Scooters, Vacation, Fall

Crowded streets, crazy traffic.
Bustling station with porters everywhere.
Noisy cafe where workmen hammer and saw a rustic rhythm.

Strangers dine together, suspicions galore.

The bags are loaded, the seats are taken.

The coach lurches forwards- the journey begins.

Dry grass, dust, burning asphalt. The afternoon gives way to dusk.

One night at a four star- hardly a word exchanged.

Start the day at a Mughal garden.

Pictures are taken, names are asked.

The coach moves on: brown gives way to green, and silence to a friendly murmur.

Shrubs turn into fir trees, rocks into mountains.

A Victorian city shimmers from its height.

The church's spire presides over the delightful scene

Of shoppers, vendors and colourful wares.

Then a meadow of cedars and spruce.

Little ponies to take you up there.

Silvan hillsides above the clouds,

Surely heaven was near.

Next on to where our Noah docked his ark,

The journey by a little stream.

The little stream that feeds the world

That knows it as a massive river.

First the rain, then the snow.

Silver lashes from the sky,

The dainty flakes bejewel the firs

And strike my skin like burning ice.

A hundred ancient temples stand,

As pure in beauty as in faith,

A hundred miles into the sky

On cliffs of snow and windy prayers.

Snow fights, snow rides, snowmen, snow angels.

The ice was melting amid all these.

While nature froze in breath taking splendour

Hearts warmed up to one another.

And then we rowed our rubber rafts,

Not gently down the stream

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Though most of us did scream.

Over dinner, dance and song

And thirteen hundred miles,

Our world of fun and fantasy

Finally said goodbye.