Something to tlak about

Well, given the crappy job I've done keeping my blog updated, and the general mishmash of material floating around in my head, I figured I'd try and dissect and defragment it through a long email recapping the various adventures I may or may not have had for the past one month. As I'm leaving in just a couple days, now seems as good a time as ever.

One month ago, after tearfully waving goodbye to the children who have added sunshine to my life for the past 10 months, I hopped on a train alone to that fantastic paradise of beaches and (even brighter) sunshine. I arrived in the Goa region and promptly got ripped off by a motorcycle taxi who dropped me off at the bus stand... the completely opposite bus stand from where I needed to be, before jumping back on his bike, a fairly significant feat given his size and the bike's size, and speeding away before I could hit him. This anger was only inflamed when I remember the previous warnings I had told my friend Norm (arriving soon) to not trust anyone, ever, especially when they speak english. Luckily anger and stubbornness guided me past dark alleys through which in the flickering light drunken indian men, bastard rickshaw drivers (also drunk) and the normal cow and packs of stray dogs could be seen... a few feet away. I finally find another motorcycle taxi willing to take me to the nearest beach, negotiate a cheap room and leave only asking for a little extra baksheesh. Dinner was fairly bad, but edible and conversation was good, so I consider my time at Benaulim well spent.

Finally arriving in Palolem after a short 2 hour bus ride, I begin searching for my friends through marginally skin frying sand, slipping and sliding up the beach with my 40lb rucksack and a nice "home" feeling. They spot me, we get together, start drinking, Norm comes up behind me, taps me on the shoulder, manly pats on the back, more drinks ordered, tapped glasses, repeated realizations of the fact its been over two years, friendly and then pleasantly violent bickering begins (he's leaving soon so hopefully it will end). I'm happy.

We hang out listening to music played by my new friend Karl, always a very good name for a new friend, on his classical guitar while Norm bumped his fingers against a taut canvas sheet shaped like a drum, well. This went on and on while we lazed in the sun, until finally people started dropping off like flies for their own separate adventures, until just Norm and I were left, walking through the sand at another beach, Anjuna, at 4am after having failed to find the rumored rave hyped up earlier in the day. While walking, the wind shifts and my party spider sense picks up the faintest whisper of a heavy trance beat, somewhere to the left. Naturally I turn away from the well lit beach, well lit streets and rather comfortable surroundings of a quiet beach town, to begin my trek through rather dense fields, past dimly lit houses and the occasional vicious looking barking dog, following that deeper and deeper bass note. Norm angrily follows, I smile to myself, but keep a couple extra feet in between the two of us knowing that he's carrying a rather wicked looking sickle knife and was still angry over talking to one of the most ignorant people in the world earlier that night. Low and behold, after only 6km of barefoot walking through every terrain you could possibly imagine, we arrive at a scene from a Jennifer Lopez or Madonna video, with orange and green laser lights flickering against silhouetted trees, 100-200 people laying around carpeted flat areas smoking who knows what while another 2-300 danced to a deep deep bass that as you know, could be heard from the beach, quite a ways away. As we arrived at 4am, we had to put our good faith time in, I danced while norm flirted, and by the time we left, the 8am sun was beating down on our heads with a rather frenetic energy, only matched by the crowd of undulated half naked people dancing to the beat of a song that showed no signs of slowing.

Enter Recovery for two days.

After finding our way up to Mumbai (bombay) we ate mcdonalds, watched Syriana, went to some TGIFriday's ripoff, and got on a train later that night. It was ok.

A pretty short 7 hours later we departed the train, barged into a hotel lobby at 4am after fending off rickshaw mosquitoes (risquitoes), and then I was denied the chance to barter for the room by Norm's inconvenient collapsing onto the bed, probably for the best as it was only 5$ a night and the guys actually let us into this place.

From this town, Aurangabad, we went to these ancient, 2-3000 years old caves which we climbed on, profaned to a small degree, and then found that if you go up a river bank, you leave settled areas and have trouble finding your way back in the dark. This email is testament to our finding our way back, not being slowly eaten by bandits, and not having offended the gods too much with missplaced feet. To our dismay, the caves we were heading to the next day were closed, and so the first of many travel plan changes went into effect. There were no direct buses to our next destination, so we got on an 9 hour suspensionless sleeper bus ride to Indore (allowing us to bounce higher and for longer times than any well tensioned trampoline), which broke down at 5am, from there we transferred to an already crowded much smaller bus which we sat on for 20 min Indian Standard Time (2 1/2 hours in the rest of the world). This was fun. Then we jumped on another bus for only 4 hours and we were in Bhopal, where we promptly found out you couldn't leave because it was one of the holiest days in the Indian calendar (Holi, a week or so of multicolored hand grenades being thrown at anything that moves, only slightly toxic). So we're stuck, we go to the zoo, check out some tigers (not as big as you'd think, though still hungry looking), walk around, begin another period of unabridged laziness, finally get to Sanchi the next day, the stated reason for stopping in Bhopal, enjoy a thunderstorm in a leaking bus, go back to sleep, leave Bhopal on our way to Khajaruho.

If you have trouble imagining a city of temples totally dedicated to the act of wild orgiastic sex, then you should visit this town and complex of history. Internet sites get shut down for some of the stuff they prettily carved on those walls, as there are discerning readers on this list, I wont go into details, but man o man...

From there we went to Varanasi on a 15 hour public government bus. To describe this ride would take far more energy than I could possibly exhume from my body. To describe it with the sick stomach I had from eating too much fried food, might kill me. The town of Varanasi is nice, if you like cows (and their byproducts) shoved into spaces only wide enough for the cows (and their byproducts), or if you don't mind the occasional burning (or not so burning) body floating down the most disgusting water you've ever seen, which the average citizen of Varanasi is frolicking around in. Otherwise you may have problems.

Then we went to the mountains, those being the Himalayas of great fame and fortune, of which neither is enough to possibly describe their beauty and splendor. Absolutely amazing. Naturally our plans didn't work out exactly as planned. After another 12 hour sleeper bus ride in which no sleep was had because of the continual precipice-lined roads we were swinging around at much greater than safe speeds, we arrive in Manali, or in translation, Paradise. I'll leave the description of that and the Dalai Lama for later, because I have to go meet friends, but I'll be home soon and I hope anybody worried about me stops, because it looks like I'm making it through this here trip all right (finding my peice of wood to knock on).