Hasta la vista, India

I suppose none of us should be too surprised that I just spent an entire month being super zen in India and hardly posted on the blog. As the saying goes, time flies when you're having fun.

I'm already out of the country and in my new temporary home of Argentina, but I wanted to say "goodbye" in writing. Or as they say in spanish (or Austrian if you're Arnold?), "hasta la vista!"

When I left India, I felt like I was the parent obligatorily and guiltily leaving for work as India played the role of the beautiful, fun child holding me by the ankles and begging me to stay and play some more. And by play, I mean something like the "hokey pokey" (hokey cokey for my newUK friends) or twister. After one month of learning how to tell people to put their left hand here, right food there, shake about now, etc., I do kind of feel like I've been playing those games for the past month only under the guise of yoga.

I am going to miss the playtime in India. Even if yoga does become a full-on profession for me, I love it, so it feels like play. I especially loved learning the partner/acro yoga and even when we fell, it was a good laugh. We also got to do a lot of dancing and singing and learning at Ashiyana and it all was very playful.

It wasn't all yoga though, there was also playtime beyond downward dogs. Mostly, there was the beach. The sand was soft, the water was warm, the waves were fairly big, and it was in the 80's or 90's and sunny every day. Perfection. When I'm at the beach I typically limit my time in the ocean to just enough to cool off but in Goa, I would spend a decent amount of time actually swimming and tackling the waves.

Dad, don't read this next part. Goa is probably the most liberal state in India and has so much tourism from Europeans and Russians that nudity on the beach isn't really a big deal. I didn't go full-on, but many of the girls and I did remove our tops when we swam and I have to tell you it was a pretty amazing feeling. If I felt that free swimming topless in the Arabian sea, I can't imagine how the fully-nude elderly hippies doing headstands  in the sand as the sun rose felt. After a visual like that I don't think I need to say this, but if anyone is uncomfortable with nudity, I can tell you that my choice to swim topless would not concern you compared to some of the other "displays" seen on the beaches of Goa. We were born that way though, so get over it. I was honestly a little envious of those people because they just seemed like they might have the least worries in the world. Just doing yoga in their birthday suit on the beach and being super "in the moment." Those are the people that ought to be writing success books.

When I was out of the ocean and back on the sand myself, I was sun bathing of course because we all know how I love a good tan. While lying on the beach, various Indian merchants approach you to buy scarves, drums, produce, ice cream, beads... a little bit of everything. When you aren't in the mood for it, it can be rather obnoxious. When you are in the mood for it, it can be the most convenient shopping experience ever. All of the scarves I bought as gifts for people were on the beach and I also had henna done all up and down my right hand and forearm from the comfort of my beach chair.

I didn't just waste away and shopping on the beach in my free time though. There was also shopping to be done in the markets! On Wednesdays, there is is an afternoon market that a group of us shared a taxi to and it was where I got to practice my haggling skills some more. The general rule was to ask the merchant for a price and then give them a counter offer than basically cut their price in half, and then bargain from there. Sometimes when I'd be trying to get someone to go down from 250 rupees to 200, I would realize that in US dollars I was arguing the difference between $5 and $4 and I would feel a little ridiculous and just give up. It was still going to get the item for far better than I ever would back in the United States.

On the way home from the market, various children covered us in colored powder as part of the Holi festivities and it was a ton of fun and one of the more truly "Indian" things that I feel I got to experience.

The following day, the day of the full moon, was the actual Holi day and Ashiyana did some things so that we could celebrate like provide more color powder for us to play with on the beach and then that night we had a bonfire under the moon. The bonfire was a blast, people were playing bongos and teaching different dances and Katie even came out of nowhere with some amazing fire dancing!

The other popular market to go to was the Anjuna Saturday Night Market, which was less about affordable shopping and more like a big party. There was a stage with live music, lots of food and drink vendors, and this market also featured some Western vendors, meaning some things were a bit more expensive. We found a vendor with wood oven pizza and pounced on a couple of those along with some bottles of beer. While sitting at the bench, and Indian woman about my age kept looking at me and smiling. I finally said "hello" and she proceeded to tell me all about how she was in Goa on holiday with some other girls who she decided to ditch and that she just had a "good feeling" when she saw me so she wanted to say hi. I found out that my new friend Sphoorti is Mumbai, recently divorced, and works for an Indian fashion magazine and blog. Based on her outfit, I completely believe her. We exchanged email addresses and she was sweet enough to invite me to dinner in Mumbai if I had a long enough layover there on my way home. I never did meet her for dinner, but we did email and it's nice to know I have a friend in Mumbai when I do make my way back to India.

I'd already mentioned how I spent some of my free time in Arambol in a previous post, so I'm not going to rehash all of that, but I do want to share another Arambol adventure I'd had. On my last free half-day, I convinced Brianna and Laura to walk that way and quiz one another for the anatomy test we had the following day. We walked past the main part of town we were all familiar with and along a path that went along the cliffside and had some shops and hotels. Once we got to the other side, we found what we'd heard was a fresh water "lake," but it was hardly a lake. We went for a swim then had a beer and some lunch before the other girls made their way back to Ashiyana and I stayed behind because I wanted to find the "magic tree" I'd heard about. The waiter told me to head to the "Om" rock and follow a path just under it into the woods that would lead me to the popular banyan tree where people gathered. Just as I entered the path, an Indian boy of maybe 17 or so chased me from the beach and asked if I'd like I guide. Well, he didn't really ask. He just insisted, started to walk in front of me, and then I had a guide. I will always remember Rohan the Goan as the friendliest, most informative person in the whole entire world. I really lucked out having him take me along because he knew a fact about every tree we passed, every bird we heard... all of it. When we did arrive at the banyan tree, it almost seemed as though the tree was growing out of a giant rock. For all I know it was. That's the one fact that Rohan the Goan did not tell me, although I did learn that the banyan  is the national tree and very significant to Hindus. There was a mix of Indians and Westerners, all with a bohemian "look" to them, sitting around the tree doing a little socializing but mostly just passing some sort of smoking pipe I'd never seen before around and watching Moses the Venezualan do acrobatics high in the tree. It was interesting for sure!

 On the way back from the tree, Rohan showed me a good spot in the stream to stop for an all-natural and free mud bath. I covered my entire upper body and Rohan was "nice" enough to offer to help. Boys will be boys. I declined but I did let him take pictures of me in my mud disguise and he was pretty excited about that.

There is so much more I could share, but that should give a good flavor of how some of the free time in India was spent! Of course some of my favorite times were just hanging out with my new friends over a meal at two of our favorite spots, La Plage and Cafe Nu, or even while fighting over internet bandwidth at Dunes.

I'm going to miss India but it's time for me to focus on the here and now, which is Buenos Aires on Friday morning!