And now, the end is near

So my suitcase is packed and I have had my last dinner at Hinterland village (sweet corn soup and mushroom masala), my last yoga philosophy class and my last special old people’s yoga session. The next two days will be spent mainly travelling with a little final retail therapy. This time next week I will be back at work. Renewed, refreshed and reinvigorated.

Let’s not get downheartened though. Today’s meditation was the best yet – I was mainly deeply asleep for most of it, woke up a few times, but then drifted straight back. Not sure if I was breathing heavily but I felt incredibly calm afterwards. I have had a full body massage – the steam cupboard was out of order – but my skin feels amazing. Swami our yoga teacher has enlightened me in the meaning of yoga and has suggested some further research.

We went on a nature walk around the village today – shown round by the father of one of the lovely waiters. He showed us numerous plants and trees – all which had been planted by Unni and each with a purpose – shrubs which provide fresh air, peace lilies, Ayurvedic plants which help with all different types of medicine. He pulled leaves off bushes and scrunched them up for us to smell, he picked fresh ‘peanuts’ off a tree for us to taste, and showed us the rubber trees where the sap was being collected and turned into rubber mats.

The fig trees were very different – with the figs growing in bunches around the lower part of the trunk.

Have met some great people while staying here – it seems everyone is on their path and it was lovely to walk alongside them for a few days. A lovely Australian couple left today – they spent some time yesterday planning the next part of their trip and I was slightly (ok, very) envious. They are heading to Sri Lanka for a couple of weeks…

A woman who is a similar age arrived on the same day as me and we have had many laughs – we both feel like we might have met in another life and it has been great to have a kindred spirit. The other guests are mostly in their 20s and 30s, from Switzerland, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Norway, Italy…a great bunch of people.

One of the funniest and maybe weirdest things was learning about the different cleansing processes. The first one we tried was an eye wash. We were all given two eye baths full of fresh water and then were shown how to put them over our eyes and roll our eyes around to give them a good clean. I clearly wasn’t paying attention. I put the eye baths over my eyes and all the water just poured out all over me. Everyone else was busy swooshing their eyes and I stood there soaked through with dirty eyes. I couldn’t stop laughing. The next step was Jal Neti, a form of nasal cleansing (squeamish people look away now). You make up a warm saline solution and put it in a special teapot and then lean forward, tilt your head 45 degrees and pour the saline solution in one nostril and, hey presto, the water comes out the other nostril! Husband couldn’t believe it when I told him. I can’t wait to get home and show him my new trick. It is really good if you have a blocked nose, or suffer from dust allergies! The next option was even weirder and I didn’t try it…but it involves putting a rubber tube up one nostril and pulling it out through the mouth. It was pretty gross.

From there, it went further into the realms of filling your body with water and vomiting it out to stuffing a tea towel down your throat, making it a little wet and then I don’t know what as I was too stunned to take it all in. I understand that it’s all fine and part of a process – but I am happy with my eye bath (now mastered) and my neti pot.

This is a great place and I would like to come back – maybe with some friends and even a brother. I am not sure I will write again before I get home, but thanks for reading my sabbatical blogs – from Spain, Tokyo and India. It has been a blast.

Adiós, Sayonara and पुनर्दर्शनाय!