I normally prefer soymilk for drinking or with my bowl of ginger granola,
and seeing as I am more of a coffee rather than a tea drinker, I usually
have a splash of half and half in my morning, afternoon and evening brews.
I also have a lot of herbal teas in the evening, and every once in a while
will have a nice earl grey or black tea with milk (dudh).
The best ciyah (chai) in Nepal is made entirely with milk sans the
water:it's a rich, sweet, creamy brew that I have come to count on in
Nepal for my fix. One of the best, if not the best, places in Bardibas is
ramshackle ciyah hut of corrugated tin, rough hewn tree branches, smooth mud
floors and sleeping, sickly dogs which does a brisk trade at one of the two
Bardibas chowks or intersections. I've been told that it¡¦s the fatty,
whole milk they use (water buffalo or cow?) although others claim it¡¦s the
masala (a strong hint of black pepper and cardamom ) and the light dusting
of cinnamon on top. Ciyah shops sell the stuff piping hot in tiny
glasses;the technique is to use your index finger and thumb to hold the
glass right around the rim, but even that, especially in this weather,
sometimes leaves the fingertips scorched. The only problem I have found is
that the portions are so small that I am always left wanting more and
more¡Xperhaps that is the technique to get people to return? In Kathmandu,
it was sometimes possible to get a small pot of ciyah, and I have considered
taking my own larger mug to the ciyah shop here, but I would assume that
would throw the entire system into a state of disarray, and wild rumors
would circle around the town about how I am addicted to the stuff (it's
true!) or that that foreigners can somehow live only on ciyah, or simply the
fact that I brought my own vessel would provide countless hours of
entertainment. You only need to refer back to my story about how all of the
villagers knew when (and they were sure they knew why) I had diarrhea to
know that these kind of stories get started all of the time¡K
So, in order to start making our own ciyah at home, Migyoung and I have been
shopping around for where we can purchase milk. Seems easy enough since
every family either owns a water buffalo, a cow or both. We were first
informed that it was possible to buy milk in a shop in town, but after
checking around we have yet to find a place that sells it. Then several
people told us that they would have the milkman--the dudh dude--to swing by our
house every morning for a delivery (they also normally sell yogurt, and we
wanted to get some of that as well to get our own culture going). This went
on for about a week or so, each day we informed our friends and neighbors
that no milk had been delivered, and each time we were promised that bholi
(tomorrow;a future weblog entry on the philosophy of bholi forthcoming) we
would have our milk. In the meantime, we have made due with the horrible
powdered version for our tea and equally awful Nescafe.
A few days ago, the dudh man magically appeared although I actually think he
was making a delivery to the house across the way and we just happened to
grab his attention. Ironically, when you want someone's attention, you¡¦ll
never get it, and when you want to be left alone or have your own space it
will never happen. We asked if he would return the next day and were
emphatically told yes. That was the last time we¡¦ve had our milk, but
promises of tomorrow or the day after tomorrow continue, as just about
everyone we know in town¡Xadmittedly few¡Xis searching for how and where we
can get milk delivered to our home. One of my colleagues at work promised
to try and eek out a bit of milk each day from his water buffalo, but that
she¡¦s not really in the giving mood these days¡K I¡¦m a little surprised it
hasn¡¦t happened so far, since a lot of shopkeepers and independent
¡§businessmen¡¨ see us as a rare bilking opportunity the likes they haven¡¦t
witnessed since the last busload of Indian tourists blew through town¡K
It¡¦s all a little hard to fathom, actually. In this land of the sacred
cow, where the piles of water buffalo dung on the highway outnumbers
splotches of oil from vehicles and where milk is used as an offering to pour
over shiva¡¦s lingam, we continue our, perhaps futile, search for dudh¡K
Postscript: Dudh Found
This morning at 7:00 AM I cycled down the bumpy dirt path south of the
market and business area to collect a half-liter for milk for our morning
tea courtesy of a work colleague¡¦s neighbor. In actuality, we were up at
5:00 this morning¡Xwhen the sweating begins despite the swirling fan
overhead¡Xand had already had our first cups of ciyah with powdered milk,
but the second pot with fatty milk was delightful. On the way back to our
house, with the milk clearly visible in my front handlebar basket, all the
villagers came out to observe as I passed by: Oh, he's got milk! He must
like milk or what¡'s he going to do with that milk? Perhaps now that I've
been seen with milk, a thousand enterprising dudh men will be waiting at our
front gate every morning...