Indian people are quite small and so for them it would be fine but our group is mainly North Americans and Europeans so we were very squished. After about 45 minutes, we arrived in the dark and everybody got out except me. I didn’t see much point in standing around the temple while it was still dark so I stayed in the nice warm bus. Once the sun started to rise I went up the many steps and took my pictures. We were sitting around doing nothing in the wind and cold so I came back to the bus where I promptly fell asleep. I guess I missed the priest arriving and putting tikka on everyone’s third eye spot. Fine with me.
Alli's Excellent Adventures!
Sunday, February 5, 2023
Indian people are quite small and so for them it would be fine but our group is mainly North Americans and Europeans so we were very squished. After about 45 minutes, we arrived in the dark and everybody got out except me. I didn’t see much point in standing around the temple while it was still dark so I stayed in the nice warm bus. Once the sun started to rise I went up the many steps and took my pictures. We were sitting around doing nothing in the wind and cold so I came back to the bus where I promptly fell asleep. I guess I missed the priest arriving and putting tikka on everyone’s third eye spot. Fine with me.
Saturday, February 4, 2023
Friday, February 3, 2023
Yoga School, Day 2, February 3, 2023
The verdict is still out and I know it’s early. I am not jumping to conclusions or making first impression decisions. Today was hard. Probably the hardest thing about it was having to sit on the floor – all day. I never sit on the floor. I hate sitting on the floor and even though I could sit on a bolster it was still very uncomfortable. It’s not like I have an injury either it’s just uncomfortable and always has been for me.
I was very tired and sound asleep when my alarm rang at five. I managed to sneak in coffee before I had to report upstairs for the first hour and a half of actual yoga. I understand about 75% of what these men say and at least today I didn’t completely tune them out. My first yoga instructor annoyingly says just about at the end of every sentence “is it clear? Do you understand?” He told us a couple examples of situations he has run into and what was really a two or three minute story turned into 15 minute ones. We hardly did any yoga at all because he was too busy talking and not talking about what he should’ve been, in my opinion. As a teacher it is very difficult to be in a classroom with a poor one. And to top it all off the room was absolutely freezing. People brought blankets and wore their winter coats and had their hoods up. It was very uncomfortable. After that it was meditation and chanting and we didn’t do too much of it but the chanting we do is in Sanskrit and we have to repeat after the teacher and I don’t understand half of what he is saying so I just mumble or I don’t say anything at all. I did not like that class. The next class was pretty much as bad and everyone was still freezing and by this time we were starving to death. Breakfast was good and then we had the same guy “ is it clear? do you understand?” for teaching methodology. It took him an hour to tell us that we need to ask two questions at the start of every class - 1. Do you have any injuries? and 2. May I adjust you? which means can I touch you. We did a lot of breathing and talked about what yoga is. Based on the instructors that I have had in yoga, to me it is really nothing more than exercise as in stretching and strengthening but that is only a very small part of it. It’s a spiritual, emotional, social, physical and mental activity. I think I have to concentrate so much on what I am doing and how I am doing it that I’m barely able to breathe properly let alone think about the other stuff however it was during a restorative yoga class that this whole trip came together for me and so there was a bit of something else going on at that time. It’s not that I’m not open to that but I think I get the spirituality, emotional work, mental calmness and socialization from doing other things.
Next was “self study” and I had nothing to study so I sat on my balcony and warmed up but the dogs were going insane so I came back in. Lunch was too close to breakfast so I wasn’t really hungry and then we had my favourite class which was anatomy which was really just grade 9 science. The philosophy professor came in and he is a professor with multiple masters degrees and two PhDs and I was very much looking forward to what he had to say until he said a few things that I completely disagree with and that aren’t true and what I found the most disturbing is he’s talking to a group of very young and impressionable kids and warping their minds. I will not argue with him but I am not going to enjoy that hour.
The last part of the day was an hour and a half of yoga but because this is teacher training we have to learn the proper way to do the poses and we spent a lot of time on downward dog as it is a relaxing pose just like child’s pose. I have never felt that way about it because I guess I have not been doing it correctly.
I wasn’t really hungry at supper but there was a dish that you could almost think was meat sausages in a tomato sauce but it turns out it was soybean sausages. I am already tired of the food although at lunch we had a grated carrot dish that was sweet and really really good. The hot ginger water is good too but you have to get it at the start of the meal otherwise they just keep adding water and it gets tasting like nothing.
I’m enjoying visiting with people - Lis from Germany is the next oldest person here and she is probably in her late 50s. There is another Canadian from Toronto – a young thing. It’s interesting what these people do for a living. One woman is a lawyer, another an occupational therapist, another is building a hotel in Peru with a Wellness center, John from the UK is a civil servant and a few are involved with computers but not as many as I’d have thought.
I hope I enjoy tomorrow more than today and that the room is warm.
Thursday, February 2, 2023
Yoga School - Day 1 February 2, 2023
This may be too weird even for me! At least that was my first impression which I am not letting influence me… just yet.
First the staff. They are excellent from what I can see. They are so welcoming and informative, gentle, patient and continually telling us that we are now “family”. The meals have been very good - not spicy at all but flavourful even though they are sattvic which includes foods that are light and healthy. In Ayurvedic practice, sattvic foods are thought to increase energy, happiness, calmness, and mental clarity. In practice, that means eating things that are vegetarian, nutritious, fresh, and tasty.
and no onion or garlic. So meals are all vegetarian which so far is okay, I guess, although there are too many beans for me - there is always a bean dish and always rice. I don’t really like either so I eat the fresh vegetables and the cooked vegetable medley. There’s also delicious hot ginger water and chapati, always chapati.
After breakfast, we were to meet upstairs on the fifth floor - thank goodness my room is on the first floor and I will only have to climb steps Iike that for class. Of course we didn't start until at least 15 minutes late and this whole time we were sitting on the floor on yoga mats and already I was starting to squirm. Legs crossed, legs straight, hands in lap, hands behind back and on and on. Meanwhile there was a man preparing a firebox at the front of the room.
Eventually we started with an introduction of what and why we were having the fire celebration. By burning 30+ herbs and ghee - clarified butter, we are first purifying the air and then as we breathe it in, we are purifying ourselves. So, he built a fire-
the whole time chanting something in Sanskrit. He did the welcoming ceremony with the two owners and then walked around and put tikka and rice on our foreheads. We also got melted ghee put on the spot where our hair meets our forehead and a new marigold garland. We said three very long ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmms, then he chanted some more while we clapped. As the ceremony progressed, we went up, 9 at a time to sit around the fire and throw herbs into it-
We had to pick the herbs out of a dish using our middle and ring fingers and our thumb and throw them into the fire on a certain word. Once everyone was done, we formed a large circle with our right hand on the shoulder of the person in front of us and shuffled forward. Eventually it seemed to be winding down and then he started beating the shit out of a drum and people, not everyone and not me, started dancing or more like hopping around. Thank goodness I wasn't the only one standing on the sidelines. I already stick out like a granny in a kindergarten. The fire ceremony was over and we were cleansed. I guess.
Next we were given a rule sheet - drugs, smoking and alcohol are grounds for expulsion. Okay. We also introduced ourselves. There are close to 60 students taking either one week, 200 hour, 300 hour or 500 hour courses. I am the only Canadian and by far, I mean really really far, the oldest here which I find very disappointing. There is a German woman who looks old and a Spanish couple, probably in their late 40s, then a whole bunch of kids trying to ‘find’ themselves - you’re in Rishikesh honey!
This took the whole morning and as we were leaving, we were given a cloth bag containing a water bottle, a heavy yoga pose book, a Nettie pot with a cord to put up your nose and pull out your mouth - not likely, a notebook, the cheapest pen I have ever seen, a workbook and a yoga mat. This is serious business because we have a practical and physical exam at the end. I hope we don’t have to memorize all the bones and muscles in the body - I failed physiology twice in university and I’m sure my memorization skills have not improved in 43 years.
After lunch it was a free afternoon so I went for a walk in the beautiful sunshine. I made a big loop and because we are next to a river there is no way to get across close by. Once home, I sat on my deck but it was too hot.
We 200 hour people are going to be put into two groups and we will soon be getting information via WhatsApp. I hope my WhatsApp works. It seems to have a mind of its own. I also hope I’m with the German woman. I don’t have much in common with these 20 year olds.
I'm hoping for another good sleep and very curious about tomorrow.
Tuesday, January 31, 2023
Rishikesh Yoga Teacher Training Centre, February 1, 2023
I woke up to-
My 200 hour teacher training course includes-
The schedule is from Monday to Saturday. Sunday is a day off. I think we get daily supper but it’s not on the list. Maybe we are too tired to eat!
Udaipur to Dehradun/Rishikesh, India, January 31, 2023
Once again no hot water this morning. That’s very disappointing when you pay for a private room but TII!
Breakfast-
My cab arrived on time at 7:30 and by 8:15 I was at the airport. What a modern place! By simply walking through a door I left the chaos of India and stepped into my normal. Unfortunately because of fog/smog in Delhi, my flight was delayed and I think that Indigo uses the same planes for all the short flights so that meant that all flights were delayed all day. I didn’t mind though because my iPad was charged and I had downloaded The Lincoln Lawyer so I watched it all day.
I had an interesting visit with a security guard toting an AK 47 at the airport in Udaipur. He length of his day depends on the arriving and departing flights so usually he starts at five in the morning and is finished by nine or ten at night. He goes home to a wife and a three-year-old. She does not work because as he said who would cook my supper? When he asked me what I was up to, he looked at me really puzzled and said so you have the next while of your life planned out. I nodded and he said we don’t do that. We think about today and that is all and if tomorrow comes we think about that day and that is all. Hmm. I know that being in the moment is the way we are “supposed” to live our lives and I agree but at the same time I need to have a plan; a plan that I work towards. For the man I spoke with today, his life is about survival. He works for 11 months - 7 days a week and takes the 12th month off. Maybe if a person doesn’t have enough money to be able to do anything other than survive, then you better live in the moment but if you dream about the future, as long as you are not forgetting to enjoy the moment, I think that’s how you can get ahead. I’m not sure but at my yoga school we do spend a lot of time in meditation and maybe by the end of the course I will have some answers! Another thing, he was shocked when I told him I was 61 as he thought I was about 45. Are all Indians blind? He said that a 61-year-old woman in India would be in a wheelchair, and I did see a few.
I also visited with two young boys who were dressed very smartly in their school uniforms. They were going back to their boarding school, the best boarding school in the world according to them, in Dehadrun. They were 13 and 14 years old and had been home for a semester break. They love the school because it’s like sleeping over with friends all the time and they do not miss being at home with their families. Rich kids!
The young woman I sat beside on a plane was going back to medical school. She looked about 12.
Because we were late departing, the first flight gave us a little gift bag that included a juice box, some spicy trail mix and a cookie. Normally on these flights you get a glass of water. They must have run out because the second flight we got nothing.
An interesting observation is that by the time we have deplaned and are at the luggage carousel, our luggage is there. Always. That’s pretty amazing! In fact, in Delhi where you have to walk about 20 minutes to get to the carousels, my bag had already been taken off and was in a neat row on the side waiting for me to grab it.
At the Dehradun airport, there is no negotiating for cabs. You pay at a booth and they assign you a driver. I like that except it involves a middleman so it’s more expensive. It’s like the cab I took this morning. At the hostel it would cost me Rs.850 but at a travel agency down the street it only cost me Rs.700. 200 for the travel agency, 500 for the driver. The problem is it’s hard to find your own taxi driver because cars are unmarked. Costs are okay, everyone has to make a living and it’s not like most people are rolling in it.
Tonight, the drive was on a very windy up and down road that follows the Ganges. I’d love to see it in the daylight. No one dims their lights and some don’t have any, but my cabbie did a great job. He didn’t speak much English so only answered the questions he understood. Fine. After about 30 minutes, he was ready to kick me out at a pedestrian street. Google maps was showing my hostel was still a long way away so I made him follow the route. When I got out I had to walk up probably 60 big steps to get to Shalom Backpackers. That was hard wearing a 15kg pack. I always think that’s what everyday would be like if I were obese. Why do people do that to themselves? It’s so debilitating. Anyway… I have a lovely room and I can hear the Ganges so I think I must have a view from my balcony. I will know better in the morning.
I thought a beer would be a nice way to end the day but the server at the restaurant gave me a look as if I’d asked for his head to be delivered on a platter. He said the nearest beer was probably 4 to 5 km away! WTF? I went for a walk and discovered that my cabbie was right. If I had gotten out where he suggested I would’ve had an easy, short, downhill walk. That’s another example of what has happened to me in India. I don’t trust anybody and this time it cost me a struggle!
As per usual, I’m hoping for a great sleep and I’m very excited about tomorrow. I’m looking forward to some structure and being able to stay in one spot for a while. I hope I am not disappointed.
Monday, January 30, 2023
Day Off, February 5, 2023 Rishikesh, India Sunday is our only day off but the school provides us with the opportunity for excursions. Tod...

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I left Morelia on the 10:45 Primera Plus bus which is so first class - upon entering, you get your choice of a sandwich or apple plus a dri...
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I went for a walk before the 11:00 tour started and found the letters at Zócalo, with the Cathedral in the background- The Zócalo is r...