I opened my iCloud calendar this morning which had synced the AirBnB booking we made in Kathmandu a month or so ago… starting on the 11th of April! Safe to say we are not going to be in Nepal in two days, so I thought it was about time we gave you all a bit of a route update. 

We are currently on the beach in Goa soaking up the sunshine and enjoying our last real beach destination for quite possibly a long time. Over the last month we have made our way through the south of India, exploring Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and now Goa. When you look at our map it looks like we have done a lot, but at the same time it feels like we have seen the tiniest slice of what’s on offer. We would love to come back to South India one day and park up at some of the places we enjoyed for a little longer. 

It didn’t take long for us to realize that the time we had allocated to India before heading into Nepal wasn’t going to be enough. We had originally planned to spend about 5 weeks in India before arriving in Nepal, and then another couple of weeks in India after Nepal, before Pakistan. We made the hard decision to actually remove Nepal from our itinerary for now - the whole purpose of this trip is to go slow and not rush, and with the trekking season in the Himalaya fast approaching, it didn’t feel achievable this time. I know for sure we will go to Nepal at some stage (and soon), ideas around October are even whirling around in our heads.

So, if we’re not going to be in Kathmandu in two days time, where are we going?? Our India visa is double entry, but we can only spend 90 days in the country at a time, meaning that we have to leave on June 4th unless we do a visa run (which is considerably more admin without flying). This gives us just under two more months to explore. We are now well and truly into Indian summer, with daytime temperatures in most of the country regularly reaching over 35 degrees. We’re going to brave this summer weather for another month, before escaping to the mountains of Himachal Pradesh for our final month in India. 

From Goa, our route to Himachal Pradesh is fairly locked in, we have a packed month ahead that we are really excited for. 

After Delhi, we will get an overnight bus up to a small village near Dharamashala called Bhagsu Nag, where we have decided to do a Yoga Teacher Training (YTT) starting on the 4th of May. We’ve signed up for the 100hr to start (12 days), but we will likely extend to the 200hr (23 days). If you’re not super familiar with the YTT concept, you might be a little surprised to hear this! For a lot of people (us included) doing a 200hr YTT is much more about deepening your own self practice as opposed to training for a career as a yoga teacher. The training includes Pranayama, meditation, nutrition, body alignment, anatomy, philosophy and of course asana (which is the actual movement practice part we associate with ‘yoga’ in the west). When we were in south Goa we met the best yoga teacher we’ve ever had in our lives, and after a few classes we just knew we wanted to spend more time learning from him. Mohit and his family (his father Prem is also a lead teacher on the program), split their year between Goa and Dharamashala, running their yoga school in both locations depending on the season. It truly felt like a sign from the universe that we got to join Mohit’s final four classes in Goa for the year before he headed up North!! We are really excited for the training and this opportunity to deepen our practice while being surrounded by the Himalaya.

If we do the full course, this will wrap on May 23rd, giving us about 10 days to travel south to Amritsar and cross the border into Pakistan on June 4th! Our good friends Clara and Julien are meeting us in Islamabad on June 13, before we head north and explore Pakistan together. We haven’t planned this yet, but the focus will definitely be trekking. 

And after Pakistan? We will see. Once we get our China visas sorted we will get a bit more specific with our plan beyond Pakistan - but let me just say for now that we are definitely thinking about alternative options to South East Asia…! One thing we do know for certain is that we really want to continue our ‘no flying’ goal. We’re
 enjoying the challenge, the pace and the way it makes us think about our route.

Hopefully that’s provided those who are interested with a bit of an idea of what the next couple months will look like for us, of course we will keep up the blogs, photos and messages as we go. As always, we’re so grateful that you are enjoying following our journey, we’re loving sharing it with you.