A blog collage

With 22 Americans from diverse backgrounds exploring India, we naturally had unique experiences while sharing one common adventure. We traveled to India with one collective characteristic: A strong appreciation of yoga borne of experience with Inner Connections Yoga. Yet, after seeing the same sights and sitting in the same yoga workshops, each of us came away with a very different lesson on our personal journey – of yoga and of life.

Please enjoy reading the insights and recollections from some of the members of the India group. It’s been a joy sharing your journey with you and having your company on our's!

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Diane:

First of all, when we first learned that we were going to schedule a trip to India, I happened to mention it to my cousin Nancy in Ohio.  She said immediately, "oh my gosh!  let me know the details, I would love to go!"  I gave her the details on the times, etc. and she said "tell me how much money to send for a deposit".  That's how it all started!  I then learned that Marianne was from the same small town in Ohio that Nancy lives in.  What a small world!  Marianne was traveling back to visit relatives so I asked her if she could possibly meet with my cousin so that someone else could give input to the studio on how cool a person my cousin really is.  That's how it all came to be!

I really appreciated the time that we spent at the ashram.  What an incredible insight into the true study of yoga.  The 1 1/2 inch thick mattress on the wooden bed was a little questionable, however, I did OK in the end.  I enjoyed the simplicity of everything, including the food being served out of stainless steel pails. I had a chance to talk with several people who worked at the ashram and also a few of the Swamis.  What deeply insightful people!  One Swami I spoke with had won a Nobel prize for her studies on ecosystems around the world.  The experience at the ashram made me feel spiritually connected on a more global level somehow.  Hard to explain I guess.

As often happens, the one thing that we were not looking forward to very much, turned out to be the most enjoyable.  That was the 10 hour train ride to Agra.  Being on a local train and watching the many farms and little villages and many, many people was very enjoyable.  We changed seats many times and were sitting next to different groups of people on the entire trip.  I thought that I would sleep for most of the trip, however, it was so much fun to experience the ride with so many people and talk with them, that I ended up napping for maybe 10 minutes. 

Looking forward to the wedding of Don and Renee was truly a highlight on the trip.  It was so romantic and spiritual and fun all mixed together.  The wedding feast at the snack shack was so magical with the bonfire and fireworks and everyone letting loose and dancing and having a good time.

One evening, we stopped at one of the 'handicraft’ shops which are the nicer shops (a little more upscale than the street shopping).  Nancy and I were with Marianne and Jo.  We were all tired and getting punchy.  The salesman had quite an accent and he used the word 'silk' a million times but added an extra syllable so it came out as 'silik'.  Everytime he said it, Nancy started busting out giggling which of course made me giggle all the more.  The poor guy had no idea what was so funny and I had to get up and walk away before I had an accident and wet my pants!

The first morning in Goa, I got up early to practice yoga on the beach.  It was raining softly.  I walked down to the beach with Michael and we sat under the snack shack.  It then started to absolutely pour down in buckets with rain.  It was a magical, beautiful, moving time to watch the ocean and meditate while listening to the rain.  Again, a not so good-looking situation turns beautiful!

I love traveling with the ICY group!  It had been so fun to get to know different people in the group. Having the yoga connection somehow adds a special bond with everyone.  I first asked for the trip to Fiji for my 50th birthday gift.  What a brilliant idea on my part!  Of course, it only makes sense to travel every year to fun and exotic destinations! The trips are a great opportunity for me to have 'me' time away from home and away from my busy work.

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Nancy:

My India Trip:  A lesson in consumption

A billion people live in India, mostly in harmony.  They have a remarkable composure for the other half.  There are resources enough to make do.  However, in the past 20 years the sleeping Indian tiger has begun to consume.

The US has a population of 300 million.  We consume 75% (roughly) of the world’s resources.

As a reflection, I would like to suggest that the next time we insist on a hot shower, ice in our drink or bottled filtered water, keep in mind the following information:  energy is needed for these luxuries.  The ice in our drinks is casually tossed and the plastic bottle that will for perpetuity be in a land fill, used massive amounts of petroleum to manufacture.

The US prides itself in water treatment facilities and sewer treatment plants.  Our tap water is clean please purchase a water filter for your personal use.  Think India.

There is a plastic gyre (Google it) in the Pacific Ocean.  It is larger than the state of Texas and roughly a mile deep.  The next time you casually dispose of that plastic, remember the heaping piles of garbage we saw in India.

I loved this trip for putting my privileged life into perspective.  My wish is that it has done the same for you.  Live simply so that others may simply live.

Namaste,

Nancy Grandillo

December 13, 2010

Mumbai, India

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Renee:

It is so difficult to sum up into words all the feelings and experiences we were so fortunate to have during our trip. Reflecting back, it was all so well put together and everything just fell into place. The 3 day visit to the ashram was a wonderful starting point, a "welcome" to India, easing into our trip and really getting to know each other. We learned so much about the importance of breathing, meditation and yoga in a wonderful, tranquil setting, unlike any other I have ever experienced. It was the perfect start.

In the cities we travelled to, we were amazed by the dense populations, the culture and history, smiling and waving faces everywhere, and completely different sounds and smells. Cars driving 5-6 tight lanes across what were 3 lane roads…yet it all worked. Amazing.

The Taj Mahal was almost surreal -- to be standing there, marveling at the craftsmanship and beauty of this magnificent structure, hardly believing we were actually there! Finding out about the translucent marble it is built of, seeing the details and mind-boggling work of the inlaid gems, and the amazing attention to the most miniscule details of building it left us in awe.

Lastly, we came away with a group of new and hopefully life-long friends, an amazing group of people who with heartfelt joy and happiness shared in our wedding, enveloped us with kindness, thoughtful gestures and came together for an unforgettable celebration.

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Jo:

When my son and daughter in law returned from a wedding in India a year ago, they commented that India was magical so I was eager to experience it for myself.   I think that we have now all seen some of the magic of India in many ways --the way that the people of Old Delhi manage their lives with such determination to survive; the way that is seems everything in India has special meaning and symbolism; the way, at the ashram, that we all learned to relax our " tighs" and to stare with relaxation at our navel center;  the way that the Taj Mahal is so incredibly intricate and indescribably beautiful and romantic and that the laborers were so skilled, inventive, and tenacious hundreds of years ago; that the electricity comes back on after going off!;  the way that a beautiful American couple had a fabulous impromptu wedding on the beach of Goa that couldn't have been any better if planned by professional wedding planner for months!

There has been magic in the smiles of people who have greeted us and allowed us to take their photos, and the gorgeous colors and magnificent beauty of the clothing worn by the Indian women and children, and the comfy pajamas worn by our guys.  There was a serene, sad magical beauty in the fire ceremony on the Ganges River in Rishikesh.  There is magic in the creativity of the flower arranging and the kindness and loving care that so many people have shown us.

There was truly magic in yoga class on the beach in Goa, especially with the amazing savasana with the special words matched to the waves washing in and out.  And what magic of having precious young Indian children join in our yoga class outside our hotel in Mumbai --an inspiring international yoga experience, and John and Michael joining in with young Indian boys' soccer game!

And it will certainly be a magic trick if we can get home with all the things we have bought!!

We want to express our heartfelt appreciation and gratitude to John and Jeanne for making all these magical experiences possible and for lovingly and calmly herding all of us cats without losing any of us or our bags – and doing it all with such grace and humor!

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Our time in India was intensely packed with sensory stimuli, historical lessons and spiritual musings. For many of us, like Marianne, “this might have been the MOST all around "bestest" trip ever!" Yet, there were parts of the experience that were challenging. As Marianne says: "I'm still digesting the trip and India. I've been to 3^rd world countries but was stunned at the extreme poverty there. The bright colors of the clothing competing with the grime and busy lifestyle…are daunting to me.” 

It will require time to comprehend what we’ve learned more completely. So please check back in with us from time to time for updates and understandings as time goes on…    

To view photos of our trip, please become a fan of the Inner Connections Yoga Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Inner-Connections-Yoga/294275506729

Lessons from Mumbai

Even more than the rest of India, Mumbai was an experience of immense contrasts. Maybe that’s understandable given its eclectic history. The city was called “Bombay” until 1995, a name meaning “Good Bay” bestowed on it by the first Portuguese explorers in the 1400’s. At that point, “Bom Baim” was not a single place but a series of seven separate islands in the Arabian Sea that were later merged by land reclamation. Today, the land (of the conglomerated islands) that supports metropolitan Mumbai is only 14 miles long and 3 miles across, yet houses over 16 million people. It’s a city with one-third of its population living in slums, while gigantic billboards advertising “state-of-the-art luxury communities” tower over nearly every street corner. Out the left side of the bus windows we could see a man among the exposed cement-and-rebar of a semi-completed building washing two young boys in loin cloths with water from a plastic mixing bowl. Meanwhile, on the right-hand side of the road was a billboard showing a well-dressed, seductive-looking business woman with text that read: “Platinum. Very rare. Very you.”…

We arrived in Mumbai in the evening following the short flight from Goa. It was Ginger’s birthday, so we sang to her on the bus ride from the airport, and John presented her with a pyramid-shaped bouquet of flowers. Our hotel was a high-rise decorated in an ultra-modern theme with a glass elevator climbing the full height of the lobby and plant stands of various heights adorned with stones, water and flowers. The rooms were furnished with surprisingly appealing wooden art deco furniture in colors like mustard yellow and matte black.  

The first order of business was our yoga practice, an event which had become slightly urgent due to the oncoming darkness. We would be practicing in a small city park a short distance from the hotel, and we had no idea if the area would be lit after sunset. The park, rather tiny by our standards, nevertheless contained a startling amount of people engaged in diverse activities. Two older men and a woman walked brisk laps on the sidewalk around the small area of grass; a veritable horde of excited kids arrived with a couple I assumed were the grandparents; younger kids played games like tag among the gazebo-shaped marble pavilions, while the older kids (mostly boys) played a boisterous game of soccer in the adjoining dirt lot and older girls giggled and whispered behind their hands.

Only a short distance from a four-lane road packed with cars, motorbikes, rickshaws and smoke-belching buses, we could hear the sounds of traffic and see the sleek skyscrapers looming over us on almost every side. More than once, a stray soccer ball landed in the midst of our Emerging Butterflies or kids skirted among us as we lay in our Spinal Twists…and yet…it was one of the most powerful yoga practices I’ve ever had! Because there was room for all of us. Though the park was tiny and the grass sparse, and the games were active and loud and the kids were many…there was space enough for all of us to do what we felt was important while everybody else was doing the same. This, I realized, was one of the main lessons I would take home from India, a crowded country of opposites. Respectful co-existence, I realized, was how the country contained such extremes of technology and tradition, history and progress, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Jainists, Christians… 

When we finally moved to seated, then standing, poses after a long time spent doing stretches and breathing on the ground with our eyes closed we saw that several of the kids had joined our practice. It was hard to keep from laughing out loud as we watched them watching us with curiosity and mimicking our movements! At the end of the practice, we invited them to join us in a circle and we all honored each other in the only way understood by all: a bow with hands in prayer position at heart-center and a friendly “Namaste.”       

 After checking out of the hotel in the morning, we had nearly a full day before we needed to be at the airport to start the long journey back to the U.S., so we toured Mumbai. Our first stop was the sprawling, outdoor laundry. Our guide told us that, historically, Indians built “ghats,” stone staircases to the river bank where they can perform ceremonies as well as do their laundry (and suddenly all the staircases I had seen along the sacred Ganga in Rishikesh suddenly made sense). Without that option in Mumbai, the solution was the cement and cinderblock outdoor laundry: Acres and acres of clothes and sheets drying in the wind, while underneath, men in loincloth-type things beat the wet clothes clean while standing ankle-deep in tubs of soapy water.

Next we went to “the house of Gandhi.”  Though it was not, in fact, Gandhi’s house, it was a place where he’d stayed over the course of many years whenever he was in Mumbai. At that time, the house had belonged to one of Gandhi’s friends, and today it is a museum that honors Gandhi’s work. Its three levels were packed with books on civil disobedience, racial equality and treatises written by Gandhi, plus rudimentary panoramas depicting the pivotal moments in Gandhi’s life using clay figures in glass fish tanks. Ancient posters and original newspaper articles hung in frames on the walls to document some of the activities leading to India’s independence from Britain (achieved in 1947) and Gandhi’s assassination by a Hindu nationalist (in 1948).

All in all, it looked like the museum had received no significant funding in the last thirty years. My first reaction on seeing the inside of the museum was a sense of disappointment and mild outrage that a museum to such an important person as Gandhi could be so shabby. Surely, there should be monuments in marble (as big as the Lincoln Memorial) or buildings of city blocks painted with murals, and lots of state-of-the-art learning programs at the museum for Gandhi! Daily fireworks shows! Live symphonies! Interactive computer displays!...

…and then I came to the part of the museum that was a replica of Gandhi’s quarters while he lived in that house:  A single room with a bare floor and white walls, a pallet of blankets for sleeping, and no furniture except spinning wheels and a stunted table for writing while seated on the hard floor. And suddenly the rustic and simple museum felt more appropriate.

Next, we walked through the “Hanging Gardens” of Mumbai, so named (not because of any hanging going on) but because of its position at one of the highest points in the city. It was a huge stretch of topiary bushes and pampered flowers, separated by wide gravel pathways and overlooked on all sides by ritzy high-rises. From the far end of the garden, we could see the pillared sky-scraper of the third richest man in the world who occupied then entire 20-plus story building with just his family. Then we crossed a busy road to another section garden, this one with only grass and trees – and a two-level replica of the shoe from the nursery rhyme. There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many children she didn’t know what to do…

After taking a few pictures of this novelty, we enjoyed the view from an overlook that made we realize for the first time how high we really were. Far below, we could see miles of coastline, the white sand and slate-colored water simply broad swaths of uniform color from this distance. A semi-circle of skyscrapers stood facing the ocean impassively, as well as a gorgeous, domed palace-like building, which we found out later was a hospital.

We ate another immense, gourmet lunch, this time at a restaurant with ceilings so low that the men in our group had to duck to keep from bonking their heads. After that we had only a short amount of time before we needed to begin the hour-and-a-half drive, through the perpetually jammed-up Mumbai traffic, to the airport. We spent the time shopping on a street packed with vendor carts and fabric stores. Actually, I don’t think many people got much shopping done, veritably trapped in the throng of people, constantly waylaid by spice hawkers and tea wallas and young women begging with babies on their hips.

And before we knew it, it was time to go. Our time in India was nearly over.

To see photos of our trip, please visit our Facebook album at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=271796&id=294275506729&l=894d81c871

About Inner Connections Yoga
Inner Connections Yoga, in Castle Rock, Colorado since 2002, is a place where the ancient traditions of Hatha yoga are brought into the experience of our modern lives. John and Jeanne Adams, the studio owners, help their clients to unite the interconnecting aspects of body, breath and spirit, and also connect yoga enthusiasts in a supportive, friendly community. Every year, Inner Connections leads a group yoga trip to an international location. Past trips have included Brazil, Fiji, Honduras and Costa Rica. For more information, please visit http://www.innerconnectionsyoga.com/.

A Beautiful Beach Wedding

From Jaipur, we were taken by bus to the airport, where we caught our flight to Mumbai (one and a half hours), then transferred to our flight to Goa (one more hour). We were staying at a beach resort about twenty minutes from the airport. The road there was so curvy and the jungle so dense, it was hard for me to believe we were anywhere near the ocean. I looked out when we reached the top of a hill and could see nothing but an endless sea of palm trees! But soon enough we arrived at our hotel, and from the open-walled lobby filled with fresh-cut flowers, we could see the sand of the beach and smell the salt water.

It was an overcast evening and still I was dripping with sweat by the time I got my bags unloaded in my room. Arid Colorado certainly does nothing to prepare one for beach humidity... Most everybody dumped their bags and made a beeline for the shore to enjoy the last little bit of daylight over the Arabian Sea. (The Arabian Sea?! It sounds so exotic!) A large number of us ended up at the same ramshackle-looking restaurant on the beach for a dinner of fresh seafood, served under a plywood roof decorated with gold Christmas lights. Still, the food was so delicious and the owner and servers so friendly, Renee and Don decided this would be the ideal location for their wedding reception the following evening.

Before dawn the following morning, many of our group went down to the beach for a guided meditation followed by a yoga practice (though others in the group stayed comfortably in bed!). We realized as we walked there what we hadn't been able to tell looking out from our hotel rooms before leaving: It was cold and misty and not beach weather at all! By the time we started our yoga class, it had begun to rain in earnest. While some people continued to enjoy their yoga practice in the rain, others sought shelter in the restaurant we had eaten in the night before. Little did we know, but the servers we had enjoyed so much at dinner were seasonal workers from Nepal, and they were sound asleep on cots among the tables. When our wet group came storming in we scared them half to death.

Most of us had been looking forward to spending the day on the beach, but with the weather being so uncooperative, we found other activities to occupy ourselves with (card games, Yahtzee, spa treatments, etc.) while we kept an anxious eye on the leaking sky, wondering how tonight's wedding would fare in the rain. But towards early afternoon, the rain stopped, and by 5:30 (when the ladies congregated in the lobby to escort the bride to the beach), the ground had even begun to dry.

The bride, Renee, had opted for a knee-length hot-pink tunic worn over tan pants, and the rest of the ladies followed her lead, wearing dresses in the brightest colors, many in Indian-inspired styles. Clustered together for pictures, we looked like a bouquet of tropical flowers. The groom and the other men - who were already in position down on the beach - were wearing Indian outfits called "suits." These were not at all like our American concept of (business) suits and closer to our idea of pajamas: baggy white pants worn under a long, white tunic.

To get to where the men were waiting, the women had a long walk together through the landscaped resort, down a curving flagstone pathway, over a bridge and across the sand. When the men caught sight of the flower-colored women crossing the sand, followed at the very last by the happy bride, their eyes nearly popped out of their faces.

Renee and Don stood beside John who officiated the wedding, and the rest of us joined them and formed a circle. John spoke about Don and Renee's unique love story, and about the role of us, their friends, to help support the couple in their marriage. Then Don and Renee each took a lit candle and made their way around the circle, lighting the candles the rest of us carried floating in clear glasses of water. As the sun set, Don and Renee spoke their vows to one another and, following an Indian tradition, Don bestowed a wedding necklace on Renee in addition to the ring they had chosen together in Jaipur. After the bride and groom kissed and the rest of us applauded (and a couple of men rode by on horseback), it was time to move on to the party.

We walked down the beach to where the restaurant waited, lit by Christmas lights and candles, the long table decorated with flowers. There, each of us guests (and the restaurant owner!) signed the marriage certificate as witnesses. For the wedding toasts, we enjoyed a drink called fensi, a local alcohol mixed with coconut water and sipped through a straw directly from the coconut. Then we ate an endless amount of food: garlic-basted prawns served in the shell, veggies deepfried in chickpea batter, sea bass with a spiced chutney, rice, naan, saucy spicy vegetables... After dinner, we enjoyed firworks under the clearing sky, a dazzling bonfire, and dancing on the beach to the music of Bob Marley and Indian rock.

Love and namaste, Don and Renee!

To see pictures from our trip, please visit the Inner Connections Yoga Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=271422&id=294275506729&l=2dcf5ef4b1


About Inner Connections Yoga
Inner Connections Yoga, in Castle Rock, Colorado since 2002, is a place where the ancient traditions of Hatha yoga are brought into the experience of our modern lives. John and Jeanne Adams, the studio owners, help their clients to unite the interconnecting aspects of body, breath and spirit, and also connect yoga enthusiasts in a supportive, friendly community. Every year, Inner Connections leads a group yoga trip to an international location. Past trips have included Brazil, Fiji, Honduras and Costa Rica. For more information, please visit www.InnerConnectionsYoga.com.

Getting ready for a secret wedding

I've been keeping a secret.

A week or so before we were set to leave for India, Don and Renee shared with us the exciting news that they would be tying the knot on the trip. The upcoming wedding has been the subject of lots of enthusiastic discussions and planning as we've traveled - so much so that I think the rest of the members of our group were as excited as the bride and groom about their upcoming nuptials. The promise of a wedding to celebrate and the re-affirmation of the power of love to transform us added an entirely new dimension to the trip. Many activities during our day in Jaipur were divided between sightseeing, shopping for souvenirs, and doing various wedding preparations.

At the museum in the City Palace, which also had a large gift shop of traditional handicrafts, Renee bought her wedding dress. (Don't tell the groom who wouldn't see it until the wedding ceremony, but the "dress" was actually a beautifully-embroidered dukha, a long tunic-like shirt worn over pants. In Indian culture, red is the color traditionally worn by brides, but pink and orange are colors that signify good luck and prosperity.)

Our hotel in Jaipur was breathtaking. A "historic hotel," it was once a wealthy home during the British occupation, and it is still imbued with the opulence and grandeur of wealth, plus the rich sense of personality of things that are very old. Everywhere you looked, its cream-colored walls disappeared into gables and columns and pavilions. Around seemingly every corner was a serene courtyard, often with a white marble fountain or a stately, shady tree in its center. There were niches and alcoves decorated with stained glass or pristine bowls of water on which blossoms of assorted colors floated. After our exhausting day seeing so many great sights in Jaipur, it was soothing and restorative to return to its calm seclusion.

But the activities were far from finished, not by a long shot. It was time for the bachelorette party.

While the men contented themselves with a yoga practice followed by a puppet show of traditional Indian marionettes in the central courtyard, the women took over the gabled pavilion alongside the pool. There, we took turns having our palms and arms decorated with henna by two local women experienced with this Indian wedding tradition. According to custom, the artist who painted the bride hid the groom's initials among the flower-and-vine motifs on Renee's hand. Historically, the groom wouldn't find them until the wedding night.

The thick, wet henna was applied through tubes, much like those used for decorating with cake frosting. For a couple of hours while the henna was drying, our painted hands smelled deliciously of cloves and we had difficulty unscrewing the cap from the wine bottle!

When the henna dried, it became crusty and began to flake off, especially where the skins wrinkled with movement. At about that time, we again departed the hotel and accompanied Renee and Don en masse to a jewelry emporium to buy their wedding rings. And everywhere we went in the jewelry store, we left a trail of henna flaking off...

Then it was time for dinner, a delicious meal served, as usual, in family-style, and (as usual, it was more than we could eat. After dinner there was live music and dancing by women in be-jeweled gowns and veils that glittered when they twirled.They performed with one, two and even three silver water urns balanced on their heads!

To see pictures from our trip, please visit the Inner Connections Yoga Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=270483&id=294275506729

About Inner Connections Yoga
Inner Connections Yoga, in Castle Rock, Colorado since 2002, is a place where the ancient traditions of Hatha yoga are brought into the experience of our modern lives. John and Jeanne Adams, the studio owners, help their clients to unite the interconnecting aspects of body, breath and spirit, and also connect yoga enthusiasts in a supportive, friendly community. Every year, Inner Connections leads a group yoga trip to an international location. Past trips have included Brazil, Fiji, Honduras and Costa Rica. For more information, please visit www.InnerConnectionsYoga.com.

Jaipur, City of Royalty

In every way, Jaipur was amazing. In 1883 the entire city was painted pink (the color of welcome) in preparation for a visit from Prince Albert, which earned Jaipur the nickname it carries to this day: the Pink City. It has another characteristic that's unusual for a city built in 1728: it was laid out on a grid pattern. Driving down the wide, straight streets, flanked by pink walls and complimented from time to time by beautiful stone archways over the road, I felt like I was wandering through a labyrinthine Dr. Seuss illustration.

But Jaipur was also one of the dirtiest and poor-seeming places we've been, which only added to the sensation of being lost in a Dr. Seuss book. The dusty roads were littered with trash, the sidewalks sometimes busy with begging children with dirt-smudged faces and people crippled by polio, navigating the city in ingenious ways (like seating themselves on skateboards and pushing along with their hands).

Our first stop in Jaipur was short. We stopped at the Hawa Mahal (the Palace of Winds) just long enough to take pictures of this rose-colored building with its 953 niches and windows surmounted by awnings that looked like cake frosting. Overall, the image the architecture called to mind was a cumulus cloud at sunrise. In functionality, however, the "Palace" of Winds was not anything that romantic. It was simply a facade built over the building in which the women of the royal household were kept in seclusion, and its delicate windows provided the only link they had with the outside world.

We didn't have the time to tour inside because we were in a hurry. You see, we had an elephant to catch.

The Amber Fort, about 7 miles outside of Jaipur, is a hulking fortress perched high above the valley below it, once the home of the area's original inhabitants, the Minas. The enormous, reddish ramparts far above us and the wide stone road switchbacking up the steep incline and passing under massive gateways along the way were nearly overwhelming. The distance and the steepness of the climb would have been as physically daunting to us as they had been to the Jaipur's enemies (until 1728 when it served as the state's capitol) if we didn't already have a ride arranged!

Our "lift" was a fleet of Indian elephants, whose heads, faces and trunks had been decorated with fushia flowers, green leaves and decorative, abstract symbols. To mount the elephants, we climbed onto their backs from a platform at least 10 feet above the ground. Each elephant was captained by a white-clad man in a red turban seated on the animal's neck and shoulders. We rode - two people to an elephant - on padding that served as a saddle and thankfully equipped with a little, protective railing. Even so, there were moments on the journey upwards when I felt in danger of falling off!

As we climbed, we had a stunning view of valley, the river, the ornamental ponds and the wall that rode all the surrounding hills like the knobs on an alligator's back. The wall, similar to the Great Wall of China was an ingenious solution for the pacifistic Hindus who had not wanted to execute prisoners of war and instead put them to work.

The Amber Fort was incredible, perhaps my favorite experience so far. Inside the immense ramparts stretched a wide, open stone plaza where vendors made sales from baskets of flowers in every color. We seemed to be climbing different stairs endlessly (like an M.C. Esher painting) as we made our way through the city of red stone. There were great pillars, pavilions and shaded viewpoints over the scenic arid landscape. Most incredible was the Shish Mahal, the palace of mirrors. There, unbelievably detailed decorations were inlaid into the walls with glittering mirrors. Our guide explained that, during the winter, the open walls were draped with insulating carpet and the women of the palace performed jingling dances in candle-light...and our imaginations took flight imagining how even a single candle, reflecting off the sparkling ceiling, gave the impression of being out under the boundless stars.

After zigzagging our way down the backside of the fort hill (in taxis since descending with a load of people on their backs is too hard on the elephants), we again climbed into our "Tourist" bus to head to the City Palace. In addition to being made into a museum open to the public, the palace continues to serve as the residence of Jaipur's royal family. The guide book says, the royal residence is "built in a blend of Rajasthani and Mughal styles which houses a museum with a superb collection of Rajasthani costumes and armory... It has an art gallery with an excellent collection miniature paintings, carpets, royal paraphernalia and rare astronomical works. My favorite part was the Pritam Niwas Chowk, or "Peacock Gallery," in which each of the courtyard's four doorways is painted with the brilliant patterns and colors of peacock plumage. One of the doorways even has sculpted peacocks, like vigilant, sentries, overlooking all who pass through.

After that, we visited the Jantar Mantar, "an astrological and astronomical observatory built by Maharaja Jai Singh in the 18th century, which is remarkable for it's accuracy even in present times." From a distance, the instruments of the observatory called to mind a modern-day skateboard park, but on closer inspection, the objects (which had looked like a halfpipe and other bizarre-shaped obstacles to jump off), were actually beautifully-constructed instruments. There were 16 instruments in all, each with a specific purpose in the study of the movements of stars and planets. Several people in our group said the observatory was their favorite part of the trip. Glen said he could "feel" the history of the place at the Jantar Mantar. "You could just see the the men in their long robes out there, reading the instruments and excited about science," he said.

To see pictures from our trip, please visit the Inner Connections Yoga Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=268765&id=294275506729

About Inner Connections Yoga
Inner Connections Yoga, in Castle Rock, Colorado since 2002, is a place where the ancient traditions of Hatha yoga are brought into the experience of our modern lives. John and Jeanne Adams, the studio owners, help their clients to unite the interconnecting aspects of body, breath and spirit, and also connect yoga enthusiasts in a supportive, friendly community. Every year, Inner Connections leads a group yoga trip to an international location. Past trips have included Brazil, Fiji, Honduras and Costa Rica. For more information, please visit www.InnerConnectionsYoga.com.

The Taj Mahal and Other Wonders

Our day in Agra began almost as early as it had at the ashram, and before dawn we were standing outside the towering doors to the Taj Mahal. It was the perfect time to be there because we managed to avoid the thickest crowds and had the chance to watch the color of the marble palace evolve from bone white in the hazy dawn to a glowing ivory in the rising sun.

My guide book describes the Taj Mahal as: “the summation of Mughal architecture. Its proportions are stunningly simple. Its height is equal to the plinth on which it stands. The height of its façade is equal to the height of the bulbous dome above it.” It was built between 1631 and 1648 by Emperor Shah Jahan as a monument to his wife of 19 years, Mumtaz. The guide book goes on to explain that “white marble, brought from Makrana 300 km (186 miles) away in Rajasthan, adds to its ethereal beauty. So do the floral decorations, bands of black marble Arabic calligraphy and carved marble screens.”

What my guide book cannot even begin to describe is how truly awe-inspiring this legendary place is in person. Across the expanse of the still, rectangular pools and perfectly-manicured, symmetrical gardens, the palace looked like something from a dream. As we approached, we could make out the red flowers and the green vines adorning its walls and, close-up we could see the incredible workmanship of these images made, not in paint, but out of polished precious stones.

We left the Taj Mahal just as it was becoming truly crowded and took a bus to the Agra Fort. The fort is another “high point of Mughal architecture.” From the outside, the red stone of the ramparts look predictably austere and imposing, yet inside the fort is stunningly elegant and feminine. It has delicate archways of white marble inlaid with jeweled designs, rose-colored palaces, pavilions and tranquil gardens.

In Agra, we found ourselves face-to-face for the first time on this trip with the poverty and filth for which India is infamous. At each of our stops, our group was surrounded by swarms of persistent hawkers and beggars, and from the high bus windows, the littler looked nearly as pervasive as the pavement. It was a stark contrast to the wealth of the palaces we’d spent the day exploring.

Following lunch we rode an hour on the bus to Fatehpur Sikri, a red sandstone city built by Emperor Akbar in 1569. Surprisingly, despite its beautiful architecture and imposing location high on a hill above the dry plains, it had served as the capitol for 15 short years before it was abandoned. We got back to the bus right at sunset and rode the remaining 4 hours to Jaipur in the dark.

To see pictures from our trip, please visit the Inner Connections Yoga Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=268762&id=294275506729

About Inner Connections Yoga
Inner Connections Yoga, in Castle Rock, Colorado since 2002, is a place where the ancient traditions of Hatha yoga are brought into the experience of our modern lives. John and Jeanne Adams, the studio owners, help their clients to unite the interconnecting aspects of body, breath and spirit, and also connect yoga enthusiasts in a supportive, friendly community. Every year, Inner Connections leads a group yoga trip to an international location. Past trips have included Brazil, Fiji, Honduras and Costa Rica. For more information, please visit www.InnerConnectionsYoga.com.

The Fire Ceremony

On Sunday afternoon we left the stillness of the ashram to take on the crowded bustle of Rishikesh for the evening Fire Ceremony.

We piled into motorized rickshaws and bounced into town, zigzagging around cattle, dogs, potholes, bicycles of fruit, men walking with bags of rice or cement balanced on their heads, women with firewood tied to their backs, motorcycles, trucks, orange-clothed Hindu priests, bulldozers…even a monkey eating a popsicle! After so much meditation and quiet instruction, so many sounds were almost obscene. By the time we dismounted in Rishikesh, we had become so accustomed to shouting to be heard over the buzz of the motor, we had to remind ourselves to speak in normal voices.

We made our way down a narrow row of shops butting up against the many flights of steps down to the River Ganga. There was much shopping to be had in closet-sized stores packed full of scarves, incense and jewelry. There were Ayurvedic pharmacies with thousand-year old remedies for seemingly every affliction and shops selling nothing but marigolds. We passed stores of religious art, shelves and shelves of statues gazing calmly over the people passing by: the monkey-faced Hanuman, Shiva with his many arms, the elephant-headed Ganesh, son of the gods Shiva and Parvati. Some of us crossed the Ganga on a narrow bridge that seemed like a foot bridge – until the motorcycles came racing through as if the hundreds of people were merely a human obstacle course.

On the opposite side, we sat resting our feet on benches overlooking the Ganga and watching the endless stream of brightly-dressed pedestrians on the bridge. Soon a horde of excited boys came swarming around us, and the man with them explained that they were students from Lucknow who wanted their picture taken with us. We smiled and posed for dozens of pictures, feeling like movie stars, before their teacher ushered them on.

At sunset, we gathered as a group and took a boat to the other side of the river. Before boarding, we bought little bowls made out of leaves and filled with marigolds, plus a single wick awaiting a flame. These, we were told, were offering to bless the “incarnations” of our ancestors that they might achieve “moksa,” freedom from the cycle of existence. Later, we would light them and set them afloat to carry our blessings down the sacred Ganga.

On the far side of the river, we made our way down another narrow street of shops to the “ghat” in front of the Parmath Niketan Ashram, a giant white marble archway framing yet another set of steps descending to the water’s edge. On top of the archway was an ornate sculpture of a horse-drawn chariot. From a short distance out into the river, an enormous stone Shiva (that I guessed to be 15 or 20 feet tall) sat cross-legged on a platform, watching the ceremony with a tranquil expression. Dozens of boys in saffron-colored robes – who looked to range in age from 8 or 9 to young men – were seated up and down the stairs, swaying to the music of an accordion-type instrument, a bongo drum, and a man singing into a microphone. We removed our shoes and moved among them until we found seats.

The Fire Ceremony, the Ganga Aarti, occurs every night in Rishikesh as a way of honoring ancestors. It consists of a couple hours of music, while an eclectic group of people sat around a square fireplace and tossed herbs, mixed with ghee, into the flames. Soon into the ceremony, the ashram’s high guru entered with much fanfare, his flowing orange robes and long bushy hair making him look the perfect picture of a holy man. He seated himself at the microphone and took over the singing and chanting. The sound was at times mournful and at times celebratory and always emotionally-stirring.

Once it was fully dark, the yellow-clad boys, students from the ashram, lit lanterns that they passed through the crowd, instructing us on how to hold them aloft while circling them through the air. At the ceremony’s conclusion, we lit the wicks in our marigold-filled bowls and released them in the river’s gentle current. Then we made our way through orange-clothed beggars lining each side of the street and across the bridge to find rickshaw taxis back to our ashram.

To get from Rishikesh to Agra the next day, we took an early morning train for eight hours, sharing a sleeper car with a community of roaches, who were numerous and very active…but thankfully not very large.

To see pictures from our trip, please visit the Inner Connections Yoga Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Castle-Rock-CO/Inner-Connections-Yoga/294275506729

About Inner Connections Yoga
Inner Connections Yoga, in Castle Rock, Colorado since 2002, is a place where the ancient traditions of Hatha yoga are brought into the experience of our modern lives. John and Jeanne Adams, the studio owners, help their clients to unite the interconnecting aspects of body, breath and spirit, and also connect yoga enthusiasts in a supportive, friendly community. Every year, Inner Connections leads a group yoga trip to an international location. Past trips have included Brazil, Fiji, Honduras and Costa Rica. For more information, please visit www.InnerConnectionsYoga.com.

Jaipur and Agra

Photos of Jaipur and Agra are posted on our Facebook page. Please check them out!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=268765&id=294275506729&l=b71b4b471b

The busiest vacation ever

We've been so busy the last few days, I haven't had time to write and only found (very slow) internet this morning! Since leaving Rishikesh, we've spent 8 hours on a train, toured the Taj Mahal,  the Agra Fort and Fatehpur Sikri in Agra, spent about 10 hours on buses, visited the Amber Fort, the Hawa Mahal, the Gel (Jel?) Mahal, the City Palace and the Jantar Mantar in Jaipur. (And I can't even document the amount of shopping and eating we've managed to squeeze in!)

All the experiences have been mind-blowing. I don't know if I can adequately describe them, but I will do a real blog post as soon as I can. Thank you for all your loving thoughts!

To see pictures from our trip, please visit the Inner Connections Yoga Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Castle-Rock-CO/Inner-Connections-Yoga/294275506729

About Inner Connections Yoga
Inner Connections Yoga, in Castle Rock, Colorado since 2002, is a place where the ancient traditions of Hatha yoga are brought into the experience of our modern lives. John and Jeanne Adams, the studio owners, help their clients to unite the interconnecting aspects of body, breath and spirit, and also connect yoga enthusiasts in a supportive, friendly community. Every year, Inner Connections leads a group yoga trip to an international location. Past trips have included Brazil, Fiji, Honduras and Costa Rica. For more information, please visit www.InnerConnectionsYoga.com.

Learning to breathe

We arrived at our ashram just in time for lunch, a meal of rice, naan, yellow lentils, and curried cauliflower served on stainless steel plates. We ate off low wooden tables seated on the floor on orange carpets. (Orange, it turns out is an important color in India. It is the color worn by Hindu priests and ashram "swamis," who are people who have studied yoga for at least 12 years and taken vows to renounce worldly things and serve others.) Lunch, like all meals at the ashram, was supposed to be eaten in silence, though our chatty group of 22 people didn't manage that too well!

After lunch we were taught breathing exercises to aid with digestion. Being American, we were told, and fully entrenched in the habit of chest breathing instead of diaphragmatic breathing, we were more likely to have digestive difficulties and stomach problems. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening, cross-legged on the floor, listening to instruction on the basics of meditation, doing exercises for diaphragmatic breathing and watching a movie about Swami Rama. Dinner was virtually identical to lunch. Then it was time for evening prayers, and we collapsed into bed by 9:30, so exhausted that we didn't even care that the beds were simply wooden boards covered by quilted pads.

The wake-up bell rang at 4:15 the next morning for the morning chanting followed by Hatha yoga joint and gland exercises. It was an hour and a half of seemingly simple movements - like rolling our eyes, circling our wrists and massaging our faces - that had a surprisingly powerful effect on our bodies. After that we did breathing exercises, meditation (guided or self practice) and finally - 4 hours after waking up - it was time for breakfast.

The faculty who led our classes were people from all over the world who live, study and teach at the ashram, some of them initiates, dressed all in white, some of them swamis, clothed from socks to hat in orange. We learned about the science of breath, which is an immense and fascinating subject, made even more amazing by the fact that breathing is something we take entirely for granted. We spend most of our lives oblivious to the way we breathe and yet the way we breathe informs the way we live our lives! For example, we notice the way our breathing changes based on emotional stimuli (I.e. We gasp in fear, breathe raggedly when crying, tense our lungs and shorten our breath in anger). But it works the other way too: Changing our breathing can change our emotions. Not to mention the purely physical importance of breath to oxygenate every organ in the body and remove gaseous wastes... It's just fascinating! (For anyone who wants to learn more, I highly recommend reading "The Science of Breath" by Swami Rama.)

Our Inner Connections group has done a lot of yoga, focusing largely on the physical component (the asanas), so some of the Hatha yoga exercises we did twice a day at the ashram was familiar to us. Other experiences were brand new.

The ashram is the world headquarters for the Association of Himalayan Yoga Meditation Societies International (AHYMSIN) which is a non-profit founded by Swami Veda, whose "activities include: teaching the science of yoga, carrying out research and publication in the field of yoga and related branches of knowledge and performing acts of charity for the benefit of humanity." (For more info visit www.ahymsin.org) We toured the lab and got to try out machines that measure and teach biofeedback for breathing, heart rate and relaxation. We saw demonstrations of machines that record brain activity during meditation and tried out computer programs designed to make a game out of controlling heart rate and positive emotions. (To learn more, go to http://www.themeditationcenter.org/)

To see pictures from our trip, please visit the Inner Connections Yoga Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Castle-Rock-CO/Inner-Connections-Yoga/294275506729

About Inner Connections Yoga
Inner Connections Yoga, in Castle Rock, Colorado since 2002, is a place where the ancient traditions of Hatha yoga are brought into the experience of our modern lives. John and Jeanne Adams, the studio owners, help their clients to unite the interconnecting aspects of body, breath and spirit, and also connect yoga enthusiasts in a supportive, friendly community. Every year, Inner Connections leads a group yoga trip to an international location. Past trips have included Brazil, Fiji, Honduras and Costa Rica. For more information, please visit www.InnerConnectionsYoga.com.

Chaos and inner peace?

At 5 AM on Friday morning the phone beside the hotel bed rang and a cheery voice said, "good morning, ma'am! It is your morning wake-up call time!" As we scurried about, showering and packing, we received 2 more wake-up calls, but by then we were already wide awake and full of anticipation: today we would take the train to Rishikesh.

The train station was like a human tornado. We had been warned beforehand that we needed to be assertive or we would never get on our train, but it was still a shock to most of us to be caught up in the river of pushing hands and voices and smells of a massive number of people all urgently going somewhere - invariably in the opposite direction as us. We were flushed through metal detectors, our bags X-rayed then untangled from each other and reloaded on backs and in arms. We were shoved this way and that, while also doing our share of shoving, calling out to the members of our group who fell behind and hurrying as fast as we were able to make it to our train on time.

It was both physically- and emotionally-challenging because - while we hauled roller suitcases up and down stairs and suffocated in the reek of sweat and dirty concrete- we passed whole families of beggars, their "homes" the soiled blankets spread on the floor, their only possessions the layer-upon-layer of clothes they wore, their cardboard and newspaper communities a bleak contrast  from our clean and relatively-safe neighborhoods back home. We came to India with the expectation that we would see poverty and filth, yet our first day in Delhi had been "no worse than New York City," as Nancy said. The train station was a different world completely.

For good or for bad, we didn't have much time to consider the problem of poverty and inequality. We didn't have time for much of anything as we raced to catch our train, buffeted by bodies all the while. Like in Harry Potter, there was nothing to identify our platform as the correct one (in our case "32c"), yet it was commonly known to everyone around that that's where we were. By the time we squeezed through the packed doorway onto the train, most of us were as pumped with adrenaline as football players on game day.

In Hinduism, mountains are considered to be the dwelling places of gods, a concept that many of us can relate to, emotionally-rooted as we are in the Rocky Mountains. Our destination, in the foothills of the Himalayas, is even more sacred because of its the source of the streams which form the Ganga and Yamuni rivers. Hardiwar, the place where our train ride ends, is one of the seven most sacred cities of India, and the town of Rishikesh, a bumpy 45-minute ride away, is a place of worship, contemplation and the starting point for pilgrimages.

This is where we will stay in an ashram, spending our time deepening the relationship with yoga that we've found through Inner Connections with classes, chanting and exercises in pranayama (moving energy with breath). An ashram is a place of silence and relative seclusion, and the tradition started thousands of years ago as a place for monks to study the "supreme science," the study of the Self. The ashram we are going to is based on the teachings of Swami Rama and the Himalayan tradition of yoga. It's a place where they are combining ancient teachings with modern scientific study. We will be woken at 4 AM every day, which sounds rough, but - considering that we only have 3 short days to study thousands of years of spirituality and science and history - will probably be helpful!

To see pictures from our trip, please visit the Inner Connections Yoga Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Castle-Rock-CO/Inner-Connections-Yoga/294275506729

About Inner Connections Yoga
Inner Connections Yoga, in Castle Rock, Colorado since 2002, is a place where the ancient traditions of Hatha yoga are brought into the experience of our modern lives. John and Jeanne Adams, the studio owners, help their clients to unite the interconnecting aspects of body, breath and spirit, and also connect yoga enthusiasts in a supportive, friendly community. Every year, Inner Connections leads a group yoga trip to an international location. Past trips have included Brazil, Fiji, Honduras and Costa Rica. For more information, please visit www.InnerConnectionsYoga.com.

The Strategy

With departure for Delhi only two days away, the subject of packing has occupied many conversations. We've been told that this is the best time of year to travel in India because the temperatures are moderate and the humidity not as overwhelming as usual. Nevertheless, we'll be visiting diverse climates and regions during our two weeks there, and doing a wide range of activities, so packing is a complicated and precise process.

While many people in our group have opted for a rolling duffle bag for their luggage, I've chosen a wilderness overnight pack so that I can have my hands free for other things. My pack contains:
- three pairs of tight yoga pants that can double as long underwear in the cooler climates and as leggings under skirts
- two long sleeve yoga shirts
- two long sleeve casual shirts
- two short sleeve casual shirts
- two skirts
- two pairs quick-dry, wrinkle-free pants
- a fleecey sweater
- a rain jacket
- underwear, socks and whatnot
(Oh gosh, I just realized I forgot p.j.'s!)
My universal packing strategy (for this and every trip): ROLLING. I can fit waaaay more into my suitcases and bags when I roll my clothes than when I fold them!

My carry-on (which I consider much more important) contains:
- my new camera (SWEET!)
-  passport, money, medications
- two of the most eye-opening books I've ever read: "The Bhagavad Gita" and  "The Science of Breath" by Swami Rama, Rudolph Ballentine and Alan Hymes (though the latter might be better characterized as "nostril-opening." Haha!). The Gita - like most ancient works of cultural and spiritual significance - offers something for anyone who seeks with an open mind and something new every time. In short, you find what you need when you read the Gita. "The Science of Breath" is a practical guide for how to use breath to change your physical and emotional reality. In addition to being a fascinating scientific subject (for example, "breathing is the one physical function which is both involuntary (it goes on by itself) and voluntary (we can control our respirations consciously"), I figure it will also be a good resource at the ashram. There, we will learn and practice pranayama exercises (using the breath to move "prana," known in English as "energy".).

Most of us are bringing some magical assortment of nutritional supplements (i.e. choline, zypan, acidophilous, GSE) touted for keeping the digestive tract happy so we can avoid "Delhi Belly." (India is one of the top two countries in the world for traveler's diarrhea!) Everyone in the group has a different strategy for packing and different "necessities". We've been told that certain foods - like peanut butter and chocolate - are hard to find, so some people are bringing their own supplies. Other required (and often quirky!) items people are packing include:
- earplugs
- a "binky" (a blanket that someone - I'm not saying who! - needs to cuddle with to sleep)
- a do-dad called a "Go Girl" (given to Beth as a birthday present from her mother-in-law) that allows a woman to pee standing up (?!?)
- mala beads
- wedding vows
- games, crosswords, soduku, computer gadgets like laptops and ipods
- crutches, arthritis medication, asthma medication, and whatever else we need to deal with what we've got!

But the one thing we're all bringing with us is our excitement to discover India, as Michael puts it: "to get to know interesting people with an entirely different cultural outlook."

About Inner Connections Yoga
Inner Connections Yoga, in Castle Rock, Colorado since 2002, is a place where the ancient traditions of Hatha yoga are brought into the experience of our modern lives. John and Jeanne Adams, the studio owners, help their clients to unite the interconnecting aspects of body, breath and spirit, and also connect yoga enthusiasts in a supportive, friendly community. Every year, Inner Connections leads a group yoga trip to an international location. Past trips have included Brazil, Fiji, Honduras and Costa Rica. For more information, please visit www.InnerConnectionsYoga.com.

A whirlwind tour of Delhi

We spent the day sightseeing around Delhi with a tour guide on a giant bus with "Tourist" emblazoned across the windshield. Meanwhile, all about us were hundreds of the three- wheeled motorized rickshaws painted in a festive lime-green and lemon-yellow, bicycle rickshaws packed to the last inch with little kids in school uniforms, while women in brilliant saris flew by on motorcycles, clinging to the Western-dressed men who invariably drove and trailing streams of gold-embroidered scarves like a wake of water. Everywhere we went in the city the air was thick with a mixture of humid haze and car exhaust and woodsmoke that was slightly nauseating yet almost invigorating: To me, the smell- and the filmy haze in the air - evoked a sense of the exotic,

Our first stop was the Jama Masjid (the Friday Mosque), built in 1653 by Shah Jahan. Constructed over the course of only 5 years, the amazing structure rises over the surrounding city of Old Delhi, faces west (like all mosques), and consists of an enormous open plaza space with a large pool in the center surrounded by rampart-like walls with tear-drop shaped archways to look out over the buildings and busy life happening below and the Red Fort (also built by Shah Jahan) through the distant haze. After climbing the steep stone steps to the entrance, we removed our shoes (with the option of buying slippers to wear while we toured the sacred space) and the women in our group donned light, brightly-colored floral robes provided to make sure we were properly covered. We made an eccentric group wandering through the place of worship in our slippers and robes, looking, as Kat put it "like the Mad Woman escaped from the attic".

While some of the people inside the Jama Masjid were worshippers, many were tourists like us, enjoying the marvel of the rose-colored stone, the graceful teardrop domes and doorways and the decorative engravings from the Koran in musical-looking Arabic writing. Staring out of the archways, Jeanne observed how they "reframe how we see the world."

Leaving the mosque, we made our way through the few people who had gathered to beg or sell us trinkets like miniature cobras dancing out of little baskets, beaded headdresses and guide books about Delhi. In pairs, we climbed into bicycle rickshaws for what was one of the most thrilling rides of my life. We swarmed through the streets like a school of fish, sometimes inching along, sometimes picking up speed, dodging to the side of the road when trucks laden with towers of white bags came honking from behind.

We rode through the narrow, packed "streets" of Old Delhi, little more than paved alleyways shaded by massive tangles of power lines. All around us were closet-sized shops bursting with shoes, eye glasses and wooden carvings for sale. We competed for space with vendors of produce and cheese on rolling carts, miniature trucks filed with cages of chickens, an occasional goat and even a shiny, latte-colored calf. A constantly evolving stream of smells accompanied us at ever turn - ripe vegetables, livestock, burning incense, the smell of leather- and wood-working, the scent of lavender... We arrived back on the high-speed thoroughfare just in time to see a man riding down the road on the back of a camel!

For many people in our group, like Julia and Sue and Kat, the rickshaw ride was the highlight of the day, a fireworks display for all the physical senses at once. For others, though, the best was still to come.

After the chaos of the rickshaws in the teeming streets, our next stop was a soothing oasis. Raj Ghat, the memorial to Gandhi (whose name "Mahatma" means "great soul"), was a tranquil place of manicured emerald-green grass and quiet walkways surrounding a simple marble bier decorated with two wreaths and a glass-cased torch. In this setting, listening to the humble yet incredible history of the man who fathered a peaceful revolution in his own country and inspired people in countries around the world, from the segregated US to apartheid-governed South Africa...it was easy to believe in happy endings. Some of us felt inspired and moved, as we imagined how much the world had been strengthened by one person with a dream of peace and equality.

If the market streets had been an explosion of sight and sound and the Raj Ghat had been a treat for the mind and heart, lunch was the final sensory extravaganza. At a restaurant unappetizingly-named the ChickenInn, we ate baskets and baskets of naan dipped in colorful and flavorful plates of saag (spinach) with paneer (cheese) and creamy daal (lentils). Butter chicken, pickled onions, mint chutney, spices I can't even name... It was like a festival on my tongue. Afterwards, we nursed cups of chai and coffee with dessert, which was gulub jamun (cheese balls saturated with sugar and rose water).

Outside the restaurant, both Beth and Marianne braved encounters with a cobra, who appeared to be entranced by a turbaned, flute-playing handler. The rest of us braved the handful of persistent vendors, selling miniature copies of the Kama Sutra and decorative bindis (a sticker for the forehead signifying happiness in marriage for women and fire and strength for men).

Our next stop was the Tomb of Humayun, which our guidebook calls a "magnificent structure in red sandstone and white marble" and "one of the finest examples of the garden tomb, precursor to the Taj Mahal." It was all that and more - a serene and scenic complex of walls and gardens and fountains fed by straight stone canals. The tomb itself was housed in an elegant double dome said to be characteristic of Mughal architecture.

The sun was dropping low as we climbed the long stairs to the open patio-like space in front of the tomb and looked out over the delicately-spaced gardens and buildings we had walked through.

Getting back to the bus, we passed a police car with a sign in the windshield proclaiming "officer on duty" while the man in the driver's seat lounged with his bare feet on the steering wheel. After a day traipsing through the monuments of Delhi, most of us were pretty envious!

 Our last stop, a government-sponsored store and workshop of traditional Kashmir handicrafts, was a bit comical. They sat us in a wood-floored room and served us tea while they demonstrated the traditional way the carpets have been - and continue to be - made for centuries. At the end of a long day, in an over-hot room and still recovering from jet lag, Nancy nodded off and almost spilled her tea! But that didn't slow her down from falling in love with the carpets they unrolled across the floor six inches thick. After she bought a rug, the salespeople "smelled her credit card" and led her through rooms of jewelry and gems and  hand-worked silver. Meanwhile, the rest of us were led through rooms of silk scarves, gold-threaded saris, and robes - and plenty of mirrors to pose in front of! I don't think any of us escaped with our wallets unscathed...

Back at the hotel, we enjoyed one of the most important activities of our trip: our yoga practice. On a rooftop of the hotel, John led us in gentle breathing and movements, intended to flush the system and encourage expansion. After a day of enjoyable chaos, with the prospect of more eye-opening experiences tomorrow, flushing and expanding were just what the doctor ordered...


To see photos of our trip, please visit our Facebook album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=266765&id=294275506729


About Inner Connections Yoga
Inner Connections Yoga, in Castle Rock, Colorado since 2002, is a place where the ancient traditions of Hatha yoga are brought into the experience of our modern lives. John and Jeanne Adams, the studio owners, help their clients to unite the interconnecting aspects of body, breath and spirit, and also connect yoga enthusiasts in a supportive, friendly community. Every year, Inner Connections leads a group yoga trip to an international location. Past trips have included Brazil, Fiji, Honduras and Costa Rica. For more information, please visit www.InnerConnectionsYoga.com.

Arrival in Delhi

It was a long day of traveling to get to Delhi. Most of us left Denver this afternoon on a 2 o'clock flight. In Chicago we met up with the remaining 2 members of our group - Brad from Arkansas and Nancy from Ohio.

The 14 hour flight from Chicago went smoothly, with American and Indian movies available and dinner and breakfast served. By the time we landed in Delhi (at 9:30 pm local time and 11 and a half hours earlier in Chicago), Juanita realized it was December 1st - her birthday!- but she had less than 3 hours left to celebrate it! So We sang happy birthday to her in the airport before heading through customs.

The drive from the airport to the hotel was predictably hair-raising, we three-wheeled taxis (that seem to have the speed and horsepower of a lawnmower) and horse-pulled carts sharing the highway with semis and giant buses like the one we rode in.

We made it safely to our hotel and were checked in and ready to crawl into bed by the wee hours of the morning...

To see photos of our trip, please visit our Facebook album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=269096&id=294275506729

About Inner Connections Yoga
Inner Connections Yoga, in Castle Rock, Colorado since 2002, is a place where the ancient traditions of Hatha yoga are brought into the experience of our modern lives. John and Jeanne Adams, the studio owners, help their clients to unite the interconnecting aspects of body, breath and spirit, and also connect yoga enthusiasts in a supportive, friendly community. Every year, Inner Connections leads a group yoga trip to an international location. Past trips have included Brazil, Fiji, Honduras and Costa Rica. For more information, please visit www.InnerConnectionsYoga.com.

The things that bring us together

There are 22 of us going to India, ranging in age from 30's to 60's, from advanced yoga practitioners certified to teach, to more casual enthusiasts. Some of us knew each other well before planning to travel to India together, while some of us will remain complete strangers until we meet at the airport in Chicago for the flight to Delhi. For some of us, this will be a time of reunions. For example, Diane and her cousin, Nancy, will be reconnecting after decades of living across the country from each other. For Brad, who practiced yoga with Inner Connections for many years before his job took him from Colorado to Arkansas, the trip to India offers a chance to nourish some of the friendships he left behind. Some of us are family. Juanita and her two grown daughters, Beth and Kat, have made the Inner Connections Yoga trip an annual "mother-daughter tradition" for three years in a row. John and Jeanne, the owners of the studio, and Michael and Shelagh are married, and Renee and Don are also a committed couple. Meanwhile, there are others in the group - like Gaylynn, Julia & Carolyn - who are traveling as singles, yet important members of what Gaylynn calls her Inner Connections "yoga family".

There are two things that bring us all together: an appreciation for our yoga experience with Inner Connections and a desire to visit India.

For each of us, the path to discovering yoga was different. Michael started practicing it at the advice of his swim coach. Unable to do the body dolphins necessary for butterfly stroke (while the other female members of the class had no difficulty) he came to yoga to improve his flexibility, and became so committed over time that he recently got certified to teach! This is a familiar story, in fact. The majority of us came to yoga for physical reasons but stayed because of something deeper, stronger and entirely non-physical. Kat got into yoga as a high schooler, obsessed with creating the perfect body for herself at all costs. Yet, through yoga, she came to a healthy acceptance of her body and got over the eating disorders that plagued her as a teen. Still, there are some in the group - Gaylnn and Juanita, for example - who were drawn to yoga because of the mental/emotional benefits. Both these women spent much of their lives being physically active, only to struggle later with physical injuries and illnesses that kept them from the activities they once loved, and found that yoga was the solution. Gaylynn says, "yoga was the perfect fit for me because I could get fit physically, mentally and emotionally." Juanita has a similar view, saying "I think it's a good way to calm yourself and calm your mind and change the way you relate to the world."

All of us have different motivations for going to India, some of us drawn to it because of our love of yoga and desire to gain a greater understanding of it, some of us intrigued by the culture, colors, exotic allure (and food!) of the country. Some of us - like Don and Renee - have some specific intentions for the trip, or are journeying in search of something. Others are excited about the open-ness of the adventure, come what may. While most of the people in our group have expressed some amount of apprehension about getting sick while traveling in India, Beth has a different view on it. She admits with nonchalance that she's been sick in every country she's ever visited (including - but not limited to! - Brazil, Thailand, Guatemala and Chile). "I'm pretty sure I'll get sick," she says. "But then it will be over and I'll keep enjoying the trip."

With departure only 24 hours away, excitement and gratitude are high. "Everywhere I travel with this group, we have such an incredible time," Gaylynn says. "We are all so lucky to go to all the places around the world we've been to - Brazil, Fiji, Honduras and now India." (She adds: "thank you, John and Jeanne, for all the hard work in making our dreams come true.") Renee expresses a shared sentiment when she says that she's excited about "everything" India has to offer. "I'm going to try to savor every moment there."

About Inner Connections Yoga
Inner Connections Yoga, in Castle Rock, Colorado since 2002, is a place where the ancient traditions of Hatha yoga are brought into the experience of our modern lives. John and Jeanne Adams, the studio owners, help their clients to unite the interconnecting aspects of body, breath and spirit, and also connect yoga enthusiasts in a supportive, friendly community. Every year, Inner Connections leads a group yoga trip to an international location. Past trips have included Brazil, Fiji, Honduras and Costa Rica. For more information, please visit www.InnerConnectionsYoga.com.

The route

We have been planning it a long time. The Inner Connections yoga trip to India. Many of us have been dreaming about traveling in India for years! And now it's right around the corner... In just two weeks the journey will stop being a dream and become a reality, come what may.
Assuming, bus drivers don't go on strike and the airlines don't run out of fuel, here's the plan:
We start in Delhi on December 1st (following a 20-hour plane ride from Chicago - YIKES!). We will spend a couple days sightseeing in Delhi before taking a train up to Hardiwar and Rishikesh in the region of Dev Bhumi ("Land of the Gods"), an area which is one of India's major spiritual centers. We will be staying at an ashram and spiritual retreat center dedicated to:
1) Restoring yoga and meditation to their ancient and traditional purity, yet teaching the same in a modern scientific framework.
2) Exploring their application to the modern world, and fulfilling these purposes by training spiritual guides and teachers of international stature.

After a few days of studying yoga and meditation, and nurturing our personal practice of yoga we will head back to the Hardiwar train station. We'll need all that meditation practice at that point because we will have a 10 hour train ride to Agra!

We'll get an early start in Agra on December 7th. There, we'll visit the Taj Mahal before taking a bus to Jaipur. Jaipur is renowned for being meticlously planned, a place of royalty and grandeur, often called  the "Pink City" because of the pink paint of all the houses in the old city.

From Jaipur, we will fly to Goa, where we will explore and enjoy the scenic beaches and sleepy Portuguese-influenced villages that this area is famous for.

Finally, we will journey to Mumbai (formerly Bombay) for a final day of adventure before we fly out and return to to the U.S.

Phew! When we first started planning, 2 weeks seemed like such a long and luxurious amount of time (our past yoga trips were usually 1 week). But now that I'm looking at how much territory we have to cover and how many things I want to see and do, it doesn't seem long at all!

About Inner Connections Yoga
Inner Connections Yoga, in Castle Rock, Colorado since 2002, is a place where the ancient traditions of Hatha yoga are brought into the experience of our modern lives. John and Jeanne Adams, the studio owners, help their clients to unite the interconnecting aspects of body, breath and spirit, and also connect yoga enthusiasts in a supportive, friendly community. Every year, Inner Connections leads a group yoga trip to an international location. Past trips have included Brazil, Fiji, Honduras and Costa Rica. For more information, please visit www.InnerConnectionsYoga.com.