And the Sun came out...

It's just amazing how time passes by very quickly. About same time last year, M and I would just be chatting about my 2008 travel plans and now it's already past the halfway mark.

Got one more week in Phuket and it will be just a week of yoga and chilling out by the beach. After days of cloudy sky and rainshower, the sun finally came out yesterday... last day of my one week teaching stint at Julie's shala. What a great way to finish an awesome week!

After the morning class, Julie's friend and practice buddy/yoga teacher Luigi came to practice with us. He studied with Lino Miele and therefore practices with full vinyasa. Lino is an old-school ashtangi and one of the few teachers who still teaches the full vinyasa system and the press to handstand from navasana. I've practiced full vinyasa in 2003 at the former Jagad Yoga shala in the Philippines when a visiting teacher came to teach a workshop for a week. I was new to yoga then and man, was it tough! Though like with anything else, one simply needs to get used to it and find one's rhythm. But with Luigi keeping the pace, I'd say it was one hell of a great practice.

After practice, Julie whipped a mixed fruit shake for us... "to keep the blood sugar up" as she'd say. It was also almost noon so Ben (yup, Ben the OFW/yogi from KL... he came just for the workshop... a fellow Pinoy on the ashtanga path... thanks for coming mate!), Julie and I decided to have lunch in Nai Harn. We had Thai vegetable fried rice with egg, stir fried kale and mixed fried veggies with curry. Yum! Enjoyed the sun and the beach after.

It looks like it's another sunny day today so we're off to a morning walk up to the Phuket Big Buddha and then join Marika for sailing. Yes, sailing!!! This must be a dream... a dream I want to be in for the rest of my life, hahaha.

Watch Lino presses from Navasana to handstand and be inspired! Namaste.

Island Hopping

I'm back online in Phuket! Survived the 12-hour layover in Bangalore... arrived in Singapore at 6:30 am... met Singaporean friend Daisy... who then brought me to Suntec for a breakfast of local Singaporean coffee (which tasted really nice and chocolatey) and roti naan.
Rushed to the nearby hotel to attend James Figueira's workshop. Had a quick brunch in Chinatown... carrot cake (it's actually steamed shredded radish and fried with some Singaporean sauce) and vegetarian laksa... before I head back to the airport to catch my flight to Phuket at 1pm.

It was mad! What was I thinking? I had a great time though. Too bad I wasn't able to transfer the 2 bottles of Kaya that Daisy gave me into my checked-in luggage so it went to the trash bin as the security didn't allow me to carry it onboard.

So after the very boring 12-hour layover in Bangalore... and a very exciting 6-hour food trip and ashtanga workshop in Singapore... I arrived in Phuket in the afternoon of Oct 25 and happy to see Julie again. Had a great time catching up. We had her famous lentil pie and homemade chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

Will post more photos and maybe stories in the next few days. I have wifi until I leave Phuket so will take this opportunity to upload more stuffs.

Cheers for now.

Waiting Patiently

Like the plant that waits patiently for the sun everyday... I am waiting patiently for my flight to Singapore at 11 this evening. Have been bumming at the Bangalore airport since 10 this morning. Flew out of Trivandrum. What a prince. But hey, told you already I couldn't get a train ticket (yeah, yeah, yeah).

Reading The Alchemist. Bought it this morning and now I'm almost over. Learning a lot from it wonder why I kept on putting it off. It's been in my must-read list since years back.

My butt is already deep in sleep from too much sitting. I'm actually tempted to lay out my yoga mat and do savasana until the check in counter opens. It won't be until after 3 more hours so glad to have found an outlet to plug my laptop as the battery ran out already this morning.

Will probably not join the workshop tomorrow in Singapore but will just see friend Daisy for breakfast. Might be too groggy to even do one sun salute.

Looking forward to enjoying Thai vegetarian in the next 3 weeks. Om.

Reiki

Did Reiki 1 course today. It was an interesting experience. Not that I'm eager to add 21 more es of self-healing to my daily yoga practice but it was good to experience it. I'm thinking I'll just add some of the techniques to my ayurvedic massage as I'm more keen on doing massage more as a "side practice". Off to the beautiful but touristy Phuket tomorrow. Will pass by Singapore to attend James Figueira's workshop at the Yoga Shala. Will see if I'll have the energy to do the workshop then rush back to the airport to catch my flight to Phuket. Otherwise, I'll just have a breakfast in the Citystate and head back to the airport. I might be pushing it too much but we'll see. Landlady is preparing dinner for us this evening. It should be a lovely meal. Will upload more photos when I get to Thailand. Om.

Vada

Had this for breakfast the day we had the day trip to Kanyakumari. My Indian friend said this is called Medu vada but I just asked the Indian guy here at the cafe and said it's actually aclled paruppu vada... medu vada is shaped like a doughnut. I googled both and the photo above is actually paruppu vada based on the description of the recipe I found.
Both taste great so in case anyone wants to know how it is made, here are youtube videos of medu vada and paruppu vada.
It's a rainy sunday but the ocean still looked perfect earlier this afternoon. Spent an hour playing in the waves under the rain. Decided not to do the backwater trip as the cash is running low. Thinking of doing Reiki 1 course instead. Would be interesting to get attunement here as apparently the energy in this part of the world is stronger. Let's see how things go in the next few days.
Cheers.

The Sun

Sunset in Varkala

Sunset in Kanyakumari

Sunrise in Neyyar Dam

Meditation by the beach...

Woke early as usual and prepared to meditate by the beach with friends from the ashram. It was a lovely morning. Did 21 Om meditation... everybody chanting om at their own pace and breath... and the sound of the waves helped lull us deeper into the state of no state.

Did a couple rounds of classic sun salutes, ashtanga suryas and some balancing poses. Had breakfast at the Cafe Italiano and decided to hop online to check what's happening with the rest of the world. Wonder how traveling to India 10-20 years ago was when there's no easy access to the internet.

Pranayama is being shelved at the moment... hopefully I'll be able to get back to it tomorrow... and full on practice starting Sunday and psyche up for teaching in Phuket.

Can't believe that Saudi Arabia is just at the other end of the Arabian sea. Grateful for the opportunity to experience life there and realize this dream of traveling to India to study yoga. The future holds so many possibilities... but today is more important... more beautiful... so the mind has to stay in the present... and be awake to fully experience each moment.

It's a nice day to chill out... read a book... have coffee... and just watch the waves.

Om.

Life by the beach...

Varkala beach

Left the ashram yesterday noon and decided to come to Varkala. The day before that I was at Kovalam beach and thought of spending a couple days there before I leave India next week. Varkala is way nicer than Kovalam though that I've decided to stay here for the rest of this trip instead.

Kovalam Beach

Woke up at 5am... tried to go back to sleep but couldn't so I decided to practice... practice was really good... 10 days of Sivananda yoga, 2x a day, was nice... but I love ashtanga and I'm just happy to be back.

Met a lot of wonderful people at the ashram. I guess staying in one place and doing the same things together created more opportunities for people to interact and discuss more interesting things.

Leaving India for Phuket on the 24th of October so I have more than a week to ease back into my ashtanga rhythm and psyche up into teaching mode. Actually taught an intro to ashtanga to some friends I met at the ashram this morning.

I'm hopping from one beach to another. I was in Camiguin last June, Kanyakumari last Friday, Kovalam 2 days ago, now in Varkala until Thursday next week, then off to Phuket for 2 weeks... this is life... looking forward to more life by the beach come 2009 ;-)

Will upload photos next time. Got of really nice photos of the Devi puja, sunrise at the Neyyar dam lake, etc.

Found some great photos of Varkala here. Enjoy.

Om.

Anandoham

Anandoham... anandoham... anandam Brahman andam...

I am bliss... I am bliss... Bliss absolute... Bliss I am.

I am alive... food is great... yoga is fantastic... will update when I get out of the ashram. Namaste.

Guruji, Saraswati & Sharath

Now at the Bangalore Airport waiting for my flight to Trivandrum. Feels weird that I just left Mysore but happy to be moving on. The Sivananda ashram should be a different experience and looking forward to a blissful stay there. Om namah narayana.

Tibetan Settlement in Bylakuppe, Mysore

Jonathan times 2. We were roommates at Yoga Thailand.

Jon B. and Jon C.