Grinder backpacking Asia round 2

Hostels often have helpful advice and its easy to form ad-hoc exploration groups so instead of one person wandering into a bad area its a group of three or four and therefor far less dangerous.

I don’t really avoid any areas. In Agra Laura and I walked for hours through the poorest of areas and nobody bothered us. Varanasi I walked around the area around the hostel at night. I mean I don’t really know the crime rates in each city, I just try to be smart about where I am and be aware of my surroundings.

Is the Kings Romans casino in Laos on your list?

"The Zhao Wei crime network engages in an array of horrendous illicit activities, including human trafficking and child prostitution, drug trafficking, and wildlife trafficking," said Sigal Mandelker, Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.

No it isn’t. I tried to figure out how to get there but it’s not worth all the trouble it would take to get there.

Glad to hear the trip is still going well. That german shepherd pup was adorable. I love german shepherds =P. Thanks again for the update, and correct information (apparently many thought Udaipur was dirty but you said it's rather quite clean).

I wish I could have uploaded the videos I took of Yoda (the pup) cause they were adorable. I’m glad people are enjoying the thread, sometimes I’m not sure if I’m going into too much detail so positive feedback is always good! Udaipur was amazing and so relaxing, just what I needed as India can be stressful.

Quote: PokerGrinder

I wish I could have uploaded the videos I took of Yoda (the pup) cause they were adorable. I’m glad people are enjoying the thread, sometimes I’m not sure if I’m going into too much detail so positive feedback is always good! Udaipur was amazing and so relaxing, just what I needed as India can be stressful.

It is not too much detail, and I always enjoy when I click on the thread and find one of your long posts.

One of my all-time favorite books is Kipling's "Kim". Any chance you'll be visiting Simla or some of the other locations he described?

I’ve never read (or heard of the book) but no my last stop India after Mumbai is Goa and then I’m headed back to Thailand.

I will go to Bangkok, Thailand for great food any day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6VQsOvNvyQ

My last full day in Udaipur I didn’t do a whole lot. I was just enjoying the ability to relax before heading into the chaos that is Mumbai. I woke up late, watched Netflix on the roof for a bit and then headed out in search of food. I ended up at this place that served Thali which is always good it seems. I ate on the roof and was able to watch the Hindi festival pass by on the streets below as I waited for my food.



The festival had passed by and then the food came.

The food was really good. The chickpea paneer was the best part by far!

After lunch I went back to the hostel and watched some more izombie. I took a walk to the Tibetan market which turned out to be the place Chen should have gone for socks and warm clothes as that’s all they seemed to sell. I got bored pretty quickly and left. I picked up some salty street snacks on my way back, much better than the ones that I had in Delhi.

Around 9 pm I went and found this place called Charcoal which is a fancy restaurant that was suggested to me. I felt quite underdressed for the place but nobody said anything. The restaurant was very dark and was lit by many candles. I had one of the best meals of the trip. I ordered Mutton with rice and roti. The mutton had the most amazing flavours, I couldn’t believe how good it was. Even with it being a really fancy and expensive place I still only paid $12 Canadian for everything!


The next day I woke up and packed my things up. I had a 4:20 pm flight to Mumbai so I had some time left in Udaipur. I went to Jheel’s for one last pizza and milkshake before I left. I’m not sure how to express how good the wood fire oven pizzas at this place were. Speaking of which I’m getting hungry, do you think they deliver to Mumbai? A lot of hostels have themes, the one in Udaipur was Harry Potter themed. They had a bunch of really cool murals painted on the walls.


I went back to the hostel, checked out and grabbed a tuk tuk to the airport. 45 minute ride and it was only 230 ($4.50) rupees, I wish cabs were this cheap in North America. My flight was delayed by 30 minutes and our landing was also delayed by 30 minutes because of air traffic. I got into Mumbai and was able to get a tuk tuk to my hostel for only $3.50. I’m staying at Horn Ok Please hostel in one of the best neighbourhoods of Mumbai. Mumbai is so expensive compared to the cities I’ve been to. The hostel was 3 times the price of my place in Udaipur. Still not expensive ($17 Canadian a night) but expensive for India.

After I checked in and dropped my bags I talked to a British couple who suggested somewhere to go for dinner. I attempted to find it and failed! I ended up wandering around until I found this place called Bombay Biryani. Biryani is a rice dish that I had been wanting to try. I had the Nizami Ghosht Biryani which is mutton Biryani.

This was one of the best tasting dishes I’ve eaten. The flavours on the rice were so good and the mutton was very nice as well. After dinner I made my way back to the hostel and I called it a night.

I had trouble sleeping because one of the girls in the dorm kept turning on the lights and being loud in the morning. I got up, had breakfast and then went back to bed to nap for a while. That while ended up being until almost 4 pm. I didn’t feel like doing any touristy stuff so I did what I do in a lot of cities, I roamed. I found some Indian style shawarma on my walk that was pretty solid.

I ended up walking aimlessly for about 4 hours before I eventually google mapped my way back to the hostel. I did end up at the waterfront where the tide is currently way out there so you can see the floor of the Arabian Sea.

I then climbed across all the rocks and made my way to where the water currently is. I almost fell off one of the rocks that was wet near the water, that wouldn’t have been fun.

I met a Canadian guy at the hostel and we ended up going for dinner at this little hole in the wall that ended up being extremely cheap and the food was above average.

Yesterday I went with Daniel (the Canadian) to meet his friend Shaker that lives and grew up in Colaba which is the rich part of Bombay. We hung out in his condo for a bit playing ping pong and talking and then he took us for a walking tour of the area. We walked around and he explained what different buildings were and then took us to a street food stall to have. We had Vada Pav which is seasoned potatoes fried, with chilli peppers and hot cooked green peppers on a small bun. They were quite tasty and very spicy.
These were a couple shots I took.


This is the gothic style central train station.

We said goodbye to Shaker and took the train back to Bandra which is the area our hostel is in. The rest of the night was pretty chill, we relaxed, played cards and then went back to the the restaurant from the day before for dinner.

Today I’m headed to the gateway of India and then to Elephanta Island. I will probably update everyone again when I’m in Goa.

While in India do you see americanized type food, snacks, and drinks at all? Like if I want a pepsi and snickers is that possible to find?

I am ignorant when it comes to those things. I rrmember this time while playing BJ in vegas with this Australian girl. I mentioned that I had mac and cheese for dinner and she looked at me like I was an alien. She had never heard of it before and when I explained what it was she didn't understand why we would make that.

Ya you can get coke and Pepsi anywhere. It’s a little harder to find other soft drinks, but you can get sprite and Mountain Dew in certain places.

Chocolate bars are at most corner stores, Lays chips but Indian flavours, American chocolate bars are big, especially Cadbury.

Like I just walked past a Baskin Robbins and I see KFC, Pizza Hut and Burger King a lot. If you want unhealthy American food it’s not hard to find.

Quote: PokerGrinder

I’ve never read (or heard of the book) but no my last stop India after Mumbai is Goa and then I’m headed back to Thailand.

I highly recommend it. Aside from being a great story teller, Kipling truly loved India:

Quote:

There is no city—except Bombay, the queen of all—more beautiful in her garish style than Lucknow, whether you see her from the bridge over the river, or from the top of the Imambara looking down on the gilt umbrellas of the Chutter Munzil, and the trees in which the town is bedded. Kings have adorned her with fantastic buildings, endowed her with charities, crammed her with pensioners, and drenched her with blood. She is the centre of all idleness, intrigue, and luxury, and shares with Delhi the claim to talk the only pure Urdu.

BTW, Kipling lived in Mumbai and his childhood home is still there for tourists to check out.

Quote: PokerGrinder

Ya you can get coke and Pepsi anywhere. It’s a little harder to find other soft drinks, but you can get sprite and Mountain Dew in certain places.

Chocolate bars are at most corner stores, Lays chips but Indian flavours, American chocolate bars are big, especially Cadbury.

Like I just walked past a Baskin Robbins and I see KFC, Pizza Hut and Burger King a lot. If you want unhealthy American food it’s not hard to find.

That's true but the menu's are not the same as you find in the states. primarily the absence of beef. I remember a McDonalds in Delhi with something called the Maharaja Mac which is a chicken sandwich with habenero sauce, onions, lettuce, cheese, etc. No beef on the menu.

Quote: MidwestAP

That's true but the menu's are not the same as you find in the states. primarily the absence of beef. I remember a McDonalds in Delhi with something called the Maharaja Mac which is a chicken sandwich with habenero sauce, onions, lettuce, cheese, etc. No beef on the menu.

The Big Bang Theory - Raj about McDonald's in India

I’m at a bar with a live band, beers are buy one get one for $3 Canadian. This is going to get ugly. If you don’t hear from me over the next week it means I died. Nice knowing you all.

Quote: PokerGrinder

I’m at a bar with a live band, beers are buy one get one for $3 Canadian. This is going to get ugly. If you don’t hear from me over the next week it means I died. Nice knowing you all.

Doesn't it feel like you are being ripped off after spending next to nothing on things like that over the last 2 weeks?

Do they have coors light or bud light? or do you see more German type beers?

Enjoy the music and cheap beer. Stay away from the Punjab and that Ram Sing Somebody, he just castrated 400 of his followers.

I had some sort of Indian frozen breakfast this morning. That and your photographs/narrative is the closest I'll ever get to it. Tnx.

Great night, drunk for very little and now the locals have taken us for 2 am drunk food. Perfection.

Quote: PokerGrinder

Great night, drunk for very little and now the locals have taken us for 2 am drunk food. Perfection.

To support your trip I am having Butter Chicken and Shrimp Tika Masalla for dinner.

That sounds really good. We ended up having channa masala and butter chicken with naan. I bet mine was cheaper lol.

Well I’m having a great time in Goa, I’ll update soon I promise. I’m perfectly ok but I took a tumble on the scooter I rented. I went to the hospital about a hour ago and I escaped with nothing but scrapes and bruises. Overall I’m just sore. Nothing major. Going to find food now, I’m hungry lol.

Thanks for the update PG. Glad to hear that you weren’t seriously injured. I think Goa is a modern city, so I hope the medical facilities were up to date.

Ok sore has turned into my whole body is in a lot of pain. Also I just got killed at the casino lol. Not a good day I guess.

Ahh that sucks. So you know me with all the questions. I would like to hear about the medical facility. How does it work in another country, did you have to pay cash up front to be seen? Do you buy travel insurance for things like this? Ok I won't kill you with too many questions this time. Glad to hear it was nothing serious though.

PG,In Cambodia you have to pay at the hospital before they will take care of you,Is it the same in India?

Quote: PokerGrinder

Ok sore has turned into my whole body is in a lot of pain. Also I just got killed at the casino lol. Not a good day I guess.

I hope you're alright bud.. A lot of injuries involving any kind of moving (such as a bicycle, motor bike, car, etc) often times start to hurt more a couple days after the accident. If the pain continues and is pretty severe, you really should go back to a hospital and get checked out.

Sounds like a pretty fun and wild night! =D

The hospital seemed pretty normal to me. I had to pay 100 rupees to register and then they cleaned me up, gave me a tetanus shot and put iodine on my cuts. The doctor then came and checked me out and prescribed some meds for the pain and swelling. I didn't pay for any of these services which was very surprising. The only thing that I had to pay for was the pills that the doctor prescribed to me. All told I paid about 11 dollars Canadian which I will get back from my insurance provider. Yes I always travel with insurance in case something really bad happens. This will be the first time that I have ever had to claim anything.

Romes I am in insane amounts of pain but I am meeting up with my sister in 2 days and she is a doctor. I am sure she will do a full check up when I see her.

When I last left off I was headed to Elephanta Island with Danielle. We took the train down to the Gateway of India to catch the ferry.

We took some pictures of the Gateway and the TaJ Mahal hotel across the street. The hotel is the most famous one in India and will set you back around $500 Canadian a night. We took the ferry to the Island which took about 75 minutes. It cost 200 rupees and 10 more if you wanted to be on the 2nd deck with the view and the open air. We paid the 10 rupees and enjoyed our ferry ride to the island. A group of seagulls followed our boat to the island for most of the way, probably because people were throwing snacks at them.

Once we arrived at the island we walked for about 15 minutes to reach the stairs! Omg there were a lot of stairs! We climbed stairs for about 15 minutes and we were both sweaty and breathing heavy by the time we finally reached the top. The stairs section of the island is a total tourist trap as there are about a hundred stores lining the way to the top. Once at the top we each paid our 500 rupees to go see the caves. There are 5 caves with the first being the main cave. The caves and the sculptures are mainly dedicated to Shiva. The caves contain rock cut stone sculptures that show syncretism of Hindu and Buddhist ideas and iconography (I stole that from WIki). Almost all of the sculptures have been defaced and damaged over the years. The caves are said to have been completed around 550 CE.



As we were walking back to the death stairs (should I copyright that?) we saw the monkeys that we saw on the way in. Someone had given two of them popsicles and the monkeys were eating them. The monkeys got bored of the cold treat and left it there to melt.

We then took the last ferry back to the mainland. We were both starving so we stopped for food on the way back and then took the train back both complaining about how tire we were. We got back to the hostel and found out that everyone was going out to a disco club in a few hours. I had no interest because of how tired I was but Danielle and a couple others convinced me to go, boy am I glad that they did. We went to the disco club which was pretty fancy. They had a live band playing American covers and they were absolutely amazing. We had a few snacks (okra fries and jalapeno cheese balls) and a lot of beer! Beer was on special buy one get one for 150 rupees ($3 Canadian). I got quite drunk as did most of out group. We left the club around 2 am and the hostel owners took us to a really good restaurant where we had butter chicken, a veggie dish that I can't remember right now and naan. The food was excellent. We took a tuk tuk back to the hostel and called it a night.


The next morning I wasn't hungover but I was exhausted from a lack of sleep. My plan was to do as little as possible and lay around all day. I hung out with the other hungover people and we all ordered food using Zomato which is a free delivery service. I ordered butter chicken biryani from the place that I went to the first night and it was so good. I plan on eating there tomorrow night before I catch my flight to Bangkok in two days. The next day I went to the airport to catch my flight to Goa where I planned on gambling a lot. To be continued...

To reiterate..... GREAT TRIP!

Quote: PokerGrinder

Ya you can get coke and Pepsi anywhere. It’s a little harder to find other soft drinks, but you can get sprite and Mountain Dew in certain places.

Chocolate bars are at most corner stores, Lays chips but Indian flavours, American chocolate bars are big, especially Cadbury.

Like I just walked past a Baskin Robbins and I see KFC, Pizza Hut and Burger King a lot. If you want unhealthy American food it’s not hard to find.

Just catching up. Cadbury is British.

Keep up the trip review and let us know how your sore is. Stay healthy!!!

I think Cadbury was a fine old British firm but is now Swiss, I think. I know there was some corporate takeover quite some time ago but the name was too well respected to not continue using it. I think the Cadbury's to Cadbury name change is said to saved them a million dollars in ink, don't know if its true or not.

Quote: boymimbo

Just catching up. Cadbury is British.

How does this work? Of course Cadbury was British. Then the Schweppes merger made it Swiss. Then the Kraft acquisition made it American. Now the Mondelez ownership keeps it American? even though Cadbury hasn't been produced in the US since 2007 or in the UK since 2012. So it's Chinese? Brazilian? Indian? Actually, pretty good chance those bars were Indian in this case, I suppose...

Quote: PokerGrinder

....The next day I went to the airport to catch my flight to Goa where I planned on gambling a lot. To be continued...

Ooooh, a cliffhanger. Spoiler Alert... The hero takes a tumble in Goa. I sure hope we don’t hear “... and that’s what happens when you gamble and take pain killers”

Glad to hear your sister will be able to give you a trusted examination. Take care and feel better soon.

I think say November we should start a GO FUND ME page ...you know that commercial where the guy says for $20 a month you can support a child ......... well WizardofVegas members for $20 you can send a Western Canadian kid on a pilgrimage for a extra day of travel in India .... travel which he will blog about for all to enjoy ... help save the kid from THE PEG from freezing to death contribute now contribute often one lucky contributor will receive a SNOW BALL from India once he returns to Canada ...... signed of course

Quote: coilman

I think say November we should start a GO FUND ME page ...you know that commercial where the guy says for $20 a month you can support a child ......... well WizardofVegas members for $20 you can send a Western Canadian kid on a pilgrimage for a extra day of travel in India .... travel which he will blog about for all to enjoy ... help save the kid from THE PEG from freezing to death contribute now contribute often one lucky contributor will receive a SNOW BALL from India once he returns to Canada ...... signed of course

Haha I fully support this plan. I will happily travel the world and blog about it for your enjoyment!

Quote: PokerGrinder

Haha I fully support this plan. I will happily travel the world and blog about it for your enjoyment!

I'll be first to toss in $20.... will $20 Canadian Pesos cover a day>? or would $20 US be required ( about $5 Can difference or almost 4 beers)

When the other guy I know from THE PEG did his 2 plus years of World travel we always looked forward to his Saturday blog to come out.... he should write a book

Do you have any pics of you on the scooter?

Goa! Oh Goa how amazing you are!

I started out my first couple of casino visits thinking that I would try and gather enough information like Mike does to do a Goa casino review, that didn't exactly happen. I started keeping track of everything and then it tailed off as the casinos got bigger and the thought of walking around and documenting games and table limits became less appealing. I managed to keep decent track and I found a few new games that I have never seen before in casinos. I will say that from the 13 (I think it was 13?) casinos that I visited, roulette was by far the most popular game in Goa. I booked a private room in Goa because I thought it would be nice to have my own space for 5 days (4 nights). I paid 1050 rupees per night which was a decent price.

There are 5 casino boats and 8 land casinos in the area or close to the area. The land casinos are all in 5 star hotels. My first casino that I visited was the Crown Casino. It was only about a 10 minute walk from my hostel to Crown Casino. The casinos in Goa have entry fees that include snacks (vegetarian and non vegetarian), alcohol and dinner if you are there at the correct time. I will start out by saying that if I wasn't a) on vacation and b) in Goa mainly to collect chips I would not have been ok with paying the crazy entry fees. I knew about the fees before getting to India and I had decided that the crazy fees were worth it to me. At Crown Casino I paid 2000 rupees for entry and received 1000 one time play chips which from here on out will be referred to as OTP chips. 1000 rupees is $15.60 USD for all you Americans and 1000 rupees is basically $20 Canadian. I am sure many people who read this thread and confirm what I think, OTP chips are worth half their value? 1000 OTP chips are worth 500 rupees? The casino was quite small, one of the smallest that I visited and everything was on one floor. The casino had 10 slot machines which were like any Class III slots you would see in the states. I tried one out to see if they were the same and the machine seemed to work exactly as expected. I played Super Jackpot Party at 20 rupees a spin and hit a bonus for 2700 rupees, it's nice when research pays off. At Crown there were no cash buy ins at the table, I had to buy chips at the cage first. This was the only casino where I found this. The games they had were as follows:
Roulette - everything was the same as normal roulette except the wheel had a glass top and to spin the ball the dealer would push a button. The minimum bet outside was 500 on all 3 tables. The 3 different tables had limits for inside of 50-1000, 100-2000 and 500-5000. There were also two roulette wheels with no dealers, one had 6 slot machine betting stations in front of the wheel and the other had 5 betting stations attached to the wheel like a bubble craps machine.
Blackjack - I played BJ with a 200 minimum bet. The game was dealt with real cards, you buy in with chips that go on the computer screen in front of you. you bet, hit, stand etc on the screen. The cards are dealt out of a shoe with a scanner on the end of it to read the cards.
Other games -
UTH limits 100-1000 used computer screens and real cards
3 Card Poker 100-1000 screen and cards
Baccarat 1000-100,000
Andar Bahar - I have never seen this game before. I had it explained to me and I think that I understand the jist of it but not well enough to explain to you all. If someone feels like posting about the game (Mike?) that would be great.

I won 500 off my 1000 in OTP (all but one casino gave me the OTP in 500 chips and they had to be used on even money bets except one casino)
I was up 4800 on gambling and I paid 2000 entry. I am not including the money won off of OTP in my plus/minus on gambling.

I had chicken nuggets, fries and 2 beers while at the casino.

My next stop was the Pride 2 casino boat on the Mandovi River. The first floor of the boat had the buffet which was very mediocre and a little gaming room. The gaming room had a game called mini flush, casino war, 3 card poker, baccarat and roulette (normal roulette with the dealer spinning the ball) all with 500 minimums. The second floorn had 5 andar bahar, 5 roulette, 3 Indian flush, 2 baccarat, BJ, 2 casino war, 3 card poker, mini flush, stud poker, an electronic andar bahar and a game called chote miya/bade miya.

At Pride 2 I won both OTP bets for 1000 total and I won 500 more after keeping my chip while playing BJ. My entry fee was 2000.

I then took the ferry from Pride 2 to Pride Casino. I found out at Pride I could have gotten my entry fee refunded since I was playing poker, oh well. I played poker for about 3 hours. The game was solid, no good players but the rake was extremely high like it was in Macau. They play 100/200 no limit, the rake is 5% uncapped which gets pretty insane. I ended up winning 11,000 playing poker before calling it a night because I was tired. They use poker chips for poker so I played the spinning wheel because it had the smallest minimum bet. I lost 500 which included my 100 chip that I kept. Pride Casino had only 6 slot machines which was pretty normal for Goa.



The next day I arranged a scooter rental through the hostel and it was so much fun riding around all day on it. I paid 700 rupees for the 2 days (although I gave it back early when I got into the accident) and in total I put 550 rupees of gas into it which was way more than I needed. The scooter made it really easy to reach the casinos because they were not in walking distance from each other and taxis would have been really expensive.


I drove 10 minutes to Casino Paradise, it took some getting used to the scooter but I got the hang of it pretty quickly. Paradise had a 1000 entry fee with no OTP. I lost 1950 playing 100 min BJ which included keeping a 100 chip. This version was electronic for cards, but you bet with real chips which was the most common version that I found here, I gave the normal signals for hit, stand etc and the dealer would press the appropriate button beside his chip tray. The casino had all of the standard games plus sic bo and electronic horse racing. The weirdest game I saw in Goa was at Paradise. They had baccarat game that was dealt by a robot arm using real cards, that was so weird.

I had a bite to eat at the casino buffet before moving on.

My next stop was at the Palms Casino which was a 30 minute drive away. This was a smaller casino with 12 slots and about 15 tables all with electronic screens but real cards.. The games were all the standard games, the roulette was a real wheel with an electronic spin. I kept a 500 chip here because they use other casinos chips for the lower denominations. Entry was 1000 with no OTP, I won 1050 playing 200 min BJ.

Next was Grand 7 which had all the standard games in electronic form. I played 200 minimum BJ and won 1550 while losing the 500 OTP chip that I got with my 1000 entry. I kept a 500 chip here as well because they were using 100 chips from the Goa Nugget.

Next up was my favourite casino because I won a ton of money lol. Carnival Casino had 39 slots but 12 were not in operation. They had Game KIngs which I was very surprised to see. The casino had 4 roulette, 3 electronic roulette, electronic baccarat, 2 andar bahar and 2 BJ games. The first which I played was totally electronic and had a 200 min, if you wanted real cards it was 500 min, I won 800 on BJ and lost my OTP chip. I then decided to go play video poker, the machines don't take big bills so I had to get change and feed 100 rupee bills in one at a time. I got down about 7000 rupees (oops) betting 100 rupees before hitting a couple double ups and being up 400 rupees. I was going to cash out but I decided to play it down to where I was even and the second game I hit this:

A nice cool 80,000 rupees makes the trip a whole lot better. I cashed out and headed to the next casino with my wad of bills.

My next stop of the night was at Chances Casino where I played 500 min BJ. I won 650 and won all of my OTP bets. Entry was 1000 and OTP was 1000.

My taxi that is taking me to the airport got here 30 minutes earlier so I will post this and finish the update later today in Mumbai. Sadly the second half of the update involves the crash and losing at the poker table.

(Mod edit for pic typo)

Envy n jealous

I wonder why poker players would get the entry fee waived. Is there something different about them then other players?

Nice hit! Was it 8,000 or 80,000? The pay screen is confusing.

Is the royal a handpay there? Do the dealers hustle for tips?

When playing poker, do you find yourself spending a lot of mental energy converting rupees to canadian?

Where there lots of locals in the casinos? What did the age distribution look like? Are there lots of older folks like in North America? Do they pipe in annoying upbeat music and/or perfume there too?

Quote: PokerGrinder

Haha I fully support this plan. I will happily travel the world and blog about it for your enjoyment!

He has to make it home to watch the Jets win the cup.

Quote: FleaStiff

I think Cadbury was a fine old British firm but is now Swiss, I think. I know there was some corporate takeover quite some time ago but the name was too well respected to not continue using it. I think the Cadbury's to Cadbury name change is said to saved them a million dollars in ink, don't know if its true or not.

It's American. The chocolate of course is made in India.

Quote: wiki

In 1948, Cadbury India began its operations in India by importing chocolates. On 19 July 1948, Cadbury was incorporated in India. It now has manufacturing facilities in Thane, Induri (Pune) and Malanpur (Gwalior), Hyderabad, Bangalore and Baddi (Himachal Pradesh) and sales offices in New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. The corporate head office is in Mumbai. The head office is presently situated at Pedder Road, Mumbai, under the name of "Cadbury House". This monumental structure at Pedder Road has been a landmark for the citizens of Mumbai since its creation. Since 1965 Cadbury has also pioneered the development of cocoa cultivation in India. For over two decades, Cadbury has worked with the Kerala Agricultural University to undertake cocoa research.[107][108]
Currently, Cadbury India operates in five categories – Chocolate confectionery, Beverages, Biscuits, Gum and Candy. Its products include Cadbury Dairy Milk, Dairy Milk Silk, Bournville, 5-Star, Temptations, Perk, Eclairs, Bournvita, Celebrations, Gems, Bubbaloo, Cadbury Dairy Milk Shots, Toblerone, Halls, Bilkul, Tang, and Oreo.[109][110]
It is the market leader in the chocolate confectionery business with a market share of over 70%

Aye: I actually have no idea why they waive the fees for poker players, maybe because the rake is so high they make more having one dealer dealing a poker game then one dealer dealing BJ? The royal was 8000 credits and I was playing 10 rupees per credit so it was 80,000 rupees which is about $1280 USD. All the machines in this casino were handpays for any cashout, when the royal hit the machine didn't lock up, I was able to keep playing. They didn't have a TITO system so all cashouts were handled by a slot attendent. The Dealers don't hustle for tips, I saw next to no tips while I was there.

As far as the poker game I never was converting the rupees to Canadian dollars while playing because it doesn't matter. The amount of money doesn't matter when making a decision. Obviously it does for pot odds and bet sizing but I just did that in rupees. If you are looking at poker chips as money on the table, you have already lost. They are just betting discs, they have no value until I pick up from the table. Once I cash out I do figure out win/loss for myslef in CDN.

That depends on what you define as a local. If you mean Indians, then yes 99% of the patrons were locals. If you mean locals from Goa, that is hard to tell but I heard that different casinos are preferred by locals.

Boymimbo: I can do that from the road! I am really enjoying how well the Jets are playing. We finally have a team that is firing on D, offence and top end goaltending.

Nice on vp, that is a ton of money for them is it not? Or are you in a more western type place now with prices we would be used to?

I was confused on the vp too. So your denom was 10 rupees and won 8000x 10 rupees so if you were playing 1 rupee it woukd have been a 1000 rupee bet.

On the last episode of Grinder in Asia we left our traveller as he was enjoying scooting around Goa on his rented scooter and winning lots of money, little did he know his luck was about to change in more ways than one...

After the Chances Casino I went to Casino Strike which was by far the nicest casino in Goa. This casino would fit right in on the Las Vegas Strip. I paid 2000 to enter and got 2000 OTP. I started at the buffet for dinner which was included with the entry. The food was amazing! It was an around the world themed buffet and it was absolutely amazing! I would have happily paid $30 for this buffet in Vegas. There was a live dance group on the stage in the eating area.

They had an assortment of Indian deserts too.

I won 750 off of my 2000 OTP, this was the only casino that I found paid a BJ in full when betting OTP chips. I proceeded to lose 1750 playing 200 minimum BJ. This was by far the weirdest version of dealt card games that I saw in Goa. They deal all card games face down and the player never sees the other side of the cards. You bet with real chips and make all decisions on the computer screen in front of each player. There is a scanner on the shoe that tells the computer what each card is. The only time I saw the other side of the cards was if the dealer flashed them slightly while picking them up after each game.

I then went back to Casino Pride and played poker for 4 hours before heading back to my room to take a nap before watching the Super Bowl. I won 21,100 at the poker game. I woke up to stream the SB at 5 am local time. I watched the game, had breakfast and then grabbed some sleep. When I woke up I started my journey to the Dunes Casino which was about 70 minutes away. About ten minutes in a bus stopped suddenly and made a quick left turn. I wasn't able to brake as quickly on the scooter and I was thrown from the bike headfirst into the ground. I never lost conciousness but I was definitly a little out of it from the crash. A couple of cars stopped to check on me and told me I should go to the hospital. I asked where that was and they pointed to the bulding on the other side of the highway. I was covered in dirt and my nose was bleeding along with my chin and various other spots on my arms and legs.

I scooted over to the hospital and someone directed me to the ER where a nurse cleaned me up of both dirt and blood. She gave me a tetanus shot and then directed me to go sign in. I paid 100 rupees for the paperwork which was only name and country. I thought that I was going to puke in line from the head trauma but I managed not to and the feeling passed soon after. After the paperwork I was seen by a doctor who checked me out and cleared me of any neck or back injuries and perscribed me 5 days of pills for the pain and swelling. I was extremely lucky to escape this nasty crash with just a bloody nose, scrapes, bruises and a very sore body. If I wasn't wearing a helmet I might be dead because I went headfirst into a rock.
These are the pictures I took a few hours later after I had driven the scooter back to my room and showered.




I also had some scrapes and bruises on my knees and chest.

After showering I slept for a bit and then tried to find a way to still visit the Dunes Casino becuase, well I am crazy. I was able to hire a tourist driver through the hostel for 2000 rupees. He agreed to drive me there, wait for a hour and then drive me back. Dunes Casino doesn't have an entry fee and is mostly a locals casino. It is tiny! It has one room with 5 slots, electronic BJ, electronic baccarat, 5 roulette wheels where the ball is spun electronically and 2 roulette wheels that each had 8 betting stations attached to them. I played 200 minimum BJ and I was down about 5000 before I won 11 straight hands. I up my bet by 200 with every win so I eneded up cashing out up 5000. The only reason I stayed so long when I was down was because I had to wait for my driver anyways since he had gone for Chai. The driver drove me back and dropped me at the Deltin JAQK Casino boat so that I could knock one more off my list so I would only have to do 2 boats the next day. I wish I had waited lol. I paid 2500 entry, and won 1000 off of 2000 OTP. I had dinner at their buffet which was ok but not great. The Casino had 34 tables plus the high limit room which I was not allowed in. I won 2450 playing 300 minimum BJ and then sadly decided to play poker. I got coolered KK<QJ on a KJJ J 4 board for a bunch and then got called down in a ridiculous spot where I bet all 3 streets with the nut flush draw and overs (I missed my draw) and I get called down on my river shove by top pair with no kicker lol. I love my line on the hand, most people fold there. I found out over the next couple of hours that this player wasn't people as he had no idea what he was doing. Multiple times he called river bets with A high I'm not sure if he knew folding was allowed. Oh well I lost 70.5 k in the game, shit happens.

The next day I woke up and it felt like I had been hit by a truck, my whole body was beyond sore. I went to the Deltin Royale Casino first where I paid 3500 entry and got 2500 OTP. The casino had 18 slots and 32 tables with the standard mix of games that I found in Goa casinos. The only variation was a game called Maang Patta which I have never seen before. Sadly they didn't have any instructions on the table. They also had a bunch of giant screens with 20 terminals in four rows where you could play live roulette, live baccarat, automated roulette, virtual sic bo, virtual baccarat and virtual roulette on each machine. I played 500 minimum BJ and ended up winning 3650 and I won 500 off my 2500 in OTP. They had a little lunch spread of chana masala, dal, rice and I was able to order these fried crab things which were really good. It was real crab meat on an actual crab pincher, it was breaded and fried. I had many of those! I took the ferry back and immediately headed to Deltin Caravela right next door. This casino is clearly not doing well as the women who took my entry fee warned that there was only one player aboard the ship. Also for a 3000 entry fee I was given 5000 OTP chips which shows that they are desperate for customers. The casino had 14 tables and no slots. They opened the BJ table for me on request and I played 500 minimum BJ. I only won 1500 off of my 5000 in OTP but I won 2650 while playing so that was ok. I wasn't thrilled with this place as they were using chips from Casino Royale Goa and the only chip that said Casino Caravela on it was a junket chip that no matter how much I pleaded with the boss I couldn't get him to sell me one. I absolutely hate when casinos use chips that don't have their names on them. Sadly I was forced to keep a non Caravela chip from Casino Caravela.

All told here are my numbers from Goa:
I paid an insane 20,000 ruppes for entry fees. I was given 15,500 worth of OTP chips which I won 6250 rupees of off so I ran just under expectation on those. I kept 2150 rupees worth of chips and I won 96,450 on gambling. The money I won on gambling doesn't include the money won from OTP chips. I lost 38,400 in my 3 poker sessions.

Ok here comes my dumb questions as always.
You said buffet was around the world. What type of American type food did they have? Anything that resembled what we would eat here?

If you get arrested while on the trip you should ask if they can use those picturea from the crash. Those are definitely booking photos.

Glad you are basically ok from the crash. What happened with the scooter when you returned it? We're you charged for damage?

PG. I winced and nearly wept to see your injuries. So painful. But very thankful you were not hurt worse, and that you had a hospital right by you to get cleaned up immediately. The tetanus shot was probably an excellent idea.

I also wondered about the scooter and how the return went. And about the breaded crab claws. You ate the shell as well as the insides? Was it odd or brittle to do that?

Double ouch on that cooler hand. Quads on the turn, oh my.

Hope you're mostly healed a week later.

finally PG, you look like a Canadian on holiday.