Mysore... made it!

The last few days in Rishikesh went by quickly. I completed a level 1 Reiki healing course, attended a few yoga classes (one of them was taught by an Ashtangi from Ottawa! Eric Desjardins), did some last minute shopping, watched some movies (Breakfast at Tiffany's and Samsara) and visited my favourite cafes for the last time. I also bought a Tibetan singing bowl and discovered I am terrible at playing it (sorry to my neighbours!). But I found a shop today in Mysore that offers lessons so I think I will try that out.

This is my Reiki Master, Deepak. He is a wonderful teacher.

This is my singing bowl. I bargained it from $15 CAD to about $7.

Julia and I left Rishikesh at 2am via taxi to Delhi. Here is a pic of her enjoying the brisk winter air around 4am for our forced tea break:

The flight to Bengaluru (which is the captial of Karnataka, one of the southern states) was pretty quick and I had a nice driver waiting for me (although he didn't speak any English so the entire ride was silent). My first impression was "wow, this place is beautiful". It did not feel like India at all, it felt more like Costa Rica. There were so many trees everywhere, big billboards, nice houses and the air was clean. I left the window open the whole drive and enjoyed the fresh air and the sunset. It was nice not to smell rotting pollution and pee for a change. And while outside the Delhi airport, there were tons of people living in cardboard boxes and people just lying in the street whom you couldn't tell if they were dead or alive; outside the Bangalore airport, there were flowers, water fountains and endless trees. I didn't snap many pics, but here are a few:

After more than 17 hours of travel on less than 3 hours of sleep, I arrived at my host house and was welcomed by a LOT of people. The only people that actually live in the house are a husband and wife (both of their kids are now in the USA so they rent out their kid's rooms to yoga students). However, one of their nephews is getting married tomorrow and so they were throwing him a little party and his entire family was here. I just barely dropped my bag off in the room and then was told to come upstair and watch the "show". The show consisted of rubbing tumeric all over the groom, waiting for him to shower and change, blessing him by dipping your finger in a bowl of goo and touching his forehead and then feeding him a lot of sweets. After this they had a big dinner and I think there was alcohol based on some of the craziness I heard (I was able to sneak away just before dinner and hit the sack... although the family wanted me to stay I just couldn't do it). Here is a pic of me (trying not to look completely exhausted), the groom and the host lady (Shaila):

And here are some pics of the family (although this is only a fraction of the people that were there):

Thanks for reading if you're still keeping up with me! I'm all registered at the Ashtanga Institue and start classes tomorrow at 5:30am (gasp!). Hope all is well back in Canada (or wherever you are :-))

~Amanda

p.s. Happy Halloween! I don't think they celebrate it in India but I will watch an episode of American Horror Story in honour of the day :-).