David Rusho

Here's a video I put together while traveling through India for 3 months this year.  Enjoy!

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April - May 2011

Home of the Dalai Lama.  The trip here was long and at times scary.  I hired a taxi from Rishikesh to Dharamshala.  The journey involved a one lane road that traveled through mountain valleys.  Several times we came face to face with a large bus and narrowly avoided a car crash.

Dharamshala is a town unlike any other I've seen in India.  The people here speak English with almost an American accent.  Often times I heard the locals saying "dude" "bro" and "wazzup."  It was surreal.  The town itself is also one of the cleanest towns I seen throughout India.  At no time during my stay here did I step into cow poop or trip over trash in the streets.  That's not to say the streets are spotless but they are very clean compared to cities like New Delhi or Rishikesh.

The town has a population consisting of Tibetans, Indians, Koreans, and Japanese.  It's an interesting mixture that gives it a lot of culture and varieties of food to eat while staying here.  My favorite restaurants were The Peace Cafe, Exile Brothers Tibetian Cafe, Panda Cafe, and Japanese Cafe.  All these places serve cheap and tasty food from different parts of the world.

Besides food there is also Tibetan temples, Yoga Studios (everywhere), internet cafes, and plenty of places to shop for souvenirs.  The town is located on what looks like the edge of the Himalayan Mountains.  I found a room in one hotel with an amazing view of the mountains.  I will definitely be planning future vacations to this town.

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Came home to find my FISAF Personal Trainer Certification was mailed to me while I was traveling.  I think it goes together nicely with the 200 hrs Yoga Teacher Certification I received in India.  I had a great time traveling and I'm already researching new places to visit in India next time I take a vacation.

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March 18-23rd

I got tickets on a "luxury" bus from New Delhi to Rishikesh.  The bus was crowded, hot, and noisy.  At every stop the bus door would swing open and people from the streets would jump on with bottles of water and candy trying to sell them to passengers.   The trip was advertised as a 4-6 hour trip.  In reality it lasted over 12 hours.  It wasn't all bad.  It was nice to see the Indian landscape and different cities on the way to our destination.

 

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March 17, 2011

Walking around New Delhi is really an experience everyone should try once in their lives. The city is super crowded compared to places in the south India. Buildings and roads here are all falling apart.  Its like pictures I've seen of Soviet Russia just with lots of sand instead of snow.  The people are also not too friendly either. Locals throw trash and water balloons at tourists walking along the streets.  From talking to other travelers I've come to realize that New Delhi is the least favorite place to visit for tourists.  There's just nothing friendly or welcoming about this place.

I was able to take some pictures from the rooftop of our hotel and of the streets below.  There's so much going on.  There are motorcycles, people, and cows all moving in different directions.  It's difficult not to get pushed around occasionally.  I have to stay careful not to look at any street vendors or rickshaw drivers otherwise they'll start hounding me for business.  I do still enjoy the street food.  My favorite street food is a peanut jaggery candy.  The stuff is delicious and addictive.  When you buy it on the streets it's usually still warm from just being cooked.  This and the  street coffee almost make the stressful environment worth it.

 

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March 16, 2011

It's the last day of the train ride and I cant wait for it to be over! The total lack of privacy for two days has been really difficult. It's so bad that I erected privacy blankets to the edged of my bunk to hide myselve from the other passengers.  Even with these up the passengers will still pull back the blankets and peek inside until you yell at them to leave you alone.

During the days I pass my time reading and planning our next adventure.  The Indian passengers are very friendly and yet at the same time can come off as annoying. The first thing they say when they meet you is "where are you from?"  From there it just leads to a barrage of other questions that can come off sounding very offensive if you don't tell them to stop asking questions. The train during the day is filled with the noise of cell phone ringtones, and laptops playing movies and music. Sleeping during the day is much more difficult than at night. 

I find the best way to relax is to go to the train doors and look at the scenery the train is traveling through. There are no safety measures in place on the train so it easy to open the doors and simply look outside if you want. I've been able to take some pictures with my camera including a really nice shot of a father and son looking out the door of the train.

I ended up arriving in New Delhi 3 hours late. The train station was very crowded. As soon as the train stopped people from outside were climbing the train, grabbing our bags, and yelling "carry, carry!!" I had to beat them off with our hands and yelling "go away!!" 

The hotel I got a ride to was down a shady alley off a main road. It was recommended by several travel books. The room is pink and is very large with a very of the alley streets below.   I love it compared to the tight space I on the train I've been living for the past 3 days. The hotel is full of hippie foreigners with "stoned" faces.  I'm told drugs in this region are really cheap and accessible.  All the travel books blame these hippies for ruining much of the peaceful vibes in remote areas of India.  For me they just add to the atmosphere along with the cows and motorbikes roaming the streets.

 

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March 15, 2011

The train ride continues. My complaints so far are the roaches, rats, over crowdedness.  The over-crowdedness is hard to look past, especially when people talk to each other very loudly all day and night. Even the air conditioners and fans are loud.  It's impossible to escape the noise. 

The train food isn't bad, its just very messy to eat since its Indian style food that is eaten with your hands. We ate our food with small plastic spoons that still made getting the food into our mouths an exercise.  After the food falls on the floor bugs and small rats start coming out from underneath the seats to grab for scrapes.  Its really gross when you first see this but after your 2nd and 3rd meal on the train it become very normal to just push the small animals to the side while your eating.  Just make sure to clean up all your food after you finish eating, otherwise you'll have "visitors" in your bunk bed all night.

Over the night the final seat (bunk) was taken up in our section. In total we have 4 bunks, 2 bunk beds placed near each other with walls and a curtain separating us from the rest of the train.

The train stations are places we buy extra food and other items if there is time. The train usually stops at a station for about 2 minutes, but at larger stations it will sometimes stop for as much as 15 to 20 minutes.  Often times when we arrive at a station people from outside will run onto the train begging for money or selling pirate dvds, coffee, chai tea, ice cream, newspapers, and other random items. It can become a chaotic at times.

 

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March 13, 2011

Spent my 29th birthday today wandering the streets of Trivandrum and eating lots of food.  The first place to visit was the Indian Coffee House.  It was a really cool building that had a spiral design for the floors.  I were lucky enough get table number 29 just like my age today.  After visiting here I continued to walk around town taking in the sites.  I ended the day with a birthday cake made of fried banana and strawberry ice cream.  Yum Yum

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March 12, 2011

Since arriving in Trivandrum I’ve done some planning and decided to head straight to north India.  I bought train tickets from Trivandrum to New Delhi.  This train ride will last over 2 days and will travel across most of India.  The ticket is for a 2 seater air conditioned train car equipped with bunk beds.  I'm told they are nice from some travel websites.  I can’t wait for this train ride, it’s going to be an amazing experience.

Some of the things I've had the pleasure of experiencing beside the train stations are the street vendors.  A couple of the vendors make coffee and chai right in front of you for only 5 to 10 rupees a cup.  It's really cool to watch them mix and pour the drinks without the use of any electronic cooking equipment.  All they use is a stove for boiling water and filters for making the coffee and chai.  The stuff is delicious and cheap (about 10 rubees a cup).

 

 

 

 

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March 10th, 2011

The plan for today was to ride a train up the coast for 17 hours to another beach town.  Unfortunately the train was delayed for 5 hours and when it did arrive it only stopped at the station for less than 2 minutes.  This gave the passengers little if no time to jump on the train.  By the time I found my train section the train had begun to move with people still jumping on and off. The door I tried to step into was shut and locked.  So I waited for the next train section to come my way as the train steadily began to speed up.  When the next open door came I reach out for it and then had to immediately jump back because there was an Italian woman blocking my path.  Her purse had somehow tangled with the door handle and she had fall over in the process.  She was being dragged and screaming for her life.  Half of her body was hidden under the gap between the platform and the train.  I could just imagine her falling completely in the gap any second and getting run over and the railway tracks.  Seeing all of this I dropped all my luggage and ran to help her get to safety.  Luckily she was okay once we got her purse detached from the train door.

My next plan after my train took off without me was to take the next train out of town to the nearest big city, Trivandrum.   It's an hour south of my current location.  The next train was scheduled 2 hours away.  While waiting for I spent my time in a hidden room at the train station labeled “upper class lounge.”  I entertained some of the police officers during their breaks with my photos of recent yoga retreat.  The officers were very nice and even bought me coffee and an Indian style donut.  They spoke no english but they could read it.  I communicated with them by writing and drawing things down that I was trying to say.  My train eventually arrived and this time I jump onto the first train car I could see and then found my seat once on the the train.  What a crazy day!!

 

 

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Today marked the end of the yoga teacher's certification class.  The day still included the early morning and afternoon yoga sessions and ended with a graduation ceremony where everyone was handed their certificates.  I feel that this class was much more than just a certification course because we all learned a little more about ourselves.  Such as who we are and what we want out of life.  The teachers were amazing in all aspects of yoga and I will miss their daily lessons on yoga practice and philosophy.  Thank you for everything!

 

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I've decided to extend my vacation after the yoga course is finished on March 8th. My flight back to Singapore has already been changed to May 3rd.  Thats gives me a total of 3 months living in India.  The plan is to travel across the entire country north to south and back again.  Right now I'm in Kerala Beach which close to the southern tip of India located on the Arabian Sea.  While site seeing my plan is to attend yoga classes all over the country including places where the Beatles and Madonna practiced yoga.  The final destination at the north of India is to see the Himalayan Mountains and hopefully take some inspiring pictures of the scenery.  After that I'll turn around and head back south to Kerala Beach where I first started the trip.

The first destination is to travel by train from Varkala Beach to Kumta, which another beach town but is less touristy.  I'm told that there are 8 beautiful beaches in the area along with several temples.  I plan on staying in Kumta for 3-4 days then heading to the next destination that is still yet to be decided.  

The trip on the train will last for 17 hours and will come with bunk beds to accommodate overnight travel.  From the pictures I found online the train reminds me of something my dad used to sleep in when he work on submarines for the US Navy.  

Another thing I did this week was I made a visit to the local hospital get additional medication for bug and food borne illnesses I might run into while traveling up north.  The India hospitals are very basic but I found no problems with any of the services they provided.  I got a case load of medications today all for what amounts to less than US $10.00.  I'm told by classmates at the yoga school that these same meds and services cost them more than US $300.00 outside of India!

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The Yoga Teacher's Certification Class is shortly coming to an end.  There are only a few more days left until we're official yoga teachers.  Here are pictures of the whole class gathered at sunset by the beach.

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February 5, 2011
Saturday Morning (Singapore Time Zone)

Flight to India from Singapore wasn't too bad despite being crowded
and loaded with kids screaming the entire time. Sitting down now in
first airport in Chennai, India. The airport is very rundown with
little money going into maintenance and upkeep. It's the kinda airport
where planes stop on the runway and have you walk down a set of stairs
on wheels.

3:00pm (India Time Zone) 

Made it to the yoga center. The cab ride over was crazy with a
driver who spoke no english. I found him outside the airport
holding a sign saying "David Rusho, Welocome To India." I pointed at
the sign saying "hey thats me!" and he simply nodded his headed side
to side (Indian body language for yes) and then pointed at his white
cab that looked like it belonged in Cuba with all the other cars built
in the 60s. He was very quiet the whole ride and managed to drive on
both lanes of traffic while honking his horn at anything that moved.

Anyways i made it here safe with all my luggage, what a miracle!
Seriously while I was in Chenni Indian Airport they had me leave my
baggage to a guy who was standing in a corner and wore no airport uniform. He didn't speak english and
basically looked at my plane ticket then grabbed my luggage while
pointing down a shaddy walkway that was outside covered in heavy
construction.

The yoga place is a mix of desert and jungle if that makes any sense.
When i first arrived they handed me drinking water and a fresh mango.
They showed me how to eat them which involves using your teeth to bite
off the stem and then squeezing the mango juice into your mouth. Its
soo tasty! The beach is right outside my window. There are some really
cool Wooden fishing boats that line the beach.

Video of cab ride from the airport and of a cafe by the beach:

 

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Just finished taking a TRX Certification Course with Marcel at the Speed Institute in Singapore.  It was a one day class that was hands-on and very intense.  I decided to take the course after being introduced to TRX in the FISAF Personal Training course I was taking last month.  I've had a set of gymnastics rings for about 2 years now and love them but they are bulky and lack many of the benefits that TRX offers.  The TRX are just like gymnastics rings except they are lighter, not bulky, easily adjustable, and have foot holds for performing exercises that would be very hard to do on a set of rings.  The course was a lot of fun and I will definitely be taking the TRX with me when I travel to India next month for my Yoga Teacher's Training Course.. 

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During the month of December I took 2 FISAF courses at Ngee Ann Polytechnic under an awesome instructor named Diane Haslam.  She has done almost everything imaginable in the fitness industry from teaching fitness education all over the world, to bodybuilding, and running marathons.  She's has had hip replacement surgery and could still outrun the entire class.  The first course I took was a Core Fitness class that taught the basics for understanding and teaching fitness.  The second class was an intense Personal Training Certification course that lastest 8 days (ending on Christmas Eve).  At the end of the course we have 2 tests to take which are a written exam (100 questions with essays) and a practical exam consisting of an observed personal training session.  This includes preparing a  business plan complete with business cards, pricing plans, and more.  I have yet to finish the second test but I hope to finish it before next week.

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Recent Photos taken while giving my old high school cheerleading coach a 3 day tour of Singapore.

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