after been home for 3 days after the yoga holiday me and Annika left for 16 days in India.
we knew it was monsoon season and quit hot, but I can honestly say I wont go there again in july ha ha.   

we stayed one night in Delhi before we left for 2 weeks in Rishikesh, wich lies just where the Himalaya starts.

Rishikesh is one of these holy sities, so there were no meat served anywhere, and no alcohol. great!
also this place is often called "the capitol of yoga" because of the many ashrams that lies here and also a lot of smaler yoga studios no a days.
but it is fairly commersial many places I think, wich is natural with all the attention this place has gotten.

actually all of us western people we stay just outside of the city in 2 small suburbs tha are called RamJuhla & LakshmanJuhla.
and it is here where most of the yoga places are, along the holy river of Ganges.

but never the less this is India, so even though it is a holy place I found it to be in many ways unholy sadly.
there are so much noice all the time from cars & motorcycles, especially motorbikes that refuce to stay away from the smaller streets and even the walking bridges so they use their horns more then needed, it is also very dirty here, you see people everywhere just trowint their garbage on the streets. and since now a famous place there are many individuals that wants to sell things on the streets, touristy crap and also poeple tat are just enoying and wants to get money out of you and gets angry when dont giving them.

not very peaceful and at least for me a lot of the spiritual expereince was not there.

then we were there just before a big "festival" so a lot of local tourists here and one ashram in the middle of the thing every night played out old texts super loud out in speakers, I can understand if doing a ceremony in hteir ashram every evening etc, but why put up megaphones on the outside facing the center areas and litterary hear a guy shout out for several ours until 11pm.

to be honest though we were not staying at a ashram, we decided to stay in a hotel and try some yoga classes around the area.

the heat and the humidity sadly lowered the whole experience for us though, it was to hot [one day 45 degrees celcius] and soke days so much rain, I have never seen that much I think ha ha

but never the less it is allwasy an expeeince to visit India, I would not go there fo relaxing hoidy, it is just more about all the impressions you get all the time.
you almost need a holiday after beeing there ha ha.

this time we had some bad luck with getting colds etc probably because of the weather and AC in some places and the bacterias in the humid & warm air.

but we just enjoyed it in another way the most holidays to an asian hot country.
we did yoga in the morning most of the days, relaxed with a slow breakfast, lloked around in shops etc for a short while, then rested and stayed at the room mostly to avoid the heat around 12-16. we also had some lunch at this time if not breakfast was to late or to big he he.

then of to evening yoga class, some strolling around on the way back for a shower, then off to a relaxed dinner.
after a while at least in most places we ate, we realized we spent most time there waiting for the food, and when finally came we ate quit quickly, then paid and went back to the room al tired and ready to sleep more or less.

we found a place where they teached a nice calm sivananda inspired yoga so we went there quit many times, I enjoyed it.
that class had of any reason quit many japaneese participants.

we also found a yogi whom I had been recommended before, he was teaching at a hote we found out.
he had a bit more physica classes and a lot of technique, I think he adjusted everyone in each asana so this ment also we held the asanas quit long time.
but he was great, he had so much knowledge and where so positive and encoured everyone all the time.
after class he always had a shorter talk wich both me and Annica really enjoyed. you could sit there and listen to him for a long time it felt.

if we are lucky maybe we can get him to come to my studio, he is of to europe so maybe he wants to come here aswell to see Sweden?

we ended our journey with a night in Delhi again near the trainstation in the dirty backpacker area pahar ganj "main bazaar". and we did some last shopping there aswell.
so now we had bought some new things to have in our boutique in the studio aswell.

Namaskar

wow been a very long time since I have written my blog, it might be because I havent been home more then total 2 weeks in the last 2 months..

first of I arranged this years YogaHoliday to Crete Island for the third time, and it was very succesfull and I got so many nice comments and great feedback from many of the participants.

so I thought I would start my come back with some pics from that trip:

1. the students get some freshly squeezed orange juice before early morning class starts in the sunreise at 7am
 2.
2. this year Annika offered spa massage and she had a lot of work this week, and this was a very apprechiated extra on this trip.

 
3. one of the participants in savasana - final relaxation with a olive tree in the background.


4. on the way to the meditation in the sunset that we did one evening.    

you can see more pictures here

Hari Om