Matheran

Our second weekend adventure was to a hill station near Mumbai called Matheran. Hill stations are little towns in the mountains where people go to escape city life. Perfect for us! And Matheran is unique in that no cars are allowed, and the only way up the mountain is to take a minibus part of the way and then walk, or to take a steam-powered train (called a toy train).

We decided to go for the full adventure experience and take the toy train, but our journey to Neral Junction, where the train departs for Matheran, was a major headache. The plan was to take the train from Pune to Karjat, take a rickshaw from Karjat to Neral, and then the toy train to Matheran. We waited at the Pune train station for a long time, hoping our train number would show up on the board. While we waited little children bathed in front of me, and a strange man smoking an unknown substance tried to touch all of our feet. Finally we discovered that the train had been canceled. Oh, India! We eventually found a taxi driver to take us the 3 hours to Neral, but not before Cait almost got hit by a bus, we made a number of phone calls from an STD booth, and I insisted on buying a Pepsi in a glass bottle to calm my nerves.

We finally got to Neral, boarded the toy train, and after another long wait, the train was off. The train takes about 2 hours to travel 21 km. It goes really sloooooooow. But here's why. It's climbing a freaking mountain! According to my guidebook, "the track has no fewer than 281 curves, said to be among the sharpest on any railway in the world." Let me tell you, I was pretty glad it was going so slow. When we arrived in Matheran it was dark, and there were MONKEYS all over the train platform.

This is getting a little long, so I won't bore you with details about the Hotel Woodlands and its delicious food and lovely views but slightly stained sheets. Or the guided horseback ride we took in the morning to Porcupine Point. Or our messy, muddy walk through town in the pouring rain. Or our hours-long delay at Karjat Junction and our train ride back to Pune on a sleeper car. Just trust me, it was an adventure!

Dear Pune, sometimes you can be a drag.

The novelty of India has worn off. (Don't get me wrong I am still loving the classes at the institute and wish I could keep studying there for longer than the month I booked.) I am mostly dying for a green salad or just pretty much anything fresh and not cooked into an unrecognizable heap. I am sick of my hard bed and the florescent lights that shine directly in your eye. Traffic is a drag and the constant honking is the opposite of cute. What else can I complain about? Oh and the wild dogs that bark incessantly as soon as the sun goes down. Basically I miss my home in the States.

Thanks for letting me rant. I feel better already!

Practicing at RIMYI

My friend Jen took this picture of me practicing in the hall at RIMYI. I am really enjoying all the practice time. Because June isn't a very popular month to be in India enrollment is lower than the last time I was here so there's a lot more space to practice. Last time if you showed up later during the practice time there was hardly any space to lay down a mat. And if you got up to get a prop from the storage room you'd often return to  your spot to find that either your spot had shrunken or someone had taken most of your props. This time there's so much space that it's practically like being at a spa (well, maybe not a spa but it's pretty nice).

And here's a picture of the hall during practice time. See, look at all that space! Lots of room to spread out and have a leisurely practice. Along the top of the walls are lots of pictures from Light on Yoga. The teachers are often referring to the pictures during class. It's fun to be practicing and going to class in a room filled with all of those amazing pictures. India is not an easy place to be. There's always a couple of people who hate it and can't wait to get home. I'd say I am missing my home and family but I love the institute and I really like India. There are things I don't like of course; I am pretty sick of rice and would give anything for something crunchy and fresh  - like salad or even just a crisp apple. These types of things can really get some people down. It's hard to be away from the comforts of home and be immersed in an environment where the yoga is so challenging.

Tonight we did backbends with Prashant. My friend Katy called it - she said "I bet he is going to kill us with backbends tonight". She was right. We did Ustrasana nearly a hundred times. (That's an exaggeration but it seemed endless). Then on to Urdhva Dhanurasana and Dwi Pada, over and over and over. The class was incredible with so much profound philosophy. I really look forward to pranayama week next week. More on that to come soon!

-Aaron

for Jennie Williford

As requested, here are three photos for Jennie Williford.

The first is the "hole" on Hari Krishna Mandir Road. This is how we walk to the yoga institute every day. In case you can't tell from the photo, that water is pretty disgusting. A few times, during really hard rains, the "bridge" has been gone completely and we had to walk around the block.



The second is the armed guard posted outside the institute. I tried to take a better picture of him from across the street, but he didn't like that very much and gave me the universal symbol for "Cut that shit out."





And the third, while it looks kind of disgusting, is actually a photo of one of the most delicious things I've eaten here. It's the "Chef's Special Kabob" at the restaurant around the corner from our apartment called Aroma. In that pile is cauliflower, paneer, tomatoes and peppers, and then some sort of mystery kofta, made out of lentils I think. It's not very photogenic, but trust me, it's delicious!

Indian Home Cooking

We have a cook. She comes every day, mon thru fri, and fixes us a dinner. Having a cook is actually not something special in India. It's such a service oriented country. Lots and lots of people have a cook, not just rich people. We are definitely not rich but the dollar goes a long long way here. For the four weeks she is cooking for us the fee is 3000 Rupees which is about $67. We do have to purchase the food. A weeks worth of groceries is about 140 Rupees, or $3.

She cooks a vegetable, rice, a dal and some chapatis. She is even making me a gluten free bread called Bakri (see below) which is made from Bajari flour (millet). This is so super because I hardly ever get to eat bread at home. It's easy to eat in India when you are gluten free. Seems like everything in the States has some type of wheat in it.

Delhi Belly

I have the "Delhi Belly". Not to be confused with the new Indian movie, of the same name...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhi_Belly_%28film%29. I am sick. I won't gross you out with details - it's your basic India stomach ache and intestinal distress. I took some of the heavy duty pills I brought from home and I started feeling better pretty quickly. I wasn't well enough to go to Geeta's Friday night class which is a major bummer. My roommates and I are purchasing the class recordings for the month though so I can do replicate the class on my own but it's definitely not the same. Classes are over two weeks from yesterday and the next two weeks will fly by. I want to get as much class, practice, and observing time as I can get before we leave Pune on the first. When you're sick you just have to accept it and stay home. I considered going to class and doing a sequence in the back of the room with the menstruating ladies but the idea of stretching my abdomen over a bolster sounded disgusting. So I decided to stay home. I am lucky that Sarah is here to keep me company. Last time I was here I was sick for 2 days with a sinus infection and I had to tough it out all on my own. Being sick is no fun but being sick alone by yourself on the other side of the world is torture.

On a positive note we purchased our plane tickets to Kerala. We will be there July 1-7. Kerala is a state down south on the west coast. There are supposed to be some of the best beaches in the world there. We probably won't get too much beach time however because it is monsoon season. And Kerala get clobbered with rain this time of year. We plan to spend the night on a house boat and also stay out in the wilderness near a tea plantation...or is it a coconut grove? Some of the details are still a little bit foggy.

Bhaja and Karla caves

This post is a bit overdue, as I went to these caves over 10 days ago. Every Sunday RIMYI (the yoga institute) is closed. Since every other day of the week we're pretty much glued to our neighborhood in Pune, we've used Sundays to go exploring outside of the city. The first Sunday we hired a car and driver to take us about an hour outside of Pune. The drive alone was very eventful! You see much different things on an Indian roadtrip than you do in the US. For example:
Can you see the people sleeping in the back of this truck?

Then it was on to Bhaja caves, 18 rock-cut Buddhist caves. Some of the caves are simple halls (viharas) where the monks slept on beds carved out of rocks.And some of the caves are chaitya halls, a kind of Buddhist shrine with a stupa in it, containing relics.
Then it was on to Karla Caves, which is really just one cave, a chaitya. It's the largest and best preserved chaitya hall in India. But what makes Karla really spectacular from a cultural voyeur point of view is the Hindu temple just outside the cave entrance. On the day we visited, and on most weekend days, thousands of people were climbing the long steps through the mountain to reach the temple. It was quite a scene! And not only were we the only white people there, as has been the case almost everywhere we've gone, but folks kept asking us if they could take their picture with us. Here, we pose with a group of people plus a live chicken:
It was a great day! Other highlights, sans photos: a gigantic Ganesh statue on the side of the highway; an enormous herd of sheep on the road, completely blocking traffic; eating chikki (the local sweet); and many others. Soon I'll fill you in on our most recent weekend adventure...