Planning on living on a bowl of rice a day in India, or under the age of 25 and hostel jumping in dorms with bed bugs? This article is not for you. Mature-ish, aging hipsters read on: Artjuna is your first stop in India

With the world at our fingertips, working remotely from anywhere, and more time for leisure as many of us skip the high-stress jobs, why not go to India? Home to yoga, ancient mystics, and the kindest people on the planet, India is one of those places that can change your soul and course of life. I was always dreaming of India but hadn’t managed to get there before I had kids. With 2 small ones, I wondered, how do I jump in? Known as “India Light” Goa on the coast is a perfect first stop to exploring India. Come in the fall when the weather is drier and less hot and make sure that you start everything off at Artjuna Cafe in Anjuna, Goa. This is what I did with my family of four and parents.

Moshe Inbar and his life partner Anastasia run the dynamic cafe-cum-community center cum-DJ hub. Even if you don’t love trance music and late night dance parties which the town is famous for, you will meet a wonderful community of kind souls from around the world who can help you navigate your first steps in India. Where should we go and when? How can we rent a house? Where should we eat, is it safe? Where can the kids go to school? I asked all these questions to Moshe before arriving to Goa and throughout our 6 weeks in Anjuna and Vagator he was the best ambassador to the region, connecting locals from Goa and Mumbai to a rich and varied international crowd. He gave his his best advice with all his heart and I feel with left Goa with a new friend.

Moshe’s cafe on one of the main streets provides healthy and clean sustenance in mornings and afternoons. Walk in and you will enter a quiet little kingdom with treehouses for kids to explore.  I appreciated the high level yoga classes run by his Iyengar teacher friend Ian Teger.

This is how it started before we travelled to India:

After hearing Moshe’s name a few times from my friends in Israel, I was on a quest to meet him. We connected by WhatsApp and he was answering any questions I had. I found a place on AirBnB, asked him if it sounded reasonable and after yes, booked. The first things we did after arriving to Goa, via Mumbai, was drop our bags, rent a car through our host, get a SIM card and then we visited Moshe.

We put his café in Waze and found it immediately. A kind guard helped us into a parking spot across the road from the café and there we would find our new home in India for 6 weeks at Artjuna Café.

Artjuna functions as the cultural center of India, a drop off point for newcomers, aging hippies, DJ’s, locals, Indians from Mumbai, yoga enthusiasts and people who value good, healthy food, health drinks and coffee. Back in the days when I was a backpacker I would sail from hostel to hostel asking the guy in town a week before me about what’s going on, what I should do. Today, 20 years later, I like my privacy, have an aversion to bed bugs most hostels aren’t for me anymore. This time around we would rent a small house with a bedroom and bathroom for everyone in the family.

Now we have the Internet beyond the Lonely Travel guides and travelling becomes less about being the lone wolf and finding new frontiers, and more about building community, the community you always wanted and how to have authentic experiences with people you meet along the way. In India, Artjuna is the place to start building those foundations.

At its core, Artjuna’s beating heart and brains is Moshe, and his less-public partner Anastasia who runs the boutique selling her own designs in clothes and jewelry, with a collection of things hand made by others. A couple for a couple of decades with two young girls, they both started in the trance scene in Goa years ago. Some fifteen years on with lots of lessons learned, they run the most successful café in the region, for many reasons. Great food, reliable information and advice you would give to your best friend, yoga, community events, and a great clothing shop if you want to avoid the overheated markets.

Food

There is really something extremely yummy for everyone. My daily meal after an hour and a half of yoga every morning was often a Greek salad with bread, or a granola bowl with fresh fruit. Moshe is from Israel so he really knows how to serve up fresh and healthy Mediterranean food. While it’s not hard to find fresh fruit and veggies in Goa, it is a labor making sure that you can eat them, that they’ve been cleaned appropriately. His staff is local. Try the ABC juice.

Vibe

Alcohol is not served at Artjuna and there is a no drugs policy. There is an annual art show where you can buy art made by Goans and travellers from all over the world. A woman in a yoga class (from Italy) gave me her pants. The people there are amazing.

Yoga

What kept me coming back daily to Artjuna was the yoga sessions, though about half of the cafe seemed to be just in it for the friendship. Like an Indian version of entering a Cheers set. Many are throwbacks from the 90s rave scene, but there is a great mix of ages, younger and older too.

I enjoyed Iyengar yoga sessions with in-house yoga teacher and good friend to Moshe, Ian Teger. He teaches multiple levels at once, from the just-past-beginner to the master class level student. The very beginners can start studying with Ian’s protégés (one has a great clothing shop too nearby – see Ondi) in a beginner class after the first of the morning.

The classes are challenging, restorative and a lot of fun. Ian takes the less serious route that most Iyengar teachers embrace. The class is full of jokes, sometimes in Yiddish. Ian is originally from the UK and was a close student of BKS Iyengar, a yoga guru who brought yoga to the western world.

While many people struggle to book week-long or longer detox of yoga sessions before they travel to India, I think the best way to get the most for your money and social life is to find a local place to stay (we stayed with a local Goa family) and spend most of your time at Artjuna with Moshe and his crew.

For those with kids, try the Holistic Yellow School, where hippy kids get educated. Drop-ins allowed, even for weeks at a time. Meet you there next winter?

::Reach out to Artjuna and Moshe via Facebook

The post Make Artjuna Cafe your first stop in Goa, India appeared first on Green Prophet.

It’s a parent’s fantasy to get away for the winter, no? But not just for a week on a Disney cruise. That kind of holiday actually frightens me. Perhaps because I am a child of the 70s now with children of my own, I was seeking a holiday where I could enjoy myself, and my kids could too. I have a theory that when I am happy, my kids are happy. We all found the answer to our family needs in Goa, India. We decided to stay in a village called Anjuna, because a friend of mine Didi, said it’s the best.

Yes, I know, India has a wildness to it. It’s one of those places where you need vaccination shots, and you need to wash your hands and you can’t drink water from the tap, and yes, the roads are nuts. But think of Goa as “India light”. It’s a great place to enter the eastern wildness and awareness that India offers, but it’s a relatively safe place for children and women alike to settle in for a month or two or more. 

After I heard about the beautiful community in a small beach village called Anjuna, what made the whole trip for 6 weeks irresistible is that my children would be able to go to school there. Some established hippies, then with kids of their own, set up a school in Anjuna, which starts young at pre-school ages, up until Grade 6. It’s called the Holistic Yellow. Taught in English by local Indian and international teachers, you as the parent can have your days free to explore Goa, do yoga, work remotely, sunbathe, or sleep, while your kids enter a small paradise of freedom and fun.

The Holistic Yellow School, was founded by Karl John Shenton, a father of 2 boys – now both at the school. He’s studied and learned from many pedagogical systems over the years and has built his own style, where a kind of freedom and wildness prevails. While my 5 and 7 year olds were there for 5 weeks they met friends from all over the world, some speaking 5 languages; they got to swim, go to water parks, discos, played endlessly with glitter and crafts, planned a large dance festival, and most importantly were hugged and loved by the warm staff.

When we entered the children to the school, we told them that they don’t need to learn anything. I’d been homeschooling English, and they go to a slower-paced school in Israel where one of them is just starting to read and do math. We were under no stress for them to learn anything and the Holistic Yellow staff were gracious about that.

The kids felt at home from the first day and couldn’t wait to go to school the next day. While it’s hard to get my boy dressed in the morning in Israel, where we live, in India he was motivated to put on his clothes and his shoes well before the time.

Another great thing about the school is that there are vegetarian options for my kids who keep a kosher diet. For others, as vegans or vegetarians there is a strong awareness in Goa to other’s eating habits thanks to Hindu influences and a very multi-national community, many of whom are vegetarian.

The Holistic Yellow School won’t break your bank either. It cost us a modest 14,000 rupees a month, about $240 USD per child, making it a great alternative for parents and people who want a real holiday of a month or more to get into the vibe of India. They accept drop ins and cater to the travelling community.

Consider that what makes the school so charming and the kids so great is that they are the offspring of the Goa hippies, many from the trance scene that started in the 80s. The kids are world-travelled, balanced, fair and open-minded. Once you experience the Yellow School and visit there you will know exactly what I mean.

If you are lucky your children will connect to the others and you will have an instant community where you will meet other parents full of positivity. Not a “normal” one in the crowd. We were invited to birthday parties, disco parties, and unusually good dinner buffets with our new friends.

There is no simple way to sum up what the Goa experience is. It’s not Pura Vida like Costa Rica. It’s not Same Same, But Different like Thailand. It’s just amazing for the spirit. Because going to Goa is mostly like going to visit yourself, the version of you that you like in your dreams.

While I love my kids, I also love being my own person and the Holistic Yellow gave me the chance to be that too, on holiday.

For more information about the Yellow School in Anjuna, Goa, see their Facebook page. Or talk to Karl here. Check out Sam Rao for homestays in the Anjuna area. 

The post Sending the kids to school in India appeared first on Green Prophet.