The Shala

When I went to register, I was nervous. Guruji was sitting in his chair, but he is looking very old and perhaps a bit senile. I hardly dared to look at him! Sharath asked us to fill in a form, gave us a card and asked ut to come at 7.15 am.
The next morning we arived 15 minutes early: 5 minutes earlier as said Sharath and an extra 10 minutes ealy because the shala clock goes tem minutes before!
There was a lot of energy in the room, and it was very warm and sweatty! But I was soo flexible! My god, what a difference! But as I anticipated, he stopped me in Marichy C. Fine with me. When I was going to do headstand I was really nervouse, since I had only done it on my own a couple of times. The first few attempts were shaky, but then I made it. Ouff!
After practice you can buy a coconut to drink for ten rupies and chat with the other yogis before you go home to was, change and the go for breakfast. Lots of Japanese people are here, Brasilians, Americans and Italians. There are also other Europeans, Finns, Irish, Brittish, Turkish, but I think we are in minority!

More to come!

Arriving in Mysore

Finally, I'm in Mysore! The plane was 8 hours delayed, so we had a long wait at Heathrow. Our preordered taxi waited for us from 4 a.m till 12.00! Then it tokk nearly four hours to drive from Bangalore to Mysore (180 km). Bad roads, cows, traffic jams, you name it. It was hot and we were tired. We finally arrived at the Green Hotel and just crashed. No dinner, hard beds, very noisy, but I slept uninterupted for ten hours! It was a very nice hotel though.

Next morning we went to Gokulam, which is the area where the shala is located. It is Mysore's posh area. We looked up Shiva, who is one of the two "brokers" who can help you with just about everything. He is a man in orange clothes and a long beard who greats you with "Namaste". Not the kind of man you would think of as a businessman, more of a holy man, but I'm sure he makes big money! He said he only had two possible apartments for us, one with just one bedroom, and one with two bedrooms, but it was very dark. We looked at the one with one bedroom, thought it was nice, but could we please see a few more before we decide? Preferably with two bedrooms? "Why you want to look at other?" "If you like this one, you take it!" Ok we said a bit shaken, we take it. Then we went to have a coffee at Vivienns, and we talked to some people who said that 12 000 rupies for only one bedroom sounded very much, so we decided to look at a few more apartments the next day.

We found two other brokers, Murthy and Raju (actually a rickshawdriver with connections), but all the apartments we saw were too dark, too dirty or too far away from the shala. So we finnaly settled for the first one: the one with one bedroom for 12 000 rupies. Ok, finally we can settle down.

Setting up the blog

Actually, I had not thought about having a travel blog, but a friend of mine asked me if I was going to have one, and it seemed like a nice idea. So, here it is. I hope that I will be diligent enough to write frequently, and perhaps also show some pictures. I´m writing in English, partly because there will be no å, ä, ö in India, partly because I wish this blog to be accessible to other yogis thinking about going to Mysore and for my friends who don´t speak Swedish.

I`ve been reading some blogs from Mysore, and it has helped me get a picture of what to expect. Well, I´m trying to have very few expectations (they usually make you disppointed, but are very difficult to avoid! (aparigraha-non attachment), but at the same time i think getting a picture of what it might be like can take away some of the fears you have about traveling to an exotic country far away.....