My trip around the world... India

yeah... I know... I left the meditationcenter some days ago but Ididn't manage to write my diary yet. so now it is time for that... the meditationcourse was a great experience for me. in the beginning Ithought that I can't manage to not speak, write or read or just doanything for ten days... so it was scary for me in the beginning. butI managed and the days flew by... it was amazing. It was quite hardbecause you had a tight schedule from 4 am until 9 pm. you woke up 4am, 5.30 - 6.30 meditation, 6.30 - 8.00 breakfast (which I used to goback to my bed and have a nap... 8.00 - 11.00 meditation, 11.00 -13.00 lunch, 13.00 - 17.00 meditation, 17.00 - 18.00 evening tea,18.00 - 19.00 meditation, 19.00 - 20.00 speach from the teacher, 20.00- 21.00 meditation, 21.30 lights out. I managed to be in bed by 9.20pm... but it just didn't help. I couldn't really sleep during thisten days. I had some weird dreams and some were just awful... but Ithink that had to do with the meditation. but I had some greatexperiences during the meditation as well. sometimes my legs reallyhurt and my back as well... but you just concentrated on somethingelse and in the end you couldn't feel anything anymore... so thatwas good... I almost didn't manage to be on time in the center. Itook a bus from chiang mai and this took 7 hours instead of 5. I tookanother bus to a place in the middle of nowhere and had to figure outhow to come to the center. I met some thai people which were writingme a piece of paper which said: " I am a farang, please take me to themeditation center if you are driving this way" and so I stood on themain road and a pickup took me a bit of the way and another thai womanon her motorbike took me 1 km from the center and I walked the rest. Iwas just in time over there... I thought I couldn't make it... but Idid in the end. On the last day I went with a dutch girl, a israeliguy, an english guy and an american guy to chiang mai. we had a greattime over there and I got to know some really nice english people andwe had a blast two nights long. they hit to new zealand and I wentback to the quietness of pai... I arrived really late in pai so thefirst night I had to sleep outside because I couldn't find a place tostay. but that didn't matter... I enjoyed it. i had a sleeping bagand an extra blanket to keep me warm... it was next to the riverand under the great stars... almost like in heaven if it hadn'tbeen that cold... the next day I rented a motorbike and I wascruising around for the last two days. Hopefully I can go on atrekking trip for four days tomorrow and stay in the hill tribevillages... but that is not really figured out yet... so... the 4th of february I go to laos for a month... see how it is overthere... ... take care out there... Nicole