Let you not lose your breath

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Trip Start Dec 24, 2008 Trip End Jan 18, 2009 Next
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  Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India
Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Greetings my friends.  We have escaped the ashram for the afternoon to get some caffeine sugar and internet!!!  We did kirtan (chanting) last night, got ourselves to yoga class from 6 - 8:30 am and then joined in a fire puja (ceremony) this morning, so I think we've earned it.  :)  Chai, glorious chai, I cannot get enough.  Here's a shot of our favoite (or at least first ) chai wallah, whose sugary connoction got us through 2 mornings of the most strenuous and amazing two hour ashtanga yoga class.

So lets go back a step.  Our flights were smooth and painless.  We were less than impressed with our "mid-range" room when we arrived in Delhi, with is eau du mothballs, but boy oh boy, after we ventured out into that smoggy craziness the next day, we didn't want to leave that sweet peaceful space ever again!  It turns out mothballs is like the prevailing laundry cleaner scent here

baby monkey

. 

Leaving aside all the over forms of madness, the air in Delhi was like breathing directly from a campfire.  There was not a sky to be found. We're fairly well worn travelers, but we were both genuinely stupified how the air could be like that all the time. The paper a few days later actually reported zero visibility fog conditions in Delhi. We know fog in San Francisco and that was no fog.  It struck us very hard as we drove from Delhi to Rishikesh, waiting the whole ride for it to clear without result. In Rishikesh, which sits on the banks of the mightly Ganges and benefits from its winds, one can thankfully inhale and exhale deeply, and hack it all out with lots of fire breats. We both definitely felt renewed appreciation for our lot in life and the importance of our work. We can all agree that clean air and clean water are vital, but the import is much more tangible after this experience.

So Rishikesh is definitely a breath of fresh air. Nothing like some great yoga and a (very oily) ayurvedic massage to sooth the travel weary.  We got hooked up with a great room and great info from some folks who saw us knocking on a hotel door on our 10:30 pm arrival and began easying in the next day and searching for an ashram. Our first choice totally dissed us, and I tapped in to the travel spirit and announced that we would wind up exactly where we were supposed to be

chai guy

.  And here we are in a brand new, beautiful and quiet ashram with great teachers and delicious and healthy meals. Some of the ashrams we saw were definitely not our speed - especially the one with the mediation caves - dark dank and scary-looking halls resembling solitary confinement cells on Alcatraz. We've had days of good laughs about them, and are planning to go back for a good pix.

I'm sure it is no surprise to hear that there are lots of cows and monkeys about.  The baby monkey on our balcony pictured below is cute enough...

but I'm a bit of a scaredy-pants after I was stalked and robbed of my bag of fruit from some big guys!!  Lesson learned.  :)

Will tell you more about the ashram and Varanasi next time. Best wishes for health and happiness in the new year.
xoxo
Love Andrea


 

 

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