I’ve spent the last 21 days traveling through south India and it has been a surreal experience. Our travels took us to Mumbai, Mahabelashwar, Goa, Kerala, and all the airspace in between. It’s been filled with some of the greatest memories I’ve ever had on a vacation coupled with some of the worst.

I’ve always been a fan on Indian food, so this trip was perfect for satisfying the foodie in me. I got to taste a multitude of dishes and it really helped that I was traveling with friends that have been to India before and are of Indian descent, since they were able to steer me towards the tastiest dishes. As good as the food was, it definitely gave me a lot of stomach troubles early on in the trip. I guess I was a little too adventurous in my eating since I was cumulatively sick for nearly 1/3 the time I’ve been here!

Along our travels, we discovered a love for King Fisher beer, Uno and negotiating everything we bought, including taxi rides. Near the end of the trip, we managed to fit in the hilarious game of “How much woud someone have to pay you to stay another 3 weeks in India?”. It seems that none of us would even accept $30k. Yikes.

This trip marks the longest time I’ve spent with a group of friends — imagine spending 24 hours a day with the same 5 people for 21 days. Surprisingly it went better than we all would have expected. We got to share a ton of laughs coupled with deep, meaningful conversations. I couldn’t have picked a better group of friends to travel with. Craig, Fil, Chaitanya, Shaheen and Suraj — thanks for a great trip and all the memories that came along with it. You guys rock.

Photos from both India and China will be posted shortly after I get back to Seattle and I have a chance to go through them all. I’ll post up a link to the photos once I’ve completed them and uploaded them to Flickr.

My upcoming travel back to Seattle isn’t going to be short. I’m flying from Mumbai to Seattle, laying over in Amsterdam on Northwest Airlines. My total transit time is just over 26 hours! Wish me luck!

Here are some fun facts about our trip:

I can’t wait to get back to “normal” civilization in Seattle, my own bed and the ability to do laundry at will. Hallelujah!

Pork.  The meat that everyone loves to avoid because of its reputation for being fatty and disease ridden with trychinosis.

I follow a great blog on food written by Rob Novak, titled “Rob’s Kitchen Kinesis” where he writes about various aspects of food or food related matters.  His most recent post covers why pork should make a come back and really be part of your diet.

Pork in the USA has improved to the point where trychinosis is virtually unheard of, and even the USDA admits that really, a pork roast can be cooked medium-well and be safe. Plus, it’s got more flavor than today’s chickens

Also - here’s something that goes against what one would consider sanity. I don’t like ultra-thick pork chops. Why? Well, in order to get really good flavor all the way through the meat, they need to be brined or marinated for a few hours at least. Besides, the idea here is to have a meal that cooks quickly and is still plenty tasty, and thick chops take a lot more time to get done.

Interestingly, after doing a quick Live.com search, I found the Chicago Meat Authority website, which states:

Over the past 20 years, the efforts of America’s pork producers have resulted in pork with 31% less fat and 14% less calories. In fact, eight cuts of pork have less fat than the skinless chicken thigh.”

Who knew?