After a delicious buffet breakfast aka the “last meal” with any meat, dairy, eggs etc aka non Vegan, we took off in some Tuk Tuks to meet up with the Hariharalaya group. I also got the chance to meet the rest of the group that came with Lauren – Steph, Evelyn, Jen, Alyssa, and Jill. We had another but she never got out of the states as she didn’t have a passport that was still valid in 6 months and then after getting a temporary one, she came down with food poisoning. The group’s connection was Lauren either from patient relationships or chiropractic colleagues.
As we got to the meeting point, we got the first feel of who we are going to be living with for the next week. 30 people plus the employees of the center encompassed 20 different countries from New Zealand, Estonia, Finland, USA, England, Scotland, Israel, Australia, Ireland, Slovakia, Canada, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Japan, China, Thailand and some others I can’t remember J. It was exciting to know that I would get a chance to get to know all of these others and learn about their cultures throughout the week.
Another Tuk Tuk ride took us through the heart of Siem Reap and morning traffic which is always an interesting experience no matter the country. With no traffic lights and little direction on what are lanes, the flow was quite consistent. As I learned over time, you have to dedicate yourself to a path and the rest of the people work around you. Quite effective and surprising and not sure this would work in most countries. As we left the hustle and bustle, you started to see more of the land and small villages that we were planning to visit and give the service too.
The one light we did see was in my mind useless as when it did turn green - there was a green arrow for all directions. A little hard to see in the pic but definitely not the most effective for traffic.
30 min outside the city in Rolous, we arrived at Hariharalya Retreat Center and pulling up was about as I had imagined after reading as much as I could on our location before we arrived. Set in the middle of a bunch of large trees there is one main building that houses the kitchen, dining area, office and rooms upstairs. Throughout the rest of the 2 acre spot were little huts that contained more housing, bathrooms, arts and creativity room, bouldering gym, juice bar and an open air theatre.
Everyone got checked in and we met the founder of the center, Joel, who moved there 7 and a ½ years ago and just celebrated the 7th anniversary of Hariharalaya. http://www.hariharalaya.com. We took a tour of the property and learned the rules of the center – no shoes, no phones, no kindles or anything with a screen, no cameras, no watches, vegan food only and no full walls on any building! I knew most of this going in except about the walls and shoes so it wasn’t a surprise for me.
You are probably wondering why we were staying here and this is again due to Lauren. Lauren lived at the center for about 4 months, 5 years ago and had always wanted to come back and visit. This led to her choosing it for a service trip as it was a bit of a coming home for her. Now that she has been practicing chiropractic for over 7 years, she knew that she could come back in a new position and really help the people in the surrounding villages.
Since no watches were a strong suggestion and there were lots of activities, gong time would drive the next week. The first gong was at 630am with 7 hits as a wake-up call. 3 gong hits marked the 10 min warning til something was occurring from the schedule and 1 hit mean something is starting.
Giving up the control of time is a very interesting concept for me considering the amazing dependency on our Outlook calendar at Vail Resorts, Inc. 10 min til a meeting, finding out where it is, what floor that meeting room is on, do I have time to go to the bathroom first, should I finish what I am currently doing, should I bring my computer, will I focus if I do bring my computer, do I want to attend, what can I work on if the answer the question previously was no? All of that goes away with gong time as you are reliant on others to keep time and aside from two mandatory schedule items a day, we were free to do everything or nothing and gong time was just an alert.
Since Lauren’s crew is here for a dual purpose, we had less time on the schedule for workshops and classes. This wasn’t a problem, just something we worked around to combine time for ourselves and for helping others. The two mandatory requirements were morning practice from 7-9am and evening practice from 6-7pm. Meals were always immediately following those.
Hariharalaya’s program is focused on “learning, creativity, community, self love, conscious living, healthy vegan food, a deep connection with nature, one another and the present moment. We focus on sharing the tools and experience in order to set up a personal practice of yoga postures, breathing and meditation. Our course program includes daily classes, health & wellness, Dharma talks, community activities, free time and much more. You will learn and be inspired by our experienced team of 5 international yoga and meditation instructors.” This was the basis for all of the attendees and wasn’t anything like I expected it to be. More to come on that later.
Knowing that we would be in the surrounding villages for most of the free time was the exciting part for me as it was the purpose for coming to Cambodia. Hariharalaya allowed us this amazing access to the villages inside the Temple Zone. The retreat has to go through a lot of documentation to show the government who is staying on property and this is due to being the only place allowing lodging for Westerners inside a national park. This allowance is through everything needing to be in a Cambodians name and as the founder Joel has a Cambodian wife and 2 kids, she essentially has an empire! Joel is a definite Yogi and impressively speaks 12 languages.
Lauren and I got settled into our hut and took the time to get moved in. I thought that I had brought too much stuff which always drives me crazy when I travel but turns out in the end, it was just enough aside from one extra pair of shoes I didn’t need and a dress I choose not to wear the last night. The hut was perfect with its two beds, 1 cabinet, 2 fans and 2 beautiful big mosquito nets you tuck into the bed. As I have an allergy to said mosquitos and so much of the diseases in SouthEast Asia are transferred through mosquitos, I was so happy to see this. I had also taken a lot of precautions to spray all my clothes prior with some stuff purchased at Passport Health (highly recommended).
