SRI LANKA
Monday, Owen Bailey who was a student of mine at Warren Wilson College 50 years ago, and is now long retired and who lives just over the hill from me invited me to breakfast at First Watch in Biltmore Village. We talked about Sri Lanka.
The very first time I took students to India was over Christmas in 1973. Warren Wilson had a great number of students from overseas, one of the highest percentages of any college in the country, but had never offered any travel abroad by American students. The idea came up half way through the first semester and becasue the only comfortable time to visit India is in the winter we went at Christmas. But because in those days Christmas vacation was only two weeks long we somehow finagled to leave two weeks before the end of the first semester and come back two weeks after the beginning of the second semester without penalty. There were about ten students on that trip. We made up the itinerary as we traveled, it was my first trip and I hadn’t planned past the first week in Delhi. When the hotel we were staying in was too expensive at $4 a night for a double we managed to sublet for $10 apiece, as our base, an apartment of a family that was going on vacation for a month with most of us sleeping on the floor. From there we traveled around North India coming back from time to time.
As you can see it was kind of an ad hoc trip, but we have a great many interesting experiences. I knew my way around and the students stuck with me, all except Owen. We would get to a town, such as Allahabad where my parents had been missionaries, and I would show the group around, all except Owen. Owen would find someone, make friends and disappear for a day or two and then rejoin us when we moved on. He was the one having the most in depth experiences which he arranged for himself. One vivid memory I have of Owen was when one of the taxis we were riding in broke down out in the country. The group got out and sat patiently together while repairs were being made. And then I noticed Owen, on the other side of the road, sitting on his haunches with an orange clad sadhu passing a pipe back and forth to each other. Owen got the most out of every experience.
After our time in India was over Owen stayed on with his friend Steve Haun and a couple of others in the group and traveled around North India and then finally wandered down to Sri Lanka and explored the island before heading home.
Owen has always wanted to visit Sri Lanka again. When we met for breakfast I was asking him if he wanted to spend a couple of weeks with me when I visit Sri Lanka in January. He is thinking about it.
So in anticipation of my upcoming trip, with or without Owen I am going to put on some photographs of Sri Lanka
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BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 