifully sculptured cupped archways invited me in to the comfort of one of the pool bar's large cane chairs. A waiter politely asked if I would like anything to drink. I wished I had taken some money with me. A gin and tonic would have gone down very well.

Around the pool were lie back chairs stacked with cushions and enormous thick white towels. The pool was sublime. Apart from three German tourists, there were no other guests in sight.

Floating blissfully on my back a muezzin from a nearby mosque called the Azan (the Islamic call to prayer recited by a muezzin or reciter, traditionally five times per the day from the mosque's minaret). We have heard the call of the Azan so may times during our travels through Muslim countries. And every time it has a profound yet somewhat intangible spiritual effect on us. Hauntingly beautiful, the Muezzin's voice rose higher and higher, louder and louder in glorious hypnotic rhythm.

It was a euphoric and spiritual experience, very reminiscent of what I had witnessed in the Deosai Plains of north-eastern Pakistan (refer Entry 9: "A Spiritual Experience and Shoot Only with a Camera!"); only that unlike my Deosai experience, it was not followed by an awful feeling of utter foreboding, just a wonderful serene calm. Still blissfully floating on my back, I was reminded again of how fortunate we were to be able to travel to such exotic and interesting destinations.

Alan and I are not at all religious, at least not in the conventional sense. We have however individually witnessed memorable "spiritual" experiences such as this during our travels over the years. Alan had become simply spell bound and overcome by what he described as "a powerful presence" while he sat outside the entrance to the Zen Gogi Buddhist Temple in Nagano, Japan some years ago. Hmm, well actually it was the day that the huge earthquake destroyed much of nearby Niigata (and rocked the socks off our Nagano Hotel) and where we were supposed to travel the following day.... Perhaps this was warning sign? We didn't get to Niigata either...

Sadly, it was too hot to sit outside even in the evening. The Haveli restaurant overlooked a delightful paved terrace with fountains and outside dining and seating on one side and shady green lawns and gardens on the other. We would have loved to sit outside but because of the ferocious heat opted to have pre-dinner drinks inside the restaurant.

The interior of the gorgeous Samode Haveli restaurant is one of its most memorable features - which is really saying something. The splendid intricately carved furnishings, huge crystal chandeliers and exquisitely hand painted walls, panels and arches took our breath away. Yes, it was absolute opulence. And we loved it.

Staff was polite but friendly. Sadly for the restaurant, we were the only guests on the two nights we dined there. For us, it was bliss at we sat sipping several gins and tonic.

Alan drew my attention to a uniformed man walking stiffly around the gardens outside. Wielding an over sized rifle, the man appeared to be deadly serious about his mission, aiming his rifle at what appeared to be very high targets. Perhaps he was the cause of the loud gunshots the evening before? As it turned out, he was. The armed man was taking warning pot shots above the monkeys surrounding the fence line of the hotel. Having being swamped by naughty monkeys at the Oberoi Cecil Hotel in Shimla, we could well understand why they were less than welcome at the Samode Haveli.

The trees in the grounds of the Haveli were called locally as Ashok*. We had not seen them before but they were simply beautiful, luxuriant in growth and foliage and very much a tropical rainforest species. The grounds were kept immaculately. A splendid setting for our last meal at this lovely hotel.


* Wikipedia describes the wonderful Ashok trees:

"The Ashoka (Ashok) is a rain-forest tree. Its original distribution was in the central areas of the Deccan plateau, as well as the middle section of the Western Ghats in the western coastal zone of the Indian Subcontinent.The Ashoka is prized for its beautiful foliage and fragrant flowers. It is a very handsome, small, erect evergreen tree, with deep green leaves growing in dense clusters.

As a wild tree, the Ashoka is a vulnerable species. It is becoming rarer in its natural habitat, but isolated wild Ashoka trees are still to be found in the foothills of central and eastern Himalayas in scattered locations of the northern plains of India as well as on the west coast of the Subcontinent near Mumbai."

An early night was needed. we were travelling to Delhi by car the following day. Although it was not all that far, we knew that the traffic would be awful. Understandably, an early start was requested by Ravi.

Thankfully, we both slept very well and were not aware that a power outage had occurred and apparently there was no lighting or cooling at all in the hotel or its surrounds.

Note: Thankfully, to this day I have not noticed any giant Ascaris worms dangling from any of my private orifices!


MY RECIPE FOR CHICKEN AND SWEET POTATO OR TARO CURRY  (Serves two)

Ingredients

*    Two skinless chicken thigh fillets, fat removed and diced or thickly sliced
*    One large brown onion thinly sliced
*    One piece of white sweet potato or taro diced
*    One large clove of garlic
*    One large ripe tomato or the equivalent amount of small sweet grape tomatoes chopped
*    One handful of fresh coriander stems and leaves
*    One to two teaspoons of Vatika chicken masala (this makes a mild to medium heat curry)
*    One teaspoon garam masala (I make my own)
*    A few fresh kaffir lime leaves, bruised
*    One 270 ml can coconut milk
*    A splash of light oil (grape seed oil works well)
*    Salt to taste

Method

In a smallish frying pan, fry onions very slowly until golden. Add curry masala and fry for one minute, adding a little water if it sticks. Add garlic and saute for 30 seconds.

Add tomatoes and cook until pulpy. Add coconut milk, kaffir lime leaves and coriander stems. Simmer very slowly for around ten minutes or until thickened. Leave stand for at least 30 minutes.

When near ready to serve, heat the curry mixture and add chicken, sweet potato and garam masala. Add salt to taste. Simmer very gently until cooked. Add coriander leaves and serve with rice and warm roti. A side dish of diced banana and paw paw (papaya) sprinkled with grated coconut and chopped avocado and tomato go well with this curry.

This curry (minus the sweet potato) freezes well.


  

MORE PHOTOS OF THE GORGEOUS SAMODE HAVELI