THE ROAD TO BODHGAYA
The next morning I got up and had a breakfast of boiled eggs, curd, fruit, sweet bread, juice and tea. After that I went back to my room and got my suitcase and bag and went downstairs and checked out. By then Raja had come and we started out for Bodhgaya which would be a several hour drive. It was interesting to watch this new and different world go by, but it was hot. Fortunately there was air-conditioning in the car. Some of the roads were bad but there were quite a few good roads on this journey. There were road crews in many areas building roads all along the way.
Water Buffalo Cart
TAKING TEA
Whenever we stopped for tea Raja always sat apart from me at a different table. I got used to this and didn't try to change it. I know there is a caste system in India, and people inside a caste know their place and have no problem staying in it. In the U.S. we believe that we are all created equal and no one is above another in God's eyes. People have a chance to rise in status no matter the humble beginnings they started out in. A person can rise and make life better for themselves as their natural gifts and opportunities allow them to. It is different in India and has been for a long time.
Everytime we stopped for tea I always ordered black tea with no sugar or cream. This is odd to the people of India. Most people there either drink tea with cream and sugar or with spices. It seemed the farther along we got on this journey the worse the tea got. The tea was usually too strong but I drank it anyway. Eventually I started drinking it with cream and sugar. I found it was a little more palatable that way.
In India as well as in many other Asian countries, especially if the people are Buddhist or Hindu, they have respect for all living things. They will not kill a fly or a mosquito even if it carries diseases that can kill you. If a mosquito starts buzzing around you, you just wave it away with your hand. In the car many times there were flies and mosquitos. You just opened the window and coaxed them out.
Driving through the country side of India I saw how the people dealt with pot holes in the road. Near towns and villages the people would first fill them with broken bricks. As cars and trucks rolled over them the bricks would be crushed and the hole would fill up. I saw people do this quite a bit as we traveled from town to town.
Later in the day we stopped for lunch at a roadside cafe. I ordered vegatable curry and nan. Raja helped order it since the menu was written in Hindi and nobody in the resturant knew any English. After lunch we continued traveling. Then not too far down the road Raja stopped the car, leaving the motor running he put the emergency brake on and went into a roadside cafe and got some more tea. He was starting to get drowsy and needed more tea to keep himself awake. We continued down the road and drove for about two more hours. Then I saw a sign that said, BODHGAYA.
Pretty soon we entered the city of Bodhgaya and pulled up to the Sujhata Hotel. Bodhgaya is located in the state of Bihar, which is one of the poorest states in India. I was greeted with a garland, tea, apples and bananas. I signed in and was shown my room. The first excursion would be at 5pm, in less then an hour. The guide would meet me in the lobby.
Mahabodhi Temple
At five sharp I was sitting in the lobby when the guide arrived. We set off by foot to the Buddhist complex which was about a fifteen minute walk. On the way we stopped at a tea shop to have some tea. We sat in chairs in the open air under the shade of hundred year old trees. The town of Bodhgaya seemed like any other typical Indian town I had seen on this Buddhist adventure. It was not full of people in robes with their heads shaved. It was the usual Hindu people like everywhere else. Hindu people have a great liking for Buddha. They believe he is the reincarnation of their god Vishnu who is the second highest god in their pantheon of gods and godesses.
After the tea we walked over to the Buddhist site which was just inside the nearby gate. As like everywhere else in India there were vendors and hawkers every step of the way til the entrance of the holy place of Buddhism.
The Mahabodhi Temple stands fifty-two meters high with a base of 15.2 meters. It is a pyramidal tower. The main door faces east. It is the place where the origional pipal tree stood where Siddartha attained enlightenment and became the Buddha. The tree behind the temple is an ancestor of the origional tree. It is said to be the fifth generation decendant of the origional tree. King Asoka was the first to build a temple on the sacred site.
The guide explained to me that for a long time the present temple was damaged, but after many years it was reconstructed. When Asoka first visited Bodhgaya in 259BC, pilgrims had already started to gravitate to the site. This kept up for 1,500 years and then the Muslims came in the 13th century and devastated it and halted the flow of pilgrims. Buddhism declined in India after that and for centuries Bodhgaya had fallen into ruin and was forgotten as a holy site for Buddhists. It was vandalized and neglected by squatters till around 1509AD when a wandering Hindu ascetic took over the complex and used it for Hindu religious practices.
Entering the temple you go down some steps into a hall on the main floor and through a vaulted passageway into the main part of the temple. Upon entering the sanctum you come upon a great, gilded image of the Buddha seated in the earth touching position. The Buddha is seated on a patterned cushion instead of the usual lotus flower.
There were hundred of pilgrims out the day I was there. I am told that it is even more crowded during the peak season in October and November. After spending a little time looking around the inside of the temple I emerged back up the steps and the guide took me to see the tree next to the temple. Under the tree is the Diamond Throne which symbolizes the spot where Siddartha attained enlightenment. It is a slab of red sandstone that is 2.3 meters by 1.3 meters wide. This could be seen by looking through the closed gate which was not opened to the public that day.
Going back to the temple the guide pointed out the many carvings of Buddha in the stone exterior. In each carving he is sitting in a different position. Infront of this there is the place where Buddha walked and meditated for seven days after his enlightenment. After this the guide took me to the six other places he spent after his great awakening where he spent seven days at each spot.
There is a Hindu temple a few steps from the Mahabodhi Temple. It is called the Mother Temple and is dedicated to the mother of Buddha. For a donation you can put scarves on the statue of Buddha and his mother and some of his other disciples. What a scam. I really felt stupid doing this.
Then the guide took me over to a large tank on the other side of the park. On the way the voice of an emom came over the speakers of an intercom system. It was a call to prayer. I didn't see it, but there is an mosque nearyby. After this Tibetean monks were heard chanting over the intercom. At the tank there is an image of Buddha with a large cobra providing shelter for him with it's hood when it rained while Buddha was staying there. Near the tank is a meditation garden where people go to meditate in the day time. The gate was locked so we couldn't go in.
On the way back toward the main temple the guide pointed out the spot where Buddha had a conversation with some merchants who were passing through at the time. They gave him food and became his first disciples. He also gave them some hair off his head that they could venerate.
By then it was dark so we headed back to the hotel. Back in the room I wasn't too hungry so I ordered fruit and curd for dinner. I spent the evening washing my clothes and using the air-conditioner and the ceiling fan to dry them.
A LOOK AROUND TOWN
For breakfast the next morning I had potato nan and curd. It was very good. I have decided that I will order Indian food for the rest of this trip because the Indian people have no concept of American cuisine. Everytime I have ordered American food it turned out nothing like it was supposed to. I don't mind Indian food even though everything is well spiced.
After breakfast I met the guide in the lobby and we went across the bridge over the Niranjana River. It is the same river that Siddartha lived along it's banks for six years with five other ascetics. During the monsoon season when there is plenty of water this river is a fast flowing river that enters into the Ganges River. The rest of the year it is just a small stream that flows down the center and the rest of the river is dry river bed. This is what it was like when I was there.
On the other side of the river and down a dirt road with a row of squalid houses that eventually enters into an opened area there is a fensed off area. Inside the fense there is a very large stupa.
Stupa
This is supposed to be the place where a girl gave Siddartha milk and rice after he had reached the conclusion that he no longer wanted to fast. He reasoned with in himself that all fasting does is make you weak and how can you do any good if you are in a weakened state?
He grew up in an environment of over-abundance and as a child his father had overindulged him, and now he had spent six years living on just about nothing. He had fasted so often he looked like a living skeleton. The idea came to him of the middle way. He decided that it was not good to live with more then you need, and it is also not good to live on less then you need. He decided that the middle way was the best way and he wanted that for himself. When the girl offered him the rice and milk he accepted it determining inside himself that he would start living in this new way. This meal broke his fast. His five ascetic companions saw this and thought that he had reverted to his old ways, so they abondoned him. They left the area and went to Sarnath leaving Siddartha all alone in Bodhgaya.
As the guide and I approached the gate two young men came over. At first I thought they were selling post cards as is usually the case at these landmarks. They said that they help run a school nearby and they wanted to know if I would like to make a donate. I gave no immediate reply but was listening to the guide explain the history of the stupa.
It was supposedly built over the house where this girl lived. I followed the guide to the top of the stupa. The two young men also followed along. On top was a tree and there was grassy area and a great view of a distant mountain where Siddartha often went in his quest for enlightenment. It was somewhere in this vicinity that the girl gave Siddartha the rice and milk.
Mountain
After the tour was over the two young men invited me over to see their school. I walked over with them and went in the old building and up three flights to the classroom on the roof. There were already a couple children there who had come early. They were waiting for the others to arrive. They offered me some tea and pulled up a chair while telling me their plans for the school. They want to take me to some of the villages around the area and let me see what they were like. I wanted to see the villages and the people but at the moment I had a guide and a driver waiting for me so I had to decline the offer until later.
MONATERIES
I went back to Bodhgaya and then went to the following monestaries. Vietnam, Chinese, Thailand, Tibet, two Japanese monestaries, and Butan. I also went to see the large statue of Buddha that is along the monestary route. It was only 10am and the tour for the day was over. I was free to do whatever I wanted for the rest of the day.
Monestary
My first thought was to go to my room and read a little. I took out the books I bought in Agra and tried to read but I couldn't consentrate, so I went down to the hotel resturant and had lunch. Himalayan Chichen, nan and black tea sounded good.
Mongolian Monestary
Before I had come to India I had read that there was an internet cafe in Bodhgaya. After lunch I went to the front desk and asked where I would find the internet cafe. The guy behind the counter pointed up the street. I went outside with the idea of walking there but I took three steps when a cycle rickshaw driver came by and asked if I would like a ride. 'Why not'? I asked myself and climbed up into the seat. I told him that I wanted to go to the internet cafe. At first he didn't seem to understand what I was saying so I drew a picture in the air of a monitor and then pretended to type on an imaginary keyboard. A lightbulb seemed to go off in his head and he started to pedal in earnest.
About a mile and a half away he stopped in front of a row of stores. There was a sign on one of them in English that read 'Internet Cafe". I paid the driver and went inside where I was shown a computer. I sat down and learned how to use it and then found my blog site and wrote in if for an hour. It only cost me 30 ruppees.
When I walked outside I found that the rickshaw driver had been waiting for me the whole time I was in the cafe. I got in and told him to just drive. I didn't care where he took me. I wanted to see where he would go. I wanted him to make some money. I wanted to make his day. He went up the road and then turned left and went up a hill. When we came to the top where it leveled off we passed the soccer field where the Dahli Lama comes every year to talk to the people in the area. We had gone passed this earlier in the morning. Then I realized that he was taking me toward the bridge that goes across the Niranjana River. I didn't say anything. I just let him drive.
We made it to the other side and then up the dirt road with all the filthy houses. I seems like we are going to the stupa where I was in the morning. On the road there were some boys that I had seen that morning. They recognized me and ran over and wanted me to see the children in the classroom since all of them were there now. I went with them up the three flights of stairs to the roof where the classroom was.
The headmaster wanted me to go up infront of the class and talk to the childen a little bit. I went up and talked a lttle and then drew a map of the United States on the marker board and showed them where I live. I tried to answer some of their questions. Some of the kids tried out their English on me.
VILLAGES NEAR BODHGAYA
After the children went home the headmaster and some of his assistants asked me if I would like to see some of the villages around the area. They wanted to show me the poverty these people lived in even though they did not say it in words. I could tell that this was their motive. They wanted to shock me. They wanted to show me that these people lived in mud huts with thatched roofs and dirt floors. When the monsoons come each year some of the huts would flood and they had to live with water on the floor for part of the year. The people around this area are uneducated and most of the children don't go to school. The parents don't want them to. They want them at home helping with the chores.
There are many children who want to go to school but the school is far away and not easy to get to. The headmaster was telling me that they plan to build a school in each village so that the kids don't have to walk so far. Then the kids can go to school a couple hours in the morning and then have plenty of time during the rest of the day to help their parents with their work.
Downstairs they had all their motorcycles ready. I got on the back of the motorcycle of one of the headmaster's assistants. We drove off in the direction of the villages. The whole area around the villages is filled with rice paddies as far as the eye can see all the way to the mountain in the distance. We entered a village and stopped. Some kids gathered around. The children looked healthy and fed. Most of them were wearing clothes. Only one was running around naked. These people didn't ask anything of me.
Up the road we stopped and got off the bikes and the headmaster took me up close to where the people lived and showed me the squash vines on the roofs of some of the houses. I could see that it was a primitive society. Each family has some kind of craft that they work on all the time. This is the way this society has gone on for thousands of years. It is true that these children need an education. Some of them will get it. Some of them will be able to move out of this endless cycle of poverty and escape this slavery through the path of education.
After this they took me to another set of villages. None of it shocked me. I had seen it all before many years before when I was a soldier in a war in southeast Asia.
Back at the school they invited me in to chat a little. We talked for awhile telling me stories of Buddha. They also made some milk and rice and let me try it. It was getting late and I told them I wanted to get back to my hotel before it got dark so they said they would call a taxi. Minutes later a rickshaw pulled up and the took me back to the hotel.
Country Scene
The next morning I got up and had a breakfast of boiled eggs, curd, fruit, sweet bread, juice and tea. After that I went back to my room and got my suitcase and bag and went downstairs and checked out. By then Raja had come and we started out for Bodhgaya which would be a several hour drive. It was interesting to watch this new and different world go by, but it was hot. Fortunately there was air-conditioning in the car. Some of the roads were bad but there were quite a few good roads on this journey. There were road crews in many areas building roads all along the way.
Water Buffalo Cart
TAKING TEA
Whenever we stopped for tea Raja always sat apart from me at a different table. I got used to this and didn't try to change it. I know there is a caste system in India, and people inside a caste know their place and have no problem staying in it. In the U.S. we believe that we are all created equal and no one is above another in God's eyes. People have a chance to rise in status no matter the humble beginnings they started out in. A person can rise and make life better for themselves as their natural gifts and opportunities allow them to. It is different in India and has been for a long time.
Everytime we stopped for tea I always ordered black tea with no sugar or cream. This is odd to the people of India. Most people there either drink tea with cream and sugar or with spices. It seemed the farther along we got on this journey the worse the tea got. The tea was usually too strong but I drank it anyway. Eventually I started drinking it with cream and sugar. I found it was a little more palatable that way.
In India as well as in many other Asian countries, especially if the people are Buddhist or Hindu, they have respect for all living things. They will not kill a fly or a mosquito even if it carries diseases that can kill you. If a mosquito starts buzzing around you, you just wave it away with your hand. In the car many times there were flies and mosquitos. You just opened the window and coaxed them out.
Driving through the country side of India I saw how the people dealt with pot holes in the road. Near towns and villages the people would first fill them with broken bricks. As cars and trucks rolled over them the bricks would be crushed and the hole would fill up. I saw people do this quite a bit as we traveled from town to town.
Later in the day we stopped for lunch at a roadside cafe. I ordered vegatable curry and nan. Raja helped order it since the menu was written in Hindi and nobody in the resturant knew any English. After lunch we continued traveling. Then not too far down the road Raja stopped the car, leaving the motor running he put the emergency brake on and went into a roadside cafe and got some more tea. He was starting to get drowsy and needed more tea to keep himself awake. We continued down the road and drove for about two more hours. Then I saw a sign that said, BODHGAYA.
Pretty soon we entered the city of Bodhgaya and pulled up to the Sujhata Hotel. Bodhgaya is located in the state of Bihar, which is one of the poorest states in India. I was greeted with a garland, tea, apples and bananas. I signed in and was shown my room. The first excursion would be at 5pm, in less then an hour. The guide would meet me in the lobby.
Mahabodhi Temple
At five sharp I was sitting in the lobby when the guide arrived. We set off by foot to the Buddhist complex which was about a fifteen minute walk. On the way we stopped at a tea shop to have some tea. We sat in chairs in the open air under the shade of hundred year old trees. The town of Bodhgaya seemed like any other typical Indian town I had seen on this Buddhist adventure. It was not full of people in robes with their heads shaved. It was the usual Hindu people like everywhere else. Hindu people have a great liking for Buddha. They believe he is the reincarnation of their god Vishnu who is the second highest god in their pantheon of gods and godesses.
After the tea we walked over to the Buddhist site which was just inside the nearby gate. As like everywhere else in India there were vendors and hawkers every step of the way til the entrance of the holy place of Buddhism.
The Mahabodhi Temple stands fifty-two meters high with a base of 15.2 meters. It is a pyramidal tower. The main door faces east. It is the place where the origional pipal tree stood where Siddartha attained enlightenment and became the Buddha. The tree behind the temple is an ancestor of the origional tree. It is said to be the fifth generation decendant of the origional tree. King Asoka was the first to build a temple on the sacred site.
The guide explained to me that for a long time the present temple was damaged, but after many years it was reconstructed. When Asoka first visited Bodhgaya in 259BC, pilgrims had already started to gravitate to the site. This kept up for 1,500 years and then the Muslims came in the 13th century and devastated it and halted the flow of pilgrims. Buddhism declined in India after that and for centuries Bodhgaya had fallen into ruin and was forgotten as a holy site for Buddhists. It was vandalized and neglected by squatters till around 1509AD when a wandering Hindu ascetic took over the complex and used it for Hindu religious practices.
Entering the temple you go down some steps into a hall on the main floor and through a vaulted passageway into the main part of the temple. Upon entering the sanctum you come upon a great, gilded image of the Buddha seated in the earth touching position. The Buddha is seated on a patterned cushion instead of the usual lotus flower.
There were hundred of pilgrims out the day I was there. I am told that it is even more crowded during the peak season in October and November. After spending a little time looking around the inside of the temple I emerged back up the steps and the guide took me to see the tree next to the temple. Under the tree is the Diamond Throne which symbolizes the spot where Siddartha attained enlightenment. It is a slab of red sandstone that is 2.3 meters by 1.3 meters wide. This could be seen by looking through the closed gate which was not opened to the public that day.
Going back to the temple the guide pointed out the many carvings of Buddha in the stone exterior. In each carving he is sitting in a different position. Infront of this there is the place where Buddha walked and meditated for seven days after his enlightenment. After this the guide took me to the six other places he spent after his great awakening where he spent seven days at each spot.
There is a Hindu temple a few steps from the Mahabodhi Temple. It is called the Mother Temple and is dedicated to the mother of Buddha. For a donation you can put scarves on the statue of Buddha and his mother and some of his other disciples. What a scam. I really felt stupid doing this.
Then the guide took me over to a large tank on the other side of the park. On the way the voice of an emom came over the speakers of an intercom system. It was a call to prayer. I didn't see it, but there is an mosque nearyby. After this Tibetean monks were heard chanting over the intercom. At the tank there is an image of Buddha with a large cobra providing shelter for him with it's hood when it rained while Buddha was staying there. Near the tank is a meditation garden where people go to meditate in the day time. The gate was locked so we couldn't go in.
On the way back toward the main temple the guide pointed out the spot where Buddha had a conversation with some merchants who were passing through at the time. They gave him food and became his first disciples. He also gave them some hair off his head that they could venerate.
By then it was dark so we headed back to the hotel. Back in the room I wasn't too hungry so I ordered fruit and curd for dinner. I spent the evening washing my clothes and using the air-conditioner and the ceiling fan to dry them.
A LOOK AROUND TOWN
For breakfast the next morning I had potato nan and curd. It was very good. I have decided that I will order Indian food for the rest of this trip because the Indian people have no concept of American cuisine. Everytime I have ordered American food it turned out nothing like it was supposed to. I don't mind Indian food even though everything is well spiced.
After breakfast I met the guide in the lobby and we went across the bridge over the Niranjana River. It is the same river that Siddartha lived along it's banks for six years with five other ascetics. During the monsoon season when there is plenty of water this river is a fast flowing river that enters into the Ganges River. The rest of the year it is just a small stream that flows down the center and the rest of the river is dry river bed. This is what it was like when I was there.
On the other side of the river and down a dirt road with a row of squalid houses that eventually enters into an opened area there is a fensed off area. Inside the fense there is a very large stupa.
Stupa
This is supposed to be the place where a girl gave Siddartha milk and rice after he had reached the conclusion that he no longer wanted to fast. He reasoned with in himself that all fasting does is make you weak and how can you do any good if you are in a weakened state?
He grew up in an environment of over-abundance and as a child his father had overindulged him, and now he had spent six years living on just about nothing. He had fasted so often he looked like a living skeleton. The idea came to him of the middle way. He decided that it was not good to live with more then you need, and it is also not good to live on less then you need. He decided that the middle way was the best way and he wanted that for himself. When the girl offered him the rice and milk he accepted it determining inside himself that he would start living in this new way. This meal broke his fast. His five ascetic companions saw this and thought that he had reverted to his old ways, so they abondoned him. They left the area and went to Sarnath leaving Siddartha all alone in Bodhgaya.
As the guide and I approached the gate two young men came over. At first I thought they were selling post cards as is usually the case at these landmarks. They said that they help run a school nearby and they wanted to know if I would like to make a donate. I gave no immediate reply but was listening to the guide explain the history of the stupa.
It was supposedly built over the house where this girl lived. I followed the guide to the top of the stupa. The two young men also followed along. On top was a tree and there was grassy area and a great view of a distant mountain where Siddartha often went in his quest for enlightenment. It was somewhere in this vicinity that the girl gave Siddartha the rice and milk.
Mountain
After the tour was over the two young men invited me over to see their school. I walked over with them and went in the old building and up three flights to the classroom on the roof. There were already a couple children there who had come early. They were waiting for the others to arrive. They offered me some tea and pulled up a chair while telling me their plans for the school. They want to take me to some of the villages around the area and let me see what they were like. I wanted to see the villages and the people but at the moment I had a guide and a driver waiting for me so I had to decline the offer until later.
MONATERIES
I went back to Bodhgaya and then went to the following monestaries. Vietnam, Chinese, Thailand, Tibet, two Japanese monestaries, and Butan. I also went to see the large statue of Buddha that is along the monestary route. It was only 10am and the tour for the day was over. I was free to do whatever I wanted for the rest of the day.
Monestary
My first thought was to go to my room and read a little. I took out the books I bought in Agra and tried to read but I couldn't consentrate, so I went down to the hotel resturant and had lunch. Himalayan Chichen, nan and black tea sounded good.
Mongolian Monestary
Before I had come to India I had read that there was an internet cafe in Bodhgaya. After lunch I went to the front desk and asked where I would find the internet cafe. The guy behind the counter pointed up the street. I went outside with the idea of walking there but I took three steps when a cycle rickshaw driver came by and asked if I would like a ride. 'Why not'? I asked myself and climbed up into the seat. I told him that I wanted to go to the internet cafe. At first he didn't seem to understand what I was saying so I drew a picture in the air of a monitor and then pretended to type on an imaginary keyboard. A lightbulb seemed to go off in his head and he started to pedal in earnest.
About a mile and a half away he stopped in front of a row of stores. There was a sign on one of them in English that read 'Internet Cafe". I paid the driver and went inside where I was shown a computer. I sat down and learned how to use it and then found my blog site and wrote in if for an hour. It only cost me 30 ruppees.
When I walked outside I found that the rickshaw driver had been waiting for me the whole time I was in the cafe. I got in and told him to just drive. I didn't care where he took me. I wanted to see where he would go. I wanted him to make some money. I wanted to make his day. He went up the road and then turned left and went up a hill. When we came to the top where it leveled off we passed the soccer field where the Dahli Lama comes every year to talk to the people in the area. We had gone passed this earlier in the morning. Then I realized that he was taking me toward the bridge that goes across the Niranjana River. I didn't say anything. I just let him drive.
We made it to the other side and then up the dirt road with all the filthy houses. I seems like we are going to the stupa where I was in the morning. On the road there were some boys that I had seen that morning. They recognized me and ran over and wanted me to see the children in the classroom since all of them were there now. I went with them up the three flights of stairs to the roof where the classroom was.
The headmaster wanted me to go up infront of the class and talk to the childen a little bit. I went up and talked a lttle and then drew a map of the United States on the marker board and showed them where I live. I tried to answer some of their questions. Some of the kids tried out their English on me.
VILLAGES NEAR BODHGAYA
After the children went home the headmaster and some of his assistants asked me if I would like to see some of the villages around the area. They wanted to show me the poverty these people lived in even though they did not say it in words. I could tell that this was their motive. They wanted to shock me. They wanted to show me that these people lived in mud huts with thatched roofs and dirt floors. When the monsoons come each year some of the huts would flood and they had to live with water on the floor for part of the year. The people around this area are uneducated and most of the children don't go to school. The parents don't want them to. They want them at home helping with the chores.
There are many children who want to go to school but the school is far away and not easy to get to. The headmaster was telling me that they plan to build a school in each village so that the kids don't have to walk so far. Then the kids can go to school a couple hours in the morning and then have plenty of time during the rest of the day to help their parents with their work.
Downstairs they had all their motorcycles ready. I got on the back of the motorcycle of one of the headmaster's assistants. We drove off in the direction of the villages. The whole area around the villages is filled with rice paddies as far as the eye can see all the way to the mountain in the distance. We entered a village and stopped. Some kids gathered around. The children looked healthy and fed. Most of them were wearing clothes. Only one was running around naked. These people didn't ask anything of me.
Up the road we stopped and got off the bikes and the headmaster took me up close to where the people lived and showed me the squash vines on the roofs of some of the houses. I could see that it was a primitive society. Each family has some kind of craft that they work on all the time. This is the way this society has gone on for thousands of years. It is true that these children need an education. Some of them will get it. Some of them will be able to move out of this endless cycle of poverty and escape this slavery through the path of education.
After this they took me to another set of villages. None of it shocked me. I had seen it all before many years before when I was a soldier in a war in southeast Asia.
Back at the school they invited me in to chat a little. We talked for awhile telling me stories of Buddha. They also made some milk and rice and let me try it. It was getting late and I told them I wanted to get back to my hotel before it got dark so they said they would call a taxi. Minutes later a rickshaw pulled up and the took me back to the hotel.
Country Scene
posted by THE REAL MIKE BAILEY at 7:55 PM
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