Now on Facebook

I just joined Facebook hoping that I would easily be able to advertise for Pilates and yoga but it is all too complicated for me. I think I will just redirect people to my blog if they want to know what's going on. I tried to create an advertisement where I would pay per click for the month of December but they won't let me. They want more money.

Yelp stopped publishing my wonderful reviews. Maybe Facebook will come through and I will see the light that so many people have found in cyberland.

Off to get a great night sleep before waking up early for bike class at M2. And then a session with my rockin' trainer Nikki.

Adding another Prenatal Class!

I am so excited to announce that I will be adding

another prenatal Yoga class

Sundays 6:30-7:40pm beginning January 3, 2010.

I just joined Facebook, partly to keep up with people but mostly so that I can advertise my latest projects.

I need to figure out how to create a fan page. I am really annoyed with Yelp because they are not showing about 8 reviews that have been written about my business.

Ramakrishna Monks

Here are some monks from the RamaKrishna Temple. Click here for video

Mr Wiggles

So while I was in Goa a friend e-mailed me that she was terribly amused by a man whom I choose to call Mr. Wiggles (no, not the professional dancer, Mr. Wiggles). He and his girlfriend, Ms. Jiggles, had a whole stretching, bouncing, jiggling and wiggling routine that they would perform every morning for a couple hours of the beach.

I took some photos on my final day in Goa. Here is some video, too.

Video on train and then of Cochin Synagogue

The full review of the train ride is in a different blog. The video starts out dark but gets lighter as it goes along.

Here is the video.

In Cochin one isn't allowed to take photos in the synagogue so I had to be sneaky about it.

Here is the video

More photos- final stretch

Here are some photos from the final stretch of my trip, beginning with my train ticket to Cochin and ending in Mumbai.

Here is the slideshow

Goa photos

picasaweb.google.com/noamark76/NoaInGoa?feat=email#

More videos

The first video that I am posting is from Auroville, the place where I first stayed in India. It is 3 hours south of Chennai. The golf ball structure has an amazing meditation space in the middle which I described in an earlier blog. Also, the red brick structures around the golf ball are actually meditation spaces, each dedicated to a different aspect of one's humanity. For example, one is dedicated to Aspiration, so if this is a trait that you feel you need to work on, you would book a time to meditate in that chamber. Click here to watch. I am not talking because I was supposed to remain silent, even in the surrounding gardens.

I went to Chittambiram with my friend Arpita to see the Nataraj Temple. Here is the entrance way. Click here. It is about 2 hours from Pondicherry and Auroville. We shared the taxi ride there and back. It was a lovely day. We ended the adventure with a wonderfully glamorous dinner on the rooftop restaurant near the beach in Pondicherry.

The next video is a temple that I visited after my stay in Auroville and Pondicherry. You can see people standing in line to get their ash. I needed to stay quiet here as well because technically I was not supposed to photograph. Click here to watch.

I also went to the Ramakrishna Temple in Chennai. Click here to compare. So calm.

OK, I will upload more videos soon.

Sri Lanka Photos are up

You can see the slideshow off my Picasa album here

I am still waiting on some photos from the first part of my India trip.

Enjoy!

So how was your train ride?

Here is an answer to that question:

The train trip was fine. When I first got to the train station I was relieved to see 5 other American backpackers. There was an Indian guy who was trying to befriend all of us. After talking to all the Americans I decided that I didn't really like them enough to make an effort to be friends, but at least I would be waiting at the station alone until the train arrived. The Indian guy told us to board in the center and walk to the correct car.

The train was only 15 minutes late. I tried to seek out my car based on what was written on the outside of the train but that proved challenging. I knew my time was up when the train started to move without me on it. I quickly hopped on the train and asked some younger guys which way to go. They pointed me in the right direction, telling me that I was in 2nd class and that I need to walk up to the front. The one problem with that was that the path to the front of the train was blocked because it was the pantry. I walked as far as I could through the train car, passing feet and hands. Bodies were crammed into this small place and the image that unfortunately came to me was from the Holocaust.

While I waited until the next train stop, I was quickly joined by the group of American tourists who were probably given the same directions by another local. The small stuffy area included a man sleeping on newspapers and the American tourists. There were cockroaches crawling around and I stressed out because I really needed to pee.

Eventually I did use the squat toilet while the one really nice American girl watched my stuff. The train came to a halt after waiting for 30 minutes or so and we quickly scurried to an AC car. Luckily I came across a train ticketer who showed me to my berth. I thought I had an upper bunk and I thought I would have some privacy. But no, I had a middle bunk, with a man underneath me and a man above me. Everyone was snoring. It was pitch black. I didn't know what to do with my huge backpack so I simply threw it on the bed with me. I pulled out my sleeping bag sheet and a few minutes later, another train worker came by and provided me with clean sheets. Being squished between two beds and with little space to move, I managed to find a relatively comfortable position. Throughout the evening I was thankful that I was only 5 feet tall.

I thought I was the only woman in the area until I heard a baby cry in the double bunk across the way. Turns out that there was a family. The man in the middle bunk next to me was sharing a bunk with a child. I managed to get a few hours sleep. But I was very relieved once daylight came.

The whole train experience was no longer scary. I could see that there was a couple on their honeymoon, in separate beds of course, underneath me. There were three ladies traveling together. There was another family in the area next to me. I started to enjoy seeing Indian life on the train.

Once everyone was awake, the middle bunk is folded away and the three people sit on the lower bunk. The woman sitting next me (also who was sleeping under me) was curious about me. She was also a teacher. She taught 1st and 2nd graders. She took a photo of me with her cell phone and sent the photo to her sister. She asked to read my journal, and I agreed to let her, but started to feel uncomfortable when more than 5 minutes passed. Not only did I start to feel like there was private information in there that I preferred to keep to myself, but I worried that my recorded observations of Indian life might offend her. Particularly the thoughts on sexism in India.

I eventually gently took the journal back. She didn't ask any questions. I asked if she had any questions, but honestly I don't think she totally understood what I wrote.

So after 15 hours on the train I was relieved to get off. The scenery through Kerala is very pretty and I was met in Cochin by a hotel worker.
I was promptly driven to Fort Cochin and then my Cochin experience began.

video with Suzanne and Ronald in Goa

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPBWWIoR0-0

I am wide awake at 3am so I will post some videos that I had difficulty posting before.

Back in SF

Mark met me at SFO with a huge bouquet of flowers. He is awesome.

I showered as soon as I got in. I stank.

Now we are hanging out at home. Will probably lay low for the next few days.

Will upload videos and photos for you to see. -Noa

final day in Mumbai

I made it to Mumbai. Lisa and Gary have been awesome hosts. I am glad that I can help run errands with them. Doing last minute shopping with final rupees.
My flight is at 3am tonight so I will head to the airport at around midnight.

Will update more when we get back from the latest shopping trip.

Lessons of Attachment

In Yoga, there is a lot of discussion of attachment. Attachment to ideas, feelings, memories. While travelling in India there are constant lessons on attachment. You think you are heading to point A? Sorry, road is closed. You think you are going to Temple B? Sorry, Temple closed to non-Hindus. You want to be on the train by Time C? Sorry, the train is running 3 hours late. You thought we agreed on price D? Sorry, that was when I thought you meant something else. More rupees please.

Today I woke up, took a rickshaw to the bus. It took an extra hour to get out of Kanyakumari because traffic simply stoppped for about half an hour. Traffic cannot flow when there is a single lane. So until enough complaints and a few police officers stepped in, we just stood still. The driver seemed pretty jovial about it all. Eventually I got to Trivandrum an hour late. I quickly caught a rickshaw, trying to avoid being swallowed up by the sea of rickshaw drivers that descended upon me as soon as I got off the bus. I had 45 minutes until my flight was supposed to take off. I thought: Okay, I will make this flight. We're off. But where to? The frickin' gas station! He looked at me and said "Petrol". I thought, okay at least we won't run out of gas on the way. We were on the way.
When we get here, he tries to get more money out of me, telling me that he thought we were going to the international terminal which is closer to town. I told him domestic and that I was flying to Mumbai very clearly. I kindly told him that we agreed on 100 rupees and walked away.

At the airport...
Last time I checked into my domestic flight to Goa a week ago, the person behind the desk forgot to return my computer print-out of my e-ticket. I tried to get into the airport today with just a passport, but instead needed to go to a desk. I wanted to do the print-out yesterday but the hotel wasn't very helpful and the internet place with the bad keyboard didn't have a printer.
So I'm at the airport and of course the printer is broken. He prints from a different printer.

Get in and guess what? My flight is delayed for another 2 hours. Hopefully I will make it to Bombay today. I am looking forward to meeting Becky P's sister with whom I am staying for my last night in India.

At least the prices at the airport are reasonable. A chai tea here is 10 rupees. At the airport in Bombay it is 60 rupees. Ridiculous.

But I really enjoyed my bus rides here. The scenery is beautiful in the south. Passing rice paddies and palm trees with mountains in the background. I was lucky to get a seat. Because I took long rides, I boarded early and got the single seat up next to the driver. I could put my huge backpack there and just relax.

Okay, hopefully I will make it to Mumbai today. If not, I am ready to dis-attach from that idea and look for a hotel room for the night. I can fly to Mumbai anytime in the next 12 hours. My flight back to SF is in 36 hours. I will hold on to that idea for just a little bit longer.

Love from India -Noa

Kanyakumari

I made it. My final destination. Kanyakumari. Took the bus from amma's ashram and got here 6 hours later. Ate something at the hotel. Went to Vivekananda Memorial and saw the Indian " Statue of Liberty"
Then experienced a cool temple where the men need to take their shirts off in order to enter

Was hot and stuffy> now will go shower and hydrate and rest> i leave for airport to mumbai tomorrow>

this keyboard is annoying>>>>>

Last day at Amma's

Tomorrow I leave Amma's Ashram. It has been a great experience here. I would love to come back but when it is sunny. I hate the rain. Walking around in flip-flops in the mud is icky.

This morning there was prayer/meditation from 5am until 6:30am. Then chai tea. Then I went to yoga from 7:30 until 8:30 with a groovy lady called Davika. She is American and taught a nice iyengar yoga class. She was also my tour guide yesterday.
Then breakfast. Indian breakfast is free but I went for the Western food. I had a couple fried eggs and toasted cornbread. Yum.
Then I did a little shopping in the gift shop here. I bought a couple bars of Ashram chocolate to share with my friends. I feel bad that I am not bringing home gifts for everyone. So I apologize in advance. However, if there is something you REALLY want from India, please let me know and I will try and make it happen over the next couple of days. After shopping there was lunch but because there is only outdoor seating I just bought a cookie and a pb cupcake and went for a walk. As I was walking a crow tried to take the food from my hand. Now I have a scratch from the bird. Annoying.

I am enroute to the Ayurveda College but wanted to check in with everyone before continuing on the road.

When I get back to the Ashram I will get a Masala Dosa for 15 rupees. What is up with dosas being so expensive in SF?

I leave for Kanyakumari tomorrow early morning. Hopefully I will get there in 6 hours or less....

Lots of love -Noa

Amma's Ashram

Made it to Amritapuri's. I like it here. It is super calm. My room is simple but has a nice breeze on the 9th floor. I took a 3 hour bus ride to get here. It was pretty comfortable -- in some ways the opposite of my train experience.

I have 4 minutes until the internet office closes. Soon I have a tour of the ashram. I have all day tomorrow here and then I head down to Kanyakumari in two days.

Ommmmm.

Cochin

Arrived safely. Went to Jew Town. Off to see a Kathakali dance performance. Will write more later.

Another day at the beach

Today is my last day in Goa. I have an 11pm train to Cochin tonight. This will be my first overnight train anywhere. I am not looking forward to the squat toilets on the train. It will be a 15 hour train ride. I have my pinky ball and theraband so that I can stretch out while on the train. I think I am on the top bunk so that will give me a little privacy.

Last night I had a difficult time sleeping. I kept waking up thinking that there was a bug on me. It was probably just sand because I don't have any new bug bites this morning.

I took some video of the guy in his loin cloth with his girlfriend. My new friend Ronald says he is doing Tai Chi. I don't know... the people in Golden Gate Park do not look like they are doing what this guy is doing. You decide. If I am not completely successful in uploading this video now, I will show it to you when I get home in a week.

Video from dinner

Here is some video from dinner a couple nights ago with Ronald and Suzanne.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPBWWIoR0-0

Goan Dinner

Yesterday I was so much more at peace after talking to Mark on the phone. It was the first time we had spoken since I left on my adventure.
Afterwards I bought a train ticket to Cochin for tomorrow, November 6. I am one day behind "schedule" but that's fine. I feel very comfortable here on the beach. My new friends, Suzanne and Ronald, moved from their guest house/hut at Bakti Shukir to my place at Papayas. From the outside Papayas looks like a little bit of a mess. They just re-opened for the tourist season on November 1, but the beach is much more quiet than Palolem.

Every room is named after a fruit. I am in Mango. I forgot to mention that at Quiet, every room was named after a planet. Guess what planet I got? Yup, Uranus. Awesome.

Last night, Ronald, Suzanna and I walked 40 feet down the beach for a lovely evening. We watched the sunset and enjoyed a fish feast. We ate grilled tandoori fish and traditional Goan Xacuti fish.

The restaurant first showed us the fish. We had a choice of lobster, squid, some other gooey sea creature, kingfish and snapper. We chose the snapper. I will try and upload the photos. I have tried twice but it may be the computer that I am using.


During dinner we talked about all sorts of things. Ronald is finishing up medical school and he is specializing in gastro-intestinal stuff and other digestive medicine. It is fascinating to me. He is very interested in Kashrut. So whenever he is in SF I promised him that he could get all the details from my Talmud-savvy friends, including my husband.

Suzanne works in low-income housing in Rotterdam. She is also a big fan of yoga and Pilates.

Ronald asked me when I thought I might die, hopefully of natural causes. I am not sure. I only got to know one of my grandparents. Before he asked me this question I had been reading a booklet that I had picked up at Sri Auribindo Ashram entitled "Death". Don't worry , this was one of four booklets that I picked up. I don't buy into many of the things he says, but I enjoy sitting on the beach reading about these greater topics. He asks the question "why is there death?" assuming that the soul lives on forever. Personally I don't believe in reincarnation, so worshipping cows here in India seems odd. Auribindo talks about death being a impetus for us to get things done. He calls it Aspiration. I just think that without death, we would be lazy. We wouldn't have a Deadline. As we get older, we see the frailty of life. We become weaker. We see our parents age. More people around us hit that deadline. That deadline gives us a sense of responsibility to make changes in this world that will hopefully improve life for those in the future.

While in Sri Lanka I met a woman who said she had no qualms about working for an unethical company or for a country that supports injustices against women, people of different faiths and people of different sexual orientations. She became angry with me when I said that it would be difficult for me to even be friends with someone who gives such a big part of their life's energy to a cause that could harm others.

In SF Mark and I are so lucky to be part of a greater community full of ethical business-people, teachers, doctors, spiritual leaders, healers. I wrote earlier about Barbara Marx Hubbard's theory of how the butterfly emerges out of the catipillar. My friends, my associates, my colleagues are making that blueprint on the catipillar's cacoon so that the butterfly can emerge.

photo success?

OK, So I have to figure out how to bring this image right side up. But we're making progress, right?

Noa in Goa

I have been waiting forever to be able to write that title above. I have arrived in Goa. I am uploading some videos from the past day so that you can see the beautiful beach here. I am staying at Patnem beach where there are a few Europeans and some cows on the beach.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w0LEaHyhrs


I walked to Palolem Beach which is much more built up to sit here at a nice internet place and inquire about train tickets to my next destination Cochin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQwiCZF8OHE



Yesterday I was nervous because I didn't know how I was going to get from the airport in Goa to my beach.
I spoke to a couple sitting next to me while riding the airport shuttle bus that takes you from the gate to the plane in Mumbai. Turns out that they already arranged a taxi to take them to their hotel in Palolem Beach. They were totally cool with me joining them in the car. Thank you Ronald and Suzanne! They are from Rotterdam in the Netherlands. That saved me over 1000 rupees! I arrived at my hotel and I am very impressed with the facilities. The toilet is amazing and I was given not 1 but 2 rolls of toilet paper! I am tempted to spend more time here just because of the bathroom facilities. Just kidding... kinda. Anyone who has ever travelled in countries that lack running water hopefully can appreciate my reverence of a flushing toilet -- one that can handle tp. On my flight to Goa, it was the first time that I have been among tourists. In some way, it was nice to be able to talk to the person next to you and have a lot in common right off the bat. I met Regina and her husband Daniel from New Zealand. They had come from the north and did a 14 day trek in the Himalayas. Mark, maybe in a few years?

camera

I just purchased a camera in the airport in Mumbai. My flight to Goa leaves in an hour. I tried to find an international calling card so that I could call Mark and connect with him on our first wedding anniversary. No luck. Hopefully he checked his email so that he knows that I am thinking of him on November 2. I am also thinking of him on every other day but you know what I mean...

Now I will sit down and try to assemble this camera. Hopefully it will work. I got the cheapest digital camera available.

Last day in Auroville

Yesterday I went to the temple in Chitamburam. It was in the Dravidian style.

Mark asked me to get more specific about my experience so here goes:

In Auroville, it is basically a strange version of probably what the state of Israel looked like when they were drying out swamps with an Indian feel and New Age sensibility. It is dirty and there are a lot of old hippies that have moved there or are visiting. There are a lot of Indians who have also moved there though I am unsure if they are in it for the potential financial or security of because of what Auroville stands for.

The best thing I have seen / experienced so far is the inside of the golf ball. It is an amazing meditation place. I couldn't get in until today because of the rain. The inside is all white and they are afraid that people will track mud inside. They give you white socks to put on. You are led up a spiral pathway, all carpeted in white to a huge room that faces a glass sphere. When the sun passes over the golf ball there is a window at the very top that catches the light and then the light is refracted inside the glass ball. It is beautiful.

I appreciate how it is not, despite the name Matrimandir, a temple to The Mother. She specifically said that it is a meditation space that is not dedicated to a person. It is for anyone, from any religious background to sit and meditate in whatever way you want -- as long as you are silent.

Then after grabbing a snack at the bakery and some jewelry -- couldn't help it--- I started my journey in a private taxi to Chennai.

So what do I want out of this solo trip? What have I gained so far? What I want from this experience is to be able to reflect on where I am in life. To think about my spiritual path. I don't have the opportunity to really to that at home and it is great to spend some time doing that. On Sunday I sat around a circle with 8 others in silence. The birds were chirping. Some motorbikes went buzzing by. Some fresh fragrant flowers were in the center of the circle and I could sit there/ lie there/ think there/ meditate there for 3 hours. There was a quiet closing chant that is pretty common that basically translates as: May all things exists in peace.

During the movie on Saturday night I started reflecting on how I feel about bringing a child into a world that could very well be destroyed by climate change, war and other forms of destruction. The movie I saw in Sri Lanka was very depressing. However the movie by Barbara Marx Hubbard (old hippie new-agey lady) called Humanity Ascending made me feel a little bit better. Her theory was much more hopeful. Instead of thinking about humankind being destroyed, she sees it transforming into something better. She uses the metaphor of the catipilar transforming into a butterfly.

Today I visited two other temples, Rama Krishna Mutt Temple and Shiva Kapaleeshwar Temple.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1nftzD67vo


Tonight I am sleeping in a kinda icky hotel. I look forward to getting to the beach in Goa.