Raw Chana

Bundi has been a gem of a town. Just 5 hours from Udaipur (by train; or 12 hours by bus, half of which are on terrible, kidney-jarring, butt-numbing roads), Bundi has a beautiful old palace, a crumbling fort that’s a dream to wander around in, cheap guesthouses run by kind families, bats, no mosquitos, and nice people.

Nice people. Our first day here, we were standing outside the palace entrance waiting to meet up with Jaime and Marian (a couple we’d met on the beach at Gokarna and, luckily, ran into in Bundi) and a group of Indian men were munching on something green off bundles of small branches. I asked what they were eating (because I always want to know what people are eating) and one of the met handed me part of his bundle. They (and now we) were munching on raw chana, or chickpeas. Raw, each one is green and within a pod. They were fresh and delicious and fun to eat. In Bhutan, this sort of thing – strangers sharing food – always happened. In India, it’s never happened, especially strangers near a tourist hot spot.