We’re getting closer to the end of our adventures here.

Sunday was a day off from Kriya Yoga.  We took a walk and I used ran into more kids….  I took out some balloons –

I went to a talk (questions and answers) by some enlightened guy the other day.  Next to him on the stage there was a flower arrangement.  From my seat it looked like a puppet that was popular back in the 1970’s and 1980’s – Wayland Flower’s Madam.   I couldn’t help but smile and think of comments she would have interjected into his talk (she was a raunchy Phyllis Diller – type of character).  It made it hard for me to take him seriously (it’s hard for me to take anything too seriously).

When someone complained about the food here being boring….  someone else said food is meant for survival, not enjoyment.  So we get potatoes, rice, beans, dal, and a type of bread for almost every meal. I have an image that they hire a new cook who makes delicious foods…. and then gets fired because the food is too tasty.

Sometimes I go to meals saying with delighted anticipation, “I wonder what we’re having today?”  Some people just look at me.

 

When we go to class (or some other places) we often need to leave our shoes outside.  Annie’s nervous about this.. afraid to lose her favorite shoes.

Back in the yoga ashram in Nepal in December I lost my sandals this way.

Yesterday one of our classmates found her shoes were missing after the class was over in the morning.  Making it worse, it was her birthday.

A number of us took her out to a restaurant for her birthday last night, of course I brought along my balloons.   On the way out another pair of shoes were missing ….. mine. Who wears size 13 shoes here?

Luckily I have a pair of water slippers for the next two weeks and I don’t expect we’ll be doing any long walks before we return to the States.

It’s good have a blog…  even when we don’t write much in it (like for the past week or so)…  when anything happens that might bring us down we just say, “this will be good for the blog!”

A long time ago I read “The Autobiography of a Yogi” – it was inspiring.  Annie an I just began listening to  an audio book of it last night.  Here in India it seems to take on a deeper meaning.   This will be our evening ritual for the next week.

 

I googled Kriya Yoga….  This is serious stuff.

Here I am in my serious white get-up…

Here I am in front of the Ashrams the Beatles stayed at.  It’s closed to the public, but if you tip the guard 100 R you can get in.

 

This is what lunch looked like today… notice the seats and tables…

 

Last week was holt holy festivals  I was painted by everyone I ran into:

 

The ashram has wifi again…  I imagine Annie will post something soon.

We nay get wifi at the ashram tomorrow…  that will be nice.

I just decided to get free wifi at a restaurant and ordered a falafel.  When I finished most of it i began thinking about the sanitation condition here.  We’ve been so careful up until now…. I’ll see if I’m sick tomorrow.

My back started going out today so sun salutes and shoulder stands weren’t working for me.

The “Kriya” course consists of a bunch of Crea’s (spelling?) – saying or thinking montras while breathing and picturing the chakras in order.  Some are repeated up to 59 times.  It feels like we’re in a Monastary  (again, my spelling is growing worse as is my counting and my pronunciation of the San Scrit names of the chakras and chants.

This is definitely out of the comfort zone for me.   Annie isn’t sure that doing her challenging Ashtanga yoga in between our classes while we’re doing this slow-down breathing meditation practice will “disqualify” everything she’s doing?

I’ll try to post a picture of our white outfits.  I feel like we’ve joined a cult… except my hat still stands out a bit.

When the festival ended we decided to stay at the Ashram for another 10-day session in Kriya Yoga…. Hey Yoga’s yoga, right?

Today (the first day) we found out we need to wear only white clothes (I don’t have any and we had to go out to set us up).  Also meals are eaten in silence.  I always look at meals as social gatherings….  I don’t do “silence” well.  I looked at the rules… it doesn’t say “no balloons”….  we’ll see.

Kriya yoga seemed to stress breathing for meditation.  Annie was supposed to be the specialist on meditating for this trip… I was only committed to vegetating.

Here are two photos from the last couple days at the festival.  One day was Holy Holy day…. when people have fun putting color powders on everyone’s faces.

Then some gurus gave speeches.  When I looked at this one I kept thinking of the evil magician from Lord of the Rings:

Our internet might not work for the next 10 days or so….  but I’ll keep looking for connections.

Yesterday during lunch I was asked to make a special balloon for the head guru here.  I had mixed feelings – I’ve never seen him smiling and that tells me balloons aren’t his “thing”.  I was asked to wait on the side until he’d finish his lunch.   I was concerned that I’d be late for a yoga class done by a Chinese group.  At the end of his lunch I watched as he left…  no balloon!   I was a little late for the class.

It was a friendly, playful class.  Afterwards I made some balloons for the group and they asked me to join them in their group picture.  Annie wasn’t with me so I don’t have a picture of the “family, Where’s Waldo photo”

 

As Annie was leaving our dorm room she saw a crowd walking by and noticed the head guru was leading the way.  She stood on the side to take a close photo when she noticed he was giving hugs to everyone along the way.  She got a bear hug from him.

I checked out the Facebook page for the festival

(go to Facebook and search for:  International Yoga & Music Festival Rishikesh , 1st -14th

Then look at the photos  on Day 3 I’m photo: # 71 and 71 –

I made friends with a Chinese woman and went to the workshop her group gave today.  After their workshop they asked me to join them in their group picture (I stood out like in the Japanese photo last week)…

Yesterday I met a very sweet yoga from China and a gutsy yogi from Austria (she lives in Switzerland now).

I took a walk with the Austrian across the bridge and to the other side of the Ganga River.  She said she wanted to bathe in the river… I said i’d walk her.

Next she spoke about jumping off the bring into the river.  I hate to be the guy who says “no”, but this didn’t seem like the thing to do here.  As we got to the bridge she began asking folks (most of whom didn’t speak English) and got the impression she shouldn’t do this.  We got to the other side of the water and she stripped to her bathing suit.  There were maybe two boats in the water and a couple of people washing themselves (no swimmers).  She said she wanted to swim across the river to the ashram and handed me a bag of her belongings.  As she began to put her feet into the dirty water a policeman began to shout at her … basically saying “NO!”.  She put her clothes back on and we walked back.  Later she said she spoke to her teacher (who is here) and was yelled at again – “No one swims in the holy Mother ganga River!”

Annie say that a guru was speaking in another ashram last night and decided we’d go.  It meant crossing the bridge at night and taking a rickshaw up the winding cliffs with a driver 9and his friend (who was navigating).  They didn’t know where it was and in the dark, this felt uncomfortable.  We finally made it at the end of the talk….  on the way back we smelled pot and realized our driver and his navigator were both smoking  while driving on these winding mountain roads in the dark.

On the walk across the bridge we needed to navigate between the people and motorcycles.  One cycle had no lights…. but the back seat driver was holding a little pen light.

Today I’ve been given permission to do balloons.  I don’t have many with me.  We’ll see.

 

 

We can’t find a working ATM machine or bank in this town so Annie’s retail therapy is missing it’s quota…. No withdrawals yet that I can notice.

We took a Reiki class yesterday… and found that if we take the next 2 we’ll be certified…. Wow… just what I was looking for?

One evening we saw an Indian dance. I wanted to video record it and the camera guys were set up in the four or fifth row. I was early (before the crowds), so I took a front row seat.   Soon some guy in orange came to me and bowed… I tipped my hat to him. Later I noticed many people approaching him… bowing, placing their hands on his feet and then touching their heads. The front rows seemed to be reserved for the gurus and saints.   At the end of the performance when all theses saints and gurus joined to the dancers on stage to bless them, I decided I better stay in my seat.

We also took a workshop in Japanese Shinto Yoga…. It gave Annie a number of deep laughs – it was fun.

At the end of the workshop the Japanese group got on stage for a photo session. One of the Japanese teachers asked me to join them on stage. I thought they wanted a group photo with a variety of yogis from around the world, so I joined in. It seemed I was the only Westerner to go up with them. Annie was taking a photo of them and wondered how I got in…. Annie has given me permission to take out my balloons… but not for another couple days. I’m getting the withdrawals….. but I still seem to have irreverent fun.

 

Lots of typical scenes here from the car window along our drive from Delhi to the yoga festival in Rishikesh:

Every once in a while there’s a beautiful rest stop:

Tons of bricks are being made here… everywhere:

sugar cane:

guess what weed grows wild all along the roads?

Cow and bull shit is valuable here – their flattened out like pancakes and used for fuel to cook meals…  I can’t imagine how the smells affect the taste?

 

we get close:

Our driver welcoming us to our hotel:

 

 

view of our roof-top dining room:

 

 

While waiting for breakfast I had fun shooting balloons from up here to the kids down below:

Some of the art  works on the walls of our hotel:

 

 

This town was known for the big houses rich merchants built for their families… and had colorful paintings all over the walls…
Here are some street scenes:

 

What a surprise… the balloons showed up.  I soon had crowds of kids following me along the street as Annie shopped:

Annie found a shoe shop with three generations of shoemakers.  She went in to buy a pair and have them adjusted:

 

 

When the kids saw me enter with her, they waited outside for me.  

When i made a few balloons for the shoe maker, they crowded the door… he chased them away, afraid they’d break his door.

 

The shoe maker enjoyed when I put a pair of his shoes in a balloon…  but wasn’t too happy when I put one of his father’s sharp tools in a balloon (I took it out quickly):

The animals all work hard:

 

The people work hard and live hard:

  

A vulture in the dessert (or is it desert?)

Our driver saw this guy and pointed him out to us:

Living quarters:

trucks loaded:

 

We passed a group of about 2 dozen camels an the road…  it’s mating season. 

These families were waiting for a bus/car and I made balloons for them…  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here you can see them as they drove away in their car:

We made it to the yoga festival in Rishikesh.

The drive from Delhi on Friday was easy enough… beginning at 7:30am (our driver said 6:30am would be best…. But he had a habit of arriving a little late).

He only needed to ask directions a few times (GPS’s aren’t as common here as in the States). At the end we needed to drive up one side of a mountain winding path and down the other side. Had it been dark and rainy it would have probably convinced us not to go , but it was just raining. We planned to arrive the day before registration for the festival…. Arriving with 700+ participants sounded like a line we didn’t want to be on.   That was a good choice.

Rishikesh is on the Ganges River as is Varanasi…. The water Is much cleaner at this point.   To walk down the path of shops you have to pass a multitude of Holy (?) Sadu’s all asking for money, cows, motorcycles, bikes, and a variety of other local colors.

The two ATM machines we’ve found are both out of money or broken… and few shops take credit cards so we don’t expect to spend much money for a while.

In the first morning (which began at 4am) we’ve already taken and Osho-Style Dynamic Meditation (the word “meditation” gives the wrong picture of this style)…

A Somatic/Feldenkrais movement work shop (I always wondered what that was)…. And workshops with a number of “named” yogi’s.

During one session when we were to keep our eyes closed… I had a feeling I should peek for a moment and watched a monkey come between Annie and me to grab a banana from my vest pocket.

Annie wanted to see the big inauguration ceremony with all the saints and teachers… I decided to look for internet.

After lunch Annie will take a soul song workshop and I’ll go for Astrology.

We’ve met folks from all over the world… everyone we bump into is friendly.

I’ve been holding back and haven’t taken one out yet (we’ll, I used an unblown one to fix my watch band).

 

If I find Internet connect I’ll post this…. And maybe get some photos up soon?

 

found it…