India is a giant crossroads between East and West. Follow her well trod paths in any direction and you will find someplace exotic. Along the way you will surely hear tales of Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta, or Alexander the Great, early explorers along the Silk Road and beyond. In this part of the world the road signs point to Southeast Asia, China (the Land of Cathay as Polo called it), Central Asia, or the Arab world, all alien to the Western eye. Hop a boat due south and you will encounter Indonesia, 10,000 islands of clove and nutmeg, strung like pearls across the Indian Ocean.

Where many trading routes converge you will find ethnic diversity and India is a blend of languages and religions like no place else on earth. There are more than 800 languages spoken and the pantheon of gods is reputed to be in the millions. And that's just for Hinduism! Twenty percent of the people are muslim. For the wide-eyed wanderer like myself, it takes a while to stop gawking.

Over the ages India's multicultural society has spawned not only Hinduism, but also Buddhism, two of the world's great religions. Lord Buddha walked the banks of the Ganges 2500 years before I did. The above photo shows a Thai nun talking to pilgrims at Sarnath, where he preached his first sermon after enlightenment.