Our garden cottage is very comfortable, especially the bed so we both slept well. I woke up early (as is my normal) so I was able to head to the yoga hut for 7am yoga (Micheal stayed in bed snoozing). I do occasional yoga at home using Apple Fitness, but to be honest, I’ve not done it for a while (life is too busy). I had thought I might do it every day in India, but our busy schedule means today is the first opportunity I’ve had.

I arrived at the yoga hut almost bang on 7am. It was already almost full – I counted that there were 16 of us in total. Everyone else was already sat on their mats waiting, the yoga teacher hadn’t arrived yet. I was looking around to see where the mats were, but I couldn’t see for looking. One women realised what I was looking for and indicated with her head to the hooks just under the eaves of the straw roof where the rolled up mats were stored. I took one and set it out in one of the few spaces left.

The yoga teacher arrived shortly after. He must have been about the same age as me, but boy, was he flexible! If only I were half as flexible as him! He clearly knew his audience though, as he didn’t really do anything too taxing until the final few moves. There was a lot of stretching, just what i needed after yesterday’s long drive. One of the moves was focussed on stretching our hamstrings and involved six people at a time spaced around a chest of drawers he’d pulled into the centre of the room. One leg at a time we had to stand sideways onto the drawers and lift our leg onto the draws, foot facing up, then stretch our hands up and lean over towards the foot on the draws, repeating several times while taking a deep inhail of breath and then slowly breathing out. We then repeated with the other leg.

The final move was the hardest. Sitting on the mat sideways with our front leg folded up with our foot tucked into our crotch. The back leg slightly bent and our front hand slightly forward but in line with our back leg. We then had to hold our front leg toe with our back hand, and in a sort of sideways ‘plane style’ take off, elevated off the floor with our front hand and back foot still on the floor. If holding that wasn’t hard enough, we then had to extend the leg while our other hand was still holding the toe. My legs are very long so there was no way I was going to extend it fully, but I did my best, while still balancing on my hand and foot. When the yoga teacher demonstrated it, everyone laughed in a ‘you really expect me to do that?’ expression. It was me and the only other guy in the session who actually managed to do it first and we had had a ‘good, well done’ from the teacher!

The whole session lasted an hour and ended with the usual relaxation and Savasana chant. It was another ‘pinch myself’ moment to think I was doing yoga in India, in a straw thatched hut, with open sides (apart from mesh to keep the mosquito at bay). All we could hear was the wildlife and the sound of the waves crashing onto the beach in the background. The white birds just pottering around outside – magical. I just need to persuade Mike to get up and have a go tomorrow.