Why Not..

It occurs to me that I haven’t really written anything about my original time in Nasik & Trimbak. Basically I did yoga and a short course in Ayurveda. It was great. There were lots of wonderfully great people. We had great chats, learnt great things and did great things. On our days off we also did great things. I went to lots of temples and saw bathing places, not just our showers, and the Godavari River. I may write more later, there is just so much to write. I gained a certificate, or three, which say I am qualified to teach yoga, to real people, not just myself, all I gotta do is find some real people to teach.

Anyway, Maryline and I, save spending 5 extra rupees than it should’ve cost, being indifferent to being ripped off at our first encounter of society after the vipassana, diligently carried our backpacks all the way to the station. Then down the road. Then back again to a rickshaw to get to the bus station. It wasn’t that we indeed the heaviness, or the previous hour of trudging along with our bags, we were surprisingly indifferent to it, honestly. We decided to get a rickshaw because of the rain. We were going to Nasik, Maryline decided to join me.

We got the bus and arrived in Nasik. We stayed at Hotel Abishek in Panchavati, which is actually pretty nice and has had the nicest pakora I have tasted in India, and does Indian style omlette like a friend at home made me..mm.. Anyway, we didn’t do much. We eat at a restaurant called Twelve12. Maryline left the next afternoon to go to Mumbai, I decided not to go and to stay in Nasik. Here just to sort things out, use the internet and say hello to old ashra people. Of course there are other places with internet, but the ashram is here so it made sense to come here and post some things I had left behind.

Well.. isn’t this interesting?!

The only thing I have to say about this is don’t eat at Twelve12. It is quite definitely the worst food I have eaten in India. It is supposedly an Italian. My over expensive meal consisted of creamy mashed potato and peas (sounds good so far) and tomato pasta.
‘What’s wrong with that?’ I hear you unenthusiastically cry..
Well. Let me tell you (and I will) ..
The pasta was similar to overcooked tesco value penne pasta. Seriously overcooked. And some weird cheap sweet tasting tomato type sauce, like a jar of tesco value with some syrup poured in. And the, I assume, creamy ash with peas was swamped in the stuff. This would be bearable, but, there is a but, the whole dish was covered in those pretty hot chilli flakes. Not pretty as in pretty hot, I can assure you they were hot, but pretty as in pretty to look at. I can only assume the chef thought he would ‘spice up’ (mehe) the meal by making it more aesthetically pleasing than a pile of dullish red slop. Rather a plate of speckled slop. I am sure he is not aware of the taste, if he had been he would have a pretty bluish green friendly touch on his face had I not just done the vipassana. Anyway, happy as I was, it didn’t mix. It reminded me of that outing to Pizza hut In Brisbane, Aus, where they housed the red hot chilli flakes right next to the help yourself icecream. Icecream and chilli flakes don’t mix too well either, not quite the hundreds and thousands taste I was going for. I remember quite clearly the strange sensation of hot icecream..

Anyway, I best get my bus to Jalgaon..

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