Day 19: DAMN YOU, MCDONALDS
Laundry List:
- Wake up, buy overnight bus ticket to Hampi, and book hotel room.
- Realize I have spent almost 3 weeks in just Karnataka and Kerala, and decide to plan out the remainder of my trip in India, or at least figure out my destinations and in what order I will travel to each one.
- Spend the remainder of day bumming around the MG road area, which has become my home away from home in Bangalore, writing my blog at a ridiculous roof-top bar/pub where they blast poorly DJed electronic music and the the servers wear sailor outfits.
- Decide to explore into what India McDonalds has to offer. WORST DECISION EVER.
- Check-out of hotel, take a rickshaw to bus station, and overnight myself to Hampi. Thank god I didn't have to share my bunk with a random Indian man!
Reflection and Story-Time:
So today, I got curious. What does India McDonalds serve for lunch and dinner. I had had Micky D's once before, for breakfast, on suggestion of my Dad's colleague, on the day she let me use her driver, and it was fine, but not really great. I had some sort of veg breakfast sandwich. But as I walked by a McD's in Bangalore, my curiosity got the better of me, so I walk in. The "meat" options, regarding their sandwiches included chicken, paneer (cheese), egg, and veg patties. One option was the Maharaja McChicken Mac.....the Indian version of of a Big Mac. That, along with the Peri Peri seasoned fries, is what I ordered for myself. It was fine, again, not great. The chicken was clearly very processed, and the seasoning over powered the fries with a powdery texture.
That night, I was outrageously gassy, but I figured it would pass. The entire next day I was, excuse my french, SHITTING MY BRAINS OUT!!!! Luckily, I was still able to hold my bowels, but whenever I did go, it was like Niagara Falls. I was popping homeopathic digestive medication like candy to keep my stomach feeling OK. By the end of the night, I broke the seal on the western antibiotics I had brought along for just this occasion. YAY for travel nurses, and their foresight that such an event might occur, because after the first two antibiotic pills I was feeling much more.....umm....regular.
I thought this was pretty funny. McD's is not the poor mans food in India, it really rather caters to the middle and upper classes. I have eaten plenty of street food since being in India, and I have eaten at a few hole in the wall type joints too, but in the end, it was the supposedly hygienic McD's, the international chain, that got me sick. Ridiculous. NEVER. AGAIN.
