Eating India's BEST Butter Chicken!
We discover the surprising origins of India's most famous dish: Butter Chicken. Adam relives his India food adventures, sharing his experience of eating at Gulati Restaurant in Delhi, touted as the best butter chicken in India. We ask: Was butter chicken actually invented in Pakistan? And why are two Delhi restaurants fighting over the original recipe?
Acclimatise quickly, as Tales of a Trip reaches new heights! We hear from a digital nomad who summits mountains for fun, whilst carrying a bag of his own... Neither altitude sickness nor food poisoning will stop this hiker from reaching the top!
Alun reflects on his time in Siargao, debating whether to stay longer or move on. 4 Months of surfing and jiujitsu has been great but the thresher sharks in Malapascua aren't going to swim with themselves!
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Gulati Restaurant, Delhi: https://www.gulatirestaurant.in/
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Intro
01:07 - Alun's Siargao dilemma: "Should I stay or should I go?"
09:00 - Adam's Queenstown love story
13:25 - Rice for Breakfast: Butter Chicken
25:43 - Tales of a Trip: highs & lows
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TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to Tripology
Alun:
[0:02] Hello and welcome to this episode of Tripology. It's the only backpacking show where the hosts don't even bother to take their belts off when they're going through airport security. I'm Alun and I'm here with the ever decisive Adam.
Adam:
[0:16] Ever so nice to be back mate. Thank you everyone for joining us. We really do appreciate it. Wicked show today. We're going to have a little catch up as we normally do. I've been making some decisions on my side. I know you've got some decisions to make on your side. And then we've got rice for breakfast backed by popular demand we're going to cover a dish that's very buttery and very chickeny and then of course we've got tales of a trip where we're going to hear from one of you guys.
Alun:
[0:37] Well i'm excited to hear your review of chicken with butter on top of it very very nice one of my old mancunian favorites i.
Adam:
[0:47] Bet it's a good good uh curry scene up in manchester.
Alun:
[0:50] I mean we have a literal mile of curry stretching all the way off into the distance are.
Adam:
[0:55] They called the curry mile.
Alun:
[0:55] Sometimes people say that yep.
Adam:
[0:57] That's not the morning after anyway it's too early in the episode to to do a poo joke anyway we've been making some decisions haven't we mate what's going on on your side.
Alun:
[1:06] Well i'm just sort of trying to weigh up whether i stay in chargau, i want to go home for christmas basically at the time of recording this is sort of piercing through october with with alarming rates so sort of i gotta go home for christmas do i leave chargau and try to desperately get some more philippines in or do i make sure i experience everything i want to experience in chargau before leaving you know what i'm like because there's two schools of thought in there i'm like okay look you're in the philippines you've got rented accommodation it's really nice you've got friends you've got training here just stay put and then you like have everything you need go home for christmas or do you leave but then once you get on the frame wave of i'm going to leave you're like oh well oh i'll go to here in the philippines but then borneo is quite close by so i'll go to borneo really quickly and then oh god you're not that far from do you remember kuala lumpur that time you spent in the jungle with those uh.
The Travel Dilemma
Adam:
[2:12] No of course well this is the big dilemma that a lot of travelers have is when when they do stop and they either stay in one place for a long time, recharge the literal and metaphorical batteries, and also maybe try and accrue a little bit of money in order to go to the next destination, you end up making decisions, making friends, you basically, like, I don't know, you make commitments, you have jobs, contracts, cars, all these different relationships and things, so it obviously is much more difficult to rip yourself away from it.
Alun:
[2:41] Once you've been somewhere for a little while, I've been here in Siargao since July, the the things that you accumulate that make it a little bit harder to leave obviously it's not a huge barrier to leaving but part of it's like oh well you know i've got that i've got that big bag of of rice so i don't want to waste that so i'll stay just another few days or i bought that liquid soap so that's quite large so i try and use that before i go and uh you know i've paid rent up until this day so i'd stay up until then you like it's so easy to put up barriers uh i basically think what i'm gonna do is stay in chargau until the end of october and then get another month of traveling the philippines in and i'll just go home in december and.
Adam:
[3:25] Do you think that you've explored chargau at sort of a slow pace you've just done things as and when do you feel like you've become accustomed to what it's really like to live in chargau um or did you do loads of stuff at the very beginning and now you're pat and now you there was obviously that middle section in the middle where you now you're just living your life going to jujitsu and surfing and there's still a stack of shit to do and you're like oh fuck i really should have been ticking some of that stuff off.
Alun:
[3:51] Yeah kind of i mean there's not chargau's not known for having a bunch of stuff to do other than surfing oh right but i will say i've probably seen and done less than you would if you were only staying for three weeks seen.
Adam:
[4:03] And done less really.
Alun:
[4:04] I think that's normal because i like for the first two weeks i packed a bunch in and then i was like oh well you know i'm here for so long i'll just live for a little while and then there's other things up north and stuff that i just haven't done because i just didn't need to because i was here for a long time yeah.
Adam:
[4:21] Yeah well just um so we can visualize it me and all the listeners how long does it take to drive from one end of the island to the other.
Alun:
[4:28] Like two and a half hours oh okay.
Adam:
[4:32] Is there a road that goes all the way around the outside?
Alun:
[4:34] Kind of. It gets a bit sketchy as you go up north.
Adam:
[4:37] Oh, yeah? What, because of the people there or because of the quality of the roads?
Alun:
[4:40] No, because of the roads.
Adam:
[4:44] A load of wild pigs trying to get their own back. Okay, well, yeah. I mean, whatever decision you do make will be the right one, I'm sure. I don't know. I don't know if I'm really in a position to tell you to do one or the other, to be honest. I think maybe can I just throw the cat amongst the pigeons and ask you a question.
Alun:
[5:03] That's not gonna go well is it a cat among pigeons it'll have somebody's eye out but.
Adam:
[5:07] Uh we've spoken about this a few times on the podcast before and it is sort of a question that i've been it's been at the forefront of my mind over the last few weeks because i'm about to make a big decision as well do you think you're gonna go back to shark now.
Alun:
[5:19] Listen mate i suppose the problem is i've always thought i was going to go back to somewhere if you told me when i left hanoi for the first time in 2015 that now in 2025 i wouldn't have been back i simply would not have believed it.
Adam:
[5:37] Yeah yeah it's the trouble.
Alun:
[5:39] Like categorically i've just been like oh you're an idiot who are you cassandra the ancient greek soothsayer why don't you fuck off, but lo and behold you'd have been correct wouldn't you and now it's very easy to figure oh i know i've got my jiu-jitsu here i'll come back whenever i'm in the area but the fact is I ain't been to Japan I ain't been to South Korea I ain't been to North Korea I've never set one foot in Papua New Guinea there's just so many things that I want to do which are always going to have a novelty factor for me so perhaps the likelihood is I won't return to Chicago in the near future and I'm kind of entering this new phase of my travel life and, where I'm not so concerned with making sure I've done everything. I used to really want to check all the boxes and be like, oh, that waterfall, of course I've been there. That little pygmy rhinoceros up in the north, of course I've seen him. But that's not necessarily the case anymore. I think I would go and see the pygmy rhinoceros. But the waterfall, I'm not that bothered about.
Adam:
[6:41] No, you've obviously lived a very different experience to a lot of people that just go there for a couple of weeks.
Alun:
[6:46] Yeah, exactly. If someone's like, did you not see that waterfall? You idiot, it's amazing. I'd be like, did you not have that little hallo hallo on that stand that you only know if you've been there for three months? Did you not? You're an idiot.
Adam:
[7:00] Well, the first and last time I've had a hallo hallo was, of course, with you when we were in, I think it was my last day, wasn't it, in Manila?
Alun:
[7:07] Exactly.
Adam:
[7:08] Bloody abomination, the thing is.
Alun:
[7:09] Proof if proof needs be.
Adam:
[7:10] Well, mate, you will keep us updated, won't you, of course. I don't know what you're going to do, but I think you have got a lot of things you want to do. you got a lot of places you want to see and um the chargale's not going anywhere not anytime soon so maybe it's time you pop on a plane and get over to borneo well.
Alun:
[7:29] I've just paid another month's rent so it seems unlikely.
Adam:
[7:31] The flights are going to be so much more expensive towards christmas Alun what are you doing now you haven't got access to my credit card i.
Alun:
[7:42] Think i'm in a phase of life where it's more important that i learn to stay put and achieve all the things that i want to achieve, from the base before i go making excuses and like oh i've not quite achieved all the business things i achieve quick go to borneo look at an orangutan it's like no no stay true to the course start some businesses.
Adam:
[8:00] Okay okay nice so are we gonna see you sort of moving from base to base now are you going to be in each location for longer that's.
Alun:
[8:08] Probably the case yeah.
Adam:
[8:09] That's awesome i can't wait well a little birdie told me the next one might be japan so So, you know, I don't need too many excuses to get over there myself.
Alun:
[8:18] Yeah, I don't appreciate you calling me a little birdie. It makes me feel self-conscious.
Decisions in Queenstown
Adam:
[8:27] Self-conscious most of the things i know have been told to me by you actually so uh yeah uh everyone in queenstown thinks i'm so wise i.
Alun:
[8:39] Like it when you do it you go a little birdie told me oh did it about my.
Adam:
[8:43] Life there's.
Alun:
[8:43] A very informative bird that keeps on flying on your windowsill and espousing information that i also have told you just moments before that bird must be well frustrated every time it comes up to you you're like i already know i got
Breakup with Queenstown
Alun:
[8:55] it from the horse's mouth.
Adam:
[8:56] And say don't call it um yeah my goodness mate i've been making some big decisions myself as well um tell me about well i can keep it pretty short and sweet i've fallen out of love with queenstown i think and i don't really know if i was ever in love with it i don't know how long i wanted to stay here but i don't think it's quite the town for me and it's incredibly difficult to live here and make huge sums of money as all the other backpackers all tell you so i've sort of got to that stage where i'm just living here and working to exist here which isn't that fun and there's so much to see and now i've got the camper van on the driveway i mean what am i what am i even doing i'm.
Alun:
[9:35] Sorry to hear that mate would you like to do maybe a brief role play in which i play queenstown and you break up with me.
Adam:
[9:41] Why not why not yeah well i have to don't know the rules of improvisation you just say yes to everything you go with it.
Alun:
[9:49] Yeah oh adam it's been so nice to have you inside of me.
Adam:
[9:52] And um you've.
Alun:
[9:56] Been such an excellent inhabitant and i'm just glad you're having a lovely time here.
Adam:
[10:00] Oh that's that's the thing i'm afraid i haven't been having a lovely time there's been um well.
Alun:
[10:05] We've got ferg burger and uh we've got you know work opportunities and the rent is you know somewhat.
Adam:
[10:13] Extortionate yeah yeah one too many brownouts for my liking in queenstown problem with this relationship yeah.
Alun:
[10:21] But you've got a self-contained van that.
Adam:
[10:23] Can store.
Alun:
[10:24] Up to 24 liters of human shit.
Adam:
[10:26] So uh well i mean i just think the time's come i think the relationship's run its course i uh i did think that you know obviously at the beginning there was that initial attraction there i was very fond of you you said all the right things but now after getting to know you i've actually seen that it's all sort of surface level and it's not really much to you at all apart from a few bells and whistles okay.
Alun:
[10:50] It's getting a bit real for.
Adam:
[10:50] Me this role play hold.
Alun:
[10:55] On are you from belize.
Adam:
[10:59] Oh god there'll be some long time listeners who will like that reference um but no in all seriousness mate it's it's a good place to have some fun if you've got eye watering sums of cash um to blow because there are some wonderful things to do around queenstown to use it as a base i really do mean that i mean there is a lot of stuff to do here and it is fantastic but if you're going to live and work here uh in order to try and generate any sort of money to then propel yourself off into doing some some really exciting stuff then it does get a little bit difficult there's a cool community of people here but i have found actually i'm going to go on record um saying this the backpackers i've come across which are i don't know i would say quite significant in terms of size we're talking in the hundreds for sure they tend to be people that either came here once upon a time on a working holiday visa and just stayed and they've been here for 10 years or they're people that are very new to travel and then have just arrived here and haven't gone and done anything else just yet. So very rarely do you come across someone who's been on the road nonstop, backpacking through like Central Asia or any of this sort of stuff in Queenstown. It tends to be one of the two groups I mentioned from my experience.
Alun:
[12:10] Well, I personally never understood the appeal of Queenstown. I was surprised when you told me that you're going to be living there. So it's no great news to me or a shock. If anything, I'm rather happy for you for just sort of seeing it for what it is and choosing to leave. and um i'm very excited to
again i'm desperate to hear about your adventures in that van so please make use of it and uh get inside it.
Adam:
[12:33] That'll be it mate so you know what comes next it's going to be the dismantling of another life and uh moving on to the next one your.
Alun:
[12:40] Own and this time i hope.
Adam:
[12:41] After the legal complications a little birdie told me that that was all being swept under the carpet no no my own life of course yeah it's yeah everything's got to get sold i've got to all get all the money out the bank accounts i've got to quit all the jobs i've got you know all the stuff you you become an expert at this sort of thing what people think is going to take six months including all of the difficult goodbyes usually
Rice for Breakfast
Adam:
[13:04] takes a matter of days there.
Alun:
[13:06] You go well i'm excited at least one of us will be doing some hectic kind of travel so i'm excited to hear about that you know me though mate whenever i think about travel whenever i think about getting on the road, dismantling a life, and just moving about. It makes me ever so hungry.
Adam:
[13:21] I'm glad you said that, mate, because I'm absolutely starving. It's rice for breakfast. Here it is, mate. It's the latest edition of Rice for Breakfast. Have you missed it?
Alun:
[13:35] I have missed it because oftentimes when I'm eating eggs for breakfast, I think, what an idiot.
Adam:
[13:44] Are you still doing the eggs your way or my way now?
Alun:
[13:47] No, but I do think about the way you cook eggs often and it makes me feel sick.
Adam:
[13:53] But how many people have you met that have had your eggs that have said they're the best eggs they've ever had?
Alun:
[13:56] Well this is i'm yeah because i because i want to tell you this because i really i'm going to use this you're.
Adam:
[14:03] Just going to shut the argument down.
Alun:
[14:05] Yeah i am because i think i think it's a hollow compliment to get because i think basically it's so difficult to even communicate this but i think what you do is make them eggs and look at them so expectantly that they feel uncomfortable not saying anything the person.
Adam:
[14:21] That's eating them you mean.
Alun:
[14:22] Because it's you i think you go and sit down that you like serve them the egg what i do i make them the eggs i go there you go mate got you some eggs much love and then i walk off yeah what you do is make them this mush hand it to them and then sit looking in their eyes like as if to say are these the best eggs you've ever had they get increasingly uncomfortable as they're eating and then just go yeah they're the best i've ever had stop looking at me like that and then you go you're not the first person who said that to me The.
Adam:
[14:53] Common denominator actually being me staring them down until they... I have to say something complimentary.
Alun:
[14:59] Well, there, that's what I think happens.
Adam:
[15:01] There is a lot of butter in my eggs. That's the secret, guys. If you're wondering at home, what's the difference? I put a hell of a lot of
The Butter Chicken Legacy
Adam:
[15:06] butter in those eggs and serve them wet. And there's a lot of butter in this dish that we're going to be talking about today. It is, of course, the very iconic, the very famous, the ubiquitous and loved the world over. It's a butter chicken, mate.
Alun:
[15:19] Wow.
Adam:
[15:19] When was the last time you had a butter chicken?
Alun:
[15:21] Would have been when I was in India.
Adam:
[15:22] Yeah, I did have a butter chicken when I was in India, but it might have only been one.
Alun:
[15:28] Well, no, it wasn't because you went to Delhi and basically, I'm led to believe, bullied everyone you spoke to there into telling you where the best deli butter chicken restaurant was and went to every single one on the list.
Adam:
[15:41] No, no, no, no, no. No, I didn't do my own sort of discovery, deli discovery through butter chicken. I just got a recommendation from my ex-girlfriend, whom I was with at the time, and we went together. And that's the one I'll talk to you about now. I mean not.
Alun:
[15:56] Just to one though.
Adam:
[15:57] I think I only had one I just went straight in at the top I know it's not like me is it it's not like me at all um if you don't know what butter chicken is and you're listening to this podcast I'll be very very surprised however it is of course a bit of marinated chicken and a tomato based gravy few spices in there of course and then your coconut and cashew cream that's how you have it on curry mile in Manchester isn't it sweet I bet what.
Alun:
[16:22] With cashew cream.
Adam:
[16:23] Yeah i bet it's sweet we've.
Alun:
[16:24] Never heard of cashew cream.
Adam:
[16:25] In manchester mate and then uh and then of course loads of butter or ghee the history is really interesting the history, what are you laughing at i.
Alun:
[16:39] Don't know the word ghee.
Adam:
[16:44] The word ghee but am i gonna have to explain what ghee is now clarified butter yeah.
Alun:
[16:50] Just carry on.
Adam:
[16:51] Anyway, the history is really interesting, mate. It dates back. You will find this interesting. I know you will, because it involves a little place called Peshawar in Pakistan.
Alun:
[17:01] Ah, home of the Peshawar-y Naam.
Adam:
[17:04] Exactly. Yeah, quite sweet style of Naam, actually. But there's a restaurant called Motimahal in Old Delhi. And people think that they created this dish in the 1950s. If you go on the internet, that's what they'll say. However, there were people involved in opening that restaurant way back when. It actually moved location to Delhi after the partition, so around 1947, 1950, whatever. But the family involved in that restaurant say they were making the butter chicken long before that in the 1930s in Pakistan. Now, obviously, there are some other Indian restaurants that are challenging that. So much so that this restaurant have filed a lawsuit against one of the other restaurants to the tune of 240,000 US dollars in damages.
Alun:
[17:52] US dollars? Wow.
Adam:
[17:54] Yeah, yeah. It's a lot of money, isn't it, over the providence and the sort of legacy.
Alun:
[18:01] Of the butter chicken?
Adam:
[18:02] Well, if you created something as world-renowned and as iconic as the butter chicken, the original recipe, and then someone else is trying to claim it for themselves, and then obviously winning business potentially off your restaurant as a result, I could understand how that would do some damage.
Alun:
[18:17] It wouldn't have got that far, mate.
Adam:
[18:19] I don't think so. You'd think it would be shut down. You'd just get, I'll go in there, wouldn't I? I'd eat both, and I'd say, no, theirs is better. Sorry.
Alun:
[18:26] Okay, so there's big disputes over the butter chicken etymology.
Adam:
[18:30] Big disputes but how interesting that it maybe comes from pakistan as well because we didn't have anything like that over and over in pakistan from memory i.
Alun:
[18:37] Didn't see a chicken in but i mean i could believe that the buttered lamb came from Pakistan.
Adam:
[18:41] I think you can have it i think you can have it um but yeah i mean the best butter chicken that i've ever had in my life was in delhi it was in a restaurant called gulati i will put the description and uh in the description i'll put obviously the notes and the location that sort of stuff if you happen to be in india in delhi and you want a butter chicken but honestly the one i had was nothing like any butter chicken i've ever had.
Alun:
[19:06] In a bad way like it was it was it was unrelated almost.
Adam:
[19:10] Well maybe i'm gonna echo what a lot of people listening to this might echo which is i don't if you're choosing a butter chicken, at a curry house the the chances are you haven't had that much indian food and i know i said that about the pad thai for thailand as well but the the pad thai to thailand is what the butter chicken is to india it's very rarely outside of india the most interesting thing on the menu it's what people who don't like curry yeah.
Alun:
[19:38] That is true it's the it's the.
Adam:
[19:39] It's that.
Alun:
[19:40] Or a kama in it.
Adam:
[19:41] Yeah or a tikka masala which apparently does have its roots in in the uk yeah.
Alun:
[19:45] Do you like curry yeah i love coconut and butter.
Adam:
[19:48] I think you like sugar actually and not much spice at all.
Alun:
[19:54] What's your favorite curry dairy milk.
Adam:
[19:55] This was head and shoulders above um most other most of those chicken dishes i've ever had mate it was served in a copper pot this gigantic thing comes out chicken legs bone in you never see that in a curry house do you um no no you don't eat curry that often obviously
Alun:
[20:16] I thought about it but no it turns out you don't.
Adam:
[20:18] Huge chunks of chicken bone in and the sauce it was just unbelievable it was much spicier than you probably would have imagined, which is not something we found in India very frequently.
Alun:
[20:30] Yeah, because we famously both think that curry in India is not spicy, and that the word spicy is a bit of a mistranslation, meaning fragrant.
Adam:
[20:39] Yeah, I think there's probably some truth to that. Although, you know, I was obviously with my ex-girlfriend at the time who is Indian, so I said, can you please make sure it just comes however it's supposed to come? It doesn't need to blow our heads off, but I would like it to come as it's supposed to come. Very, very rich. it was a bit smoky as well i would have said super concentrated sort of tomato flavor but the flavor of the butter i remember having the first uh taste and i thought oh no wonder they call it fucking butter chicken it was unbelievable it was so so buttery almost to the point where it was overpowering but because of the previous butter chickens i'd had not because it shouldn't have been that buttery but because i'd obviously become accustomed to just a.
Alun:
[21:20] Watered down butter of chicken.
Adam:
[21:22] Yeah cashew cream coconut cream whatever sugar and and i don't know like tomato soupy kind of artificial flavor or whatever it is they use um anyway it was absolutely sensational and i would highly recommend if you are in Delhi go to Gulati restaurant it is a bit more upmarket it is middle of the road you do have to put your name down and queue outside and this sort of stuff it's not this local joint that's just a few chairs by the side of the road it is a proper brick and mortar restaurant with, you know, fancy waiters walking around and that sort of stuff. But it is absolutely amazing. And guess how much it cost me?
Alun:
[21:55] I've forgotten what the exchange was. So I'm going to say...
Adam:
[21:59] You can say it in pounds.
Alun:
[22:02] 500 rupees.
Adam:
[22:03] No, it's more than that.
Alun:
[22:04] 1,000 rupees.
Adam:
[22:06] Yeah, it was just under 1,000 rupees, which is about £7.50.
Alun:
[22:09] It's pretty good to have got that on the second guess, considering I have no idea how much that is.
Adam:
[22:12] Well, I think maybe you won't remember, but we were having some tarlies, which are, you know, these big platters where you get multiple dishes and it comes with a little bread or whatever. Sometimes for about 300, 350 rupees.
Alun:
[22:22] Okay, yeah, so a thousand is quite expensive.
Adam:
[22:24] Yeah, it's certainly expensive for your average Indian fare in India. But this, like I said, is a sort of middle-of-the-road, middle-class restaurant, a bit upmarket, and one of the most famous ones. It's got thousands of reviews of lots of Indian people saying it's the best butter chicken in Delhi.
Alun:
[22:41] Why did you not go to Mata Mahal?
Adam:
[22:43] I didn't know about it until I started researching this feature, actually, a couple of days ago.
Alun:
[22:48] That's a shame, isn't it?
Adam:
[22:49] It is a bit of a shame because it is like me to try and go to those sorts of places that have got cultural significance or whether there's a dish to try by the person who used to make it or whatever. So, yeah, a bit of a shame.
Alun:
[23:01] You'll have to go back to Delhi.
Adam:
[23:02] I'd like to, mate. I'd really like to. I don't know if you're going to be heading to, I don't know, anywhere around there on your way back home. It's on the way.
Alun:
[23:10] I don't know. It's so annoying that, time moves so quickly because i would love a little slow roll to the uk now overland through india.
Adam:
[23:19] Yeah that's there for you mate have you not even got the time to do that if you left early i.
Alun:
[23:24] Mean it's october middle of october i've only got a month and a half no not really.
Adam:
[23:28] Yeah you've been moving a little bit too quick yeah.
Tales of a Trip
Alun:
[23:30] Especially if i want to swing by borneo.
Adam:
[23:32] So there you go mate there you have it it's uh got an amazing history steeped in history absolutely delicious and uh If you are the sort of person that orders butter chicken, maybe tell the guy in the kitchen next time you go for one, just make it like they do at Galati's in Delhi, would you?
Alun:
[23:49] Quick star rating, please.
Adam:
[23:51] It's a four out of five, probably. Because, well, it is the best butter chicken I've ever had, though.
Alun:
[24:01] Well, as a dish, maybe rate the dish as a whole. I think that's how rice for breakfast should work. You just rate the dish.
Adam:
[24:06] Just rate the dish as a whole.
Alun:
[24:08] Conceptually.
Adam:
[24:09] Oh just you mean like the generic dish not even the one i had well.
Alun:
[24:13] No i think that that one should be the one that you review but like you should you should it's like the concept of butter chicken and that is the ambassador.
Adam:
[24:20] Okay i mean it's because of how iconic it is and um how popular it is and how much better that version is than all of the other ones that i've had in the uk it's a real food memory that i'm going to remember for a long time i like it's inspired me to have more and more indian food so i'm going to give it a solid 4.5.
Alun:
[24:39] Goodness me the highest score we've ever had on rice for breakfast knocking pad thai so far down the league table it's fallen off the bottom into a heap on the floor looking forward to the next time we do a rice for breakfast review adam but now it's time for that little special section of the show where one brave and bolden listeners taken to their laptop or their phone they've gone to topologypodcast.com forward slash tales of a trip, and they've decided that they've got a real blinder of a travel story. Three minutes in which to tell their greatest travel story of all time. Perhaps it's the tale of the time they found that perfect handbag in a shop and just selected it out and went boldly down the high street on the Champs-de-Lisee in Paris. Or perhaps it's the time they saw that ever so rare creature lurking in a jungle forest who knows what tale of a trip we're about to hear but one thing's for damn well sure we're about to hear one right now what.
Adam:
[25:42] Sort of mood are you in.
Tales of a Trip:
[25:45] What's up Tripology Podcast? This is at homeless.digitalnomad reporting in from Taipei, Taiwan. You guys tasked me with giving you an incredible travel story and the best thing that I could think of is how I managed to solo summit the highest mountain in South America, which is the highest mountain outside of Asia, the second highest of the seven summits, almost seven kilometers, Aconcagua. And I came up with this idea because I really fell in love with high altitude trekking when I was in Peru and Nepal. And it really surprised me how much of a difference it made when I lived in high altitude for a while before I did these treks. So I figured that I would just work remotely from high altitude cities and it would give me a big advantage. Now the death rate of Aconcagua is about 1 in 1,000 because 3,000 people attempted every year. 1,000, 1 in 3 make it to the top and about 3 people die. It's a little bit risky, but I figured everyone who dies hiking this mountain dies from altitude sickness. So I'm just going to acclimatize first, right?
Tales of a Trip:
[26:41] First, I spent a month at 2,800 meters in Quito, Ecuador, where I summed debatably the highest active volcano, Cotopaxi. And then I also summed in what's debatably the highest mountain in the world if you measure from the center of the earth instead of sea level, because sea level is different around the globe. And that's Chimborazo, but 6,400 meters above sea level. And then I spent a month in Juarez, Peru, where I did a YWASH trek. And right before that trek happened, I had severe food poisoning for eight days and messed with all of my training. I was running to the bathroom every 30 minutes, pooping blood. It was horrible. And then I recovered from that, lost seven kilograms and got back to training. Then I spent five weeks in La Paz, Bolivia, where I did a five or six kilometer peak every weekend, still lived a regular digital nomad lifestyle outside of that. Then I went to Mendoza and I flew in in San Diego, Chile, took a bus to Mendoza, and I began my trek to summit Aconcagua.
Tales of a Trip:
[27:39] It was eight days up, two days down. Some challenges that I faced going up there was boredom is one issue because you have to boil snow in your tent once you make it past the base camp. And that was like day four to seven, I was just in my tent boiling snow over and over again for fresh water. And then another challenge is that you have to bring poop with you everywhere. And literally, ever since I reached 3,600 meters to pause Bolivia, I had nonstop diarrhea for like six weeks. And it was just a bag of diarrhea. One time I broke it, and fucking diarrhea just oozed outside the bag. And then I had to embarrassingly just go to a tour group and be like, hey, can I borrow a bag? Necessito bago. Sorry, guys. Anyways, I made it to the top, and I actually spent an hour at the top, which is incredibly unhealthy for you. But I felt no headache. And then when I made it back down, they actually reported me as missing because it took me 18 hours to hike the mountain. But then they realized I wasn't missing and I was okay. It was all Gucci. But yeah, highest mountain in South America. That was an adventure.
Climbing Aconcagua
Alun:
[28:45] Oh, wow. What a tale. Loved it, man. From zipping around acclimatizing to altitude to scatological chaos atop a mountain. What an interesting story.
Adam:
[29:01] I'm almost lost for words. I absolutely loved it. The energy, the language used, the fast pace. We have, of course, met him. We met him in Pakistan. He was lovingly referred to as Shortsman. If you haven't listened to that episode, go back and check it out. And I do remember him being fantastic at hiking in the sense that he was not messing around at all. I mean, he was pacey, wasn't he? You were surprised at how quickly he did the Everest region.
Alun:
[29:29] Yeah, he certainly zoomed around that Everest region from what he described. If you thought that was a compelling voice message, go and scroll through Tropology History and find the episode called, Is Fairy Meadows Worth the Hype? That person you just heard speak is the guy with the incredibly short shorts who we really go on and on about in the episode. Yeah, incredibly fast hiker. Very, very interesting. Have you had much experience with altitude sickness? From memory, I don't think you have.
Adam:
[29:59] With altitude sickness uh i felt at the very top of patundus i was i was feeling pretty rough certainly the morning after we'd done i think we ascended what
Altitude and Adventure
Adam:
[30:08] was it two and a half thousand meters in one day something like that was a bit too quick but.
Alun:
[30:12] You've never like thrown up or had any severe symptoms.
Adam:
[30:14] No but but i think just because i haven't been at altitude like that for long enough maybe it does worry me because i'm so inspired to hike the everest region and because you know meeting joey and stuff i know all the cool stuff that he gets up to and i i just think is it a case of you being susceptible or prone to it or not?
Alun:
[30:31] No I think anyone can get it. I think that women get it slightly worse than men and I think that it just hits you doesn't it? I've had it a couple of times was sick in um, when I was hiking the Everest region, although very briefly, and I was sick a little bit in Tocanango in Guatemala. So I know the feeling can be dangerous. I mean, you've not been to South America. So that's probably one of the reasons why you've not experienced it. La Paz, of course, in Bolivia, the capital city, highest altitude capital in the world. And even if you just fly in there, it's rough.
Adam:
[31:07] Oh, really? So even just visiting the city, some people suffer from altitude sickness.
Alun:
[31:11] I mean, La Paz is high. It's like 3000 meters.
Adam:
[31:13] Oh my goodness. Wow. I mean, what a guy to be around, though, Joey. I mean, he's got a wicked story. And the way he tells it as well is so funny. I can imagine him bowling around just doing his own thing. Because we kind of met him. Do you understand what I mean when I say this? And, Joey, if you're listening, I do still feel this way. He's the sort of person that if you met them traveling you'd end up forming a group with them. I thought he was going to join us two and we were going to be a little trio. But he's doing his own thing. he's off on his own do you know what I mean he's so sort of decided and you gotta love it you gotta love it it's great stuff yeah.
Alun:
[31:50] He has all sort of unusual tattoos and sort of a vibe about him a very go your own way vibe.
Adam:
[31:57] And I do want to take the opportunity to say this he's such a wonderful example of a content creator who's um, he's very talented and he flies a drone and he puts great reels together and they're very aesthetic they're the sort of things that you see all over instagram he puts so much work in and i think his his views are in the millions sometimes he's putting great content out there and maybe not getting the recognition he deserves so go and support him he's doing some fantastic stuff i'm a big big fan of what he's doing yeah.
Alun:
[32:26] Go and check him out at homeless.digitalnomad on instagram very nice to see his reels and we're excited to see what else you come out with in the future joey it's all very good stuff now though adam i'm afraid we're simply running out of time so we're gonna have to blast off to the patreon section as the lost and found happens after the theme music ends for those that choose to pay for it and we'll see everyone else next week.
Adam:
[32:50] We'll see you there bye.
