Stepping out the big brass and glass doors, passed the Siek doorman with his turban and sword, passed the driveway guardhouse, out to the rock wall and iron gate, I felt like an escapee. The gate divided two worlds. I stood looking at a mixture of ancient and modern, familiar and strange, my heart pounding. I hesitated and pushed off into the current. T he road was narrowed by construction.
Cars use the left lane.
All my senses reeled with the swirl of colors, sounds, and smells. Three wheeled black-topped motorized rickshaws scooted like beetles between tinted windowed taxis and brightly painted trucks. Horns honking non-stop provided a wall of sound. The glossy guidebooks had shown handsome smiling faces and outrageously colorful trucks with Hindu statues and fringes. A camera pointed in any direction from where I stood, would capture a scene equally as colorful.