We’ve been staying at a Hari Krishna ashram in Mulki, a small town on the Southern coast of Karnataka. We’ll be here until the new year, then we travel around for a few days and fly home. The ashram isn’t like any other ashram, because these guys surf. In fact, they were the first surfers in India and are in the middle of setting up a surfing federation for Indian surfers. There are between 4 and 6 devotees at the ashram at any one time, and anywhere from zero to 10 guests. The devotees cook two meals a day, perform pujas and offerings (to Krishna) several times a day, and then surf and play volleyball and ping pong the rest of the time. They’ve got a pretty sweet set up. But ours is better. Let us take you through a typical day for us:
We get up at about 6am for yoga as the sun comes up… nice way to start the day and we’re all much more bendy than we were 2 weeks ago. After yoga, we chow down on a bit of fruit and some muesli before piling into a tiny zodiac and slowly put-put-ing our way to the break. This nautical commute deserves special mention as anywhere from 4 to 8 boards are piled onto the front of this little inflatable plus the corresponding number of people. As if we didn’t look like a clown car enough at this point, the boat also slowly fills with water from a massive leak and we’re all ankle deep by the time we reach the sand bar across the river. At least we provide the local fishermen with some early morning entertainment. We surf for a few hours (unless the surf is flat, then we do more yoga on the beach, or play soccer, or play a little game we like to call “beach nap”), then load up the clown boat and head back to the ashram. We arrive to a delicious feast, including fresh made juice (some mornings its lemon, sometimes its cantaloupe, but the best is watermelon). After breakfast (which is more like brunch, since its eaten between 11 and 12) we usually nap for a few hours. After our nap we spend the rest of our day reading, playing ping pong, watching movies, playing cards or chess with the ashram boys, or checking out some of the local sights (i.e., ice cream). Occasionally we do work, but that’s a rare occurrence.
The surf here this time of year isn’t amazing (usually less than 4 ft), but the waves are very fun and the water is warm! Apparently the surf gets pretty big here in the peak seasons (around monsoon season), with 8ft hollow waves and the occasional barrel.
We’ve gone on a couple day trips of note. The first trip was up to Udupi, which is a town 40 minutes north of Mulki. As far as we could tell Udupi is famous for three things: its temple complex, which contains 4 or 5 connected temples; an ice cream dessert called Gudbud, which is basically just fruit and ice cream, but for some reason it’s supposed to be better in Udupi, and kettle cooked potato chips, which are also available all over India, but again are inexplicably better in Udupi. Run down on Udupi: The temple was pretty impressive. The main temple room houses one of the most expensive deities in India, which is a gold statue of Krishna. Christina and Vanessa, for the low price of 10 rupees a piece, were also blessed by the temple elephant! The Gudbud was only “ok” according to our ashram friend who came with us. But the chips were amazing.
The second trip was a short trip into Mangalore (which we’ve done several times), but this one was special because we we’re there to celebrate Christina’s birthday! To celebrate we tracked down the Natural Ice Cream Shop… but wait, isn’t Christina lactose intolerant you say? True, however, Natural Ice Cream is made with water buffalo milk which contains far less lactose than cow milk. So as the best birthday treat in existence we brought joy and happiness to the lactose intolerant Christina through the enjoyment of the usually gastrically forbidden ice cream. Other birthday treats we tracked down in Mangalore include Masala Dosa’s (which are delicious and satisfying as they are paper thin but almost half a meter in diameter) and coffee. Back at the ashram we celebrated with a fantastic homemade pizza party (as we are currently living every 12 year old’s dream it seemed fitting). The boys even made a pizza sans cheese for Christina.
Now, we must end this blog, because food is ready and then its nap time…
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