No Indian adventure was going to be complete for Clare without visiting Rishikesh - heart of the yoga scene, and so Troy was mentally prepared to jump into the 3 day ashram experience.

Wait - except that 3 days turned into 5 days because after only a couple of nights, Troy suggested that we prolong it! Clare always knew he was a yogi at heart.

It was the full experience - 5:00 am wake-up bell followed by half an hour of meditation, and about 90 minutes of yoga. And surprisingly, only the first 5:00 am start felt like misery, and the other 4 mornings felt energized. We practiced some kundalini yoga which involves very specific and intense breathing exercises, and each day felt a little more invigorated. They served us 3 meals a day, and the food tasted incredibly healthy, and was very easy on our stomachs (after all this time here, you just still never know.) We loved chatting with the guests at the ashram, and love that we continue to learn from them about places we have never been, or never even heard of, and it continues to just be so exciting to be amongst this travel community. Clare tried a traditional ayurvedic treatment called shirodhara which involves the continuous running of warm oil over the forehead followed by a scalp massage, which is supposed to help with headaches and sleep. It was incredibly soothing, and perhaps she will need to find this remedy back in the GTA??

It was a bit of a strange experience because we felt so much ease while in our little ashram bubble, and then every time we needed to venture out into the streets to perform some sort of task, we were thrown back into "real India" with traffic and honking horns, and lack of space, and would try to hurry back to our quiet home. Which is not to say that we did not enjoy Rishikesh, because its location on the Ganges River is stunning, and we loved dipping our toes into the icy, refreshing water to jolt us awake. We also visited the former Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Ashram, better known as the site where the Beatles stayed and wrote music in the late 60s. It is a bizarre and eerie abandoned site in a very picturesque setting, so it is a shame that it has been left the way it has. But it was fun to walk around and look at the photos taken of when they were there, and imagine how some of those songs might have evolved.

We also did a LOT of walking in Rishikesh due to the hilly terrain and our steadfast refusal to take any more frustrating rickshaws, and so combined with our yoga activity, we left feeling fantastic! We had almost forgot what this whole exercise thing felt like after so many days being driven in a car. Thanks for the reminder, Rishikesh!