The old bus rattled and jostled us for five and a half hours to Mangalore. We climbed narrow winding roads to the pass through the foothills and then back down the other side. We were uncomfortable. Some of us were nauseated from the Indian style motion sickness. Christy hates heights and was miserable as the bus careened downwards along steep drop-offs with no guard rails.

I liked Mangalore more than I expected. Yet another bustling, crowded Indian city, it is set among the hills, and there is something comforting about green tree tops at eye level as we snaked our way in auto-rickshaws down through the city streets. We passed two human-sized dummies hanging as if on nooses from outside a three story building under construction. It seemed morbid, but they must have been scarecrows to keep the birds from nesting in the rafters.

Bethany and I volunteered to take the large gray suitcase full of accumulated extra stuff of seven travelers to the train station for shipment to Delhi where it would await our return flight home. The others all went to find our hotel in Ullal, seven kilometers outside the city at the beach.

We found one train station only to find out through five people with broken English, hand signals and a book of the train schedules that we needed to be at another. Kankanadi Station was more remote, down a narrow, shaded lane at the city outskirts. Our rickshaw driver wanted twenty rupees to wait for us even though the sign hanging in the passenger compartment clearly stated there should only be a one rupee per fifteen minute wait fee, and if asked for more we were to call the police.

With the three inch needle and the string that Daniel had given us before we left the monastery we sewed gunny sacks turning the suitcase into a package just as we had watched the dock worker do in Delhi. We weighed it and paid for it with the help of the friendly working men. They smiled. I told them I had clothes in the bag and they wanted to know if there were any sarees in there. Their faces all lit up when I told them that there were three. It seemed they took it as a compliment. One pulled out a photo of his wedding and told me that his wife’s saree in the picture was silk and cost 1 lak, which is 100,000 rupees, which is about $2000. I was surprised as I thought most government workers were not paid all that well. They asked about our impressions of their culture. I didn't know how to put into words all the things I liked and not insult them with all the things I didn’t.

We found the others relaxing at a resort near the ocean. A life size statue of Jesus graced the outdoor reception area, confirming that we had reached the Christian southwestern coast. We stayed there in a bungalow among picturesque coconut tree lined red dirt trails for three days enjoying a fabulous chlorine clean swimming pool and sunset watching on the long strip of sand near the waves. We felt extravagant, like rich foreigners paying $10 a night for luxury even though by western standards the place was rustic, quaint, a bit shoddy.

It was peaceful and relaxing except for the children who would come to us as we rested on the beach, “School pen, school friend,” they would chant insistently over and over again. Eventually we figured out that if they believed we didn’t speak English they would leave. I tried German, Sara Spanish and Patti rapid, forceful jibberish and they looked stunned and ran away.

Sunbathing on the beach in India was a new, uncomfortable experience. We felt ridiculously clothed. Onlookers thought we were brazen. The Indian men would gather around us, perched in the sand like a flock of sea gulls, staring intently. A woman in a black Burka revealing only her eyes and the bridge of her nose stood on the hot sand and pointed to us, conversing with her husband. The non-Muslim Indian women all came to the beach in full sarees, and swam in the ocean in full sarees with petticoats and blouses underneath. At the beach in shorts and tank tops, we felt naked.

One day I went for a lone early morning walk along the sea. I stopped to sit in the sand for awhile and listen to the waves, watch them and the fisherman to my right. One was readying his net. I turned away, staring at the ocean that pulls, and then he was gone. In his place was a younger man in a button down orange shirt and the white native short skirt some of the men wear called a loongi. He hiked it up around his waist and removed black underwear from beneath it, one leg at a time. He squatted in the sand where it is flat and compact, where the tide has been and is returning. He fell forward onto both outstretched hands while still in the squat, straining. A large brown pile developed beneath him. He waded into the water and half squatted again into a sitting position and waited for the waves to come in and wash him while he scrubbed with his left hand between his butt cheeks. The pile he left for the eventual tide.

I couldn’t really believe I was watching it as much as I couldn’t believe he was doing it right there on the beach littered with people, including me, not too far away. I thought what he was doing was awful. He thought only that it was natural, that it is what he knows, that it is what his forefathers have done for centuries.