Bird Sanctuary

Yesterday Annette and I went on a trip to a bird sanctuary that is situated about 30 minutes from Mysore. There is a river here called "Cauvery River" where there are a lot of migrating birds and crocodiles. We went out on a boat, and we passed two crocodiles! My first WILD crocodiles! That was cool.

After that we went to a temple nearby. We only had 20 minutes before they closed, an d a man started leading us around the temple. At first I thought he was guiding us around because we had so little time, then we started wondering if he was going to charge us. We have been very cautious during our whole trip against tour guides, and in general against people trying to cheat us to pay more money than we should(people here try to cheat you all the time). Somehow we lost our guard, and we ended up paying him 350 Rps!!! Way, way too much. The whole trip with the rickshaw cost us 300 Rps! But shit happens. It's not about the money, it's about being cheated.

Now that I have written about it, I will not think about it again!

Last Days

Only a few days left in India. Tomorrow is my last day here in Mysore. It will also be the last day in the shala. Ledd class at 4:45. I've had three days off because of ladies holiday, and tomorrow I will practice despite that the period is not over. I'm not really sure what Sharath thinks of that. Since it's ledd class he will see that I don't go upp in headstand. Last time I was in same situation, he came to me in class and said "get up!". I placed my hand om my stomache and shook my head. Ok he said and left me alone. I know that here in India women who are menstring are considered unclean, and I'm not sure how they look upon that. At conference someone asked him why women shuold not practice while menstruating, and he said that if you are unlucky you might not be able to conceive, and you mught loose your period. Anyways, I'm practicing tomorrow, I really fell that I have to end the stay here with a practice!

Tomorrow there is going to be a big, organic lunch at the pool. I think half the shala is going! I think it will be fun to see everyone before we leave. I just hope the weather will be beeter. The last week has been cloudy and rainy. Maybe preparing me for the snow in Sweden?

Saturday we leave for Bangalore. We have bookeed two nights at a very fancy hotel. We're having a grand finale! I might shop some more....If I find some nice sneakers I will by a pair. That is soo much cheaper than in Sweden. I bought a pair of Levis for 2000 Rps (about 300SEK)!

I wil have to start saving money again when I come home....to aford the next trip!

Rain Again

During our first two weeks here we had great weather. After that there followed a period of two weeks with monsoon weather, which meant that it rained every day. I was caught up in the rain several times and I have never been so wet in my life! My low quality rain jacket didn't help one bit. It took ages to dry the laundry. I was even bored a few times during those weeks. Really!

After those weeks we've had great weather. I've been to the pool quite a few times to work on my tan(to make everyone jealous when I come home:-)

Today it's raining again....heavy rains. The streets are flooding. My hair is curlier that ever. I've had it cut by Tatiana, a Tjeck hairdresser. To promote my curls she cut a few layers into my hair. But, when I come home it's going to be very dry and cold, and my hair will once again be flat and lifeless....

I was thinking that maybe this rain is a preparation for my journey home which is in a weeks time. I heard it's been snowing. My God, I'm a bit scared of going back to the cold and the darkness. And the stress at work! I'm already planning my next yogatrip...

Cockroaches....

We've been really fortunate to have seen very few cockroaches in our apartment. We live in a newly built house on the third floor, so that helps (never live on the ground floor in India). I've heard stories of people waking up at night with the bed full of cockroaches, and two of our friends have been bitten by spiders (all these people lived on the ground floor,although it's not a water tight guaranty).

Last night I spotted a roche climbing up the leg of my bed! Ughh! But then I thought about all my unfortunate friends and thought that one little roche i nothing! Then I went back to sleep and slept very well! They are a part of life here, and atleast they don't bite!

Marichyasana C

This is the posture where Sharath has stopped me since I can't bind. In every ledd class he helpes me in "Utthita Hasta Padangustasana", probably to strech my lower back. Last week he helped me bind! Hurray! This week I am again miles away from binding....snyft....I guess progress doesn't go in a straight line!

Using The Internet

Next time I go to Mysore I will definately bring my own computer, and rent an apartment with internet access. I haven't been writing as often as I had hoped for. The reasons are that the days here are quite busy (!), and in the evenings when I have time and energy to go to the internet place there is usually either a line and you have to wait, or there is a power cut. Sometimes I think that today I will go use internet, but then I do something else instead (like yesterday I went for a pedicure), or I just don't have the energy. I go to bed sometime between 8 and 9 pm, and I need time before to wind down and do my pranayama and meditation, so at the end of the day there is not much time for internet! Life is hard here in Mysore:-)

Breakfast With My Friends

This is the shala where Krishnamacharya taught Pattabi Jois, and where BKS Iyengar now is teaching. It wasn't very clean....I'm glad they have a new shala now!

Krishnamacharyas Old Shala

Scooter Adventures

Finally, after 6 weeks of riding on the back of Olles or Brittas scooter, Annette and I got the courage to rent a scooter. I've never driven a scooter before, and the first time I took the stearing wheel (full of confidence that it was going to be a piece of cake), I thought that it was mad of us to rent one. I was a danger to traffic! Annette who has been driving more than me also felt a bit shaken by the experence! Olle was laughing at us, and Laura said it looked dangerous! And the traffic here in India is mad! It looks like chaos, but actually there is an order in all the chaos; go with the flow and never hesitate! Today i rode the scooter into town! Wow! I'm impressed with myself! Face your fears and live boldly!

A Wonderful Lady

Today we went to have breakfast at a place in Lakshmipuram, near the old shala. This is the place where all the old yogis back in the 80:ies and 90:ies used to eat. They have a little shop where they sell books, mats, incense and all kinds of yogic supplies. And then they have breakfast, lunch and dinner. The lady running the place is called Nagarathana. She cooks Ayurvedic food, and since they are a Brahmin familly, she blesses the food she serves, and cooks it with love. Since it was our first time there, she gave us the breakfast for free! And I tell you, it was the best breakfast I've had here! We had a lovely chai, then some kind of pure made from mung beans mixed with ghee and some spices and cashew nuts and had with a chutney. I've never had anything like it before, but it was soooo good! Then we had the best fruit sallad and home made curd (=yoghurt here in India- it's less sour than in Sweden and I like it better). She said that love, kindness and good karma is a lot more important than money. Money comes and goes, but you always carry your karma with you...so true!

We will definately go back for lunch!

Powercuts

Exactly, this is what they look like! Powercuts all the time! But the first month I was here we didn't have a single powercut. Now it happens several times a day. I heard from an Indian person that the goverment is trying to save money, so they cut off the power now and then, and that on the 15th of November it will be back as usual! Sounds crazy! Don't know wether to beleive it or not.
Anyways, now I am at Rishis Internet Cafe (where they have an extra generator) instead of Anus (where they don't). So, back to they theme of a typical day in Mysore:

• I wake up at 5:15am except on fridays and sundays when there is ledd class at 4:45, which means getting upp at 3:30am!
• Practice at 6:15am, after that I have a coconut outside the shala chatting with other yogis.
• Go home, have shower and then off to have breakfast at Santosha, Om Cafe, Vivienns or Tina's
• After breakfast I go with Olle and Britta to have a wonderful dubbel cappucino at Barista, and we sit there for over an hour and chat and read the Indian newspaper.
• The rest of the day I might do some shopping (I am really shopping a lot here, what am I going to do with everything?), go to the pool, look at some sight, go for lunch, do some washing up (by hand.....it takes forever, and the water is not so warm and I wonder how clean the clothes get), go to an internet cafe to blog and email, wait for maybe half an hour for a free computer, then I give up and think that tomorow I will blog, but the same thing happens the next day, that's why I'm not blogging as much as I had hoped for. Next time I come here (oh yes, I will), I will bring my own computer and have internet connection at home! God, that would be so lovely!

So, the days pass by here in a slow but lovely tempo. The Indians are not a stressed people(well, in the big cities I guess they are). There is time to really talk to people, and there is time to be by yourself, there is time to read and reflect, and above all; there is time to really go in for the yoga.

The Days Pass By

Well, only three weeks left here, and that means that I have been here for five weeks! I'm really getting used to the life here now. I don't know how I am going to adjust when I get home?!
A normal day here in Mysore would look something like this:
oh, oh another powercut- can't write this time either.......grrr

Adjustments

You don't get so many adjustments here in the shala. One the one hand it has to do with the fact that there are about 70 people in the shala at the same time. Sharath and Saraswati don't have the time to adjust everyone. There might also be another reason, although I am not sure there is a deleberate meaning or not, and that is that you have to try by yourself to enter the postures, and I think that that might be a more powerful way for your body to learn than to have someone adjust you everytime you try to enter a posture.
Sharath is adjusting me in my last pose maybe every fouth day, and on one of the ledd classes he helps me in "Utthita Hasta Padangushtasana". I think he helps me in that one because he wants to see how flexible I am in my lower back to be able to go deeper in Maricyasana C, but I'm not sure. That's more adjustments than I had expected to get! And I'm quite enjoying not getting so many adjustemnts!
Even though there are many, many students here, Sharath sees everyone....I don't know how he does it, he has a hell of a memory.

Excursion

I haven't been blogging for a while, so I am writing about an excursion we did a week ago (I've now found an internet cafe that is not so crowded, hence not having to wait fore an hour to get a computer!).
We (meaning "the Swedish Collection" i.e Olle, Annette, Britta, Monika and me) rented a car to go to some "Hoysala Temples" a few hours west of Mysore. We rented an "Ambassador", which is an old car with room for five people + a driver. The poor old car only does 70km/hour, so the trip to Belur took about three hours insted of two. Add to that the bad roads and all the cows, dogs and people and you might get a picture of why it takes time to travel in India.
It was worth the trip though. The temples are nearly 3000 years old, intricate carvings in soapstone, blacked by age, and still in use today! If you want to see pictures have a look at Bills page (planetashtanga). I now have my pics on a memorystick, I just have to remember to bring it with me the next tome I go to blog!

Down With a Cold

Lot's of people in the shala are sneezing and blowing their noses, so it's just been a matter of time before I came down with a cold. I was hoping to stop it, but now I'm feeling quite congested and not so well. I haven't practiced for four days! I hope to be able to practice on thursday. I'm quite strict with not practicing when sick. I know the Mysore tradition is that you can practice as long as you don't have a fever, but my beleif is that you need to rest. My teacher Lisa says that as long as the practice gives you energy it's ok to practice, if it takes energy then it's best to rest.
I bought this Indian flu medicine, and I'm already feeling a bit better, so we will see! It's a bugger to get sick and miss practice! But that's life; you can't always get what you want, and things don't always work out the way you plan. That's something I am learning here in India, to not plan too much, take things as they come, and be ready to change your plans. It feels quite good though, to take things as they come!