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Published: December 6th 2010
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I've spent the last two days in Pune, the second largest city in Maharashtra, and the eight largest in India.
I suppose I've been here out of necessity really. I'd booked tickets and planned to meet up with a friend of a friend who was going to show me round the city, but we couldn't meet in the end due to him being posted to another city through work.
Pune is a really nice place. It's not really a place one would come to visit from a travelers perspective, but it would definitely be a nice place to live. It's an ultra western city, at least as much as Mumbai, perhaps moreso. The roads leading away from the centre are also lined with some very grand houses.
I'd booked a hotel in the Koregaon Park area, as I thought it would be better than staying near the railway station in the main city centre. Unfortunately, I discovered as when I checked in, that my hotel had converted into an Indian business hotel in the two years since my Rough Guide was published. The famous German Bakery has also vanished. I initially thought it must have been taken over
by a corporate coffee chain, but it actually appears likely that this was the German Bakery which was blown up by terrorists in February 2010, killing 17 people.
The area is also some to the famous Osho International Meditation Resort, set up by Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) in the 1970s. Osho's teachings are controversial to say the least. In addition to zen, yoga, hypnosis, Bhuddism, and Sufism, it also partly focuses on sexual liberation and the teaching that materialism should not be shunned. This goes against the grain of many ashram and religious teachings. Personally, I think anyone who wants to be promiscuous and materialistic would do better to get a job in the financial sector of a large city. One thing I have to concede is that the ashramites actually look pretty cool cruising round the city on motorbikes in their maroon robes.
The ashram's beautifully sculpted Osho Teerth gardens are open to the public for six ours a day and is well worth a visit.
Other than visiting the gardens I haven't been up to much in Pune. I did take a nice two mile walk in the sun up to the ABC Farm complex
which is a nice collection of restaurants, cafes, and bars just off Dr A R Machve Road. After an afternoon of meandering round thinking how hassle free Pune was for a big city, I was on the way back to my hotel when I saw a man smiling and waving at me on the other side of the road. After two months of traveling I instinctively smelled a rat, but out of a mixture of good manners and guilt at not always being as friendly as I felt I could have been over the course of my trip, I briefly waved back and continued head down on my way taking a left turn onto Koregaon Park. This was a mistake. Within twenty seconds I heard shouting of "hello", now coming from my side of the road and guessed I had made a new friend. I tried to pretend I hadn't heard but from experience this tactic was not going to work. A voice shouted "hello, wait!" again and I turned round to find the man jogging casually up to me, followed by a nervous looking youth who hovered just behind us in the background. My new friend shook my hand
and asked if I remembered him, reminding me that he had been my rickshaw driver from yesterday. This wasn't true. I remembered the rickshaw driver who took me from the station to my hotel very clearly because he had been a complete pain from start to finish with his overbearing manner, overcharging, and hotel touting. My friend cut to the chase and asked if I would like to take him (and no doubt his silent friend) to the pub and buy him a beer. I replied that I wouldn't like to do this and ignoring his protests that a beer was only 50Rs, said goodbye and carried on walking to my hotel which was now only about ten metres away. Unfortunately this took me into the path of a man who wanted to show me a "free" magic trick where he could change the colour of a bunch of leaves just my blowing on them. I declined his selfless offer and continued towards my hotel, with the man so desperate to show me his "free" trick that he almost chased me into the hotel reception.
This afternoon I leave for Goa and hopefully two weeks relaxing on the beach!
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