Ajna Ayurveda Institute Puvar

... which had its own special day trip arranged. So I spent my morning down the hill at the internet cafe where I called home, catching up with my mom and my sisters at the tail end of their Thanksgiving dinnertime (the 13 1/2 hour time difference placed my Fri morning call their Thurs eve).

After hearing their litany of not one but two turkey meals (mom hosting lunch, Connie's father ...

... organize back in middle school. Yep, deep in the heart of India, 14 years since I stopped regular attendance, I found myself stuck once again in what felt a lot like church.

To start, there's the deadly seriousness with which the instructors take their program. On Mon or Tues, while I was still bedridden with my stomach bug, they enacted a policy of giving all yoga vacationers a number so that we could check in for ...

... exclusively on Asanas that target the spinal column at the expense of those that exclusively target the limbs. Still, I'm told that accounts for 90% of most Hatha yoga classes you'll encounter (don't know whether other variants like Ashitanga, Bikram, etc differ) so I ...

... then I've always been weak at any kinds of back bends.

I saw the yoga retreat as an opportunity to correct this historical imbalance, and I made sure to invest all 3 backbend postures - the snake, locust, and bow - as well as the 2 backwards arches in the Sun Salute with maximal exertion. My sprained thumb added a extra monkey wrench in the equation, forcing me to execute many of these postures asymmetrically in order to avoid pressuring the joint. The ...

... while Hogan merely exploited Australia's most embarrassing stereotypes to make a buck, Irwin was the real deal. All the money he made went back into the animals or his company which, eventually, cycled it back to the animals. He simply loved those animals, and loved their invariable attempts to kill him. Thus he embodied the two qualities most respected by Aussies: a simple but earnest passion for what he did that transcends renumeration, and cojones ...

... up we realised we were sharing the hut with giant spiders and cockroaches. They were friendly though so we didn't mind sharing that much!! Varkala is a holy temple town with pilgrims coming from far and wide to perform poojas at the sea and pray at the local temples. Enjoyed a morning walk along the cliffs, visited the post office and did some shopping with kasmiri traders. On the way back ...

... get some bread. Then the last lorry appeared from the yard, until then carefully hidden around a corner. It was fitted with five long steel poles, each about nine inches in diameter and long enough to reach from the bed of the lorry at an angle over the top of the cab and protrude six feet or so in front of the vehicle. Each one had several steel cross-pieces giving them the appearance of grey metal telegraph poles. From each was suspended a man, we think they were all young but ...

... us a bit after such excitment.I even made it to "Paradise beach",but was glad to retreat to my little mud shack where candles and stars up in the wide sky sufficed me. Only socialized when meeting people (including David,Petra and Winfried who decided to move from "Om beach"to enjoy quietness at night) and some young +hippie mum Persians(? expats from Syria,Iracq?) who looked closer to ...

... by the beautiful lady when she smiled ... the characters were so elegantly portrayed - the costumes were crazy - the makeup an art. In my opinion, this is a must see if you visit Kerala. We are off to a house boat now as we have finally booked a boat ... thank goodness that pressure is off - it was so difficult to make the reservation - yikes! High season certainly has its low points - one of them is trying to get your plans straight without all the hassle.

... buying the mass-produced skirts and shawls that the Kashmiris pushed on them from their identical line of shops. We were not happy at all! Perhaps in the high season, when more of the little shacks would be open to serve local food, and the bamboo huts were available to stay in, Varkala would have a nicer feel to it, but for now, it felt like we had been transported over the Andaman sea to Thailand. And although we loved Thailand last year, it was such a shock to see that level of ...