Earlier this year in January, we conducted a spiritual adventure to South India and Malaysia titled “festivals and temples”. The 13-day journey was very much focused on visiting temples, exploring deeply the mysticism of Hinduism, meeting the priests and monks, participating in mystical ceremonies in the sanctums of 1000 year old temples and getting to know the local culture, traditions and people.

This video is a beautiful montage of that spiritual adventure to South India and Malaysia, a humble attempt to capture an ineffable journey of myriad experiences.

Filmed and edited by Jo Tyrrell, friend and independent film maker based in the UK.

Vedic Odyssey Meditation retreat in India

 

The 2011 Diwali festival was celebrated in grand style at the Golden Temple. Just a few hours ago we captured scenes from the celebration. Amritsar, India.

 

For sure one of the highlights of our journey, our group had the rare opportunity to bathe elephants in the middle of a sub-tropical jungle in Chitwan National Park, Nepal, during Vedic Odyssey’s spiritual adventures to the Himalayas of Nepal and North India in Oct 2010.

A special thank you to Arunachala of Monkbrother for the use of the soundtrack “Orange” in the video below. We appreciate it and love your music.

We spend the day in Chitwan National Park, in Nepal exploring the jungle on elephant back, jeeps and canoes, and hikes.

We spend the day in Chitwan National Park, in Nepal exploring the jungle on elephant back, jeeps and canoes, and hikes.

Our next spiritual adventure is to Kerala in South India in April/May 2011. More info.

 

On October 18th, we visited the Swayambhunath Stupa in Kathmandu, Nepal during our 2010 The Himalayas Spiritual Adventure. The shrine is located west of the city in the Kathmandu valley. Our group climbed the 365 or so steps that lead up to the stupa that is one of the most sacred Buddhist pilgrimage sites. For Tibetans and followers of Tibetan Buddhism, it seconds only to Boudhanath.

To view photos of our morning at the Swayambhunath Stupa, click here.

Day 2 of spiritual adventure sees Vedic Odyssey group visiting Pashupatinath temple, swayambunath stupa and Thamel district in Kathmandu.

 

Only 7-days to go before we begin our 16-day spiritual adventure in the Himalayas of Nepal and North India. Participants of our group hail from the US, Australia and Germany. We will do our best to cover the journey as much as possible by posting photos and videos on this blog. Thank you very much Arun for this amazing soundtrack!

Here’s a video we put together covering the places that we will be visiting on this journey. The music on the video was specially composed for Vedic Odyssey by Arun Satgunasingam. Visit his website: www.MonkBrother.com to hear more of his amazing work. Arun’s music will be available for sale on his site very soon.

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It was earlier this year during the 2010 South Indian Odyssey that a few members of our group spent a fun morning with elephants just outside Periyar National Park in Kerala, South India. Shantha Kumari, featured in yesterday’s blog post, can be seen in this YouTube video receiving a spa treatment from our group of enthusiastic travelers. I highly recommend the experience of scrubbing an elephant.