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Published: September 15th 2015
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the guesthouse balcony The yoga guy never came. The rain has stopped now and before it gets dark I need to find a guest house. And so, back down the hill, yeay. I'm about to re-take the main path down to town. I turned to read a sign my curiosity encouraged having seen the back of it; it displayed rooms for rent. But I had just walked past who could only have been the owner...? Without breaking his smoking motion he points to who can only be his daughter. She does the whole admin stuff. And then that's me sorted for accommodaton, 300 rupees/night. It's nice, got a big balcony, nice view onto the valley, and then i spot some neighbours!! They live on the level below in a really cute 1 room stand alone building with its personal veranda overlooking the valley. I say hi... 'wanna smoke some weed with us?' ...uh ah...many flash by questions, unanswered...when in Rome. I then meet her partner. 'I recognise you...?' He looks kind of embarrassed. I met Brad on the way up. One of the many who didn't know where Siddartha was. Except Brad had strained his memory saying he was sure he'd seen the sign,
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the 'neighbours' really cute separated single room building but couldn't be sure. Hahaha it's right by the guesthouse. They're a really nice couple from Canada. They're travelling for a few months before returning home for studies and work. They started in China and came through Pakistan! 'Wow' but they said it was lovely and people were really nice. They showed me a video of travelling through Lahore on bike. It was interesting though that there were no women visible. They even said that chatting to people, the men would say 'oh women here, equal' but if you asked them where they were 'at home...?' In a, why the stupid question, way.
So I spent a couple of days there. With my new friends I went to a cooking class, dinner at a pizza place in town, and a couple of drop in sessions at the Tushita meditation centre which is a particularly nice place, obviously very popular, that does donation only drop ins and silent meditation retreats. The classes I went to were themed on loving kindness, equanimity and compassion. The journey to the centre is particularly interesting. From Baggsu you can walk up a different part of the mountain on a straight main-ish road, but from
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guesthouse owner the guesthouse, you cut across, so 'contouring' the hill, and it takes you through people's back gardens, the equivalent of a front porch and even an old school farmstead. The first time was quite confusing, you could get easily lost. The cooking class was also fun. We were with a group of 4 Israelis. Only 2 of them had come together from Israel but the impression I get is they find each other in this area. We even asked them and they just shrugged but agreed that's kind of what happens. There's so many of them here, so it makes sense. Some of them get a bad rep. I think once they've finished their military service, 3 years for guys and 2 years for girls a lot of them come to India to chill and take drugs, or so I get told. But this group didn't fit that profile. They were on holiday. I was obviously careful not to engage in political chat but it was interesting that one in the group was a 16th generation Israeli, and that this got mentioned without me asking, and it was as if it plays a large part of her identity.
Dinner
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guesthouse owner, she was so smiley and nice with the Indian family on the first night was interesting. When showing me my room the daughter asked if I wanted to dinner. It was late and I did not want to walk back to Baggsu so I said yes without realising I would be joining a family dinner. So the parents and daughter were sat in a semi circle facing a rectangular hole in the ground with a small fire which they used to help with the cooking. Pressure cookers are clearly widely used in India. They made space for me and I had an unexpected pleasant dinner. The usual Indian food. The daughter was really chatty, flicking between Hindu to the parents who knew no English and English with me. We chatted about normal introductory conversational stuff. It was funny. Arranged marriages are old-fashioned in India but still widely used. But growing are what they term 'love-matches'. She beamed and proudly declares 'I am love-match'.
Next was the start of the 200hr yoga teacher training course. We had a ceremony on the 1st day. I didn't take any photos but it was really great. We sat in a circle and there was an Indian guy leading the
ceremony. There were patterns made on the floor with spices and some .... thrown in handfuls into the various patterns while incense was being burned and prayers were being recited. Then a fire was made and more of the ...was thrown in handfuls while chanting was going on in the background. What was nice is someone occasionally stood up to narrate what was happening, what the symbolism meant, and the religious significance, but more importantly it was emphasised that the underlying reason was to bring us together and focus our minds on something we could share which nicely simplified it and removed anything mystical, or any religious undertone.
It was a chance for us students to mingle before the curriculum started the following morning. We were to be in the yoga hall by 6.45 to start at 7.
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