Jeddah's "Little India," the Sharafiya District

The smell of fresh chapatti quickly transported me back to the 5th - 7th grade years, when my family lived in New Delhi, India and frequently traveled throughout one of the world's most amazing countries and its largest democracy. Only this time I wasn't in Delhi, where an old, grizzled man in the alley behind our home would happily make me a fresh chapatti while squatting by his modest charcoal-fired stove, all the while chatting away amiably in Hindi, overestimating my mastery of one of the world's most widely spoken languages.

Only last night, the language our hungry group of seven was hearing and seeing everywhere was Malayalam, one of India's other 18 major languages (the most widely spoken, of course, being Hindi), and almost certainly the only language spoken by 35 million people that is such a long palindrome!

The Malayali live almost exclusively in the state of Kerala, on India's SW coast, and the parade of male shopkeepers, shoppers, restauranteurs, and peddlers all about were but a small subset of the 1.5+ million Malayali living in the Gulf States (Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia).

At more than 90%, Kerala has India's highest rate of literacy, along with health and other demographics that are the envy of much of the rest of the country. Yet it also has one of India's highest population densities and, apparently, not enough post-scholastic opportunities for its burgeoning, talented population; hence Jeddah's Sharafiya district and the myriad Keralans in evidence.

Teresa Joseph, our most beloved servant while living in Delhi in the early 7os, was from Kerala; it was her son, Christopher (they were Catholics) who became such a close buddy of mine and who taught me so much about Indian culture (including how to swear fluently in Hindi!).

Our noses soon steered us to the recommended Hill Top Restaurant, where an 8:00 arrival put us at tables just vacated by the Ramadan Iftar crowd (see Jennifer's preceding entry). Soon, towering plates of scrumptious food - chapatti, daal, butter chicken, palaak paneer - that you might find in, say, Goa filled our tables, and we were soon experiencing gustatory reverie and chatting about good times spent in South Asia. Our meal for seven came in at $24 total, a far cry from what KAUST gets charged for any of our meals taken at the hotel!

Afterward, and just as the stores and shops were reopening for their Ramadan evening hours (from around 9:15 pm to midnight, or even until 1 or 2 in the morning in some cases!), we ambled about the teeming streets, purchasing a few odds and ends for that still-hoped-for move to our homes at KAUST.

Just as we were heading to the main thoroughfare and its legion of taxis, we chanced upon an open-air vegetable market. In broken English and meager Arabic, we soon determined from the stall keepers that hardly any of the fruits and vegetables on the many stands came from anywhere near Saudi Arabia - bananas from the Americas, spinach from Sri Lanka, mangoes from India, etc. So used to a farmer's market with its largely indigenous foods and crafts, we were suddenly struck again by the uniqueness of SA. SA's energy costs, apparently low tariffs, and meager supply of agricultural land give its many merchants and traders a fair degree of discretion on selection as they comb the world's trade channels, and this is obvious everywhere, from the fanciest hotels and showrooms to, like this one, the most basic open air stalls.

We hope our next foray out for authentic ethnic cuisine can take us to the Bangladeshi or Pakistani districts, both of which are purported to have similar riches awaiting us, so stay tuned and thanks for reading! David