Life in a Bubble

A historical postcard from Rishikesh

I miss this view... 🤩

The Ganges from Omkarananda Ganga Sadan

Fifteen years ago, I spent a long time here. As someone else put it back then – scroll down for a video – “I feel good and I feel fresh, hangin’ out in Rishikesh…” 🎶

However, things slowly changed and I haven’t been back - hopefully, one day! For the moment, here’s something I wrote about a Rishikesh hangout while feeling somewhat jaded with life as a yoga bum:

“Back in the Seventies, when hipsters lived in Kabul, most backpacker trails converged on Kathmandu. When he got there, a German named Klaus missed wholegrain bread. So he made some himself, in clay pots on a kerosene stove. Before long, he’d upgraded to ovens, and started selling his loaves to fellow travellers; in Nepal and down in Goa by the beach, where he opened a restaurant with a bakery attached. Four decades later, there are probably more ‘German Bakeries’ in India than McDonald’s…”

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It’s scary how quickly time flies. Still, I look back on those days with affection – and even gratitude for reaching my limit with what the article called “living in a bubble”. Deciding to return to the UK took me back to university to study yoga history, which started me teaching, which led to me writing The Truth of Yoga, and eventually this.

So on that note, I’ll hand back to Sky – a.k.a. Thomas Slansky – for whatever the opposite of Rishikesh blues might be (though a YouTube commenter nonetheless writes: “I watch this almost 13 years later & it brings great joy & laughter but also some sadness, thinking what became of the place nowadays…”):

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