Let the world change you, and you can change the world

In India you actually thank the beggars for giving you the chance to accumulate karma credits.

***

Reading Rory MacLean's Magic Bus, and I like to think that 40 years, almost 50, on, still we have not changed that much. Still a bunch of kids, full of hope, full of enthusiasm for the world, travelling to be transformed, even if we're no longer the first.

When i was in India, a year ago, we still lit incense, slept on mouldy rooftop mattresses, and talked politics and morality late into the night, learning ayuverda, practising yoga, meditation in the day... In Nepal we'd trip out by the Lakeside, jumping in for a swim at 4 in the morning, right by the Kings' summer palace, taking strolls following the only road past the Camping Chowk and out of town, into the woods, up towards the enticing, magical glow of the World Peace Pagoda, on top of the hill, where "everything you wish for will be true". A magical place.

We stuck flowers in our hair and loved each other, loved the world, believed that nothing could go wrong as long as we gave peace a chance. Hot timeless afternoons in Varanasi, getting lost in its alleys and wandering the ghats, running for shelter in a sudden downpour in Pokhara, curtains of water pouring down and us slurping down hot momos and buttery tea gratefully in a hole-in-the-wall Tibetan kitchen and watching buffaloes pass in the rain.

We learnt, so much, of ourselves, others, different cultures, religions, lives, and found that afterall, we are all the same. The same ideals, the same dreams, all children of the world.

Lets give peace a chance.