Today's walk to the shala at sparrow's provided the most magnificent sunrise I've ever seen. It was incredible, all the shades of red, orange, pink and purple in the colour spectrum were represented. This particular sunrise was so magnificent that I was sure a volcanic eruption was the cause.
Fortunately no eruptions have occurred within cooee of Langkawi or Malaysian air space in general, or I'd be stuck here for weeks. Within half an hour there were several flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder over the coast which were distracting me along with the cacophony of usual morning audible delights.
Apologies for the crap quality of these photos, but I took them on my phone in the pitch black dark and with this stunning array of colour, using a flash was not an option!
It really did look like the sky was on fire.
Today started in the usual way - neti, pranayama, meditation and asana. I left about 10.30am after yet another great class with Meng Foon and headed off for brunch.
I tried an "Italian" place on Jalan Pantai Cenang and it was an EPIC fail. My break arrived and I quickly decided beef bacon is shite. Don't bother trying it, the fake bacon that Sanitarium make is far nicer than this junk. OMG, so gross. It also came with chicken sausages, terrible scrambled eggs and nasty toast. The only saving grace was the iced coffee and even then, that was shite too. Oh well. I'm learning slowly where to and where not to eat.
I have noticed that my energy levels are really starting to drop (okay, plummet) over the past few days. I'm blaming the heat, the hours of yoga in high humidity and temperatures, the sugary electrolyte drinks I have to smash down and a couple of rogue mozzie bites I've acquired, despite insect repellant. I've not been able to eat as well as I would at home and I'm over crappy food. I just want a half decent meal that is FODMAP friendly and doesn't cost $50 AUD!
Changing my yoga clothes two or three times a day is starting to get annoying. My hotel doesn't do anything for guests, let alone offer a laundry service. Luckily, after ten days of hand washing, I had dropped my clothes off to a laundry across the road from the hotel. It was all fine with the first bag of clothes, but the woman who runs it tried to give me a second bag of someone else's clothes instead of my ones, then argued with me about that, then didn't give me back the bag I gave her the items in.
Seriously, very uncool on her part. This woman is a liar and a thief - I ignored her when she came running out of her shop after me - I guess she'd magically found the bag but by that stage I was about to lose my cool so I walked away. I'd already paid and I was pretty disappointed that she'd lost my bag and claimed I never gave it to her. I tore my suitcases apart when I got back to the hotel and sure enough, as I already knew, it wasn't on my person or my property. I knew I'd given it to her and I was VERY disappointed. Not with losing the bag mind you, but with her lies and the theft. I can't remember the name of the place but don't go to the laundry over the road from Best Star Resort!
After a nap on the beach chair again and a quick swim, I had a small lunch of heck-knows-what Nasi Kandar, picked up some cut fruit from the shop on the main road and headed back for the advanced practice workshop with Meng Foon at 2pm. We worked through the usual preliminary stretches and poses before cracking back into headstand, kakasana, chakrasana and a bunch of other stuff. My tree is starting to look good and less wobbly. It's a sweaty red tree with rivers of perspiration running down it's every limb, but it isn't threatening to yell out "timber!" and collapse in a heap now.
Cue 4.30pm and I had to have a cup of tea. I was starting to feel really drained, so I had a cup of lemon myrtle tea and some honeydew melon. Marc arrived about 4.55pm and joined me for a cup of tea. I just couldn't muster the energy for more asana today, so we sat on the verandah and talked about stuff.
Mostly I was interested in finding out about Marc's experiences with Vipassana meditation, which is likened to a ten day silent prison sentence - but the bars are inside your own head. You go to a centre for ten days and spend that time in silence, in the meditation hall listening to videotaped teachings on how to meditate or in your own room, with no distractions. No pens, no paper, no writing, no taking notes, no music, no phones, no iPads, no books, no games, no yoga, no running - no nothing, except walking in the garden. OMG!
Marc advised that he's done a few of these courses and each time, something has come up for him that has resulted in floods of tears. We talked about the kinds of things that would inevitably come up for me during the ten days, if I chose to go along. We decided that I'm not ready yet but the silent weekend retreat I'm doing at the end of May back in Melbourne would be a good opportunity to try something similar, of a shorter duration, in a controlled environment. If things come up, things come up - at least I'll be around familiar people who are friendly and trained to deal with tears!
After meditation, it was time to eat. I had a nice dinner of lemon chicken with rice in the shape of a star at Putumayo on the main road. Sadly my strawberry milkshake enjoyment was interrupted by the news that my beloved Dragons have bought Benji Marshall. Like, guys...what the heck are you thinking????
One strawberry magnum later and here I am, ready for bed and the final day of yoga tomorrow. Bit sad already, I'm going to miss Marc and Meng Foon but I will be back!
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