Here We Go Again...

April 10, 2009

Aum Amriteshwaryai Namah,

At 2pm today we will be on yet another flight to Mumbai for a 6 hour layover before flying to Nairobi, Kenya. This is absolutely ridiculous that we were already so close to Africa being in Mauritius and now we have to fly all the way back to India just to fly back to Kenya. This can't be helping the carbon footprints of each individual on this tour or the universe as a whole.

On the flight to Mumbai, since it was an afternoon flight and I had had a good night sleep before, I watched the movie "Marley and Me" and oh my God, I am missing Yogi and Bana beyond belief. The ending of this movie was quite sad and had me crying. It's a good thing that I watched the movie as I had this really weird lady sitting next to me on the plane who was very aggressive with the flight attendants and generally not a very nice woman.

I have decided to back to Amritapuri after Kenya and NOT do the Kochin Tour. I am feeling really "full" and been worked on so many levels - mental, physical, emotional and spiritual and I am feeling really good right now. I don't want to overdo it and feel bad about my entire experience of touring with Amma. Also, the India Tours are very different and you don't get a lot of close intimate time with Amma as we have had on this foreign tour. The Indian Tours (from my experience of the three cities before Singapore) was that they are very big and lots of crowds (not unlike India in general). I don't think I could handle the crowds and clastrophobia that would come along with the crowds.

So, I will go back to Amritapuri, take about 5 days and go to Varkala (beach resort about 2 hours form Amritapuri) and then come back to the Ashram and try to make arrangements to return home within the first week of May. Varkala will be a nice rejuvenation from being physically sick and energetically spent on this tour.

April 11, 2009

The trip from Mumbai to Nairobi on Kenya Air was great! I had 3 seats to myself and slept the entire 5 hours of the flight. It was the best flight yet!

Kenya is very rough looking and met all of my preconceived ideas. It is even more rough looking than India.

We were put up in some very, very nice fully furnished apartments and since we were the first to arrive, I took one of the two single beds in the bedroom with an ensuite bathroom. This is the lap of luxury compared to what we've been dealing with thusfar. In all the other places, it was the single thermarest with a shawl over it to provide some comfort on the floor. This was an actual bed with cushions and a pillow. It was a 2 bedroom apartment with 2 single beds in one of the rooms and a double bed in the other room. There were 8 guys assigned to each apartment.

I took a bit of a rest after getting settled into my room and slept for about an hour when I was told that there were some people in this mini-group of early travellers who were going to go to a nearby mall to catch a bus to the Safari. I got up and joined them on the bus.

We ended up eating really good sushi at the Westgate Mall and then most of us (Phillipe, Prabhu, Madhu Sri, Peggy, Parri and myself) went on to the Nairobi Safari Walk. This felt really good because finally I was starting to take in some of the local sites in the City that we were in. For Reunion Island and Mauritius, I was either really busy with tour staff duties or I was sick and in bed while everyone else enjoyed the town before the programs.

The Safari Walk was really nice and the animals did not seem like they were that upset by the fact that they were somewhat caged. Mostly, they had a lot of space to roam around in and feel secure in their surroundings. For feeding time, they were brought into cages but that is for the safety of the representatives of the park. I took some pretty amazing pictures of the lions and leopard and ostridge and other animals that we saw there.

We got to the Temple Hall where the programs are to be held at about 8pm and had a really good dinner and went back to the apartments. It was decided that we would arrive at the hall in the morning at about 6:30am to set up the bookstore as there was another party in that hall and we could not get access for another hour. No one wanted to wait around for that period of time as they had all just arrived and came straight to the hall for dinner.

I slept like a baby for the first time on tour (with the exception of when I was sick and drugged out of my mind to know any better).