Ganesha Ornaments

It's time for a new blog header picture so I chose this one, colourful, hand painted Ganeshas. 

I found them at the Khala Goda Arts festival and this is one of the few pictures taken there, it was just too busy but serves me right for turning up on the last Saturday afternoon of the festival.  It was a jolly crowd though all hell bent on getting their pictures taken with the installations or swarming over the stalls selling all manner of bright and beautiful things.  I'll go again but go earlier next time.

Ganesh Immersion the aftermath

Each year thousands of idols are immersed in bodies of water all over the city.  I had read about the pollution caused by this but this year I went with a group of students on a beach cleanup to Aksa beach.

 

 Reading about the aftermath is absolutely no substitute for seeing it for real.  The idols look amazing on their way to the immersion, the workmanship and artistry that go into them is stunning but it's really  tragic to see them the next morning.

 

At least we now have a group of committed students who are going to campaign for more eco friendly idols to be used in their celebrations next year.

Production line

Little Ganesh statues being manufactured in a village industries training centre. I still don't own a Ganesh but one day I'll find one that's irresistable.

Yusuf Meherally Centre

Fireworks for Ganesh

Just one of the elements of the Ganesh Chaturthi celebration. Good photography practice for Diwali.

Ganesh Indian Restaurant, HCMC

Found on Le Than Thon a recently opened Indian Restaurant. (This was initialy written a long time ago, see the update at the bottom of this post for a more recent review)



The food is very good and I'm particularly taken by their thalis.





Ganesh vies for first place on my list of favourite Indian restaurants in Saigon with Mumtaz in the backpacker area barely winning in the tase stakes but Ganesh wins hands down on the decor front.

Update Edit I've been feeling bad.
I recently had a look at the blog stats, not something I often do, and found that this post was the top hit. I have to come clean and admit that I stopped eating here a long time ago, around the time the dahl started to be sweet, the vegetable dishes started to be over salted and bland and the staff started saying "I'll talk to the chef" when I returned my inedible dishes and still put them on the bill. I tried the Phu My Hung outlet more than a few times, it was equally poor. I'm not saying Ganesh is bad, just that in my opinion it's become dumbed down and formulaeic and probably serving food that lots of people like, just not me. Mumtaz eventually won out for tasty, reliable food but has been surpassed now that Robin the long term manager of Mumtaz has set up his own Baba's Kitchen near the old place. Where do I eat now? Mumbai mainly, it's not a curry restaurant in HCMC but the city in India that I relocated to.