Daily Routine

I have found myself settling into quite the routine. I wake up at 6:15am hang myself upside down for 10-15min. Then do leg stretches for 10-15min. then yoga class starts. Yoga lasts for 3 1/2 to 4 hrs. then off I go for a quick breakfast of bhaji and chai. Then off to Hindi lessons, I have learned quite a few words and now I am starting to form sentences and I am also learning the Hindi script, which I think is very beautiful. The lesson is supposed to last for an 11/2hrs. but he often gets carried away and goes for 2. He is very gruff and stern, stern but fair, I have a wonderful time messing with him when I do something correctly I try to get him to give me a high five. He is not into this at all. He would prefer to hold hands it seems I yell high five!! and he holds out his hand to shake so I adjust and shake then we hold hands for a minute or so, kinda weird but whatever. Then it is time to study which is slightly synonymous with nap. I sit under an umbrella down on the beach and get offered everything from coconuts to t-shirts to freshly pirated movies and Cd's. Then it is lunch time, sometimes I eat on the beach under my umbrella, sometimes I go try something new. I have been eating mostly vegetarian. This has increased my gas ten fold, now I know why Jackson's farts were so bad. I don't have a problem just letting them go however because I am traveling alone so no one is there to reprimand me, except myself, and yes I have gotten made at myself for this. After lunch more napping/studying with some guitar thrown in there as well. At sunset if I am not still at the beach you will find me at my "contemplation" rock. It is located just outside the area where I am staying I need to jump two walls and walk through some thorny bushes then I am there. It collects heat all day and has a perfect place for my butt. I am occasionally visited by a cow or a pig both with utters scrapping on the ground. Then I go hang myself upside down again do some meditation and play some more guitar, or this little drum (I bought down on the beach.) Then dinner sometimes with others sometimes just by myself. I know it sounds pretty hectic doesn't it. Don't worry everybody I will be fine.

India...what a trip!

Well, I have had quite the week so far. Sunday I played at an open mic show had to go on first, it made me kinda nervous. It went well, not my worst performance or my best. Yesterday I was down at the beach after my morning yoga class and daily Bauhji ingestion and two guys with a very well decorated cow came up one playing a drum the other one was playing the kind of flute that the snake charmers uses. The catch was the flute guy sat down on his feet then encouraged the cow to walk up onto his thighs, all this while playing the flute. What a man!!! I also completed my first week of advanced work with Shorat. I think I will be studying here a little while more I guess I just was not meant to see as much of the world as I thought, oh well. I am learning a lot and hopefully I can apply this knowledge to help humanity in some way. While at breakfast they were doing road construction right in front of me the guy is using a large watering pot to apply hot tar they work on about 5 yards at a time they dont set up cones and just try to work around traffic. It was so funny, cars and trucks just drove right through the wet tar most the time not even slowing down.

First photos:

Sunset on beach while waiting for dinner:



Tripy fire dancer chick, you can't tell from the picture, but she had a great smile:





My bunk:


More fire dancing:

Yoga and Things

I have now completed my second day of "advanced" Iyengar yoga with Sharot Aroura. It has been very intense, I wake up at 6am to go hang myself upside down for a half hour. After that class starts. The hardest thing for me are all the standing poses, but as Sharot says nothing changes unless you have a strong foundation. This kind of logic makes a lot of sense to me. I am now living in a hut, my bed is on a 4 in. platform and I have a mosquito net to help keep me free from malaria. I went to a juggling convention and learned the basics of how to fire stick dance. I don't think I will be lighting anything on fire real soon. The vibe of the place was some kind of dungeons and dragons masters seminar. I felt very out of place; so I did what I always do and just jumped in and made pretty much an ass of myself. That night after all the juggling stuff, one of the best classical guitarists I have ever seen played. He was accompanied by a violinist and two different types of drummers. He almost brought tears to my eyes, I don't know what I felt for more the performance or the abuse he was putting on his guitar. It was awesome, different dancers would dance and he would play to their movement. I will have pictures soon. the last ones got erased from my card when I tried to down load them. hopefully with this blog everything will be different, we will see tomorrow.

The Event that Started it All

Happy New Year,

I was going to write on the first to make a fresh start of the new year and all but I am so glad that I didn't. Because there has been so much has happened in such a short time... I have debated with myself as to whether or not to share this story, I will probably regret it but here it goes.

There are these places here called Ayurveda message and treatment centers, they use oils and aroma therapy. It was established in Kerela the lower most state of the sub-continent that is India. The treatment was established to heal the warriors after a hard days battle. Sounds good wouldn't ya say, well that's what I thought.


Not suffering from any ailments to speak of I opted for the full body 75 min. oil message everything from the neck down. On the brochure there was these two girls both very professional looking and somewhat cute. Well, after negotiating a price (because buying anything in this country is a huge hassle) , I sat in the waiting room relaxing trying to get my mind right for my message.

Then my "therapist" walked in. He was slightly overweight in designer jeans, you know the kind that are just way to tight where you don't want them to be, probably made in Bangladesh. He had a real fancy shirt on and a apron over the top of all his business. He looked at me and smiled like he was going to enjoy this way more than I was.

Being in a different culture and experiencing new things can take you to this kind of cross roads from time to time. Feeling secure in my manhood and firmly based in the heterosexual realm, I decided to go through with the message. Everywhere you look down here guys are holding hands leaning on each other and hugging. It is not uncommon to shake a mans hand and have him hold it for an extended period of time.

So I go into the room looking for the loin cloth that the guy in the brochure was wearing... no loin cloth just the slightly rotund masseuse smiling at me waiting for me to drop trough... so I did and I laid down and waited for it all to commence. It started innocent enough he started to oil me up rubbed my shoulders rubbed my back rubbed my ass then rubbed my legs then my ass again then my back back to my ass then my shoulders then back to my ass.

This is when I began to panic.

Again I am in a strange land in a strange place who am I to say this is not how things are? At this point I am completely covered in oil one false slip or one arrant finger and my well established exit door could easily become a... I don't think I need to explain any further. Well after the third pass across my ass region I quickly faked a cramp complained that the table was not big enough and told the guy that I was done. He took me into another room with a bigger table and I still told him that I was ready for the steam bath now. This was all in about 5-10 min. felt like forever.

So after my near sexual assault I went to the beach where 3 different groups of Indian men came up to me asking to take a picture with me, they all commented on how nice my body was, almost totally ignoring the English girl that I was hanging out with, weird but what are you going to do?

On Tuesday I traveled up to this town called Arambol almost everyone here looks like they were an extra in the mad max movies. You have all types the hard core type smoking hash like most people breath, they take the pipe and hold it to their third eye (the space between your eyebrows) with their eyes closed. I had the pleasure of having breakfast next to these guys yesterday the hacked for the better part of two hours - that is about how long it takes to get poached eggs and toast around here, You just need to bring a book and forget that you ordered anything that way you are surprised when it arrives.

Then there are the tree hugging/tree worshiping mad max rejects, they have a little commune where I spent the first part of my new year they began to chant and sing at first I thought cool a drum circle, but then they took a big rock placed pictures around the rock then started to bow and pray to these "Idols" I thought this is weird lets see where they go with this. they turned some sound box on it looks like a small exposed speaker, you can hear what it sounds like on the Beatles albums, the ones where they are all fucked up on acid.

The next day I went to a lake just out of town where you can walk up to a spring and find this yellow clay that you can brake up mix with water and rub all over yourself, it is supposed to have magic healing properties. Pretty great way to start the new year I think. The next day I ended up at an open mic night met this guy named Zuzu he looks like side show Bob from the Simpson's he sung some pretty great songs and played the Ukalaylee.


Well, I am going to try to send some pictures again, If it does not work I will call Aaron and have him help me set up a blog... here it goes. Well I tried, It is a mess I will set up a blog.

Love you all,

-Jim