That moment I fell in love with India

May 22nd 2014 Naddi, India

It’s the first rest day here in Dharamshala since we started our training. After hours of backbends, foreward bends and spine twists it feels great to take the day to explore this amazing country. Four other students and I left early in the morning, got breakfast out in town and hiked to upper Dharamshala into Naddi, a village surrounded by amazing mountain views. The North Indian sun shined brightly on us up the trail into the rocky forest where we were all completely soaked with sweat. We stopped at a small cafe next to a beautiful waterfall and river with clear blue water.

Spending most of the day hiking and seeing so much around this area, I had the chance to reflex back on this adventure in India, and realize how truly magical this country is. So much goes on in this over populated part of the world. I see so many people living in the worst conditions, cows and goats out in the street eating from the garbage all around and the power outages that take place regularly like right now (where I am sitting in darkness in my room supported by the light from my iPad as I type). Even from these overwhelming things about India, so many strange and magical things happen also. The lighting at night that shines the sky in the craziest brightest colors, getting soaked while walking back home in ice hail that pours over the city, seeing an incredible amount of stars on the side of the road in pure darkness, the peaceful and pure way of life that everyone has here and the amazing people that I’ve meet along this journey.

It’s still difficult to understand India while being here, because so much is going on. So I guess I don’t want to understand then. For now I’ll just take one step back and enjoy my time here, practice yoga, get the knowledge from all around, create the experience here in India.