Woke up late feeling hot around my jaw and tense in my shoulders due to the heavy night of grinding - this was going to be an angry day. As Jo had rightly pointed out, I needed to take this trip easy if I was going to survive without getting seriously ill or fatigued. Some form of therapy was rightly due; all but psychological therapy was available, so a concoction of retail, spiritual and physical would have to do.
Retail Therapy
I returned to a salesman to who I, having been pestered into his shop from the street, had promised to return the next day. Regardless of my glorious return, he didn't seem overjoyed. Nonetheless, possessed with some sort of travelling demon, I purchased the cliché backpacker's outfit: Ali Baba trousers (made of light navy blue cotton, they're baggy from the ass to the ankles with elastic at both ends and a crouch so low, a small child could hide in there) and a shirt (blue, similar in style).
Spiritual Therapy
Next, I walked along the ghats again as, having not taken my camera the first day, I thought best to return to take some photos of these filthy places of spiritual worship. Though I didn't quite bathe in the Ganges, as hygiene (and common sense) trump spiritual enlightenment, I felt taking a few photos was spiritual enough...
Physical Therapy
On my way back, I dived down a side street to avoid the gauntlet of touts, rickshaw drivers and cow pats that lined the main road. The back streets were much more relaxed, almost with a Mediterranean feel.
A child, sitting on his doorstep playfully wrestling with his dad, cheerfully said "Namaste" (hello) to me, curiously hoping I would talk back. I wondered over and talked to the kid through his dad, acting both as translator and crutch for the boy's sudden wave of crippling shyness.
I saw a few signs next to the door that said "Indian head massage" and "Full body massage". Eventually I inquired as to the price...RS 150 for a head massage...slightly too expensive I thought, especially having been offered a head, neck and shoulder massage from a beggar for RS10...so I walked away.
Then I thought screw it. You only live once. I went back, renegotiated the price for head, neck and shoulders. He seemed genuine after all.
I followed him up the steps of his front door through a first set of beads into a darkened house. He lead me to the back through several thatch door covers dangling from the ceiling. Several waves of anxiety washed over me in a few seconds leading to a heightened sense of my surroundings "What am I doing? Is this guy legit? Just do it. It'll be a good story. What if he steals my stuff, or his son does while the dude holds me down?!".
I removed my shoes and entered another darkened room with a large yoga mat on the floor. Though fearful of what could happen to my belongings while I let this guy put his hands on me, I thought it best to display confidence and trust. As such, I openly put my things down in a corner...after all, my most important items were in my money belt. Sucker!
He told me to remove my shirt and watch...and watch? I thought we agreed head, neck and shoulders, when o my arms, let alone wrists get involved? I did it nonetheless, but hid my watch in my pocket. An awkward miscommunication occurred when I couldn't understand how he wanted me to be positioned, eventually we figured out that I was meant to sit up, back facing him.
He asked if I wanted music or mantra. Yeh. Sure. Whatever. Mantra will do. What the hell is Mantra?
Then it was to begin. He stood behind me and begin to hum "ommmmmmmm", he repeated several times. At first I was skeptical, but oddly enough, I felt the vibrations of his humming from my head down to my spine.
He then cupped his hands as if holding an invisible ball or stretching out the fingers and bending the second and third knuckle of each finger...and proceeded to give me, what the Americans call, a noogie. His hands quickly moving back and forth, scratching my hand and messing up my hair. Interesting, I hope this is just the warm up. He moved down to my ears, just rubbing them in and out.
After a good 5 to 10 minutes of noogie, he moved round to massage the jaw muscles below the ear. Finally some release of the jaw breaking tension I had been feeling all day. Then down to the shoulders, where our Western masseuses would slowly push the muscles to release knots of tension, he just went full force crab pincer style, squeezing at a fast pace.
We finally discovered why the watch was removed. He proceeded to move down each arm, one after the other, giving each muscle in the arm a Chinese burn and eventually, upon reaching the hands, popping each finger almost out of its socket.
It wasn't excruciating, but it certainly wasn't pleasurable either. Regardless of the experience itself, I definitely felt more relaxed once I left. And it turned out, I was going to need it.
Stress Therapy
When I made it to the train station in plenty of time for my 18:10 train, I discovered that, due to some miscommunication somewhere along the line, my ticket was for the day before. Shit. I needed to make it to Agra that night as my train for Jaipur, left the next evening, All my tickets would be useless if I didn't get on a train that night.
Finally, the train arrived, so I ran up and down the platform completely uncertain as to what to do. My ticket didn't say a seat, carriage, time, anything? I saw a group of people surrounding a small bearded man with a printed list. This was the guy I needed to talk to. Screaming and shouting at him. Sleeper! Need a sleeper to Agra! He told me and this American dude to jump on S3.
We ran like the wind trying to beat the train. If it left, I, at least, was screwed. We jumped on. And laughed off the nervousness. Casey Kroth from Chicago was to be my co-traveler for the next few days.
More later, I unfortunately have to run to catch a train.
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