Day 10 - Andrew

We went to the Mamraj's church this morning. It's a modern Catholic church in the basement of Abrianna's school, St. Anne's Convent School. Most of the service was in English, so we could follow it quite easily and everyone made us feel very welcome. To my untrained Protestant eye, it seemed like a regular Catholic service in NZ except a bit more colourful - Jesus was dressed in yellow and red, instead of white, and the altar was surrounded by flashing lights. Afterwards we had a quick tour around the school with the Mamraj's friends, who are also from Kerala in the south, like Ambily, and all three families went to lunch at a Punjabi restaurant.

(Anne - you wanted more about the food - this is for you...) The place wasn't much to look at from the road and it was steel trays on plain Formica tables but the food was sensational. We had shahi paneer (cottage cheese in tomato-based gravy) and a channa dahl, made with chick peas, served with kulcha, which are like paranthas, only crispier and with more flavour. To any diehard meat-eaters who are thinking "That sounds really boring", you have to try it to appreciate how good vegetarian food can be in India. Avinash told us the food was typical of Amritsar, which is further north, near the Pakistan border. Everyone had a great time laughing about my bad Hindi pronunciation, which has become a running joke. 

After lunch we said goodbye to Avinash, Ambily and Abrianna, who had made us feel incredibly welcome in their home. Their friend Sanjay drove us the two hours to Jagadhri, home of St Thomas' school and Jagadhri Christian Hospital, where Heather used to work. We checked into yet another Soviet-style small town hotel, with huge rooms, mindless bureaucracy and Basil Fawlty-like dedication to customer service. As Jagadhri is not much of a tourist destination either and the whole place was shrouded in cold and fog, we felt a bit down at this point (full details censored). Everyone cheered up when we went to dinner with Cecil Harrison, the hospital superintendent, his wife Nayana and their three kids. More wonderful food, including tandoori chicken with the vegetarian dishes and our first Indian desserts - Dahl and carrot halva and galab jamen. We are going to have to find a gym at this rate.