Cherry on top (Yoga in Pondicherry, South India)

Alo alo

Finally someone kicked me under the butt to write something, and I just thought for a person who lives her life so openly, I'm just way too quiet lately.

I've just returned from two more weeks in India for level 2 Yoga teacher training. I went to the South this time, Pondicherry (or Puducherry) 3 hours (or 160kms) away from Chennai (or Maadras). The French ruled this territory for 300 years, so it's very evident in this cute, messy, little town.
The street names are all in French, which makes it quite ridiculous (and ironic) to get a tuc-tuc driver to understand where you are directing him to, so you stick to Indian sounding shops. French restaurants do not have a trace of French food, and you end up being stuck with South Indian curries everywhere you go.

Luckily our yoga resort was a few kilometres away from town and we felt quite secluded and private in our 'sanctuary'.
In the beginning I thought: what on earth am I doing once again in chaotic India studying and twisting and bending from 6 in the morning to 8h30 at night, where I should be holidaying on some tropical island, reading my book, sipping on icy cocktails and not using my brain. I almost gave up. I've been doing a lot of travelling this year and not enough chilling out. But then 5 days later, the healthy eating, the calm meditations and the postures of incredible yoga, turned me into a joyful Alta again. My fellow students were awesome, and I met up with some old teachers from last year (same Australian company). For the ones who don't know how badly flying and jetlag mess with your body, you have no idea how absolutely wonderful it is TO BE ABLE to go to bed @10pm, get up @6am, go to the loo right after breakfast - if you know what I mean (and again sometimes after lunch) and feel your body do 'normal' things.
Yoga and all that comes with it, always make me feel present, and present in my body. It calms me down and helps me to think more clearly. And the way it massages my organs, strengthens muscles that seem impossible to find or even describe, and stretches my body leanly to make me feel like a ballerina, all make me grateful for having found this path. I lost more weight, probably most slender I've ever been - I'm not talking about thin and anorexic looking (well, my mom seem to disagree), but I feel better than I did when I was 21. Yesterday was my last meal of fish and eggs, so I am completely vegetarian now and not looking back. I feel great!

Which leads me to tell you that I will be quitting Emirates soon. I'm just waiting and fighting hard to get surgery organized with the company - to sort out my vericose veins in my legs, from all this flying. I should be done with Emirates by end of January. Then I plan to stay in Dubai for another year perhaps and teach yoga. Opportunities are big here. Ideally I'd rather be in Cape Town ofcourse. Also, some shocking news: Param and I broke up about 4 months ago. It was 5 wonderful and crazy years, a beautiful book that came to an end. We remain friends.

The weather is superb in Dubai at the moment, so I'll have some biking news and adventures to share with you soon.

I do look forward to hearing back from you folk. It's been a while.
May I add that I wish you a fantastic closure to 2010 which is coming to an end. Have a jolly time during the festive season and may you find emotional, spiritual and physical health part of your priority list of prosperity. Feel great and live great. Be 2011 find you harmony in everything you encounter. It's your birthright:)

Big Ohm,
A

The Undutchables (Amsterdam, Netherlands)

Goede dag

My news are getting rarer as your comments/replies/feedback are decreasing as well as my new destinations. I finally made it to Amsterdam! And wow! It was everything we have heard of Amsterdam, and yet so much more. It made me think and wonder how come the Dam is so different if the Dutch are so conservative and the whole experience was just made interesting. I'll cut to the chase and share my experience. Two South Africans and one Thai crew joined me into my urban excursion while we were waiting for Petra (my very good friend from South Africa) to finish work and join us later.
So:
-We saw public male urinals in the middle of a sidewalk. It is just a stand and men pee there openly. I couldn't believe it. According to Petra, they tried a more closed-off version for females, which unfortunately turned into a cubicle for horny druggies
-The Red Light District is so open, we just 'stumbled' upon the area. Yes, it's actually like a shopping window and girls are displaying themselves cutely to passing men. I took my new camera with it's superzoom, and 'stole' a photo before we got into the area. It's highly prohibited, although no signboards saying so. I guess it's just common sense. But isn't weed illegal?
-The city is surrounded by canals and bridges and I kept thinking we were walking in circles. It was beautiful. Also, it being summer, the sun supplied us with perfect weather and only went down after 10pm
- People smoke weed on the sidewalk and the smell lingers in the air all over the city. That's just strange. Walking in a modern city where weed is legal. How is that even so? Also, there are many weed and seed shops, museums, information centres and 'colleges'.
- I've never seen so many bicycles/cyclists in my life!!! Thousands are parked everywhere, and they are old and not looked after well. It sounds like the only thing that gets stolen often in Amsterdam. It's quite frightening dodging fast cyclists, trams, buses, cars and other pedestrians. As a biker myself (in a crazy place like Dubai), I'm afraid to take on the engineless two wheels in a place like Amsterdam.

- We had pancakes for lunch - Dutch style. They put bacon and cheese, spinach or whatever is on the menu, on a pancake. I ordered in Afrikaans. Being brought up as a South African, it just tasted wrong. I kept wondering where the cinnamon sugar was. We had Heineken also throughout the day. It's originally from Amsterdam
- Meeting up with Petra was just fantastic!! Her Dutch is fluent by now and it was awesome to hear her talk to the locals. She is such a great mind and so easy to hang out with. We went to the massive iAm-sterdam sign and hanged around for a bit and ended the day with a lovely, chatty dinner.


I was lucky enough to catch Dominique (also a good South African friend) in London on my previous layover and went for a healthy vegetarian (she turned vegetarian also) picnic in Hyde Park sporting pink and red sunglasses that I acquired for our outing, haha. She will be touring Eurasia on her vespa!

Anyway, coming back to the Dutch and our history and orange - I don't know why South Africans would refer to it as their Fatherland or think that they can speak Dutch. I felt no connection and there are no similarities to the culture. The Dutch did make me feel very short though, hehe.

Nog een prettige dag toegewenst
Totziens
Alta

Borneo to be wild (Sarawak, Borneo)

Selamat datang

I am glad to be able to share another intense and spiritual journey with you, the one I just returned from. I remember very well, in 2003, embarrassed that I knew nothing of the world, I spent my days in the library picking up books about countries, cultures and languages (as I never paid attention in Geography and History class in school) One of the many books I picked up then, was called BORNEO, and it became a dream to be in one of its villages. I never put energy into it and never thought about it again. Then I 'randomly' (yeah right) met Wellena, a village girl from Borneo, and I shyly asked her to be my friend (I haven't done this since I was 10?) We cooked for each other every now and then in order to meet up, as she just 'happened' to live in the same building as I. I, 'coincidentally', had leave on the days she was going to have her engagement ceremony....I 'miraculously' got on a overbooked flight with a standby ticket. This was clearly meant to be. And....so I went
Borneo is the 3d largest island in the world, basically between/amongst Indonesia and Malaysia - and at the same time the island is divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. The island has a typical jungle feeling to it, lush green bushes, ferns and big forest trees, lakes and green bushy mountains.

Her friends immediately took me in as their own and treated me with warmth. By the end of the first night, I could sing most karaoke songs fluently in Malay (Iban, to be exact), lol!!! The next day was the big one. Went to her village, which is a 2-hours drive from Kuching. Kuching is the capital of the East Malaysian state of Sarawak. Once there, I watched how many village women cook and prepare for the night's celebration. I instantly fell in love with Wellena's grandma, who reminded me of my own, which took me back to my childhood and my hometown and how I came about being the person I really am (i was fortunate enough to experience the real old Afrikaans tradition through my granny). Also, a part of me felt Malay. I connected with all 300 ppl that night and my job was to walk around with a 1,8 L btl of local spirits (langkau) and offer it to everyone individually. I was given TWO of these bottles. People were allowed to negotiate, and sometimes I couldn't get out of one, and I basically had a shot for every 10th person, lol!! This was a part of the tradition. After my job was done (labeled: the sadong girl), I grabbed one of the old aunties by the hand, and we opened the dancefloor. One local song came up and everyone was doing the line dance (remember Achy Breaky Heart??) I joined right in. People were AMAZED that I knew their local song's dance, hahahaha (they obviously thought they had started it). The end of the night, everyone was drunk(including me), and Wellena's dad and grandma became my own:) It was one of the most amazing experiences to me to be a part of all of this. I had no judgement, no complaints, just simple observations. Wellena said that's what she loved about me and therefore she never apologize for her family. I cried. I remembered that she, at first, tried to convince me to rather come to the wedding in France (her fiance is French, many people assumed therefore I must be his family friend, as we were the only whities there) but I would never even think twice about my options.
My dream came true, and it's one that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I am being blessed endlessly and I am in joy.

Then off we went to Gunung Gading National Park to go see the rafflesia - the world's biggest, smelly and carnivorous flower only found in Borneo and that only lives for a few days. Anti-climax sorry, we were misinformed as the flower died the day before already:( So, we went back to Kuching, where I saw the cat museum, haha (Kuching means cat) and I spontaneously decided to go back to Dubai - so a nice weekend for me in Borneo, all turned out super. I have no idea how it was possible, but I got on a overbooked flight again - as in 30 ppl overbooked. Even the crew couldn't believe it. To surprise Param when I got home. He was still up @6am and speechless when I walked in. Yes, Param has been staying with me for 2 months now. We will probably always be together or find ways to make it work. Boer maak 'n plan, as he says......

May you all realize your dreams and know that anything indeed is possible. I wish you a wonderful day and look forward to your replies

Big hug,
me

Ps. there are soooo many more Malay words in Afrikaans than just piesang... it's funny:)

tripoli to Libya (Tripoli, Libya)

Hey guys,

while I wait to get the photos from the adventure I just returned from, I'll send you a little bit of news about Tripoli in the country Libya - North Africa.
Not much to say.... to me it had the same vibe as Morocco, perhaps even more boring. It was an interesting experience as a woman, to hear men shouting from passing cars - but like crazy shouting, something hysterical, a bit mental. In my mind, I was wondering what was wrong with these people, until my accompanying friend told me it was for me, gosh, then I became aware of it all. And cool enough, my friend just happened to be someone I've been going on random bike runs with and whom I'd hang out at the bikeraces. Met him through a friend, and he got pulled out on my flight last minute (he's crew as well)


We went strolling, exploring some streets and then at night a few of us went looking for a local restaurant where they had baby camel on the menu:(
We smoked some shisha, saw few loose Roman ruins and went back to our hotel, which is probably the best looking building in the whole city. There are photos of Kadafi everywhere.

Ja, and that's it.

Thank you for all the awesome birthday wishes. I had a ball. Picnic on the beach and then a "P" party - I came as a prisoner, haha

Next newsletter on it's way shortly.
Be well and be happy,

Alta