Food, Glorious Food!

I know I've written a lot and posted too many food shots. But I'm from Singapore and we're GLUTTONS. So here's a post about MORE FOOD!

The last few days have been about food and eating and food and more food. And my body is just CRAVING food too. Since the late part of the second week here, I think my metabolism has just kicked into overdrive. I blame the yoga practice. And my gluttony.

On Monday this week, we took Swamiji from the cave out to lunch. We got our rickshaw driver to pick him up from his cave and bring him to a local joint that he (Swamiji) wanted to eat at.

We let him do the ordering since none of us knew what a real-life Swami eats. Right? ...Turns out he doesn't do spicy food (SHOCK! HORROR!) and keeps to quite a simple order of Chepatis with Palak Paneer, Dahl and er... I dunno what the other curry is. I guess he follows a Sattvic diet...




He also ordered all of us lime sodas. :D

He regaled us with tales of the first lesson his guru taught him: Patience. "Tolerance is a very difficult thing."

I think the local clientele at this restaurant was very amused at this scene. A table full of foreign women and a Swami in his orange clothes. I mean, really, it could have quite easily been misconstrued as something out of the movie, "The Guru" or something. No, we are not part of some weird sex cult! HAHAHA!



Then on Tuesday, all the yogis were headed out to "Lunch with Sharath!" Highway 18 is definitely a restaurant I'd go back to again. SUPER DELICIOUS GRUB! I shared a rickshaw with Claudia, my housemate and another friend (yes, 4 of us squeezed into the back), while Owl followed us on her scooter. That's Owl on right of frame, while Claudia's head is on the left. I'm taking this shot from inside the rickshaw!!



Thank goodness we got there "early"-ish. Don't forget we're talking about 200+ yogis, ASHTANGIS at that (who are used to getting up early, getting in line to wait for their turn in the morning up to half an hour earlier than their alloted practice time...)




(L to R: Claudia, Owl, me. Claudia has more shots on her post in the link to her blog!)

My South Indian Thali:


The North Indian Thali:





Tables inside AND outside were FILLED with KPJAYI students! Here's a funny shot of another large party of people waiting for our tables. Like hungry vultures circling!


I have NO IDEA where Sharath was in this chaos! I caught a glimpse of him and his family arriving, but then once the food started arriving, I was just interested in chowing down. (This is after having had TWO breakfasts that same morning already... See what I mean by my gluttonous behaviour?!) It was just fun to see everyone in a completely different context... All scrubbed up, out of practice clothes and everyone was looking fit, healthy, glowing and happy. (Must be because of the food too!) Sharath usually does this whenever he's away on tour - have a meal with his students - so it's great that he thought to do this "in my own home country" as he explained it at conference on Sunday. :)

Rickshaw ride back to Gokulam:


I had pretty much vowed NOT to have dinner that same evening... I mean c'mon, I had TWO breakfasts, a HUGE lunch... And how could I have had room for dinner?! ...But when my housemate asked me out later, I couldn't refuse. HAHAHA!

We both didn't feel like Indian food anymore, so she ordered an "American Chop Suey with vegetables". Honest to God, this is what it was titled in the menu. This is Alice with her meal. An Indian interpretation of an American interpretation of a Chinese dish. Of course this re-re-remix would turn out to be something pretty... erm... suspect. This is probably the worst meal I've come across since being here:



The noodles were crispy, like deep-fried crispy potato chips, which wasn't bad at all. Except, they poured this gooey, gelatinous red sauce over it which kinda sorta tasted like tomato ketchup. Kinda sorta. After 2 bites, Alice decided to just order another portion of Ghee-Rice instead. (On a separate note, I predict Alice will one day be a rockstar teacher and I get to say "We lived together on both our first trips to Mysore!" ...she's the one who got Pasasana in her 2nd week of her first-ever trip to Mysore. And... she's also an awesome person. HA!)

I ordered... erm... Chow Mein. It was delicious. Thank you, MSG! (I got gelatinous chilli sauce on the side, that green gooey glob).


I'm now gonna expose my gluttonous ways EVEN MORE now by showing you what I had for breakfast the day after. I actually woke up HUNGRY again today (I'm still in disbelief at how much I've been putting away since being here...) A bunch of us went to a restaurant in Saraswatipuram and ordered a whole bunch of different things to share.




I'm gonna be very afraid to take my lard-ass back to Amsterdam... Hope you're having a good Full Moon Day!

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