D-day and the big D

D-day, or Demelza day arrived just after Mal finished work on his guitar; perfect timing to deliver the baby home to Ireland! We arranged for a taxi to take us to the airport to collect her and arrived just as she exited the gate, perfect timing, an auspicious start to the holidayJ. It was wonderful to see her, our first real reminder of home since the wedding last October. We had an amazing two weeks together. As we’d lived in South Korea for the previous three years and have been travelling for the past five months, it was so nice to spend two weeks uninterrupted together. We had such a relaxing fortnight, well bar the five day yoga boot camp- but more about that later.

We spent Demelza’s first night in Baga, ate at a nice restaurant and had a few cocktails. There are some clubs on a street called Titos, they are meant to be rocking on a Saturday night with lots of Russian Barbie types, but as this was Thursday we decided to head to another beach bar instead. Here Demelza ordered a Black Russian, she wanted milk instead of cream… she received a segmented floating curdled mess. They mixed it all wrong and added coke? Politely she pointed out that the drink was terrible and an argument ensued. This is typical in India; we have found the Indians very arrogant as a whole. They have no idea about the concept of customer service. In their eyes they are always right you will always be wrong. You can never win an argument with an Indian- well the ones involved in the service industry dealing with the tourists anyway. Mal decided to have a word with the manager/owner about their customer policy, telling the manager that we’d never be back and we’re going to tell everyone about how terrible the place is, and get this, the manager says ‘they know already, nobody told you?’ Startled we think we’ve heard wrong and say ‘people know this is a terrible place and you don’t care?’ ‘Yes, they leave comments here, you should see what they say about the food!’ Well what can you say to that? We just looked at each other and cracked up. Welcome to India Demelza.

The next morning we taxied it to Arambol about 40 minutes away, found accommodation (a concrete room for us, fancy room for Demelza) and presented ourselves for yoga at the Himalayan Iyengar Yoga Centre for our 5 day intensive immersion course. Kelsi and Rustin recommended it, saying it was a fantastic grounding in Yoga, starting with learning how to stand correctly… and they were right. You can learn more about it on the web site: www.hiyogacentre.com. While taking the course you are recommended not to drink alcohol and to adapt your lifestyle to suit the values of Yoga. The course was from Friday to Tuesday, therefore the ‘big session’ was planned for Tuesday night, until then we decided to feed our souls via our stomachs and explored the culinary delights of the town. Unfortunately there weren’t too many really good restaurants and the best food we had was at a Chinese place called the Rice Bowl and a delicious Italian restaurant called Fellini’s which we later discovered had awesome Mojitos for under $1.50.

Day two of boot camp and we were all feeling a little stiff; from no exercise to three hours of intensive stretching, you can imagine that it awoke a few muscles! We had a fruit filled breakfast (the only place in India where we would trust eating fruit or salad!) and spent the morning on the beach. Demelza and Mal donned the factor 30 while I went a little lower, unfortunately India bites again. The Banana Boat factor 30 that Demelza bought for her pure as snow skin was either a fake or well past expiration because they got scorched… like deep fried crispy lobsters. Mal’s belly and Demelza’s chest and legs were luminous. They spent the night covered in Aloe Vera. I didn’t totally escape either, but it was nothing compared to the two!

This guy was one the beach the same day, imagine the scalding his ass got?! He probably wasn't able to sit down for the next few days!!

Day three went well; Dem and Mal downed a few ibuprofen to ease the pain of moving their burnt bodies and we were all getting into the course, although I’m sure if the session contained a fourth hour we would have collapsed! Unfortunately we all felt a little ‘off’ that night, Mal went home early while I hung out at Demelza’s, we put it down to too much sun, probably just a case of minor sun stroke! But the contents of my stomach started turning and I found myself battling to keep down the water I was drinking. Later that night I lost the fight…at both ends…oh yes it was vomit and the big D. Talking to Tanya, Demelza’s Ukrainian neighbour the next day we discovered she was also sick as were her friends, evidently there was a virus going around and we didn’t escape.

Day four and I made myself go to yoga but regretted it. After ten minutes I was sweating profusely and moved under a fan. I tried my hardest to keep going, but the sickness overtook me again and I had to make a quick exit to puke. One of the instructors was very nice and stayed with me, but then wouldn’t let me go home, insisting I would benefit from lying with my feat in the air against the wall, I was turning green at the thought of it. We settled on the ‘butterfly’ position, which was basically just lying down relaxing. Although I did feel like a total drama queen plonker, especially as she moved me beneath a fan and people had to position themselves around me! I did perk up by the end of the three hours, even tried eating later- another bout of sickness ensued, but after the 24 hours I felt fine, however Mal and Demelza didn’t.

Day five, last day of boot camp and Mal couldn’t even make it through breakfast without having to dive into the bathroom, by the time we were due to start yoga he couldn’t get out of bed the poor love. Demelza didn’t really realise her symptoms as she was popping the ibuprofen like tic-tacks to numb the sunburn. Despite this it was a successful session, We paced ourselves especially during the crab, or back bridge where Demelza said ‘we should save our best ones until he (the teacher) comes around’, this comment set us into a fit of laughter just as the instructor was coming our way, I darted up, Demelza hadn’t yet recovered from her wit receiving a scolding!

We ended the course delighted with ourselves, we did it! 15 hours of intensive yoga in five days, how awesome are we? Demelza was so impressed with herself that she went to the instructor after class and asked him did he think she/we would be able for the advanced course starting on Thursday (another 5 day intensive course, that would end on the day Demelza flew home). He advised her that if she really wanted to do it and tried hard it would be no problem. Mal had already said he’d like to do it, so we marched over to reception and signed up (you didn’t have to pay a deposit!). Later that evening all thoughts about the big Tuesday night blow out were far from our minds as Demelza now had the big D, Mal was drying up and a night in chatting on the balcony, drinking tea and listening to the ipod was a far more suitable option.

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