{ Blogpost from Mindtgreen.com}.   My first Retreat ~ Santosha Society’s Sri Lanka Surf &Yoga Escape

Wow, what an amazing experience! Feeling really blessed to be part of Santosha Society’s first Yoga and Surf Retreat in Sri Lanka, organized by the lovely Kori Hahn.

Hi! My name is Vilia and I am currently traveling the world  trying to constantly feed my body with exotic vegan food and my mind with positive energy. To go on a Yoga retreat therefore seemed to be the ideal combination of both and has been on my wish list since I stepped into the world of yoga.

It was a happy coincidence to have read about the yoga and surf event, and I spontaneously decided to join Kori and 12 other wonderful humans on this journey. After backpacking solo for almost 6 months, I finally arrived at the beautiful villa smoothly nestled in the atmospheric surroundings of Sri Lanka’s southwest coast.

Kori prepared a warm welcome for us by serving refreshing lemon water and a big plate of exotic fruits. Yeah! The right start of a fruit party! And for the next 7 days it only got better… Let me begin.

Ever heard of Kola Kenda? No worries if you haven’t, but once you’ve tried it, you’ll never forget it. Its a mix of green smoothie and warm porridge. Sound healthy? Well, it is! And it’s delicious and super nutritious!  Kola Kenda is a typical Sri Lankan breakfast, that turned out to be a favorite dish for all of us!
On top of this, all the exotic, sweet and tasty fruits captured my heart from the first bite. A deep love for papaya was born! If it was up to me, I’d vote for a full-time fruit flatrate.

We were all very lucky to be spoiled with real Sri Lankan cuisine during the week.  Prepared by the hands of an experienced local chef and his wonderful team. They created amazing creations from the locally grown, fresh ingredients, like cashew nuts and green Mango curries, and traditional herbs green soups for an extra kick of good health.

Surprisingly for me however, was the fact that I was the only vegan eater. If you’re vegan as well, you probably know that being treated as a special eater can suck sometimes.  But I can tell you that I never felt like this!  Traditional Sri Lankan cuisine contains many unintentional vegan friendly dishes. And the variety of fruits make it extremely easy to satisfy your culinary cravings without missing anything. Our table was always filled with vegan options, including curries, salads, soups and fruits – full of healthy goodness.

Don’t get me wrong: there was still the opportunity to indulge yourself with coconut ice cream or baked bananas topped with coconut syrup!

And for non-vegan eaters?  Local, fresh fish and seafood was prepared  on the barbecue and stovetop. I just realized that I have no pictures from this part of the meals! Im sure you can guess why…No question about that.

It was just a perfect first retreat experience for me and I am happy to share my gratification with all of you.  I would not only recommend my friends to join Kori’s future retreats because of the amazing yoga, meditation and surf moments, but I would definitely recommend it for the food experience alone!
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This is a blog post written and photographed by one of our guests at the Sri Lanka Surf and Yoga Escape in October, 2015.   How lucky we were to have a beautiful soul like Vilia along to share and learn from.  She has kindly shared her experience as a vegan foodie traveling in Sri Lanka here with us in this blog post.  Her blog mindtgreen is filled with amazing recipes and tales of traveling as a vegan foodie that will make your tummy grumble in the healthiest way possible.  Thanks for inspiring Vilia.  Santosha Society absolutely loves you!

Check her out and get ready to get hungry in the healthiest way :

Vilia’s Blog www.mindtgreen.com, Instagram: @mindtgreen, Facebook page mindtgreenblog, & Twitter account @mindtg