And So Sasha She Was

I figured that since the first Israeli I had talked to had been able to get third party insurance without ownership papers, so if I could get that, I’d feel good enough about the whole thing. I stayed in Arambol that night in order to get a luggage carriage installed the next day. Once that was done, I went to Mapusa and found an insurance agency. Of course, the insurance agent at the end of the long seated line of insurance agents asked for the ownership papers and the previous insurance. I should have seen this coming - idiot. I walked out in a trapped daze, wondering how Dan, the first Israeli with insurance papers and no ownership papers had done it.

I fired up the Enfield and drove back down to Palolem in a nervous daze.

That evening, after talking to Sophie about the problem, I walked back to the bike, reeling over my stupidity and my next move. Perhaps it would be best to just put a ‘For Sale’ sign up on it now and get rid of it before it gets me into trouble. Like I’ve said, I’ve always been a kid who, for the most part did things by the book. Paranoia gets some strange and truly ridiculous ideas breeding in your head. I saddled the bike and just then an Aussie with golden blonde hair down to his shoulders, a guy in his mid forties rode up on an old army green Enfield Bullet. I struck up a conversation with him to get a more informed opinion. I told him my issue with the papers.

“So I’m thinking of just putting a for sale sign on her now, I don’t know, what do you think? Should I just go for it, instead?”

“Aw yea man, you gotta go. Its incredible out there. Getting up early, getting on the road by 5 and watching the sun come up over the land. Yea, don’t worry about the police. They’re just a paid mafia anyways. Even if you had your papers all in order, they’d still take money from you.”

“What about insurance?”

“Any accidents are settled right there on the road, all anyone ever wants is money. I’m not even sure if insurance claims ever get processed to be honest. And I’ve never heard of anyone getting pulled over for speeding. They see you coming, see that you’re a tourist and they pull out the stops because they know they can get money out of you. I’ve been riding this bike for 15,16 years so a few of the cops around here in Goa know me, so whenever they see this bike they stop traffic. I usually just flip them the bird and turn around and take off. Come back in an hour, they’re gone. And a lot of the time I also just blow right past them. They never chase you, they don’t have radios or any of that stuff, and honestly they can’t be bothered. I got someone to draw up papers for this bike a while ago, you know, just something to carry really, with stamps on it, something that makes is look official, but its total bullshit. Each state has different looking papers anyways”

“So you think it’d be worth it? Just to go like I’ve got it?”

“Oh yea, sure, don’t let this stuff hold you back.”

I wasn’t totally reassured but what he’d said made me feel better. I was a bit sick of being ‘the tourist’ and I knew there was an ‘India’ out there that perhaps I was missing out on. Part of this India seemed to be that there were discrepancies between the Book of Law and the Book of Custom. I knew that India had a reputation of bribes and corruption, and that regulation was in many cases simply an avenue to be avoided for personal gain. Was this risk my entry fee for seeing, experiencing - tasting an India that my contrived tourist experience had shielded me from? To hell with the books, I’ll write my own.

The girls took off the next day on a bus, and once I’d gotten new tires on my Enfield, I took off. Hoping that her good will would rub off, I had Sophie name the bike. And so Sasha she was. My back pack, sleeping bag and camera bag were all strapped on to the luggage rack and I made my way to NH-17 (National Highway) to trace my way down the coast and hopefully meet up again with Sophie in Kochi, two states down, about 1000 kilometers. Within half an hour I saw the border crossing that marked the division between Goa and Karnataka. The beige uniformed police officer was slumped back in a white plastic lawn chair and his eyes traced my route as I made it but his expression couldn’t have been more… apathetic. I just rode through.

NH-17 is a winding road that changes in quality depending on which district it is cutting through. And much like a mid-western highway in the United States, it cuts right through towns, turning into ‘Main Street’ for a kilometer or two before thinning out again. For all its bumps, torn up sections and lack of consistency, NH-17 south of Goa is a great road to tour. As the land rose out of the Arabian sea flatly or in great rolling hills punctuated and severed by inlets and rivers, my way along 17 took me to sights that will live with me forever.
I remember crossing one of the many bridges and looking out over the water. The land was lined and crowded with the infinite thick green of palm trees and a lone fisherman out in a boat that looked as though his grandfather might have used, hauled up a net, patched and sewn, for the gifts of the sea, led astray by the currents and the land wriggled and struggled for a freedom no longer theirs.

That was what my hunt for Royal beauty had been about. Yes, I had searched for and found my Enfield but the nature and the vision that it harked after was an idea, an expression of freedom. Open road, unbound by bus and train timetables. Direction and time, both of them mine. Myself, a slave to neither.

The Hunt for Royal Beauty in the Indian Tropics

A couple of days after we arrived in Goa, I decided to try something I had always wanted to do. I decided to rent a motorcycle. As corny as it might be, ever since I had seen The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, I had wondered what it would be like to tool around on a motorcycle in India. I had gone so far as to get an International Driving Permit from AAA. Of course, to obtain an International Driver’s Permit for a motorcycle, one must hold a normal license for a motorcycle. I figured it was worth a shot and forged documents on my application for the Permit in such a way that I could always claim it was a typographical error that I had requested the permit to include ‘motorcycle’. I was pleasantly surprised that it worked, even though I was quite sure, based on everything that I had read and heard that it would mean almost nothing to carry it. Without ever having been on a motorcycle, I inquired about the price of renting one and feigned a lackadaisical confidence that would make it appear I knew what I was doing. I’m positive many tourists who have never driven a motorcycle rent one and figure out how to do it here in India, but considering it was my very first time and I didn’t even have the most elementary understanding of the controls, I figured faking a little confidence wouldn’t hurt. It was a Bajaj Avenger I rented. A bike with generally up to date technology that incorporates self-starting. The battery, according to the guy who helped me out, was weak enough that I had to use the kick start. While he got the bike started for me I looked the bike over, figuring that what wasn’t a brake was either a clutch or a gear shifter. I remembered my father, upon my asking, had told me that riding a motorcycle was very easy, “its like a bicycle, with a motor.” Sounds easy enough. And it was. My years driving my beloved 318ti BMW with a standard shift had readied me perfectly for handling the clutch and acceleration of the Avenger. After two or three awkward shots forward, I got a feel for it and sped off down the winding narrow streets of Arambol.

I was thinking about that day as I headed back towards Arambol, this time on a small scooter. Two weeks had passed and we had visited Hampi far to the East of Goa and returned once again to the beaches of Goa. I realized as I headed north on the pathetic little Japanese made scooter that my short time on the Avenger had done something terrible. It had instilled in me a sense of the road and adventure. For the first time I felt as though I understood, if only briefly and superficially, the culture and love of motorcycles. All those overly testosteronic looking men who revved their Harleys had always made me laugh as I wondered if they were compensating for… something. But my afternoon ride along the coast on the Bajaj Avenger had wooed me into a new view. As the sunlight glittered in bands along the sinuous road north, back towards Arambol, I craved to get back to that place and that state of mind. I wanted metal and fire and the road. There was something about having that loud controlled violence and the speed at one’s calm, collected fingertips. It wasn’t power. On that ride north in the hopes of finding an iron fire horse for myself, I tried to figure out just what it was. But also, what that two wheeled Avenger had dug into me had grown, and I felt desperate for an even greater expression of the need and the feeling that I tried to define. My eyes had been glazed over with the fermented desire of the last dozen days. There was an even greater design of the romantic mystique that I craved, an even sweeter shade of the indefinable masculinity that my mind jockeyed around.

The Royal Enfield was originally a British made bike. But much like the pieces of colonizing culture, India had eventually claimed the bike for its own and it had become a symbol of all the things that my stubborn young, impetuously adventurous temperament lusted after. For the past two days I had rented the pathetic little Japanese scooter and had scoured the coast for an Enfield to call my own with no luck. I knew, however, that Arambol, the beach paradise we had stayed in two weeks prior was a breeding ground for Enfields and on that day in mid-December I was headed back to find if there was an Indian stallion who might take me further and farther into India.

Before we had left Arambol for Hampi I had looked at a bike, tempted to take it. It had been a 16 year old Enfield Bullet, a little old considering and something told me at the last moment to back out. The registration had matched the engraved numbers on the bike but it was past its 15 year renewal date without having been renewed. Always a son of my father, I rarely if ever strayed from anything that wasn’t by the book, whether it be the book of law, or the book of custom. My last minute and cursory research on the subject had armed me with the knowledge that an expired registration could cause some problems. The Israeli who was looking to sell the bike also didn’t have the ownership papers, another strike against the sale. He did however have third party insurance registered in his name with the bike, which seemed odd. Regardless, I backed out of the situation.

The two weeks since had made me lean slightly more towards desperate and like a starving stranded seaman eyeing his favorite dog, I questioned my readiness to cut ties with caution. The day previous had been spent scouring the southern Goan coast and had yielded nothing, contributing to the desperation I was starting to feel for the Royal beauty that I so longed for. After making my way through the familiar roads of Goa on the scooter which I perpetually cursed for its lack of weight and presence, its sheer practicality and its complete inability to harken after the grand vision of reality I wanted, (It was a Honda scooter, the kind of plastic mopedesque contraption that a girl studying abroad in Italy might ride to and from the local bakery) finally, I arrived in Arambol. It is strange to return to a place you do not call home and feel a sliver of relief, much like the kind that would come with plunging into the familiar sights and sounds of childhood.

I felt as though the Enfield was an elusive and beautiful creature, that, for some reason was skirting my desire to win it and experience a different side of India. The breeding ground of Arambol was devoid of ‘For Sale’ signs, and partially dejected, I retreated to a favorite Israeli falafel joint where I literally bumped into a mutual friend of Anya, who had connected the two of use via Facebook. William and I chatted, all the while my nervous greedy starved eyes bounced around the coming and goings of Arambol, hopeful to spot a white printed page reading ‘For Sale’. After a casually introductory and like-minded conversation I went off to search the notice boards, finding a plethora of signs that claimed to tell of Enfields for sale. Wondering how old the signs might be, I took down the numbers and details, unhopeful.

I remember being a boy and feeling nervous and excited to the point of excruciation at the prospect of obtaining some longed for toy. When the third phone number seemed to yield the seemingly perfect prospect, I felt it again - debilitated by my own functioning. The damn scooter couldn’t go fast enough and I tried to remain conscious of the fact that I wasn’t wearing a helmet. (none of the places that I rented two-wheeled vehicles from offered helmets, even upon asking, all I got was a funny look and a laugh). Anjuna is quite close to Arambol, but not close enough. When finally I was there I found a phone and dialed the number again. “I’m near the market, on the cliff by the beach.” The seller told me he’d be there in ten minutes.
It can be difficult to spot an Enfield from the front. There are a few other Japanese made bikes that also sport a circular front light, and an unpracticed cursory glance will wonder which it might be. When the sound catches up to the light of the bike, however, there is never a mistake. The Enfield pumps and her purring is a slow calculated roar. The yawning of the beast, breath expelled instead, and she alerts the world, like the shadow of a cloud, that greatness is at hand.

Avihay (India, besides the Indians, is filled with Israelis and Russians) rolled up on a 2003 Royal Enfield Thunderbird. 5 speed 350cc. Her colors were black and chrome and I dare say that when I saw her, I thought “Oh shit” because I knew that there was no turning back, I’d have to go through with it, no matter what and find out what my vague adventurous yearning might have in store. As Avihay showed me the bike, several locals walked up to the bike, interested, and Avihay also got a call inquiring about the bike.

“I’ll take it.”

I asked about the papers for the bike. Just like the prior bike that I had looked at, Avihay only had the registration which matched the bike and engine numbers.

“I was only going to do this as long as I could get the papers in order.”

“You don’t need the papers, all you need is the registration.”

“Were you pulled over by the police at all?”

“Many times.”

“And?”

“Baksheesh man, all they want is baksheesh. They would pull us over and search our stuff for hashish and when they didn’t find any, they’d ask for our papers and that’s when our wallets would come out. The first time, I gave him 500 Rupees and when I told my friend I’d given him that much, he laughed, 2 or 300 would have been enough. As long as you have the registration, it shows you didn’t steal the bike.”

Since I couldn’t drive both the scooter and the Enfield south so we agreed to meet the next day. This would give me a little space to think over this paper problem. I opened up that little scooter’s throttle as far as it would go and hurtled south back towards Palolem where the girls were.  That evening, while walking along the beach, I gave Sophie the option to ask me not to go off on the bike. I still wasn’t sure if I should tell family back home about the bike.

“You should do it. You’d regret not doing it since its something you’ve wanted to do for so long.”
The next day, after three bus transfers, I was back in Anjuna and sealed the deal.

Use your Imagination

So the computer that I brought along with me has decided to crap out on the photo front, it simply can't read photos off of the SD card anymore and it looks like the problem has also corrupted my USB sticks.  Fortunately it doesn't look like I've lost any of the pictures... yet.  I hope you enjoy.  I'll do my best to keep writing and posting so you all have something to chew on.

Oh Goa

Most people reading this are in New England. Its December 18^th, and aside from a three day jaunt to Hampi (an umpteen hour bus ride in from the coast) I have spent about two weeks on the coast. I read that a snow storm threatened and grazed some parts of New England and my Floridian grown body surely has a piercing memory of the kind of cold that is descending upon what I call ‘home’ with a grudging love. For all my loved ones reading this, I’m so sorry, but right now I’m outside. I’m sitting in shorts and a tee-shirt, the sun set long ago and before me is a fine white sand extending off into the dark where a beautifully rhythmic surge of tumbling water sounds and rolls towards me.

This morning I was up early, before the girls and I was on the beach for a morning walk before the sun had risen high enough over the land to hit the water.

Please remember that I love all of you, and don’t hate me… too much.

The food is spectacular here on the coast. My favorite being a locally caught kingfish that I picked from an array brought before our table. Consistency is fairly absent when it comes to anything on the menu that is not strictly Indian, but this has led to some tasty and pleasantly surprising discoveries. Though, if anything food related is to be said about India, surely anyone in my position would say it must be the juice.

No one does juice like the Indians do. When the three of us had found Goa’s northern most beach and ordered some pineapple juice, we watched as the man who took our order walked back towards the kitchen and grabbed a couple of pineapples on his way. All juice is juiced fresh, on the spot and orange juice is made from mandarin oranges, nothing like home, but perhaps far better.

We decided to hunt down the quieter, more out of the way beaches of Goa as opposed to the drunken party beaches that are more characteristic of its core. The time has been spent well, if simply, and everything that I dreamed of while starving, sick, exhausted and cold in the Himalaya has come true. The heat of the sun and the roll and sway of the ocean is a comfort that is only paralleled by the comforts of home after having been long deprived. My sense of reality has done a gleeful 180. In the Himalaya, I was so thankful to go to sleep, not just from exhaustion but because of what I knew I would dream. Here, I awake from dreams to find that actually, I’m somewhere better.

From the Rajasthan desert through the smog, slum, and glitz of Mumbai to the powdered sand of Goa’s palmed coast, India is quickly living up to its reputation of truly having everything.

Curry, Children and the Slums

Sophie and I quickly made our way to Jaipur in the northern region of India called Rajasthan. This was after going to three different train stations in Delhi, looking for our train.

A kid named Isral picked us up from the train station to take us to our hotel. He made us laugh even though we were exhausted and we agreed to meet him the next morning so that he could take us on a tour of Jaipur.
I was still repudiating from being sick in Lukla, but unfortunately this would not last for long. A few days later when Sophie and I were in Udaipur, she got food poisoning and I definitely felt a bit of the same bug, though my body seemed far more experienced to meet the challenge. All I’ll say of this is that traveling to foreign countries where the likelihood of getting sick is high is bound to make friends get to know each other very well - in perhaps… unexpected ways.

Food became increasingly difficult after Udaipur, though when we tracked down a hotel that had a free showing of Octopussy (James Bond movie that was filmed in Udaipur - remember the floating palaces?) we were far from disappointed from the chocolate milkshakes and the ‘Hello to the Queen’. Sophie and I had, also, never heard of this desert. Picture quartered banana with crushed graham cracker, a few scoops of vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce everywhere.

The German bakery we found also suffered from our onslaught when we stumbled across it. (Side note: When I was way up in Dingboche, Nepal, a few days before my epic babysitting climb with ‘N’ and essentially the starting point to go to that pass, I came across a French bakery that boasted a ‘Snickers Danish’ -- Yes. That’s right, its exactly what you think it is: a Snickers bar baked into a Danish. I’m sure this is the result of an unknown genius somewhere in Nepal who ran out of regular chocolate and noticed they still had a few Snickers bars left for sale. Yes, I got one, its slightly better than you’d think it would be, but only if you have high expectations, in another word, spectacular)

I was a little disappointed that the only way to actually gain admission to the floating palaces of Udaipur is if you plan to spend an exorbitant amount of money on a drink (something I thought was pretty strange since alcohol is a bit taboo in this part of India).

By the time we got on our umpteen hour bus ride to Mumbai, I believe I’d consumed about 30 or 40 pounds of Imodium. Well, perhaps not… but I’ve certainly taken enough for it to be ineffective now.

A rickshaw took us from the hole-in-the-wall ‘bus station’ to the actual bus which was around the block and down the street pulled over on the side of the road across the street from some of the Udaipur slums. As I took off my shoes and got comfortable in the plush sleeper cabin, arranging luggage in the most advantageous conglomeration for comfort, I took out my book to read and stopped to look out the window. The slums seems to be constructed of dark colors rather than actual substance. Rotting food and garbage is strewn about - its end marking the beginning of the road, and everything is slathered in the color of the filth. Corrugated tin roofs are held down by rocks and boulders, doorways are black holes, perhaps with a tiny steady flame suffocating in a corner, but always in the darkness of those dwellings - the wandering glint of eyes. The children, always the most telling examples of a place, are walking histories of their slums. Clothed like their houses, with dirt, garbage, shit and rags, they wander and beg, all with the universal gesture of an outstretched hand moving to the mouth for a moment to indicate food before returning before you for anything you might proffer. I have gone back and forth, unsure as how to regard them. Most westerners, I have noticed simply ignore them. I can’t help but look at them, head to toe, and try to guess what is going through their head. I’ve noticed that there is a substantial complacency that lurks behind a practiced pity look. These children are starving and poor beyond an empty pocket, but there appears to be a boredom in them, and their hunger craves not just in the literal sense, but also for something more, some path to follow, some game to learn, some example to follow. In the month since I have arrived in India, I have paled in these moments, not for the sole reason of their abject poverty but because of this already ingrained habit of the begging ritual. Each and every time I have hoped for some reason to give money. Of course its impractical and unwise to give to children who beg, for it further ingrains that this kind of behavior will reward, as numerous signs in India have warned. What I have hoped for is some kind of ingenuity, some neat trick, a song, a dance, something to respect. I would not be rewarded in my search until I was sitting on Palelom beach in southern Goa. I watched as a mother and her two children sit up two tripods made from long bamboo. Between these tripods extended a rope which was pulled tight between the stands approximately eight or nine feet above the ground. Puzzled I watched while sipping my Danish beer. Of the two children, the younger little girl proceeded to climb up one of the stands and sit perched down on her haunches as her mother handed her another long bamboo pole. She took it, balanced it and then stood up on the rope and proceeded to walk the tight rope. I was delighted to see a break in the pattern as it was still obvious that this trio was in a very low bracket of society. When she successfully got to the other side, her bother gave her a stack of bowls which the little girl took, balanced on her head and then started out again across the rope. On the next run, her mother handed her the inside rim of a bicycle wheel (sans spokes, of course, and tire and tube). The little girl walked the rope with her feet inside the wheel rim, each foot climbing the curve and pushing it down into the rope and of course, the pottery was still balanced on her head. On the next round the wheel rim was replaced by a tin plate which the girl placed under one of her feet and once again she walked across the rope, sliding the plate against her other foot and then stepping on it… on the rope. It was a circus act, but nonetheless, I was enthralled. When the little girl clamored down the bamboo pole, I had already walked up to the trio and was waiting to meet the star. She met me with a gorgeous smile and big bright eyes. Her skin was slick with sweat from the heat and the effort but it was obvious that she was happy, proud and exhilarated. She told me her name was ‘Muscan’. I told her that she was absolutely fantastic and handed her some money. It may not be the most innovative thing imaginable, but I couldn’t help my happiness with the mother’s ingenuity. Surely she had coerced her kids into performing the spectacle, but she was also showing them that begging isn’t they way to go about it, and that if you learn something, work hard at it, and practice, it can reap benefits. What better lesson for someone who is starting off with nothing? The other, countless children, who have come up to me begging for money have the counter-intuitive idea that things will be given to them - an absurd idea that is (ironically) usually a characteristic of someone born into exorbitant wealth.

Upon reviewing this last length of words, Sophie makes an interesting point regarding the boredom and complacency I have mentioned. Begging is a behavior that is taught, primarily, we assume, by parents who tell their children that foreigners have lots of money (which is proportionally too true). Children in turn go about it like they would anything else, like a game. Westerners are just a matter of time. It is in the moments when the game grows boring, and the reality is that a child is just standing in front of someone who is pretending to ignore them, that their utter complacency is revealed. Their practiced look of pity fades and they look off hungry for some kind of stimulation. Sophie went on to say that while I slept on the train out of Delhi she watched the slums roll slowly by, seeing the children play, the men sitting with one another talking and the women smiling, bouncing children on their knees. Sophie’s reassuring observation about people is true: we have each other and joy creeps into our lives through the smiles of those we love, and the joy of family can sprout, even in the worst of places.

I can’t help but think that this reassuring observation is also double edged. Is it a pitfall of joy and love to be… ok with one’s situation? As terrible as it sounds, do the trappings of love, the positive and the negatives, to some extent perpetuate bad situations? Surely its fair to say that no one likes life in a slum but its also likely to say that they DO like and love their family. How much more probable would it be for someone to better their situation if they could sever ties to family and friends who are all woven so intricately into the situation of a slum? And does the observation of happiness in such an awful place in anyway placate an ‘other’s’ sense of generosity and responsibility?

This sign of joy also reminds me that these people have the same capacity for feeling, and that they are not some other kind of creature, or some other kind of ‘safe’ categorization that the mind takes emotional relief in… whether we are aware of it or not. I can’t help but think this is the kind of mechanism at work when I see westerners ignoring children who are standing right in front of them. How can we conceptualize of something we don’t want to recognize? Doesn’t this make a child into something less than a ghost? And isn’t this act of non-recognition the greatest expression of the disparity between my observed westerner and the child before them? I have, of course, ignored some of these children, but all I can think about is the child. I have tried to interact with them, feeling desperate for some brilliant game to introduce, but I have ended up usually embarrassing myself and feeling not a little ashamed.

Infrastructure, I truly think, is the biggest culprit of people’s situations. Having lived in Denmark, (a country where the social services are so good and pervasive it seems that being homeless borders on being a choice) and comparing its infrastructure with the less taut U.S. and Canada, a country’s infrastructure, both political and economic determine how well the poorest will live.

India’s infrastructure isn’t just written on its people but is evident on a constant basis. The entire country, it seems is either in an accelerated rate of decay or growth. Abandoned concrete buildings can be found next to modern structures still incubating in the stages of construction. Dirt roads slam into beautiful highways, and elsewhere the potholes would wake up a comatose patient had they the pleasure to be in the busses we’ve had the pleasure of riding. I could feel that infrastructure, as I sat comfortably in the decked out Volvo sleeper bus. Across the street I watched a child and came to another conclusion. The children, like dogs, find every and anywhere a good place, not just to play but also to defecate. A little boy squatted at random and as he gave something back to the world, he smiled at me.



My aim in this entry is to be thought provoking more than anything else. I’m not sure where I stand on any of this, but the sights I have seen have certainly come with more than just their shapes and colors.

Hello India

Don’t believe what they say. Well, maybe a little bit. The description I had heard over and over of what it is like to get into Delhi couldn’t have been further from my experience. Walking out of the airport and getting to one’s hotel is supposed to be a nightmare of loud, fast paced, mind fumbling disorientation.

Compared to the tiny half-abandoned orange brick building that comprised of Kathmandu’s International Airport, the Airport in Delhi was like disembarking for Heaven. Reminding me very much of Vancouver International airport, I was pleasantly overjoyed to find air conditioning, clean tile floors, huge glass windows of crystal cleanliness, baggage carousels, and not only that, but screens to match flight numbers to carousels! Customs couldn’t have been more customary and when the electronic doors parted and I walked out into the hot Indian air, I dare say it was dead quiet. A hundred taxis were lined up, all silent with only a few drivers lounging around.

I hung my head out the window as the taxi sped towards the city and rejoicing in the heat and the after-glow of business class cocktails. ( because I’d been stuck in Lukla, I’d pushed back my flight to Delhi. The travel agency I had done this through neglected to tell me that this required a change of class also, and when I arrived at the airport, I found out that the only way I could make it to India was to cough up another couple hundred bucks. Sitting in business class with the collision of continents below me, I endeavored to drink back the extra cost of my seat. I lost count, but I’m confident that I succeeded.)


I perked up when I saw a traffic light. I hadn’t seen one since I left the states. (Katmandu uses officers stationed on permanent posts in the middle of intersections as opposed to lights to direct traffic. And they are only present when traffic is the busiest… though every moment after the first morning honk of a car horn feels like rush hour.)

The stereotypical description of Delhi started to emerge, but after the joyously schizophrenic pinball machine that Kathmandu streets had proved itself to be, Delhi was a little tame.

One thing I have noticed about driving in this part of the world is the difference in the use of the horn. In the states, the horn is only really used in two cases: when an accident is about to occur and when someone is just pissed off. The people of these countries have found far more diverse and better uses for the voices of automobiles. Driving, of course, is a visual task, but here in India and also Nepal, people drive using sonar. The horn is in constant use, not because people are agitated or deaf, but really just to say ‘hey, I’m just letting everyone know where I am.’ With every car in your immediate vicinity giving a little honk, you have the invaluable benefit of getting an instantaneous picture of where everyone is without actually looking. Though of course drivers are constantly looking around, the need is not overwhelming to try and compensate for the added chaos that driving in these countries comes with. Sonar seems the best way to describe it.

My god, what a relief it was to sit back with a good friend and a beer and recount the trials of my weeks in the mountains.

Getting Out of Lukla

After three days of trekking down from Gokyo Ri, which had been the last high destination of my trek, I finally crawled back into Lukla having had little food over the last week, spraining an ankle and being generally exhausted and run down. Trudging up the last long misty flight of roughly hewn stone steps to the archway that signaled the threshold to Lukla, I felt as though I was entering a long awaited home away from home. As rewarding and spectacular as my time in the high regions of the Himalaya had been, it had by far taken its toll and I was ready to recuperate. The prospect of making my way down the western coast of India, with Sophie, to the much talked about Goa - a tropical paradise from the sounds of it- was a dream I was holding on to. My tired eyes looked at the cold wet archway of Lukla as if it were signaling some magnificent accomplishment, holding beyond its threshold days of relief.

The weather was very poor that day and the deep green valley that I remembered seeing during my first week in Nepal, almost a month ago, was laid blind by the thick grey and ubiquitous cloud that draped the lower Himalaya. I thought nothing of it and breathlessly made my way to the lodge I had stayed in before. Dropping my bags and sleeping and eating. For the third time in two weeks I got sick, and two days later when my flight out of Lukla was supposed to take off, I stood in the airport all day with the constipated backload of grumbling passengers from previous days’ cancelled flights. Since my flight did not go that day, it meant that I was placed at the end of the back log, therefore, the next time the gods granted Lukla good weather, the people scheduled for that day would fly out and only after that days’ schedule was complete, would they start flying out the backlog of people, beginning with the first people who had missed their flight a couple of days before myself.

For the first two days the western mass was polite and complacent. By the third day, I had figured out the entire hierarchy of the Tara Airlines operation. The boss of the Lukla branch of Tara airlines was a short corpulent man, a strange sight among the characteristically thin Nepali population. Below him in rank were two ‘supervisors’ and below them a series of versatile ponds who filled in where needed. By the fourth day I was debating whether bribing the boss would actually do anything, when a couple of friends I had made shared with me a recent discovery.

Lukla airport comprised of three main rooms and one hallway lined with offices. The fist large room I walked into was a general area with bathrooms and a corner devoted to the sale of snacks and tea. Down a shallow flight of stairs led to the check-in counters and baggage check. This is where the most hopeful people would wait to get boarding passes and descend down the last flight of stairs to the ‘gate area’. a closed off area behind security that was starting to feel like some kind of promised land - promised by a false corpulent god. What my friends had discovered was that for the very few planes that did land each day the ‘Tea’ Lady who manned the snack stand in the first room was running out every time and renegotiating new manifests. We discovered that if one was so inclined, and had the right connections, AND THE MONEY, one could purchase a sold seat for three times the original price. Suddenly it made sense why she seemed so friendly with all of the Tara Airlines’ employees. I witnessed as an Australian couple watched their flight take off - FULL - while they were still waiting to check - in with ‘confirmed‘ seats. They were first in line the entire time and yet somehow the flight had ‘filled up’. By the fifth day two guys from Poland were so upset with the people at Tara Airlines that they threw one of Tara Airlines’ desk chairs through a window. In a reflecting rain of shattered glass the chair smashed into the tarmac below and stayed there for an hour before someone removed it.

For a people who believe in Karma, it wasn’t hard to spot the blasphemers.

On the seventh day I didn’t even go to the airport. I stayed in my lodge and chatted with a wonderful Australian couple the entire day. The weather was shit - I figured there was no reason to match my mood by sitting in the airport. In the evening, on a whim I went to the Tara Airlines’ office (something we were instructed to do every time we asked for help. This had led to nothing and seemed to be implemented only to placate the grumbling customers. On showing my tattered ticket, however, I was asked if I wanted to be on the first flight out, the next morning, to Rameschap.

“Is there a bus to Kathmandu from there?”

“Yes”

“How long is the ride?”

“12 hours”

“Yea, I’ll go to Raaameemsshappp --- wherever you said.”

“Check in, 7:15 am, second flight.”

At 7:00 am I watched the first flight take off into clear skies. The second one rolled in and I was first in line at the check-in counter. Hopeful and painfully anxious, I handed one of the supervisors my ticket, certain that this flight had to be the one I was getting on. He looked at it, and without looking at me, he said

“Not yet, next flight.”

I had heard this before. I had heard this many MANY times before. After being stuck in the tiny little town 3,000 meters up in the Himalaya for eight days, watching nothing but the uninterrupted triumph of greed and corruption, being unable to eat, and spending each night hoping that I’d be able to sleep the whole night without getting sick, I had felt as though I’d reached a bit of an impass with how much I was willing to put up with. I said it to myself, but loud enough so that everyone in the near and crowded vicinity could hear what it was. Anyone reading this right now certainly would have thought it, and most of you would have joined me in saying it, because, when you’re faced with a situation as paralyzing as mine - feeling like a fish in a bucket and all you want is the sea, only one thing comes to mind, and at that moment it came to my lips.

“What the FUCK!”

The Nepali man who had told me ‘next flight’ looked up from the ticket he was looking at and anger brimmed over the lens of his glasses.

“DON YOU SAY THAT WORD!”

He paused, paralyzed with anger. I was taken aback, feeling simultaneously embarrassed but also restraining the enormous impulse to laugh. The only thing that went through my head was Hey, look at that! I got a reaction!
 “ALWAYS THIS WORD! FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK! ALWAYS, YOU PEOPLE FEEL YOU NEED TO SAY THIS WORD! DON SAY THIS WORD, EVER! YOU PEOPLE, YOU BRING THIS WORD FROM YOUR COUNTRY, BUT YOU ARE IN NEPAL! KEEP THAT WORD IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY!”

I bit my lip, I bit my lip hard and swallowed the convulsion to laugh. Here this man was, an integral part of the most corrupt organization I’ve had the opportunity to witness on such a detailed level, making thousands of dollars a day off of the desperation of trekkers who for fear of missing international connections were succumbing to the opulent, corrupt costs, and he was giving me a morality lecture on the use of profanity? Oh, this is good, I thought. I held his gaze for a moment and then responded.

“Well, airplanes also came from my country, and if it weren’t for that, you wouldn’t have a job.”

He looked back down at the ticket he’d been looking at, and when, a moment later, the Tara Airlines’ employee at the next kiosk called my ticket number (unbeknownst to me), the man in front of me instantly recognized it and ferried me over to get immediately checked in.

Profanity exists for a good reasons.

That low grade piece of shit card paper that my boarding pass was printed on felt like a sheet of gold in my hands. I hurried through security after throwing my bag in the right pile and entered the forbidden holding room. How pathetic, I thought, I’m actually ENTHRALLED with what this room looks like…I’ve been in Lukla way too long.
 When, ten minutes later, my flight was called and I found myself running across the open tarmac towards a small one engine prop plane, painted green and white and tipped with the floppy Tara Airlines’ ‘star’ logo, I felt as I imagine a prisoner does upon waking and finding all the guards handcuffed in a vindictive pile. I scanned the people lining the fence to see if the Australian couple I had become friends with were watching. Hyperventilating, I crawled up into the plane with my pack, squeezing myself in so that just barely, they could slide the door shut. Ten people in all, including the pilot fit into the plane and I thought to myself that Sardine Can had never been more appropriate. The single engine buzzed and then buzzed louder - this engine simply wasn’t going to roar, no matter how much fire it was fed. Nonetheless it perked up the plane and pulled it out onto the runway. The pilot pressed the breaks and made the engine buzz just a little bit louder before letting its long smooth winged teeth have at the mountain air. The tilt of the little plane was so high and the runway was sloped so far down that all I could see through the cockpit window in front of me was clear bright morning sky.

Lukla airport is said to be the world’s most dangerous airport, averaging one crash a year. (In 64 years of operation there have been 63 crashes) A fact that I did not learn until after I had flown into the airport a month earlier. When, on approach, a month earlier, I had looked over the pilot’s shoulder to get a peek at the runway, I’d said “You’ve got to be joking” and thought Holy Shit and Hell Yea!, all simultaneously. Staring up at the sky through that cockpit as the little plane put putted down the runway, I knew that we were headed for a cliff edge. I looked at the wing just outside my window. The sheet metal riveted to the frame rattled and shuddered and I said a prayer to the god of aerodynamics. Luckily, all of the risk for crashing is with landing at Lukla and almost none of the crashes had been on take-off.

I always feel a rush when a plane veers up and lifts up on to invisible tracks of air. I remember clearly when I took off from Boston, and everything - the hope for adventure, fear of the future, and the memory of everyone I’m leaving pulling at me - condensed into one moment. That similar electricity of emotion was with me but this time it was something more as Lukla shrank in isolation behind me.

The Nepali people as a whole impressed upon me a wonderful picture. Their kindness and harmony with their lives seems to give them an almost meditative quality. The steadfast porters, carrying unfathomable conglomerations of weight exemplified this immensely and it was as if the culture is without complaint. This compassion is, of course best exemplified for me by my experience with Sanjay Kulung.

But, as with every country and every place, there are the kind and then there are also the crass. I couldn’t have been happier for my time in Lukla to be over.

Once in Rameschap, I took off my coat and bore my face upwards to feel the heat of the sun, the air hot for the first time in weeks. How my childhood days in Florida have branded me to be at odds with the cold forever. I quickly found the bus and asked the bus driver if I could sit on top of the bus with all the luggage. He waved his hands upwards and I clamored up the ladder on the back of the bus and finagled myself between a guy from Spain and the inside edge of the luggage rack. I found myself sitting on steel bars that were unfortunately spaced. I knew it was going to hurt, but I knew it would be better than being on the inside after the horrors I’d heard of with regards to Nepali bus travel.

The ride was everything one could wish for in a scenic mountain drive. How did I phrase it in my journal? It was like watching the more scenic parts of an Indiana Jones movie while continuously achieving the sorest ass that memory or imagination could recall. I didn’t care terribly. I was happy to be out of Lukla and on my way. I knew that soon I would be in Kathmandu, with a good room, shower, food, and soon after that India with a good friend already waiting.

One of the friends I had made in Lukla was in the bus behind mine and when at the end of the night we sat in an Irish pub in Kathmandu recounting the journey, he said I’d looked like a scene from ‘Into The Wild’

“the one where he’s just left, and he just looks free. You looked so free up there on that bus.”