I have literally lost track of time which is really good in many ways but as I recall, I arrived at the ashram on Friday morning around 10am. After a quick breakfast at the hotel, one of the workers at the hotel carried my suitcase and rucksack most of the way there - it's quite a walk and quite a few of my things will have to be posted back home before I leave. Carrying weight here is arduous.
The ashram is good. Situated on a hill overlooking Swargashram, it is usually a peaceful place but not this month with the 2 million extra revellers in town !!! I still can't quite catch the name of the deity being celebrated but it's a major celebration with people travelling from all over India and even Nepal to walk around yelling "Bolla bolla bolla" at all hours of the morning.
My accommodation is basic but okay. We're in blocks of 3 floors and I'm on the top floor with a genki Japanese female from Tokyo and a wealthy Chinese lass from Shanghai. There must be about 20 odd people staying at the ashram from various arts and parts. Nobody seems to have liked Delhi.
Food is "sattvic" i.e. it is simple, unvaried, strictly vegetarian or vegan and unspiced. Yellow tends to be the most common colour so I was quite excited to have tomatoes yesterday evening. Water is cold and filtered so it saves me from purifying a litre everyday. There is hot water in the bathroom and a fan which runs at about 100 miles an hour.
The blocks are barricaded on each floor with metal mesh - monkey protection. I'm relaxing a little more at the thought of the monkeys but we appear to have a red-faced variety which is cheeky and quite aggressive. I was unable to go to the library for about 15 minutes yesterday as one had found it's way up to my floor and proceeded to push and sit at the gate!!
More importantly though the yoga is rather strenous but excellent. We have it easy in the West. The yoga hall is lovely, spacious and carpeted but the teachers don't believe in having the fans running here....so it becomes extremely hot and humid. However, by the time you are a third of the way through your practice your body is much more flexible. We have two lessons a day, one at 6.30 am and a second at 5pm, for roughly one hour. The teachers are young , extremely flexible and rather handsome.
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