So I joined the pilgrimage and we all boarded a train towards Bodhgaya. This time my train experience was completely different. The first time, by myself, I was trying to be inconspicuous, not touristy, more the disheveled backpacking traveler type without much money. I wouldn’t bring out my digital camera even though I wanted to for fear of drawing too much attention to myself - unwanted attention from thieves and beggars. Of course, as a white woman traveling alone, there were many stares. But I had tried to limit it some. This time a group of seventy crowded onto the platform with fanfare and commotion. Two or three digital video cameras were out, filming the whole scene. David was there with his array professional camera equipment. We

were quite the spectacle - obviously tourists with money. I was almost a little embarrassed, maybe ashamed, at our display of wealth amongst the destitution and poverty.

This time the train was different too. A step up to second class air con travel, the ticket I thought I was buying before. This time I got white sheets, a brown blanket and a pillow case for the blue vinyl hard bunk. I even got a little white hand towel. The layout was about the same but the berths were wider and much less crowded with people. You did have to make your own bed, for they were again stacked three high and the middle bunk had to be folded down to make the back rest for the bunk below for seating before bedtime. This time I was with other Americans as well as some Tibetans, thirty people from Taiwan and six Europeans - two Italians and four French. It was a comfortable crowd, all these people from all over the world who had come to follow Rinpoche on his last pilgrimage to the holy Buddhist sites.

I slept well enough for a loud, jostling train. We arrived in Patna the next morning and then boarded a bus. In India, you must remain flexible at all times. The original plan had been to take the train to Patna so that we could visit a minor holy site on the way to Bodhgaya, but for some reason that side trip was cancelled and we were four hours away from what would have been the closest train station to our destination. And so we boarded that bus - and then found out the bridge was in disrepair and we would have to take a long circuitous route around on the bad roads. The four hour journey became seven or eight.

The best part about the long and grueling bus ride was meeting Tashi Paljo. Well, his name is really Kelley, but he was named the other when he took refuge to become a Buddhist. And that was how everyone else on the journey knew him, as Tashi. He was, like most of the Americans, from Rinpoche’s main monastery in Seattle. A friendly man, warm and gregarious with light shoulder length curly hair pulled back in a ponytail, he was walking with a cane that had been his father’s. He told me the story of how he had been in a motorcycle accident fourteen years before and had spent four months in the trauma hospital with a badly fractured pelvis and some frontal head injury. Well, that explained the cane, the slightly odd behavior at times, and the labile nature. He was wonderful. We soon became good friends on the journey. He became my self appointed protector. At fifty-two but seeming younger, he was street smart and had done a lot of traveling, mostly before his accident. We talked through almost the entire bus ride and I learned just about his whole life story. The hours went by pretty quick.

When we pulled into Bodhgaya we got a message that Rinpoche wanted us to go directly to the Mahabodhi Temple without checking into the hotel first. He had made better time, along with a few other pilgrims in a van, and was ready for ceremonies. For us, that meant a couple of more hours without a shower. And I had packed my toothbrush in my suitcase, which was buried in the belly of the bus. I don’t know why I didn’t just put it into my shoulder bag. Regardless, you realize how much you miss that chore when you can’t do it.

Sunset highlighted the holy stupa which commemorates Buddha’s attainment of enlightenment. This miraculous event actually occurred behind the temple, underneath a huge old Bodhi tree. What stands there now is a descendent of the famous tree. A branch of the original had been taken to Sri Lanka when conquerors were trying to suppress Buddhism, and from there another branch was brought back and a new tree grew from that in the exact same place.

After passing through beggars outside the gates - some just poor, but many with hands and feet eaten by leprosy, and many unable to walk because of polio - we left our shoes with the attendants. We lined up, the pilgrims and others with their heads bowed and hands clasped together in front of them in respect as Rinpoche passed. He went down the steps and across the holy grounds to go inside the ancient temple. After that, like others had done before then, many people did prostrations pointing towards the monument in the same fashion as I had witnessed the Tibetans doing at Tsuglagkhang. It looked even stranger to witness the Americans performing this act. But everyone was so reverent.

Inside the temple was a narrow space. An alter held a big gold Buddha, and everyone made their way to the front in single file to place a kata on the table before it. Rinpoche then sat in his folding chair I would see carried to all the sites. Because of age and declining health he would sit on that instead of crossed legged on the floor traditionally like the rest. His monks and family gathered around him, and the pilgrims filled in where there was room. Then they began to chant and chant and chant. The others had brought prayer books, which had the chants printed and below was a rough English translation. They were simple enough I could follow along phonetically with the weak voice of someone who is completely unsure of themselves. I guess it was not supposed to matter exactly what you were saying. I couldn’t read the translation and chant too. It was the energy in the syllables that counted.

After prayer and blessings and incense and katas and koras, we finally checked into the hotel for the night and I got my toothbrush and a good night’s sleep.