It is 1979. I am 24. Traveling solo in southeastern India. Plans to travel with my friend have gone awry. I have to decide – continue on alone or go home?

With my dog-eared copy of Across Asia on the Cheap, I’ve been backpacking for six months with flowered skirt, pink flip-flops and a tube of mascara. A fabric pouch, pinned to my cotton Hanes underpants, conceals my passport and dwindling cash. I have no credit card and don’t dare ask my panic-stricken parents to wire more money. I have no air ticket home, and until I can see a travel agent in Delhi, I don’t know how much my ticket will cost. And I still have northern India and Nepal to explore on this once-in-a-lifetime adventure.

Every rupee (fifteen cents) is precious. That’s why I am on this bone-jarring local bus in Karwar in southeastern India. A much longer journey, but cheaper than the train. It’s a forbidding, scrubby wasteland, unlike any place I’ve ever seen. Vultures are everywhere. (There are no vultures – at least of the feathered variety – in my hometown of Saginaw, Michigan.) Bleached carcasses of once-holy cows litter the desolate landscape. Waves of heat reflect off the roadway. It’s hotter than hell.

Most Indian buses have passengers bulging out the doorways. On this desolate road, my bus is nearly empty. Far ahead, I see a black dot. As we approach, a solitary figure flags the bus to a halt. The door opens. She gets on. I think she’s about my age but I can’t tell for sure because she is concealed from head to toe in a heavy black burka. Even her eyes are obscured by a screen.

I am mesmerized. In all my travels through southeast Asia this is my first sighting of a Muslim woman wearing this strange garb. I’m sweating through my thin cotton blouse and she’s in black? I recall my green wool plaid Catholic school uniform. Oh, how I hated it! Does she hate it? Does she always wear it? Is she allowed out in public without it? Isn’t she hot?

As a western woman traveling alone, I am accustomed to being stared at. Now I stare. She steals a glance at me across the aisle. My curiosity is relentless. What does she do? What is her life like? Is she married? Does she envy me? ISN’T SHE HOT?!

She catches me staring. She stares back behind the slit in her veil. We never speak. A few more miles down the road she stands up and turns toward me. Behind the screen, her eyes smile. I smile back. The bus creaks to a stop and she gets off.

It was one tiny, arbitrary moment 28 years ago, but I will never forget her. I wonder if she remembers me? I wonder where her path took her? We were two young women from opposite worlds on opposite aisles of a bus.

Random, momentary encounters – whether with a Muslim girl in Asia or a shopper in Sonoma Square – are profound reminders of our connection. Not just as women, but as human beings.  We’re all on this journey together.

If we could all just slow down enough to look each other in the eye, maybe – just maybe – the world would be a better place.

Originally published in Sonoma Woman magazine.