we're goin' under

howdy ho & yo yo yo bloggahs!

comin' atchya from dharamsala, the residence-in-exile of the dalai lama and many tibetan refugees. it's situated in the himalaya mountains and super super peaceful, really beautiful. there's a pretty big tourist scene here, which we tend to shy away from - but this place is different in that there's so much to do: volunteer working with orphan babies, tutoring english, recycling programs. jewelry making classes, yoga classes, meditation classes.

which brings us to today. amy went up to tushita meditation center yesterday for the ten day intro course to buddhism. it's a silent meditation retreat with philosophy lectures. my retreat is called radical compassion. not to be confused with totally tubular compassion, it's 9 days and at the same place. i'm excited!

cold wet rain here - may have to invest in some proper warm weather gear before i head further up the mountain to the retreat, but the plastic poncho from santa claus is coming in mighty handy.

oh! almost forgot! we spent 4 days or so in rishikesh at the foot of the himalaya mountains. the ganga river starts near there so it's hard to believe that this beautiful crystal blue water is the same brown water that ran through varanasi.

we found a great yoga instructor by the name of kamal who pushed us pretty hard, and had instructional gems such as 'let not your mind to wander'. we also found swami dharmananda, the swami who gave lectures the last time i was in rishikesh - oh how i love this man! he's hilarious, and very gifted at breaking it down for westerners. he was supposedly lecturing on the bhagavad gita, a sacred text of india, but in the end he babbled on in whatever fashion he wanted to...much to our delight.

looking forward to our last ten days and a month in india - we've both become enamoured with this land and although i miss loved ones, i feel my heels digging in to this magical land.

love.