Paris, France

In recent years I've developed the annoying habit of not telling anyone where I'm going before I start a trip. The veil of secrecy on this one has been record-breakingly long: 629 days. I can be very precise about this because each morning the Duolingo app updates me on my current French learning 'streak', which began in spring 2024. At that time I already had plans for Italy and India, but I knew France would be next. And here I am.

As a result of those 629 days of Duolingo - plus a big slab of podcasts and YouTube and reading and study - my conversational French is 'just about there'. Hopefully, by the end of the next two months of total immersion, it'll be 'there'. Learning Spanish was a hard slog and I assumed I didn't have it in me to do it all over again. But Spanish itself gives me a useful head start in French, as does my GCSE from all those years ago. And I do like a challenge.

I began well in Paris by conversing intelligibly with my landlady about what I was reading (de Maupassant), although I probably lost most of that newly-gained credibility when she saw what I was cooking with (Bisto gravy granules). My digs are in a distinctly posh western suburb called Saint-Cloud. I'd been there a full day before I noticed that my bedroom window has a view of the Eiffel Tower. In my defence, it's partly hidden behind a tree.

Paris was buried under quite a lot of snow when I arrived. Fortunately it's melted now. I can handle the cold and the wind, and the rain and the snow, but it was no fun walking everywhere on black ice, having to keep my eyes down and concentrate on not falling over rather than taking in my surroundings. Taking in my surroundings is the whole point of my travels, after all. Incidentally, it's cheaper to take the Paris Metro all the way across the entire city than it is to take the Tyne & Wear Metro from Pallion to Park Lane. Discuss.

Anyway, you all know what Paris looks like so I won't bother going into too much detail. Token photos are below if you're interested. The rest of this trip will be devoted to the slightly less-well-known parts of France, and to my hopefully not-totally-farcical attempts at asking my way around them in French. To say nothing of all that luscious French food...Mange tout, Rodney. Mange tout.

Inevitably...(1)

Inevitably...(2/3/4/5)

Inevitably...(6)

Bohemian book-laden duplex apartment.
I'm only renting the spare room.

I'm sure you can all translate this headline.

Here's a map of all the European places I've visited (as an adult) outside Great Britain.
France was plainly overdue.

Edd vs Food #163
At a Paris McDonalds: "Royal Cheese" burger, and French fries with mayonnaise.
IYKYK.
Disappointed beyond words to learn that you cannot, in fact, wash it down with a beer.

Alwar & Jaipur, India

Jaipur is the name of a deliciously citrussy IPA made by Thornbridge Brewery. I've been drinking it for years and I felt it was time to give the city itself a try. It's quite a long train ride from Delhi, so I looked on the timetable for a random place to stop over en route, and that's how I came to spend a couple of days in Alwar first. Both cities are in Rajasthan: it's the first time that this blog has been to a 'stan', if you ignore the slight spelling difference. Plenty to look at here. See pictures.

There has been a slightly grumpy tone in some of my blogs lately, so I should emphasise that I've never had a bad day in India, and more importantly that this is just about the friendliest country of the roughly sixty that I've visited in my life to date. Indians are naturally warm and peaceful people. On these crowded streets, I've only seen two or three unpleasant episodes, all involving traffic disputes, and all settling down rapidly after a brief outburst of raised voices and a little bit of pushing. It's as if, once both parties have saved 'face' by demonstrating their determination not to back down, there's an unspoken agreement that things can go on as they were before. Not like back home in England, where any minor confrontation quickly escalates towards either the police station or the hospital, or both.

It must be admitted that Indian men spit way too much. This is closely associated with their habit of chewing tobacco way too much. Also, you often see men easing their bladders at the roadside. Of course, if they're manning fruit stalls or driving auto-rickshaws, then it's not like they have much choice, and they do at least have the good manners to face the wall while micturating. But with Indian streets, as with Jane Austen's evening dances, one can't help but wonder what the ladies do.  

Anyway, my Indian adventure is now over. From Jaipur I'm taking a short flight back to Mumbai and then going home from there. This is the most time I've ever spent in tropical climes - two months - and it's been fantastic but the heat and the noise and the pollution all start to get a bit overwhelming after a while. Probably it'll be 2026 before this blog kicks into gear again. I hope you all enjoy your own 2025 holidays...in the meantime I'm looking forward to getting back to cool rain and warm sausage rolls. And a can of Jaipur, or two.

City Palace in Alwar

Sagar Lake in Alwar

Jaipur street life seen from the Metro station overhead

Hawa Mahal in Jaipur (1799)
Built specifically to allow royal Indian ladies to watch street events & processions...
...without being seen themselves by the plebs.

Albert Hall Museum (1887) in Jaipur

Jaipur at dusk, seen from the path up to Nahagarh Fort

Gaitor Ki Chhatriyan (royal crematory) in Jaipur

Edd vs Food #162
Just what the doctor orders when it's 32°C at lunchtime on the terrace
(and I'm recovering from a dicky tummy):
Extra spicy Rajasthani chicken curry with roti bread.
At the Rajasthane Kitchen in Jaipur

New Delhi, India

Well, I guess they call it Delhi Belly for a reason.

Ironically it wasn't even something I ate in Delhi. I started to feel queasy on my final day in Agra. It might have been the posh mixed kebab platter (see the last Edd vs Food), or it might have been my home-cooked bean stew, or it might have been some slightly-too-softly-boiled breakfast eggs. Either way I had a couple of days of feeling a bit off, with details that you don't want to know about. No real emergencies though, and I made it through the train journey from Agra to Delhi without any need for Immodium, and I'm fine now. But since then I've been eating very unadventurously, as you'll see below.

Obviously Delhi is a tourist hotspot, by Indian standards, so there are plenty of options for unadventurous eating. But the American chains do have other uses: generally, the only two options for decent coffee in India are a) Starbucks and b) McDonalds. Incidentally it seems the only two options for finding tuna of any kind are a) Subway sandwiches and b) cat food.

Delhi is full of monuments and temples and other interesting sights, of which but a very small selection is featured in my pictures below. Perhaps the most spectacular of all is Swaminarayan Akshardham, an absurdly huge Hindu temple completed only in 2005. But they don't allow photography there - indeed you aren't even allowed to take your phone in with you. I handed mine over on entry, and then when I left, it was given back to me by a bored-looking young Indian lady who belched loudly as she did so. Anyway here's what the temple looks like.

The hawkers and touts here are more persistent and impertinent here than elsewhere. Nonetheless Delhi gets my vote because it has lots of nice open spaces to stroll around in, for example Kartavya Path and Connaught Place (see pictures below). The Metro is excellent too. And I'm reliably informed that the food here is better than anywhere else in India, which makes me regret my slight digestive indisposition all the more.

But India is getting a bit hot for me. I don't mean that the police have got wind of my browsing history. No, I mean that it's literally too hot. You might have seen on the news that summer has started earlier than usual here (please don't google 'India Summer' if you're at work) and I can vouch for this first-hand. Between dawn and dusk, I'm having to hole up under the aircon and the ceiling fan. This is no country for old men, and no country for white ginger men either. Now that I've ticked Delhi Belly off my bucket list, it'll soon be time to head home and mess my guts up with cask ales and kebabs instead. One more blog to go.

Central Government Office at the west end of Kartavya Path

India Gate (Lutyens 1921-1931) at the east end of Kartavya Path

Central Park in Connaught Place

Humayun's Tomb

Gurdwara Bangla Sahib

In the concourse at sunset in Sarai Rohilla train station

Red Fort

Edd vs Food #161
Peri peri chicken burrito at California Burrito
(surprisingly good domestic Indian burrito chain)