Landing in the unmissable Ahmedabad, which is said to be both modern and traditional, we were welcomed by a really bad air pollution and we almost shorten our stay there for this reason. Finally, after a bit of organization, we tried to close our eyes (and our mouth), the air pollution peak passed and we could have a glimpse at this particular city of North India.
Honestly, we didn’t take enough time to really discover Ahmedabad and we only did a little sightseeing there. We’ll still remember our stroll through the muslim bazaar of the town-center, a lively mess, in the middle of which stands, like a concrete spaceship, the Prembhai Hall from Balkrishna Doshi (the first Indian architect who recently received the Pritzker Prize). Inside this animated neighborhood, the Jama Masjid is also an oasis of calm with its serene forest of pillars. Apart from that and Gandhi’s ashram (interesting but not spectacular), we haven’t seen anything from Ahmedabad. Nevertheless, we weren’t feeling bad to quit this city…

We could then start the stepwells route. Stepwells are architectural gems from Gujarat and Rajasthan, you have to imagine some kind of inverted temples, dug in the earth with a multitude of sculptures, shrines, pillars… Their role was to keep water in these very dry regions and make sure Hindu Gods would remain auspicious for the people living there. We started by the stepwell of Adalaj, almost in Ahmedabad suburbs which already surprised us with the richness of its architecture. Then, we passed by Patan, and while we were hesitating to stop on our way to the North, we had a look at the Rani-ki-Vav, an other highly carved stepwell of this region. Here, we almost had vertigo, discovering how deep, magnificent and well maintained it was (it was discovered recently as it was covered by mud for centuries). Finally, we didn’t forget the not less attractive sun temple of Modhera which is also hosting a superb water-tank with elaborated steps and shrines all around.

Full of symmetric and spectacular architectures, we could proceed to Rajasthan with its promises of unconquerable forts, unique temples, romantic palaces and… non-veg restaurants serving some alcohol (as in Gujarat, alcohol is forbidden and the State is highly vegetarian).
In Rajasthan, we did a sort of loop around Udaipur, before finishing smoothly our stay in the city. The surroundings of the most romantic city of Rajasthan (and certainly of India), are full of heritage attractions. We started with the Jain temple of Ranakpur, unreal show of white marble intricate carvings, then we admired the colored rural life of the adjacent valleys leading us to the unbeatable and picturesque Kumbalgarh fortress before trying to understand the legend and larger than life size of the Chittorgarh fort-city.

It was about time to end our trip, having some rest while enjoying the charms of a Maharaja’s life on the banks of the Pichola lake, going from one palace to an other… Udaipur has a wonderfull appeal and we almost forgot about it!

This short trip has reminded us how India is diverse and how these regions seem far away from our daily life in South India. It’s also the mythical India, the one of the maharajas, of the one thousand and one nights and other legends that we all think about when we hear “India”. We could really experience and feel the power of this History over there. An exotic trip then!… even for people staying in India all year long.

It was years since our last visit there so we were eager to compare what we still had in mind and the reality. Right in the taxi, we could again feel this particular vibe and energy, specific to Bombay, the “Maximum City”! We felt like countrymen coming to the big city. All is “more” in Bombay and as we always say, it’s the only city in India which really feel like a real “city”.

Apart from that disconnect compare to what we live in Bangalore, we were quickly recognizing everything we knew about Bombay and this feeling was just increasing as we were going down the city to South Bombay where the exhibition was happening and where we were staying.

Sassoon Docks are a very unique place in Bombay. Located between the affluent Cuffe Parade and the touristic Colaba, those docks are an enclave of traditional and fishermen population. It’s a riot of colors and fierce odors where you meet fishermen, coolies and prawn-peelers who are starting their day during the night and finishing it in the morning.

Having a contemporary and street art exhibition there was producing a great contrast and pushing different groups to meet. Exhibition was great and art pieces were rich, entertaining and very diverse. This kind of endeavor is also quite rare in India, so not to be missed.
For the rest, Johanne having a foot in a plaster cast and our son Noé falling sick, we limited our visits to the few neighborhoods of South Bombay. That was still an oppotunity to experience the eternal (but fading) charms of this part of the city: from the small lanes of Fort to the mythic Leopold Café, passing by Marina Drive and stopping to one of the Irani Café still opened.

We finally came back from Bombay with mixed feelings. We were happy to find again, almost untouched the city that we loved but also a bit sad to find out that not much was evolving (the subway being under construction between Colaba and the airport might soon bring a wind of change). We also know that the parts of the city which are changing fast are more around Lower Parel, but the South seems at times dumped, with a fading heritage.

Also, the fog, typical of this season was accentuated by a strong air pollution, restricting us from seeing the sun. And this advertising message, right in the context, from a bank, seen on a billboard on our way back to the airport: “Saving is like pollution, it’s only when it’s too late that everybody’s worrying about it”

PS: sorry to finish this post again on an “air pollution” note and sorry for making some of you worrying with our second to last post on the same theme. Since then, we’re checking daily the air quality in Bangalore (that we compare with other cities in the world) and we stopped being too much paranoid about that. Bangalore air quality isn’t that bad. So the time for an emergency come-back to France because of a pollution crisis isn’t yet happening for us, but we remain on alert.

Initially, that development and those changes were really exciting. Coming from sleepy and museum cities of Europe, we were fascinated by all this energy, those big projects coming up like the metro, the new airport, flyovers, new buildings etc… Today, we’re wondering. Is this development any good? The city is losing its charms and the pollution is increasing (we had a tough reminder on that recently).
The “green city” of India tagline is less and less relevant (even if big parks remain and there are still impressive trees on some roads) as the expanding city and the emerging middle class have resulted in a boom of new cars deployed in the city. And the process is accelerating. Of course, infrastructures can’t keep up with this pace, resulting in more and more traffic. Still, some projects have finally seen the light and we celebrated last year the completion of the metro phase 1 (two lines) after years of delay. This elevated metro has already changed the face of the city giving it a “world-class city” touch. Bangalore has even been ranked as the “most dynamic city” in the world.
So, quite fascinated by this city in the making and theses new landscapes, I started a photo series long time back about the main junctions of Bangalore by night. I haven’t done as many as I intended too yet but it’s a work in progress and I wanted to share the first ones I have. I’m trying to capture here the modern beauty of this urban development, sometimes scary…

Cherai Beach has an interesting geographical situation. Close to Kochi, on Vypin island, Cherai beach is a kind of peninsula, no more than 100 meters wide in some parts with one side on the seafront and on the other one on the backwaters. Honestly, the ocean side sin’t the most beautiful beach we’ve ever seen in India (even if it’s always enjoyable to jump in the waves). On the backwaters side though, it’s a true oasis of calm. From here we can gaze at fishermen using the famous chinese nets which looks very clean and “real” compared to those we can see in Kochi… (they fish with a lamp at night, some shrimps and little fishes). You can take little boat to cross a river, walk on path not larger than a few meters surrounded by rivers… On a boat you can also discover the life going on in that unique atmosphere, and, going a little bit further, you can even see a small harbour populated by cartoonist big coloured fishboats.

We even tooke the opportunity to go for a day in Kochi, where it’s always nice to wander in its historical tiny streets.

Easily accessible from the Kochi Airport, this revitalizing place is a perfect getawy from busy Bangalore… we’ll certainly be back !

We’re not alone on board, an other Nicolas, previously intern at Titri (that’s how we’ve met him) is on this project 100% of his time. He had the persistence to stay and develop the project during more than a year before the adventure finally came up, so kudos to him! When we say that the most important thing in India is patience, it’s not a joke…And as if two Nicolas weren’t enough, a third one has joined us very recently!

We’ll skip the details of the last struggling months to finally reach the objective: we’re launching this saturday our food-truck named “Le Casse-Croûte” !
The idea is quite simple, serving toasted sandwiches (inspired by our french croque-monsieur), customized with our ideas, good french fries (cooked the north France and Belgium way, double fried), gaspacho all fresh all good, and caramel cream as dessert. We wanted something french (or at least european) but simple cause western cuisine is most of the time only found in high level restaurants here. We wanted to show that we can cook “french street food”, not that expensive and with local products. Indeed, we import nothing, we wanted to do it the “locavore” and the homemade way. So we’ve learnt to make bread, French mustard etc… If you want to know more about that, visit our website here.

Concerning the truck, we wanted something with character and, as you might know, we love “vintage” vehicules. It has been a long time we had a crush on the Matador, a long Indian van with nice curves, sort of VW combi but more “rustic”.
So we’ve bought one (not in a good shape) and after some adventures we’ve found a mechanical and a kitchen maker to modify it and turn it into a wonderful foodtruck! (it took us more than 6 month!).

After a session with friends last week-end, the D-Day coming this week-end with our launching event at the Alliance Française in Bangalore where we’ll serve from 1pm to 8pm if the weather (and our stocks) are allowing us. We’ll also organize a little “pétanque” tournament from 3.30pm so if you are in Bangalore this Saturday September 12th, join us!

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