After breakfast, two potentially disastrous events. The first, as we were preparing to leave to visit Shiva’s temple on the top of the hill above us, had me close and lock the sliding French window which opened onto our terrace. But Val had left her computer and phone on the table out there, and attempted to dash out to retrieve them… only to run smack into the clear glass window. There was an almighty bang, and though the window appeared to survive the encounter unscathed, Val was not so lucky. Not only did she give her nose and forehead an unanticipate4d whack, her head jerked back giving her some whiplash. It took ten minutes or so for her to shake it off (even then with possible mild concussion), but then we set off for the temple.
And this time it was my turn to suffer. We decided to take the footpath up the hill, and it was a long, steep climb that I could not cope with, especially with the heat of the sun, stopping several times, and starting to feel most unwell; I did not want to put anyone through the drama of a mountain-side heart attack. But, by degrees, with many rests, we were there. I sat down on a bench to recover, while Val set off on a first recce of the place.
It really was an extraordinary place, with a huge statue of Shiva dominating the skyline, but also many other statues and representations, including four separate gods ornamenting the faces of a huge globe-like structure. As appears to be Hindu preference, everything was very bright and colourful, gaudy even, and the whole atmosphere was very festive and lively. There was a huge number of stalls, offering both food and drink, devotional material (for tikas etc), and, of course tat. If anything, the atmosphere of a seaside funfair, though there was also a devotional side, with people removing their shoes in order to ascend to the higher level of the temple. Val did have a rather extraordinary encounter with a man dressed as some god or other; not, as she had feared, an obvious money-making device.
Christianity generally prioritises the inside of its sacred buildings, and much the same (so far as I am able to judge) seems to be the case with Islam. But Hinduism and Buddhism (especially as demonstrated in Myanmar) seems to focus on the outward appearance, brightly decorated temples for the one, gilded pagodas for the other.
We descended by the road – a far more sensible choice – then rested before climbing up onto the flat roof to undertake a private yoga session, conducted by an Indian/American teacher, Ravi Ganesh. I have occasionally dipped the merest toe in such activity, and have never got anything from it, but he turned out to be a fine teacher, reassuring, gentle, encouraging, keeping everything very simple (though I still struggled with much of it.) It was, I confess, far better than I feared it might be, and parts of it (mostly the relaxation parts) were enjoyable. But ultimately I found too much of it beyond me; I have no sense of balance, so despite his encouragement to listen to our bodies, and not go further, too much of it was stressful. Of course I would get better with more practice, and even knowing what it was we were asked to do caused me to have to turn and look… and discover I had failed. But I am pleased we did it, and Val got rather more than me out of it, I suspect (though she is still currently wedded to pilates as her exercise regime of choice.)
We felt we had earned our celebratory cocktails, and then dinner… though Val had to have hers delivered to our room, as she had a series of phone-calls to undergo, not finishing until gone midnight. She was only just able to squeeze out enough time to enjoy her dinner, a Thai curry which was both cold and ferociously hot.
