Lumbini to Kushinigar
Today is a light travel day. We’ve only got six hours scheduled in the bus.. We’re headed to Kushinigar Buddha was cremated there.
The sixteen of us fit easily into the jitney. It has about 30 seats and an upfront cabin for the driving and logistics team.
Our driver, who has remained silent ands nameless, has a hard job. Unlike more western streets, the partts of India we are visiting have bus sized potholes every hundred yards or so. You can’t build momentum. The way you drive these roads is to build a strate3gy. Go through the next pothole or go around it.
Much of the travel has been on what will one day be a four lane highway. The media strip is finished. Some patches are nearly complete on one side of the media or the other. So, the trip involves four wheel drives style maneuvers as we cross back and forth between half-completed stretches of road..
The front cab houses the team behind a class wall. The driver is accompanied by Annan (who I’ve mentioned before) and this wonderful little guy who is always waiting at a door or the foot of the steps. Together they work at the details on a moment to moment basis.
The members of our tribe include a six person Asian contingent (a couple and a family of four) and:
– Deb, an early fifty-ish psychotherapist. She’s rail thin with shocking blond hair and tends to wear clothing that allows her to keep a lot of her skin very tanned;
– Steve, a retired professor who specialized in helping students with learning disabilities. He’s soft spoken and always able to add kind words to a conversation;
– Laurie, a software QA and project management type from a major bay are utility. She is precise in the articulation of her needs and extremely well prepared. She knows more about Buddhism than anyone else on the adventure.
– Beth a smiling late forties brunette. She is a charitable powerhouse and works hard on issues like affordable housing for the elderly.
– Neil, Bet’s husband and the owner of an up scale Oakland grocery store. Steve’s experiences as a lieutenant on a navy destroyer shaped much of his adult life. In recent years, Buddhism is becoming his refuge;
– Arry, a vibrant political organizer who keeps saying “I love Obama”. Arry is an artist who has her fingers in the family door and window business.
– Jessica, a former Deadhead who is now an in home care nurse; She laughs really easily and distinctively. If someone in the group gets lost or disoriented, they just have to listen for Jess’ laughter.
– Don, my good friend who is a mid fifty CEO of a small company on the Midwest.
– Donyo, a mid forties Tibetan monk. He sxudes a sort of gentleess that is contagious. He is leading the tour..
– And me.
We arrive in Kushinigar at mid afternoon. We explore the shrine and check into another “Hotel Nikko”
