Silence, caves, and starnge people (Megan)

Well, I just arrived back to America last night after a lovely trip in India. Let me tell you a little about it. After leaving Trimbuk, Lucia and I took the bus through some of the back villages and had an experience with the rural villagers who wear huge nose rings and pile together on the bus in a hectic and wild mix of cigaret smoke and school uniforms. I was still drinking 6L of water a day for my kidney stone and ended up pleading with the driver to pull over a few hours in and peeing on the side of the road in true Indian fashion. We arrived to the Igatpuri Vipassana ashram to experience the pain and excitation of 10 days of silence. It was...well, it was everything you might think it would be, just times 2 million. Staying silent (okay...almost silent...I discovered a toilet paper note on my door from Luicia about one week into the course...what a relief to discover she too had felt more physical pain than enlightenment...haha). But keeping silence is actually not so difficult, it is sitting in exactly ONE position for 10 and a half hours per day that is the real test. There were only about 10 Western people there and it was really quite interesting to really live with the Indian women and observe all of their habits. Funny how you become a good observer when your only activity is meditating. The ideas put forward in the course were really great and i can definitely say that we both felt very light and balanced at the end. This is good, considering that 5 minutes after leaving the course I was nearly smacked in the face by a dead body being carried by in the train station. So, it was off to the Ajunta and Ellora caves, where Lucia and I met a very interesting New Yorker turned Indian villager who. despite his desperate attempt to be unique, actually had some great insight into the daily lives of the people in the area and gave us a faux-tour of the caves, which he has been walking daily for many months now. From here, I left Lucia to head south and went to Goa. Can't say much for the beach I went to in Goa...I think Goa is better left for summer season. I was soon ready to leave and painstakingly made my way to the train station only to discover that the ticket (which I had paid 2x the price for in order to get a confirmed seat) had accidentally been booked for the previous day. Let's just say, I spent the remainder of the night and day being awaken to move to this car or that car in an attempt not to be kicked off the train in the middle of nowhere India. I soon found myself desiring ashram life once again and headed way down south to the Sivananda ashram in Trivandrum, Kerala. After talking to one lady there I came to find out that Little miss Giusy had been there just before me...so sorry to have missed her! The ashram there is gorgeous...a huge open yoga hall, beautiful gardens with a lake (watch for crocodiles) and tigers roaring just on the other side. Met such amazing people there and experienced a much more Hindu-centered way of ashram life. Interesting to see the different variations of the yogic lifestyle. Before I knew it I was back in Mumbai and amazed by how different the big city is in India. Daily activities changed from hiking, yoga, meditation, hand-washing laundry, and jewelry making to shopping, watching movies, and shopping again. Tried some new and exciting food, including one sweet which is wrapped in a leaf and spit out before swallowing. Now I am back in America for the next two weeks and stunned all over again about the magnitude of objects people store in their giant houses here. It is hectic and crazy and soft and clean and stressful and overwhelming and different. It seems so normal and at the same time, everything I experience seems to be the complete opposite of the lifestyle I have been leading. I am anxiously awaiting my trip to Costa, where I will live in the jungle with a close friend of mine and then begin teaching yoga on a permaculture farm in near Puerto Viejo. I am so excited for this and excited to experience yet another aspect of yog life. I have realized how much there is to learn on this path and I am so grateful to have taken my teacher training course with such and diverse and interesting group of people. Above all I am just trying to stay balanced and take it all in.