Leaving Goa and arriving in Kolkata is like finishing afternoon tea and biscuits with your elderly aunt and then finding yourself at an all-night dance party. We arrived in the “City of Joy” in the early evening and caught a taxi to our hotel in the New Market area, where we were to join the rest of our party with whom we would shortly be heading into India’s interior for a week of ashram experience. The drive from the airport was an experience in itself, the streets heaving with people, vehicles and noise. So much noise. It was hot in Kolkata with the evenings the busiest time, throngs of local people wandering and taking in the market stalls. The mornings were quieter and cooler, and so we decided to head out early for a wander in the streets. Entering one of the local market buildings we were immediately befriended by a growing group of hangers on. If we visited a shop, everyone else came in too and entered into the spirit of selling and haggling. I think their job was to act as commission agents for the market shop-keepers. We bought a small buddha statue and a few other necessaries for our upcoming ashram visit – things like meditation cushions which turned to be a god-send, but more on that later . . . Two days after our arrival our group boarded the Janshadabdti Express at Howrah Junction, reputedly one of the world's busiest train stations. Our coolies staggered manfully under our very western looking luggage and somehow got us all on the right carriage. It wasn’t flash but it was air-conditioned. India train travel is an experience in itself – we lazily passed through towns and villages with staff walking up and down the carriages every five minutes selling cups of tea, snacks and, curiously, nail clippers and inner soles for your shoes. One young albino man came through on all-fours sweeping the carriage and then came around for tips – amazingly he has been doing that same job since he was a child. Rikiapeeth Ashram is set in a small rural village, around twelve km from the temple town of Deoghar. Its beginnings are a story in itself. A swami called Satyananda arrived in the area in 1989 with the purpose of living a life of seclusion, but that changed two years later when he began a mission to look after the local people. It was an area with a dire state of poverty – no roads or basic infrastructure, no formal education for the children and people going hungry. The mandate for the Ashram is “serve, love, give” and today the local villagers have access to stuff like healthcare, education, farm implements and seeds. The area now has functioning roads, electricity and phone coverage. Its inspiring. Jolanda and I were booked to study the Yoga chakras – led by Karma Karuna who runs the Anahata Retreat, situated in a beautiful mountain setting overlooking Golden Bay at the top of the South Island. If there is a better teacher around than Karma Karuna, then I have yet to meet them. She is an extraordinarily knowledgeable and humble person – having dedicated herself to a yogic lifestyle while raising a daughter and building a major yoga centre from scratch. Our typical day started at 4:45 when we woke and got ready to walk from our accommodation to the main teaching hall. After 90 minutes of yoga asanas we enjoyed a simple breakfast (we took turns serving), sitting on a hard tile floor and maintaining a morning silence. Our next lesson started at 9:30 – each day being devoted to one of the chakras (sort of like energy points in the body). After class we began our morning “seva” which is basically working for the good of the ashram and the community. I was on morning cleaning duties – sweeping out our accommodation. Our third class, yoga nidra and meditation, began shortly after lunch and then in the mid-afternoon we went to our second seva session of the day. Jolanda, with her physio training, helped out at the medical centre while I bagged rice – obviously my lack of any useful or practical skills making me an obvious candidate for this job. The bags of rice were to form part of a large assortment of gifts to be given to thousands of local villagers at a ceremony in December. There is so much that the Ashram does for the local people. During our week we saw dozens of elderly men and women wearing identical pairs of dark glasses, having just been provided cataract operations. One of the philosophies of the Ashram is to avoid simply distributing “stuff” – there is a sense that if the villagers are helped to help themselves, their future will be more secure. One large group of elderly ladies were paid to sing at the health centre – they were all widowed and hence at an extreme financial disadvantage in Indian society. It may seem churlish to be critical of an organisation that does so much good – but I did feel a sense that the villagers were sometimes treated more like children than partners in the community. Maybe unfair and if it’s a criticism, it’s a small one. So how do I feel, after a week of ashram life ? Well I feel washed out, but at the same time refreshed. I found the first two days incredibly hard – in fact I ended up in bed, being overcome with the heat and the newness of the place. I learnt so much about what it really means to be a yogi – which is so much more than stretching on the mat. Having humility, living consciously, focusing on the breath, having compassion . . .
“Shanti, shanti shanti – hari om” is an invocation we chanted daily, representing a hope for peace for ourselves, our community and the world. Sort of sums it up really. We are now in the train on or way back to Kolkata where we will eventually connect with our flight to Singapore and then on to New Zealand. After six and a half months of travel covering Australia, Indonesia, Spain, Mallorca, Portugal, The Netherlands, England, Ireland, Wales and India – I feel ready to return. Although it will take me quite some time to digest what I have experienced on this journey. Over and out . . .
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We departed Snowdonia after 9 magic days and made our way to Heathrow via Stoke on Trent, where we stayed for two nights. Hmmm not quite sure what to say about Stoke on Trent. It’s famous for its pottery works but probably not much else. There was a bit of an argument and scuffle going on at the bus-stop outside our Airbnb, followed an hour later by a bang of cars colliding and few more choice words. The CBD is pretty dire – much concrete and a few homeless people hanging around – at least I got to hand out some spare change. Jo and I decided to go on a long walk up one of the canals where you definitely see the place in a much better light – a sort of arty grunge . . . Air India was a good airline – depositing us after nine hours in Mumbai where we transferred to our flight to Goa. There was much furious stamping of passports, a forensic examination of our e-visas and taking of fingerprints at customs control – after which we trotted off down the green channel, past a few bored looking officials and emerged to the wonderful cacophony of people and sounds that is India. Our taxi ride from the airport was a bit like being on a roller-coaster, but without the safety harnesses. Our driver seemed to enjoy sticking as close as possible to the back bumper of the car in front (until he found a micro moment to pass), all with a continual blasting of the horn and a running commentary of the sights we were passing. It was certainly clear he didn’t like the many cows that nonchalantly blocked the road every ten minutes or so. Having travelled a bit in Asia we were fairly used to this mode of travelling (I still think the tuk-tuk divers in Colombo are the scariest) – besides which we hadn’t slept in about 24-hours and so it all seemed a bit surreal. At our destination, our quote of 1600 rupees (about $34 for the 90-minute journey) seemed to have risen to 1750 which then became problematic when Lewis Hamilton didn’t seem to have any change for my 2000 note. Suffice to say he got a tip for which I received the broadest smile ever. That small amount of money probably doubled his wages for that day. Goa is on the west coast of India. Up until 1961 it was controlled by Portugal and hence you spot remnants of those days, including many Catholic churches. It is renowned as a beach destination for international travellers – that is when it is in season. We cleverly picked our time in the middle of the monsoon time - it rained most days but for no more than an hour or so which cooled things down considerably. We loved roaming the streets – there are no pavements and so we simply wandered along the side of the roads, calmly noting the toots as well-meaning drivers warned us of their presence. The people are very laid back – not effusive in their greetings like the people of Bali or the Phillipines – more circumspect and chilled. We stayed in an older and cheaper hotel In Morjim – Papa Jolly’s Eco Retreat - which favoured style over modernity. What the “eco” was all about, we had no idea, but our room was amazing. The downside was the restaurant - a little soulless and deserted for most of the day. We gave the staff a hell of a fright when we trooped in on the first morning and there was a quite a long discussion on what we might want. No matter – just 300m down the road were two excellent cafes where we seemed to find ourselves for about fifty percent of our waking hours. Morjim Beach was simply beautiful, but so disappointing to see so much plastic rubbish washed up. We made a decent walk one early evening – the beach dotted with local families coming out to paddle or, in the case of one couple, furiously snog. There wasn’t a European looking tourist to be seen. All the dogs in the area seemed to have deserted their lazing-around spots in the middle of the road to park themselves on the beach to admire the sunset. The odd cow would progress past along with its owner and there was an excellent game of cricket going on. Would I come back to Goa? Well maybe but I wouldn’t rush. It was beautiful laid-back place but with all the shops and cafes catering for tourists I felt we weren’t really experiencing the real India. That’s to come as head off for the last week of our big adventure to experience Ashram life in India’s north . . .
Snowdonia is majestic with towering mountains, lakes, fast flowing streams and waterfalls – but you don’t come here for a tan. It was a short drive across from the Lake District to the village of Bethesda at the northern tip of Snowdonia National Park. Jolanda is booked into an Ayurveda course at the Snowdonia Mountain Lodge, owned and run by an organisation called Dru yoga. Dru was founded by a group of students at the nearby Bangor University around forty years ago and now has centres around the world. The Welsh centre in Snowdonia is set against a backdrop of towering mountains and is home to the UK's first peace flame monument. I have rented an Airbnb close by – an old miners cottage with heaps of character. After staying in so many holiday rentals around the world, I can definitely say my favourites are the quirky ones. It feels as though the owners of this place just popped out to the shops before I arrived – the rooms are filled with books and ornaments, cupboards and drawers packed full of personal possessions and family photos are everywhere. The result is somewhere that feels cosy and lived in . . . Snowdonia National Park is the largest of the three national parks in Wales, covers 2,100 square km and contains the highest peaks in the UK outside of Scotland. It’s an important conservation area. Interestingly one of major problems facing the park is the Rhododendron which has been increasingly taking over and stifling natural species. There are otters, polecats, and feral goat in the park – we saw a fair few goats. Danielle, in her usual high-flexibility style of travelling, turned up after a couple of days and so we have explored this beautiful part of Wales together. I have to admit becoming a bit of a charity shop fan. A few years ago you couldn’t get me in one, but with my new found enthusiasm for recycling I have come to actually enjoy the experience of “op” shopping. And Bangor (Wale’s oldest city and just a few km from our accommodation) is busting with them. British red Cross, Oxfam, Wales Air Ambulance, Cancer Research – they just go on and on up the High St. If I am an enthusiastic participant, Danielle is the undoubted Queen of charity shops – and so we spent a good morning checking out all the Bangor has to offer in terms of second hand clothing and other tat. Snowdonia is, of course, a mecca for tramping and hiking. We decided to travel to the Ogwen valley and walk up Mt Tryfan. We refrained from scrambling to the top due to high winds however the hike was simply stunning. From the Ogwen Visitors Centre (a visitors centre with strangely very little visitor information but with good sausage rolls) it is a steep ascent up to Llyn Bochlywd, “llyn” meaning lake in English. From the Llyn you can either head straight up to the summit of Tryfan, elevation of 918m, or skirt around the top which is what we did. An equally steep descent brought us down to the larger Llyn Ogwen where we made our way along a boggy track around the lake and back to the Visitors Centre. Our other walking highlight was the beautiful Aber Falls Valley. We started our walk in the picturesque village of Abergwyngregyn – heading on a well-formed path to the Aber Falls, a small but impressively high waterfall plunging into a deep pool surrounded by igneous rock. From the falls we returned to our car via a lesser travelled route along the other side of the valley which steadily rose to about 300m – at the end of which we were greeted with spectacular views of the North Wales coastline. The weather here has hovered around 16 degrees with a fair few showers and big cloud formations overhead. But it all lends to the atmosphere of Snowdonia where you can quickly leave the rest of the bustling UK behind and lose yourself in the stillness and majesty of this amazing countryside.
Our next stop, and last for the UK before leaving for India, will be a short two days in Stoke on Trent. |
AuthorHi - I'm Richard Norris. Jolanda and I are heading off overseas for another adventure in 2019. No real formal plans - but definitely a desire to seek something different . . . Archives
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