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When you think of eating in India, steak probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind!![]()
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After a long day exploring, I wandered into a beautiful Italian restaurant called Toscana at UB City. I'd already discovered some wonderful traditional Indian food, but this time I fancied something a little different.![]()
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And there it was on the menu. Steak. For $8.![]()
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Naturally, I had to investigate!![]()
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What arrived was a beautifully cooked medium-rare steak with roasted potatoes, vegetables and creamed spinach. And it tasted every bit as good as it looked.![]()
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That's one of my favourite things about travelling. Sometimes the most interesting food discoveries are the ones you weren't even looking for.![]()
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What's the most surprising meal you've ever found while travelling?
Have you ever ordered something in a restaurant and then wondered how on earth you're supposed to eat it?![]()
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That was me trying my first masala dosa in India!![]()
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I was sitting beneath a beautiful old tree at Airlines Hotel, enjoying a peaceful breakfast, when this enormous dosa arrived at my table.![]()
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I'd heard about masala dosa, of course, but hadn't actually tried one. And I certainly wasn't expecting something quite so big!![]()
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The potato filling was delicious, and the dosa itself was beautifully buttery. What a wonderful introduction to this traditional South Indian breakfast.![]()
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Now I'm curious. If you could recommend just one Indian breakfast dish for me to try next, what would it be?
The World Is a Mirror![]()
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I received the most interesting comment on one of my India videos yesterday, and it's been rattling around in my head ever since.![]()
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A gentleman had watched my day exploring India, where I'd wandered through beautiful parks, discovered some rather fabulous shops, met lovely people and generally had a wonderful time. He left a very thoughtful comment saying that perhaps my experience had as much to do with me as it did with India.![]()
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He wrote, "India is a mirror," explaining that if you approach people with warmth and friendliness, that's often what you get back. Equally, if you arrive with arrogance and a bad attitude, you might find that reflected right back at you.![]()
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And then he added something I thought was particularly lovely: "It was not India. It was you."![]()
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Now, that's quite a compliment from a complete stranger! But it also got me thinking about something much bigger than India.![]()
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What if the whole world is a mirror?![]()
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I've travelled to quite a few countries now, and one thing I've noticed is how differently people can experience exactly the same place. One person comes home talking about how friendly everyone was, how fascinating the culture is and how much they loved it. Someone else visits the very same place and has absolutely nothing nice to say.![]()
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Of course, sometimes things go wrong. You get ripped off, you meet someone unpleasant, or you have one of those travel days where absolutely nothing goes according to plan. I've certainly had a few of those! And no amount of smiling is going to magically fix everything.![]()
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But I do think there's something to this idea.![]()
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When I arrived in India, I really didn't know what to expect. I had all sorts of images in my head, probably influenced by things I'd seen online and stories I'd heard over the years. But I was curious. I wanted to see how people lived, what they ate, where they shopped and what everyday life was actually like.![]()
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And I think that curiosity made a difference. Instead of looking for things that confirmed what I thought I knew about India, I kept finding things that surprised me.![]()
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Perhaps we do this in everyday life too, without even realizing it. We form opinions about people before we've really got to know them, decide what a place is going to be like before we've been there, or walk into a situation already expecting it to go badly.![]()
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And sometimes, perhaps, we end up finding exactly what we went looking for.![]()
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I don't know whether the world really is a mirror, but I rather like the idea. It's certainly given me something to think about.![]()
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I'm curious what you think. Have you ever travelled somewhere and had a completely different experience from what other people had told you to expect? Or do you think our attitude really does influence how the world responds to us?