On Friday Yashendu arrived well in Wiesbaden, Germany. He will spend the next two months travelling and working in Europe. Ramona and I also used to go to Germany around this time of the year but as I told before, we will now stay here at the Ashram with our baby girl. For Ramona it will be the first experience of a hot summer in Vrindavan. And it will be hot – until 48 or 50 degrees centigrade! Many Indians flee the hot weather and go further north, into the Himalayas, where it is nicely cool. It has actually been only ten days that Yashendu has come back from the mountains together with the group of the Himalaya Journey.
We have received wonderful feedback from the group, have seen their pictures and heard stories of the funny, exciting and breathtaking experiences they had. They had started from the Ashram after our big celebration for Apra and in the following ten days experienced the Himalayas in all their beauty, adding music and yoga to their journey.
Stopping in a different town nearly every day, they visited Rishikesh, also called the gateway to the Himalayas, Gangotri, the source town of the Ganges, New Tehri, where they had a great view onto Asia’s largest man-made lake, Joshimath, from where they took a trip to Auli to get a look onto India’s second largest mountain Nanda Devi and the Jim Corbett National Park, India’s oldest National Park.
The tourist season in the mountains starts now, so our group was a bit early – which added to the adventure and at the same time made the journey even more beautiful. On the complete trip they had the advantage that there are not yet lots of tourists in the Himalayas. This is how they could enjoy nearly-empty hotels and towns. In Gangotri for example it seemed as though they were the only people there – and thus they took in the nature to its fullest without distraction or disturbance. There was no noise of others, they could take pictures in peace and even meditate at the riverside. There was however no electricity either – but with a nice fire and some music by the river they kept themselves warm in the evening! Everybody had been prepared for this adventure and although it was quite cold, it was a special experience!
They were travelling in their minibus a lot and took extensive stops and long breaks at beautiful stations of their journey. They got to see the big change in vegetation and also of temperature from Vrindavan, where we had 30 to 35 degrees centigrade up to Gangotri or Auli, where it was around zero degrees and, in the last case, even started snowing when they were just walking down the mountain again.
Going with the flow, they did yoga, led by Yashendu, at the side of the Ganges or on terraces of hotels, breathing in the great air of the mountains. Thomas’s music helped them to relax and process all the information, impressions and experiences they had.
In summary, it was simply an amazing journey and we will surely plan another one for next year so that more people can experience the majestic Himalayas!
See pictures of the Himalaya Journey 2012
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Wow! The whole trip sounds amazing! I would love to go on the one next year. It must have been very spiritual with the beautiful nature, peaceful surroundings and yoga by the ganges. You are all very lucky!
The Himalaya must be breath taking! I would love to see it once in a lifetime. I think mountains have in general a really calming effect on the human spirit 🙂