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The Adventure of a Lifetime. Over the last year or so I have been very slowly reading "Eat Pray Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. I think I have slowly savored this book because it reminds me of a time when I went to India, Nepal and the Himalayas for 4 months with my now ex-wife and children 10, 12, and 14(boys 10 and 14 and the girl 12). It was an amazing adventure of a lifetime and changed all our lives in a very profound way. So, even though "Eat Pray Love" is a single Divorcees quest I find it very touching in much the same way my own "earth shaking" family experience was from December 1985 until April 1986. During that time we visited Thailand for about 4 weeks total going and coming, Narito Airport near Tokyo, Japan, Kathmandu, Nepal(we flew into and out of the Nepal-Himalayas and India region through this location). So the rest of the trip through Nepal and India was from hired car(which I drove some), train and bus, depending upon the area we were traveling through.

We used the Lonely Planet travel guide books since we wanted to get to know the people of the regions we visited. In this way we could be our own tour guides as much as possible and meet people along the way. We found the best way for us was to hire a young person of college age to bargain for us for food and hiring rickshaws, 3 wheeled taxis, or even train or bus tickets and lodging. In this way we were less likely to get ripped off financially because when we went there were no set prices for anything other than plane tickets and even then this might be negotiable over there. Also, it is very important in India(at least at that time) that one purchase ones tickets in the U.S. before going there as tickets were prohibitively expensive if bought in india. This wasn't necessarily true in Bangkok, Thailand, though if one were purchasing a ticket back to the U.S. I found. However, we had already purchased discount tickets in San Francisco that were 6 month open ended tickets with potential destinations of Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Kathmandu. So once we made our first reservation to Tokyo we had 6 months to complete the journey back to the U.S. staying as long as we wanted wherever we wanted along the way. These 5 open ended tickets cost us 6000 dollars in 1985 and were purchased from a student discounter in San Francisco that specialized in such things.

Surprisingly, for 5 people once we reached Bangkok, we could all eat like Kings and stay in Guest Houses along the way. 4 months of this only cost us about $4000 then. Things were very inexpensive as long as we didn't try to stay in 5 star hotels or try to purchase flights inside of India. Also, traveling this way allowed us to meet the locals as we traveled and to discover their customs first hand. My kids were invited to Nepali Wedding in Kathmandu which I thought was very fun for them.

We climbed as high in the Himalayas as about 10,000 feet in elevation which was about 50 miles from the nearest dirt road accessed by car or bus at that time. To do this we hired a guide who took us to Shermontang and Tarki Gyan in the Helambu District. We were able to stand on the Tibet-China Border then. We would have liked to go into Tibet but that wasn't a wise thing to do back then with children at that time. My friend from Alaska said when he took a bus into Tibet from Kathmandu that there was a bus full of dead people at the 20,000 foot high pass caused by the breakdown of the bus there. At 20,000 feet if you are not in peak condition all you are going to do is pass out and never wake up. After I heard this story I decided not to risk my children with this.

Westerners were just starting to be allowed into Tibet from Kathmandu during these times. China mostly was requiring people come into China through Hong Kong or a direct flight into Bejing.

So, though we were disappointed in not going into Tibet we met so many Tibetans and Tibetan Buddhist Sherpas that lived in the Himalayas of Nepal and India that we were very happy about meeting with and staying in their homes. In one high village we trekked to just before it started snowing, we stayed in our guides Aunt's home. There was no heat in the home other than a cooking fire in the middle of the living room. The smoke went up to the ceiling and out vents to the sides of the high ceiling and so the rafters were black from years of small cooking fires. Because everything had to be carried in on someone's back or by donkey to get there, dinner plates were all made of metal like stainless steel or copper. Dinner consisted of curried fried potatoes, dahl-baht(curried lentils), Chapati's, and buttered tea and a little hard candy. This was a fairly standard meal throughout India and Nepal. However, if you were visiting Tibetans or Sherpa's one would find the buttered tea and Mo mo's(potato or meat dumplings). But if you were in the plains with a Hindu family you might get Chai Tea and dahl baht and curried potatoes.

I had a little trouble eating so much curry and with everything that was fried fried in Mustard Oil. I was used to a more bland European style diet of potatoes, eggs, cheese and bread and milk and such so I was burping a lot from the difference. But I was still young enough and adaptable enough to survive this kind of diet for a few months.

However, when we were in Kathmandu there were western resterants with pasta, cakes, bread, cheese and all the things europeans and Americans are used to. So we were very happy when we could eat like Kings eating our Western food and stuffing ourselves for only $10 for all 5 of us for an evening. A place to stay then ranged from $10 a day to about $3 to $5 a day when staying in Tibetan Buddhist Monasteries and Temples. This would be for all 5 of us.

However, we think it was in Kathmandu also that 4 out of the 5 of us contracted Ghiardhea(protozoa in the intestines). So, slowly the 4 of us got very skinny as the protozoa ate our food before us). It was one of the reasons we came back after 4 months instead of staying 6. However, our experience was so amazing that it changed all our lives. Going there we thought the culture shock was very difficult, especially in the country in India where it was like being there 1000 years ago. Sometimes, 100s or even thousands of people would form a circle around us just to stare at us. This is sort of difficult to endure at first if you are from a western country where we give respect by averting our eyes from others unless speaking to them. Also, the European form of self discipline wasn't there for uneducated people and they seemed often more like children to us than adults. So one had to adapt to these differences as well.

However, because we were both white and western everyone expected us to be wise, intellient and well educated. So people were always coming to us to help them solve their problems of one kind or another. The biggest problem they all wanted to solve was "How could they come live in America!" We finally had to say,"I'm sorry we can't take you home with us to hundreds and eventually thousands of people." Even though a Tibetan Lama and his Tibetan translater aged 25 eventually met us at our home on the coast of northern California, most people we didn't see how we could help in fulfilling their dream. Most people had no birth certificates and so would be denied passports from India to anywhere in the first place. Even the Tibetan Lama had a hard time getting a refugee passport set up in India to return to the U.S. with us. His translator was from a wealthy Tibetan family so he had less trouble getting his passport in order.

I met an American who said this was his 10th return to India because he had this really intense Love-Hate relationship with India. He said, "On the one hand there is always all this suffering and death around. But on the other hand there is this incredible happy sweetness and spirituality of the people like they were 1000 years ago." He said it is the most magical place he had ever been on earth and had witnessed many supernatural events here in India. He said he kept coming back despite all the poverty and death because the people gave him so much hope for the human race.