A yearning for yoga and more

Caroline was talking crop circles, Annie chanting, while at the end of the table Isabel was trading an Indian head massage for a tarot card reading - very alternative, and very not me.

This was the first night, without ally, in Turkey on a week's yoga retreat and I sat wondering if Isabel might trade her skills for a cigarette. Or, indeed, if anyone in this clean-living haven would give me a light.

I am no yogi. I have only done it twice, the second time a crash class the day before I flew. But holidaying alone there are few options that don't involve a single room supplement and watching loved-up couples cavort in the pool. Washed out by work, the promise of a week in the sun and a body like Madonna seemed not such a bad idea. And though I would share a room with God-Knows-Who, at least I wouldn't have to eat on my own.

We were an odd medley of strangers: one couple and 15 women aged 25 to 55, among us a banker, a singer and a hairdresser. Bar Isabel's boyfriend, there was only one other male: yoga teacher Simon Low. Regarded as one of the best in London and responsible for the ineffably chic Triyoga centre in Primrose Hill, Low is no muesli-sandal. He believes yoga is for anyone, die-hard believer or not. He is also patient, though he cannot count - he says, "Hold for five," but always goes to 10.

Before I set off, I complained to a friend that I could get into yoga if there weren't so much sitting around. It was a misconception soon eclipsed by the sheer quietude of the place we were staying in. Huzur Vadisi is more boutique camp site than hotel, in the hills behind the fishing village of G?cek on Turkey's south-west Mediterranean coast. Dubbed the St Tropez of the Turkish riviera, it is popular with the likes of Sting, and the celebrity yacht count is high.

We would do two two-and-a-half-hour sessions a day, at sunrise and sundown, in an airy, vine-clad pavilion among the fig and olive trees, blanketing the pine-scented valley. The only sound came from distant goat bells and sprightly cicadas ... and me. While learning the foundations of yoga practice - postures, sequences and breathing techniques (Low's signature mixed style is based on the premises of viniyoga) - I cursed, in awe of the leaner string beans who would bend with blessed ease, their arms twisted, backs bent, legs horizontally split. By day two, I wasn't saluting the sun, but telling it to get off my back and let me have a lie-in.

That said, it did get better and by day four I could sit cross-legged without complaining about a screaming shin. Even Isabel, who had a body like a Barbie doll, improved - legs circling in their sockets from day one. But as Low kept telling me, it's not about who's more flexible than who: it's about hitting and pushing against your own wall. Well, no problems there.

Low's trips - he does five a year - aren't just about yoga. What distinguishes them beyond his teaching is the quality of the places in which you stay.

Huzur Vadisi is supremely pretty. Excepting the lack of en suite bathrooms and the caprice of the solar-heated water, it is also comfortable, consisting of eight domed Turkish yurts (circular canvas tents), each sleeping two to three, set in the grounds of a renovated farmhouse. Wisps of muslin fall about the beds; there is electricity and painted wooden floors. There is also a natural stone swimming pool and a k?sk, or open-sided gazebo covered in kilims with views out over the valley. You eat on the terrace of the main house beneath a canopy of vines and flowering geraniums.

The food is traditional Turkish; ergo, I thought, doner kebabs. But in this particular region, meat features rarely. The cuisine is vegetarian and very good, heavy on sage, thyme and oregano with lots of organic bean-and-potato stews, aubergines, curd and home-made bread. It was by default, and failure to read the small print, that I found myself on this organic detox diet.

I ditched the culture - there are a number of ancient ruins in this part of Lycia - for two days on a wooden gulet, swimming off the boat, fishing off the back. My only other excursion was to G?cek's Turkish baths, a sweaty, heady experience, my skin buffed and muscles pummelled by two young men in scanty loincloths. This was towards the end of the trip when we had mutated into a gaggle of girls - Simon Low, the man of the harem, somehow coping with the perpetual chatter about breast enlargements and useless men. It turned out to be better, by far, than a week at a spa and, at £670, including flights, an outright steal. Better still, by the end of the week, my curses had melted into a genuine "om". Upside down in a shoulder stand (without a wall) I wondered how that poisonous gym teacher of my youth could ever have refused me my BAGA 4. I had even ditched the long-promised 30th birthday present to myself - a bottom redesign and liposucked knees. Prematurely, perhaps, but here's looking at the new holistic me. That's the idea, at least, though I expect it won't last longer than the tan.

Way to go

Sophy Roberts flew to Dalaman with Turkish Airlines (020 7766 9300), returns from Heathrow via Istanbul from £276 until the end of October. Simon Low runs five yoga holidays a year, including two at Huzur Vadisi, two in Andalusia and one in Sri Lanka; from £590 per person, including return flights, accommodation, all meals and yoga tuition. He also runs regular residential weekend retreats around the UK. For further details call Triyoga on 020 7483 3344. For further information on Turkey call the Turkish Tourist Office (020 7629 7771; www.touristoffices.org.uk/turkey).