Saturday morning a
group of us had decided we'd grab a couple of rickshaws at 6am and
head to a little rocky outcrop with a lone palm tree just south of Om
Beach to watch the sunrise..... From there we intended to walk across
to Half Moon Beach then onwards to Paradise Beach, returning to Om
Beach to catch the sunset.
I woke on Saturday morning feeling a little
worse for ware. I was hoping the 'ill' feeling was simply down to a
lack of sleep. One thing was for sure, I wasn't missing out on our
day of beach combing.
After a couple of wrong
turns, and a little rock climbing we found the single palm treed
observation point just as the bottom of the sun kissed goodbye to the
horizon. We meditated for 20 minutes, then headed back to
.jpg) |
| Sunrise from Om Point... |
Om Beach
for breakfast at a little Nepali Cafe.
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| Om by morning.... |
We headed to Half Moon
Beach, where Leslie, Marien and Lucas wandered down to the sea for a
swim. I curled up in the shade of a large boulder hoping for a
release from my aching body and steady waves of nausea. On opening
my eyes half an hour later, I was greeted by a rather portly
(massive) western chap in his fifties slipping out of his trousers
five metres away from my face. His tiny penis poked out under his
vast, round belly as he proudly waddled down to the water's edge
stark naked. Good Lord, you don't see much of that in India.
Another wave of nausea hit me, no doubt brought on by the sight of
the larger than life nudist.
The shade provided by
the boulder slowly shrunk as the sun lifted higher and higher.
Eventually I was almost plastered against the hard form of my rough
geological saviour. A German man chatted to me, stating that I may
be in need of antibiotics. I informed him that my condition was
fresh and new, so nothing to worry about yet. We chatted between my
waves of nausea.
At 12pm we began the
stroll to Paradise Beach. It was a cumbersome trudge for me. The
temperature was 35 degrees celcius, my legs were heavy and everything
ached. Having clambered over huge rocks and sandy paths to reach our
destination I collapsed with joy in to the sand. There I lay for
next 4 hours before we started the 45 minute walk back to Om Beach.
I hadn't managed any food since 8.30am and very little water for that
matter..... I was playing down my roughness.... Though it was clearly
apparent to the others how ill I felt.
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| Sunset at Om Beach. |
We dropped in to a cafe
on Om, where the others shared two large beers. I was thirsty, but
the thought of a beer turned my stomach. This in itself was a bad
sign. I ordered a lemon soda.
I lay in a hammock that
was hanging to the side of the table. I drank a couple of mouthfuls
of lemon soda and gently swung to and fro. Lucas looked at me and
smiled, 'You feel terrible don't you?'
I didn't even get a
chance to nod.
I swung my head over
the far side of the hammock and proceeded to vomit every bit of food
that I had consumed for breakfast 9 hours previously. Luckily the
hammocks were placed at the edge of the cafe, and the cafe floor was
nothing more than sand. Each time I hurled I swept sand covering
over the half digested mess.
The last time I was
that sick was in the bus station with Amanda in Goa, India.... 10
minutes later I was feeling better, less nauseous any way.
We headed home after
sunset.
On arriving back at the
ashram I had a horrible feeling Swami-ji would have me 'stomach
cleansing'. The others laughed when I mentioned it.
Next thing I know I'm
leaning against a coconut palm lit by my solar lamp glugging down a
litre and half of warm salty water as fast as I possibly can. I'm
fighting to hold it down, wretching as I glug. A minute later I'm
hurling it back up. This is stomach cleansing, Ayurvedic style. The
first few are easy, but it's getting those dregs out. I remember
Amanda doing it on our last trip.... She didn't have the projectile
vomiting skills that I seemed to possess. No doubt these 'skills'
were attributed to many nights of partying with the boys back in my
twenties! Those last few wretches are killers.
I chundered as Swami-ji
chanted.
Today I've felt weak
and rubbish. Dozing for much of it.
I just held a yoga
class for Leslie, Stav and Lucas on the roof of the pre-school. I
hoped it would give me some more energy and stretch me out. It's
done exactly as I'd hoped.
I had intended leaving
tomorrow morning, but due to being in no state to head in to Gokarna
to get a bus ticket and money to pay for my stay, my departure has
been postponed for one more day.
The extra day at
Shankar Prasad proved just lovely.
The morning was spent
working with Sudha in the kitchen. We both sat on the floor making
chapatis, chatting in a variety of broken languages. The facial
expressions and eyes seem to have the most impact. I wasn't sure if
Sudha understood when I said 'I go tomorrow'. She looked as if she
understood, then I said 'bus to Hampi'. 'Tomorrow?' she confirmed,
her smile fading and her eyes becoming genuinely sad. Over the next
few minutes she asked about Robyn, and also invited me to her home to
eat fish with her family when I return to Shankar Prasad.
The onset of my leaving
seemed to be quite a loss, I was moved as to how quickly I had become
loved and appreciated. These are clearly people with taste! Ha ha!
After preparing lunch
with Sudha, I gave Swami-ji a massage to soothe her back pain. Sudha
came to observe, so she could learn the technique I was using. From
tomorrow she would perform the treatment.
I headed upstairs to
mine and Lucas' sleeping hall. Sudha followed shortly with two
hefty, cumbersome chisels that Pranesh (Swami-ji's personal
assistant) had purchased in town to allow me to engrave the tree
section I had been working on. This was a very kind gesture on
Pranesh's behalf, though it was a little late. In addition to the
time constraints there was the fact that if I turned the chisels
around using the handles to cut in to the wood, a similar affect
would have been achieved. Sharp they were not. Of course this was
not Pranesh's fault, he was not an engraving chisel aficiondo. The
blunt weapon purchase still stands as a very kind gesture indeed.
Sudha immediately
spotted my laminated A4 collages of Amanda placed in front of the
window shutter. She cooed and smiled. Picking them up, pointing at
two of the photographs and pointing back at herself. 'I have?' she
said questioningly. She then realised the photo's were inaccessible
due to the laminating process. They were well and truly sealed. I
showed her my wallet pictures, which are laminated credit card sized
photo's of us both, cut to clip over the credit card holder sections
of the wallet. She flicked through smiling, then unhooked the one of
Amanda and I in Marrakesh at the night market. She looked at me, and
held the photo asking the same question again, but this time with her
eyes. I nodded. She beamed. I promised to send her copies of the
other two images. The one of Amanda laughing on the roof in Morocco,
and one of us sitting on the bandstand in Bicester after signing the
marriage register on our wedding.
Later that afternoon
Leslie, Marien and I headed in to Gokarna. I needed to check the bus
time for Hampi, buy some batteries for my headlamp and get my flip
flops repaired. Whilst waiting for the bus a chap driving in to town
pulled over and offered us a lift. It cost us the same as the bus
journey would have done, a tiny 5p each. Whilst Marien and Leslie
were sorting out a SIM card I dropped the flip flops across the road
to the flip flop repair facility, a tiny shop hidden behind a dusty
sheet selling and repairing flip flops.
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| Local Yoga Graffiti. |
A few minutes later I
suddenly realised I was no longer carrying my Travel Tap drinking
bottle. From the outside this looks like any drinking bottle, but on
the inside there is a filter that allows me to drink water from
anywhere except the sea! This bottle and filter system provides
great convenience when travelling in India where the tap water can be
a little dubious to say the least. It also cost £40.00. I'd
already left my rather excellent travel towel in Tiruvanamalai. It
was hanging out to dry the morning I was set to leave. No doubt the
monkeys will have utilised it as some sort of funky hammock by now.
I was hoping not to lose my Travel Tap, though I was well on the way
to doing so!
Lately I've been
practising positive thinking and visualisation. I recently read a
book called 'The Power of the Subconscious', all about placing
positive thoughts and visualising as if they had already happened.
It might sound absolutely mental, but a couple of rather strange
things have happened in recent days that could well be linked to this
technique, or could of course be simple coincidence. Further
investigation needs to be carried out for conclusive evidence of it's
effectiveness! Ha ha! Anyway, I yelled to Marien and Leslie that I
had left my bottle in the taxi, and legged it down the road from the
bus stand down in to Gokarna town. I visualised the large white jeep
being parked up down the road. I ran for about 3 minutes in the
blistering heat, the ill fitting grey Crocs I'd borrowed for the trip
to town doing their best to take a rest in the dust. I came around a
sharp right hand corner and sure as anything there was the man
locking his white jeep. I shouted him. A few seconds later I was
sauntering breathlessly back to my friends. The first cold beer in
weeks was in order. We talked about life for an hour or so over the beers, it was a wonderful time with wonderful people.
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| Mother & Daughters. |
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| Local Man Reading. |
I went to pay Swami-ji for my stay. She told me
she was expecting nothing as she had invited me, but she was very
pleased to receive a contribution. Shankar Prasad is a charity
foundation, it would have been wrong to not pay for my stay and my
yoga nidra program.
Swami-j and I talked
for a few minutes, she jokingly did her best to convince me to stay
saying how much she and the others would miss me. The rest of the
gang we departing and heading off in various directions in four days
time.
I'll miss them all.
This morning as I
knocked around the place at 5.30am, grabbing a very light breakfast,
having a chilly bucket wash and sorting the last bits and bobs of
packing I received a lovely note from Marien and many hugs from
Leslie and Stav. Swami-ji was there to give me some Ladhu (little
energy balls made from jaggery, cashews and cardommon) whilst Marien
gave me a bag of sugary Indian sweets she'd kept back from the
previous evening. More hugs.
It would be very easy
to stay another 4 days here at Shankar Prasad, I've met some
beautiful people and made some good friends, but I feel I need to
keep moving. Why? I'm not sure...
Thank you to everyone at Shankar Prasad for making my stay so special. I hope I also made your stays a pleasure. Big love to Leslie, Marien, Lucas and Stav who I spent most time with, with a great spillover of love going to John, Elizabeth and Chan Fan x
I've just collapsed in
to my seat on the very average looking bus that will take me from
Gokarna to Hampi. It's 6.45am. I Have just helped a band of local
women load up the bus with bags of vegetables which must weigh in
excess of 35kg a piece. These women are Herculean!
I wonder why I am
moving on? I try not to wonder too much rather leaving it to my
intuition to lead me. I watch another 50 year old woman climb the
bus steps with a fabric sack balanced on her head, she smiles at me,
recognising me as they guy they'd been loading up a few minutes
before. The first huge sack I lugged on to my shoulder, mumbling
something about 'gold bars'. I quickly realised had there been gold
bars in these bags, the women wouldn't have been needing to do this
job. The all laughed and cackled, with a couple ooooh-ing surprised
that the skinny white boy could lift such a mass in the first place.
When I returned the second sack was lifted, ready and waiting to be
placed on my head for some Indian style carrying. This was a far
easier way of carrying the huge sack of veg. I'm blown away at how
strong these women are.
All this typing as I
sit on this less then average bus is starting to make me feel a
little travel sick, so I think I'll wrap things up for now. After
all I have another eight and a half hours to go before I reach Hampi
and my arse is already acknowledging a definite lack of suspension.
Bye for now.
xxx
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