Day 6 - twenty minutes - pfff!

On Saturday we split up into a sophisticated India – lovers part who signed up for a city tour of Pune and a hippie part who wanted to see the Osha Ashram - a modern meditation centre using rather exotic methods of meditation.

Needless to say I signed up for the tourist tour of Pune city together with Blanca, Simone and Estelle. Preeti dropped us at the air-conditioned (ha!) bus in the morning where we got onboarded in perfect Hindu.

Our tour guide was very funny. He got his first laughs when he told us the tour would include 20 sites on one day. Unfortunately this was not a joke as it turned out. The bus started, stopped, he said a couple of words like “Indians 10 rupees - foreigners 200 rupees - 10 minutes – no” and similar phrases, jumped off the bus and ran away. Ten minutes later you could hear him blowing his little whistle at the bus door. He had my complete sympathies – there was no way we could have managed the 20 sites in one day without a whistle or a whiplash. So I guess we should be happy he had only a whistle …

Anyway – we started at a museum of a local superhero who saved 1000s of babies and did other exciting things that we did not have the time to read due to our beloved whistle-mastering tourists guide … Here is a photo of him (I mean the local hero, not the guide) – if you know who he was, please leave a comment!



We saw the Shaniwarwada – the Pune castle where it is forbidden to wash your clothes (read the rules!!!!)



We saw one more of those “Sun Shoppe” posters in town



Blanca gave 5 to a marble figure in the local heritage museum – yes, photography was not allowed, but we didn’t “realize” until they warned us ...



We visited a monument commemorating a big fire where locals burned their clothes from the English (similar to the one in the Ghandi movie).



We climbed the stairs to a temple near Paritosh’s place where he used to run up and down once per day in the morning, he told us. No wonder he is in shape!



Further on the list were an animal farm, some more temples and a local restaurant where we had lunch – this time we stuck to rule number one: do not drink water that is not coming out of a bottle.

A visit to the black pyramids of the Osho Ashram was supposedly part of the tour. However visiting times are only between 14:00 and 15:30 so we were getting nervous at around 15:00 and talked to our hasty tour guide. He explained that we would only see it from outside the park anyway – which came to us as an utter shock. We skipped the snake farm and went back home as the girls had a hairdresser appointment. Here is a picture of the loser team of our little rickshaw race home. Team Estelle and Gabor won by an inch against Team Blanca and Simone! Speed does matter!



Anyway – we ended up at a coffee place on FC road. Due to the power outage the only cold drink was some kind of ice coffee – was very yummy! Especially with this beautiful waitress popping out miraculously from the air-conditioning machine.



Cooling down to a comforting 36.5 C° we went back home to prepare for a big party for Paritosh’s nephew in the evening. Here is a group photo of us meeting there. Paritosh told us he did not want to steal the show of his nephew so he would dress in non-traditional less flashy clothes (means no gold basically)



We also met some ex-colleagues / friends of Paritosh.



On this picture you can see Paritoshs brother, his wife and the main attraction of the evening – the little one (Unfortunately I forgot the name). Paritoshs brother lives in the US with his family and I bet he was secretly working for some fashion magazine by the looks of this clothes. He was wearing the coolest clothing of all the guys during the many events.



The evening went on with some cool food, a lot of chatting, children – lifting, candy giving and gossiping.



After the reception we met up with Sujal and went to the "SCREAM - The Club Le Meriden" to check out the posh scene of the city. I found this description of the place on the net:

Nearly 35 to 40 couples can dance on the tune of DJ Zubeer on the dance floor. Stags are not allowed in the club where as ladies have free entry. Happy hours are from 9.00 pm to 10.30 pm where if you buy a bottle of Indian beer you get the other free. Saturday & Wednesday are the most happening days of the week. During the off day commercial parties can also be arranged if you like to do so. The rates are very reasonable inside the bar.

It was a really nice place - the stags that were not allowed in were waiting at the entry and asking our single ladies to join up so they could enter anyway. We said no and went in - it felt quite strange actually. Once itside, they were playing the coolest bollywood music - there was the famous Jhalak Dikhlaja among others. And the hands were in the air and it was a big happy disco.

We went to bed very late this evening.