H at the ashram...

A few pictures to give you an idea of the idyllic place I've been over the last month..The Sivananda Kutir ashram near Uttar Kashi. A beautiful place, wonderful teachers, great classmates and amazing cooks... It's been a harsh return to 'reality' this last week!

The four weeks at the yoga teacher training course were full... long days (wake up bell at 5.20am!) and complete with chanting, meditation, asana class, teaching classes, lectures, homework, not to mention two lovely meals a day and the odd cup of tea sat on a rock admiring mother Ganga.. It was such a rest being in one place, no travelling, pollution, noise... just healthy activites and food and no stress and so much learning!

I managed to graduate as a yoga teacher and am fighting the urge to shoot back to London and start classes... reasoning that a few months on the bikes with Sylv, a yoga mat and the lessons learned at the ashram will be better preparation for yog-ing in the capital! The course was so much more than teacher training and a real insight into yoga philosophy and the teachings of Sivananda. Plenty to digest as we pedal through Thailand and plenty of chanting to keep us going too!

Tea breaks with a view!

And Tea in yellow!

Posing with my room mate and beanie maker, Seema

Post course Mary Poppins 'Karma Yoga' washing the carpets... all good fun! (thanks to Ali next to me for the fab pics! More to come from my camera when I've got battery and wire working!)

So it's a peaceful, rested H that met Sylv at Bangkok airport yesterday morning and I've not stopped telling her about it all since - so much so that she had to pretend to be jet-lagged and sleep for 13 hours last night..... We'll just adapt, adjust, accomodate as Swami said and put the bikes back together tomorrow!

packing

My cycling days started early... yes, allright, it was a dog, but the idea was there (With a closer look on the picture you'll see that it was probably Christmas since some lucky family member got a 'cocotte-minute' as a present).

About 30 years later, only 1 day to go and I'm off to Bangkok. We spent most of this morning packing the bikes in their boxes. That's my dad with his lovely hat.

And at the end we managed to fit them all in the cardboard boxes, although we'll probably have to spend a whole day putting the bikes back together.

More pictures and adventures soon, from Thailand.

2 yellow bikes in the sunshine...

A little post from Sylv in France, whilst Harriet is probably doing some strange scorpion pose in the ashram in the Himalayas. Apparently, she's enjoying it loads!?!? Even eating only twice a day is, supposedly, great. She should be liberated and back in the "real" world on Monday. Looking forward to her post and pictures from the ashram.


On the other side of the world, I've been stuffing myself with French pastries, nice fresh bread, CHOCOLAT, wine, cheese, more chocolate, etc. In between meals and snacks, I've been busy (yes I was) finding bicycles for the next leg of our trip in SE Asia. But it can't be just any bicycle. They have to be solid (stainless steel frame), simple (no fancy gear system or hydrolic suspension), practical (with front and back carriers for panniers) and have universal (26") wheel size. The sort of bike that is not very fashonable at the moment, as nearly all are Aluminium and 28", and therefore hard to find.


But my parents were fab and looked around for me before I arrived in France. And their shortlist was indeed successful. A lovely shop in Freiburg in Germany provided the solution and with a few changes and additions, I got what we needed: two beautiful yellow bikes, Fahrradmanufaktur T400.







And having now recovered from a nasty cold (the temperature difference from India 36 degC to Alsace -3 degC last week was a bit of a shock to the system), I am able to go and try the bicycles out in the sunny autumn days of Alsace.




We now need to give names to our lovely yellow bikes. Any ideas, do send them over.


Next step: filling the panniers, packing the bikes in cardboard for the journey on the plane and mechanics and maintenance lessons with my dad. Big thanks to my dad for all his help!

so...8 months on, what's next??

The end of our (long) vagabonding time in India and Sri Lanka is approaching.

After 2 weeks visiting the 'Golden Triangle' with Harriet's parents, we have spent 4 more days in Delhi sorting out a long visa for Thailand - we'll be cycling, so best have a long visa in case we can't get out in time....

We are following our original plan to visit SE Asia by bike. So, to get some comfy touring bikes sorted, complete with paniers and all, Sylvia is going to France in October on a mission (no, no, not a mission to eat all the pain au chocolat she can in a month, quel idee!), a mission to get bikes and her tummy (not the same since that fever in Hampi..) fixed before we hit the road again.

In the meantime, Harriet will be living like a hermit in the Himalayas learning to be a yoga teacher for the whole of October. Harriet's diet will be considerably different as it will consist of Ashram food...and only 2 meals a day...poor Harriet no pain au chocolat up there... ;-)

Just fresh air and two meals a day next to the Ganges...

We'll meet again in Bangkok on 8th of November with a super flex Harriet, a (round) Sylv in full digestive order and 2 beautiful touring bicycles and a few maps to help us on our way!

Until next time, a few pictures from India: a fanfare man, a pink rickshaw, a holy cow and Sylv with the lovely Sikh men.

Rajastan (more) and the Golden Triangle with Harriet's parents

Here are a few more pics from our travels round Rajasthan... we went faster than usual, saw a lot, but didn't get much time for sitting around. So we're off for another holiday now!


In Jaisalmer we got a bit closer to the camels we'd been seeing around - they're larger than you might think and do a lot of ruminating. On our way back to Jaipur we saw loads running around on the edge of the Thar desert, these three looked more like giraffes.

The Jaisalmer fort is very beautiful, rising out of the desert and with 'proper' fort-like fortifications. We found a roof top restaurant facing the fort and spent every evening marvelling at the stars (you can see sooo many there!) and eating delicious Rajasthan food.

In Jaipur, searching for nice hotels for Mum and Dad, we saw what it might be like to be here in the monsoon... the road turned into a river within about 15 minutes of the rains starting and we'd have waded all the way home if the lovely woman in the internet cafe hadn't taken pity on us and given us a lift. So nice!

Mum and Dad's luxury tour in India strated in style with Emirates fancy pick-up at the airport... and continued in slightly less comfort in three wheelers! We got the train to Jaipur though and visited the sights...

The Palace of the Winds... with the audio guide.

The Jantar Mantar observatory..

with a massive sundial that told the time to within 2 seconds!

We were woken by peacocks crying and met up with Barbara, my friend from LSE days for a lovely meal in the garden.

And visited a little workshop making traditional Jaipur blue pottery - beautifully painted, if we could have carried more, we'd have really treated ourselves!

Amber Fort was enormous, perched on the top of a hill with chains of elephants marching up and down carrying tourists perched on their backs. We were able to get lost in the corridors of the palace, saw the beautiful glass palace and gardens.

The old town of Amber was studded with temples - this one was empty but for the priest and his son and peaceful.

From Jaipur to Agra, again on the train..and stretching our legs in the nature garden down the road from the Taj Mahal.

Seeing the Taj from the riverside at sunset was lovely and the bells and chants of the temple there added to the 'oh we're in India' feeling. The temple also 'discarded' some broken statues of gods on the river bank, giving quite a unique photo opportunity of thye Taj.

We got up early the next day and made the most of the rising sun and relatively empty gardens. We could hear birds as we walked up to look more closely at the Taj, surprisingly big and small at the same time as there's nothing around it to give you an idea of size.

Once we'd taken enough pictures of the building, we admired the other tourists and took pictures of them!

There was a lot of 'holding the top of the Taj', a bit like the holding up the tower of Pisa.

From Agra we travelled to the intense heat of Orchha for a brief visit. It is a beautiful little village on the Betwa river - full of temples and with the old fort and palace on a green hilly island. The palaces are full of paintings and the remains of stunning decorative tiles in blues and greens. Here's a taste, we can bore you with more on request!

Then it was back to Delhi for the museums, rickshaws and relative cool before Mum and Dad left to return to the pristine, rickshaw and cow-free, wind-chilled highways of Wimbledon! Sniff....