The "Beer and Wine Shop".

Badami, 03-02-1995. Being back in the "real India" means no more bars and all night extacy parties, no more chai shops with a "Big B. Juice" on the menu, just over-sweetened indian chai. So in order to get myself a beer at night in my room, I need to go to the infamous "Beer and Wine Shop". They are not all that difficult to find though you need to have a bit of experience knowing what to look for...the biggest problem with these places is that you always get ripped off. They know you want your beer and that you never know thew price, therefore you are fair game. Very irritating. Still these places can be fun. Even though there are hardly any bars in the real India - everybody is in bed by 21.00 h. and people hardly have the dough to be able to affort to pay for a beer! - the locals tend to hang around these places probably hoping for a few free swigs from a customer who can affort it. Also the incredible amount of different beer names can be amuzing, I keep a beer list and it seems that every "Beer and Wine Shop" has its own brews. The beer also comes with different alcohol contends sub-divided in fancy names like MEGA STRONG and SUPER MEGA STRONG or MEGA MEGA STRONG, well I`m sure you get the idea.