Indian food is deliciously full of flavorful spices. I love the curries, the sombars, and the chutneys served with dosa and idli. I love the way powdered coconut is added to everything in the south and chapatis and paranthas served fresh and hot off the griddle in the north. There is only one thing which I don’t love — chili peppers — and unfortunately they are added to just about every single dish.

Ack! Why do they do that? Why must they ruin a perfectly good buttermilk sombar with those awful hot, green chilies? And the perfect golden dosa with a side of coconut chutney. Just the thought of it makes my mouth begin to water, only to take one bite and have my mouth set on fire. Indian foods are full of flavor. Why must all the more subtle spices be constantly overpowered by the strong, pungent chili? I must protest! The Indians are not being fair to the tumeric and the cumin seed and the garlic and onions. Ginger — I love the taste of ginger. I want to taste the ginger but how can I when my mouth is always first set on fire by the damn chilies? Banish the chili pepper! Sign my petition. Let’s get rid of the green chili pepper once and for all. It is already gone from MY house.

I have returned from India with a booklet full of new recipes and I will be making each and every single one without a single chili pepper. I can’t wait to thoroughly enjoy each and every dish. Because of the chili peppers I feel like I never REALLY tasted these dishes while in India so I can’t wait to do so now.

My son (age 7) and I do not eat chilies. My six-year-old twin daughters do. The girls absolutely love anything spicy. The spicier the better to them. They will even add mango pickle to just about anything to spice it up a notch or two. Yikes!

I am a plus size woman, and this being a plus size website I would like to focus on that topic just a bit.

Throughout my life in this plus size body I have travelled extensively and have never faced any serious problems with accommodations. However, I am at this time the largest I have ever been and this caused me some concern. Would the airplane seats be comfortable? Would the airline insist on charging me for two seats? (I’ve heard of this happening occasionally.) Would I still fit into the back of the tiny autorickshaws (a small taxi) used throughout Asia?

Before leaving to India I wore a size 32/34. After three months of walking everywhere combined with a lack of favorite foods and a serious distaste for hot, spicy foods I am now closer to about a size 26/28. Yes, I lost quite a bit of weight. Not that this is a bad thing.

Despite my concerns I faced no major problems while traveling about India. My only serious complaint is with regards to the type of seating found in most Indian homes and businesses. Plastic chairs are very popular. It is the same type chair found in America which is most often sold here as an outdoor deck chair. They come in almost any color but white and dark green are popular choices. They are lightweight, stackable and inexpensive with molded in arms and legs. While limited mainly to outdoor summer gatherings in the backyard here, in India this chair is used everywhere from homes at the dinner table to restraunts and other businesses and even will be what is normally used in the audience at performances and other large gatherings. These chairs on the small side and very uncomfortable, not to mention the fact they are not really designed to hold all that much weight. Having sat in and broken one of these type chairs long back I now avoid using them whenever possible but often had no other option in India. Fortunately my earlier experience did not repeat itself.

Our air travel to and from India was through Air India. The seating in the general compartment was, to me, adequate. Long plane rides with little movement allowed and sleeping in the airplane seats are never extremely comfortable for anyone, however, I did not feel overly uncomfortable either. What helped somewhat is the fact that I had three small children travelling with me (ages 6, 6, and 7). By positioning a child on each side of me and leaving arms to both sides of the seat raised I enjoyed plenty of room to be comfortable. During our flight to India it was necessary for me to request a seat belt extension. This is something which I did not need on the trip home. I simply asked the air hostess for what I needed. Air India had no complaints with supplying what I requested, however, in my opinion they are slightly less discrete about doing so than other airlines with whom I have flown recently.

Airplane bathrooms are cramped but manageable. For short flights, such as within the USA, I will normally try to use the bathroom before boarding the plane making in-flight trips to the loo unnecessary. However, this is something which helps very little for long international flights.

Most of our travel within India was accomplished by train. Train travel is GREAT! I wish there were more options for it here in America. The kids and I all thoroughly enjoyed each trip. We traveled in the first class air conditioned compartment. It is not very expensive, the seating is spacious with the berths laying out flat for comfortable sleeping at night and is the most comfortable way to go. Regardless of comfort, my main reason for choosing the first class air-conditioned compartment is that of safety. All doors on the a/c compartments are kept tightly closed. Having three young kids along this was important to me.

On several occasions we had the opportunity to travel the roadways by private car. Travel by car is rough and exhausting, but interesting none the less. Once you have travelled India by car travelling the American highways will seem forever boring in comparison.

Indian highways are not the sole dominion of the automobile. You will see these roadways shared with goats, camel, oxen pulling carts and even the occasional elephant. During harvest farmers spread their grain, still on the stalk, across the roadway where each passing of an automobile helps to separate the grain from the stalk. In northern India this time of year the sides of the road is a place used for making and storing cow dung patties used in the height of winter for heating homes. Motorcycles often travel with as many as four passengers while autorickshaws (a small three-wheeled taxi) travel along carrying most of the village with arms and legs hanging from every window and doorway. This, of course, reminds me of some sort of college stunt to see how many people can be piled into a Volkswagen Bug, but this is the life in India. Travelling the Indian highway is never a straight and simple path instead it is a constant series of zigging and zagging to avoid one obstacle or another, braking and accelerating, and of course the up and down motion as we bounce along over every pothole.

There is a very good reason why they say “Why do you want to go by car when you can go by train.” Travel by car for very long distances is both uncomfortable and unsafe. The constant beating handed out to automobiles because of the condition of the roads makes for inevitable problems and you are then stranded along side of the road with no AAA to call. Travel in India is also not as convenient as travelling across America. Bathrooms are a problem, particularly so if you have a strong aversion to using the side of the road, often without a bush for cover.

Within the towns and cities we either walked or used auto or cycle rickshaws. The good news is I had no problems fitting comfortably in either. I was slightly uncomfortable using the cycle-rickshaw, but not because of my size. I am uncomfortable because there is a human being hitched to the front of the cart hauling me around! It just does not seem right. However, in the section of Delhi where this was common it was the only means of travel to be found. The family with whom I stayed said “Let’s go.” and not wanting to argue with them I went. Had I not read the book The City of Joy many years ago I might not have felt so bothered using this method of transportation? No, on second thought I think it would have bothered me regardless. If you have not read this book it is excellent yet sad and difficult to read at the same time. It provides a glimpse into the real world of some of the most poverty sticken in India. What I remember from this book haunted me as I took these cycle-rickshaw rides. In the end I convinced myself this was a man who probably desperately needed this job and the money it generated and if he wasn’t pulling me around it would be someone else. To soothe my conscience I always paid these hard-working men very well and that seemed to be genuinely appreciated.

Jetlag has me awake again tonight when I should be sleeping so with all this free time I might as well be busy updating the blog.

The kids and I, by all accounts, had a wonderful three months in India. We were able to spend a lot of time with my husband’s side of the family and develop a closeness which had not been there previously. I feel a great satisfaction with the trip especially knowing we were able to do that.

We spent nearly half our time while in India in the small villages of Hindupur and Anantapur. The villages of India are truly the “real” India and are still where approximately 70% of the Indian population work and live. Five years ago while in India adopting our twin daughters my travel was limited to Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad — all large cities. I left the country without having ever once stepped foot into a small town — something I had regretted ever since. It thrills me to have now been able to do what I failed to do then.

My husband’s younger sister and her family live in Hindupur. My husband’s older sister as well as his mom and dad now live in Anantapur. Both of these small towns within three hours drive from each other are situated in far southern Andhra Pradesh state.

Hindupur is considerably smaller than Anantapur. The people are neighborly and my kids ran back and forth all day long between my sister-in-laws house and the neighbors, whose doors were always wide open. Having spent my own childhood in a small town in America (Goltry, Oklahoma. Population 311) I am especially fond of this lifestyle.

I don’t know the last time, if ever, a foreigner has visited Hindupur. My children and I were certainly seen as an oddity. If you ask what is best about Indian villages and what is worst I will give the same answer — the people.

The friendliness and hospitality of the Indian people, I am convinced cannot be compared to any other place on this planet. If you ever have the opportunity to visit India I encourage you to contact the Indian government and take advantage of their “Paying Guest House Scheme”. Through this program the government matches visitors with a suitable family with whom you will live. Take my word for it, you will be treated like royalty.

As much as I love the Indian people and the friendliness and hospitality which I have just described, this friendliness did often cross the line into invasion of privacy and became somewhat of a burden of which I became eager to relieve myself.

At my sister-in-law’s house in Hindupur my favorite seat in the house was the large stone slab out front on the “porch” area of the home. Nearly every house seems to have one and they have a name for it which I am not able to remember at the moment. Not only was it made of stone and something which I could sit on without fear of it collapsing, but it also allowed me to sit outside and watch the busy Indian street scene. I could sit and watch the coming and goings of the Indian people (along with their goats, oxen, carts, etc.) all day long — if only they were not also watching ME.

The Indian sense of appropriate personal space is not the same as ours. It was not at all unusual to have someone (children as well as adults) stand directly in front of me, looking me up and down, and to continue this for a full minute or two despite my attempts to make them equally uncomfortable by staring back at them or my attempts to shoo them away. Occasionally a crowd would begin to gather, all to stare at this strange being before them, and I would have little choice except to go inside.