yoga, meditation & squirrels

this guy joined me for meditation & yoga in the mornings outside while i was in colorado.  collecting the last of his fall nuts i suspect.

ashram or resort?

i ended up staying at a 'resort' in Goa that called itself an ashram so that was a little weird but i didn't care because they didn't ask me to do any work.  the owners and management team were all locals but i wasn't buying the ashram part - except maybe they don't pay the workers?

anyway, it was comfortable enough and had daily yoga and meditation which is exactly what i was looking for.  they also had an aurvedic practitioner on site and i was able to get a better understanding of the practices around prevention of disease that is common in the yoga tradition.


there was a set schedule [completely optional] that started with a 6AM meditation - sometimes at the beach during sunrise, sometimes in a mosquito infested forest or in the shala where it's protected from mosquito and the only potential danger is the odd scorpion.  the mosquito pretty much appear consistently at sunrise and sunset [the times considered most sacred for meditation] and given my natural fear of dengue and malaria i keep myself encased in a cloud of citronella and eucalyptus most of the time.

Ubud

from Echo Beach i move up to Ubud, in the central part of the island.  i plan to spend about a week in Ubud and every minute is packed.  i check my bag at a hotel and head over to the Yoga Barn which is best sumarized as yoga for the masses.  i took a couple of classes which all had great instructors.  they all have legit yogi names like Bex, Bantu, Gypsy, etc. the one thing they do really really good is that all the classes i took had a consistent style which is rare at any yoga studio.  the part that i didn't like was they cram the classes full.  so the better part of me says, hey, it's good that so many people want to do yoga today.  the other part says, 6cm is way to close for yoga mats.  so ultimately, i find another much smaller studio which is fantastic.  i get a pass that allows me to try lots of different types of yoga practices and every day i can feel my core and arms getting stronger.  interestingly, in Ubud, 50% of the classes were men.  at the barn they even offerred a man class.

garden view from my room

clean laundry $1.40US

Indonesian style homes are unique.  it allows multigenerational families to coexist in the same space.  there is a courtyard and a separate cooking area that is shared but the parents and married siblings each have separate living quarters.  after a disappointing first night in a hotel [why do i continue to book these when they are always overpriced and not at all what i want? - convenince i suppose] i found a homestay with a local family.  it's a typical home stay with a private room and bath.  and breakfast. $14/night. the patriarch in this family was wielding a paint brush on a canvas - in the form of nude women which he tried to sell off as 'a painting of you' .  he was harmless enough but not blessed with natural talent.  there is always a dog or two and kids playing in the courtyard.  flying kites or banging on drums or some other kid stuff.  most importantly, they embrace you as if you are one of the family and for my stay i enjoyed seeing the friendly faces every day.

even better, was the string of vegetarian and vegan restaurants on the street i was staying.  one spot had such good gluten free cake that when people arrive at the restaurant they pick out which dessert they want so it can be held for them.

random pink chick on street

yoga bliss

it's up and over to the dock for yoga.  i've been really looking forward to this and the yoga class is great - the location perfect.  Kirsten is a wonderful yoga instructor and easily leads a class of varying levels.  

just breathing the clean air is bliss but watching the fish and rays off the edge of the dock make it a extraordinary class.  next up, breakfast, then snorkeling!  Akbol gets good reviews for the breakfast food but they are out of some of the basics like orange juice.  i drove through orange groves two hours away so it's surprising they

don't have oranges for juice.  they have 4 - 6 staff working the breakfast bar and preparing food but it can take up to an hour to get food.  the beach bar serves as restaurant, bar and office.  my impression this morning is that the owners and staff seem overwhelmed by having guests.

it feels so good to have my naked feet in the sand and i snorkel around the dock where there are plenty of fish and I spot two large starfish.  i could spend hours in the water but i need to get my laundry into town.  i usually have easy to wash clothes with me so rinsing out in a sink is doable but the jungle clothes have a thick layer of clay in them and it will take a proper washing to get them clean.  

off to San Pedro we go, it's a two mile walk but we hitch a ride from a passing golf cart.  i find the laundry spot and they are quite busy so it'll be two days before i can pick them up.  being in town in daylight gives me a chance to see how much has changed in the 16 years since i was last here.  it's built up quite a bit but the biggest change seems to be the road that runs tip to tip on the island.  the golf carts make zipping about easier but the town is less pedestrian friendly and i spend most of my energy avoiding golf carts.  we stop in at Fido's for a snack and it feels more like a sports bar in the US then a beach bar in the tropics.  the food is good and after a few more errands around town we head back to Akbol.  

we hang out at our room which is clean and comfortable with great ventilation and beautiful folding doors across the front and semi private front porch area.  although small it's very charming but the proximity to the road makes it very noisy and i never sleep really well.  the golf carts run on the road all day and into the night when the bars close.  when we get back, i notice our towels are gone, thinking that odd i ask a passing staff member for clean towels.  the towels never showed up.  it took me several days to figure out they probably didn't have enough towels for all the rooms so it was hit or miss if you got one. 

i chat up the travelers in the next room over and find them delightful.  they give me tons of information about what they've done and where they've been on the island.  there was a yoga retreat arriving so the entire resort was booked out and the staff was over stressed.  they commiserate about the towel situation and give one of their towels to me.  :)  one guest commented that she was disappointed to find out there wasn't a hammock garden as advertised on the website.  


another way the maintenance and management fails is in keeping the shared bath clean.  every time i went to take a shower the soap caked shelf grossed me out.  the space needed to be cleaned more than once a day as the trash bins including the ones in the toilet stalls with used toilet tissue were always overflowing with rubbish.  just grossed me out.


last night as i was sleeping i felt a bite on my foot which i ignored.  when i woke up today my foot was quite swollen although there wasn't a visible bite mark.  i'm covered with quite a few bites at this point so it's just another addition to the jungle bites.