Getting a PADI certification in Thailand

Filed under Great Outdoors, Learn / Certification Abroad by on January 6, 2012 at 8:55 am {19 comments}

 

Word on the street is that you’ll get the best scuba diving deals in Southeast Asia.

I spent two hours on Khao San Road in Bangkok, bouncing from agent to agent, searching for a diving package to ring in my first solo birthday on the road .  Finally, my four-day PADI open water diving certification program was booked at a jaw-dropping low price . Travel gossip didn’t lie.

I’m not lucky enough to be one of those travel bloggers to score sponsored press trips nor am an ingenue haggler, but I don’t scold myself. I make up for it by being a queen hunter of basement bargains and cheap day tours of reasonably good quality!

What did my package include? Round trip transportation to the island of Ko Tao, a 4-night resort stay and 4 days of licensed training, confined water (more…)

Getting my Yoga Teacher Training Certification (YTTC) in India

Filed under GAP YEAR TRAVEL, India by on June 12, 2011 at 5:00 am {7 comments}


My guru is my environment : Dharamsala, India

After a month long yoga boot camp at Himalaya Yoga Valley in Dharamsala, I finally graduated with my Yoga TTC (teacher training certification). Woot!

Muscles aching, belly battling waterborne parasites, while hurdling through two asana classes a day and intensive schedule of studies and teaching practicums…  It was a lot!  Along the way, you accept your body’s shape-shifting to it’s surroundings. Your foreign environment molds you– injury happens, bad diets take form (aka carb-loading for lack of veggies), India initiates you with horrible toilet habits.

But good things come from it as well…

I’d found my gurus.

• Friendship

I had formed a family and a lifestyle that was my a warm cocoon, in the secluded sanctuary of Dharamsala, away from the blistering stains and antagonizing bustle of Mother India. (more…)

A Peek Inside an Indian Yoga Ashram

Filed under India, Kerala / Karnataka by on June 2, 2011 at 8:55 am {19 comments}

At 6 AM. the morning fog was lifting off the lake. Devotional music poured joyously over the loudspeaker of a neighboring temple and echoed eerily, as fly by birds bore life to the serene setting. Sitting in silence I felt the sun spreading its rays across my body with an exquisite orange and gold. I inhaled.

OM.

Kerala was a perfect escape from the heat, haggling, piss-perfumed stains and madness I know as India. Lush green foliage and forest, the Keralan coast was degrees cooler and more welcoming. I’d seen the film Eat Pray Love and told myself I’d have no aspirations to it. Still, an epiphany was coming through– that there were spots in India which could be peaceful, clean, beautiful and serene!

Universities, nice roads, lush forestry, posh and brightly colored mansions backed by Saudi money all seemed to say – Hey, this state’s got money! Yes, “God’s own country” (as the saying goes) was truly rich.
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