Continue

This is one long journey for sure. I got back on the plane in Tokyo and ended up stopping at a few ports of call - Hong Kong for one - but the opportunity to get off and look around didn't present itself - so I didn't. There was a layover in Bangkok and I looked around the airport but kept going to eventually reach Madras, India. Many of the names of cities in India have changed since then but I will use the old ones because that is the time I was there. I arrived in the dark of the night in what will always stand in my memory of what landing on a different planet must be like. There was the feeling of old movie - like really old movies - fans overhead, dark skinned people just staring at you and really old old stuff. The air was like saran wrap covering my skin - it wasn't just hot it - the heat was a presence surrounding everything. I saw a huge bug crawl under the customs bench and was only too tired to scream and jump up on something but that is how I felt. There were things flying around in the air - moths? - that were so big I thought they were birds - but at night? I stumbled through the customs booth and now what? Here I am - in India. There was a sea of dark faces at the glass door out of the terminal and one bearded white guy in the crowd - hmm.

This girl got off the plane at the same time I did - she was from Maylasia - I didn't meet her on the plane - but she looked at me and asked where I was going and why. I said I really didn't know - I was headed for Pondicherry - south of Madras - but this was the closest airport. She was shocked that I didn't know where I was going to stay tonight or what I was doing but offered to share a cab with me and she and her boyfriend (white bearded guy) would take me to a hotel near to their apartment. O.K. I sure as sh*t didn't have a better idea so off we went. Now the first thing I see is bullock carts loaded with straw moving down the street with guys asleep on top - I guess the animals know where they are going - and all the streets that have lights are 40 watt bulbs. It is dark and I mean dark. During the taxi ride Mya fills me in on where I have just landed - and focuses on the one thing I have a phobia about - bugs, bugs and more bugs. She goes on about the flies, the roaches and what all. By now I am beginning to have my doubts but what the hell? I'm here - go for it.

We get to the hotel and it really is an old Bogart movie type of place - the staff is all asleep all over the floor - they jump up at our arrival and try to look as if they haven't been - and go through the registration process. They manage to speak English well enough for me to figure out what they are saying but I have a feeling they don't understand me as well. I ask for a room with no bugs and they have no idea what I mean. I figure out soon enough that it is a useless pursuit but at least I get an English style room - whatever that means. My saviors leave me with a promise to meet for lunch tomorrow and off I go to my room.


These days I can't sleep through the night under the very best of circumstances - yet in those days once my head hit the pillow I was out for the count. I didn't have a clock or watch - so I don't really know what time I woke up - but the racket outside my room was deafening. Crows, crows and more crows.

My first daylight shot of Madras was walking out of my room into a jungle courtyard below. There were more creatures flying and crawling around then I had seen in a zoo. I walked along looking for a dinning room or something. I found this spacious ballroom like place opening out to a lovely view of the tree tops and the location of all of the crows on planet earth. I could see traffic out there but couldn't hear it due to the crow noise. I was offered to sit at a table and figured out toast, jam, and tea was able to be had and happily I was able to communicate this to the server. I sat there in a state of wonder and ate. I couldn't believe that this is where I was. India! Just outside. Cows, goats, bicycles, bullock carts and cars all sharing the same road. And on top of it all the tropical feel of humidity and aroma of a totally different place in the universe.

what to do with the money

Now I have a few thousand dollars, no debt and life stretched out before me. I could blow the cash on the usual stuff the young blow cash on - but that wasn't my modus operandi. I decided to open my spirit to the universal power of God and ask for direction in my search for "truth". I was in my little shanty house in Hollywood and began to pray - how else to get direction for a life? I ask you. Well I got the overwhelming "impression" that I was to go to India. It is difficult to describe - one just needs to be that crazy to think that God speaks to us in such a manner. I was convinced that this was what "God" wanted me to do with my money and time. Now I was 22 years old, female and not exactly unattractive and I was about to embark on a solo journey around the world. Where to start? First I need a passport. I had trouble arranging my life to get a drivers license - let alone a passport - but off I went in search to the proper office to get one. I remember I needed to go to downtown L.A. - this was before internet and post office applications - or I didn't know about how else to get one. Now I have a passport. Now I need a visa for India. I had to go to San Francisco to the Consulate for India. Now here I am - living in a shanty house in Hollywood that I share with my brother - I have a car and clothes and junk that doesn't mean much of anything and think that I am going to S.F. and get a visa for India - buy a ticket and off I shall go. Where is the plan? Where is the setting up of places to stay? Where is the one thought of what the f*ck are you doing? - didn't even occur to me. I just turned over my car to bro, packed my sh*t in boxes that I wasn't taking with me and left it up to him to move when our shanty house fell in on itself - packed clothes I wanted to take - got on a plane for S.F. and hoped the acquaintances I had in Berkley would get me at the airport. Somehow I managed to call them when I arrived and they did come out to pick me up. We didn't know each other very well and I was uncertain as to who lived with whom but there was a place on the floor to crash and they agreed to take me to the consulate office to get a visa. I remember I needed to have a round trip ticket before they would let me get my visa. Once in they want to make sure you will leave - smart people. I managed to fumble around and get the ticket & visa - now wait for the plane to take off. My buddies dropped me off at the airport and I waited for my Japan Airlines flight to take off.



If I think back that I was just dropped off - not even by good friends or family with no plan whatsoever to start a 2 year journey that would take me around the world - I can hardly wrap my head around the concept. Anyone who knows me now and how much crap I want set in stone prior to walking out my door would scratch their heads at who was this nut case?.



Anyway - I was on the plane - 1st stop Hawaii - I got off and walked around the airport but didn't stay more than a stop over. When I got back on the plane I ended up sitting next to a guy from India. He went by the name of Don - real name probably much longer and hard to pronounce so he used a short American name - we started to talk about India. He was going to Tokyo on business. We gabbed and how on a plane you do - anyway he asked me if I wanted to get off with him in Tokyo and hang out for a week or so before I continue on to India. Why not? I had the expensive ticket that you could do that - so Tokyo it was. This was early 70's remember - Japan was modern but not like it is today. Tokyo is what it is - crowded and full of people staring straight ahead - wearing the same clothes - grey or blue suits - women in the same version - just skirts instead of pants - and nobody pays any attention to you at all. We went to the hotel he had reservations at and checked in. The clerk asked if I was his wife and Don said no - just friends - the clerk and the guys behind the counter busted up giggling like little girls. I didn't see what was so funny. We were going to share a room - they wanted to know one bed or two - two we said and they thought that was even funnier. Strange people. The style was Japanese - rice futons and bathroom set up - it was cool. All Don wanted was some arm candy to speak English with while he visited some clients in Tokyo. He was up to taking some small tours and taking me out to dinner with the clients. We had a nice time visiting temples and the various shopping districts then it was bye bye - back to the airport and continue my adventure. Stop for this post.

where to start?

In the late 60's I went deeper into my already divergent interests in Eastern Mysticism and Philosophy. I managed to loose a job in the "stock market crash" of the late 60's early 70's ( there is nothing new under the sun) and was living on unemployment. All of my spare time which was all the time I had that I wasn't sleeping was spent reading, going to lectures and following various "teachings" of the Guru types from India. None of this was full on devotee - but trying to figure out what the truth was about Life, the universe and everything (question of deep thought in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). Of course that is hindsight. I was more along the lines of the reality of God, truth and light. How to live my life and how to make a living in this world without violating too many eternal laws. How noble I was in my ignorance.



Meanwhile I was 22 years old and had just made a road trip around the western US with my girlfriend - visiting communes, mystics and various others found along the path that drifted our way. None of these encounters rang a bell on the direction I should go - so back to Hollywood and figure out what to do while I'm collecting my unemployment before it runs out. I could always work - but why?



I had been living with an attorney in '69. We had a great relationship except for a couple of things. #1 I was 20 - he was 40. #2 He had children - a daughter 3 years younger than I, a 2 year old he wanted to spend every weekend with - still in diapers, still needing to be taken care of, etc., etc. #3 With this young child came an X-wife who was determined to make my life unpleasant. The daughter lived with us and had a dog that didn't like to be left alone and when left, thought the best revenge was eating my very expensive shoes. She also thought that when she made food for herself and boyfriend it was O.K. to leave the dishes around so that when I got home from work I had to clean their mess before I could start my dinner. Remember I was 20 and my assertive "get the F*ck out of my face attitude hadn't developed AT ALL. I just seethed and groused to myself - getting more and more unhappy. I thought I could live in my own apt and continue the relationship but alas this didn't work well at all. In the meantime I managed to get into 2 rear-ender accidents -in one another guy was driving my car and the other was stopped at a red light & hit by a yellow cab. Since this was a Karmen Ghia the damage and forward thrust (whiplash) is more than you would think - Shows up on Xrays today. Anyway - it was nice have an attorney for a boyfriend as he was able to settle the cases quickly and I ended up with some cash. What does "God" have in mind for me for this cash? I will continue next post with what came about with that question.