If you are lucky and made enough right choices in life you often are still alive in your 60s and 70s and 80s.
However, then often you look back and think "Oh my God! Did I actually do that?"
The thing that strikes me the most is taking my children (2 step kids and my son) along with my wife to Asia from December 1985 until April of 1986. We visited during this time Japan, Thailand, Nepal and India (which is the order in which we visited each of these places. However, taking ones children to places like India and Nepal especially is sort of like Taking them to another planet completely other than Earth (at least then it was like this) maybe it still is but this is now 40 years ago because now it is 2025 and I'm 77 not 37 anymore.
Here are some of the reasons I think doing this was crazy looking back from here:
My stepdaughter Got Deli Belly (like Montezuma's revenge) while we were staying in New Delhi. A relative of the Tibetan Lama we were traveling with then that we originally met in Santa Cruz California who was his English Translator went to get our daughter some medicine. He came back with this black goo stuff and whatever was in it she went into convulsions from the medicine. This is just one of the things we faced as a family.
My solution was to get everyone out of New Delhi where tropical diseases flourished then and up into the mountains of Dharamshala, India where the Dalai Lama lived then with around 10,000 Tibetan Refugees from Tibet. This actually worked and solved the problem of my Stepdaughter's bought with Deli Belly.
By the time we had traveled by Train and bus from New Delhi through the Punjab of India where the Golden Temple of the Sikhs is that we saw driving by by train or bus I believe we finally reached Dharamshala, India at 6000 feet elevation in the Himalayas with 15,000 to 25,000 foot peaks covered with snow in the background (still composing article by the way).
So, we get to Dharamshala and magically one of the Lamas I met in Santa Cruz, Lama Ayang is there to meet us at the bus station there. And Geshela (Geshe Lobsang Gyatso) the Tibetan Lama we were all traveling with from New Delhi to Dharamshala all met each other. All the Lamas and monks said eventually that we should travel to Rewalsar because I had a connection with Dorje Drollo who is a Crazy Wisdom emanation of Padmasambhava who brought Buddhism to Tibet before 1000 AD from Nalanda University. He was a Mahasiddha famous throughout all Asia in Buddhist Circles.
We had traveled originally from Bodhgaya where Buddha had become enlightened under the Bodhi Tree and they had grown other Bodhi Trees from the original one for 2500 years since then so children of the original bodhi tree were still growing alongside the river where he became enlightened still in 1985 when we arrived in Bodhgaya and we were initiated into the kalachakra Tantra along with 500,000 others from all over the world then.
We got rooms staying at the Magadh University and a man dressed sort of like Jesus as you see him took us back and forth the few miles from the University to the Kalachakra Tantra in his horse cart. One day he took us to the town where he lived where they didn't believe in electricity at night and it looked like Aladdin lamps throughout this town then.
Because people believed in Karma then so we weren't afraid of being harmed. One had to then be more afraid of people trying to scam you out of your money by wanting to clean your ears with miniature silver spoons or things like this. So they would hand you affidavids of their skills by previous customers but sometimes we had to basically laugh politely because often these scams were so ridiculous to a western mind.
Like a Young Chiropractor at a train station who handed me his business card and starting grabbing my arm and adjusting my back on the sidings of the train station. I felt no contract or anything but how crazy this guy was I think I gave him 10 dollars at the time just so he would go away after adjusting my arm and back. So I never felt in danger from the people I met other than them wanting to scam me out of any money that they could. Beggars could be like this too so I tried to always give most beggars a penny or nickle or a dime since 50 Cents could be the difference between life or death for them each every day.
Like for example, when I returned to New Delhi after around 2 months there in India traveling there was a gypsy dressed older lady who once must have been very beautiful. Her hair was white then and was begging for money from me. So, she pleaded me for money and as a last resort she grabbed my leg and wouldn't let go like a little girl begging for my help. I was embarrassed that she was doing this to me on a busy city street. It didn't feel safe to be in this position by an older lady dressed like a gypsy who was obviously in distress but who once had been beautiful. I also gave this woman 5 to 10 dollars just so she would leave me alone and not endanger me by a spectacle there on the streets of New Delhi with thousands of people walking or driving by.
Another incident I survived by having good reflexes and being very strong and coordinated. I was walking with my family through Varanasi i believe then and we were walking alongside Brahma Bulls who are literally "Wild Sacred Cows" that often wander through cities unowned because they are considered to be literally "Sacred Cows and Bulls".
However, this time the alley got more narrow and the bull tried to gore me as we walked along the alley. Luckily I could grab the horn before it impaled me with my hands and the bull threw me against a brick wall. Luckily I only got black and blue on my stomach but I was strong enough not to get seriously injured by this brahma bull in this Varanasi Alley way I was walking through with my family.
Another crazy thing that happened in Royal Chitwan National Park on the Terai of Nepal. People think Nepal is just Mt. Everest which it is. However, Nepal also goes down onto the terai which is a rainforest jungle area where there are Tigers and rhinos and Gar where are thinned mouthed alligators in rivers there along with Elephants that are washing themselves next to the gar with their handlers. we also rode on the backs of Elephants with their handlers there too.
Well, Krishna our 18 year old guide who was about 5 feet tall then told us to prepare for meeting Rhinos and how many Americans and Westerners died trying to take pictures of them. So, he said don't die taking pictures of something that may kill you.
My 12 year old stepdaughter got terrified and climbed to the top of a tree. but, she was overweight and I yelled "Those branches are too small you are going to fall!" And so she broke a limb under one foot and came head first 20 to 30 feet to the ground. I thought I would have to break my back stopping her fall. But, By God's Grace her hips caught between two branches so all I had to do was to make sure her head didn't hit the tree from the force of her fall so she didn't die from a concussion.
These are some of the crazy ways we survived then from December 1985 to April 1986 when we returned to San Francisco and an American way of life in April of 1986.
However, all my children have become world travelers, even my two daughters that were born after we returned from Asia.
So, the 5 of us (wife and three children and myself) set the whole family up to be world travelers ever since 1985 now.
This Asian Travel set us all up for worldwide travel for a lifetime. Amazing! My son lived for 5 years and met his present wife while teaching English in South Korea. Both my daughters have lived in Europe and one married a European Lawyer and lives in Europe and the U.S. ongoing now.
An amazing life we all live!
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