[claire]Hello from India!

[Mark Holmes]

Hi everyone,

Well... as the subject line implies, we're here.  The journey was tiring but 
uneventful.  The Neyyar Dam ashram is really beautiful and peaceful; I can easily 
see why Tara wanted to come back here.  By the way, for those of you who don't 
know Claire as Tara, that's her spiritual name within the Sivananda world, so I'm 
going to use it from now on.  If I keep calling her Claire, everyone here will 
look funny at me.

We're both pretty fatigued today, but this place is pretty spectacular and 
definitely uplifting to the spirits.  Tara is known to a number of the staff here, 
and everyone has been told of her condition and reason for journeying here, and 
are extending us every courtesy.  In fact Swami Mahadevananda, the senior most 
Swami in the entire Sivananda organization was here this morning for a short time 
and Tara was able to sit Satsang with him this morning.  He made a special point 
to tell the staff to take good care of us.

So I'm excited to see what will happen here.  Swami Mahadev has arranged for Tara 
to see one of the senior most Ayurvedic doctors here in Kerala, and I think we're 
going to do that tomorrow.

As for Tara herself, she's coughing a bit more today, and definitely fatigued; but 
this could easily be from the stress of the journey.  There are a lot of steps 
here, as the ashram is located on a hillside next to a nature preserve; but we're 
finding the most direct route between the important areas, and they're going to 
deliver our meals down to the veranda by our rooms.  Speaking of, they've put us 
up in the new building, which is pretty fancy by Indian standards, and is very 
comfortable.

That's it for now.  I'll write again soon as things settle down a bit, and we both 
get some rest.  The internet connection here is *really* bad, so I'll first send 
out updates, then try to read e-mail as possible.  Might not always get to it 
though.

Take care all.  Love,

Mark & Tara