Goa: The travel log edition

Let's start that again and change the focus... stop... rewind... play...  (oiye, I'm showing my age :P)

It started out by leaving the ashram in Topovan, Rishikesh in a car with Ambika (aka Amber) early on Dec 18th.  The travel to Goa was quite uneventful but filled with a whole lot of anticipation... here comes the beach, the heat, the spicy Goan food and sleepy late mornings!  We were headed for Palolem, a place that Ambika had been before a few years before and was nice and quiet... well it was when she had visited at the time.  As we got to Palolem late that evening the car had not quite stopped yet and already we got swarmed by a man on a scooter offering beach huts for 800 roupies (about $16cnd) per night.  We said lets go checked it out.  As soon as we got there his tune changed, he showed us one for 1500 but would be happy with 1200.  So what happened to 800?  Apparently the 800 beach hut would only be available the following morning and that price was only good until Christmas (which we would have expected) but he was ok with 1000 for our entire stay if we were willing to eventually switch in a couple of days or so.  We said ok and at his insistence paid him for 10 days with the intention of staying longer... that was a mistake.  The next day we heard him argue about 3 times with his clients (the beach huts are very close to each other).  We didn't think too much about it until he started making our lives difficult.  While I was off on my own writing blog number 4, Ambika was being harassed by the man every half hour to switch huts immediately.  When I got back we did but not before I told him to back off since he had told us we could stay there for a couple of days.  Then he was constantly at us changing the deal: we had to leave after 10 days, we had to pay for 20 days, he would give us our money back for 5 days and had to leave after 5 days... we said fine, we're going to get out... blah blah blah.  After exploring Palolem we pretty much decided it wasn't the place for us anyway, the beach is lined with bars, loud music and partying tourist with superficial personalities.  The second day we got a scooter, checked out Aganda beach and decided to hell with him.  We returned and got out money back for 5 days and just left.  Life is too short and he will get his I'm sure.

Here has been a completely different experience.  We found this place that is run by a sweet young couple awaiting their first child.  Their staff are all from Nepal.  A group of Nepalese people come to Goa during the tourist session to work.  One of the guys is making and saving his money to one day get married and start a family... his earnestness humbles me.  They whole of them have been very interested in making sure that we are comfortable, safe and happy.  The price: 700 roupies/night for 10 nights (which is $14cnd, not the typical price for this much nicer area but we were happy to take a hut further from the beach and next to a kitchen) and the hut with it's patio is about twice the size of the ones in Palolem.

After a day or so of basking in our new relaxed/quiet surroundings we ventured to the other side of the beach to meet up with folks we met from the Ashram: Lakshmi, Bhakti, Jonas, Patrick, Prem, John and Sista Mary! (aka Miro).  Oddly enough they all live in Alberta... where most of my own family is currently feasting on holiday treats.

One day as a group we signed up to go on a small fishing boat with some local men.  Lakshmi wanted to see dolphins but was told that it would be a 90min trip out on a different kind of boat.  I told her that you never know, dolphins go where they want and lucky us, it turned out that afternoon they wanted to visit us.  Now, I have seen wild dolphins in the sea before: I saw a small school of them for the first time in South Carolina, I saw a group of them swimming happily next to a sail boat in which I was travelling in the Aegean Sea, I saw them on a beach in Western Australia where about 20 of them were fed 3 times a day as a cheesy tourist activities but what we saw here was something else.  There must of been hundreds of them in the water around us because we could see them in every direction around the boat.  I don't think any of them showed themselves within 10 feet of the boat but no matter where you looked beyond that, within seconds there were dolphin fins.  We even saw on several occasions dolphins leaping completely out of the water, flying through the air.  It was exciting and spectacular, even the fishermen seemed amazed!  Apparently there hadn't been any dolphins at all in that area for a least 3 days.  We finally calmed down and put our lines in the water.  The fish were small but there were 3 for the eating.  I passed on the fish dinner that would come of it and went back to my beach home.

On Christmas Eve Ambika and I were suppose to join the crew again however we got a bit lazy and stuck around our own area.  That evening we met a British man in his sixties named Richard (who is an engineer btw) that has been coming to Goa for the holidays for the last 20 years.  He told us that it was the birthday of a young local man and he invited us to join him.  Ambika had decided that she was going home prematurely and, since she was leaving the next day, declined.  I, however, was quite intrigued by this opportunity so I went.  I suspected that parties on the beach with young working class Indians does not include local women.  I was right.  Richard was keeping an eye on the boys to make sure they were not pestering me but of course, I'm not really that shy about protecting my personal space if needed and it was not needed.  There was about 16 of them or so and they were as curious about me as much as I was about them so there was a lot of questions back and forth with whoever came to talk to me.  I asked them where the girls were and they told me that Indian girls aren't interested in hang out in that manner.  I don't have enough understanding of their culture to explain but I never felt uncomfortable in the least, in fact I felt very respected.  I don't think I could have ever imagined spending a Christmas Eve with a bunch of local Indian boys around a camp fire on a beach!!!  They were having beer but it was quite tame.  The funniest thing about the event is that every so often since then when I'm walking down the main street some seemingly random young Indian man says very enthusiastically "Hello Annie!".  I guess that even though we were in the dark, my pasty white skin made me a lot more identifiable to them then they each were to me :P  I smile and say hello back like we're old friends.

The next day Ambika left and I went on to spend Christmas Day with my Albertan crew.  It was great!  I even got the restaurant to make me mashed potatoes for dinner!  The day was uneventful so I will take this opportunity to speak about my impression of Goa.  It is very clean... cleaner then any other place that is both exotic and populated that I have ever been.  It's lush with greenery and the palm trees everywhere are so healthy that they don't quite look real.  When I got here it was quite the contrast to Northern India.  The air is clean and fresh, the cows are not eternally chewing on plastic bags at random trash sites at the side of the road, the roads are not only better they are in perfect condition, the traffic is actually quite management for Western driving and the vehicles and buildings (although much smaller and simpler) don't look like they were build from manufacturing rejects from the 70s.  It was a bit strange at first to go to restaurants and see every kind of meat and alcoholic drink on the menu again.  I don't know if I mentioned this previously but Rishikesh is both a vegetarian and dry town.  The spiritually of these people are quite different as well.  Where Rishikesh is a destination for Hindus seeking pilgrimage and has an impressive collection of local ascetics sporting appropriate ascetic wears around town, Goa is a predominately straight-lace Catholic area... at least where I am located.  The influence is Portuguese and although very few still speak the language all the locals seem to have Portuguese first and last names.

The Alberta crew has now all left and my new group consist of my hosts, their staff, Richard and his young friend Pele.  Richard met Pele 7 years ago when Pele was about 11 y/o.  He was a friend of the family that was running the inn where Richard was staying.  Richard met Pele's family and he has been a family friend ever since.  Pele, now 18, comes to the huts every day to meet up with Richard for the day so Richard arranged for Pele to take me out to see some of Goa.  Yesterday I spent the day as Pele's passenger on his scooter driving through the country side of Goa.  He showed me some secluded beaches which had very small groups of sun worshipers, both foreign and local; he took me to an old Portuguese fort which had it's on monkey inhabitants; and finally he took me to a spring that has little fishies that love to eat the dead skin on your feet like those you see in the fanciest of spas.  Pele is a very sweet kid: as if his tour wasn't enough of an honor, he invited me to have New Years dinner with his family along with Richard!

Today my big mission was to find some books.  I'm almost finished reading the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and have managed to find the 2 sequels.  I discovered that mysteries are the perfect lazy beach books.  As I was wandering aimlessly I wandered in a jewelry store and I struck a conversation with the owner.  It turns out that he makes all the jewelry in the store himself and he gives jewelry making lessons.  For those who haven't known me long I make jewelry in my spare time.  Tomorrow morning: I expand my jewelry making skills!  To be continued.

Back to my book...

What happened in Goa

I thought the "growing" part was over after the ashram. I thought I was home free for a while.  I thought I would come to Goa, lay on the beach, have some adventures, make my way back to Delhi, then home and then Phase 3: getting ready for Africa.... but not so.  I've decided that Africa is being put off, I woke up one morning vowing to never drink again and I've decided to attempt staying in India longer so I can do a full out personalize Ayurvedic cleanse (called panchakarma) for rheumatoid arthritis of 28 days.  I figured that the last one didn't screw me up enough to screw me back completely straight physically so here I go again.  Nothing laid back about these decisions.

Perhaps it's the quietness of Aganda Beach, Goa where I ended up that is stirring my mind, perhaps is just the Indian phenomenon on us enlightenment seakers... come to India as an emotionally (and/or physically) constipated Westerner, leave a flowing, detached, easier-going, cured, tanned, regular, spiritually open being with funny/smelly clothes/shoes.  Plans have a tendency to take a life of their own and change in very interesting ways.  I'm not even trying.  I quit trying to figure out how this phenomenon works when I got sick after the first cleanse.  For example I'm here in Goa to a slow pace and tons of time to ponder because it was the only idea that came to mind after the ashram.  I've got to go somewhere after Goa so I'm going for a panchakarma in Kerala because, again, it's the only idea I've got.  I could go to Northern Goa to get drunk and do drugs with the slew of 20 something foreigners that come this time of year but I'm passing on that, so south to Kerala it is.  Originally I was aiming to just go to an ashram for a few days but since Africa is no longer on the radar of the very near future why not do 28 days of detoxing which is the usual treatment time for RA.  Maybe I'll be cured, it happens.

I should give some credit for thinking up panchakarma (ok, most of it) to 2 of my teachers in Rishikesh, Bhakti and Prem (aka Erik and Robin) both from the foreign province of Alberta.  It just so happens that they were, along with family and friends, at Aganda Beach for the last week.  It was nice to have friends around by the way.  Bhakti suggested it with lots of encoragement and well, I think it's a great idea so I took it.

So what happened to Africa?  Well it's kind of sad but it's not a lost cause yet, things might simply be pushed out a few months to the next session.  I do believe in the work that is being done so please keep in mind that there is 2 sides to every story and at the moment I can only tell you mine.  The issue is that I still have not gotten assigned on a project/country in the promised time frame once again.  This has happened over and over since May from the NGO in question and from the sounds of the last communication last week the decision is still at square... let's say 2.  I'll give them square 2 but my confidence in them has unfortunately took a plunged and today I let them know over email where I stand.  I'm not going to make any assumptions about the program or the people running them, I'm going to conclude that it is not my time to go to Africa just yet and that my journey in India is not meant to be over in Jan.  This was not an easy decision.  It took me 8 days of back and forth before it became clear to me that I should not be feeling so much confusion about embarking on something that is suppose to be the opportunity of a lifetime.  It will sort itself out when the time is right.

So what happened to the drinking?  The short term affects of alcohol wormed itself into a dark little hole inside my spirit the very first time I took a swig as an adolescence and has made itself a little too comfortable in that hole ever since.  I don't fit in any definition given of an alcoholic (I've checked) but I've felt its wrath the morning after it got hold of me the previous night a few too many times.  I'm done with it.  My spirit will never be completely free with alcohol as part of my life because it automatically takes up just a little too much importance on the evenings where a little beer/wine fix seems socially appropriate.  I sat there on my little beach house porch one morning (and no, I had not drank the night before) and it dawned on me: if I ever had any deeply negative reaction to the idea of never drinking again then I should never drink again because it is in fact holding onto me.  I have had those reactions so bah-bye.  It too can lie in the cemetery of my yoga let-gos.  That one I did NOT see coming.

You'd think that sitting in the hot sun and doing nothing but eating Indian food all day would produce much simpler decisions: the pink or blue sarong today?  Bleh.

I'm at Aganda beach for 7 more days then on Jan 5th I leave for Trivandrum on the train and then either to Nayyer Dam or Kallikkad by car (both being tiny little villages next to each other), I'm waiting on some information from one of the doctor I've contacted before deciding which place I will go to.

My more immediate plan is to pick up a bunch of trashing novels before my mind decides to become an ascetic ;)

It's good to reboot sometimes ma'me

Wow, it's been a long time since I last blogged.  If you have the patience to read to the end it will be very apparent why.  I had every intention of keeping it up however the  following 3 weeks after my last blog were some the hardest moments of my life.  Being at the ashram doing the training was clearly NOT a retreat.  The word "challenging" is like the polite easy going free spirited younger brother of the appropriate qualifier that I would use if there existed a term suitable for an intended PG rated blog.  It took me a week after that to come down from that experience and blogging was far from my mind.  Let me start from the beginning.

Everything was going ok, the schedule was crazy and stressful but I was enjoying everything except for the 5am wake up calls and the 6am cold yoga classes that were still very much not working for me.  Then came weekend 3, the weekend of the big cleanse.  It was a digestive track cleanse that consisted of a short fast and then drinking vast quantities of warm salt water.  Without going into details, if all goes right the system gets cleaned out within a couple of hours.  For about 3 days all we could eat was something called kitchery (overly cooked rice mush) with oodles of ghee (clarified butter).  The point of the menu is to make it easy on the body to digest and to rehydrate the system (hence the ghee).  The point of the cleanse is to purify the body.  I didn't really feel like my body needed it because I have done these types of things in the near past and I was quite certain that my digestion was running top notch.  I also am very aware that any sort of cleans can run a person down energy wise and I wasn't interested in being more tired than I already was.  I expressed this to the teachers and they encouraged me to do it anyway.  I was told that it was a very mild cleanse and then I would have the experience doing it.  According to them I would be back in good condition in 2 or 3 days followed by much better health from the detoxing.  I decided to do it.  Everything went according to plan until day 3 but I'll get to that later.  On day 2 of the cleanse I had come to a decision, I didn't want to be struggling with the early morning anymore so I told the teachers that I was longer going to push my sore inflamed body to do it (unless I felt like it) regardless of them giving me my certificate or not.  I wanted to get up at a time that made sense to my body and start my day feeling happy.  Life is just too short.  We discussed the alternatives for me to get the required hours for the certificate and it all good, they understood that it was hard for me to make that decision because I am an a certified over achiever.  They were very supportive and were happily willing to work it out with me.  After all I was staying for another week after graduation to take a pilot training in yoga lifestyle counselling they were offering for feedback.

Although physically I was drained everything went from being ok to pure bliss for the rest of day 2.  Well it was very short lived because this great moment of self-assertiveness and detachment was followed by the drama of day 3.  I started the morning with some of the very worst pain I've felt in my life, it was wave after wave of severe cramping in my gut.  The pain was so severe that I found myself on the verge of passing out and at one point I threw up.  That was followed by 5 more days of cramps and a total lack of digestive function meaning that I was no longer digesting any food.  I felt so sick and miserable and completely disconnected from myself and everything I hold dear.  I could not understand what I was feeling.  I've had my challenges in life but how could I get there a happy strong person and now felt so emotionally numb, empty and lost.  I felt so confused.  I wanted to be home and I put everything that had been meaningful to me in the last few years in question: doing yoga, teaching yoga, the sale of my house/car/stuff, leaving my job, packing it up and leaving for India and worst of all, my life long desire to go to Africa.  In those moments I just couldn't imagine how I would ever make it there and be happy.  All this emotional craziness was adding a whole lot of insult to injury.  In all my confusion there was 2 things that I was certain about: the cleanse had done this to me as opposed to catching a parasite and the second thing is that although all food was going straight through me, that I was not getting dehydrated.  Both good things.  VishvaJi used his best Ayurvedic knowledge to ease my pain after the first day which did work however even he was suggesting after 5 days of this that I should go see a medical doctor.  I was convinced that a medical doctor would not be able to help me because again, I was certain that it was not a parasite.  I did agree to see an Ayurvedic doctor.  It took him all of 30 seconds of listening to my pulse to tell me what I already knew, the cleanse did it and he describe the result as a putting out of the digestive fire.  In other words the pilot light burned out.  He assured me that it was not serious at all and that I was very healthy otherwise. Six dollars later (it's incredibly cheap to see any kind of doctor in India) he sent me off with 2 types of herbal pills with no English names associated to them.  He told me that in 1 or 2 days it would get a lot better and that in a week it would be completely gone.

My physical body did indeed heal just as Dr. Aurora predicted but my emotional mind was still very sick, I was still unhappy and empty.  A few days before the graduation we had a special ceremony in which VishvaJi gives each of us a spiritual name in Sanskrit based on his own meditation or "download" as he calls it on who we are and our dharma or mission in life.  Mine is Dayavati which means kindness.  My instant reaction was that I'm being told that I need to be more kind to people and it made me feel weirdly defensive.  I didn't get it but at this point there was a lot I wasn't getting.  After the ceremony I sat with this and intellectually reminded myself that spiritual names are given based on what you are, not what you are not.  For the first time in several days I actually giggled at myself for being such a drama queen.

Finally the day came for our graduation.  For the first time since I'd gotten to India 6 weeks earlier it rained.  For short spurts on and off all morning and early afternoon it rained like there was no tomorrow.  I happened to be doing a class that morning (one of the few mornings I got up after I got sick) in the upstairs yoga room and the rain was deafening on the tin roof.  We could no longer hear the teacher's voice.  I could feel that something was shifting.  VishvaJi told us after the class that rain was a sign that the season was changing there. It was going to get colder.  He was surprised that it had not rained before that day, it was late coming compared to other years.  I left the yoga room and the air was damp and fresh with the smell of wet wild vegetation, it was odd because if felt to me like being in NB.  Although the scenery was still very much foreign the air made me feel like I was plucked out of India and I was at home.  After all that struggle it was a relieving feeling.

Later that morning we were finishing off our last training sessions, we were given some time to journal about our fears and expectation around integrated back into our lives after the training.  I didn't have a lot to write about because I'm not going back to my life for a while and I don't even really know for sure if I ever will.  Even if I did I wouldn't have any fears anyway, for the good or for the bad I've never lived to suit anyone's expectations of me and I can't really see that changing.  Deep in that though process it was like something snapped back into place.  I was gazing at the smiling face of a statue of the Hindu god Shiva in the room, there was a beautiful song from the yoga band called Wah! playing in the back ground and I was full again.  Just like that.  Everything that was ever good in my mind, spirit and heart was all put right back where it belonged.

Sitting with it a bit more throughout the day I discovered that there was something that was not put back into place.  For as long as I can remember I have been plagued by some form of infatuation or another.  It could be someone I knew or not, someone close or far, someone available or not, some had possibilities, some had not one small grain of it.  If one died I instinctively started looking to find another one.  In the last few years I've been very happy on my own without a relationship but I've never been free of this weight around my heart since my very first crush at 6 years old.  It seems that it went with the crap and salt water.

I've come to think of this whole experience as a major reboot.  As the Del tech supports in India tell us North Americans "First try turning off the PC, wait 2 minutes and turn back on.  That one could fix the problem ma'me..."

Although I had a some hours to complete they included me in the ceremony and gave me my certificate.  After all that I had been through I was incredibly grateful that they allowed me to be part of that moment with all my classmates.  For all that I went through let me assure anyone reading this that I was not the only one that had my world turned upside down.  32 graduating and 32 very emotionally intense, individual struggles.  Many of us would not have survived the course if it wasn't for the fact that we were all in it together.

I did my extra week of training but it was much different then the previous 5 weeks.  Different kind of material, different pace, different goal, no stress.  Because my first roommate had left (less then half of the students stayed for the pilot training) I also had Carolyn as a new roommate from the course and a new room with a big window which let in a lot of light and also made the room warmer.  After all those scary negative feelings I am grateful to have had the opportunity to fully feel the greater happiness that the experience left me while I was still in Rishikesh.  Carolyn and I had an amazing time that last week including celebrating Carolyn's birthday!

I left Rishikesh yesterday and am now in Goa.  I'm next to the beach, it's 30ish degrees, it's sunny and for the first time in years I have nothing to do and nowhere else to be for weeks.  I'm sure I could already say much about Goa but some other day ;)