Wednesday the 21st

Monday, (19th Feb 2007), Tuesday and today were all Mysore style classes and have been great practices for me, but I am going very slowly through the series taking up to one hour and fourty minutes. Jay had a very interesting analogy, in which he described good days of yoga as having the eye of the tiger and moving deeper into the postures with determination and those days where you are stiff and sore as days where you just go "Miaauuuu"... :-)

It was Lori's birthday on Monday and she was very happy because Sharath said she can start coming to practice at 6:30 instead of 7:30. As things are getting a little quieter and as your length of stay becomes longer and your practice improves, you get told to come earlier. Those that have been here for a while arrive for practice at the shala at 5 am. But the best thing for Lori, was that she was told that she can start doing the first posture in the second series, which is really great!!!

We all met around 11:30, soon after breakfast, and went to Lalitha Mahal Palace, which is a palace build by the Mahara of Mysuru, just to host foreign guests (allegedly because they ate meat). The Palace is really beautiful and the first thing that Jay and I did was buy Lori and Myra a ride on the horse-drawn carriage standing in front of the entrance as a birthday gift for Lori. It was a silly thing to ride 3 times around the parking lot, but we all had a laugh. We had a look at one of the rooms for which the going rate is somewhere from $75 to $750 for the Viceroy Suite. We then spent an hour and a half at the pool, for which we had to pay Rs 175, timing it so that we would still get lunch as it closed at 14:30. We had the Royal Silver Thali for Rs 200 excluding any taxes, which is about ten times the normal price of a South Indian Thali. The Thali was served with the normal banana leaf, but on a silver plate. :-) Food was not that impressive though... The restaurant was very elegant though, with live music entertainment.

After that, I had to rush back to Gokulam (the suburb within Mysuru) for my sanskrit class, and then I walked to the main road and shopped for some fruit. From Thursday to Monday, I had driven almost 200 kilometres, which is a lot considering that Gokulum is only about 6km from the centre of town. In the evening I felt I needed to walk around again instead of using the scooter all the time.

Tuesday I took it very easy, and I actually did not mind not having anything on the agenda. I spent a few hours on the internet, adding links to this blog to interesting books I have found, and adding statistics, so now I can see how many people are accessing my blog. I'm a geek I know :-)
I also spent a few hours reading in my yoga books I have purchased.

In the evening I went shopping again... I am running out of cash so I am using my credit card now!!! I had found a Jockey store in town. Because my bill came to over Rs 1,000, I got a free bag as well, so now I do not need to worry about being able to fit all the things I am buying into my backpack... Cool!!!

I then also visited the bookstore again, where I had bought the books by the president of India, as I had seen some computer CD's. I eventually bought ten CD's, one of which is on Indian recipes, the others being for my five year old son to learn vocabulary, maths etc. Two of the CD's are animated stories from the Panchatantra and Ramayana (see weblinks for Indian Deities and Mythology).

When I got home, I had some home made chocolate that I had bought a few days earlier. There is a shop here that caters to the yogi's. Yogi's prefer the dark chocolate to milk chocolate because it is healthier as it has less sugar and because there is no milk in it (vegetarian). But you can order your ingredients with white, milk or dark chocolate the way you like it. I had some chocolate with cashew nuts, another with almonds, another with cinnamon and another with cardamon. Today I ordered some more to take home... cinnamon and cardamon were the best, but I also have now ordered dark chocolate with peanut butter, and best of all, chilli! You eat the sweet chocolate and it leaves your mouth burning... WOW!!!!

Today Myra finally told me that she could not go to Daramsala to see the Dalai Lama, so I will be travelling alone (I am happy with that too) during my last week on holiday... I am looking forward to it, but I am also sad that I will be leaving Mysuru within 8 days and I will miss practicing in the Shala with all that energy around me.

I had already bought a non-refundable ticket from Mysuru to Mumbai for the 11th of March, which I am not going to use anymore because my plans changed, so I lost that money. I had to buy a new ticket from Bangalore to Delhi on the 1st of March, and another from Delhi to Mumbai for the 11th of March. I also bought a night train ticket from Delhi to Pathankot which is a 12 hour train ride, but I am on the waiting list with 2 people ahead of me... So I guess I will have to let the universe take its course and see what happens... maybe I will have to spend a few nights in Delhi as there are a lot of people wanting to go to Daramsala for the Dalai Lama's teachings.



After I organised that I rushed back to Gokulam for another of Tina's cooking courses. Today there were 15 people as opposed to six of us the last time, but all six us were there again. Today we made Kerala stew (vegetables in coconut milk) which was excellent, lemon rice with peanuts which I enjoyed and tomato bhaat (bhaat is cooked rice), which I did not enjoy that much.

After that I went to a tailor, who will make me a pair of pants according to a pair of pants I left with her. She will also do some embroidery for the pockets. After my sanskrit class I went to town to buy the fabric for the pants, which I will give to her tomorrow.