Bon Appetite!

I arrived in Vientiane looking for a bit of alone time after the booze based debauchery with Team Laos. I headed for the Wat in the forest and attended a freebie meditation class led by a couple of the monks. This included the usual: focus on your breath and clear your mind tricks, then we moved onto some meditation I hadn't tried before: walking! We got up and walked around the hall using the slowest and smallest steps of your life. It helps to concentrate the mind on your feet when previously you've been concentrating on your head and it really worked. Unusual technique but a winner for me. Next door to the Wat was a herbal steam bath so of course I had a few rounds in this rickety wooden steam bath wrapped in a Laos sarong with breaks to drink herbal tea to rehydrate after sweating out all of the Beer Laos.

The meditation session was held here...

Unfortch I undid all of this cleansing and purification and went for a huge steak dinner!! I, accompanied by a French girl and Belgian woman, treated ourselves to a huge steak, with creamy mushroom sauce, avec chips (not fries!) with my fave and absolutely most missed condiment mayonnaise, fresh salad drizzled in vinigarette, and a little bread bun, accompanied by a little Beer Laos, naturally. I splurged a little here and spent 75,000 Kip on this meaty, European feast. The French and the Belgian were happy with this dish so I was relieved to know that my British palate, which had known virtually nothing but Indian curries for four months, could still appreciate a French meaty dish and that it wasn’t just cravings for European cooking that made me gush over this meal! 

So much GOLD!! It looked even more sparkly and ridiculously lavish in the crazy sunshine.

The next day we went cycling in the midday sun around clean and easy Vientiane. Everything seems so fresh and refreshing after India! Vientiane oozes the European, especially with the mountains of French and Belgian restaurants and a good dose of café culture dotting the streets. 

After a tough admin day of going to the post office and sorting out my visa for Vietnam I treated myself to a gloriously cinnamon spiced apple pie and iced coffee at JoMas as an extravagant treat (yes, I have many a food based treat) made even more luxurious by the near-lifesaving aircon.

Yoganation

A week in an ashram in India, but of course: Sivananda Ashram, Neyyar Dam to be precise. It was actually refreshing to have a bit of structure and discipline to my somewhat flitty, floaty travely lifestyle option, although being woken up by bells sounding at 5.20am not so much.

The day started with an hour or so of chanting and meditation. I was not so great at the meditation but a bit of daydreaming so early in the morn whilst sitting cross-legged was a fine way to start the day, especially with the sun rising as the session progressed. Afterwards we had some chai or healthy herbal tea which tasted of smoke, followed by some yoga by the lake, onto non-spicy thali all-you-can-eat brunch, a related lecture, more yoga, more thali, more chanting. On one lunch break we swam in a lake with crocs, lions and elephants, as you do.

Musical entertainment during one chanting sesh with audience participation sweeping the masses. Those in yellow are the peeps on the intensive yoga teacher training course

Setting up for meal time in the sweltering dinning hall. Karma yoga of serving dinner was probably the toughest part of the week for me!! Sweat literally dripping off me and possibly into the food! Yum. The silver trays are the thali dishes set up with little partitions for various foods including curd, beetroot salad, chickpea combos, rices, sambar, curry, chapati blah blah. And all eaten by hand whilst sat cross-legged on the bamboo mats in silence.

It was a bizarre, interesting, physically demanding week. The life skills of yoga asanas are keepers and I've been trying to get in an hour or so every morn. The Sanskrit chanting is one to leave behind and caused a slight internal dilemma as I screechily chanted to Hindu gods. As part of the cynical group we questioned this in a lecture with the director and he and the masses cast all usual logic aside towards a leap of faith attitude: who cares that we don't know the meaning behind it, we're in India right and must embrace the chanting to deities we don't believe in. Hrmm. It was intriguing to say the least and the hours of yoga each day was brill.  We were also taught "eat to live, not live to eat" which just doesn't sit well with me as my daily activities are largely centered around all things food based. Masala dosa was, of course, my first non-ashram meal.

Hampi Christmas

Such a beautiful, serene, tranquil, overwhelmingly striking place. I planned to move on after a few days, even booked a bus to Gokarna, but ended up staying over two weeks...I think it's the same for most who wind up there. Especially those who make it over the river to The Other Side. Hampi is mesmerising. I totally fell for the place. Did a spot of yoga some mornings. Had a go at bouldering amongst the immense and awesome rock formations. Hired a bicycle, "Miss India" no less, and pottered around, although this was slightly harder than anticipated as we had to push our bikes along pathways made of huge, ancient, uneven slabs of granite and then load them onto little boats to cross the rivers at two points. Smiling whilst cycling of course. And mid-trip we stopped for a delish thali served on typical banana leaf plate and eaten with hands. The waitress-come-chef-come-owner-homemaker showed us the Indian trick to this: get your hands messy, cover them in curd and curry and rice, position hands in a small little shovel and then flick it all in your mouth with your thumb.

And then there was my Indian Christmas and my first away from the shire. We celebrated on 24th December as is the German way with good intentions to recreate Christmas on the standard 25th December but after Manju's strong punch the night before we were a little worse for wear. The day started with yoga and bouldering, obvs. Lizzie, resident at Manju's for over a month, took on the role as events organiser and set us the task of decorating the Christmas tree (of sorts) with an array of gaudy Indian Christmas decorations and crafty and creative homemade bits n bobs. We even had presents under the tree with the additions of bows and ribbons getting more and more elaborate as we crafted away. We had a super tasty barbeque with veggie kebabs, pitta, hummus, chips...maybe not typical Christmas dinner nor typical Indian cuisine but it was tasty delicious. Yum. Then after dinner entertainment of jamming around a small bonfire. It possibly didn't resemble too much of a Christmas as I know it but the festive, Manju family spirit was there.