For the Mind and Body

We started off Saturday with a bit of a different activity and opted to join a yoga class as 9am that morning at a studio on the beach.

To get to the beach for this yoga class involved yet another trike, or two in this case because apparently the trikes in El Nido don’t fit five people in like some of the others we used did. We learned very quickly that the trikes on each island were all designed different, which was an interesting thing to notice.

Some might say that it was unfortunate that we didn’t actually get to have two trikes and instead me and Lydia were stuck in what was dubbed the pig cage because we’d seen a pig being carried in one the day before. In fact, it was actually just a trailer attached to the side of the motorbike with a plank of wood wedged across it that served us as a seat. It was honestly a really fun ride, if not completely safe, but at least we didn’t have to worry about hitting our heads on the ceiling of anything or worry about being hunched over to fit properly like we often did in the trikes. It felt very fast though and, unfortunately, the speedometer on the bike didn’t work because when I peeked over as we sailed own a hill and around a corner, it showed 20km/h and didn’t waver once. We took this to not be a reliable reading. We did make it to the beach safe and sound and maybe slightly more exhilarated than when we’d left the hostel and ready for our yoga class.

The class was actually very interesting and was supposed to get us more in tune with our bodies, all sounds pretty normal for yoga but this was a special yoga session in which we also did some animalistic movements within the class. Props to David, the teacher, for taking his job seriously and showing us how to walk forwards and sideways and leap on all fours. He managed to make it not make it feel too weird while we were crawling and jumping around on the ground like monkeys and even managed to be very encouraging though it all, and  it was actually a really enjoyable experience all in all, although still rather hot. 

After the class, Lydia was brave and took a dunk in the ice bath provided by the studio and I think it was actually a lot colder than she thought it was going to be, but she did it and survived the breathing exercises and the 3 minute submersion.

We then ate some breakfast and spent some time on the beach. I decided against getting in the water and opted to sit under a tree in the shade instead, as the sunburn on my thighs and feet was still painful and I thought it better to keep them covered than not.

It was a nice change of pace and I would actually do the yoga again because it was such an interesting experience, don’t know how much the other agreed though but it’s always nice to do something different.