In no time, Captain Raghu had all us yogis throwing our hands in the air shouting, “Jai Ma!” at every close call, which was pretty much every five minutes—and this little piggy cried, “Jai Ma! Jai Ma! Jai Ma!” all the way to Udupi.

I have no idea how the others fared in their van, if they were lucky enough to have a mantra crying victory to the Divine Mother. Sure worked for us. I did not share with the others that one of my closest friends who has been on pilgrimages for the past four years was in a very serious bus accident last year. Very serious, as in the front windshield was completely shattered, most of the passengers had glass in their hair and everyone was banged up somewhere. The miracle was that everyone survived the head on collision of two buses. The road was closed for two days to remove all of the debris and buses were totaled. Her crew made it to temple for abhisheka, which involved pouring nine buckets of water over their heads. There’s so much that could go wrong in that scenario with all the open cuts and shards of glass running down the body.

This is India.

Close your holes and let the water cleanse you, no matter how bacterial infested it possibly could be. If you go on a pilgrimage this is what you do. Be a part of the culture. Why go otherwise?

We settled into the hotel all intact minus one large piece of luggage. A new rule was set into place. Watch your bag go on the van, watch your bag come off the van. I was fully confident the bag would make its way to us so there was nothing to fret about. Though it wasn’t my bag that was lost, I did reflect on what I would do if I were in that situation. I would do exactly what I did. Eat my lunch and wait to see what happens. No point in spending your time worrying about something that is out of your hands.

Besides, worrying is just wishing for what you don’t want to happen.

How is that ever a good idea? Within a few hours the misplaced luggage came back.

Post lunch, I was ready for a nap. Our arrival in Udupi was officially our third day in India. I’m not counting arriving at the airport at 11:00 p.m. as a day in India. We were on the go to say the least. My body had no idea what day it was or what time. Of the three nights that had passed, I had slept a total of maybe 10 hours. Being in nap position doesn’t necessarily facilitate a nap. The fancy noise reduction headphones I bought at JFK worked great, only they didn’t lull me to sleep. So I meditated and practiced savasana in bed.

What? Savasana is a practice? It just may be the most difficult asana (posture) of the asana practice. Quoting T.K.V. Desikachar on savasana, “It is attention without tension, loosening-up without slackness.”

I’ll take three please.

We were told the hotel was good by Udupi standards, and it would due for the night. My roomie and I noted some blood spots on the wall. We decided that it was from dead mosquitoes and left it at that. Not so gentle reminder to take my daily Malarone pill.