Well, I’ve at long last made it to Goa (Polem beach, to be exact) after best part of 24 hours’ travel and zero sleep – so knackered is not the word at this point…

Still, the journey went smoothly enough, with both flights being on time and airport immigration proving remarkably efficient – though my transfer from international to domestic terminals at Mumbai did admittedly seem to put the inexplicable cat amongst the pigeons amongst the airport staff on site there. At one point, my boarding pass was being officiously passed around, scrutinised and hotly debated amongst at least half a dozen security agents, before they at long last concluded that, yes, I was indeed in the right place after all (which quite frankly I could have told them myself…).

On leaving the airport, it was immediately right back into the fray that is India: i.e. constantly blaring car horns, traffic flows seemingly with a mind of their own, little old ladies hawking all manner of items along the roadside, and cows bloody everywhere!

Fortunately, after a looong drive through unending green fields of pine trees and rice paddies, I reached the Bamboo Yoga Retreat, my abode for the next several days and genuine oasis of calm amidst the chaos. It was getting dark by the time I rocked up, so I couldn’t take any decent pics, but here are a few from t’interweb to give you an idea…

The plan is to stay here for the next six days, with the (possibly wishful thinking) aim of finally cobbing on to what other people seem to see in yoga and meditation – two practices I sense would likely do wonders for my ridiculously overactive brain, but which, despite best efforts over the last couple of years, I have spectacularly failed to master myself on home turf so far. My thinking goes that, if I can’t make even a little headway on a beautiful, secluded beach in India, the very birth place of yogic tradition, then it’s probably just not meant to be – but at least I’ll know I have given it a proper go while here at any rate….

That being said, a very much earthly distraction from these lofty goals has been thrown into the mix already! I had assumed that Bamboo Yoga, given all its blurb on spiritual health, physical wellbeing and mental harmony etc., would be dry as a bone (not counting the usual array of various herbal teas…) – but apparently not! There is in fact a fully-stocked beach bar on site after all, and – well – when in Rome and all that…

And so, unsurprisingly, that is where I’m now officially headed to grab a much needed drink after such a long journey and hopefully get chatting with some of my fellow retreat goers, who – as predicted – seem to be universally female, middle-aged, middle-class, and probably in the midst of a midlife crisis to boot… In short, I’m sure I’ll fit right in! 😉

Anyhoo, that’s it for now – till next time!

* ‘Namaskar’ rather than ‘namaste’, as that’s apparently how it’s said in Konkani, the local Goan dialect.