Yoga at sunset

(Lotus Nature Cure, Varca, India, 17-25th of Nov)

So, again Christel had booked us a one week yoga retreat, this time at Lotus Nature Cure in Varca.

The week at the retreat has been very intense with focus on detoxing, massage and yoga. The retreat is not that big, it has 4 guest rooms so at a maximum 8 guests could stay there (if sharing rooms). However, this is not an disadvantage as you get as much more attention from Dr Patil  (who lives at the retreat together with his family.) and his staff. You can book a stay for 4 or 7 days and there is no weekly ”startday” so guests are coming and leaving all the time so you meet a lot of people. During our stay we meet Bridget and Gemma from Australia and Mona and Renée from England.

It has been a nice experience with daily nose rinsing, massage (almost all days during our stay!) and two yoga sessions a day, one in the morning, and one at Varca Beach at sunset.

Christel attended all yoga sessions for 7 days but Johan, who does yoga, but not loves it totally, skipped two sessions which he replaced with morning runs instead.

This is what a day at the retreat looked like:

7:20 God morning Juice

7:30 Some drops of Gee (tastes like fudge) was put in each nostril and then we had to lay still on our backs for 20 minutes.

7:50 Nose rinsing

8:00- 9:30 Morning yoga with Dr Patil.

9:30 Breakfast

10:00 One and a half hour massage, some days including  a steam bath..

13:00 Lunch (Always served with a disgusting drink made of Kokum-berries, but good for digestion we were told..)

17:00 Heading for the beach in Dr Patils car.

17:30-19:00 Sunset Yoga and meditation on the beach

19:30 ”Snacks” (Mixed fruit)

20:30 Dinner, always soup and sprouts.

As the ATM-system collapsed when the PM in India made a move against corruption by making most notes unvalid overnight  we have had major problems to get our hands on new cash. Very few ATMs has any new cash to withdraw and it is very hard to find working ATMs as they tend to run out of cash after about 2 hours. This has changed our way of travel, we now always ask if the hotel we will be staying at can pay for transfers to airport and other expenses. If they have a restaurant that is even better because then we can have some meals there to put on the bill.

When we stayed at the yoga retreat we walked or went by bike on a daily basis to all ATMs in the neighborhood only to find that they were out of cash. Wen we got close to the end of our stay at the retreat we finally got lucky, we found a ATM that opened every day at 15:30 so we could withdraw the maximum amount there for two days in a row. The maximum amount per withdrawal is 2000 rupees and that is not that much when you are travelling. BUT our last day at the retreat we got lucky, we passed by a ATM that just had opened, NO QUEUE AT ALL, we were all alone at the ATM for 10 minutes and we succeded to make nine withdrawals after each other before we were satisfied. Now we were prepared to leave for Patnem beach for two weeks, and there even was a good chance for some shopping (for Christel…)