Almost there

We have reunited finally. After ten days of mystery, Sam has emerged from her cocoon of OMMMMMMMMs, meditation and silence and has burst through the protective casing a new and vibrant girl. She was ready to spread her proverbial wings and tackle new stressful and frustrating situations like a Buddhist ninja, slicing through the annoyances with ease. However, India, and more importantly, the transportation realm has endless reinforcements of situations that perturb, rattle and want-to-make-you-grab-the-person-who-is-talking-and-shake-some-common-sense-or-at-least-get-a-straight-answer-for-all-that-is-holy. I was relieved to see her to say the least. Protocol and cultural awareness be damned, when we met for the first time, we re-enacted that famous photograph from V-day 1945 in NYC in front of some shocked, but more likely, perverted male audience.
She told me all about her time in the center. She learned all about how to release stress and practiced these techniques for 10 hours a day. For those mathematicians at home that is 100 hours of meditation for Sam. She also, hilariously enough, learned about the art of what Indian food does to one's digestive system when untreated. It seems as though Sam's mind and body had similar thoughts as when Sam was mediating and attempting to clear her mind of all thoughts, her bowels were trying to do the same thing in a non medidative way. She is a strong girl. The probable cause of the irritability was the food and water at the center, which as I understand, made rice cakes look like a culinary explosion; I guess to meditate, rice gruel moves you closer to nirvana.
Our plan was to go from Jaipur to Agra- to see what this hubbub about the Taj was about- and then to Delhi. We were on a tight schedule so time was of the essence. We took a local bus, which promised to take five hours; seven hours later we arrived in Agra. For those 100 hours, Sam had mastered and understood the importance of feeling your senses, vanquishing all stress and allowing frustrating events pass. By the first stop- over 40 minutes- Sam's hair- already longer than normal- was a mess, loud sighs and mutterings began to escape from her. At least the program was free, so I guess it was money well spent.
All jokes aside, she is better and has scaled back what the center called "attachment." I have noticed change and a mellowing of her persona, which was the initial attraction for her to this place. We did have scary moment when there was a huge BANG outside and two windows blew out on the bus. Nothing serious honestly; a tire of a truck blew out next to the bus causing the noise and destruction, but the remarkable aspect of this episode was Sam's reaction, or lack thereof. She was cool and collected whereas before this would have led to a panic attack-especially here. I myself, was a bit unnerved, but all was well.
As we polished off the Taj and headed to Delhi, we had one final moment where Sam's training failed her. We booked a pre-paid rickshaw, yet no driver would drive us. Most looked at our slip- it was short distance to our destination- and scoffed at driving us since it was not a "big chauna of a drive". I felt we had some contagious disease and nobody wanted to fraternize with us at all. This marked the first time we have wanted to be hassled and our reception was frigid. Most of the time, the touts compete in the Olympic event: 100 meter sprint to the foreigner. It was disorienting- to make matters worse, we were hungry and frazzled from the whole day's journey. Sam, after 10 minutes of fruitless searching, marched to the pre-paid booth and unleashed barbs that probably felt good after 10 days of silence. To the consternation of one driver, he was forced reluctantly to take this supposedly stress free girl and bald man to our desired location.

As for me, to step back into the past, I enjoyed my final days in Jaisalmer thanks to a great camel safari. I went alone and slept under the stars. I had a chance to escape the rush of India and appreciate silence, camping and that riding on a camel will never be high on my list of things to do again. I mean almost immediately my butt hurt in the saddle. I was only on for a total of 4 hours, but god bless those people who trek for two days. Girdhar, the camel driver, had Raj, the camel, run arbitrarily provoking searing pain in the rumpus; while exciting I was smiling as though I was having a kidney operation on the camel.
My time there was worth it and the ten days alone. I learned new things about me- bargaining has never been my strong suit. I met some great people, Wayne and Michelle among others, and I feel my time alone was important for our next phase in Guatemala.