Escape from the Ashram
Trip Start
Aug 04, 2009
1
73
191
Trip End
Aug 30, 2010
Where I stayed
Varkala, Kerala, India
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Hana, a Kiwi on a protracted tour through India and SE Asia, wasn't anywhere near Naomi's level in terms of her travel history (not that it was anything to sneeze at, mind you). Rather, it was her portrait of her day-to-day life in New Zealand that really stood out.
It started when she mentioned having only been rescued by lifeguards twice in her life -- which struck me as exceeding the threshold number of rescues before the word "only" should be dropped by at least one. Both happened when she was young, about 8 and then 10, neither time deterring her from going back to swimming in the ocean, which she's done on like a weekly basis year round since she was about 6.
During the summers she would swim in the sea most days, and often out of the sea as well -- apparently the region around Auckland is littered with natural springs, ponds, and holes which you could simply pull off the road for a dip into during the day. She has, on occasion, watched the sunset from the west coast, driven 2 hours across town to the east coast, and slept in her car to watch the sunrise the following morning. A bathing suit, sleeping bag, tent, swiss army knife and fishing rod were present in her car at all times should the mood for camping strike her at random. Her swimming habit was so extreme that she freaked out when she started
traveling in Nepal, never before having spent time in a landlocked country -- incidentally, this was also the first time I've ever heard someone describe Nepal in anything other than gushing terms bordering on religious fervor.
Speaking of religious fervor, perhaps the most mind-boggling thing about her was that she cut her Ashram stay short to 3 days because she found the religious aspect of it too intense. Hokey and trite, yes. But too religiously intense? Apparently this was Hana's first experience with any kind of religious service, ever. Seriously? No weddings in a chapel? Always in a government building. No friends' Bar Mitzvahs? No Jewish Kiwis. No midnight mass at Christmas? OK, that one's grasping for straws. Still, I knew that religious participation has been falling in Western Europe and the Commonwealth, but I sorta figured people were like me, having had some level of exposure in their youth and then drifting away from the church in their teenage years. I had no idea that the trend was so far along in the antipodes that they were skipping the first bit.
Anyway, prior to this encounter I hadn't given New Zealand a whole lot of thought beyond the 2 weeks traversing it with Yasmin and the day or two hanging out with Reuben and Cath in Auckland. But the picture Hana painted of the quality of life there (not the non-religious bit, I think atheism, like vegetarianism, is something kids can turn to when they're old enough to decide, but not before then) got me wondering whether I should add it to my short list of places under consideration to move to after this trip winds down.
This conversation unfurled over the course of Sat night on the south beach of Varkala, a town set atop western-facing cliffs with stairs leading down to the pristine white sand below. I left Sat morning with a large group who I'd found through the Ashram bulletin board, and couldn't have been more pleased with their choice of destination. Varkala's beach was excellent and the water warm. Our thatched hut accommodation was cheap and, although the shower still ran cold water, at least gave some privacy. The restaurants served some dubious international cuisine but top notch fish and stocked wonderfully cold beer, the perfect accompaniment to watching a sunset while listening to the waves crash below. Most of all, it draws the same sorta crowd I'd found at Ras a Satan in Egypt, from swimmers like Hana to body paint artists like Sarah and of course, a fair share of hippie types.
My 3 days there flew by, the perfect palliative to the 2 weeks on the Ashram.
-Dave
