Intricate footpaving

A local wedding at a hill station with the groom being ceremoniously paraded around the town to exuberant chants and cheers

A range of the many necklaces to be found here

Local spices at the market in Anjuna, Goa

The ashram at the dam

Now, before anyone has any negative opinions, read on. We entered openly and willingly to learn some hatha yoga. We left with the belief that yoga was not only a physical discipline but a definite part of a belief system to higher consciousness. How it is achieved is through sweat(yoga) diet(veg food only at specific times of the day), karma(daily chores like sweeping or serving food) and chanting(to whatever God or bigger plan pleases you). The higher consciousness has yet to arrive but we're more toned than ever and feel the 11 days without proper self-indulgence was worth it.

The itinerary was pretty packed...5.30am chant or silent walk to a rock or dam to gaze at earths wonders. The setting is truly magical with lion parks, crocodile farms and domesticated elephant farms a short distance away. Breakfast came in the form of a thali, which is a South Indian mixture of food that has all the basic food groups. This is followed by a lecture on various topics of the body and what it means to us and then there's karma yoga. The idea behind this is that we lose the ego that so many of us have carefully crafted in the Western world as a defence mechanism by doing simple chores. Tea is served outdoors and then 2 more painful hours of yoga with concentration on 12 poses out of a possible 84,000 to choose from. Dinner comes in the form of a light snack as there's not enough time for ample digestion in the evening and then there's a nightly vigil and more chanting. Tight schedule, huh?The chanting bit got a little too much for us so we stayed in our room and read. Are we more enlightened? Sure, we'd even try it again but the negative stereotypical attitudes that prevail about the cultish goings on at these yoga farms or camps are forever buried. Long live Yoga!!