There is something about India that strips away the version of you that needs everything to be perfect. The traffic does not care about your schedule. The colour gets on your white shirt before you even see it coming. The food arrives in ten bowls at once, and nobody explains what any of it is.
And somehow, in all of that chaos, something very quiet happens inside you.
This is the story of the Indian Culture and Yoga Journey with Waves & Within. Eleven days. One country that changes you, whether you are ready or not.
It started in Delhi
We met in Delhi. Five of us, arriving from different directions, pulling our bags through one of the world’s busiest cities. There was that particular energy that happens at the beginning of something you don’t fully know yet. Excitement with a little edge of “what did I sign up for?”
After a classic “Welcome to India” moment—where our bus pickup was nowhere near the location printed on the ticket—we finally boarded our coach to Jaipur. Destination: The Pink City. The adventure had officially started.
Jaipur: colour, chaos, and twelve bowls of dinner
The colour of the buildings, the noise of the streets, the feeling that everything is happening at once, and all of it is somehow working (kind of).
During our first evening, we did a street food tour. But not the kind where you cross your fingers and hope for the best. We visited a proper food court with paid entry, where the hygiene is taken more seriously, and the food is extraordinary. We tried stuffed dosas, sweet curly jalebis that crunch and melt at the same time, something that looked like fluffy bread with air still inside it, dunked in sauces that had no English name on the menu.
After we were taken to a cultural experience. A traditional Rajasthani show with folk dances, magic tricks that nobody could explain, and a dinner that felt less like a restaurant and more like the whole village sitting down together. They even gave us traditional hats. They served the meal in parts, exactly twelve of them, arriving one by one. Some in small bowls, some on plates, each one a different texture and colour. None of us was sure what we were eating half the time. BUT, everybody was laughing.
That is Rajasthan in one evening.
The city that keeps surprising you
The next morning, we did Jaipur properly. The Amber Palace rising out of the hillside. The geometric perfection of the stepwell descending into the earth in perfect symmetry, one of those places that makes you stop and just stare. Hawa Mahal, the Palace of Winds, with its honeycomb facade that was designed so royal women could watch street life without being seen. Jal Mahal floating quietly in the middle of the Man Sagar Lake, looking like it grew there.
We saw elephants. We bought things we probably didn’t need. We had lunch somewhere that felt right. And then we got on a train to Agra.
India on a train is its own experience. Food arrives at your seat wrapped in something. The landscape changes outside the window. Conversations happen. You arrive somewhere new, feeling like the journey itself was already the destination.
Taj Mahal at sunrise
We woke up before the light.
Standing in front of the Taj Mahal as the sun comes up. The marble shifts colour. It is quieter than you expect at that hour.
And the locals wanted photos with us. All of us. Constantly. Which is either charming or overwhelming, depending on the moment, and was somehow both.
Later on, we had breakfast with a view of it. Sat there with chai and food while one of the most famous buildings in the world glowed in front of us like it was completely normal. And there were the boys. We watched boys playing with kites.
Holi in Rishikesh
We arrived in Rishikesh just in time for Holi. Holi is a festival of colour, the arrival of spring, the day when India collectively decides that strangers are friends and colour is the only language.
We celebrated with the yoga school, in their garden, under a big tent, with a DJ and enough colour powder to permanently stain the memory. There were some water splashes. We threw colours on each other. We danced until we were unrecognisable, every one of us in a different shade of pink and blue and yellow, laughing in the way you laugh when something is so joyful your body doesn’t quite know what to do with it.
On the streets, it was the same. People approaching us with colour in their hands, always asking first, always smiling, always saying “Happy Holi” before painting our cheeks. India at its most generous and alive.
We met new people. We danced with strangers. We went to bed that night still finding colour in our hair (and some even after that).
The retreat
After Holi, the pace changed.
We moved to the retreat, a quiet place near the river, surrounded by nature, away from the noise. This is where the real inner work began.
The five days we spent there were full in the best way. All meals were included and taken care of. It was simple, nourishing food. The kind that makes your body feel clean.
We had yoga every day: Hatha, Vinyasa, and Yin. Each one asks something different from the body and the mind.
Curious about what yoga practice looks like during yoga teacher training? Here’s what the daily schedule looked like during my 200-hour training.
We had a trataka meditation, where you hold your gaze on a single flame until the external world disappears.
We explored Ayurvedic doshas. Trying to understand our own nature, what brings us into balance, and what pulls us out of it.
We also did kirtan together = mantra chanting and movement that started shy and, once the guru himself begins to dance, becomes something else entirely. Something free. Something that doesn’t need to be explained to be felt.
We painted on stones. We had sound healing = lying still while vibrations moved through the body in ways that are difficult to rationalise and easy to feel.
We sat by the Ganga in the evening and watched the Aarti ceremony = the fire, the chanting, the offering to the river that has been happening in this place for thousands of years.
One morning, we woke up very early and climbed to a temple for sunrise. At the top, we tied red threads to the branches of a sacred tree. Tradition says that wishes whispered into fabric will come true.
We also leaned down and whispered those same wishes into the ear of Nandi, the bull of Shiva, who carries prayers to the god directly. It is one of those rituals that feels completely natural the moment you are doing it, regardless of what you believed before you arrived.
One evening, the guru sat with each of us and told us our rasa = our essential emotional nature, the flavour of our soul according to ancient Indian philosophy. Mine is nurturing. The one who holds, who feeds, who loves without needing to be asked.
If you are curious about the place or our activities, watch these two videos.
Teaching my own class
Now comes the best! I taught my own yoga class to the group.
The space was extraordinary: open to nature, birds audible in the silence between poses, sometimes monkeys visiting. The kind of setting that makes even a difficult transition feel like it belongs.
I was proud. And grateful.
At the end, the girls said things that I was not expecting. Words about what the week had meant to them, what had shifted, what they were taking home. A group that had arrived with a little nervous energy and left softer, more open, more connected. Not only to each other but especially to themselves.
That is what this is all about.
And then they left
Organising a trip in India is not a straight line. Things run late. People forget. Plans change. It is how India tests you.
When they finally left for the airport, I felt something I was not expecting: relief. Because leading something for the first time, holding the experience for other people, the responsibility, is harder and more beautiful than you think it will be. And the fact that it worked, that they left with full hearts, that they sent those messages afterwards, meant everything.
What India gave us
India is not a comfortable destination. It is a confronting one. It gets under your skin and into your clothes and into something deeper than both.
But that is exactly why it works.
If you are someone who feels the pull of something ancient, something real, something that asks you to slow down and pay attention, India will meet you there.
And if you combine that with yoga, with community, with the kind of mornings that start before sunrise and end with the sound of the Ganga. You will not come back the same.
The next Indian Culture and Yoga Journey with Waves & Within is coming. If something in you already knows, reach out to me.
What questions do you have about the trip or the retreat?
Drop them in the comments 🙂
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