Lotus Position in a Backpacker's Town
Share with others:
"BREATHING clearly lifts the mind and spirit," said Amar Puri, a wiry man in a sweat-stained T-shirt, as he crouched on a patch of lawn and poured saltwater in one nostril with a neti pot. He snorted and sneezed, as the morning mist hovered just above the lead-gray surface of Phewa Lake, reflecting the Himalayas. "And now, I am ready for yoga."
A class of 12 students at Sadhana Yoga, a humble retreat perched hillside, grabbed their own neti pots and giggled nervously at one another. For a moment, they seemed to realize how far they were from home, practicing yoga in the blue shadow of the highest mountains on earth.
Pokhara is an odd place to feel saltwater stinging your senses. About 2,900 feet above sea level and a thousand miles from the nearest ocean, it's a city of 200,000 smack in the middle of Nepal. It has a busy downtown strip where, for years, trekkers and thrifty backpackers have come, many to pick up supplies before heading out on the Annapurna Range.
But these days, it's the silence up in the hills that is calling. About a dozen back-to-basics yoga retreats have opened in and around Pokhara in recent years -- transforming this once-partying hub into what might be Nepal's top yoga destination.
Mr. Puri, like other would-be yoga gurus, was drawn by the ample space and a steady supply of young, soul-searching Westerners. After teaching yoga at a series of rented spaces in downtown Pokhara, he opened his own studio, Sadhana Yoga, about two miles north of Pokhara, in a secluded village of cascading rice fields known as Sedi Bagar. "I wanted a quiet place to meditate, away from the crowds of downtown," he said.
The center includes a four-story building painted fluorescent orange with lime green balconies. The nine guest rooms, which can sleep a total of 17 people, are spartan with paper-thin carpets and candy-colored walls. Nature creeps in through every corner: birds flutter through the kitchen, and a baby leopard was seen roaming the hallways.
First Published May 29, 2010 2:01 am
