I wanted to go to India to meet up with some yoga teachers I knew I liked well, and just explore various styles and options for practicing. So, the plan was to spend a month in Mumbai with the teacher Zubin Zartoshtimanesh, and then head to Rishikesh to spend a few weeks with some teachers there, including an old friend from Beijing, Kamal, and then finally head south to Mysore to spend some time at the Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga joint they have there.

The month in Mumbai was glorious and went extremely well, and my yoga benefited a tonne from the time there and all of the teachers and peers with whom I was practicing. I even had the luck to be there during the annual Ganesh festival, during which the entire city goes bonkers with statues of the elephant god, Ganpati. One of the coolest things I have ever seen.

My time in Rishikesh, unfortunately, did not quite go to plan. Many of the teachers I had hoped to visit were either not there yet, or just about to leave on various trips, and even my friend from Beijing, Kamal, went back to China to visit for a few weeks!! To add to the bad luck, I ended up having serious issues with the food in Rishikesh, and as the time went on, found myself increasingly unable to eat anything or keep things in my stomach, and the constant fever and ... other digestive issues were becoming a bit of a serious concern.

So, it was that as I left Rishikesh, feeling about as physically miserable as I have in an incredibly long time, I decided that I was going to cut my trip short a bit this time, and head back to the safety of Hong Kong and Beijing to let my body recover. The downside, of course, is that I didn't get the full three months of yoga that I had hoped. The upside is that the month in Mumbai was worth everything on its own, and I might just restrict my trips to India to there in the future. Spectacular!