One Year of Sundays

Gallery: Yoga March Intensive course

ben_ju — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:30:00 GMT

Gallery: Taj Mahal

ben_ju — Thu, 9 Apr 2009 20:52:00 GMT

Gallery: Delhi

ben_ju — Thu, 9 Apr 2009 20:12:00 GMT

Gallery: Rishikesh

ben_ju — Thu, 9 Apr 2009 19:43:00 GMT

Gallery: Rishikesh

ben_ju — Tue, 7 Apr 2009 19:53:00 GMT

Gallery: Haridwar

ben_ju — Tue, 7 Apr 2009 19:34:00 GMT

Rishikesh, India. 7th April 2009

ben_ju — Tue, 7 Apr 2009 19:15:00 GMT

Namaste, this is our last journal entry for our time in India! We have now been in India for eight months and have 5 more weeks left until we head for Turkey, Egypt & Israel. We can’t believe how fast the time is flying especially since all we’re doing is eating, breathing and sleeping yoga (loving every minute of it too). We’re healthy and strong and very much enjoy living a non-western lifestyle.

We’ve been in Rishikesh now for nine weeks and we love it as much as we did when we were here five years ago. It’s beautiful, green, full of animals, mountain air, crispy cold Ganga River, crazy all sorts of people and colourful ashrams. It’s a spiritual, vegetarian and a non-alcoholic town but rest assure some restaurants have alcohol and serve it to you in a teapot *wink *wink.

Evening walks are lovely as our path is illuminated by cool little glow bugs flying around. When we do grocery shopping it’s always vital to carry a rock or two to defend yourself against those hungry monkeys that chase you.

This time round we didn’t rent a house but we found a comfortable large room with a bathroom and balcony to live in. Watching monkeys go through our garbage bins is rather entertaining except when they open your door and come inside and freak you out. I (Ben) was bitten by one on a previous trip so squealed like a girl when it came in until Silvana came to the rescue.

On March the 11th we celebrated Holi, well we stayed indoors and watched everyone else celebrate. Basically groups of children and young men run around the streets throwing coloured powder and water balloons at each other. It’s common for young men to get drunk however and target westerners, especially women who get a free groping for their trouble as we watched many times.

We just finished a 10 day Yoga intensive which means we had classes twice a day instead of one and a few Anatomy lectures. It was very intense but so many great points and ideas we revealed to us. Practicing Yoga for these few months like this has been a wonderful experience. Practicing everyday allows you to really get to know your body and to begin to examine the poses deeper. I think if we keep it up for the rest of our lives we may just gain some insight into what Yoga actually is, or maybe we will have to come back for another go.

After the intensive we needed a few days off so we went to Delhi to change our plane ticket. We are now going to Israel for 10 days to hang out with some people we’ve been doing Yoga with and of course our new mate Ido that we’ve been doing yoga with for the past six months since Goa. While in Delhi we also squeezed in a trip the Taj Mahal. It really is such a beautiful building although the town it’s in (Agra) is definitely near the top of the list of the grossest towns in India.

Unfortunately I’ve (Ben) injured my right bicep tendon and has been told no Yoga for 2 – 4 weeks where the arm is involved..... That means pretty much everything. We don’t know what we are going to do as it’s not possible for me to carry my backpack around either so we will probably stay here and I will just do my own private practice while Silvana continues with daily classes. The injury is a bit of a mystery, I woke up on our return from Delhi and my arm was in pain and didn’t work. I didn’t fall, twist or do anything to it. That’s what you get for taking 4 days off yoga to go to Delhi and the Taj.

We have some plans to visit Daramasala and DheraDun in the next few weeks so that should be fun. We leave India via Mumbai (Bombay), we have a friend who lives there that will be taking us around.......never been and heard is a very unique place!

Ok...... this may be our last entry for India so bye bye for now and take care.

Lots of love Silvana and Ben xox

Gallery: Nepal

ben_ju — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 23:46:00 GMT

Pokhara

Gallery: Nepal

ben_ju — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 23:32:00 GMT

Monastery

Gallery: Nepal

ben_ju — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 23:21:00 GMT

Kathmandu

Gallery: Varanasi, India

ben_ju — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 22:29:00 GMT

Holy City

India to Nepal

ben_ju — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 22:17:00 GMT

16th January

Hello!

We now find ourselves in lovely warm Pokhara, Nepal surrounded by the snowy caped Annapurna mountain range set around a beautiful lake. It’s quiet, laid back and picture perfect, but first we must digress with an extended whinge.

On leaving Goa we headed to Delhi where we spent an uneventful Christmas day and jumped on a train to Varanasi which is a very holy, very old, and very very Indian city. We both promptly came down with the flu and a lovely stomach bacteria which produced projectiles from Silvana’s mouth and from my... you get the idea. We were basically room bound for 4 days or so which wouldn’t have been that bad except the smoke from the cremation Ghat was wafting straight up and in our window. We took some nasty antibiotics and recovered our strength to begin our trip to Nepal a few days later than planned. This was the beginning of a fateful trip. The train was 7 hours late so we arrived at a travel junction (shitty gross town that no one stays at) at 2am found a gross shitty cold room in which we slept a crappy 4hrs, then jumped on a bus to the Nepal boarder at 7am in the morning, passed immigration where we then jumped on a bus for Kathmandu at 11:30am thinking we were finally kicking ass in the good luck department. Unfortunately all the roads in Nepal are only two lanes and when there are accidents (a daily occurrence) there are delays. So our 7 hour trip turned into a 15 hour nightmare when the bus decided to take a 4WD track detour into Kathmandu to avoid an accident. About ½ hour into it a car somewhere in front, rolled, went off a cliff or got bogged (depending on who you talk too). End of the story is we spent 4-5 hours in the freezing wilderness waiting for the traffic to move. We arrived in Kathmandu at 2am which is unfortunate as everything shuts down at 10pm and by shut down we mean big gates padlocked so another ½ hour banging and calling out to get someone to let us in our hotel. To top it off I managed to lose my iPod. End whinge and by the way, we are flying back to India!

It was a real shame we were sick in Varanasi because there is no other place like it. It is centred on the Ganges and there is so much happening. You can just sit on the Ghats (stairs that lead to the river and stretch for a few Km’s) and watch for hours. Hindus believe bathing here washes away bad Karma and if you are cremated here you are released from the cycle of reincarnation. Unfortunately it is so polluted in this stretch that the water is anaerobic and it also has a faecal content 1000 times the recommended level but try to tell that to the thousands of people we saw bathing, brushing their teeth and washing their food in it (which an old man then kindly offered to us, see photos).

If only we could post video here we could show you one of the highlights of our trip so far. A Sadu (holy men that have renounced possessions and live a spiritual life off the charity of others) was among a large crowd that were yelling and shouting. We went over to look and saw he had a rope tied from his penis that went between his legs and was tied to the front of a car that he was pulling down the road toward us! There were TV cameras there and they interviewed him, people we going wild, it was amazing. Oh and there was a family in the car as well!!!

We spent a week in Kathmandu as that’s how long it takes to get an Indian visa. The Indians make it as painful as possible ensuring you need to be at the embassy by 6:30am if you want to be served as they close at noon and if you haven’t been served, come tomorrow. The beauty of it is you need to do this twice. Kathmandu was some relief after Delhi and Varanasi but it is so polluted and crowded and freezing this time of the year. In the space of 7 years the pollution has worsened to the point that I don’t think I will ever spend more than a few days in Kathmandu ever again. In a week Silvana had full blown asthma and I acquired a cough a 30 a day smoker would be proud of. Travelling this part of the world is definitely not good for the health. While in Kathmandu we took in a few sights like Swayambunath and Bodhinath which are both Buddhist stupas. The former is on a hill that overlooks Kathmandu valley which would be lovely if it wasn’t covered in smog. We also visited a friend who we were doing yoga with in Goa, who is studying at a Buddhist monastery. The art work and shrines were so intricate and views beautiful as we were outside the main part of the city. Terraced fields and greenery surrounded us, on one side at least. After that we went to the school where I volunteered in 2000. We found some of the projects I participated in had vanished or were in disrepair which was pretty sad but the grounds there are still so lush and green as there is a nature reserve behind the school that was once the Kings hunting ground.

That brings us to the present where we are doing stuff all for 10 days except eating, drinking and relaxing. There is one last problem we face though and it’s a pain in the ass. Being in a 3^rd world country you come to expect power cuts from time to time. Well at the moment there are power cuts for 16 hours a day!!! So that means there is power for 4 hours 2 times a day. Now if we knew when the power was on, as it changes every day, it would be a big help especially when it comes to having a hot shower.

We will be back in India in the last week of January and will head to Rishikesh as fast as possible for another 3 months of yoga.

Lots of love

Ben & Silvana

Gallery: Goa pt 2

ben_ju — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:56:00 GMT

Goa, Goa, Goa...

ben_ju — Wed, 3 Dec 2008 23:23:00 GMT

3^{st December 2008}

Before I jet into the future I want everyone to know that we are fine, safe and healthy in relation to the Mumbai attacks that lasted for a few horrible days. Thankfully we were nowhere near the attacks and aren’t planning to go anywhere near there. It’s a sad thing to have happened and it will probably spark up some issues but the moment we see ourselves in any sort of danger we will leave so please don’t worry about us.

We’ve reached December with only 23 days to go until we leave Arambol, Goa and make our way to Nepal to renew our Indian Visas. We were going to go to Sri Lanka to renew them but since our Australian dollar keeps dive bombing we are holding onto all the coins we have. We get a plane to Delhi on the 24th December and stay for a day or two. I know.... Christmas Eve.... but it was the cheapest flight or else we would have had to pay triple any other day. Then the plan is to catch a train to the Holy city of Varanasi and hang for a few days, then make our way to Nepal where we’ll celebrate NYE, renew our visa and enjoy 3 weeks of dumplings and Himalayan views.

So what have we been up to? Yoga.....Yoga....Yoga! Surprised ahh... We’re learning a lot in yoga and for those who do Iyengar Yoga; it’s just such a privilege to be taught by a teacher who spent many years being directly taught by Iyengar himself, so many gold nuggets of information.

We wake at 5:30am every morning to go to yoga and finishing around 10:30am and our days consist of reading book after book, going for afternoon swims in the ocean, playing around with various programs on our laptop, eating, hanging with friends and on the last day of our 5 day yoga week we have live music, jams and musicians at the yoga hall in the evening followed by Chai (Indian tea) and snacks. It’s loads of fun.

We’re still feeding our Moo cow friend but we’re pretty sure he’s passed the message onto his fellow cow friends and now we get visits from others (check out the photos).

We had a dinner party last week and cooked the best pasta that’s ever been cooked in India! The pasta dish consisted of grilled eggplant and zucchini, real kalamta olives (the fringe benefits of being in tourist town) and organic Auroville Parmesan cheese. We invited our 2 best friends Arambol over for dinner, one is an Israeli music teacher/ audio engineer and the other an ex organic farmer from America who has now been studying Tibetan Buddhism for 5 years in Nepal. Both of them practice yoga with us and are awesome people and a lot fun to hang out with. Although the party didn’t erupt with any Bronco style bottle smashing over our heads, it was so much fun to entertain and serve them yummy food and talk about our experiences living in different countries. Next week with the help of our Israeli friend we’ll make humus and an Israeli desert called Saclab mmmmm. We have tried to make a few Indian curries but when you’re able to get the real thing (that melts in your mouth) for a $1.50 down the road what’s the point. Plus our attempts haven’t been the greatest!

As you can tell we don’t really have much to talk about besides food and yoga so we’ll leave it at that and let you look at the photos.

Our next entry will probably be from Nepal so hope everyone has a lovely Christmas and an awesome New Year!!! Take care of yourself.

Lots of love and hugs

Ben & Silvana xxoox

Gallery: Goa

ben_ju — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:24:00 GMT

Goa

ben_ju — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:16:00 GMT

18/10/2008

So where were we….

Well we left Cochin with Ben feeling sick and arrived into Bangalore with Ben even sicker! We went back to the 4^{th block Inn where we left our big backpacks and stayed for a week. It was great to be back, felt like home and everyone (the workers) was overjoyed with our return. Knowing we only had one week left in Bangalore we ate loads of yummy food and sweets, sung, laughed and hung out a lot.}

We’re not even going to get into too much detail about our horrid 11 hour bus trip from Bangalore to Goa was which ended up being 17 painful hours. Picture this, a full bus, no toilet, no air con, an overnight trip on a dirt road full of potholes waking up every oh… lets say 5 to 10 mins to find yourself in mid air…. airborne!!

lets just say we did a lot of praying that night and had a good talk to ourselves and excepted the fact that if it was time to go… it was time to go!

Goa it is, a wee bit of history..

The Muslims arrived in the 1300’s but were not fans of the beach (Mohammad wasn’t a surfer!). The Portuguese arrived in 1510 wanting to control the spice route from the East. Mid 1500’s Jesuit missionaries led by St Francis Xavier (Goa’s Patron Saint) arrived and that’s why you’ll find the majority of Goans to be Roman Catholic. People of Goa have hung onto some Portuguese traditions, you still hear older folk conversing in Portuguese, traditional food is alive and kicking like pickled fish, salami, port wine is readily available and sweets we haven’t tried yet.

We’ve heard stories of the craziness that goes on here in Goa, 6 months a year foreigners flock to the beaches covering the coast for all reasons, lots of families, package deals, backpackers, hippies, freaks and Indian tourists.

Ben and I are in the very north of Goa in a small beach town called Arambol. It was popular back in the 60’s and was every hippies destination, now it’s full of gracefully aging hippies, freaks, randoms and underground rave party goers popular with Israelis, Russians, Germans, Geezers (aka pommies) and Italians or daggy nerds like Ben and I who came for yoga.

It’s like a tropical Byron Bay but Indian style.

We found a place to call home that we accidently stumbled across. It’s a 2 story house, we live on the ground floor, a family live on the first floor and the owners live on the roof 6 months a year when they’re not living in their Mumbai home. A lovely 2bdr, living area and a kitchen and fridge YAY! We finally found what we have been looking for 2 and half months.

The owners treat us like their children in the sense that they make sure we are happy by feeding us occasionally. We have big long chats, they give us cooking lessons and then we feast together and they make sure we don’t get ripped off by the locals.

Everyday starting around 6am to 6pm in the evening different salesmen riding past on their bicycles selling an assortment of foods and stuffs and they each have their unique way of letting you know they’ve arrived. The fresh bread man has a horn he honks in a certain way, the ice cream man has a normal bike bell, the bucket and doormat man yells and the egg man… nothing so if you happen to see him you’ll be eating eggs!! We’ve finally figured who’s who and can blend in with the local’s lifestyle.

Composting doesn’t exist here so we collect all our food scraps and go for daily walks sometimes just to our backyard and feed it to the passing cows. mmmmm fresh papaya skins mixed with onion and lime skins.

We stared yoga on Friday and we are both very impressed so far. The teacher is a German student of the Indian teacher (who will arrive in 2 weeks). He is really good but sounds like Arnie (Swarzenegger) so as we are both so mature we have to try really hard not to laugh when he says "juss feel za bodeeee".

The classes are 3 ½ to 4 hours long, a real challenge but very satisfying and there’s a good mix of people who have and haven’t done yoga. The class size is small now (10 or so) but we are not looking forward to the Season starting as its going to be packed.

There’s not much else to tell. We get up go to yoga. Eat lunch. Chill. Swim. Read. Eat dinner. Go to bed.

That’s pretty much the next 3 months so we will see you in January!!!!!!!

P.s. forgot to mention the ever increasingly disturbing older male beach fashion becoming more and more popular on the beach…… the dreaded G-string! lord!

‘till next time xox

Gallery: Cochin

ben_ju — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 23:18:00 GMT

Gallery: Tanjore

ben_ju — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 23:06:00 GMT

from bad to worse to great... thanks Kerala

ben_ju — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:51:00 GMT

Sunday 21^{st September}

So if we had written this a week or so ago it would have been ‘India sux a thousand times’ (maybe throw a Screw Flanders in at the end….. Simpsons fans?)[Ben]

While we parked our butts in Pondicherry we both got sick with Ben copping it the worst. We managed to catch the Ganesh Chaturthi (Birthday of the Hindu elephant god who brings luck and prosperity) festival which we had enthusiastically been waiting for but had to stay close to toilet facilities. A few weeks before the festival people from all around prepare small to enormous clay statues of Ganesh and adorn them with gold leaf, flowers and paint. When the festival starts it lasts for around 5 days and every night just before sunset Hindus bring their household clay Ganesh to the shore line, sit it on the ground and light a small jiffy like ball and pray (this is called a Puja). Enterprising young boys will then take the clay Ganesh out to sea and throw them in for a few rupees or the tight asses will try and lob them over the rocks, many Ganesh hit the rocks that day my friends

Our next stop was Chidambaram, one of the many bad experiences to follow. The bus trip there was a nightmare, squashed (this includes Ben and I having pins and needles in various limbs), 35 degrees on a 3hr trip. We arrived in this dusty town and the people where rude and uninviting, we struggled, got ripped off, and shared a room with a village of mosquitoes and to top it off Ben found the air con unit dripping on his head at 4am in the morning! We left the next day!

Next was Tanjore, boy ‘o’ boy another shitty bus trip (same deal). While looking for accommodation we came across an A-hole manager in which Ben ended up having a fight with. The manager was trying to rip us off and his smartarse friends were making fun of Ben so Ben made himself heard and told the guys to F-off. There was a flying room key too! Hot, tired, hungry and pissed off we found a little room for the night but it was more like a hot wood fire oven with a door… this is where we started losing it! At least we got to see a World Heritage listed temple.

Next, Trichy and all I’ll say is that if it wasn’t for the delicious authentic food (at last we almost gave up hope for this State), friendly people, a flushing toilet, half decent accommodation and an amazing view from the Rock Temple we would have cut our trip to India very short?

but wait there’s more………

We then caught an overnight train to Cochin, Kerala with air con and sleeping bunks in hope for a good night’s rest and comfort (wealthier Indians use these carriages)…. what! Am I kidding! This is India! Never assume that things will go to plan. That night I lost all hope! It felt like we had joined a circus. Six bunks in each section with three tier bunks facing each other, me bottom bench and Ben above me.

So I mentioned a circus!! yeah well this is how it went…. The guy across from Ben had some sort of trumpet lodged in his nose and honked ALL night long, the guy up top placed his shoes near my head (good Lord, I have never smelt such a pungent stench, a cross between curry, cheese & turd) I had to fold my sheet a few time to filter the air. Oh yes this man sleeping on the top bench sneezed all night while Ben and I shielded ourselves with our blankets and to top it off the lady in front of me decided to get up and groom herself by brush her hair all over me at 3am in the morning! So evidently with no sleep and desperately tired eyes we entered a state of mind only Monks would be able to withstand.

Kerala saved us! Simply an amazing state that runs along the Arabian Sea and is known as Gods country and it’s luscious. Muslim, Christian and Hindus live next door to each other in harmony. Fort Cochin’s colonial past brought Chinese visitors, Portuguese traders, Jewish settlers, Syrian, Christians and Muslim merchants. Yes it’s a communist state but people here are friendly and this state somehow functions. Being a coastal fishing town there are plenty of cats everywhere but not the healthiest looking. We cruised the backwaters which are spindly networks of rivers, canals and lagoons, ate local fresh water muscles and drank fresh coconut juice. ahhhhhhhhh at last!

We also bought a bottle of fresh coconut flower juice which naturally ferments into an alcoholic drink called Toddy if left for six hours. It’s been well longer than that and I’ll (that’s Ben if you’re not sure) be downing it tonight with a local cigar that smells remarkably like shit.

Our photos will sum it up. Loads of tourists and stuff costs a bit more but it’s all worth it.

Last night Ben and I went to see a performance, a traditional art form of Kerala called Kathkali. Students strain physically and mentally to study this art form for 8-10yrs learning drums, singing, acting and makeup. It was so beautiful it gave me shivers. Tonight we see a Kalarippayat martial arts performance where there are many airborne acrobatic maneuvers and use of weapons.

At the moment we’re planning our next move………..

Silvana n Ben xox

. The fifth day is the BIG day where the temple and village Ganesh come to the ocean on the back of jeeps, rickshaws and trucks, one was so big it needed its own crane to pick it up and lower it down into a boat off the jetty so it could be taken out to sea. Unfortunately the food sucked here and did so for the next few stops.

Gallery: Pondicherry

ben_ju — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:03:00 GMT