David and Elizabeth’s India Adventure- A Blog (within a blog)
In which we'll do our level best to convey to you what it is like to be here, in a country (sub-continent, really) that many people don’t understand or know much about
In words, pictures, and (hopefully) video, and with handy definitions!
(Caveat- This won’t be the best-written [or laid out, due to the very annoying computers here!] thing you’ve ever read, since it’ll be all we can do to get it on here, so do forgive us.)
Hello everyone, and namaste (I bow to you)!
David and I have been in India now for one week of our four month trip, and decided to take advantage of this wonderful tool for sharing our trip as much as possible with all of you, while answering everyone’s questions at once! (so feel free to ask). And I love the fact that only those of you who are really interested will need to be subjected to it! If you do (want to be subjected), you can keep up with us at peelandsolow.blogspot.com (also, those of you who’ve been here, as you check in, please suggest things you feel we ought to mention, or write about them yourself in the comments). We’ll be posting more after the New Year (read on to find out why), but should have at least 1 or 2 postings up before then.
So to catch everyone up to this point, David came here to Mysore, India exactly 2 years ago, 6 weeks after we began dating, to study Ashtanga (8 limbs) yoga for 3 months with the family of the daddy of Ashtanga, Sri (title of respect) K. Pattabhi Jois (along with studying Sanskrit, chanting, yoga philosophy, etc.). I came to visit him for 2 weeks (in February, over Valentine’s Day ☺) and loved it. We planned to return last year but didn’t (more on that later), but now we’re back!
On December 1st, we flew from NYC to Delhi, a 14-hour flight. It was my first time in that city, and my immediate and overwhelming impression upon walking outside was, “Don’t breathe!” The smog, at least that evening, was overpowering- much more palpable than anywhere else I’ve ever been (admittedly, my experience in anything like a developing country has been limited mostly to the Caribbean). We will be back there in a few weeks while traveling, so we’ll give you the weather update then.
We had a few hours before our next flight left at 6:30am, so had booked a room at a boutique hotel (found by our friend, Patty) where we’ll be staying when we’re back there in a few weeks with her and her husband, Sky (more on that later). They are using it as their “home base”, a place to stay as they come and go from Delhi to points afield. Shanti Home (http://www.shantihome.com/) is a lovely place, and they were extraordinarily gracious there, even at 12:45am, bringing us glasses of incredible exotic mixed juices while we checked in (and equally as gracious, complete with breakfast, when we checked out, 4 hours later). The rooms are each decorated differently- ours was the Bombay Masala room, with old Bollywood posters on the walls. Even though we were exhausted, we just had to take a few pictures of each of us posed with the posters (no pictures this time, but we’ll start adding those before long). We told our hosts we’d be back soon, and look forward to exploring the rest of it then.
After taking off for Bangalore that morning for our 2 ½ hour flight, I watched out the window while the sky got lighter. When it became apparent that it was lightest right next to us (I’m so often on the wrong side of the plane!), I nudged David and we watched while the brilliant orange sun rose, right outside our window, from the first sliver until it was too bright to look anymore. I even think the smog it rose through actually made it somehow more beautiful. It was a wonderful way to begin our trip.
[While I was sitting here in our apartment writing this, prior to heading over to the internet café, a little girl about 9 y.o. that David knew b/c she’s friends with our landlord’s son, Pooshan, just stopped by our window and asked David (“Uncle”) to get her a game called “Flatout II” at “Big Buzzer”(?? ☺)]
We arrived in Mysore last Thursday on our 2 month wedding anniversary, and went straight to our apartment (where David stayed when he was here last- wisely, he made arrangements to keep it, b/c good places are hard to find). The first day of class wasn’t until Sunday, so we spent the first few days settling in the apartment, checking in with old friends, shopping for things like cleaning supplies, clothespins, honey, and tea (I figured it would be the height of folly to bring tea to India) and washing (by hand) David’s clothes and other various items that he’d left in storage in the apartment because it seems mildew tends to grow on things here.
We were also busy making our way around all the excellent eating establishments in the neighborhood, some new, most we’d loved very much before, but almost all of which had sprung up in the area around the yoga shala due to all the hungry yoga students, which means they are for the most part all very…my favorite thing…healthy! Mostly vegan, lots of vegetables, and lots of fresh juices. And not all Indian! I have to admit that, while I dearly love Indian food, I wasn’t sure I could do it for 4 months straight (David could though, very happily) and forgotten that many of the cafes (often on the back patio, and sometimes just a room in someone’s house) are run by yoga enthusiasts from all over the world who’ve come and stayed, so there are lots of omelets, pancakes, and other non-Indian choices, too. Bread happens to be my downfall, though, so between all the Indian chapatis, homemade German loaf bread, and banana and honey crepes (I’m not going to let myself go within ½ block of that place anymore), my plans to “eat lightly” could be severely compromised. But enough about this for now- suffice it to say that I didn’t have any actual Indian food (except on the airplane- love those Indian airlines- it was a full meal!) until Sunday night!
[Just now the little girl, Apeksha, came back, along with Pooshan and 2 other of their friends, and came inside for a visit. They speak mostly pretty good English, so we had a lot of fun answering their questions about what different things around our apartment were and, after they saw David’s pastels and sketchbook and started telling us about different art projects they like to do (with them all talking at once :) ), making plans for an art day with them.]
In order to get this online, I’m going to (try to) draw to a close, so you’ll have to make the visit to the blog to find out about our extraordinarily stringent yoga classes (maybe we’ll even show pictures of our progress!), the flora and fauna (including, yes, cows, [often quite colorful!], in the street) of our adopted home, and David’s run for mayor of Mysore. Saturday we are leaving here for 3 ½ weeks- we’ll be flying 2 hours away to Goa for a yoga retreat with Mr. Ashtanga himself (K. P. Jois’s grandson, Sharath) for 2 ½ weeks, then are joining Sky and Patty in Delhi for the Adventure With Minxes, so obviously we are super excited, although I will miss our little home here.
One quick(?) thing about our next stop- any of you who’ve heard of Goa (a former Portuguese colony on the west coast of India) probably associate it with the hippies that popularized it in the 60’s and/or the rave scene that took root in the late-‘80’s. Well, the raving is still alive and well- when David was there 2 years ago, the yoga classes would end at 8am and the thumping bass of the beach parties would still be wafting in the breeze over their breakfast table- some of them apparently last 3 days! David could never get any of the other students to go join the worn-out dancers, but I am really excited about doing that- we figure they could use a jolt of fresh blood at about that time of day. We have heard, however, that the ongoing problem of the loud music has been solved- it seems (rumors run rampant here) that all the dancers wear headphones now, and tune them to 1 of 3 stations that the music of the various dj’s (who are still jamming right there in person) are being broadcast from. That will be interesting to see- loads of crazily-dressed people, dancing their hearts out in silence, to completely different beats!
[David just came back in- I thought he went to buy some cookies at the corner store, but he was with the children buying art supplies! ☺)
At Purple Valley Yoga Retreat Center, where we’ll be in Goa, one signs up for 15- (possibly 30-) minute sessions on their (not very reliable) computer, so, again, we’ll try to post a couple more times (in between the power outages) before next year, but will do much better (at least 2x a week- I’m coming up with so much to write about!) once we get back to Mysore.
Joke Of The Day (compliments of Airtel, one of India’s wireless companies,which sends these to our cellphones): Sahil and Rahul are lawyers. Sahil says,“You are a fool!” Rahul says, “You are a damned fool!” The judge says, “As you have identified each other, can we proceed with the case?”
Oh, and finally, does anybody know if it’s possible to post videos on these things? I guess we’ll figure it out later, when we’re at the café setting up the blog.
