With a lot of emotions in my luggage, the cab approached this hotel. On the one hand, I was happy to have time for yoga, to meet different trainers and other yogis. On the other hand, arriving at this hotel also meant saying goodbye to my friend Natascha, with whom I have experienced the entire Sri Lanka trip so far. And this trip together was just unbelievably great - we had a lot of fun together and shared so many adventures and beautiful moments that it felt very strange to have to say goodbye now.
The two yoga trainers, Serena and Nada, immediately greeted me warmly and the hotel owner Tush brought Natascha and me the in-house coffee to have as nice a farewell as possible. Although the farewell for me was then also very emotional, this place with these people around me was the optimal start for the part of my trip, which I experience alone.
The hotel is about an hour's drive from Kandy and is extremely beautifully nestled in the countryside. All around you can see the Knuckles Range National Park. In addition to this incredibly beautiful and quiet location, the hotel complex is also fantastic. At the main house there is a large terrace with a really kitschy view to the mountains. On this terrace are large tables where everyone always eats together. The rooms are small and simple, but clean and completely adequate. These are also aligned by the location so that you have a top view. In front of the rooms is also a large terrace, where you can linger in comfortable armchairs or hammocks and come to rest.
The yoga retreat there is structured in such a way that you have a common quite dense daily schedule, however, you can of course always skip things and find a spot on the beautiful grounds to just relax.
In principle, yoga is offered 2 times a day and on most days there are still common activities, such as hiking, visiting waterfalls, driving to a tea factory and much more. About those excursions, which I have made at Welikande, I will tell you extra - this is now beyond the scope of this article and would also distract from the main topic of yoga something.
As mentioned before, there are 2 different yoga instructors who alternate on a daily basis. I personally found this super, because each trainer has his own approach or focus and I liked it with this variety super.
I would like to briefly highlight what I particularly liked here at the yoga. It's all just little things, but for me in this environment with my current mindset somehow made a lot of difference.
On the one hand, we often recited a kind of mantra to each other - it always started with "I am ...". At the beginning, I found this difficult to get used to and was also a bit lost as to which mantra I should choose and how I should then continue to deal with this mantra. It's about directing one's thoughts specifically to something that will ultimately determine one's own reality. We were very well accompanied in the course of the yoga unit and it was a pleasure for me to deal with my personal mantra and to live it.
Furthermore, we had a unit that dealt with the topic of gratitude, among other things. We were asked to bring a piece of paper and a pen to the session and right at the beginning of the lesson we wrote down the following: "I am truely thankful and grateful for ...". Everyone had a few minutes to write down 3-10 things. Over the course of the hour, we became more aware of the topic of gratitude and especially the focus on what is already going well in our lives.
One component that was repeated at the end of each yoga class was Shavasana. While we lay quietly and let the session end, the yoga trainer stopped at each person, stroked the upper spine, lifted the head slightly, laid it down straight and gently stroked the face, for example over the third eye. This had an incredibly relaxing effect on me and I was able to end each yoga class a bit more relaxed.
Besides the great yoga sessions, we were also spoiled with delicious vegetarian food. There were so many different dishes every day and as a vegetarian it was very great not to have to ask what is in which dish, but to be able to taste through everywhere without hesitation. 😊
Overall, I enjoyed my stay in Welikande very much. The fear of traveling alone is gone very quickly in this place. You are immediately warmly welcomed into the small yoga family and lovingly cared for. No matter what you need - you will be helped and you will not only experience wonderful yoga sessions, delicious food, exciting excursions, but also how a small group of strangers from different countries can find each other within a very short time and grow together into a homogeneous group that has a lot of fun together.
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