It is wise, I find, to remember that everything we see, hear, taste and experience in life is filtered through our own cultural background, expectations, beliefs; never more so than when we travel abroad. Yet, a willingness of spirit can create a two-way opening -- limited still, yes -- but honest, and real within its boundaries.
This was my first trip to Asia. Taking it with women from the Threshold Choir (http://www.thresholdchoir.org/), albeit women I didn't know -- most of whom I'd met only once, and that in connection with this very trip -- generated some confidence about that open-hearted willingness of spirit. This work we volunteer to do, singing at the bedsides of dying people, requires those very traits.
I'm home now; have been for some time. Procrastination, unwellness, internet crashes, unfamiliarity with blogging technology, and, well, life, got in the way of completing -- hell, of beginning -- this any sooner. Originally, it was to have been created as it happened. I carried a netbook all the way across the Pacific Ocean for that purpose. As it happened, though, internet access was rare, wireless even rarer, and time and energy at the end of long, extremely full days, rarer still. The best I accomplished most evenings was to write down longhand some abbreviated version of the day's events. The farther I get from the trip, the more challenging I find it to read my much-too-hastily scribbled notes. I hope I get everything happening on the right days, in the right order. But, if I don't, only a few will know.
Most of those few are, like me, from California, the others from Ohio and New Mexico. All of us were graciously (and wisely) invited to have a long lunch together at the home of Robin, who lead the tour. Not surprisingly, only those living in California were able to attend. As a getting-to-know-you conversation, Robin suggested that we each talk a bit about our travel experiences. I came away feeling that it was a pretty good way to learn about other people (providing, of course, that they have had the opportunity to travel), whether or not you're going to travel with them.
That was in May, and by the time we were to meet at San Francisco Airport late in the evening of July10, I was relieved that Robin and Marti (our second-in-command) had had the forethought to provide name tags. We hung them around our necks and wore them every day for the next three weeks. I don't want to give the impression that we didn't learn one another's names, but I believe they must have been helpful to our various tour guides, drivers and hosts, who had to learn a dozen different names that were unfamiliar to their language and culture.
There were some interesting occurrences in the days right before departure, the day of, and even in transit. Perhaps, I'll interweave them into other tales as I go along, to avoid too long a preamble to the pictures and stories of Thailand and Bali.
