Fish Smile Very Difficult

 The Kedareshwar Bed & Breakfast  is very intimate, as there are only 5 rooms.  The last few days we spent a lot of time with two young women from Barcelona who were staying here.  We took a full day trip to Bodhgaya - the place where the Buddha was enlightened.  It is a 5 hour drive each way... and we spent about 5 hours in Bodhgaya itself.  Our long day closed with an extremely intense drive home in the dark, on an unlit road with the driver going very fast, and Michael yelling at him to slow down the whole way.  Martha, Irina and I were in the backseat holding hands and vacillating between watching the road intently and closing our eyes.  In the end, we made it home safely and were met at the taxi by Habu (who also goes by the name Sonu)... we got the best comic relief ever.  

He told us that two men from Spain had checked in to the Bed and Breakfast that day.  Excitedly, he went on, "Spain men VERY DIFFICULT!  One fish smile.  Very difficult.  Spain men bad fish smile.  Very difficult fish smile."

Um, what?!  

We were cracking up.  Does this make sense?  We tried to break it down, word by word.   It took awhile.  And by the next day, after talking to some other family members from the Bed and Breakfast and finally meeting the "very difficult" men from Spain, we garnered the details... which are actually almost as funny as Habu's explanation.

The men are a father and son.  The son is nine months into a two-year around the world trip.  The father arrived that day in India to spend time with his son, and brought his sons favorite food with him from Spain - Calamari.  The Calamari was dried and packed.  And they asked to use the kitchen to cook it.  But the Calamari had gone bad (are we surprised?) and SMELLED very bad.  

The smell was so putrid to Habu that when the men were cooking it, he ran outside and vomited over the porch, down three flights of stairs.

Now, the men from Spain were very nice... but I have to agree with Habu, this is very difficult.  And while he meant "smell" when he said "smile" the story was worth a thousand and one smiles indeed!