USA

Yoga is appearing frequently in my entry titles...the sign of things to come? maybe I'll have got it out of my system by the time I return home..I fear not!

One of the distinctive things about travelling, well two of the distinctive things (Davey P, you were right that I would start pontificating at some point..) is that 1. You don't get an awful lot of privacy or time to yourself and 2. You don't really have a set routine......so bearing this in mind, fitting a yoga class into each and every day can sometimes be tricky..

Take yesterday for example...I was at LAX (Los Angeles International Airport) for 12 hours (between flights from Guadalajara and to Auckland) and I was determined to fit in some yoga. So I took my mat outside and laid it out on the 2 feet of grass outside the Tom Bradley International Terminal where I partook of two hours of yoga in the sun...the mood was only slightly soured by the constant roar of traffic and the foul, heavily polluted smell of the air...I thought people would be impressed by my antics or at least faintly interested but it turns out that Californians really don't bat an eyelid at anything...all I got was one old janitor walking past me muttering....'ahhh taking some exercise...' and chuckling faintly to himself...

a case in point for having less of an ego methinks..

At the moment I'm practising Yoga with a lovely Aussie guy from the course at his apartment in Ajijic near Guadalajara in Mexico. Such a tranquil and calming place for Yoga! The front of the apartment is made entirely of glass so I can sit typing at the computer overlooking the beautiful Lake Chapala with mountains in the background. Then when it's time to retire with a good book you can sit out on the balcony in one of the two hammocks. It's really the life!

At the moment I'm on bonus time in Mexico because I was meant to be flying to Hawaii today but such is life...I still haven't finished part II of the yoga tale so here goes..

Well despite all my lengthy previous ramblings I think I actually only made it to day two of the course. The following morning we followed the same routine that we would follow for six days a week for the next four weeks. As you've probably calculated that means we did have one day a week off (Friday). Day off would, however, be somewhat of a misnomer for we would still be risen at 5:30am (by a bell being gonged right outside our cabin). Can you 'be risen'? I don't think that's very good grammar but with not writing that much anymore I've noticed that my ability to spell and generally make grammatical sense has slowly been diminishing over time.

Anyway, we would still have to go to morning Satsang which didn't finish until 8am and then we would still have to go to evening Satsang which started at 8pm and finished at 10pm, so really we only had 12 hours free and in that time we still had to do our karma yoga (more of that later), eat and do the mountains of homework that they gave us every day.

so the daily routine when we didn't have a 'day off'? Rise at 5:30am.

Satsang 6am to 8am
Morning yoga 8am to 10am
Brunch 10am to 10:45am
Karma yoga 10:45am to 11:45am
Bhagavad Gita or chanting class 12pm to 1pm
Break 1pm to 2pm - wahoo!
Philosophy lecture 2pm to 4pm
Afternoon yoga or teaching practice 4pm - 6pm
Dinner 6pm - 7pm
Break 7pm - 8pm
Evening Satsang 8pm - 10pm
Lights out 10:30pm

the breaks would, however, also be a misnomer - mountains of homework and because they were the only time we had to fit in essential activities such as showering (was verboten before morning Satsang) and I was meant to attend the daily headstand workshop for those of us who were more on the crap end of the headstand ability spectrum.

So as the Americans say 'Do the Math'...that's basically a 16 hour day so finally I can empathise with you City of London types about long days something which I definitely couldn't do in the Northern Ireland public sector!

Jealous? After the first few days of this I almost felt at breaking point. I was sending my nearest and dearest texts that I didn't think I could make it and that this was the hardest thing I'd ever done in my life. Even sending texts was hard. You had to climb up a ridiculously steep hill that was so dusty that you generally slid down the track again on the way down whilst trying to dodge the poison oak...but back to the yoga..It wasn't really the long and tiring routine. I think that just made everything else seem worse. Really it was a) culture shock and b) feeling that I was isolated from everyone else who seemed so into it all and c)finding myself vehemently disagreeing with everything that was being philosophised about really just on a matter of principle of not getting brainwashed! It's actually quite tough to describe how I felt right then but i'll try - a combination of totally freaked out, angry, wondering how I could have wasted $2000 on doing this for a month, lonely, anxious etc..

After the first week I did feel a bit better...mainly because I was a week down with only 3 more weeks to go but also because the group bonding finally kicked in. It turned out that I was pretty wrong about (most of) the people. I think I probably met some of the kindest people I ever have. By then I felt pretty much fine and able to hack the weeks still ahead of us. And then the strangest thing started to happen...people started to spontaneously cry all over the place..it was all very strange and I slightly sniffed at the whole American-style display of public emotion until that was that I succumbed myself. It was totally odd..I just suddenly started sniffling, in the middle of a chanting class for some reason..and then I kept crying for the whole hour and just as suddenly it stopped. I can't say that I had any idea what I was even crying about - the floodgates just opened. But after I was done, I really and truly did feel fine - obviously the catharsis I needed.

I would go so far as to say that I actually then began to really enjoy my time there...don't get me wrong I was pleased and ready to leave in the end but I am so glad that I did it.

Was it a lifechanging event? In short, yes, not because it suddenly converted me to the yogic way of life although there is a lot I agree with there...the five points of yoga are:

1. right exercise - obviously that means yoga asanas (postures)
2. right breathing - pranayama (breathing exercises)
3. right relaxation
4. right diet
5. postive thinking and meditation

Not a huge amount you can really argue with there..or at least I can't! No the real reason I'm so glad I did it was because it really served as a big reminder of the importance of being true to yourself. There were also a few good lessons about being a good person, being humble, acting without any expectation in return etc etc

..enough of the heavy stuff...some other memories from the month at the Ashram:

1. The emu - the emu had just turned up one day at the Ashram and decided to make it its home. It was strangely interested in the yoga. It used to watch us the through the glass door of the yoga barn when we were doing our asanas (see my photos) and even followed us up a steep dirt track to get to the main swami's house (15 min walk) where it joined us for an afternoon lecture on yogic philosophy underneath the shelter of a giant tree.

2. Cabin gossiping - I shared my little wooden cabin with 3 American girls. One from San Francisco, one from LA and one from Chicago. Although we only had 30 mins between evening Satsang and lights out we filled it every day with so many laughs and a regular highlight of the day.

3. Highlight of the day - These wouldn't be funny to anyone who wasn't there..a load of Ashram-style 'in' jokes.

4. Lake Tahoe - on one of the days (12 hours) off a couple of the volunteers drove a few of us (actually me and 4 japanese girls who didn't speak any english - they had a translator) to Lake Tahoe for the day. The couple of yogis with us were making a big deal of swimming in the ice cold lake..saying it was all mind over matter and that kind of thing. And then they totally wimpily jumped out after 30 seconds while I carried on - really wasn't that cold!

5. Swimming in the pond at 1pm - occasionally I would get a chance to dive into the Ashram pond before the afternoon lecture. A pleasant experience in spite of the water rats and reeds that scratched your legs.

6. Siva hill - the hill where you could actually get mobile phone reception and that had stunning views.

7. karma yoga - i spent my hour every day cleaning the toilets - the girls toilets though so they weren't so bad. The toilets were in a little hut so every day I got to clean with the sun on my back and the sounds of woodpeckers chipping away. It may give you an idea of what the rest of the day was like when I say that cleaning toilets was one of my favourite parts of the day!

8. Decapitated squirrel - generously left on my karma yoga turf by one of the 5 resident cats. The poor squirrel had been horrible mutilated - A severed head was perfectly positioned on one side of the floor with the two feet on the other side, with the large intestine and another unidentifiable internal organ in the centre..oh and I wouldn't be completing the picture unless I mentioned the blood everywhere and the fur scattered all around! Because the remains were a) on a concrete floor and b) lying in the sun the job of cleaning wasn't very easy. It involved rubber gloves, a dustpan, lots of scraping and scrubbing and bleaching. Although, of course it was eco-friendly bleach so I'm not sure what good it did! Anyway, vedanta (yogic) philosophy believes in the idea of karma (every action had a reaction) and reincaration. Basically I must have done something bad in a past life to have been faced with that horror scene!

9. Mealtimes - my very favourite part of the day!!! Really the only chance we got to chat and the food was truly superb. I could have eaten it for ever more. Not everyone felt this way - I suppose Quinoa and rice milk aren't for everyone! Pete - it would have been antithesis of good food for you for example!

10. Warm milk before bed - after evening Satsang which did sometimes finish around 9:30pm. It was actually as much of a social occasion as having a beer at closing time is in the normal world. Ok it wasn't the same but we had been living on an Ashram for a month after all - what do you expect?

11. Teaching practice - we all taught each other in groups of 5. My group consisted of the aussie guy I'm staying with, two lovely hawaiian ladies and an interesting canadian girl! It's what we were all there to learn after all!

12. Talent shows - total cheesemeister but the act was stolen by a middle-aged American lady how gave us a comic alternative to what yoga was. First time in ages I've laughed so hard that my stomach was in pain.

13. Compliments - Being told by three different people at separate times that I was the most normal person there. Being voted by the guys as being the most easy going girl and being told by an American girl that her first impressions of me was that I was really pure!

14. Yosemite NP - not strictly speaking part of my yoga month but I went camping there with three people from the yoga as part of a post-Ashram decompression for the two days immediately following the yoga. It was there that I had my first encounter with a bear and I confess that I wasn't very brave. On seeing the bear but 30 metres away (on its hind legs trying to swipe food from a picnic table) I dived into the car and cowered while the other three laughed at me!

Right that's enough - there were many other eventful moments but I didn't keep a journal so I can't remember them right now...Bis bald x

So I have only been away for two months and already I have changed my name to Devika, my new spiritual name. Isn't it nice? One month of living on an Ashram has changed my life. In the words of The Charlatans, 'I was blind, now I can see...' Not that I listen to that rajasic music anymore. Rajasic means overly stimulating the senses! I only listen to sattvic (spiritual) music now (Hindu chanting, 'Om namah sivaya, om namah sivaya'... Finally, I've found the inner peace and calm that I've craved my whole life...

Ok if you believed that then a) you're a bit gullible and b) i'm offended that you don't know me well enough to have faith in my strong and stubborn mind! Having said that I really do have a spiritual name and an accompanying mantra!!! I thought it would be cool..it's amazing what you think is cool when you've been living in a monastry (yes monastry - more of that in a minute!) for a month! When the Swami (monk - more of her later!) gave it to me she told me it meant 'Goddess'...so obviously I was delighted! I found out later that it actually meant 'little Goddess' which almost everyone at the camp found hysterically funny and source of contuining amusement for the rest of our time there..

So ok backtracking for a few moments here. So I had mentioned to quite a few of you that I was going to be doing a Yoga teacher training course at a yoga farm in the middle of nowhere in California for a month and I'd also mentioned to quite a few of you that it looked pretty tough going (only two veggie meals a day, getting up at 5:30am every day etc) and some of you were even faintly envious (Kathy-although not of the food I recall!!) But nothing, I mean NOTHING prepared me for what I was going to face over the month...

So actually the veggie meals turned out to be enormous and filling and there was no time to feel hungry anyway so that turned out to be the least of my worries!! I was initially relieved on meeting my fellow trainees who all seemed normal! I was actually further relieved when I saw the Yoga farm for the first time. The farm has an unbelievably scenic setting in rolling countryside in Northern California, with beautiful wooden huts and cabins and a lovely lake and fountain in the centre of the grounds. It seemed like the most calming and tranquil place ever!

So the very first day rapidly deteriorated into the biggest culture shock of my life (yes, Davey P I know I haven't been to any third world countries yet, so it's not much of a comparison). We got given our uniform (white shapeless trousers and an unflattering long yellow t-shirt - colours of purity and learning!) and got trundled into our first Satsang. We'd already been woken up by a loud bell at 5:30am and had to throw on some clothes before walking hungrily through the dark to the meditation building.

OK I confess I had seen the word Satsang on the programme they sent us before the course but I didn't actually bother to look it up - i figured it had something to do with learning Yoga. So anyway, I soon discovered what Satsang was when I walked into a room with a huge alter filled with different hindu Gods - Ganesha, the elephant-headed deity, the three-eyed God and a huge doll of Krisha, an incarnation of the creator and one third of the holy Hindu trinity (I know I'm good but we had to learn this all for our final exam!) The thought running through my mind at that point was 'hmm this is a bit more religious than I expected..' or maybe the words were a bit more dramatic than that at the time..

So we had half an hour of communal silent meditation, sitting cross-legged on the floor in the dark, during which time my legs went dead (four times) and my back ached more than ever before (that includes carrying my enormous backpack - Mum!) Then the lights went on and the chanting of 'Jaya Ganesha, Jaya Ganesha, Jaya Ganesha Pahiman, Sri Ganesha, Sri Ganesha, Sri Ganesha Rakhshaman' started and then seemed to carry on for what seemed like forever. Then we were treated to a lecture from the main swami (a large vietnamese women with an awful lot of presence and a strict, focused face - not what I was expecting either!) on the nature of the mind! Some reciting of mantras began and we all had to plod up one by one and bow to the alter and the swamis and have some coloured powders smeared on our faces. The most terrifying part of Satsang then occured when we all had to stand up and say why we wanted to do the course. I was one of the first to be called up and I muttered something about it being a great form of exercise and 'one I had actually stuck at'...hohoho...not the right answer I soon realised....no, everyone else was coming to 'find inner peace' or 'to spread yoga to all the beautiful people' or to put some discipline into their wayward lives...that's when the overwhelming sense of panic and wanting to escape as quickly as humanly possible set in...the people who seemed normal did not seem quite so normal after all....

To be continued...

The chronological nature of this blog has already broken down - ah well what you gonna do...Sarah W this is definitely one for you!

Well anyway, I'd had this very mysterious pain that started in my arm at the end of last week and it moved around strangely before moving to my chest. Being me I went into denial about it all for a few days whilst secretly cr***ng myself but Des Dos Mona (the little bro!) bullied me (on his birthday as well!) to go and see a doctor and I promised him so I had to!

Well persuading the travel insurance company was surprisingly easy...in fact i would go so far as to say I was impressed by the experience. They even called me the following day to check I was ok! Anyway, all I had to do was tap in the zip code into their website and choose the nearest doctor.

Well I rang up this morning at 11:30 and was offered an appointment at 14:30 (already very non-NHS). Then when I arrived I was confronted with water features and lots of nice plants around a courtyard and with not having to wait at all. A nurse then took my blood pressure and weighed me and then the doctor immediately arrived. The doctor then asked me questions for a whole 20 minutes and checked my arms and legs from every single angle before referring me for an X-ray and ECG! That's when my heart totally sank because I wanted to go straight to the Yoga tomorrow and I wouldn't be able to if I had to wait around for tests and stuff..but oh no what she actually meant was 'please go to downstairs and we will do the your tests immediately one after the other without you having to wait at all and then come back upstairs and see me to immediately discuss your results'...and that's exactly what happened!

Well the upshot was that she told me very earnestly that I had not had a heart attack..she conceded that it wasn't very likely I would have had one being 27 but she did add that 'bad things do happen to good people'. She seemed disappointed that it wasn't EVEN arthritis (glad those were my two options!) and she finally settled on it being a pulled muscle in my arm and the chest pain being psychosomatic...very likely!

So now that I know my arm pain is causing me no immediate threat, I'm happy again and my travel insurance, which cost 260 pounds has already paid for itself! So I would have to give USA doctors 10 out of 10 all round! I guess my praise shouldn't be too glowing considering the millions of Americans who get no healthcare at all...ooh my first political comment (see Ben the decline has begun already!)..but let's not dwell on that...all I know is that it worked for me!

So anyway, I've gone from a life in data protection to opting to happily tell the whole wide world about my medical conditions...as the Americans say, 'what is with that?'

Well I'm nearly right at the end of September and nearly finished my first month of travelling. Ben has been haranguing me to start my blog and Sarah W has started hers so thought I should eventually get round to it.

Anyway, the Green Tortoise trip was totally 'AWESOME'...http://www.greentortoise.com/national.parks.loop.html see been here a month and already picking up the lingo! Had a v bad night's sleep on the first night...i was sleeping on a table, feet first (Clare will understand what that means) and it took me a while to realise why all the blood was going to my head (we were gaining about 8,000ft in altitude or elevation as they say here!). Anyway, the pain in my head was all worth it the next morning when we woke up to see the sunrise over the Nevada desert and herds of wilderbeast sweeping magestically (Des!)...well actually two Antelopes running past as as we had breakfast. After breakfast we dived into some local hot springs and if you've never relaxed in hot springs with naked hippies overlooking a bleak desert landscape then I suggest you try now...

My second night sleeping on the bus was probably not that much more successful than the first. I got up in the middle of the night to err 'use the facilities' at a truck stop. For the benefit of those who don't already know, the bus has no onboard toilet so you have to wait until a designated 'pee stop' which can range from truck stops, supermarkets or the side of the road. The best ones are when you walk into truck stops in the middle of the night in your pyjamas and flip flops and the assistants still wish you a 'nice day'! Anyway, I basically wanted to say I'd set foot in Idaho as there is obviously nothing in Idaho worth stopping for according to our itinerary at least. (Ad - really just wanted to make you jealous by saying I'd been in Napolean Dynamite country!) Unfortunately only two of us got off (it was 3 in the morning) and we realised as we were faffing about that neither of us had let the driver know we were getting off. In the meantime, the bus was in the middle of driving off without us - we were only saved by the fact that I had dramatically banged my head only minutes before. I screamed so loudly with the sheer shock of it all, then realised almost immediately that as it hadn't actually hurt, my bloodcurdling cry was probably not warranted that I ended up laughing hysterically. But at least I woke EVERYONE around me so thankfully they noticed I was missing!

We spent the following day hiking up to Lamoille Canyon in the Ruby Mountains in Nevada and now I've realised that the Idaho incident must have happened the following night - oh well days all blend into one on the GT particularly if you're like me and don't bother to write a journal. We had our first GT night out in the redneck town of Elko where we nearly got involved in proper saloon bar style brawl with some old hick who didn't like the look of the Polish bloke that we were with. After that we managed to get kicked out of the same bar because the barmaid decided midway through our drinks that passports were not good enough ID and that only state driving licences would do- I guess we were among the 92% of Americans who don't own passports.

So I forgot the country make-up of the the bus: 9 Americans, 5 English, 3 Scots, 3 Aussies, 2 Poles, 2 New Zealanders, and then 1 Italian, Israeli, Indian, Dutch, Canadian, German, Slovakian, Swiss - what a mix!

The following day we made our way to the stunningly situated town of Jackson Hole up in the Grand Tetons mountains (if you don't know what that means in French look it up - thanks Ad!)I finally worked up the courage to go whitewater rafting...I was actually ridiculously scared - everyone knew - which somehow translated into me having to be the one to sit right at the front with my feet dangling over the edge of the vessel (never show weakness!) Well no one got thrown out so it was all very civilised and uneventful but i did get to see my first Mormon family (at least they were from Utah so there's a 90% chance they would have been!) Finally we had our first night of camping and listening to an Aussie guy strumming away with everyone singing around the campfire..sigh..

Spent a really brilliant day hiking in the Grand Tetons with an Israeli guy, an Indian/American guy, an Italian girl and a girl from New Zealand. The views were just spectacular and my hiking abilities had actually dramatically improved compared to last year - must have been all that hiking in NI! The following day we headed to Yellowstone to check out Old Faithful and about a million and one other geysers. The next day in Yellowstone must have been coming up to 9/11 because we met a group of people from Utah who were telling us how worried they were about an attack on Utah!! and I had to cope with one of the guys from the trip taking photos of me about every 3 seconds - I think it was his poor flirting technique!

The bus then took about 5 hours to do 40 miles after being delayed by the local wildlife (Martin - you would have been so impressed!) The first of the huge traffic jams was caused by Buffalo wandering down the road at a leisurely pace totally unperturbed by the miles of tailbacks building up behind them. The roads were then totally clogged by everyone jumping out of their cars and checking out the black bears up some trees by the side of the road. We then spent about half an hour following some startled Bighorn sheep who seemed to think they could outrun the bus. Our last night camping in Yellowstone was pretty eventful..this aussie girl managed to drink nearly an entire bottle of Vodka in 2 hours and then dramatically managed to disappear from the campsite near to a local river and a 70 mile an hour highway...it took 20 of us half an hour to discover her collapsed by the riverbanks! and one of our drivers (female) got it on with one of the two guys on our trip from Bolton!

We then spent the most amazingly relaxing day at the Chico Hot Springs in Montana. Sadly Montana has been fairly devastated by forest fires this year and the state was so dark with smoke that the sun was just a dull red glow behind the thick smog. Then it was on to Bozeman, Montana which we totally expected to be a great place for spotting cowboys but which actually turned out to be really artsy, college town. The following day we made our way down to Great Salt Lake in Utah and floated in the very salty water!! The final night of the first week was spent in the Mystic Hot Springs and if you've never relaxed in nice Sulphur-smelling hot springs by moonlight, I suggest you start now..