{"id":908,"date":"2015-10-08T21:50:21","date_gmt":"2015-10-08T21:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/?p=908"},"modified":"2015-10-09T14:33:26","modified_gmt":"2015-10-09T14:33:26","slug":"take-the-chance-and-reap-the-reward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/2015\/10\/08\/take-the-chance-and-reap-the-reward\/","title":{"rendered":"Take the Chance and Reap the Reward"},"content":{"rendered":"

The old saying is true, without risk there can be no reward.\u00a0 Perhaps risk is too strong of a word, maybe it should be\u00a0that if you don’t take\u00a0the chance, you’ll miss out on a great experience.\u00a0 There have been several examples of this during our travels, but there was one experience that stands out for us.\u00a0 A few years ago, we had\u00a0the pleasure to travel to Chennai, India, on business.\u00a0 The trip as a whole was one of our favorite trips, even though there was work involved.\u00a0 While we were there, a co-worker invited us to their home for dinner.\u00a0 We immediately accepted, not wanting to offend anyone, but to be honest, we were a little apprehensive.<\/p>\n

\"Chennai<\/a>
Chennai from the Hotel Rooftop<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Ornate<\/a>
Ornate Rickshaw<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The night of our dinner was one of our last nights there, so by then we had eaten quite a bit of Indian food, which we love,\u00a0and had done our best to eat every meal like a local.\u00a0 We had a driver while we were there, not quite ready to take on the challenge of driving in India, so we gave him the address where we going and we were off.\u00a0 We turned off the main road and quickly found ourselves in a maze of tiny side streets filled with a mix of poverty and middle class buildings.\u00a0 After a few minutes, our driver informed us that the way that he thought we needed to go was not correct and he needed some directions.\u00a0 We gave him the number of our co-worker and after a few minutes of back and forth, we were on our way again.\u00a0 Then a few minutes later, we were at a stop, apparently the directions were too difficult and again he was on the phone.\u00a0 This time we waited until the husband arrived on motorcycle to escort us to their home.<\/p>\n

\"Street<\/a>
Street Vendors<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Neighborhood<\/a>
Neighborhood in Chennai<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We arrived at their apartment and walked up to the third floor where we went through a large wooden door with an image of Ganesh intricately carved into it.\u00a0 Typical to our experience in India, beauty can be found in surprising places.\u00a0 We entered into the living room, which had a couch, chair, coffee table, and large TV on an entertainment center with MTV (or something similar) playing.\u00a0 We were ushered to the couch as their two young children, both boys, showed us their favorite toys, much to their parents annoyance, not that we minded.\u00a0 We have a friend who is a cultural anthropologist, so he had prepared us for many of the\u00a0things that we encountered while in India, but having dinner at someone’s house was not one of them.\u00a0 Our co-worker and her\u00a0mother-in-law were in the kitchen, diligently wrapping up the meal that we were about to be served.\u00a0 There was one other room in the apartment, the bedroom, to be shared by all five members of the family.\u00a0 This was the life of a middle class family with a dual income from jobs working for American companies.<\/p>\n

\"Temple<\/a>
Temple Streets<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Hindu<\/a>
Hindu Tapestry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After a little conversation, translated by a friend of the family, TV trays were placed in front of us and our meal was about to begin.\u00a0 As we had been sitting on the couch, friends and neighbors had been slowly arriving and there was a small gathering outside of the door to the kitchen, not saying anything, just there to observe these strange westerners.\u00a0 We were given glasses of water and our first dish of fried fish was brought out to us.\u00a0 We needed to drink some of the water during our meal, but we didn’t drink too much, just in case.\u00a0 We did our best, using only our right hand, to eat while still having conversations with those that had gathered.\u00a0 We were their guest, so\u00a0we would eat first and they were honored to serve us.\u00a0 It was just their way of showing us respect, but we weren’t prepared to eat while everyone watched, especially without utensils.<\/p>\n

\"DSC02019\"<\/a>
Streets of Chennai<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Rooftops<\/a>
Rooftops of Chennai<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We wish we could describe the food in a way that would give it justice, but it was all delicious.\u00a0 After each course, we were offered “one more” of what we were having.\u00a0 When we said yes, we would get two more.\u00a0 We’re not big eaters, we usually share meals when we go out, so this was one of the largest meals either of us had eaten in years.\u00a0 After the fish came a potato curry with some flatbread (and then one more).\u00a0 Then for dessert, we were served a bowl of Rasmalai,\u00a0which is made of\u00a0sweetened condensed milk and a round dumpling in the center of it.\u00a0 It was wonderful, but eating that with our fingers was definitely an adventure, I’m sure many of the smiles were smirks at our clumsiness.<\/p>\n

\"Dinner<\/a>
Dinner with Friends<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Ox<\/a>
Ox on the Streets<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After the meal came the blessing.\u00a0 We were given gifts, a statue of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus as a symbol of respect to our God and a statue of Vishnu in honor of their religion.\u00a0 Flower wreaths were placed around our necks and we were given fruit.\u00a0 Then a small round container was opened and handed to Dona for her to put the Bindi on the center of the forehead.\u00a0 That moment turned out to almost big our biggest\u00a0faux pas of the evening as we didn’t realize that\u00a0it was powder and instead of using the thumb to apply it to the forehead, Dona started to raise the canister to her forehead.\u00a0 Everyone quickly came to the rescue and showed us the proper way to do it.\u00a0 We\u00a0thanked everyone profusely and left to find all of the neighbors crowded around to watch us leave.<\/p>\n

\"Our<\/a>
Our Gifts<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The Statues<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our driver had waited for us, so we got into the car and started making our way back to the hotel.\u00a0 We didn’t get far before we got behind an ox cart with a large statue of Vishnu on it.\u00a0\u00a0The cart would stop\u00a0every few buildings and people would come out\u00a0to the street and offer prayers.\u00a0\u00a0Slowly but\u00a0surely, we made our way back through the winding streets, past the animals and throngs of people, and back to the familiar honking, motorcycle and rickshaw filled\u00a0main thoroughfare.\u00a0 Back at the hotel, we were full and exhausted, but we knew\u00a0even then that our evening at their home for dinner would be one of our fondest travel memories ever.\u00a0 We wish we had more pictures to share of the evening, but we were there as their guest, not as tourists, so we did not take any other pictures of that wonderful evening.\u00a0 Since returning home, we’ve tried several times to replicate the potato curry that we were served, without much success.\u00a0 Some things can’t be duplicated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The old saying is true, without risk there can be no reward.\u00a0 Perhaps risk is too strong of a word, maybe it should be\u00a0that if you don’t take\u00a0the chance, you’ll miss out on a great experience.\u00a0 There have been several examples of this during our travels, but there was one experience that stands out for … <\/p>\n

Continue reading Take the Chance and Reap the Reward<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89944846,"featured_media":920,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3054],"tags":[8792,4049,22787,594157734,7393,47676,594157746,8391,5108330,200],"class_list":["post-908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india","tag-adventure","tag-chennai","tag-curry","tag-food","tag-ganesh","tag-hindu","tag-india","tag-indian-food","tag-rasmalai","tag-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/imgp2870.jpg?fit=3008%2C2000&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6pbM5-eE","jetpack-related-posts":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89944846"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=908"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":931,"href":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908\/revisions\/931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}