After we discovered we were placed in rooms next door to one and other, the night that followed the final day of the NH7 Weekender Festival took a turn for adventure with Ed, Jack and Jack’s lovely girlfriend. Keeping it simple, we ended up drinking a few too many Kingfishers as we ran around Pune into the early morning on Tuk Tuks, ending up back at the hotel drinking the Fosters in our minibar. Waking up the next morning with the sort of headache one shouldn’t acquire from a night drinking just beer, much of the morning was spent with my head in the toilet; my stomach already a little uneasy from the barrage of Indian food in its system over the previous 48 hours.
With much of the rest of the Australian touring party having also partied until the wee hours of the morning – in particular Karnivool – the day got off to a late start as we jumped in our cars and headed back to Mumbai. What should have been a 3 hour journey was once again around the 6 hour mark; our driver getting lost before he’d even left Pune, getting into two minor accidents along the way. It would be fair to say that this was an at times terrifying journey. The ignorance of drivers here was fairly unbelievable; I definitely have a new found respect for Australian taxi drivers, made to look rather glorious in this new light.
I was lucky enough, however, to be travelling back to Mumbai with locally based Zain, who was working for the company putting on the festival, Only Much Louder. A fascinating guy, we spent a lot of the trip talking about music, and I discovered a few Indian artists along the way. Sky Rabbit was one I was told I had to listen to more when I returned home. Naturally, I advised him of a few Australian artists to keep his ears out for, too.
By the time we’d returned to Mumbai and settled into our new hotel (a glorious five star establishment right near the airport), we’d well and truly lost our day and it was time to head out for dinner. Over the course of my time in India, I would try and spend some time travelling around with each of the participating bands. Tonight, it was Karnivool‘s turn, as they kindly invited me out to dinner. So we jumped in some taxi’s and away we went, off to partake of some Southern Indian Vegetarian delights at a restaurant called Banana Leaf.
Recommended to us by Anuj from Only Much Louder, who also joined us for dinner, I have to say I have no idea what I ate in that evening, bar something that I think was Paneer. All I can say is that it was spicy (the Southern Indian style of cooking is much spicer than that of the North’s… so I’m told and so I experienced), and delicious. One part of the meal I did understand was the Mango Lassi… easily the best I’ve ever had. I would go onto learn a lot about Indian cooking during my travels, as I enjoyed intricate flavours I’d never before experienced.
Oh… and then there was dessert…
The big difference, I’m told, is in the fats and oils they use when cooking. Ghee and Lard is of common place here, and this, in combination with other spices often too difficult or expensive to obtain elsewhere, makes for some of the most flavourful meals I’ve ever experienced. But it’s also these added differences that will often cause Dehli Belly – the dreaded “traveller’s diarrhea” that unfortunately most of our group did not avoid. It certainly hit some worse than others, but for now I was definitely OK – hangover irrespective.
After so much running around for all of us over the past few days, it was nice to get to sit down and enjoy some local delicacies with the guys of Karnivool, who are without a doubt some of the funniest guys I’ve met, letting me in on a few of their “how to cure travel boredom” techniques along the way. Typically it seemed to involve iPhone apps… the sorts of things we all do to pass the time when we need to. Needless to say this made for an entertaining evening.
DINNER GETS BRUTAL.
The next day some of us headed into the Nokia Connects Music Conference in Mumbai, a two day event that included myself as a speaker alongside people such as the legendary Steve Lillywhite and our very own Michael Chugg. This was definitely the business side of the trip… more on that in Part Six…
READ THE OTHER NINE PARTS OF THIS SERIES HERE.
