Last day of Yoga & a trip to New Delhi

---

Feb. 10th, 2013

Last yoga class and trip to New Delhi

I woke up at dawn a little before sunrise to do my morning meditation. I slowly sat down on the bed for meditation pose and breath slowly and deeply. I did my final meditation in the ashram.
The morning yoga class was a multi-leveled class and the room was completely packed with people. I took the last mat on the shelf and sat down in butterfly pose with hands in muddra for the initial chanting and breathing. The breathing exercises were helpful and helped relax and calm and keep the mind focused for the practice. I have learned that yoga is all about the power of the mind, stillness and breathing.
We did a series of routines with 7-9 different yoga poses, some harder than others and at every pose I felt more flexible, focused, fit and relaxed. Finally the last 20 minutes of the class was simply to breath, relax and enjoy the stillness of our bodies and minds.
After yoga, I had breakfast with the usual people and said goodbyes and warm wishes and headed to my room to get a shower and packed my remaining items.
At 9:30, I was ready to leave the ashram and start my next part of the trip: an adventure through the Rajasthan desert with Kyle.

The driver I had requested to take me to the airport was late and it made me very anxious. Since I was a little girl, I have been traveling and my dad always got very nervous before a flight and liked to be at the airport like 4 hours before the expected time. I carried this trait from him. As the ashram was 2.5 hours from the airport and Mumbai is a very big city with really bad traffic I wanted to be picked up a the ashram to go to the airport early just in case of emergency. Well apparently for Indian standards when you say a time expect people to be about half an hour late and be completely relaxed and calmed. Well finally the driver came around 10:00 and the man in charged of the driver was so calmed I could not believe it.

Anyway i got to the airport on time around 12:30 and when i checked in for my 2:00 o' clock flight to Delhi i noticed that there was a flight at 1:00 so I asked if I could be on that flight and they said yes (without hesitation and any payment fee!!!)
I quickly went through security and found a free wifi just to call Kyle and tell him I would be earlier in Delhi and to tell the hotel people to pick me up earlier. I got in the airplane and in a very short time I was already in Delhi!

I left the airplane quickly and since I did not have checked baggage I went to get some money just enough to pay taxi driver. This time I got better deal a solid 7 rupees for 1 RMB. I headed out to the waiting area for domestic arrivals and remembered the hotel has said they will wait outside international arrivals gate 6. As I did not see anyone from hotel and with my name I walked to gate 6. There I did not see anyone either. I called Kyle to asked him to check for me if the hotel people where at he airport and so he said to call him again in 5 minutes. I walked again to domestics arrivals and no one was there. Little did I know people had to pay to go inside and so most people waited outside of the actual airport glass doors. I walked back and forth from domestic to international arrivals for about 15 minutes until I saw lots of people outside the international outside arrival area. I walked out and saw a man with the hotel's name and asked him if he knew who was picking me up. He had no idea and so called the hotel and they had no idea about me ( I will tell more a out this later!) Now I became anxious because I knew Kyle had talked to the hotel to picked me up from airport and I did not know what was going on. I panic a little and so I decided to stop, breath and calm down. I did this and the. walked again to the domestic. arrival area this time on the outside of the airport gates and to my very Awesome surprise as soon as I got to the arrival gate I lifted my head and there was… Kyle… my airport pick up!!! I was so excited I ran to hug and gave him a big kiss. It turned out Kyle had told the hotel people he was picking me up at the airport and told them to pretend they did not know anything about me if I called! I really was so surprised and did not expect it at all! It was a great loving surprise!!!

We headed to our hotel and he showed me the way to it using the airport express from Delhi airport and then through a major train/metro station in downtown Delhi. It was my first sight of real india! The station was so crowded seriously than 1 square meter for every person. Lots of men and very few women. The smells from onion, garlic and curry to human urine, poop and garbage to incense scents. The train ride was smooth but vey crowded we managed to get in the first train that came but were standing and squished with both my backpacks front and back careful to watch them. As we got off the first train we went to get a token for the next train to our hotel area and i immediately noticed that women were at a different line and if one came in front of a long men's line she had priority. I thought of taking advantage of this privilege, but decided to wait a bit I was not sure if this applied to Western women as well. We got our tickets and as I was waiting for Kyle a man asked me suspiciously if I was alone and why. When I told him i was waiting for my boyfriend he backed up and let go. We went to the platform through a very crowded hallway and when we got to our train line I noticed the Ladies only train cart sign. In india men are very aggressive and violent and because women are not valuable and most people have abortions or kill baby girls women are very. scarce and so the rate of men to women is about 55 to 45 %. Because of this men tend to be sexually aggressive towards women and so women are very protected and are not allowed to travel on their own and so they make this only women seats, train carts, etc to protect them from men. I also noticed very few women traveling alone and if there was one then they were always with a man companion. I was lucky and grateful to be with Kyle!
we got to our hotel around 4 ishh after a walk through Delhi's maze of alleys and streets. We chilled for a while and then headed out to wander around the streets of Delhi and eat dinner. We ate at some indian fast food restaurant and it was delicious. To drink we had some mango lassis and to eat we ordered butter chicken and chicken tikka and some veggies. Then we wandered around and i bought a cool pair of black Ali baba yoga pants and the. headed to our hotel for the night.

---