Medication to Meditation in the Mountains

Tired of working a desk job that left her physically and mentally drained, Dutch citizen Hana(pictured, below) planned a trekking trip to Nepal in 2021. As soon as she reached Pokhara, all her tiredness seemed to slip away, and she felt as though her life had changed. 

“I was drawn to Pokhara’s mountains, the nature, and the climate,” says Hana who was in Nepal to do the Annapurna trek. “But once here, I discovered the healing benefits of yoga and meditation.”

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Hana is back in Pokhara for the third time in three years, and spends time in daily meditation and yoga. She says, “Pokhara is so peaceful and beautiful, it is the perfect yoga destination.” 

Like Hana, there are thousands of ‘meditation tourists’ visiting Pokhara during what used to be the monsoon off-season for visitors. Many yoga retreats have sprung up in and around this scenic city, and instructors advertise private meditation classes in hotels. 

One instructor is Maheswar Man Shrestha (pictured, below), who grew up as a sickly child in Kathmandu and was often hospitalised, missing school for months at a time. When modern medicine did not work, his father, himself a doctor, sought ayurvedic treatment and combined it with yoga and meditation. Shrestha soon got miraculously better.  

Read also: Practicing mindfulness in schools, Basu Gautam

Now in his fifties, Shrestha is a true believer in the power of yogic healing. “I went from medication to meditation, I am living proof that yoga ensures physical and mental wellbeing,” says Shrestha who teaches yoga to overseas tourists at his Purna Yoga Retreat. 

Being both the start and end point for treks makes Pokhara perfect for tourists to combine physically taxing Himalayan hikes with a soothing recovery. But even outside the trekking season, its lush monsoon greenery, the lakes and cloudscape make Pokhara the ideal place to decompress from the material world.

“Pokhara’s proximity to nature and relatively clean environment makes it great for tourists to come here to learn yoga,” Shrestha says.

Indeed, Nepal’s travel industry has lately discovered that blending mountains and meditation is a popular combination. After all, the Buddha was born in Lumbini, a seven hour drive to the south of Pokhara, and for many a trek in Nepal is already also a pilgrimage.

Rishi Raj Lamsal (pictured, below) worked for a travel agency outfitting and guiding trekking groups. Once, on a hike to Poon Hill, his clients gasped at the panorama of Dhaulagiri and Annapurna at sunrise, and they promptly took out yoga mats and started doing asana and pranayam. 

It was there and then that Lamsal (pictured) realised that tourism had a spiritual aspect that Nepal’s travel industry had largely ignored. As soon as he returned to Kathmandu, he started designing meditatiton tourism packages.

Lamsal also learnt yoga and has been an instructor based in Pokhara for many years, teaching not just foreign visitors but also Nepalis from all over the country. 

“I have been to 42 districts, but there is no place like Pokhara, its geography is ideal to mixing tourism with spiritualism. It is natural beauty that draws people initially, but once here they also find inner peace,” Lamsal says. 

Deepa Basnet initially took up yoga to reduce weight, but is now pursuing a degree in yoga and is also an instructor on the side. “I wanted to increase my knowledge of yoga beyond the basic asana to ayurveda,” she explains. 

Read also: Yoga unites the world, Yugeshwor Koirala

Pokhara’s fame as a yoga city has been boosted by the Indian Embassy holding the International Day of Yoga on 21 June every year in partnership with local organisations. The city’s strategic location between sacred Hindu and Buddhist pilgrimage sites of Muktinath and Lumbini also help.

Ekraj Rokaya was working in Australia, and while there he began to ruminate on impermanence, suffering and human existence. He returned to Nepal a changed person, and began to practice and teach yoga and meditation, changing his name to Raj Karmayogi (pictured, below). 

Seeing the benefits of meditation, he wanted to share its value with others and set up a yoga school in Pokhara six years ago. “Pokhara is a yoga city just like Rishikesh in India, it can be associated internationally with yoga,” he believes. 

Indeed, with better road connectivity yoga centres are no longer concentrated in Pokhara city, but have been established in the surrounding mountains which command a stunning panorama of the Annapurnas.   

Pokhara was the venue for the International Yoga Festival in March last year with 50 overseas participants, and a four-day repeat of the festival is planned for October in which renowned instructors will be taking part. 

While individuals and instructors are promoting Pokhara on their own, they lament the lack of interest on the part of the government and the Nepal Tourism Board in marketing the city as a yoga hub internationally. 

“There is zero interest from the government to promote yoga tourism,” states Manohar Shrestha, of Purna Yoga Retreat Centre which takes tourists on hikes in the nearby mountains with yoga and meditation sessions in the mornings and evenings. 

Since India has branded the International Day of Yoga, Shrestha and Lamsal suggest Pokhara could be promoted as an International Meditation City, and the Nepal government could set aside an annual commemorative day for it, which the provincial and municipal government can then peg events on.

“Nepal and the Himalaya are where the Buddha and numerous Hindu sages meditated, these mountains are the spiritual home of both religions. There is no better place to honour them by rediscovering yoga,”says Lamsal. 

But like all other sectors in Nepal, there is a lack of regulation, and fly-by-night yoga retreat operators are giving the city a bad reputation. It is not only Nepalis involved, foreign trainers also bring clients and take private classes without paying taxes, local retreat owners say.

Only certified instructors should be allowed to train and proper protocols should be in place for yoga tourism, they add. 

Krishna Prasad Bhandari of the Pokhara Tourism Council adds: “Yoga and meditation must be developed such that it becomes synonymous with Pokhara, but we should not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs in the process.”     

Tired of working a desk job that left her physically and mentally drained, Dutch citizen Hana planned a trekking trip to Nepal in 2021. As soon as she reached Pokhara, all her tiredness seemed to slip away, and she felt as though her life had changed. 

“I was drawn to Pokhara’s mountains, the nature, and the climate,” says Hana (pictured, below) who was in Nepal to do the Annapurna trek. “But once here, I discovered the healing benefits of yoga and meditation.”

Hana is back in Pokhara for the third time in three years, and spends time in daily meditation and yoga. She says, “Pokhara is so peaceful and beautiful, it is the perfect yoga destination.” 

Like Hana, there are thousands of ‘meditation tourists’ visiting Pokhara during what used to be the monsoon off-season for visitors. Many yoga retreats have sprung up in and around this scenic city, and instructors advertise private meditation classes in hotels. 

One instructor is Maheswar Man Shrestha, who grew up as a sickly child in Kathmandu and was often hospitalised, missing school for months at a time. When modern medicine did not work, his father, himself a doctor, sought ayurvedic treatment and combined it with yoga and meditation. Shrestha soon got miraculously better.  

Now in his fifties, Shrestha is a true believer in the power of yogic healing. “I went from medication to meditation, I am living proof that yoga ensures physical and mental wellbeing,” says Shrestha (pictured, below) who teaches yoga to overseas tourists at his Purna Yoga Retreat. 

Being both the start and end point for treks makes Pokhara perfect for tourists to combine physically taxing Himalayan hikes with a soothing recovery. But even outside the trekking season, its lush monsoon greenery, the lakes and cloudscape make Pokhara the ideal place to decompress from the material world.

“Pokhara’s proximity to nature and relatively clean environment makes it great for tourists to come here to learn yoga,” Shrestha says.

Indeed, Nepal’s travel industry has lately discovered that blending mountains and meditation is a popular combination. After all, the Buddha was born in Lumbini, a seven hour drive to the south of Pokhara, and for many a trek in Nepal is already also a pilgrimage.

Rishi Raj Lamsal worked for a travel agency outfitting and guiding trekking groups. Once, on a hike to Poon Hill, his clients gasped at the panorama of Dhaulagiri and Annapurna at sunrise, and they promptly took out yoga mats and started doing asana and pranayam. 

It was there and then that Lamsal (pictured) realised that tourism had a spiritual aspect that Nepal’s travel industry had largely ignored. As soon as he returned to Kathmandu, he started designing meditatiton tourism packages.

Lamsal also learnt yoga and has been an instructor based in Pokhara for many years, teaching not just foreign visitors but also Nepalis from all over the country. 

“I have been to 42 districts, but there is no place like Pokhara, its geography is ideal to mixing tourism with spiritualism. It is natural beauty that draws people initially, but once here they also find inner peace,” Lamsal says. 

Deepa Basnet initially took up yoga to reduce weight, but is now pursuing a degree in yoga and is also an instructor on the side. “I wanted to increase my knowledge of yoga beyond the basic asana to ayurveda,” she explains. 

Pokhara’s fame as a yoga city has been boosted by the Indian Embassy holding the International Day of Yoga on 21 June every year in partnership with local organisations. The city’s strategic location between sacred Hindu and Buddhist pilgrimage sites of Muktinath and Lumbini also help.

Ekraj Rokaya used to be a migrant worker in the Gulf, and while there he began to ruminate on impermanence, suffering and human existence. He returned to Nepal a changed person, and began to practice and teach yoga and meditation, changing his name to Raj Karmayogi. 

Seeing the benefits of meditation, he wanted to share its value with others and set up a yoga school in Pokhara six years ago. “Pokhara is a yoga city just like Rishikesh in India, it can be associated internationally with yoga,” he believes. 

Indeed, with better road connectivity yoga centres are no longer concentrated in Pokhara city, but have been established in the surrounding mountains which command a stunning panorama of the Annapurnas.   

Pokhara was the venue for the International Yoga Festival in March last year with 50 overseas participants, and a four-day repeat of the festival is planned for October in which renowned instructors will be taking part. 

While individuals and instructors are promoting Pokhara on their own, they lament the lack of interest on the part of the government and the Nepal Tourism Board in marketing the city as a yoga hub internationally. 

“There is zero interest from the government to promote yoga tourism,” states Manohar Shrestha (pictured, below), of Purna Yoga Retreat Centre which takes tourists on hikes in the nearby mountains with yoga and meditation sessions in the mornings and evenings. 

Since India has branded the International Day of Yoga, Shrestha and Lamsal suggest Pokhara could be promoted as an International Meditation City, and the Nepal government could set aside an annual commemorative day for it, which the provincial and municipal government can then peg events on.

“Nepal and the Himalaya are where the Buddha and numerous Hindu sages meditated, these mountains are the spiritual home of both religions. There is no better place to honour them by rediscovering yoga,”says Lamsal. 

Read also: Peak season in the Nepal Himalaya, Vishad Raj Onta

But like all other sectors in Nepal, there is a lack of regulation, and fly-by-night yoga retreat operators are giving the city a bad reputation. It is not only Nepalis involved, foreign trainers also bring clients and take private classes without paying taxes, local retreat owners say.

Only certified instructors should be allowed to train and proper protocols should be in place for yoga tourism, they add. 

Krishna Prasad Bhandari of the Pokhara Tourism Council adds: “Yoga and meditation must be developed such that it becomes synonymous with Pokhara, but we should not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs in the process.” 

Spiritual scams

Katherine is an American yoga teacher and practitioner who signed up for a 300-hour training course at a yoga centre in Pokhara. It was a two-month course specifically tailored for trainers and instructors, and Katherine paid $2,800 after arriving in Nepal. 

She was deeply disappointed. Nothing was what was promised on the website, and she filed a complaint with the Nepal Tourism Board. 

“The trainer was not qualified and the training lacked  international standard. I feel cheated,” said Katherine (name changed). “I  wasted the flight cost and course fee, it all went down the drain.” As Pokhara gains popularity as a destination for yoga tourism, there are also reports of others like Katherine being scammed. 

Read also: The Malaysia-Nepal migrant scam nexus, Ramu Sapkota and S Vinothaa

Spiritual ‘wellness’ centres have sprouted like mushroom along Pokhara’s Lakeside. Some promise 200-hour teacher training, others have 300 hours sessions and some are 21 days long.

The lack of regulation and strict enforcement of guidelines for instructors and certification of ashrams is the main reason for the increase in fraud in the business. 

“Some individuals and organisations offer training and classes without understanding the depth and importance of yoga and meditation,” says instructor Maheswar Man Shrestha. “There are instructors in hotels who are responding to demand but lack  knowledge and training to teach others.”

It should be up to the Nepal Tourism Board and Gandaki Province Ministry of Industry, Tourism, Forest and Environment to prevent Pokhara from getting a bad name for cheating foreign yoga students.  

Read also: Embossed plate company involved in scam, Ramesh Kumar

Pokhara Mayor Dhana Raj Acharya admits there are some unscrupulous establishments, and says his municipality is coordinating with the Gandaki Province government to crackdown. He adds, “The reason is that the spiritual wellness sector is relatively new and we have not been able to play catchup with regulatory mechanisms.” 

 Nepal Tourism Board’s Nabin Pokharel says he understands the need to standardise yoga and meditation centres with some regulatory guidelines. He admits: “If we don’t do something about it, it can give a negative impression of Pokhara.”

If Katherine’s experience is any indication, that is already happening.