Travel Blog

I have 6 minutes to write this. That is, I already wrote it but didn't pay enough Euros to complete it and the internet shut down just as I was about to upload. So here I go again-- I'm in Amsterdam digging civilization for 8 hours before my flight to Minneapolis. Loving this place. I got an infection from India. Its something I don't want to talk about, so you can imagine. In India, a doc gave me 2 count em 2 different antibiotics to take-- after testing every fluid I have-- which destroyed my entire gastrointestinal world, and didn't cure me. Discovered the infection was back with a vengeance only mere hours before getting on the plane in Delhi so I just got on and hoped for the best. It was a hellish plane ride and no mistake with constant lines for the bathroom, which I would pretty much go to the end of as soon as I got done being at the front of.  Because of the way my itinerary is written, I had no idea how long the flight was supposed to be, because the leaving time was in Delhi time and the arrival time was in Amsterdam time, and it looked like the whole thing was only a couple of hours, which of course wasn't true. I didn't want to ask a flight attendant for some reason. They always seem so busy and grouchy. But somehow, as always, we eventually got there. Being in India you get so used to everything from partial to extreme discomfort both day and night that you get used to it, so that's handy for situations like this. 

Laying over in Amsterdam I went to their "red cross" station expecting no help and grouchiness and possibly some humiliation coming my way. Just used to India, that's all. Actually I got an incredibly helpful doctor who gave me new medicine, good advice, and charged me . . . . a grand total of . . . . 6 euros. That's right folks, 6 euros to go to an emergency room and get an entire course of antibiotics, a bottle of tylenol, a test, an exam, and all the rest. I nearly choked on my tongue when he told me.

"I thought of charging you 100 dollars," he joked. "I figured you'd pay it!"

"Now you're thinking like an American!" I said. Of course, you and I both know I was prepared to pay at least that.

Anyway, I'm out of time and now in love with socialism. See you soon!

The reason India will never be the "major world power" that all these bullshit pundits are always saying is that India has no concept of capitalism. Now you and I know that capitalism isn't going to save the world and it may very well be its downfall, but those of us from capitalist countries, or, I suppose, even socialist countries, understand the basic notion that you can charge more if you offer more. If your produce is better, then you can charge more for it and people are happy to pay. If you offer better customer service or a cleaner or prettier environment, you will get more customers. There is a sense of competing for a limited supply of customers when the environment is capitalist, and that causes neighborhood businesses to try and improve. In the big picture it also causes corruption and people cheating and fooling people into getting something (like financial products ala the 2009 disaster) that they are actually not getting. Okay, but in the smaller picture, it causes small businesses to try to improve. In India nobody could give a shit for improvement.

friendly prison guardTwo produce stands right next to each other. Neither one tries to be more polite or give a better deal. They just sit there and wait for luck and see who gets the customers and who doesn't. Three dhabas next to each other and nobody realizes that if they managed to have fewer flies in the doorway and all over the food they would get the business instead of the other two. Haven't they ever heard of a fly strip? I'm perplexed as to why one of these dhabas doesn't make a little effort to stand out just that extra bit. Its not that they don't care about money. I mean come on. Everyone has bills to pay. It makes no sense. But when a pale face goes to one of these dhabas or fruit stands or auto rickshaw drivers or anything, they try to rip you off with an insanely overblown price. It never occurs to them to just offer a cleaner rickshaw and a more polite attitude and then westerners would gladly pay more without complaint and no one has to be dishonest. No. It's all about the rip off.

Shera says all this is true, simply because Indians are so cheap, they will never pay more for anything, even if it's better. So if you want more money, you have to trick people. I just can't believe it. Once they see that a certain sandal lasts twice as long as another one, they are going to pay a little extra for the longer lasting sandal. It's just human nature. I mean as bad a business person as I am, I could walk through Ghandi Gate and just tell each and every store along the lane one thing they could do to attract more customers. Its so simple, especially when things are in as decrepit a state as they are in now. Like don't have a broken sidewalk and customers will actually be able to reach your shop, or don't have trash lying on the floor in your restaurant. It is a turn off. I think they have it because there is a man who does the cleaning and nobody else is going to stoop to doing it until that man comes. So it just sits there all day if necessary. Of course, the workers don't have an investment in the business, so why should they care, but the owner is there too, inevitably. Why doesn't he do it or tell someone else to do it OR ELSE? I just don't know. I just don't know. I mean this is a really busy city and people are all over the place buying things. Why not try to sell more by improving? I am guessing this has something to do with religion. Like maybe they think prayer is the thing that will bring them more business, and that's where they concentrate their attention. I really don't know. I asked Shera and he says its a democracy and a capitalist country as well, but I just don't get the lack of interest in solving problems. Like you have a problem, you try to solve it. That's my mindset. Some people have a problem. They just don't try to solve it. They just watch it and go hmmm.

This issue requires contemplation. It must be fathomed. It must be fathomed.

It seems to me that in India it is pretty easy to have a start-up business. Like Shera and his friend opened an internet cafe and it's doing pretty well. Real estate is probably cheap because all people do is just put up some forms and pour some more concrete and bada-bing you have a second or third story. I don't know if there are any regulations regarding this, but i doubt it. Construction is constantly happening and donkeys are perennially hauling bags of cement and giant loads of bricks here and there. The big thing is to get a government job, which is about the same as one in the U.S. except for the added benefit of baksheesh (bribes). You get a good pension, people slide you a little extra for special treatment, and you show up to work whenever you feel like it. Corporate jobs however don't seem to exist. I know in Hyderabad they had those big hi-tech buildings and that was a corporate type environment with good jobs and so forth, but I think it's unusual. In Amritsar it seems that unless you have a government job you are either an entrepreneur or work for one. The result seems to be that anyone can be an entrepreneur, even people who know nothing at all about business, and that's why most businesses are run so weirdly and sadly. I don't know. That's my analysis. It's probably wrong. 

Staying with a certain Punjabi family. Now these people are super nice. They feed me and water me and have made me one of them. We all hang out on the big bed in the living room and watch Bollywood soap operas every night. But things have taken a turn for the strange. My friend described his dad as a silent and imposing man. Truth is quite the opposite. He is a pussycat. He also likes to have a glass of Jim Beam and water every night. No problem. He has taken to asking me to drink with him. Also no problem. Well, actually yes, a problem. He doesn't seem to be hip to the idea of drinking on a full stomach. Its hours before the mom is going to cook dinner and he wants me to guzzle a glass of whiskey. And I mean guzzle. He isn't satisfied unless I down it in a gulp. If I don't, he keeps urging me until I do. It is impossible to say no to his big grin. I am a guest, I try to please him. That's all. I really don't want to guzzle Jim Beam hours before dinner. But I do it. So the mom comes along and sees my glass of whisky and there is a big Punjabi shouting match. I assume it has to do with why is the guest being plied with whisky, and her a lady and all? The sister translates. She says "You can sip this glass, but no more. Otherwise mama will beat you!" She is kidding about the beating, but only just. So I say yes ma'am, shanti shanti, and everything like that. Next minute mama turns her back and the dad pours my glass full to the brim. I complain he is going to get me a beating and he laughs. I don't know if he is trying to flirt with me, piss off his wife, or just have good clean drunk fun. I have to drink the glass so the wife doesn't see it fuller than before. This continues for some time until I wise up and pretend the drink was so strong it put me to sleep. That worked.

Sunday morning everyone is up and mumbling. Dad mumbles in the shower and I assume he is praying. He comes out of the shower and paces around the house mumbling. Sister has a can of water and she sprinkles it around the house, flicking this way and that indiscriminately. Shera later tells me this is a Hindu thing for cleansing the home. She picked it up somewhere and he strongly disagrees with it, but doesn't bother to comment. Incense burns throughout the house, and the altar to the Sikh gurus flashes with pink and yellow Xmas lights that are wound all around it. Mom goes to the local temple. I assume the Sikh temple, although Shera tells me she and the sister sometimes go to the Hindu place too. It's not like in America where an Episcopalian is an Episcopalian and that's that. For a lot of people, worship is more of a free for all. Everyone is getting their religion on. I try to stay out of their way. I'll never understand this stuff, I'm quite sure. They have a live broadcast of people praying and singing at the Golden Temple and watch it every morning and also sometimes at night. The people are praying in Gurmukhi, the sacred language no one understands, so they can't understand it any better than I can, but that doesn't matter. It's sacred.

If this were America, we'd say these people were in a cult, but in India its normal behaviour. Everyone is in a cult. What's life without a cult, anyway? Religion is life and life is religion. One of the two sisters has saved herself by turning out to be smart and going for a masters in computer science. All she does is study (not on a computer of course). She is also engaged to be married in a "love match" so she has got very lucky in the whole deal. The other one is not so lucky. She mops and sweeps and cooks all the time and seems to have no hobbies but these.

Apparently she didn't feel ready to get married at the typical age of 25, so now at 27 she is careening down the chute to old maidhood, and mom and dad dress up once in a while (mom in pearl earings, dad in pink turban) and go out to meet potential matches for her. I don't know if they are getting any results or what. Shera says getting a match has a lot to do with your "qualifications." Like if you have an advanced degree you'll end up with a better match. I don't know what qualifies as "better" but I guess that means someone with a decent career. 

So yeah, the whole Punjabi family thing is for sure interesting-- everything is completely communal. People sleep on beds in the living room, sleep on the couch, wherever, it doesn't matter. All their clothes are kept in one room and everything is shared as far as I can tell. Immediately, the sisters are wearing my shoes and using my brush. All things belong to all people. And they are really loving. The mom is forever brushing my hair and so forth. People are really close. There is a lot to enjoy and it's easy to relax around them. Except for the whole Jim Beam thing, but that ought to work itself out with time. Well, I haven't got a beating yet, so keep your fingers crossed . . .

What to do?

Go to katmandu . . .

Play didgeridoo . . .

Full power!

24-hour!

No toilet!

No shower!

That's a Punjabi rock song. Nobody can figure out why you would want to sing about having no toilet, when the toilets you can get are bad enough as it is, but whatever.

Well I got my transit visa out of Katmandu. It sure is prestigious traveling on a journalist visa, but you pay for the prestige, no doubt about it. Like triple-price. The trains were already booked for days, so I had to fly into Delhi and buy a ticket for my guide, Shera, as well. It was definitely worth it. His first international flight. He has also eaten his first pork and rowed his first boat and learned to swim on this trip, so not a bad series of firsts overall. I let him have the window seat and my camera and he took videos of our takeoff and landing, pictures of clouds, and all that good stuff.

"How many flights do you have to take before the take-off isn't exciting anymore?" he asks me. He's thrilled to pieces and I'm sitting there all bored, ignoring the safety lecture, which tickles him pink.

"A lot," I tell him. "A lot."

Then we got a sleeper bus overnight from Delhi to Amritsar. Miraculous. I mean there is no way I can imagine being able to figure this stuff out without him. It's nothing special to him. Just like taking a Greyhound. But you have to cross insane traffic at night, go down this dark street, talk to a shady character in a mosquito infested cubicle who sells you an illegible ticket. A billboard down the street warns you of dengue fever, which is carried by mosquitos. While he bought the ticket, I hid in the even darker darkness around the corner, so the travel agent wouldn't see my pale face and charge what I call the "skin tax." In the dark there I met a rickshaw driver, a Nepali guy, who told me about his friend who has an import shop in Pismo Beach. He was nice, which is pretty cool considering I was standing there in the dark, being white, and trying to look tough but might as well have had a bullseye painted on my wallet. Everything went fine. I got on this bus full of beds with little curtains, and slept my way into the Punjab, which is glorious, green, full of waving fields of wheat. The breadbasket of India, where men wear their turbans totally different from the American Sikhs. They look like carefully tethered flying saucers.

I meet all these westerners who are taking taxis everywhere instead of cheaper rickshaws, eating in the most expensive restaurants since they can't find or don't comprehend the local dhabas, afraid to see a doctor if they get sick, and so on. Basically clueless and I'm so glad I have Shera. He takes me to the best cheap places and keeps me out of tourist traps. Got a friend to loan us his scooter and took me to the doctor when I got sick. He books our tickets online and understands the bus and train schedules, so saves me the travel agent fee, and when we were ready to leave Katmandu, he understood that trying to get on a packed train was going to be too big a pain in the ass and saved us the trouble. Anyhow, now that I'm in Amritsar I have to get down to work and do some serious interviews and research, so I better go do it. Keep the emails coming, and I'll see ya'll soon. 

So, katmandu. Came here to get my visa renewed. It won't be a problem but I have to stick around a few days. Nothing to do here but shop until you absolutely drop, which I'm trying not to do mostly. Or smoke hash. Plenty of that being sold in the traditional freelance method. But whoa! Katmandu night life! Music blaring down the street and flashing neon signs all over. Like times square condensed. Learned to count to 10 in punjabi today and bought some crap. Nepal is really organized and clean, which is pretty good considering I understand tourism is pretty much all they have in terms of generating any GNP. There has been a big initiative lately, and in parts of town there is a 10 pm curfew strictly police enforced. But they run a pretty tight ship and its not a bad place. Shera has been amazed to see women doing jobs like driving taxis and police women. You wouldn't see that in India for sure. This kid can bargain like I've never seen. Gradually learning some techniques, hopefully. Well that's it. If you like night life, this place is worth a visit. Like a cross between ultra-hip and modern and third-world stuff. But somehow it works.

The police can only be described as cute. There is a woman dressed in a baggy police outfit who seems to be perpetually stationed on the corner outside a supermarket. She went up to a rickshaw driver the other day and said, "You're not supposed to park here. See that sign up there? That's where you're supposed to wait for the passengers."

The rickshaw driver became abusive and told her, "My customer wanted me to wait here! What can I do? He said to wait here so I'm waiting here! I don't care about the rules! I have to make a buck you know!"

She said, "Okay, okay. I'm just saying . . . Take it easy!"

All that is translated from the Hindi by Shera. This lady and all the visible cops appear to be teenagers and they are just as mellow as yellow. I like it. 

But buying crap really takes on a new dimension here. I mean, you see all this stuff and say "I'm not going to be suckered into buying that!" Handmade leather bags, colorful clothes, wooden sculptures, etcetera. Then you realize that even if you pay the asking price, you're getting it for less than five bucks or three bucks. If you pay three dollars, you are getting ripped off. Or you could go to America and pay a hundred and feel like you are getting a good deal . . . if you've never been here. Money just falls completely out of perspective suddenly. But I met this great girl, Evelyn, from Lithuania, who is having a far deeper experience. She has been backcountry backpacking for five years, "seeing the results of economic imperialism." I tried to meet her for dinner, but it didn't work out.  I guess the results of economic imperialism will have to remain a mystery to me for a while longer and I'll get back to working on the book. Every traveler has her mission. 

I've been non blogging for it seems like a decade now, but in reality has surely been two weeks. First I was deathly ill. Surprise surprise! But to those who know me this should be expected. It seems my international tour of hospitals will never really end. Anyway, I got better and you know how it is after you have puked-- you never want to eat that thing again, whatever it is that you puked. But I puked so many things that I was afraid to eat anything at all afterwards. Anyway I finally cowgirl'd up and started ingesting again. And I'm fine. Shera, my guide, and I have been in Pokhara, Nepal, for maybe a week not really doing anything for the book, just chilling out. It's so wonderful after Rishikesh, which I found to be a pathetic tourist trap, really, full of dreamy westerners pretending to find enlightenment in every cow turd. There were some good moments, for sure, but that's the impression I left with. Shera agrees completely. The tourist season is really low this year here which is bad for them, but good for us. It's so quiet and peaceful. Shera is exactly the international playboy that our mutual friend described to me, except that he is also super nice and honest. He literally has a girl in every port. Not girlfriends mind you, just persons of interest. Every new town we go to he disappears for hours at a time and I don't ask. Finally the other night he gave me a bit of a rundown on the various persons of interest he has at a wide range of southeast asian locations and their various picadillos, jealousies, and psychoses. I gave him some pretty good advice about women, if I say so myself, and thus solidified our friendship for all time.

The power is always going out in Pokhara, although there is still power because various restaurants and hotels all have individual generators that are enough to keep a few bulbs burning here and there. But it means that I haven't a chance in hell of using my little netbook, because the power is never on long enough to charge it up. Who cares.

Oh, last night was worlds of fun. I met this old French man, who speaks Nepalese and a little Spanish and almost no English. I think he actually lives here. Then there is this Spanish guy who only speaks a very little English. Well we ended up having dinner together at one of the little cheap places, and got into a conversation about all kinds of stuff. The French guy knows everything about politics in the world. The Spanish guy is a big philosopher and knows everything about religion. I know nothing, but I love Obama. Neither of these two had ever been to America and they wanted to know why its so messed up, specifically, why so many have this passionate fear of socialism and why we have so many guns. I tried to explain as best I could the mindset of some of the different sects of Americana, and why things take so long if the government actually uses the democratic process. But I was doing it in Spanish, since that's all the French guy could understand. I'd use some English with the Spanish guy and he'd help me with the Spanish translation, then I'd talk in Spanish to the French guy. Sometimes he understood, sometimes not. Once, after a particularly frustrating bit of repetition, he said, "can you try to speak in a French accent please?" I have never even tried to do that, barring Pepe LePeu imitations, so I busted out laughing. But by the end of the conversation, which was hours later, I had started doing it pretty good, though I felt silly.Then Shera came along and we started talking about Sikhism, about which he is an expert, and that was interesting both on a political and philsophical level and that went on for a long time. Shera is always making me laugh. I don't know why. I think jokes are just funnier when they have to be filtered through translation. He said I'm getting a reputation as "that girl who laughs."

Wouldn't be the first time.

He says I'm so American-- laughing so loud. No apologies were forthcoming.

First I thought I was hot shit with my Spanish, but then realized how bad my Spanish really is-- we were talking about our ages, and I tried to tell them I was forty. Well the spanish guy looked at me a little funny and said, "no, you're not." 

Then he told me I just said I was 14.

I blushed.

Well I am just having a great time and really relaxing here is all I can say, although the heat is paralysing ( "Brick! Brick! I feel just like a cat on a hot tin roof!" That's the kind. Humid with no breeze in sight.) Shera said-- couldn't you just live here forever? It's a little more than India, but still really cheap. I said YOU BETCHA.  I would have no problem with that whatsoever. 

We rented a scooter and drove for hours around the countryside yesterday. Terraced mountainsides, rice paddies, yoked buffaloes in action. It was magnificent.

Waiter: would you like some more tea?

Me: yup.

Waiter: Teach me how to say that!

Me:  What? Yup?

Waiter: Yes! Yes! That!

Me: You just say yup.

Waiter: yup yup yup

Me:  So could I have some more tea?

Waiter: yup yup yup

Me: How 'bout them Red Sox?

Waiter: yup yup yup

(waiter stands in the starlight. Yodels from distant temples create a soudscape of haunting echoes. He looks out over the Ganges.)

yup yup yup . . . yup  yup yup

I have taken some truly kick-ass pictures, but alas, these public computers don't want to play ball with my uploads, so I am currently working on improving my tech set-up. Stay tuned. I'm at Phool Chatti ashram now, where I'm gradually getting used to doing a week-long yoga retreat. Its a quite serious thing, where you really cut yourself off from the world, stay in silence, and stuff like that. If there was any place in the world to cut yourself off at, it would be this place. The beauty and serenity of this location, 7 km from Rishikesh, and a hundred years from the rest of the world--just blows the mind. I woke up this morning and watched the sky lighten between two mountains that rise straight up out of the ground like teats. The triangle of sky between them gradually turned blue and pretty soon the immense greenery around me emerged. The turquoise of the river, the many shades of the leaves of trees in the Phool Chatti orchard, the lilly ponds, and then the green of the cover crop in the farmer's fields next door. Their hut sits in the middle of this green field with a color so bright and rich you want to eat it. You want it to be a flavor of ice cream. The farmer's wife comes out in her bright sari, hangs some clothes on the line. Some school kids in their uniforms dash off to school in the distance along a path lined with lush, overhanging trees. I could watch them live their lives all day. A perfect entertainment.

But last night was a different story. You know they have jaguars here, which I knew already, which is the only reason I had some idea of why this adventure befell me. What happened was at dusk I decided to take a walk. I'd been writing for hours so I needed to stretch my legs. Well I went out the main gate, along a path, wandered around the side of the building and toward the back, and down to the river, checked out the view, then reluctantly realized I needed to get back, as it was getting dark. Well I tried to come in the back gate but it was locked. Locked tight with steel doors and a padlock as big as my fist. I was wearing my all-white serene and groovy ashram garb, but had to sneak through a barbed wire fence to get into the yard. So much for serene and groovy. There, I discovered that the inner gate was also shut and locked tight! Night descends around me! I start to see boa constrictors and pythons in every shadow. I think about climbing over the wall, but see that it is topped with spikes pointing out, like a prison yard! Only one thing left to do! I run all the way around the building, back to the original path I had been on, then all the way back to the front door, chanting "don't panic! don't panic!" The massive steel door is shut, but luckily not locked, as someone on the ashram staff had seen me go out. If he hadn't seen me and locked the door, I don't know what would have happened. I probably would have just had to make a fool of myself banging on the door until someone came. Or, alternatively, simply become a jaguar snack. One or the other. Anyway, that was my ludicrous adventure at Phool Chatti so far. So I'm going on retreat now and probably won't be blogging for a week, at which point I will probably be in or on my way to Nepal.

This trip is too short. I realize now that it takes a while to get your courage up to do stuff, that's why trips like this need to be longer. Like I farted around in Laxman Jhoola for a week, exploring various roads and paths and things and just allowing chance to have its way with me, but always thinking I should go into Haridwar and check out the Kumbh Mela. But really not having any idea how to do it. After some time I talked to some people and got an idea of where the bus stop might be if I have a lot of energy to go exploring. But alas, too late. I'd say every location needs an extra week of courage-building time in order to be able to do actual planned excursions as opposed to wandering-and-letting-fate-do-its-thing excursions. Anyway, that's it for now. I wish all you, my loyal readers, could come and see Phool Chatti. It really would give you a new lease on life. 

I feel sorry for the Ganges. It's a big river, like the Mississippi, not a little ole Rio Grande. And all these people make such a fuss over it. Bathing in it, scattering ashes in it, pouring it over their heads in worship. I've even seen western people taking little sips out of it. But the Ganges just keeps on rollin' along, like old man river, except its old woman river. But it doesn't give a damn about these 50 billion people worshipping it. To the Ganges, a jillion indians and a half jillion tourists are like so many ants in an anthill. Nothing. You can tell it doesn't care.

It just flows along, perfectly serene, but powerful in the deep, secret way of water. It goes places, unlike people. It constantly goes places. All these backpackers bragging about the places they've been-- the Ganges laughs at them. Actually it doesn't bother to laugh, that would be like laughing at an ant that bragged it had been to the other side of the anthill. It would just be mean.  The Ganges is a real piece of the world, not like us, with our short fleeting lives. It lives forever. It doesn't care about losing a little water to an eddy that goes stagnant or whoever dumps trash in there. It swallows the trash and disappears it. It doesn't care about the pilgrims that take water from it to offer at temples. It isn't short on water. It ignores people completely, and they don't even notice.

Or maybe they do notice, and that's what they respect about it. Anyway, I've seen on TV that man-eating catfish and blind dolphins live in there, so the Ganges has its own little world to worry about down there. It certainly doesn't have time for us fools. 

What’s the damn point? There must be a point. I’ll let you know when it occurs to me. You spend a year in India learning the real nitty gritty of Indian culture. You do everything wrong that you could do wrong, and in the end you say  well at least next time  I go, I’ll really be prepared. The next time you go, you are prepared in every conceivable way. You have predicted and solved problems before they have even occurred. But as it turns out, this time everything is different and whatever you learned the last time? Through painstaking hard labor and suffering? No longer relevant. Nope. Not the least bit relevant. Which only goes to show that the more you know, the less you know. And I mean that sincerely, not just in a bumper sticker kind of way. Thinking you know stuff only sets you up for a bigger fall when it all turns out to be false. The ignorant people are doing just fine, but here you are,  trying desperately to use knowledge that isn’t even relevant to the situation. Out of misplaced vanity, I guess. And by you, I mean me.

Rishikesh, I have discovered, is a European resort. Much like Goa, it is where people come to enjoy themselves and loaf endlessly. They take raft rides on the Ganges, play beach volleyball, and engage in exotic but short-lived trysts with one another. Rishikesh is the Jamaica of Asia. Some of you, being Americans with stars in your eyes about India’s “authenticity”—and you know who you are--will not want to believe this, and I don’t give a damn if you do or don’t. It has taken me about three very confusing days to figure this out even though it is plain as the nose on your face. I saw an Israeli girl honest to god bathing in the Ganges in her underpants. And here I’ve been so careful not to show my ankles.

Rishikesh is also the Santa Fe of India. It's where people come to find themselves, only their observations of Indians in their natural habitats are so tinged with spiritual desperation that they will turn a random cow crossing into some kind of life-changing event.

Cow crosses road, conversation follows: “Cows should cross! Yes, we should all cross, just like the sacred cows! Cross to the other side of consciousness!” Etc. Some of the conversations I overhear or (gack!) am even involved in, would curdle your coffee. The danger of falling into the trap of overgeneralizing random events for the sake of so-called enlightenment looms at all times in life, I find, not just here, but this personality quirk (or whatever it is) was, it seems, born or at least weaned in Rishikesh and festers here like a perpetually infected sore.

Some of these people are really tripping, basically. But not really. If you tried tripping here, the smells would really get to you. I understand at one point, weed was plentiful here and smoked openly, but I’m not seeing it now. Though I once met some very well educated Indian dudes in a restaurant and one of them stepped outside to smoke some “hashish” while the other one explained its soporific effects to me and exclaimed what a shame it was that one wasn’t allowed to smoke it indoors anymore, like a regular cigarette. An odd conversation for many reasons—the first being he seemed to think smoking weed was something Indians had made up and kept secret all these years, and the second being that no significant odor emanated from said cigarette, so I’m guessing it was some pretty mild weed, and not what we call hashish at all. Anyone with more hash experience than I, feel free to comment here and set me straight.

In a conversation with the only truly likeable tourist here, a fifty year old Irish dude named Kevin, I informed him that Americans have no idea India is a vacation resort. He thought that was funny, since it so obviously is. So anyway, I found a hotel room with a lamp shade. Yes, I eat my words yet again. It overlooks the Ganges, which is like any old river, except it has sandy beaches, all of which have been exploited as tent camps for river rafters and beach volleyball enthusiasts. It also overlooks a restaurant that also overlooks the Ganges. I’m going to sit there a lot and work on this book. I got out of my rugged backpacker gear and bought some fun resort clothes and started going with the flow, what the hell. By the way, there is a "rainbow gathering" in a forest near haridwar, so this place may be more full of colorful and filthy characters than usual.