Food glorious food, and more

Happy Valentine's Day.

And on this day of love, it's appropriate to say that in spite of the few set-backs we have met in the last week, we love being here in Mysore.

This is a well overdue blog post, being more than a week since the last one, so I'm going to try to group our experiences under a couple of themes. This one will be one of our favorites... Food.

Green Leaf - North and South India Thali

We continue to be enthralled by everything food here. Starting with buying the raw ingredients. We decided to make the veggie curry that we learnt in our cookery class last week so off we went to procure the various vegetables. 6 lemons, a bunch of fennel leaves, a bunch of spinach, some sweet potatoes, 300g of fresh peas, 6 bananas, and some other things I must have forgotten cost just over a dollar, or about 80 pence!!!

All for 67 Rupies

When it comes to the food of the yogis, they tend to be a healthy crowd, the majority vegetarian and many vegans. For that reason, a whole bunch of health cafes operate within the immediate area around the yoga shala. Some do set menu veggie buffets for less than 4 dollars (3 pounds), others provide much needed western salads and pancakes. All of them are a great place to sit, drink chai tea and get to know other yogis and hear their stories. It's a pleasant way to spend the afternoon or morning.

Anokhi Garden

But this is India - and as expected we have both now suffered our first case of "Delhi belly." It had to happen some time, in spite of our meticulous hand hygiene and caution in what we eat. So Tuesday to Thursday last week were somewhat lost as we tended to stay near places where we knew the toilets were comfortable. No more needed to be said on that.

 But what about drink, I hear you ask. This is after all Lisa and Erik's blog. Where is that couple who spent the last 18 months delighting in the craft beers of the US?? Well, given our daily 3.30am rise, there is no question of any week-day tipples. So our alcohol intake has been significantly reduced - only a good thing. However, Saturday lunch time saw us at our favorite little Indian roof terrace restaurant in the City. The sun was shining, we sat under a parasol, the clock had passed noon, the mood was just right for a beer. It came as somewhat of a shock that the pair of us felt a little tipsy after only one large bottle of Kingfisher beer each!!!

Aaah... a refreshing beer

We are going to be cheap dates when we get back to Europe. Kisses to all on Valentine's Day.