h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've just been chatting to Vegantoo - U193899 and I thought you;d probably have a lot in common... she's into Tai Chi as well, but she's a bit shy so I'm dropping in to say hello on her behalf!

Z talked me into being brave and saying Hi myself. I'm not really that shy - it's just that most of my friends have come to me first - I'm not used to this introducing myself bit. Z has become a good friend so I trust him when he says he thinks we'll get on. I'm sure I've seen you around in veggie circles - I've been vegan for a year and vegetarian for 18 years before that.
I do do Tai Chi - but my main interest is Yoga. I'm training to be a Yoga teacher - just started in fact and loving it. I've only been doing Tai Chi for just over a year but I love the buzz I get from it - ties in well with energy work in Yoga.

Hi Z and Vegantoo. Well, I'm almost vegetarian,*whispers* I do eat fish from time to time. See, introducing yourself isn't all that painful, is it? I don't bite!

How I became vegetarian is interesting. I went on an 8 day retreat, which was vegan. I was fully omnivorous at that stage and had taken no preparation, as I didn't know I had to. We started on Friday evening. By Saturday afternoon, I had stomach cramps so bad (there was no tea and coffee either) that all I wanted to do was crawl in my tent, hoping not to be sick. It got better as the week progressed. After I got home, I ate vegan for the first couple of days, then found I couldn't drink milk as it made me feel sick and I couldn't eat meat or fish as they did too. So I got ill, not having the skills to become vegan, so I introduced dairy products gradually and fish when I became pregnant.

I've done some yoga too and used to have a brilliant yoga teacher, however as I have a small child, going to her became too difficult to arrange the babysitting. Good luck in your training to be a teacher.

I've done t'ai chi for around 12 years now. Again, I don't see my teacher, which is sad. He gave up teaching just recently after his daughter died from cancer and he found that he had it too.

However, I've started learning taekwando, after I gave my seven year old an initial set of five lessons. The adult beginners class is after the children's beginners one, so now my son waits for me and has a choice of either watching a video at the dojang or sitting quietly at the back watching us. I've found the stretching from the yoga very helpful when it comes to that. We do stretches at the beginning and I am very flexible.

What system of t'ai chi do you do and do you do qigong as well? In case you don't know (and I'm sure you will), qigong is a system of energy excercises. When I teach my class, which I do every Thursday lunchtime at work, we often spend more time on qigong than on t'ai chi. I have one lady who is retired and comes in weekly just for my class, which is immensely flattering.

(Didn't think you would bite - not being nearly vegetarian. BTW you're piscatarian if you eat fish but no meat.)

We do do Qigong at the start of each class (and the end sometimes) - it really helps to get centred. When I first started classes it was fortunate that the teacher was just starting at that venue and I was kind of in at the beginning. We were doing the Yang style short form (24?) and to start with we would do 55 minutes of Qigong and 5 of the form. Then, gradually - as we got to learn more of the moves - we did less and less Qigong and more Tai Chi. I suppose it has to work that way really - you can't just launch into the whole of the form straight away. I go to 2 classes a week with the same teacher and in one we started a new form just about 4 classes ago - Wu style. And in the other class we finished the Yang style on Friday - and start the Wu style next week. So now I will be a little step ahead of the others in the Friday class. I'm the only person who goes to both classes regularly. My teacher is brilliant (well, I assume he is - I've never had another! But you can tell) - he is so chilled - so flexible. And I can feel energy coming from him. Sometimes he takes one of us to demonstrate with - when we do pair work like sticking hands. As he goes to put wrist to wrist (or whatever) it's like he's not there! Except for energy. He trained in China for a while. He's quite young - although one of those people it's hard to tell with - but seems so wise. I really enjoy my classes.
I was going to talk to you about the becoming vegetarian thing - but I have to go for a while now, so I'll save it for another time.

I like doing sticking hands too. Your teacher does sound wise. Whereabouts does he teach?

I've been trying to find a teacher near AR1 for her (she's in a wheelchair).

Both my t'ai chi teachers have trained in China and I think it makes a big difference. I was due to go to China too about eight or nine years ago, then it fell through after my teacher had a stroke. He was almost completely paralysed and managed to get a nearly normal life by internal t'ai chi and Chinese medicine. His determination knew no bounds.

A piscatarian, eh? I've been called many things . I can remember threatening to bite my seven year old (can't remember why now, probably because he bit me) and he said 'You can't do that, mummy' and when I asked why said, 'Because you're vegetarian!'.

I think being Piscatarian sounds quite appropiate for you!
I say that to my kids - about not being able to do that because they are vegetarian - if they bite each other or accidentally bite their tongue!
My Tai Chi teacher is in Rugby (Warwickshire) - where is AR1?
Do you still plan to go to China someday?

It does, doesn't it!

Rugby would be rather too far for AR1. I think she's in Tunbridge Wells.

I'd like to go to China, although it is probably a long way away. Little 'un is too small and at present, I'm a single parent. That's not to say I always will be though .

Do you just have the one Little 'Un?

Just read your bit about not quite managing Kilimanjaro. I attempted a trek in October to Machu Picchu along the Inca Trail (for charity). I was lucky enough not to suffer from any altitude problems but I went down with gastro enteritis on the bus on the way to the first day of walking. (I'd been feeling a bit dodgy the night before and hadn't eaten.) Walked for 7 hours with a raging temperature in a bit of a daze and still without eating anything. Stayed at the first camp, feeling really ill and then walked back down for 7 hours to be taken back to Cusco and some antibiotics. I was well enough to rejoin the group 2 days later to do the last bit of walking into Machu Picchu - so got there in the end.

Yes, just the one little 'un. A boy.

You sound to have had an interesting experience on Machu Pichu. On my Kilimanjaro trip, our leader had dysentry and one of our group had it so bad he was in hospital for a few days, so he never made the Kilimanjaro trip. Our leader was in our run - we went up in two groups. The second group took it more slowly and each and every one of them reached the top and they came back talking about the teamwork. We had come back with individual stories of struggle as a lot of my group didn't reach the top, even those who set out on the final ascent.

Good for you presevering. Which charity did you do the trek for?

It was for Acorns Children's Hospice Trust - a Birmingham based charity. (They have a website if you want to do a search.) They do several treks and events every year - I think the next one is to Iceland. Think I'll wait till they do one to Canada or Alaska before I try again. I'd like to do the same level of walking but somewhere CLEAN!!!

That sounds . Was Machu Pichu not clean? (Well, I assume from the food poisoning that something wasn't right, was there more?)

I used to live in Birmingham. I was going to do the Kilimanjaro trip for the RNIB, but I'm not sure how good a fundraiser I would be.

Walking in Alaska - brrr!

Machu Picchu was beautifully clean. It was just the rest of Peru that wasn't . Cusco seemed OK in the main streets and squares - until it rained (every afternoon) and then this fine sludge would run down the pavements. You only have to take a walk into a side street to work out what the sludge is Not good. Lima was even worse. We had a day there on the way back with one of those guided bus tours with an interpreter (I've never been on one before). We passed no end of shanty towns and filthy, dusty parts of the city. Then our guide told us that we were going to cross the river to the more affluent side of the city - on our way to the Gold Museum. I imagined something like the Thames - big river, busy with boats etc. etc. Pleasant banks - maybe tree-lined and a park or two. It was vile. A dry river bed, apart from 3 tiny streams trickling down the centre - and from a bridge (about the size of Kingston Bridge - if you know that part of the Thames) there was rubbish in huge alluvial fans from each parapet. I nearly cried.
I did cry later - as we approached the Gold Museum - we went round a round-about in front of a posh golf club (huge walls topped with barbed wire - posh gate and gold lettering) - and as we slowed in the traffic a young boy in rags led his blind father up to the car windows holding out a plastic cup for change. No one was stopping and they were perilously close to the moving traffic. The back-drop of the lush gardens behind the golf club walls just made it seem so awful. (You see far too much from these high up coaches!)
There were children begging in Cusco too - or selling postcards and pictures or doing shoe shine. But they all seemed healthy and cheerful. They were sometimes in traditional dress and would pose for photos and then hold their hands out with a cheeky grin. I got followed for a whole afternoon by 'Tom Cruise' (they all pick film or pop-star names and insist that's what they are called!) trying to sell me his postcards "You buy later lady - after cafe. Yes?" But they were happy , lovely children. In Lima they all seemed sad - very poor - no traditional costume or colour. I cried. Looking round the gold museum at all the Inca artefacts (millions and millions of dollars worth of gold - all in a private collection) was so strange after that. Such a loss of a great civilisation. I almost forgave them the human sacrifice!!
Anyway - it was an experience - and Machu Picchu is an incredible place. So 'alive' - I could feel the energy coming from the rocks. I feel privileged to have been there - even if I didn't make it along the trail.

It's the journey that counts, isn't it?

I'm so glad you shared your story with me. Maybe one day, I too will get there.

Hope you get to do Kilimanjaro too! Even more

I've new things going on in my life at the moment which is really nice including the possibilities of doing some writing. I can wait for Kilimanjaro, going to China and other things. I don't mind waiting. I need to get used to the idea that having a seven year old isn't a completely limiting factor!

No - it's not completely limiting (although it may seem like that at times) it's just different. Things take a little more planning and determination but you can still do stuff. I have 4 kids and I still hope to be able to do more travelling. Hopefully going to get to go to Canada soon.

Not ignoring you, just been busy, vegantoo.

Four children? What are their ages? I take my hat off to you for travelling with them. Have you done this alone, or with a partner?

I've never been to Canada and there are parts I would like to go to too.

Funnily enough, since we posted about Machu Pichu, I have had a conversation with a friend about going there! Not sure when, though. When I 've a little more money.

Er - I've not travelled that much with the children. Apart from in this country and to France a couple of years ago to do a skydiving course. The Peru thing was on my own (with 44 strangers - some of whom have become good friends). Canada will be just my husband and me. We want to go to research the possibility of selling up and moving there. So need time to think and look around without having to worry about entertaining 4 lively younsters! Also - the friends we are staying with out there (Calgary) don't have kids - so don't want to freak them out entirely! I do have friends who travel widely with their kids though - it is possible!! Don't give up all hope!
Our lot are 15, 10, 8 and 5 (big boy and 3 girls) - they are adorable (of course!) but present a few challenges from time to time.
Machu Picchu is cool but weird in a way - it's such a long way to go (days worth of flights in our case) to get the same sort of spiritual buzz you'd get at Stonehenge. But worth it in the end! If you can do it as a trek for charity it wouldn't cost you anything in hard cash - just a lot of effort to raise around £2500 (but there are ways and means).

Oh, vegantoo! I've only just noticed your post - no idea why I've not seen it before.

Here's me freaking at the thought of travelling with one small seven and a half year old. My chap and I have been talking of going to Machu Pichu.

Mind you, we tried for a one day trip to France at Easter and failed miserably. We travelled all the way to Portsmouth to catch the night ferry to Le Havre, then there was a problem with my passport, which had just expired. I had understood that as we were part of the EC, we didn't need passports, but oh, no, they wouldn't let us travel on an expired passport. So all three of us had to go back home. We'd caught an earlier train than intended and arrived an hour early. Lucky, that, or we would never have arrived home that night. Son was distressed and cried. As it was Bank Holiday, we couldn't get a train direct to our station, so we just about managed to catch a bus home, arriving well after midnight. I had to carry little part of the way, and when he got too heavy, I put him down and he more or less sleepwalked the rest.