My international travels with David began with my sabbatical in the spring of 1997. I had hoped to expand my knowledge of international business by working with Motorola in Beijing. I approached that company the year before, and tentatively discussed two months’ work, then a stipend to travel around the country. The Asian financial crisis put paid to that dream.
The rethink centered on a conference in Hyderabad. Non-resident Indians frequently set up conferences so they could return home during breaks. The conference was on global organizations, and I submitted a paper on “The United Nations in Short Pants,” a discussion of International Scouting. A discussion with one of my students led to an invitation to stay with his family in New Delhi; “how can you be an Asianist without knowing anything about India,” he questioned.
I would take my family with me to India, and Carolyn agreed that if I traveled afterwards with David, I could stay on in the East.
Thus began our first visit to India.
After the conference, we based other Indian excursions out of the Malhotra’s (former student) who lived in a gated community in Delhi, riding the train to the Taj Mahal and Agra and Jaipur, riding elephants, before spending a day on
the Ganges at Benares. Mr. Malhotra questioned that only one day at Benares. I told Jaghi that we had seen Muslim India (the Taj and the Red Fort), and British India (the Cantonment and streets of Delhi, the Gateway to India, and Luytens’ imposing buildings in Delhi. When young Mr. Malhotra graduated IWU, the family stayed at our house in Bloomington. They told Carolyn we had a lovely house but needed servants; they had six plus a cook and a driver.
We sent Carolyn home from India. David and I continued on to Bangkok where we boarded a train for my introduction to Malaysia, with stays at Penang (which looked, I thought, like Hong Kong had in the 50s), and a now-defunct bungalow-hotel in Malacca that, with its expats at the bar by noon, could have been a setting for an early 20th century novel.
Thence to Singapore, Hong Kong and home.
It was the first of several memorable trips to East and South Asia with David.
In 1998, David accompanied me to the Asia Pacific Region Scout meeting. I talked my way into the US Delegation, stayed at the building HK Scouts built as combination headquarters, hotel, and office building. Dealing with multiple religions was a really different “religious” service, truly non denominational. The other highlight was a “potluck”, one of the best meals 
I’ve had at a Scout event. No mac and cheese or hot dogs. And since we were all adults, we could behave like adults. That is, there were adult beverages. I was in a group that included the head of Australian Scouting (a volunteer), Singapore, etc. Best fraternity party since 1962. Memories….then we left for Bangkok, Chiang Mai (I discovered Sibelius on a Japanese Symphony broadcast) and thence to Laos.