Walking down memory lane

 Hi! This is just to say hi, and I am still here. I'm glad my writings for over a decade are still out there.   I feel lucky to have been born when I was, as I got to experience traveling in a world without the internet and iPhones.  In 1996, I traveled the world for six months, carrying what was known as the Orange Bible.  If I recall correctly, the Lonely Planet Guide had an orange cover covering the world on how to get places and where to stay inexpensively.  I had access to one through Greece, Egypt, and for a bit on the West side of India.  In my head, it belonged to my friend Joanne.  When we parted ways in India, she went to Nepal, and I continued through Northern India, but I no longer had access to it.  Having no guide in India was an adventure all its own.  But I befriended fellow mostly Australian travelers and other Indians who helped me find my way.  I can see the caves of Ajanta of large painted Buddhas in colors like those found in the Egyptian pyramids.  And getting to Udaipur, watching women with blue-covered heads and tiny babies sitting beside them doing dishes outside their homes in a blue plastic tub.   I can also vividly see the water lilies in the ponds in Udaipur.  It's also where I was bitten by a bug on my neck.  The bite started out small but seemed to be burning through my skin and getting larger and larger.  I was adopted by an Indian couple who provided an ointment and told me I needed to go to a big city for an English-speaking doctor.  Udaipur had million people and recall needing to ask what is a big city to them - of course they meant Dehli. In traveling to Dehli, I remember seeing jewels in Jaipur, a tiger in Rajasthan, the Taj Mahal, of course, and Diwali celebrations where the maharaja on horseback rode down from the mountain amid thousands to send a flaming bow into a huge paper mache like a monster.  The owner of the house I was at took me in a 1950s American war jeep, and there I met some boys who were on an international exchange from the University of Iowa.  It can indeed feel like a small world at times.  The crowd was big and large and uncontrolled, it felt dangerous but freeing in a way.  I remember talking to a researcher studying the caste system and having Indian guides show me kingfishers snakes, and tigers.  I sat with them as they drank chai - chai had not come to America quite yet so it felt foreign and it was good.  They showed me American Express travelers checks they had been given - one was 1000 dollars!  They had no way of getting the money from these travelers checks themselves.  I sometimes remember the smells being sweat-putrid with a hint of incense and roses and being invited as a guest to a wedding where they wanted me to drink some water from the tap which would have made me very sick. Or the bus rides where they played Bollywood movies with the women in wet saris all night.  Having blonde hair, I would get asked to be in family pictures of Indian families on vacation.  In one place, I was surrounded by 100's of kids yelling at me, and this old man came and shooed them away so I could be on my way.  I am not exaggerating here. I am unsure what would have happened if he had not come.  I think the best memories are the ones where Indian families were invited for dinners - this happened at least three times.  It was interesting to see how they shopped, cooked, and the customs of kindness and politeness.  My biggest regret was turning down the opportunity to travel with an Indian who wanted to show me his hometown where the Dali Lama was staying. Still, at that point, I knew my senses had been assaulted enough, and being younger, I may not have had the resilience I know I have today.   The biggest takeaway was seeing how people in Indian befriended strangers to help them when they neeed to help, to care for strangers and they would their families.  I remember returning to San Fran stateside and to an Iowan San Fran, which was a strange place.  A place where they had magazines with psychics.  I remember being on a small white tour bus to see the city, and an American family got on and took all the window seats and were very loud  And I recall thinking - the Indian families I had met would not have done that.  They would want to sit together as a unit and share.