I’ve just finished Bill Bryson’s book, A Short History of Nearly Everything. Most certainly enjoyed reading it and do recommend it to everyone. I’d like to share a few selected passages that made a lasting impression:

If anyone has ever told you that their love for you is bigger than a Blue Whale, go home and give them a big kiss ;) because: The great blue whale, a creature of such leviathan proportions that (to quote David Attenborough) its ‘tongue weighs as much as an elephant, its heart is the size of a car and some of its blood vessels are so wide that you could swim down them.’ It is the most gargantuan beast the Earth has yet produced, bigger even than the most cumbrous dinosaurs.

The earth is 4,550 million years old (plus or minus 70 million years).

The earth weighs 5.9725 billion trillion tonnes.

There is no point in trying to hide from your bacteria, for they are on and around you always, in numbers you can’t conceive of. If you are in good health and averagely diligent about hygiene, you will have a herd of about one trillion bacteria grazing on your fleshy plains – about a hundred thousand of them on every square centimeter of skin. They are there to dine off the ten billion or so flakes of skin you shed every day, plus all the tasty oils and fortifying minerals that seep out from every pore and fissure. You are for them the ultimate buffet, with the convenience of warmth and constant mobility thrown in. By way of thanks, they give you B.O.

You might not slumber quite so contentedly if you were aware that your mattress is home to perhaps two million microscopic mites, which come out in the wee hours to sup on your sebaceous oils and feast on all those lovely, crunchy flakes of skin that you shed as you doze and toss. Your pillow alone may be home to forty thousand of them. (To them your head is just one large oily bon-bon.) And don’t think a clean pillow case will make a difference. To something on the scale of bed mites, the weave of the tightest human fabric looks like ship’s rigging. Indeed, if your pillow is six years old – which is apparently about the average ago for a pillow – it has been estimated that one tenth of its weight will be made up of ‘sloughed skin, living mites, dead mites and mite dung’…Think of what you snuggle up with each time you climb into a hotel bed.

If you are an average sized adult, you are lugging around over 2 kilograms of dead skin, of which several billion tiny fragments are sloughed off each day.

To be sure, there were many other interesting, educational, fascinating, and some disgusting passages in this Bryson installment – and every page worth the read!

Waking up at 4:40am isn’t always easy :( I slowly lifted myself out of bed, and made my way to the shower – couldn’t imagine ever going to practice without hot bucket bath…Not only b/c it’s considerate to do so (both for your teacher and fellow yogi’s), but also b/c I simply wouldn’t be able to get going without one.

As I walked outside to head to the shala I realized it was wet and rainy outside – but that didn’t dampen my mood (after said shower of course:) I put on my earphones and jammed out to some Hootie and the Blowfish this morning – totally suited my mood. I arrived at the shala pretty early – as I didn’t want a repeat of Friday’s sprint to the door…And, as it turned out, Sharath ran over with the led primary group – so we didn’t even enter the shala til about 6:25am or so.

When I entered the shala, I once again tried to take a spot close to the ladies locker room and away from the stage….But of course, Sharath looked at me and said, “You come here!” pointing to a spot right in front of stage – basically at Guruji’s feet - in the front of the shala. Ugh…I think he knows I don’t like to be in the front row – and b/c of that he always makes me go there…Whatever the reason, I acted as though I didn’t mind one bit.

Body felt a little tight this morning – due in part to the day of rest, the massage Friday, and the day of excitement and travel yesterday. Guruji always leads the Second series group on Sundays – and today I was oftly surprised that he kept things pretty slow (still faster than Sharath but much slower than usual)…Nice! Practice, in general, was quite nice once I found my groove. I practiced next to Nick, and a lovely lady whom I don’t know. My breath was good, and heat followed shortly after practice began. I wholeheartedly assumed I’d be stopping at Yoga Nidrasana as I had all week long…When it came time for Yoga Nidrasana Sharath came over and helped me get nice and deep in it. Afterwards, I started to get up to head to the back of the room and he told me to do one more pose – Tittibhasana A, B, and C… Now I’ve done this posture for a long time now – but I was a mess with it today in led practice (I’m assuming - but do keep in mind what they say about people who ASSUME things ;) that I had some difficulty with the asanas because it’s been almost three weeks since I last attempted them…But who knows). At any rate, I was extremely happy to be given the asana, and look forward to cleaning it up this week. In no rush – once he gives me the next posture – I’ll be stuck with it for quite sometime (forearm balance – but curious to see how much progress I will make with regard to jumping into Chaturanga from forearm while here in India – all in due time Krista)

After fumbling over myself in Tittibhasana (not that bad really), I picked up my mat and happily headed to the back of the room to begin closing sequence. Warm, sweaty, and glowing – I began backbends. And boy was I open today ;) I did several dropbacks – and realized that I could easily grab ankles today – so I did. Not only that but once I had my ankles, I was easily able to move my hands up my legs (like Sharath does to me) a few inches – not at the knees but close – straightened my legs, took deep breaths, and then stood up. Um…felt great. I blissfully flowed through the rest of closing sequence and took a delightful Shavasana.

On my way home, I stopped at a nearby produce stand and picked up some eggs, onion and tomato so I could whip up a little breakfast today (Sundays are holiday for Tina’s breakfast – so that gave me the opportunity to use the kitchen and make my own breakfast ;)

About to leave Anu's now and head back home to finish the last 15 pages of my book! I am sad it's almost over - but excited to start reading a new book ;)

I woke in a bit of a daze this morning – to the sound of my phone beeping – it was a text from Jake at 8am: “Wake Up!” Ugh….It’s Saturday and I could’ve really slept most of the morning away…But a promising day awaited me, so I got myself up, took a shower, grabbed a bite to eat – then Jake and I headed to Chris’ – to wait….

We got to his apartment around 9:30am, as we’d all planned, and waited til after 10:30am for Chris’ friend Vicky, our driver, to arrive. Once he finally showed up – we were off! I’m so loving my new camera and really beginning to understand how the darn thing works – oftly proud of meself ;) The trip was supposed to take about 2 plus hours so I did a bit of reading on the way up – until I realized I was missing some amazing photo opportunities of all sorts of things on the road. I spent the better part of our car ride snapping photos with my nifty camera (was stoked b/c I figured out how to take some really good shots of moving objects inside of a moving object (the car). Yeah!

At any event, we stopped for a bite to eat when we got closer to Bandipur (the wildlife reserve we planned to spend the better part of the day). After lunch we made our way to Bandipur, only to find out they had cancelled all Safari rides for the day due to bad rains yesterday ;( We all seemed pretty determined to figure something out; as we’d driven too far….Vicky informed us we could go an additional 30km up to Tamil Nadu and take a bus tour from there. Sounded good! Just before we left Bandipur though, we snapped some great photos of the many monkeys that were chillin on the ground. A local Indian was selling peanuts (for the purpose of feeding to the monkeys). Chris and I purchased some peanuts and were having a grand ole time feeding them to the monkeys –

until one VERY aggressive monkey started charging towards me (he wanted the entire bag of nuts in my hand) – Chris ran ‘like a bat outta hell’ to the car and jumped inside while I was stuck with the aggressive monkey – a little stunned I gave the little bastard my entire bag of nuts and then jumped into the car: “enough excitement for me for now.” We got a good laugh outta of it afterwards though.

This is the little guy :(

Got some really great photos of deer, monkeys and elephants on the way to Tamil Nadu. And once we got there we (guess what?) waited….Only about 45 minutes though til the next bus tour – and we had PLENTY of fun in the meantime. Again more monkeys hanging out nearby – and I simply couldn’t get enough of them (even after my oh so recent monkey incident)….I had tons of peanuts left too so I started feeding them to the monkeys (Jake took some sweet photos of me feeding monkeys – yeah!). All in good fun, but as it turned out, there were more aggressive monkeys hanging about – a really mean, scary looking one with big fangs showed me just how scary looking he could be – he hissed at me and opened his mouth really wide when he realized I had more than a handful of nuts – so once again Chris screamed like a girl, I froze, and threw the rest of my nuts at the little bastard…Good laughs though ;) And great photos…

Finally, a bit after 3pm we got on the bus (two per seat – but did I mention these seats were only large enough for one arse) – so me and Jake crammed in tight as we took off. I got a couple good shots on the bus tour – but my camera’s battery died literally five minutes into the bus tour – so most of that experience must exist in my little ole head. Was lovely though – got to see a heard of elephants VERY close up – and a number of other wildlife. Once it was over, however, I was extremely happy to get back in the car and head home. We were a good 2 ½ hours from Mysore – and I was exhausted.

It’s been a great day in India – got some fantastic pictures, had a lot of good laughs, and got to unexpectedly visit Tamil Nadu! Not too shabby for a Saturday ;)

Oh, quite a ‘heavy’ practice today ;( Friday’s are always Led Primary Series, and since I am still in the second batch, I didn’t have to be at the shala til 6:15am. I got up as usual and headed to the shala – but was horrified when I was about two minutes from the door and saw the first batch pouring out of the shala! That meant that everyone else was already on their mats, and practice was about to begin. “How is it that I am so late?” I almost started sprinting to the shala as I didn’t want Sharath to yell at me. When I made it inside, indeed nearly everyone was sitting on their mat waiting for practice to begin. I quickly took my spot, and looked up at the clock – only 6:05am shala time…First class had to have been about an hour exactly. Guruji led that class – which is why it was so short….Today I wish I could’ve been as lucky.

Guruji chanted the opening mantra with us, and then Sharath taught the class. I always love it when Sharath teaches the led class – because he goes much slower than Guruji and you get a full five breaths. But today, he seemed (and indeed did) go even slower than usual. I don’t know what my problem was, but I was quite dizzy during the standing asanas, and by the time we got to the floor for primary I was pooped! But the real kicker was headstands and utplutih…I couldn’t begin to imagine how long we actually held headstand and half headstand today – Sharath counted fifteen breaths in headstand, and ten in half – but his count was longer than the distance from here to America…Literally, I’d imagine we held for a good five minutes. But, I did something I’ve never done in headstand – which proved to be most helpful…I got into it and straight away started chanting the Gayatri Mantra in my head. And it kept my attention so focused that our five minute headstand seemed much shorter and less uncomfortable than it should have ;)

But by the time we got to Utplutih – I just didn’t have anything left in me. And Sharath wanted to be really playful today – so his count to ten took at least three minutes (I’m so not kidding) He said one………………………………(about a minute later)…two……….(you get the picture). My bum seemed to weigh a ton and I just couldn’t keep myself up for the duration. When he let us drop and Vinyasa I sighed in the most delightful relief.

After practice Chris was kind enough to scooter me home, as I couldn’t bear the fifteen minute walk today. We decided to have breakfast at the Metropole. He returned to Tina’s an hour later and we made way to Metropole for what turned out to be the most satisfying meal I’ve had yet in India. Afterward breakfast, we scootered out to the Indus Valley Ayurveda Center (close to Chamundi Hill). We hadn’t made an appointment, but hoped they would be able to fit us in. I requested a deep tissue massage and a facial; Chris got a regular massage and something else. I knew that the deep tissue at the IVAC was going to be different than anything I’ve experienced before – but man was I surprised by what it consisted of….I was taken to a little bungalow where I was greeted by two young Indian women. They told me to take off all my clothes, and handed me a pair of tie together thongs that felt like a napkin. I didn’t mind being so naked in front of women, much less uncomfortable than my massage with Madu last week. First they gave me a head, neck and shoulder massage in a chair (which included lots and lots and lots of oil – my head was drenched in the stuff). Then they had me lie down on a mattress type thing on the floor – two ropes hanging above me…The oil seemed to pour from the walls…They first sat next to me and massaged my shoulders, and my chest. Each lady took one half of my body – thus each breast was being massaged by a different person (I just kept telling myself, “experience this Krista!”). After a few minutes they stood up, grabbed hold of the ropes, poured more oil on me, and began massaging my entire body with their feet. Interesting! Once I allowed myself to relax, I really enjoyed the massage.

When the massage was over, they told me I was to take steam. “Where,” I thought to myself. They helped me up, as there was oil everywhere – and led me to the other side of the room. One of the ladies opened the door to what appeared to be a box – but was actually a wooden steam ‘chair.’ I sat inside and they closed the door – my entire body, minus my head was consumed by hot steam. I proceeded to sit in the ‘steam chair’ for about fifteen minutes – the last five of which I was beginning to get a bit uncomfortable. They then opened the door, and guided me to the shower – where I was able to wash some of the oil from my body and hair (it would take another shower later in the day to make me feel ‘clean’ again). This interesting experience ended with a glass of very warm water. I walked out of the bungalow feeling like a million dollars.

One of my masseurs led me to another bungalow not far away, where I was to receive my facial. Now I must admit I have only had two or three facials my entire life – but I can happily say the one I got today was by far the best! Again I was tag teamed by two Indian women. One did most of the leg work (constantly heating towels to put on my face, getting organic compound mixtures to be used during the facial, and whatnot). The other lady actually performed my facial – which was simply gorgeous. It was an hour long, deeply satisfying, desperately needed facial. They only used natural ingredients, and even gave me a light massage and more steam (this time for my face).

By the end of my facial, I was really relaxed…I made my way back to reception to meet Chris and pay for my services. We made our way back to Gokulam – Chris went home to take a nap and I made way to the Internet café. I was exhausted though and didn’t stay long – I opted to go home and take my third shower of the day before getting ready to meet some friends at a fellow yogi’s house to listen to some live music. It was raining pretty hard when I left Tina’s so I grabbed a rickshaw to Alex’s house. A lot of people showed up for the event, but I couldn’t stay longer than an hour – I was simply pooped and desperately needed to make my way home and take myself to bed….