I Did It!

I conquered my fears and traveled to India and now I can really "breathe." It's interesting because I titled a pre-trip post "Breathe,"(about my trip anxiety), and at the Sivananda ashram in Neyar Dam (Kerala) where I stayed for ten days, we learned about breathing deeply and not shallowly as we in the west tend to do. I've had a few really bad sinus headaches since I returned and when I start to breath deeply, the headache seems to go away almost miraculously.

So my big fear about not being met at the airport in New Delhi was unfounded. A man from the hotel met me holding a sign with my name on it along with the hundreds of other people holding signs. Luckily my flight arrived at 9:30 p.m., which I'm told is a relatively peaceful time compared to 1:30 or 2:00 a.m. in the morning - the time most international flights arrive. On the flight from Newark to Delhi I was seated next to a young man (young to me now that I'm in my 40s) whose family is originally from New Delhi. He works in NYC in the financial services sector and was returning home for a wedding, but his parents actually live in Finland! He was very reassuring about my trip. He said he thought the yoga vacation in South India would be relaxing for me. We also had some interesting talks about politics and whether the new mini car that had just been introduced by Tata motors would take off in India. (Those long international flights bring out some rambling discourses).

Once I got to the airport and was going through immigration, a nice american man let me borrow his pen and offered to wait for me while I went to check if the hotel had met me. He told me not to leave the airport unless I felt secure about the taxi driver taking taking me to my destination. He also said if necessary, I could just stay overnight at the airport (pay to stay in a lounge area, which I'd also read about on indiamike.com). I was very grateful for his kindness. This is turning into a blow by blow account of my trip, but suffice it to say, I'm glad I went and it did change me in small ways and more momentous ways. I'm still processing everything in my mind so I'll end here, but it's a great feeling to conquer your fears. Yippee!!!!!!!!!!

Btw, here's a link to photos of my trip:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23453793@N03/

And a big shout out to indiamike.com. I never would have survived this trip without all the wonderful advice from the kind folks on that forum.