Field notes from ladekh: travel becomes the yoga practice i didn’t expect!

By Wanda Wen

It likely comes as no surprise that I always carry pen and paper when I travel. They are as essential to me as a passport. I find joy in capturing my thoughts—especially in unfamiliar places where beauty, color, texture, along with small moments of clarity and reflection, emerge at every turn.

On my recent journey to India, I was doubly blessed: not only was I immersed in the cultural richness of Ladakh, but I also had the opportunity to visit several of Soolip’s cherished paper artisans. My journaling was elevated by the most exquisite papers. Each sheet was a quiet echo of tradition made by hand.

This trip was also a personal celebration: my birthday, followed closely by that of my daughter and traveling companion, Simone. We were there for a yoga retreat led by my dear friend and esteemed yoga teacher, Jeanne Heileman. For two weeks, we practiced in glass-walled studios embedded in rich, other-wordly landscapes.

We wandered through ancient Buddhist monasteries, Ladakhi markets, and winding lanes filled with unfamiliar incense, yak fur blankets, hand-painted paper maché boxes, saffron-colored silks, and sometimes a friendly donkey or two!  The colors were rich and inspiring!

But even magical moments like these are not immune to the inconveniences of modern travel.

At the airport, as we prepared to leave Ladakh for New Delhi, eight of us were unexpectedly bumped from our flight. No explanation. No clear sense of when we’d depart. What began as a minor delay slowly unraveled into a haze of uncertainty.

At first, I smiled as I watched some of our group go off in search  of refreshments, and thought "Stranded in Ladakh. Send help—and chai"

But as the hours passed, continuing to bake under the intensifying sun sitting outside the airport on whatever we could find, I found myself reaching for something deeper—something my yoga practice promises, and now demanded: calm, grace, surrender.

Yoga retreats are designed to offer clarity and usually we apply it to our lives once we are home. In this case, the true work began much sooner than expected.

By each hour my haikus expanded. By the third, I was searching for a way to give the experience shape and meaning:

The yoga kicks in
When life offers the challenge
Sit in unknowing

Isn’t that the truth of travel these days? No one, not even the staff at the ticket desk, knew when a plane might arrive. But, of course, eventually it did. Which makes worry feel not just unhelpful, but almost comically unnecessary.

No matter the situation it seems, "we sit in the unknowing," as my yoga teacher Jeanne often reminds her students. 

Before we found ourselves stranded, Simone and I had spent days visiting our favorite paper vendors, wandering in and out of shops brimming with texture and color. We even made an early morning pilgrimage to Agra to capture this iconic shot at the Taj Mahal.

And then, finally, we were homeward bound, flying above the cloud-draped Himalaya mountain peaks.