On my travels over the last few years I've been hearing a lot about meditation courses and in particular Vipassana and noon seems to have a bad word to say about it, so I wanted to see what it was all about. I'd tried a few drop in sessions classes before in India but could just never get anywhere. As you search for 'inner calm' my head would be full of ridiculous thoughts like hmm 'what'll I have for lunch?' 'do I recognise that person?" blah blah blah, so I figured if I was ever going to get into it, as with most things in my life I'd need to throw myself in at the deep end, so nothing like a day 10 intensive course to do just that!

I signed up for the course in Kathmandu,well actually 'Dhamma Shringa' just outside it at the edge of a national park. The setting was lovely with nice gardens and even a few wild monkeys popping in every now and then. The schedule was pretty tough- 10 hours of meditation a day, up at 4am, breakfast at 6.30, lunch at 11am, a snack at 5pm and lights out at 9.30pm. And you had to maintain 'noble silence' the whole course, which meant not just no speaking which I was surprisingly fine with, but also no gestures or any form of communication e.g. to signify thank you or excuse me - the basic things you do without even thinking- now that was particularly hard for me. And I'm not going to lie the first few days it was difficult even to get used to sitting still in a posture for hours on end, but honestly by the end it was all much easier- certainly not a walk in the park but it got easier.

I won't say too much about the whole experience in case anyone is thinking of doing the course, as I think its better to go with no expectations, or knowing what anyone else experienced as it's supposed to be individual to each person. On the last day when we could speak, so many people were talking about how amazing they had found it and the whole 'transformation process' they went through, I'll be honest I didn't feel that, I was just really glad to be done and ready to chat and be free from a schedule and actually really looking forward to getting back to 'normal life'. I'm really glad I've learnt the skills to mediate and have a much better understanding of the whole concept now, but as to whether or not I make it a big part of my everyday life that is still be be decided....

I had about a month previously made the decision to ditch my plans to go to Australia and get my working holiday visa and instead do Mexico and Central America (which is where my heart always lay really). Just before going into the Vipassana 10 day course I also decided I would make a trip home before setting off on this next venture and wanted to tie this in with Emma's birthday, so I came out of the course and had a few days to readjust to the outside world before hopping on a plane back to see all my nearest and dearest. If I pondered one thing during my meditation it was how important my friends and family are so- I'm coming to see ya ;op