Source: travel.nytimes.com
NEW YORK, U.S., May 26, 2010: Pokhara is about 2,900 feet above sea level and a thousand miles from the nearest ocean, it’s a city of 200,000 smack in the middle of Nepal. It has a busy downtown strip where, for years, trekkers and thrifty backpackers have come, many to pick up supplies before heading out on the Annapurna Range.
But these days, it’s the silence up in the hills that is calling. About a dozen back-to-basics yoga retreats have opened in and around Pokhara in recent years — transforming it into what might be Nepal’s top yoga destination.
Mr. Puri, like other would-be yoga gurus, was drawn by the ample space and a steady supply of young, soul-searching Westerners. After teaching yoga at a series of rented spaces in downtown Pokhara, he opened his own studio, Sadhana Yoga, about two miles north of Pokhara, in a secluded village of cascading rice fields known as Sedi Bagar. “I wanted a quiet place to meditate, away from the crowds of downtown,” he said. The center includes a four-story building with nine guest rooms.
The day starts with a 6 a.m. meditation, followed by a morning hike, nasal cleansing, then an hour of hatha yoga, which emphasizes mental and physical purification. All meals are vegetarian, including curries and fresh fruit, and there is no caffeine or alcohol allowed on the premises.
Little else about Pokhara seems intense. Up until the late 1960s few Westerners attempted the arduous footpath to get here. Those who did compared it to a real-life Shangri-La. That changed around 1970 with the completion of the Siddhartha Highway, which connected Pokhara to the outside world. Cheap food and lodging allowed many free-spirited travelers to stay a while longer. They did, and told their friends. By the 1980s the Central Lakeside District in the center of town was cluttered with modern hotels, bars and tour operators.