Kannur, India

31st January - 4th February 2011

I arrived in one piece and so I began my first day travelling alone. I got a taxi to the bus stand and onto a very rickety bus driven by a man cursed with unusual optimism and faith. Over taking on blind corners, trying to overtake in spite of oncoming traffic before hastily pulling back, over taking vehicles already overtaking someone else and of course driving in the special lane for buses – the middle of the road/the wrong lane. I was sitting behind the driver almost over the engine, holding on for dear life while trying to keep my feet from being roasted in the heat given off by the overworked motor. The bus took me to Calicut train station and from there I got a ticket to Kannur as well some maps and advice from the lady in the tourist information office.
The three hour train ride was fantastic, despite paying for second class seating I managed to get a seat in sleeper class – much more comfortable but the best part was the last hour sitting in the open door watching the masses of coconut palms and rivers rush by. The scenery was gorgeous and going over the bridges I could look out and see nothing between by feet and the water below, incredible.

I arrived after sunset and called to get the address but was told in no uncertain terms that that was impossible and I should wait for someone to collect me. About fifteen minutes later a man walked up and handed me his mobile to confirm that he is the one collecting me, I picked up my bags and we go over to his... motorbike. Marvellous, one very heavy backpack, my camera bag and a plastic bag full of stuff I couldn't fit anywhere else. So having rearranged my bags, I got on and asked him to go slowly and a very painful, strained half an hour later we were at the resort. I think I may have pulled my stomach muscles trying to stay upright with my heavy bag hanging off my shoulders. My thighs and sphincter, for obvious reasons, also got an excellent work out.

There were already three other students at the resort, we were taken there for one night because the other students hadn't yet left the hospital where we were supposed to be staying. We had dinner together outside looking out over the Arabian Sea, the resort was right on a small quiet beach and surrounded by palm trees, it was very tucked away and insanely beautiful. Sabrina and Jacob both Italian were travelling together and there was an older Spanish lady Elenor as well, we spoke about some of our experiences travelling in India and they all seemed really nice. We all went to bed after dinner, nice and early for a change, not. I shared my room with a couple of spiders and a pale green lizard minus its tail, it was eerily quiet but I slept well.

The next day we were collected and taken to the hospital were we had our first lesson and met Dr Poilan. Nice guy, very friendly but an awful teacher, he was replaced after an hour with Dr Sangheeta same thing but younger and female and with a very unusual method of delivery, she would always pause after the word 'the' very odd and more than a little bit annoying. After our introduction to Panchakarma therapy and Ayurveda we had lunch and managed to find rooms, well some of us did. Thus ensued a situation only uptight females can get themselves into, who's sharing a room with who. It turned out after all her talk about loving the Indian way, the talking, the attention and the total lack of personal space that my new room mate Elenor didn't want to help out our fellow students and share our room with two other girls. She said lots of things that left a nasty taste in my mouth and made me quite angry but I just wanted to keep the peace so while I made it clear that I didn't have a problem sharing I wasn't going to force it on her. With that horrible new atmosphere firmly established in our little study group we had our afternoon practical lesson, head massage.
The problem with the rooms sorted itself out and the other two girls Spanish Paola and Brazilian Camilla were fine in the end but they were easily the nicest and friendliest of our little group and they were staying in the resort not the hospital, bugger.

The next day we had our first yoga lesson, bit of a quiet instructor but he was okay and our day continued much as yesterday with the theory in the morning and practical in the afternoon. In our lessons we basically wrote down the theory she told us, all of which was in the textbook we were eventually given, verbatim and in the afternoons we tried to copy the massage therapist who wasn't very talkative. Neither or our teachers really encouraged any questions or discussions, the lessons were boring – we could have read everything from the textbook and the massage guy didn't explain why we were doing what we were or how it helped, it was more like do this for this, now be quiet. I coloured my hair with henna in the evening and while the sloppy mixture was dripping down my face, neck and into my ears the excitement of the previous two days died down I really started to miss my man.

It's a horrible thing feeling lonely and on the verge of tears when you're sharing a room with someone, you haven't got anywhere to go if you want a discreet sob and to feel sorry for yourself, it makes you feel even lonelier than just being by yourself. After a truly abysmal lesson the next morning I decided to leave, I told the manager, my room mate, the practical teacher and then I packed and waited for some of my money to come back. Wishful thinking, after a long conversation punctuated by tears they agreed to take a smaller portion of my money, bastards, which still left me with a big fat hole in my money belt. I left with my backpack around five in the evening, an hour or two before sunset, with no fixed plan – genius Sarah strikes again.

After a bus ride into Kannur and a fruitless hour searching for a yoga centre I started to look for a hotel. Mistake. I spent another hour hauling my increasingly heavy backpack around town, going up flights of stairs to various different hotel receptions – what is wrong with a reception on the ground floor?! - only to be unsympathetically told that they didn't have any availability. I started to cry a little bit after hotel number four, I was weary, smelly, I missed my husband and none of the fat mean receptionists were helping me. I finally got a room at hotel number seven, hugely expensive, for me anyway, it had a lift and the most comfortable bed I had slept in for weeks. A double bed no less. I had a shower and went out to find something to eat and to use the internet.

The next day I got a ticket to Varkala which was a seven hour train ride south following the coast. I ran back to the hotel, packed, had another shower and left to catch my train. Right time, right platform... wrong train. About five hours in a noticed that my train had changed direction and was heading west instead of south (thank you Djalma for my Bear Gryls lessons) but after a lot of crying and a good nights sleep I decided to stay on the train and enjoy the mystery tour. Not long after that my phone beeped a new message 'welcome to Tamil Nadu enjoy uninterrupted calls and messaging with our seamless roaming service', I had left Kerala and was now in a different state. Marvellous. I successfully predicted the next main station, jumped out and called the only yoga place I had details for to find out their next course started in March and so walked round the station to buy another train ticket. No luck, so off to the bus station, after half an hour I got on a bus managed to keep both seats for myself with strategic leg and bag placement and enjoyed the seven hour bus ride to Mysore, a big centre for yoga (after Rishikesh), I was certain that I would find something there.
I arrived at 11.30pm in Mysore, Karnataka, yes three states in one day, a personal best I hope never to better due to a train taking a wrong turn. I walked to the hotel I'd had the foresight to book while at the bus in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu (I really didn't feel like learning that painful lesson again) and then relaxed until 2am watching several episodes of Coupling.