Yoga Retreat In Borneo

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Borneo                   

Yoga in the rainforest

Nuluhon Garden Retreat Center is a fantastic place situated on the northern part of Borneo. Embraced by the rainforest and infused with a calm and peacefulness that deeply effects your mind, Nuluhon is the perfect place for yoga and meditation practice. Nuluhon is run by Shone and his wife Kathie along with Shones parents and family, helping out when needed.

During this trip you will enjoy:
- Long and wonderful yoga classes every morning and evening
- Meditation with guidance
- Deliciuos vegetarian meals
- Accommodation at a retreat center in the middle of the rainforest
- Workshops on health, yoga history and meditation practice
- Traditional Borneo massage
- Excursions to waterfall and a culture village

As an option you can extend the stay with a week including three days on a fantastic paradise island.

If you take the little winding path behind the house, and follow the path for a few minutes, you end up at a some verynatural looking pools and a small waterfall that melts into the nature. Thats a perfect place to go for a dip when the day gets too hot.

At Nuluhon you also share your time with a couple of cats and three roosters along with their hens. Big beautiful butterflies fly by when we do yoga at Nuluhon.

The rooms are either four beds, double beds or single rooms. A few of the rooms are build in traditional Malaysian style. Nuluhon is on top of a hill, so as we do yoga, we look out over a valley of rainforest and it feels like you are in a big tree house. Day and night you hear the sounds from the many birds and insects.

Stay a week extra...

For those that think it is very far to go all the way to Borneo and just stay one week, there is an opportunity to stay one week extra. In that week there are no workshops or yoga sessions, this is just your own time.

During this week you have a chance to go for a three day tour to a little paradise island just outside the cost of Borneo. The island is called Mantanani and is made of coral beaches surrounded by a  turquoise blue sea. We stay in houses with stilts just by the beach, so when you go to bed at night the sound of the waves lulls you to sleep.

There are possibilities around the island for diving and snorkeling and even night time snorkeling. To get to the island, we travel by bus up the coast from Kota Kinabalu for about an hour until we arrive at a small jetty. From there we take a speedboat for 45 minutes out to the island where we are welcomed by the warm and friendly young staff at Mantanani.

We stay at the island for three days and two nights, from March 4-6. The price includes journey, accommodation, some of the snorkeling and food.

The preliminary price for this extra trip is 250 EUR. When we return from Mantanani, you can stay at Nuluhon Garden Retreat Center until March 10. We would very much like to see that if you stay extra, you stay the whole week.

From Nuluhon, you can do tours into Kota Kinabalu or other places nearby or you can just stay at this wonderful retreat and enjoy the peace and quietude that Nuluhon Garden offers. An extra night at Nuluhon costs 45 EUR and that is with breakfast, lunch and dinner included. The Retreat Center is situated about 30 minutes by car from town. A taxi costs around 15 USD.

Your hostess and yoga teacher 

On this trip you will be guided in yoga and meditation by Didi, and she will also be the tour leader.
Read about Didi here >>

Yoga

Every day you participate in a 90 to 120 minute yoga session both morning and evening. The yoga sessions include movements (asanas), yoga dance, self massage, meditation and guided deep relaxation.

Yoga means to unite. In the west, for the last couple of years, we have seen yoga literally explode and you can find almost more yoga teachers than yoga practitioners in the big cities around the world today. Unfortunately, we have peeled off a lot of what is actually yoga and embraced only a very small part of yoga which suited our society, culture and mindset.

But yoga does not only consist of a number of physical postures and is not only a physical and mental practice. Yoga is a way of relating to life. Yoga is 24 hours a day. Yoga is about becoming a conscious human being.

The final goal of yoga is to experience oneself as part of everything and in no way separated from the rest of creation. In that state, you experience infinite happiness, total stillness and you know that you are unconditionally loved, always.

The trip is focused on both body, mind and soul through good, healthy food and detox, physical yoga postures, meditation and chanting, deep relaxation and personal self reflection.

The yoga we practice on the trips is called Rajadhiraja Yoga and is sometimes called Ashtaungika Tantrika Yoga. It is based in Patanjalis system of Ashtaunga Yoga.

Ashtaunga yoga means eight limbs of yoga and includes ethical guidelines (yama and niyama), physical postures (asanas),  withdrawal techniques of the mind, concentration practices, breath exercises, dhyan (deep meditation) and also a practice of complete enlightenment.

The poses are similar to those that are practiced in Hatha yoga, Raja yoga, Iyengar yoga and other styles of yoga. The difference in Rajadhiraja yoga is that the poses are repeated several times, usually for four or eight times and that you hold your breath for about eight seconds in each pose.

This makes the asana work deep on nerves and glands and leads to a release of energy which makes you feel relaxed, calm and at the same time filled with lots of energy after a yoga session. It also creates an effect that stays with you, long after the yoga session is over. In Rajadhiraja yoga the practice is calm and contemplative and gives you more energy and increased consciousness.

Every session is always concluded with a self massage which work to help the lymphatic flow in our bodies. During asana practice our sebaceous glands produce a fine secretion, this is very beneficial to gently rub back into the skin. It is also just a beautiful thing to get in touch with every part of your body after a session.

Meditation

During the week you will be gradually introduced to meditation practice. If you are already an experienced meditator, there will be time for your own practices as well. We also offer personal meditation guidance by experienced meditation teachers. To practice meditation leads to a state of calmness, peacefulness and well being. But most of all it is a journey towards our own deepest self and the infinite aspect of ourself that we can find hidden deep within our innermost self.

Workshops

During the week there will be a few workshops to give you a deeper understanding in yoga, meditation, yogic diet, detox and healthy eating as well as in the Enneagram. In the yoga workshop we look at the history of yoga, what does yoga really mean and what are its foundations. You get a deeper understanding of your mind and the goal of meditation in the meditation workshop. You come to understand how your mind works and how you can use it in your meditation practice.

Through the workshop on yogic diet and detox you get a chance on reflecting on your diet and get some tips for healthy eating for both body and mind. The Ennagram workshop gives you an introduction to The Enneagram and a deeper understanding of others that helps you deal with yourself and others in a better and more compassionate way.



Food and helth
We use mostly locally produced and organic food. The diet on Joyful Journeys trips is always a yogic diet, or a sattvic diet. We combine this with a lighter version of a detox diet. All food is vegetarian. We are striving to give you a wonderful taste experience at each meal.