I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about the magic of the moment for me in Laos. I was feeling pretty good after my first evening in Luang Prabang. It felt this energy coming back into my being that was missing. It was one of those things when you don't realize how much the thing is missing until it comes back. It was such a relief to be able to connect with someone in English and sink back into interaction. I know that probably sounds a little weird, but I was so isolated in Bangkok that the little interaction I had with anyone was limited to truncated sentiment in broken English while ordering food or buying something at 7-11. (For reference, 7-11 serves the purpose of the local super market. Some have more than others, but it's where a lot of people do their simple shopping. They are also prolific in Bangkok - literally one on almost every block.) If you do that for a month it really does take a little bit to get back into the the rhythm of conversation. The people I met at the ecolodge really brought me back to a vibrancy that was missing from my experience in Bangkok.
As I was walking to the tuk tuk shuttle going into town on my first morning (first full day), I saw two women practicing yoga on this large wooden platform near the river. I previously read that the lodge offered yoga, but hadn't asked about it yet. I was really excited to check it out, but I got nervous that it would be serious yoga people and that it would be too much for me. I had been practicing quite a bit in Bangkok with my favorite YouTube yogi, but there were still a lot of positions I didn't feel comfortable doing because of my back surgery a few months ago. I couldn't tell how intense it was when I was staring at the practice on my way to the shuttle because it was the very end but I decide to ask about it when I returned to the lodge.
After my awesome morning at the waterfall I returned to the lodge and signed up for a yin class taking place later that afternoon. I hadn't really ever done a full yin practice before, but understood the concept. In a yin session you focus on more restorative yoga as opposed to a flow or a power yoga. On the surface it seems downright easy, but in reality it's physically and mentally strenuous. It's sort of like meditation and yoga combined because you hold each pose for anywhere from two to five minutes each. The primary purpose is not to stretch your muscles; it's using gravity to moderately stress your tendons, fasciae, and ligaments with the purpose of improving flexibility and circulation. (Thank you, Wikipedia for putting into words what I knew but had a hard time articulating.) If you want to see how challenging that is, sit on the floor cross legged. Get comfortable. Don't worry about any special form or anything like that. Now hold that exact position for five minutes. Don't fuss, don't scratch, don't fidget. Try to slow your breathing down. If need be, breath in for six counts, pause, breathe out for six counts, pause. Repeat. Every time you breath in feeling your body expand. Every time you breathe out, breathe into the spot where you feel the stretch and try to relax any muscles that might be tensing. For five minutes. Now do it in a pose that is a lot more challenging. You'd be surprised how many poses don't seem to challenge at first, but then after a minute in become so incredibly uncomfortable.
I sound a bit disparaging, but I loved the way I felt after this yin session. I was very uncomfortable during the entire thing and was fighting my mind for at least half of it, but my body hadn't felt that good in a long time. I had an absolutely awful bed in Bangkok. It felt like a 30 year old spring mattress on a platform that made it hard as the floor. The Ikea couch in the apartment unfolded to a bed, but it was so soft that it had practically no support. I alternated sleeping on each for a few nights in a row. My back bothered me a lot in Bangkok. It didn't help that it was my first month getting back into regular work outs too. I put a lot of pressure on my back and had very little to support it. Generally speaking I've felt great since my surgery, but there's a spot where the muscle is still quite tight in my back. The yoga is helping ease that, but it's not without its challenges. I have to find that sweet spot between stretching what needs to be stretched, but not stretching too far to cause lingering discomfort or pain. Even though my muscles were screaming some days the good news is that I didn't have any nerve pain along with it. Anyway, my point was that the yin helped release a lot of that tension in my back. I've continued to do it after I returned to Thailand and plan to do it at least once a week moving forward. Here are some photos of me and my new friends doing some yoga. We took them on our last day together after a vinyasa session. You can't really tell from the photos, but the NamKhan river is right beyond the tree. There were also some bamboo trees to our right and left. The trees creaked when the breeze blew. It was a gorgeous and super relaxing setting.
One real big disappointment I had is that I did not sleep well at the lodge. The bed was pretty great, a major improvement over my Bangkok bed, but for some reason I still didn't sleep well. I normally don't subscribe to things like this, but I really think it had to do with the moon. When I was at the lodge there was that huge special harvest moon and there were a few body-related things that felt a bit different to me than usual. I think it had to do with the moon. I think the switch from loud city noises to mostly quite country noises also messed me up a little.
This didn't happen until my last two nights, but the lodge had at least two turkeys who liked to gobble a lot very loudly in the morning. One morning, after I left my windows open overnight to try to get my room to cool off, I was abruptly woken up by the turkey calls. It was SO loud. I couldn't fathom how that turkey was so loud because the pen for it was at least 20-30 yards away. Well, it turns out the turkey was roaming free because when I poked my head out my window it was right below me. I then saw a man chasing it with a stick to get it back to where it needed to be. I kind of felt like I was in a cartoon.
Anyway, back to the main story here. At yin yoga I met Deborah, our British instructor, and was joined by Baptist, a very nice Parisian man, and Emmy, a wonderful Dutch woman living in China who was escaping the mainland for a while to avoid coronavirus. I had met Baptist and Emmy both very briefly earlier and was happy to have buddies for yoga. Emmy was the woman I had seen practicing with Deborah as I left earlier in the day and Baptist shared that he had tried yoga twice before coming to Laos and so was pretty new to it all. The variety of experience put me at ease and I thought "ok, these are my people." Boy, was I right!
It's a bit cheesy to say that we all just clicked, but it did feel a bit like pieces coming together to form a temporary puzzle. I spent the rest of my time at the lodge and in Luang Prabang together with these three beautiful souls. We were all pretty different, but had enough interests in common to keep conversation flowing naturally. After yoga each morning we had breakfast together in the lodge restaurant and then mostly spent the day doing activities together. We talked about books, podcasts, diets, and culture. We explored the night market and local dining. We tubed down the NamKhan river together. We watched the sun set from a temple at the top of Phousi Hill. It was so... easy. The companionship really fed my soul and made me feel like I regained something I lost in Bangkok. I'll risk being a little over dramatic, but I really do think that Deborah, Emmy, and Baptist revived my sabbatical. No longer did all of my experiences pale in comparison to the Australian Open. I was able to have something great and feel a joy come through me again like it did in Australia.
I'll post more photos in following posts. I'm a little nervous that if I try to post them all here my internet will crap out and I'll lose this post after a bunch of effort and get frustrated like last time.
No comments:
Post a Comment