The Bikram gang

I always thought I should have started to blog in Morocco, tales from there had far more entertainment value. There the general daily grind would include a variety of interaction and harassment from the locals ranging from the aggressive to the bizarre... mainly due to the strangely large population of mentally ill residents in the town where I lived. Which, when it wasn’t realistically rather sad, was incredulously funny. A one off special opera outburst from the local cheese obsessive and aptly named ‘dar al- fromage’ or ‘house of cheese’, as I was browsing away the hours of boredom in an internet cafe certainly added a little ‘je ne sais quoi’ to my day . It didn’t last long as he was dragged away from the doorway by two men before he could reach the second chorus, arms still dramatically outstretched. Another was convinced my friend from Birmingham was in fact the king of England, and refused to believe otherwise. Episodes like this gave me and the rest of the students on their year abroad something to write home about. Of course we had our awesome weekend breakaways from class to other cities, the beach, the country side, sleeping in the Sahara desert, skiing in the Atlas Mountains, beautiful sunsets watched from the roof of our amazing ‘Riad’ house. But, what really interested those at home were the arguing prostitute neighbours, daily fights, near death car experiences on rocky mountain cliffs by drunken taxi drivers, and the sometimes horrifying naked ‘hamam’ (public bath) exposures. I nearly missed out the ‘L’ in writing public there, which in fact would be a more accurate description of certain sights still burned into my memory. *shiver*

I never thought I’d come close to this type of experience back in London but funnily enough a visit to a Bikram yoga class in Chiswick last week, brought one of these ‘fond’ memories home. Apprehensive as I walked in, I selected their newcomers offer of £30 for 30 days and was directed towards the female changing room, where I was confronted by a number of naked bodies, everyone happily bending over and bumping into each other due to a distinct lack of space. Finding out that the shower was a communal box was not a highlight. I changed discreetly trying to maintain eye contact with the wall, not quite brave enough to join the ‘naked star jumping’ types, and made my way into the surprisingly large and populated hot yoga room, which could have benefited from an air freshener or two, I’ll be honest. I lay down to soak up the heat. ‘This isn’t too bad’ I thought. Our instructor, filling in for his wife, was a happy ‘zen-ny’ chappy who directed the class through his microphone, the sound of which reverberated from the four corner speakers of the room giving his voice an empowered ‘god’ like quality. Then the heavy breathing began and I got scared, twenty minutes into the class I was more afraid of fainting or worse, puking, in public. En mass sweating and intermittent feelings of nausea and dizziness may make you wonder why one would enter such an activity... If you do go make sure you DRINK WATER.... but 90 minutes of class later I was sold.... after I had a chance to taste fresh air again I felt revitalised, warm (for a change) and had NEVER been so ravenously hungry in my life, go metabolism go! Just a month left before the bikini beckons, of course I’m going back.