Trivandrum

Before heading to Bangalore and Mysore, we are spending a couple days in the southern-most city in Kerala, Trivandrum.

om shanthi, darn it!

so from the beach madness, we decided to enroll ourselves in yoga prison...er camp. This is a place where you are requisitioned blankets and pillows and escorted to your slender plank of a bed with its flimsy mosquito netting and two inch thick mattress. A bell rings at 5am to get you out of bed (which you're actually thankful for because of the soreness in your back and neck thanks to the wispy mattress), you spend the morning and afternoon doing excercises, and work between excercise sessions by sweeping floors, cleaning toilets and cooking food. You also attend instruction on how you can reform yourself to become a better citizen in the world. Pretty much the same thing as your run-of-mill rehabilitation institution...except in this case you get the honor of paying them for the experience.

And best of all...it was worth every penny. The Sivananda Ashram is actually a wonderful place that both of us enjoyed and benefited from (and would recommend) Sure we dreamed of cheeseburgers and HBO, but we haven't felt this good for a long time. The asana classes (2 hours twice a day) were just what we needed, both physically and mentally. We're not cut out for long term ashram life, but for a short spell it is a great way for us to gain a healthier perspective on living, and learn what you can do to remain healthy when we get back to the world of work and Tivo.

Varkala

From Kumily we made our way to the coast again to a town called Varkala. We settled into a beach resort type hotel and decided to take a walk down the beach. The contrasts were amazing. At the entrance to the southern beach (where we were staying) there is a place where Indians come to pay respect and give blessings to their deceased relatives. There are swamis (priests) set up under dried palm fronds where they go about attracting business like a typical shopkeeper; gesticulating wildly and calling out to carloads of family's arriving to pay respects to their family member. Since there are five or six swami operations, competition can become a bit fearce (but friendly and seemingly fair). Locals sit with their chosen swami, say prayers, perform rituals at the swami's direction, and prepare an offering on a banana leaf. The offering is set aflame and then carried out by the family to either the crows or to the sea. In the last picture you can see the contrast of westerners sunning themselves in revealing bikini's while locals are making their blessings. An interesting lack of awareness of what is happening around them. That said, here we are photographing the whole experience from our hotel! As we walked farther down the beach it got whiter and whiter (and nakeder and nakeder...can I make that a word?). The end of the beach is 100% westerners. The beach is at the base of a steep cliff which is being eroded away.On the cliff top, the Tibetans and Kashmiris refugees sell their goods, desperately trying to lure in customers. The clifftop consists of about 300 meters of what we refered to as a "hippie strip mall". No offense to hippies. But it was wacky to see shop after shop catering to consumer spirituality. Westerners doing yoga on the beach and then hiking up the cliff for a beer, fresh sea food and some good old fashioned clothes and trinket shopping, chakra adjusting.... reaching enlightenment through massage and the right look. It is a weird western bastardization of India and it's spiritual traditions...and is quite the scene. We ventured back to the seclusion of our beach hotel swimming pool and finishing off some great short stories by Vikram Chandra. We enjoyed ourselves - a little r and r - but we're looking forward to getting reconnected to a more authentic India.