The Meal of Champions...or not

I think Wheaties had an ad campaign in conjunction with the Olympics when I was a kid and the slogan was "Breakfast. The meal of champions" or something like that.

Here in India, people's minds are completely blown away by the fact that I generally don't eat breakfast. They even call to remind me and I politely decline.

In Sri Lanka, my hotels came with free breakfast.

Number of times I took advantage of it. - 0

I've been in India for a month. Breakfast is also free.

Number of times I've gone down to eat breakfast - 1 (and I got Delhi Belly that night. Maybe a reason I haven't eaten it since... just saying...)

Every morning I leave for work and someone at the front desk will chase after me to ask "Sir, you don't want breakfast?"

Don't get me wrong. Breakfast is my favorite meal. I'll get it in Mountain View if one of my friends wants to go but I think I've gone on my own initiative maybe 2 or 3 times in a year.

I guess the term is also relative because my usual breakfast at LinkedIn is a banana and a yogurt parfait from the micro kitchen and a cup of coffee that I have at home before I leave for work. So I am eating, just not sitting down for a meal of eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, toast, biscuits and gravy, and all those other delicious things. Except on weekends. Then I'm happy to cook all those things. Yummmm...

I know breakfast is supposed to be the most important meal of the day because it loads you up with calories and energy to expend for the rest of the morning. Or so says health freaks.

I just prefer to lie in bed for an extra 20 minutes. 

Is there something they're not telling me?

Every single person I meet here asks me two questions. 

Them - "Where are you from?"

Me - "USA"

Them - "Are you married?" 

Me - "No"

Them - "Good"

Other responses include "smart" or "lucky". 

Mmm....

Life hacks volume 2

I might have taken this pair of slippers from the Aliya resort in Sri Lanka 2 weeks ago. They are pretty much my favorite thing in the world right now.

Life hacks volume 1

This is my "shower". What's missing? A showerhead at "shower" level maybe?

Yup, inexplicably, it's down at faucet level. WTF. 

 But I have a nice towel rack...

...and some Nite Ize 12" Gear Ties.

 Now I have a shower. 

Not too bad eh?

It's not this magnificent bathroom/raindrop shower I had at the Courtyard Marriot in Cochin but it gets the job done.

Hit the midpoint

It just occurred to me that I've been in India for exactly 1 month today. That means that I have 1 more month to go.

It's strange because it seems like it's been an eternity but also doesn't. I've settled in quite nicely into this new environment.

Though at times I miss my first world comforts, I've fallen into a routine in this third world.

I've seen and experienced things that I will remember forever.

I've met new people and made new friends. Matt and Kinley, Larry and Shana. I hope to cross paths with you again.
I've troubleshooted problems at work just like I did back in Mountain View.
I've gotten comfortable with the customs and traffic. I can cut a line with the best of them now.
I have a reliable driver that I can call on a whim and he or his brother will take me almost anywhere.
I can say I've experienced "Indian Standard Time". Translation = whenever the hell we feel like it.
I know all the staff at my hotel by name and they know me by mine.
I've found what I've needed, when I've needed it, though I still haven't found a damn grocery store.
I was on CNBC India in a feature on LinkedIn India (go figure).
I've smuggled a Leatherman onto an airplane (completely by accident. I just didn't want to have to give it to security.)
I've been involved in 2 car accidents. 4 if you count swapping paint with buses.
I got "Delhi Belly" finally.
I've been bitten by more mosquitos in my own apartment that I have outside.
I've been accosted on the street for money... and blessed for my generosity.

Even better, I still have more to look forward to over the next 4 weeks.

"God's Own Country"

I spent this past weekend on a houseboat in the region of Alleppey. Everyone said I needed to go if I wanted get "unplugged" and just relax so I booked a flight from Bangalore to Cochin. Then found a nice looking houseboat and was off! Relax I did. There is something so peaceful about being on the water. I was by myself on a 2 bedroom boat with a great crew and a fantastic cook.

Yes, it is as peaceful and beautiful as it looks. 

That's a lot of birds in one tree. 

I thought these were water lilly fields

Nope. Look closer. 

It was hundreds of ducks. 

This church was built by the Portuguese over 500 years ago. 

Rice fields as far as the eye can see. Stunning. 

And now.... for the food. My cook made quite frankly the best food I've eaten in India. It was phenomenal. He is self-taught and just "thinks of it" and makes it. If I ever open a restaurant, I'm relocating him to the US. He would make me a very wealthy man.

I requested "non-veg" so I got the usual vegetables plus fish and chicken with every meal.

Mind you, all this food is for ONE PERSON. Thankfully, once I learned that they eat the leftovers, I didn't feel as guilty trying not to eat it all and purposely left some of everything for them...most of the time.

Lunch day 1. The best thing was the cabbage salad in the top right bowl. 

Dinner day 1. The best thing was the fish fillets at the far left and the okra in the far right bowl. 

Breakfast day 1. Those are fresh coconut pancakes. TO.DIE.FOR.

Lunch day 2. The best things were the fish again and the beet root salad in the bowl right above the banana leaf. That's a fresh banana leaf BTW. He literally cut it 10 minutes before serving on it. I was a little worried that it wasn't clean but I was fine after eating off it. 

Afternoon tea day 2. Fried onions, bananas, and "french toast". 

Dinner day 2. The green bananas on the far left and the shrimp curry in the bowl above it were the best things. 

Finally breakfast day 3. Egg curry. OMFG. My new favorite thing ever. 

Not a bad view while eating eh?

A Fat Man's Epiphany

I've been gone from the US for 4 weeks on Monday and have been in India now for 3 and a half weeks.

I'm currently in Cochin, which is about 500 miles from Bangalore. I'm spending the weekend on a jetty (houseboat) to cruise the lakes and rivers of Alleppey ("God's Own Country"). Alleppey is about an hour from Cochin so flew in last night and had to spend the night in a Courtyard Marriott and I'm getting picked up in an hour to be driven down to Alleppey.

The 3-star hotels in India are magnificently nice. A Courtyard Marriott back home is seen as a budget hotel but this one is beautiful. Though there are some engineering flaws that come with the territory for a 3rd world country. IE, the gaps in the shower glass that allows water to flood my bathroom floor so I have to put towels down to soak it up. Other than that, it's very nice. One feature I've yet to find elsewhere in India is a bathroom scale.

After 4 weeks, I know I've lost weight. I'm not eating the amount of food I was back home (damn you LinkedIn cafeteria) and I walk to work. Plus, I've been sightseeing every weekend I've been here so have been doing a lot of walking (and climbing that fricking mountain in Sri Lanka). So I was excited to jump on the scale and see what I'd done to my increasingly expanding body.

The results?

4 weeks, 11.7 pounds.

I had guesstimated at least 10 so I was just about spot on. Why is this? A very simple explanation actually. I haven't been eating breakfast... or dinner for that matter.

Back in Mountain View, anyone who knows me knows that at 11:00:01am Tarun and I are off to the cafe to get lunch. Here, people don't eat lunch until 1:30-2:30pm. If you go to the cafeteria at 12:00, the food usually isn't even out yet. Food in India tends to be heavy in starch. Rices and naan, roti, dosa, etc. They serve rice and bread at lunch every day. So my tendency has been to eat a larger lunch around 2pm, and that keeps me satisfied throughout the rest of the evening. I think in 4 weeks, I've eaten dinner (not including Sri Lanka which I ate more since I was burning more calories) 5 times. I've also come to discover that while I like Indian food very much, I don't love it. For example, I LOVE pizza. If my relo assignment was Italy, I would be enormous by now.

It's also made me realize how much I ate back home. Huge lunch at work, snacks around 3pm (damn you again break room), then a full dinner.

At this rate, I'm destined to lose at least 20 pounds since I have another 5 weeks in India. Then I'll hopefully return to the US svelte and lean because I'm going to gorge myself on pizza.