happy year of the pig!

to help bring in the year of the pig (or boar if you wish) properly, penni and i started last evening with one of our favourite poses; pigasana. after returning from chatting with greg online (sooooo nice) i went back to the apartment and met up with penni there. as we continued with our ongoing debate about the merits of ashtanga and anusara yoga, penni suggested we go around to the local 'chat' or snack house. we ordered up a huge feast of nan bread, dahl, rice and fried noodles (the latter was for penni). i have found the food completely delicious here, beginning right from the meal i had on the airplane. when the plane food was good, i knew i was in for a real treat once i arrived. after eating pretty much whatever i wanted and loving it, except for my heavy body, i was amazed that i never got sick. i was also interested to see how my body would be feeling as i've been purely vegetarian since i came to india and was on my way there for most of thailand.
being vegetarian while travelling was not a conscious choice. it was more about what was available to me and what looked good to eat. eggs and a bit of chicken seemed ok in thailand but i feel skeptical in india as most people are veg. pennis suggested after several day of heavy indian food eating that we only eat fruit for a day and then only vegetables for the next. whhhhaaattt? mono-dieting? but of course! for those of you that were close to me in korea would know that every monday for the past year has been 'veggie' monday for me. this means i only eat veggies for the day, slightly cooked or raw, in attempts to clean out the toxins i accumulated by the week-end festivities. it was a good system and one i highly reccommend. it also helps with the sugar-guilts (heehee). alas, the soup wars began!
it turns out that penni is a great cook and did us up one sweet, slightly lemony greek-style soup after we finished our all-fruit day. after two days of healthy eating, we both felt great, were having strong yoga practices and keen to keep on it. the next day was my turn, and in utter kitchen bliss, i turned out a pumpkin,sweet potatoe veggie chowder that was a hit. it was so nice to be cooking again and i felt wonderful. until i got home after yoga practice. then, things turned nasty; fever, intense body/joint/head/neck aches, belly the size of a watermelon and painful scoots. i lay in bed for the rest of the day and the next, hoping my body would purge itself. whatever was making me sick was holding on tight though and i eventually resorted to some ibuprofen to bring down my fever and help the aches. it worked but the scoots keep a'comin'.
here i am 4 days later...and they keep a'comin'. it doesn't seem to matter what i eat, my body is rejecting it and then some. this has not been helpful for the yoga practice, especially at 6 a.m with the 50kg indian man standing on me asking me if i want more and not waiting for my reply. after class we made a trip to the ayurvedic dr. and he made a diagnosis. stomach infection. excuse me? a.k.a dysentery. oh, that one. he said i probably got food poisoning from who knows what and its moved into my lower digestive system. he gave me a few sachets of small brown balls, some nasty smelling powder to drink, and told to me to eat lots of pomegranates. he said the pomegranates would help with the scoots and give me yoga energy, something to rememeber for the future.
i've also been in the midst of making plans for my exit from mysore in a few weeks. i'll be heading to goa for 9 or 10 days for some relaxing beach time before i return to thailand january 30th. i was hoping to fly to auckland right after that but my chances of heading out before february 10th are not good. instead i've decided (well, almost) to meet up with jonas again for another weeks worth of anusara training. having done quite a few ashtanga classes now, i'm not really 'feeling' like the strict ashtangi i once was. i enjoy the series of postures and the intensive focus of breath in ashtanga, but i'm missing (as vanessa crow would say) the 'blasting off'. what i mean from this is the freedom of expression that goes on in anusara, of opening up the pose to where ever you can take it and sending out all that organic energy thats pulses through your body. mmmmmm....
for now, i'll continue with the ashtanga and take to it like its strength training. sort of like doing reps on the pull-up bar for climbing. ahhhh, the c-word. these hands haven't touched rock since greg and i were last at awl-gul-bawi almost 3 months ago. i've been carrying my climbing gear around with me, just in case, but yoga education has been coming first. i hope to change that when i do make it to goa as a world famous bouldering spot, hampi, is very close by. anybody want to give me a spot? :)