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Published: January 24th 2011
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So I am leaving beloved India and also entering the second leg of my eight month trip. The hard work part of my travels so to speak are pretty much over. I have trekked, climbed, hiked, and yoga'd my way through the last four months and the next four are about really letting it all hang out and just doing whatever I feel like - wihtout the guilt!
In this time of reflection, where I can't help feeling a little sad to be leaving India, I don't know what the future months are going to hold for me, but I can't help looking back to the past four months and all the wonders they hold. It's been a truly epic journey of discovery and change for me. It's been hard. There is no doubt about that, but it's also been amazing. In every hard, difficult moment there has also been a pearl of experience. I have gone from a paranoid traveller who wouldn't eat anything in China, to a laid back gal who drinks chai for 3p off the less than sparkling clean chai cart - and it tastes delicious! I have given up eating meat, I have given up
alcohol and I have given up bad thoughts - to a large degree. I smile freely, look at people in the eye and walk with a confidence that doesn't come from what I'm wearing or how much money is in my pocket - which is not very much!
I even have a new name, a spiritual name given to me by the ashram...
Satya. I am Satya and it means absolute Truth, purity and virtue. So go figure how a bunch of people decided to give me this name... but joking aside, it's very nourishing and fulfilling to be Satya, as the reason I decided to leave London in the first place is becaue I saw no truth anywhere. I wanted to find something real, I wanted to find truth, in fact I think I always have and thanks be to grace and God, that I did. Maybe it has only been in the fleeting moments of a deep meditation or the last squeeze of a warm hug or the clarity that floods in with the release of a deep hip stretch, but I had it! And beyond doubt, over and above any wealth, any success, any pleasure,any celebrity or any happiness I have ever enjoyed... living in the ashram is the best I have ever felt in my whole entire life! And the best bit of all is that I can go back there, I can find that place of peace and truth, in me, any time, I just have to sit and close my eyes :-)
Highlights
Walking around Lhasa in Tibet and feeling truely inspired and on top of the world to be in Tibet. The people are so beautiful, they smile from the heart and want nothing from you. I feel like I can literally reaach up and touch the clouds, amidst the blue skies, I decide that this has be to divine, these mountains an skies have to be God, OM.
Hiking up to Everest Base camp at 5,200 meters high in Tibet!
Reaching the Thurlong La Pass on day 11 of the Annapurna Circuit Trek in Nepal... 2 weeks, 5,416 meters up, 180 kilometers long!
The whole of my Yoga course the ashram in India, even the bad bits...
Doing some funky advanced pranayama to raise the Kundalini in Varkalla after the Ashram with friends in India... pretty freaky and intense!
Meeting Lizzie... sharing a room, and a double bed with a complete stranger, sleeping next to them in the afternoon and waking up to get introduced and get on like a house on fire!
Seeing my old team of Indian workers in Coimabtore, India and enjoying the pure, honest smiles and eyes as they look to me as their manager still and I look to them no longer as my workers by fellow souls, and I see them anew and I love them with all my heart.
Low Lights
Starving, literally starving and nearly fainting in the humid heat of China in my first week. I was too freaked out and scared to eat anything, the weather was like a phsical bully and everthing went dark and I swooned as I waited in a queue. Not good.
Suffering terrible altitude sickness as we slept at 5,200 meters in Rongbo monastery in Tibet. It was a terribly cold and troubled night sleep where my heard felt like it was being hit by hammers at the temples and I could barely speak or see straight. Drinking a beer at base camp probably wasn't a good idea!
Getting caught up in a human traffic jam in Dubar Square and getting lost in the dark on the first night in Kathmandu. I was very scared and on the verge of tears before I bumped into someone I knew.
Having diareah and being sick in the shittiest, cheapest room in Kathmandu. At least I have Lizzie to look after me although she called in he dues not long after by waking me up in the middle of the night by being violently sick herself! Oh happy days!
Enduring the longest and most torturous 14 hours of my life on a sleeper bus from Udaipur to Jaisalmer in India! I was a human shock absorber at the very back of this bus as it violently shook, shuddered, threw me around, my body hit the roof of the bus and plumeted back down many times. No sleep, physical assult on my body and my mind in pieces as I tried to tell myself that another 5 mintues had passed in the long long looonnng journey of hell!
The Belgians. Enough said.
So now I am in Thailand and I don't know what I am doing here. The plan was to lay around and be a beach bum for as long as I wanted but I'm not loving it. I have so much to do this year, I have a yoga centre to open and build, I feel like I am wasting time here. The truth is, finally, for the first time, I want to come home!
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jyoti
non-member comment
Go girl
Hey well I can tell you its cold and damp and miserable here.Stay where you are,this journey will make you feel lonely at times ,but remember it is only your mind playing tricks on you. I am so proud of you,travelling around on your own. Now what would I have to brighten my day IF YOU DECIDED to return. So love reading your comments,checking out your locations,fabulous photos .So don't give up yet.There could be a book in this trip for you,keep going ,keep smiling.Every thing else will still be here when you return. OM Shanti