If you’re looking for more than a standard yoga retreat, a remote escape in the Nepalese Himalayas could be just the tonic.
While the commercialisation of yoga means that it’s not hard to jump on a short haul flight with your designer luggage and check into a luxury yoga retreat fit for Instagram snaps, new retreat called Sahasi Mahila – which focuses on women – takes the idea of yoga back to its origins.
The 12 day retreat includes four days on the trekking trail with the resident Sherpa to ascend to the village of Solukhumbu. Starting with a jeep ride out of Kathmandu, there's no rocking up in an Uber here. Porters will carry your packs, but you’ll still manage 20km per day, so you’ll have earned the headspace of the yoga section once you arrive.
After that it's pure yoga practice in the Himalayan foothills, which mixes disciplines. A typical day is made up of meditation and pranayama before breakfast, ashtanga before lunch and yin in the evening. All of the yoga sessions take place in the grounds of a ruined Buddhist monastery Bupsa Gompa – so should be a pretty mesmeric experience.
Being November in the Himalayas, you can expect temperatures to reach -20 degrees – so expect a bracing experience up at the monastery.
It’s not totally remote, however. You can opt for hotel or homestay options, the former will offer more access to home comforts.
The Sahasi Mahila runs from 15 - 27 November from Kathmandu and costs $3,295 USD. However, it’s a new retreat and hasn’t got the benefit of extensive Tripadvisor reviews – so we’d advise cautious research to ensure this is the right experience for you.
Nepal isn’t short of trekking and yoga options: Nepal Yoga Trek runs scores of treks across Nepal that mix hiking and yoga – and are well worth checking out as an alternative.
