It was advertised as a yoga retreat. I fancied a bit of peace and quiet but I didn’t fancy the yoga bit so I explained I would come and pay the full price if I wasn’t forced to do the yoga. They said it was fine. A spell in the Jiangsu countryside was just the medicine I needed – an escape from the craziness of Shanghai for a few days.
The house we were based in was quite nice by Chinese village standards, clean and newly built with en-suite bathrooms which were surprisingly good. The bed was without mattress so they’re clearly set up for the local tourist trade.
I was joined by 5 yoga fans – all foreign – and a Chinese yoga Nazi and her freeloading foreign boyfriend.
The yoga Nazi barely broke a smile for the whole time and even for the keenest of yoga enthusiasts, was a bit too hard core. Anwyay I kept out of the way when the yoga was going on, on the balcony, sitting on a stool in the shade of the Persimmon tree reading my book. Bliss.
Then, as two of us opened a bottle of beer before settling down to watch a Buddhist film one evening, I was told it was not permitted and that I should not encourage the disciples to drink. Bloody hell, the guy for a 50 year old Czech engineer. I think he can make up his own mind whether he wants to drink a bottle of beer in the evening while watching a film.
Clearly I was a bad influence. I prized the beer out of the hands of the Czech and poured it down the sink. Not a drop drunk. My bottle, I took around the corner of the village house and drunk furtively.
Maybe this is why yoga people/players get a name for being a bit weird. What is life if you can’t relax with a beer while watching a film after a tough day’s hiking and hard yoga sessons. As well as the yoga on offer we were taken to two very busy tourist spots where there are temples and steep mountains with concrete steps to climb.
We were told to walk up in a mindful way. I walked up as quickly as I could and arrived in good time and running in sweat. I know the idea is not to be competitive but I can’t help it and I killed myself to be the first female to the top.
One of the team was pretty pissed off at the tough route march up the mountain. She had specifically not chosen any of the Golden Week hiking trips because she didn’t want to walk vertically up a mountain. She had chosen a yoga retreat instead. Ooops. I didn’t mind so much. We were greeted at the top by a small group of Chinese and a large pile of rubbish. Such is the scene often found in Chinese nature. Its so lovely, I think we’ll mark the place with a pile of empty water bottles and snack wrappers.
All meals were taken in silence which is fine by me and the mindful walk was in silence (great) and of course the mediation and yoga was silent. In fact such was the search for silence that I got locked out of the house the last morning – I had gone back into my room to get my little pot of coffee and the sound of the door opening and closing was (apparently) so disturbing to the yoga Nazi’s meditation that she came downstairs and locked the door so I couldn’t get back in.
Overall I was happy that I had gone on a peaceful retreat in the countryside but I was always on edge trying not to put a foot wrong, trying not to say the wrong thing or do anything inappropriate so it turned out not to be very relaxing.
The yoga Nazi was not a big hit with me nor the other girls, a couple of whom were scathing. Smiling helps – perhaps if she had been a bit more cheerful, it would have made more popular.
But maybe yoga people don’t aim to be popular, just lose themselves in the meditation and float away to another higher reality. God knows. But I don’t think these sorts of retreats are suitable for someone who has their feet firmly on the ground.