Isn't India supposed to have better yoga?

I know it does. And I've taken a really incredible class but our stay at the ashram was disappointing. Rishekesh is the birthplace of yoga and the ashram that we were stay stay (called Parmeth Niketan) was supposed to be the best and one of the most famous ashrams in Rishekesh.

Parmeth Niketan hosts a huge ceremony everyday called the aarvti which is a fire ceremony worshiping the river ganges. It was beautiful, with hundreds of people there watching on.

Meanwhile back at the ashram...

We were under the impression that we'd stay there and take part in the ashram life which as I understood it meant yoga, meditation, service, and allot of quiet time.

Unfortunately for us that wasn't the case. They asked us for money up front which is not traditional for an ashram. Generally you have your experience and make a donation at the end of your stay. They insisted we pay up front.

Secondly, our rooms turned out to be.... difficult.

We had a cockroach infestation our first night. The night guard came in and had a cockroach hunt while the girls and I cheered him on. They moved our room that night to a much nicer room upstairs.

The next morning at 6 am we went to our first yoga class. It was super super elementary, very gentle, and I noticed that all of the people in the class were foreigners, there were no Indian students at all. I enjoyed it but I was hoping for a stronger more challenging class. I mean I thought I'd be able to twist myself into a pretzel by the end of my trip. but hey, you can't have everything right?

We were then asked for money again and the price kept changing. We eventually paid what we were quoted for the three nights and went out for lunch. Aly and I went to yoga again in the afternoon under the impression that it would be a more advanced class and more of the community from the ashram would be joining. Also there was supposed to be an hour of meditation put in there.

The yoga class was just about the same and the meditation was laying in corpse pose for 40 minutes. It was disappointing. Oh! and there's a curfew. If you don't get back to the ashram by 10 pm they lock you out and you have to fend for yourself against the cows.

We decided we wanted to leave and move across the river to a different part of Rishekesh to stay with a couple of Jus's friends from England .

So Aly, Dyl, Cait, and I went to the reception desk this morning to ask for a refund and check out. Oh forgot to mention there were 2 more cockroaches and bed bugs in the boys room. They put up a big fuss about giving our money for the third night back. I was very stern :) Aly was assertive, and Dyl and Cait were the muscle and eventually they gave our cash back.

So the ashram was a bit disappointing but it Luciana's birthday today (Jus's friend) so hopefully we'll have a nice dinner and tomorrow we're going rafting down the Ganges!

And tomorrow night we take the train back to Delhi so we can fly to Madras for the last leg of our trip


I'll write soon

hope all is well

K