A Week of Ayurveda

Last week, I indulged myself in a full week of ayurveda. It felt so nice to stay put for 7 nights. No need to worry about where to go, how to go, and where to stay. I just let the hotel take care of everything.
My daily schedule basically went like this:
7:30 - 8:30 Yoga
9:00 - 10:00 Breakfast
10:00 - 12:00 Ayurvedic treatments (mainly massages)
12:00 - 1:00 Relaxation (usually napping)
1:00 - 2:00 Lunch
7:00 - 8:00 Dinner
...And in between, I lounged at the pool with tea by my side right here:

I was finally able to finish "The Fountainhead" (donated to the hotel library) and got through a book of travel essays and "A Spot of Bother". Terrible book - very disappointing after that "Curious Incidence of the Dog" book which I enjoyed so much.

Ayurveda is a therapy method based on meditation (yoga), herbs, and health food. There's definitely more to it, like body constitution, but I don't want to get into it here. Please refer to wikipedia. Random, but it occurred to me that the Aveda brand name must come from this word.
Herbs - Both for digestion and use in treatments. They use a LOT of herbal oil. I seriously felt like a tempura in one of my treatments!!! But it was so warm and comforting, I really enjoyed it.
Food - VEGETARIAN food is the core. I've got to say that this was the least enjoyable part of the entire week. Vegetables are good, but not when there's a lot of carrots and beans! Plus, dinner was the lightest meal of the day. Yes, I understand the healthiness aspect of it, but I LOVE big dinners!!! This was dinner one day:
Sad, no? And another day, it was FOUR pieces of pumpkin ravioli. I was so excited when they served me fish on the last day.

Oh, and by the way, the place I stayed is located in the city of Galle, on the southern Sri Lankan coast. The old part of the city is surrounded by a wall and was therefore spared from the brunt of the tsunami disaster. But it seems like a lot of places were damaged in the new part of the city. Lots of buildings destroyed (only the foundations still exist) and new ones erected. You see NGO cars (shiny, big, and nice of course) everywhere.

Galle is a very small town, and apparently listed as one of the UNESCO World Heritage cities as well. The old town is beautiful and quite nice to walk around. Barely a foreigner around.
I will admit that I didn't spend more than 5 hours outside of my hotel during the whole week. However, during my limited time out, I managed to make a few friends. Most notably, an old man at a jewelry store, who wanted me to make a sign in Japanese in exchange for a piece of jewelry. Unfortunately, I couldn't provide the proper translation (how am I supposed to know what the stones are called in Japanese?!). And a girl working at a bank. She studied in Japan for a few months and wanted to practice with me!

All in all though, this has been a week of bumming. Quite relaxing. I feel totally re-energized to continue my trip : )