Luang Prabang Yoga – Nong Khiaw

Luang Prabang Yoga offers classes at Utopia cafe, Friends Visitor Centre, and they also offer retreats!  I attended their New Years retreat for 4 days/3 nights, which was located at Mandala Ou in Nong Khiaw, a small village about 3 hours from Luang Prabang.  The retreat is beautiful and the yoga shala overlooks the Mekong River.  Just as amazing as the yoga and views here was the food!  Breakfast and dinner are provided and they put out an amazing spread.  Best food I ate all month.

Luang Prabang – Cafe Hopping

I could spend days cafe hopping in Luang Prabang – there are so many lovely places to sit and people watch and read and draw and listen to music and relax.  A few of my favourite places I found were:

Utopia – A zen-feeling, bohemian lounge by day, snazzy club by night, this is pretty much where a huge portion of travellers get together later on in the evenings for drinks.  I passed the day away here reading by the riverside.  They also offer yoga classes through Luang Prabang Yoga for 60,000 kip.  You can take the class at Utopia, over looking the river for a beautiful view to keep focus, or follow them in town at Friends without a Border Visitor’s Centre.

Silk Road Cafe – There are two locations, one in the centre, and one out in their craft centre a few kilometres, walkable, from town.  The one out of town looks out on the Mekong and is peaceful and quiet with papasan chairs and cats.  They also play movies every Thursday night with a free tuk-tuk for transport from the centre!

Chez Matt – Wine! People watching!  Need I say more?

Saffron – Look out at the Mekong and enjoy some baked goods and a coffee.

Novelty Cafe – Chill out and people watch on the main drag with some cheesecake and a really good latte.

L’Etranger – Located near Utopia, this cafe plays free movies every night, about 30 minutes after yoga finishes up – just enough time to wander over, order some dinner, and relax for the evening.

Novelty Cafe

Utopia

Vang Vieng, Laos

Second Stop: Vang Vieng, Laos

Jang Cave Entrance

Jang Cave Entrance

Jang Cave

Riverside

wanderings in the fields beyond

viewpoint hike/rock climb – look for the tiny red flag at the top of the right hill

Indiana Jones makeshift water caves

View from Silver Naga pool

I hopped on a 4-hour bus ride upriver to a little mountain town that was once known more for its party night life scene, but has in recent years tried to make a switch to focus on some eco/nature adventure sports after a crackdown on the bars and weed.  There’s still plenty to do without paying for tour packages though.

Jang Cave – a cool cave that’s just about a 15 minute walk from the centre of town.  Costs 17,000 kip to cross the bridge and enter the cave.  I strolled around for a good hour, investigating cut off areas that are no longer in use which I probably shouldn’t have, but I felt a little high on Indiana Jones vibes and couldn’t help myself.  There’s an end bit that has an old no entrance sign which also freaked me out a bit in the dark with my iPhone light and felt more like X-files than Indiana Jones and that wasn’t fun anymore so I turned around.

Yoga – I bought a 5 class pass as I’m here for a few days and the cool thing is that with yoga, you get access to the pool.  With access to the pool, you get a beautiful view of the river which unfortunately pedestrians in the town don’t really have access to because the riverbank is built up and there isn’t really a boardwalk.

Find your own caves to explore – I walked across the river, along the main road in the direction of the blue lagoon – however, I never made it to the blue lagoon because I came across a sign for some “water caves” and thought I’d rather avoid the crowds and explore something random. I wandered through farm backroads for a good 15 minutes and came to a fork, each direction advertising water caves with swimming lagoons.  I chose the left fork, walked some more until some guy came out of house on stilts with those ticket books everyone in Vang Vieng seems to have and charged me 10,000 kip to explore his caves.  Basically he had found some caves in his backyard, spray painted some arrows near the entrances and let you roam.  There is one big one and the only thing bigger than my fear of vampires was the cave spiders I thought only existed in a taxidermy state in museums.  I let Indiana Jones down that day, but it was still pretty fun wandering around my own private cave dwelling expedition.

Viewpoint Hike – Across the river, there are some homemade signs to a viewpoint hike only a couple minutes walk away.  For 10,000 kip, another entrepreneuring local will allow you to climb his steep, rocky hill.  I have no travel insurance and chose to climb up in my flip flops.  They didn’t make it – but I’m glad I did.  I’ll be buying insurance soon.

Where I stayed:  I stayed at Pan’s Place.  Really chilled and relaxed, with a hammock garden to hang out in, and a decent restaurant in front.  The rooms are literally shack huts with no windows, but the bed was comfy for sleeping and that’s all I was in there for.   Otherwise, they have a movie room upstairs and ample enough chairs to laze around and chat with others if you’re so inclined. In the restaurant, I was a big fan of their porridge for breakfast and their pad thai for dinner.  Great lattes too.  I booked my minibus ticket onward through them as well for a good price.

Living Without Time

The problem with living like a beach bum is when you actually have the desire to go do something, but the energy just isn’t quite there.  A candlelit yoga class where the teacher plays Tibetan Singing Bowls sounds amazing!  But the idea that I need to be somewhere is making the whole getting up and moving thing very difficult.

I want to sit here on this purple couch in this beach shack cafe and eat red velvet cake and drink this terrible Lombok coffee.

 

(After note: I did get up and go, and it was a pretty awesome class. If you’re in Gili Air, you should check out H20 Yoga!)

Bali Love

It’s been a crazy few months since leaving Australia for yoga every damn day in Indonesia. I survived my month teacher training with The Yoga People in Ubud which consisted of two beautiful weeks of Yin, then followed by two weeks of Ashtanga hell camp.  My wrists were inflamed, my tail bone felt like it was going to snap off, everyone was breaking out in open weeping the last days, but we made it.  I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been this proud of accomplishing something.  Even more so than earning my B.A.

I can now say, “I’m a yoga teacher.”

And I do.  Pretty much all day as I walk down the street.  Mostly to myself.  Sometimes to the street dogs that trot alongside you happily in Ubud.

Something I still haven’t quite gotten over however is the dreaded Bali Belly.  Shit gets real, real fast, quite literally.  The food out of the retreat kitchen was consistently fried, heavy, and dripping with oil.  We asked for more veggies please?  Sure! Out of the kitchen they came deep fried.  Thanks!  We did ask for it technically.

Can you imagine 30 girls shimmying in line for the only toilet in the yoga shala?

My belly got a bit of a break in the Gilis.  I was crazy lucky in finding a yoga studio in Gili Trawangan that needed some help right after the course for a month of trial by fire teaching.  I googled yoga places around Indonesia and even some nearby in the Philippines, and wrote them all.  One wrote back – and that’s all I needed.  When I think about how I’ve just skimmed from one thing into the next, I can’t believe how much I’ve been given this year.  Send good energy out to the universe and it will provide.

Now back in Ubud for some holidaying, I have time to appreciate this little village as I wasn’t able to back on the course.  I wander streets, squat in cafes for hours, run away from monkeys, and cycle around rice paddies feeling like Julia Roberts (or whoever she was trying to be in that movie based on that book I haven’t read).

I’ve just booked a big tour tomorrow where I’ll run around the island taking selfies in front of temples.  Definitely a tourist kind of day.  Stay tuned.  Sending Bali Love to you and yours ❤

Barre Body

Barre Body is a great boutique studio downtown on Flinders Lane.  They have other locations in Richmond, Windsor, and Fitzroy too.  I really enjoyed their style of classes, with a range of yoga-infused-barre and pilates.  All of the instructors are passionate and attentive and work on flexibility as well as strength, the best of both worlds.

They’re a bit more pricey than other studios downtown, with their intro rate coming in at $50 for two weeks unlimited.  Their time schedule makes it all possible though and I never felt like I didn’t have time to catch a class.  Definitely worth the splurge if you have some dollars to spare.

Move Yoga

Move is an absolutely gorgeous studio in the CBD in Melbourne.  Crafty wood siding hugs the walls and makes me think it’s been whittled by hipster woodworking gnomes.  The atmosphere was magical and I had to shake my head to wake myself up a little bit to the fact that yoga was in my face and I liked it.

I’ve only taken two different classes so far, Yin Yoga and Hot Flow, which were completely opposite but equally engaging.  Yin yoga is great for getting in deep stretches if you’re a runner or into other styles of fitness where your body can take a beating.  You hold postures for a few minutes in this class and feel pretty loose afterwards.  Hot flow kicked my butt.  It was fast-paced with some awesome bass/bordering-on-electronica music to keep us going.

Move offers one of the best intro deals I’ve seen; $25 for unlimited 2 weeks of practice is a score.  I’m excited.