Just a quick update to all – I will be out of touch for the next couple of weeks.  Cousin and I (and a friend we met while we were volunteering) are going on a five day trek to Poon Hill for mountian views of Annapurna II and some of the other fabulous mountain ranges in this region.

After that, I will voluntarily put myself into a silent seclusion in a Vipassana meditation course outside of Pokhara.  That means ten days of no talking, gesturing, eye-contact with others, reading, or writing – and they limit food and caffeine!!

Sometimes I am really thrilled about the prospect of this mVipassana course and other times, more than bit worried.  I know that this is going to be really intense…and I have a bit of an attachment to talking.  Some travelers I have encountered count this as one of the best experiences; others leave traumatized and don’t stay the entire ten days.  Essentially, I am subjecting myself to ten days of intense introspection where the only company I will have is everything that goes on inside my own head…hmm…scary.

While there is a bit of trepidation about the experience – I am also pretty jazzed about it.  This was tops on my list of something to do while I was in the India/Nepal region.  Religiously, I am a bit up in the air and I like the idea of forced mediation.  Plus, now I have just spent a month teaching at the monastery and I think that this is one of the best times for the mediation course after being in the Buddhist environment for four weeks.

Also – as a quick note to the 10 or so people to whom I owe an email response…it’s coming!  Because Nepal only has power for 8 hours a day (we might get as much as 12 hours per day now that India is exporting power to the country!) it has been really hard to keep up with internet time beyond my work.

So – expect awesome pictures and stories in a couple of weeks!  Oh! And send me warm thoughts – it’s going to be cold on the trek!