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| Flying with the rising sun <3 |
After a FaceTime interview for a finance position at Apple, of all things, I was inspired to do a yoga and meditation retreat.
Hmm.
I googled 'yoga meditation retreat philippines' and the first thing that popped up was Bahay Kalipay. To my great fortune it happened to be right in Palawan!
I spent the next couple of hours combing through their website and through TripAdvisor reviews before deciding to go ahead and book myself into their 7-day wellness program. It's about $400 USD which is well worth it considering you get a week's worth of world-class food, housing, field trips, yoga & meditation sessions.
I was in the Philippines for a total of 10 days, so my blog posts will have 2 parts: Bahay Kalipay and then what I did for the three days not at BK.
Here's my TripAdvisor Review on the place:
Everything here is top notch and I highly recommend it.People working here: Amazing human beings. From Jenny who runs the front desk + many other operations to Daniw and Pi (the owners) to the awesome chefs and even Ramil the van driver – everyone is just kind and good and an utter pleasure to be around.
People not working here: If you want to meet people from all corners of the world with an impressive plethora of knowledge and experiences – this is the place. I’ve met some very unique and awesome people here, and made some unlikely but certainly enriching friendships.
Food: Oh my god the food is ahhhh. Seriously world-class raw vegan food. I think the entire week here, with 21 meals and 14 snacks, I ate salad twice. They can make everything from samosas to cheesecake to hearty and filling soups. If you love cooking like me you can ask to help prepare a meal and learn their magical ways!
Physical living space: Beautiful. You can see the love that went into building up this entire retreat and everything is just tikki-esque and you truly feel like you’re living in a tropical paradise.
Yoga & meditation: Amazing. I had the incredible pleasure of having Ezzie as my yoga instructor for the whole week (often having 2 sessions with her a day) and her love for the practice just radiates throughout the entire space. She’s a superstar yoga instructor so I’d definitely keep my fingers crossed for her! Bhante (monk) and Nilhs (Tai Chi and Qui Gong) led our meditation practices and I loved those as well – very eye opening.
Toilets: When I first read that the toilets here don’t flush and they don’t have toilet paper (it’s a water bucket system) I put on my fancy princess dress and said no way in hell am I going to deal with that. I will buy toilet paper from the airport and do my business as I’m used to. Well I forgot to buy my own toilet paper – and honestly, I’m glad I did. It’s really no big deal and this system makes you realize how wasteful we truly are. Plus in the heat using a water system is pretty refreshing.
Yes it sounds gross and disgusting at first – but seriously, it’s not.
Spiritual-ness: I’m not a spiritual person and honestly I was a little worried that coming here would surround me with blissed out yoginis floating away in la-la land with the great power of the heavens guiding their mystical rainbow essence to nirvana. Or something like that. To my great surprise I found people who are very down to earth but also, unlike most people in my normal life, in tune with the earth. They understand the environment and try to work with it as opposed to just having it in the background. My eyes have definitely been opened and now yoga is much more than just a workout.
However if you are spiritual, this place is also great for you.
All in all this place is for literally everyone, except those with closed minds. But even then, come here and hopefully it’ll open your mind. :)
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| Cool tree |
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| Loloy (one of the locals who works at Bahay Kalipay) is amazing with building pretty much anything. He built this tricycle from scratch! |
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| On one of our field trips to the beach near Maia Absolute and utter paradise. Perfect weather, perfect water, perfect sand, nearly no one else there Just magic |
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| More shots from the beach near Maia |
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| Some of the people who live in Maia (A completely self-sustaining village) |
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| Two of the coolest and most good-at-heart kids I've ever met in my life |
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| Tricia is this awesome lady I had the joy of meeting She just randomly started up a game with these local kids and taught them how to play hopscotch and lots of other games (Also she owns a Bed and Breakfast in New Zealand and is voted #1 on TripAdvisor - so check her out!) |
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| Beautiful sunset at the beach near Bahay Kalipay |
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| Another view from Maia |
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| Front desk area |
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| Bhante, the resident monk |
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