Party Night in Goa

It’s Saturday night at Palolem Beach. If you define paradise as beautiful, long sandy beaches, 50 meters to bath-warm water with frequent tumbling waves, a plethora of restaurants at which to eat succulent fish, beach huts with beds and a shanti shanti attitude with few tourists as the season is about to close, perfect sun and a ridiculously fantastic adventure novel to read, then yes, this is absolute paradise. There’s a band playing on the stage of downtown area, we’ll see how long the party lasts. I’ve heard they have a special 24 hour permit. Or else, like every other night, the music will be cut at 11pm. All thanks to a crazy British lady potentially with a drug problem and a young 14 year old who hadn’t cultivated her street sense.

The tragic events that changed the social cycle of Goa happened early this year. Without going into too much detail, a British woman took her 14 year old daughter out of school to tour India. They settled in Goa, fun town, land of beautiful beaches, 24 hour parties, drugs, alcohol and plenty of other ways to get into trouble. For some reason, and again I don’t really know all the details, the mom left her daughter with some sketchy dudes in Goa while she went off to tour the rest of India and the girl ended up quite violated and dead. Because of this story and a few less horrific others, rules have descended on this part of town. Rules tend to have an adverse effect in areas known for extravagant amounts of fun. So now there’s a sound law and a quiet time and I haven’t been solicited even once. I even did a tour through the town on my own just to see who might approach. It didn’t happen.

But tonight, old Goa is showing off. The end of the season, the monsoons are coming, perhaps there is a bash or two left in this beach town. Tomorrow I’m going to kayak to the little island sheltered in the bay and climb to the top of the mountain. And if I wake up early enough, I’ll do some yoga on the beach while listening to the waves crash against the sand.

No Jellyfish Jello

Don’t Get Screwed by Crooked Cabbies and Tourist Scams

On the way from the Mumbai airport to my friend’s apartment, a cabbie tried to convince me that the fixed rate for our journey was 550 rupees.

Granted, I’m just getting off a plane, and my accent rats me out as a brown-skinned yankee without a clue about local prices in Mumbai. I know it, my cabbie knows it- I’m not on home turf. But I’m not going down without a fight.

First I tried to haggle with him.

I said “what!? that’s horribly expensive! I know this route (complete bullshit, I had no idea where I was, or where we were going) and I know it’s never more than 300 rupees”.

In Hindi he said “What? Nobody will go there for 300 rupees! You can’t do anything in this town for 300 rupees, no way. Final offer 500.”

“No deal no deal, that’s way too expensive. Okay, you’re a nice guy, I’ll give you 400, that’s my last offer, no higher than that.”

“No, 500, last price”.

At this point I stopped to think. I have no idea what things cost in and around Mumbai, but I realized that for less than the price he was asking for, I had gotten from Gangtok in Sikkim, all the way across the state of West Bengal to Kolkata. Something just wasn’t right. Even for a crooked cabbie, this had to be an absurd rip off. But without a basic knowledge of the pricing in Mumbai it was impossible for me to know how much was reasonable. So I resolved to ask some locals at our stop how much it should cost to get there from the airport. I told him to hang on, that I was looking for some change.

I got three responses, all under 200 rupees. 

“You tried to cheat us!” I shouted. ”You said 550 just because you know we’re not from around here! You’re a CROOK!”

Meanwhile he’s just wobbling his head like an apologetic fool as his taxi cab brothers laugh at him for getting caught red-handed and at me, for making a scene and yelling at him in choppy Hinglish. I tossed him 125 rupees and marched off, triumphant. He grabbed my arm and said I owed him a few more, according to the meter, and since I didn’t want to get into a fight with this guy, (he grabbed me with some vigor) I shelled it out. In total I gave him 180,

I’ve heard of too many westerners getting caught up in scams and crooked deals that, more often than not, begin right outside the airport. A wide-eyed Westerner gets off the plane, ready for all the spiritual enlightenment he can soak up from whatever romantic ambitions he’s laid out for his journey to ultimate truth. He seeks to find himself, to wear flowy cotton kurtas and eat with his hands, to meditate on the merits of polytheism and tantric sex while sitting cross legged on the banks of the Ganges, musing on his newfound oneness with everythingness, communing with dread-locked sadhus while smoking hash mixed with dried cow feces and dead bugs. Oh yeah, these Westerners invent some pretty cute notions for themselves about the spiritual splendors awaiting them in the far far east.

But the second these wide-eyed little rabbits hit the pavement they just get worked over by a pack of jackals, all hungry and salivating. These jackals drive the cabs, offer guided tours, run guest houses that are always full, man innocent looking rickshaws, and send children to beg you for change as they put their hands near their mouths and rub their bellies and squeak in pitiful voices “food! hungry! food!”. These predators know what they’re up against. They’re fully versed in the products of circumstance, and they are not afraid to cold call you face to face, right there on the street. And as these poor rabbits watch their entrails get chewed to bits by a swarm of hungry, bloody mouths, the truth sets them free. So this is India.

You’re in the jungle now you pasty fuck! You better pull yourself together and come to grips with the facts. If you’re not doing the hunting, you’re getting hunted.

So, what can you do to protect yourself from getting screwed?

Don’t believe anyone who advises you NOT to get second opinions. Anyone who says that all the guest houses in Delhi (or whereever) are full is lying to you. Any cabbie who says there’s no meter today, fixed price only, is lying to you. Any tour guide who says that all the trains are booked is lying to you. Don’t take it personally,  just know what you’re getting into, there’s a billion people in India and if you’re from the west and have the ability to travel to India in the first place, you have more money at your disposal than 95% of everyone in the country, but without any of street smarts. Always ask someone else for a second opinion, or a third. I’d advise approaching locals and just asking them what they think about this deal, whatever it may be. NEVER get into a cab right out of the airport without having a fixed address and some landmarks that you know are close by to your address. This is crucial. You must know where you’re going from the airport, don’t give them a chance to take you to their crooked guest house operators so they can take a cut from you getting ripped off. Go somewhere specific, anywhere, but don’t just ask a cabbie to take you to a guest house. It’s a recipe for disaster.

I heard this one story about two 19 year old girls, fresh from Canada, who got off the plane in New Delhi in the middle of the night and got into a cab without knowing where they were going. They asked the driver to find them a guest house. He told them to wait in the car as he went in and checked for them at different hotels and hostels, saying that it wasn’t safe for them to be outside at night. Sure enough, the first guest house was full, then the second, then the third, then the fourth, then they realized that of course, all the guest houses/hotels in Delhi are full. They would logically have to go Aggra… Four hours away.  Of course, all trains to Aggra were full, so they would naturally need to hire a private car to get them there. This con artist was able to convince these brainless Canadians to buy a cell phone and call him whenever they needed anything. They finally had to escape from this guy on a train, which I am told was not easy, after realizing that they were getting fucked over. This guy would not stop calling them for weeks after their escape, and they could not return to Delhi because they were afraid of being found. 

Just be smart you crazy kids, know what you’re getting into. I love India and its people, but I would be careful about harboring any romantic notions that separate this place from the west in character. These people need to make a dime, and they’re going to turn to you cuz you look and sound like a sucker. Be polite, be friendly, but keep your wits and your wallet close at hand.

-Das  

Learn Basic Hindi- Fast, Easy to Learn Phrases! Useful in Everyday Conversation!

I bought a phrase book thinking it would provide me with some useful Hindi locution to get me through the language barrier. Here I will present some useful, everyday phrases that I learned. (I’m quoting straight from the phrase book)

Matdaan imaandaari se hanim hotaa.

Voting is not honest.

Hindustan mem aam aadmi ke paas naa khaali samay hotaa hai, naa koi sauk.

A common man in India has no free time or hobbies.

Sab fasa Kharaab ho gai hai.

The entire crop has been ruined.

Bare-bare ghotale hote haim.

Big scams take place.

Bharat mem dahej ke lie nav vadhu ko jalaa diyaa jaataa hai.

In India, for dowry, brides are burnt to death.

Yah sac hai ki bahut gharom mem var aur uske maataapitaa milkar vadhu kaa utpiran karte haim.

This is true that in several homes the groom and his parents together torture the bride.

 

Yeah, everyday Hindi is fucked up.

Dear Mike, (and any other haters out there)

We at ballsdeep thank you for your recent comment. We congratulate you on taking an interest in the new and exciting world of participatory journalism and encourage you to keep reading and posting your thoughts.

It’s regrettable that you find these musings, as you put it, “lame”, however, and we lament your current dissatisfaction.

Please remember that the title of our forum, “goballsdeep”, is a figurative phrase, referring to the idea that when engaging in any activity, going full force with brio and vigor in your heart will best serve you and the activity in which you are engaging.

Take note Mike, “goballsdeep” is NOT an instruction manual for those looking to penetrate literal orifices of bodies, human or otherwise, and we cannot offer you any help in that department.

Also, we cannot take responsibility for the complete lack of direction and purpose in which your life is now going, and while travel blogs can entertain and delight you during your off hours, it will never substitute the companionship of a real, warm blooded friend, which we are very confident you can make if you try really really hard and work on a lot of your debilitating, psychological issues.

The good news is that while Jello Jiggler and I were strolling through the Darjeeling zoo, we observed an albino spider monkey who reminded us very much of your persona. He shared with you a remarkably similar appearance, sense of style, and concern for hygiene. We found him while he was crouched on his haunches, picking his taint and then putting the contents of his newly harvested treasures into his mouth. Even this spider monkey, after much howling and cajoling, was able to infiltrate the social goings on of the other monkeys in his cage, and create some semblance of interaction, however forced and charitable it may have been.

Again, we hope that you continue to engage our forum through the comments section, but if you desire to send us an email personally, you can write to us at:

Fuckoffyoumongrelsonofabitch@yourmomisawhore.com

Happy blogging!

Dev Das and the good folks at goballsdeep

PS- Seriously though, tell marjorie to get off her ass and start posting again.

The Lepcha be dammed….

When I arrived in Gangtok, my first mission was to find the Hotel Potala, a dingy, poorly-lit mold farm on Tibet road that, though quite disgusting in its tastes and smells, is the only hotel of its kind that offers a hot shower (available occasionally), the treasure of cable television, and a room for up to 3 people for only 300 rupees a night.  When I wasn’t walking around the city, I was smoking in my room and watching documentaries about bears on the National Geographic Channel, a real treat after spending so much time in rural areas. (did you know that the asiatic black bear is farmed in china for its bile? look, I’m telling the truth! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bile_bear)

On my way out to the bazaar, I kept seeing this demonstration of strikers, protesting the building of some dams on the Teesta River. Every time I’d walk to and from the hotel, I’d see some Buddhist monks or activists lying on a bed under a plastic tarp, taking strike shifts until the Sikkimese government halted operations on these dams. It was hard to really understand what was going on from their sloppy, hand painted propaganda, but the installation worked. No longer were bears running through my head during my free minutes. I had to know what this dam protest thing was all about, so I started asking questions and picked up some reading material. The more I learned, the more fucked up it got.

The people lying under the plastic tarp are hunger strikers. They’ve eliminated solid food from their diets since June, 2007! At first I found this a little hard to believe, but sure enough, some of these guys have iv’s in their noses, getting liquid nutrients pumped into their bodies to offshoot death from malnutrition for a few more months.  

The protesters of this dam project have many faces, but it’s the Lepcha, an indigenous tribe of nature worshippers who were granted protected, “primitive tribe” status by the Indian government, who are making the most noise. They’re the ones leading the hunger strike charge, and the ones who will pay the most if these dams get built. Their cultural, religious, and economic holy land of Dzongu sits right on the Teesta river and the white collars of Gangtok hope to tap this unlimited flow of liquid power to meet the demands of New Delhi’s increasingly unmanageable power ambitions.

According to the Lepcha, these hydropower plants threaten to destroy the ecosystem on which the Lepcha Reserve depends for everything; farming, shelter, drinking water, the revenue from eco-tourism, it’s all going down the drain if the Teesta gets dammed in Dzongu. And aside from the practical problems, there’s also the issue of sacrilege, the Teesta being the Lepcha’s holy river, that ignites more and more anger among the indigents.

It’s a weird spot they’re in. While Lepcha organizers and religious leaders have been trying to raise a big fuss about this whole thing, the Sikkimese government simply approached the actual owners of the properties, who are largely illiterate, sustenance farmers, and offered gifts in exchange for land acquisition. These Lepcha landowners accept the immediate bribes and incentives held out right in front of them by the government, however meager they might be, and question why they would concern themselves with the ambiguous risk of ruin that would happen a whole 20 years from now. The Lepcha who are agreeing to give up their land or relocate stand to lose much more in the long run than they gain from the government incentives. They get persuaded with the immediate gratification from these bribes, but the ones really benefiting from this project are the engineers, politicians, business owners, etc. who are overseeing the project, almost all of whom live in Gangtok and almost none of whom belong to the Lepcha tribe.

I was lucky enough during my stay in Gangtok to spend some time with one of the engineers working on this water project. What a gentleman! He gave me a room for the night in his four story house, let me use his computer and his internet connection, fed me two meals, and let me watch movies on his dvd player, projected onto a white wall in my room. He didn’t express too many strong feelings on the Lepcha problem, he said they were upset because we were building dams on the “Jerusalem of the Lepcha”, and so of course they would be upset. But there’s only two real sources of income for Sikkim as a state, tourism and hydropower. He hopes that they can both have the right of way.

I also had the privelege of spending three nights in restricted Dzongu the last time I was in India. Because I was doing research, I was granted some pretty exclusive (and expensive) access to the Lepcha reserve. I’ve never seen any place so harmoniously in tune with nature. No cars, no plastics, no pavement, no uglniness really, just a lush permaculture farming community that keeps as much greenery around them as possible. Everything looked like it belonged there, and it was hard to tell where houses began and forests ended. Everywhere I walked I could hear the sound of flowing water, and not much else. I’m wondering what this place is going to look like after they bring in all that concrete.  

See for yourself.

http://weepingsikkim.blogspot.com/

-Das

Limited Linguistic Liberation

Indian monuments require entrance fees in order to maintain their pristine condition.  Makes sense considering the Qutab Minar was built in the late 1100s during the Mughal Dynasty.  The fee charged to Indian nationals is a token at best because the government has decided to fine all travelers intent on traveling to these far off destinations for photos and memories.  Americans who happen to look like Indian Nationals often use limited amounts of Hindi or Nepali and pass through undetected.  Sometimes Americans who look like Nepalis and also happen to speak Nepali slide through as well.  Well the white girl gets it every time.  For instance, at the Taj Mahal, the difference in ticket price ranges from 20 rupees (a little less than a dollar) to the tourist fee of 750 rupees.  That’s almost 25$!  When the team landed at the Taj Mahal, all local languages sounded to me like a pile of gibberish. What were these words, where there words? Sentences all mushed together forming nothing of consequence. 

After nearly a month and a half of continual exposure to Nepali, I made a breakthrough.  Not only do works I know stick out, but I hear sentences and have even incorporated a number of phrases into my daily life.  Success became apparent on my last full day in a Nepali speaking area.  I asked the Darjeeling Zoo ticket lady to give me a ticket, “eota ticket dinnus,” using all two necessary words, shoved the local amount of money through the peep hole and voila!  I got in at the local price! Next to me, the Bengalis were not convinced.  The ticket lady- You live in Kathmandu?  Me- Yes, I was there.  Ticket lady- Are you a local?  Me- I’m here now.  And she gave me the ticket.  I rushed into the zoo presenting my 30 rupee ticket to the guard and he waved me through!  YES!!!

My experience proves, without a doubt, knowing four or five words of the local language saves money and makes the entire experience more enjoyable.  Eckdom Ramro! (very good)  And with that, I’ve presented my entire Nepali vocabulary, alternately entitled, the Top 10 Nepali phrases that have changed my life:

10. tikk- fine  9. namaste - hello (or, I bow to the divinity within you, although it actually means hello in everyday conversation) 8. subaratrie - good night  7. eck- one 6. duita - two 5. teen- three            4. paunch- five  3. ramro- good  2. eckdom- very  1.  kati - how much

other good ones to remember:  Hey Didi! - when you want to address some random girl/lady;  Hey Bai! - when you want to address some random boy/man; Joom- let’s go; Jannai- I/You go:  example to a taxi driver –> Kathmandu jannai? do you go to Kathmandu?;  chineDineAh- I don’t want it; and when all else fails, wave your hands around and point at things. 

Nepali Jello

PS: The Red Panda is the cutest non-bear/cat or raccoon ever.  He looks like all three of those animals at the same time.  Pictures coming soon.

Holy Cow! It’s definitely chewy…

The guest house director/head waiter/cleaning staff/tour guide/19 year old ambassador of the one and only restaurant in Mangan, Northern Sikkim saunters over to our table wearing his best Britney Spears t-shirt and sweatpants.  He tilts his head in the sideways nod that, in this particular situation, means he wants to know what my companion and I want to order. He also fills the quintessential position of sou chef and official bartender. How about chicken butter masala, egg curry, garlic prawns, plain rice, two beers and veg pakora (fried veggie patties that look like mini hockey pucks with green and orange slivers throughout the tan, fried deliciousness). The interaction includes lots of pointing to the menu. Again, the sideways head nod. With a slight smugness he reveals the current secret of the town and probably a big reason why the two of us were the only tourists in this tiny one street village: No fish. No chicken. No eggs. No beer. Tikk (fine)- veg pakora. I look at my friend. So what is there to eat after 90% of the presented menu instantly becomes unavailable? There’s bird flu in Sikkim. All the chickens and their unborn omelets have been slaughtered. It’s definitely time to get creative knowing full well that experimentation can only go so far when pork remains mostly off-limits due to a quasi-religious self-imposed dietary selection. And is also mostly unavailable.

Three days, two nights, one restaurant: So what’s your beef? Presenting the Top 5:

5. Beef momos

4. Beef chillie

3. Pork sizzler (if the adjoining party eats the pork and leaves the veggies and rice around it)

2. Beef curry

1. Beef roll

*************And now presenting the first goballsdeep survey!!!**************** (from someone who doesn’t eat lowly bottom feeders or cloven hooved beasts,  except the occasional sice of baccon at breakfast or a juicy lobster at any opportunity while visiting family in New Brunswick)

Silly Question: Is pork, in fact, the other white meat? Or is that just false advertising? And as a follow up: If a person’s diet consists of only white meat and someone eats pork thinking that he is following the food rules which could go one way or the other depending on the outcome of question #1, can he sue? This is a serious conundrum.

Sikkim is the only state in India, so far, where beef has been available to order.  Indian cows walk unphased through the throngs of bikes, rickshaws, cars and trucks that clog the highways of New Delhi and Hindus risk their lives to save their four legged, milk-producing friends. 

Sikkim, in the Eastern most part of India, happens to make sacred cow parts available for mastication.  It is of poor quality, tough, presented as chewy morsels in various sauces and toppings.  A wise man explains that Sikkimese cows work their whole lives pulling plows in the fields, using their muscles daily as opposed to slowly fattening up on quality green grass and feed (while hopefully escaping injections of BGH). Westerners, with a grandiose sense of entitlement, treat their cows specifically to gorge themselves on thick, juicy, fatty, delicious slices of tissue. In Sikkim, we travelers injest the three times daily Mangan diet of tough bovine protein as a  blessing.  At least there is something to eat.

beef jello -  not available

To appear or disappear………..

I wake up without knowing where I am. It’s not that I’ve forgotten, it’s that it doesn’t matter anymore. I knew from the beginning that quitting my job, blowing all the money I’ve saved during the last year, and putzing around for 90 days without any concrete ambitions whatsoever except to keep moving, never turning back- I knew from the beginning that I was revolting against the grid, stepping off the great line graph of my everyday life, going deep.

But if I’m not on the grid, where the fuck am I?

We all know the story of Pinocchio… or do we…? I’ve been doing some reading into this story, and it’s a lot deeper than what the Disney version projects. (Did you know that when the talking  cricket reprimands Pinocchio for his bad behavior, Pinocchio throws a hammer at him and kills him?)  The thing I find painful about Pinocchio’s journey is that in order to become a “real boy” he really has to play within the system. Go to school, go to bed early, don’t talk to beggars and/or blind folk, you cannot tell lies. Try to live in a land without rules, a land of toys, where pleasure comes first and discipline comes never, and you’ll turn into a donkey. 

Maybe I’m in the land of toys… I have nothing to organize my existence… no headmasters to tell me what books to read, what words to use, what time to go to sleep… no boss… no line graph…  while I can’t say i’m turning into a donkey, I do feel this unsettling sensation of my metaphysical weight getting smaller- my meaning, whatever that is or was, getting more and more preposterous. 

I’m going from one bus station to another, arriving then leaving then arriving, and every time I part ways with the people I meet, or the people who house me or take care of me, my goodbyes mean less. I have less to give each time I come and go, as if pieces of me just fall off as I move, trailing behind me like the tail of a comet that’s bouncing from one gravitational force to another, until I get so dim that nobody can see me, just another wanderer, another vagrant passing through the abyss.

But wait, isn’t that the point of traveling? To disappear? To leave the grid and all that b.s. on your office desk, to not have to carry a cell phone anymore, to fuck random strangers and never see them again even if you want to, to rip one’s self out of the machine and relish the flesh and blood realness of only having to worry about where you sleep, what you eat, where you shit and piss… constantly asking yourself, what do I need right now? Isn’t this what I wanted? To vanish in the warm opium bath of complete anonymity?

But wait, that’s too easy! Isn’t it really the opposite? When traveling, don’t we also strive to appear? To stamp our feet upon a place and show ourselves off as meaningful beings from the other side- to reunite with family, long lost friends, to arrange meetings with new friends and new travelers, to extend hands of friendship and send letters back home, educating the line graphers on the joys of cultural exchanges and new experiences, personal epiphanies. To love the world, one must be willing to leave home, to land among aliens and encounter them, look them in the eye, shake their hand, give them a firm slap on the ass and squeeze (while smiling of course).

So the question is.

Do I seek a relationship with the world? (the world I mean as the space of metaphysical groundedness, the affirmation of self-hood, the plane of existence where faces, names, journals, maps mean something)

Or am I looking to discover the abyss? (by the abyss I mean the space of uncertainty, not knowing what you’re doing or where you’re going or why, complete anonymity, namelessness, facelessness, lawlessness, homelessness, all the nesses)

In my wanderings through time and space I have been through both of these energies, and each have profound psychic consequences that could not be more different. Through traveling, one can achieve both experiences at the same time. Right now I feel like I want to be in the world, I’m writing home, I’m meeting tons of my old friends, I’m going to reunite with family that I haven’t seen in over 15 years, I’m trying to forge this new relationship to a country that harbored the birth of too many of my ancestors to count, I’m saying “here I am world!” while I stamp both feet on the ground.

But I’m getting swallowed up by the solitude, the uncertainty, the loss of memory…the ambiguity of my existence… what am I DOING here?????

Perhaps I should have pondered these matters earlier, and I wouldn’t be so confused now…  

Here’s my thoughts for anyone thinking about leaving the grid.

If you want your traveling theme to be one of disappearance- Just keep moving, and don’t tell anyone what you’re doing. Don’t make an itinerary. Don’t write in your journal.  Don’t make too many friends. Be polite, but just keep moving along. You’re goal is to be forgotten, and to not remember, to exist purely in the now, to seek out the dark side, the dimly lit places. Drink often, alone or with strangers. Travel by land, preferably at night. Just know that once you leave the world, it’s painful coming back. 

If you want your theme to be one of appearance- Meet up with family and friends, go to where other travelers congregate (not necessarily touristy spots, but even those can be very interesting sometimes…) Take lots of photos, make lots of friends, get addresses so you can write people when you return. Write letters to friends back home. Your goal is to feel heavy, important, to not be forgotten. Just know that in the end you’re an insignificant fly on the wall, and nothing you do will have mattered by the time our universe implodes and everything becomes a single speck of very heavy dust.

Anyway, the point is that these drives to appear or disappear are what ignite people to leave their graph. Sometimes its one, sometimes it’s the other. And obviously, sometimes its both.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasure_Island_%28Pinocchio%29

-Das

Go Stealthily with a View

Feel that blissful satisfaction of all your weight in your rump, leaned back with the new Maxim magazine (man, that girl is hot!), the sun shining through the window illuminating you, on the pot, taking the perfect morning dump. …mmm… Now take away the book and the toilet and what’s left- a hole in the ground (sometimes porcelain) with two foot pads, a bucket and some sort of water procuring mechanism, usually a faucet. But you definitely still have to go. In this case, urgently, the body demands release. The strident internal clamor, the crushing abdominal pain won’t calm until- with perfect balance, knees bent into a crouch, bum hovering in position just over the hole- the duty is done. A productive session, pleasant, accomplished.

The case against using coloured toilet paper circulated in the ’90s and my family enjoys the white, two-ply, quilted variety. The post-grad youngish 20 year-olds enjoy the cheap kind while sometimes leaving the door open in order to continue an ardent discussion. After the hole, however, no fluffy or scratchy paper products are to be found. Enter in the faucet and bucket (or bucket/cup combination) from stage right… or stage left… And using *only* your left hand, either reach over or under and then fill the mug and splash splash splash. Oh yes, it’s wet down there. And clean. Which is nice because the water could be anywhere as one’s aim is a skill mastered over time and trial. But an effective alternative method of doing it. We all must. Daily feels best. Or more often if your dinner didn’t sit well, or at all, in your stomach.

Western style toilets exist, curiously, they are more often paired with the faucet, which doesn’t really make sense, because the position of the body and the toilet is off and everything just gets wet. Conversely, the hole in the ground with the paper is equally unappealing. Everywhere you go, it’s a surprise combination to be mastered.

Toilet situations can vary from dire to extremely pleasing. When the crazy bus with the broken windows and random iron pole jutting out from the side, (bobbing up and down with every bump threatening to decapitate whomever in its vicinity) pulls over to a random chia stop, one should avoid all giant puddles of “mud.” Hold your breath when you enter the dark chamber with rusty lock and your headlamp, if you remembered to take it out of your bag you left with your exhausted friends, will illuminate the little box in which you do your business. I’d estimate that about 40% of toilet visits are regular bathroom experiences with nice rooms, painted walls, art perhaps, a shower of some sort… But then I’d argue that the most enjoyable of Asian bathroom experiences have an aspect more magical than even the sexiest magazine might ever provide.

Sometimes, while traveling in this part of the world, you look out the window of your commode and see a vast expanse of beautiful nature revealed without any visual interference. No buildings, or power lines, or garbage, just green lush mountains with tiered rice fields, pink and red rhododendron forests tumbling down the vast spaces in front of you. Lots of air. You look out into the abyss and down against the hillside, built up with buildings or farmed, or colourful prayer flags. Or the most clear view of Annapurna at dawn with the cauldron below its peek visible for the very first time. Just amazing views. From the bathroom! The best views are always in the bathroom. If you can keep your balance, aim correctly and manage not to drench yourself with water while cleaning off, that view can be yours to keep as an imprint in your memory while doing your business. Using all variations of facilities, the views are spectacular.

ooo jello

Premonition

I knew the cow would be born last night.  We traveled by night bus, crossed a border, took a rickshaw, boarded a jeep, spent the night in a nasty hotel complete with dead cockroach in the corner, walked a mile and a half with all of our bags to the little room next to the pregnant cow who was due any day.  I knew the cow would give birth that night.  We had arrived just in time.  

In India, cows coexist with the army, traffic insanity, they eat garbage, they have a special holiday where people dress and greet them and feed them holiday foods.  They are worshiped and blessed.  On the night of our arrival in Kalimpong, a cow was born.  There was electricity in the air, and lightning.  It was beshert, it was meant to be.  Animals give birth at night during lightning.  At least that’s how it happens in books.  We awoke to a beautiful new day and an adorable new life. 

jello