Back in the USA

I am back in the US! Its awesome in a non-India-kinda-boring way. The flight to get back was a bitch! 36 hrs being on a plane or in an airport. It fucking sucked and my ears are still ringing from jet engines blasting my face off. Checking through customs was a bit strange, which some bald (he even shaved his eye brows) militant asked me why I went to India. I stated, as he looked at my tourist visa that I was a tourist. He asked if I had any family or friends there and when I said no he said that no one goes to India "just because" (as I had said) and became a wee bit mad. It ended up fine after it came out that I was working hospitals and such, which I told him after I thought that he may want to do some weird search or something. After breathing crisp cool Oregon air and walking down quite clean streets I have to say that we are all very lucky to live in a place where people are not grabbing you, yelling at all times, almost running you over, spiting everywhere, while picking their nose, scratching their crotch, farting and burping without a second thought (yet less exciting).

HOLY FUCKING SHIT

It has been one hell of a trip. I have no idea who is reading this (there has to be someone right), anyway its been a freaking blast to write. I have had a top of fun here in India and fun talking about it. This being my last weekend here in India I went to the part state of Goa. When you walk around you think a weird twist on Mexico. Here exists the most picture perfect beaches in the world, or at least every close to them. The food is great there are drinks galor and everyone is trying to sell you hash. Every evening we watched a gorgeous sunset, while drinking a Kingfisher (One of the only Indian beers). The first night after wondering around bars, yelling at some Brit about how everyone has guns in the US, and US airlines don't give you free booze (he really freaked out at the very idea of not getting tanked on a plane for free), I was lead to some clubs by some Russians. After a dance off (I was told that I won) my friend had a hilarious interaction with some transvestites. The second night was more of the same but ended with yoga poses on the beach, and trying to come up with a list of "Only in India" ( its great). After the spiciest meal I have ever had last night I passed out and I am now going to have my last meal in India and get on a plane. Its been a wild ride, I have a lot more to tell, so Ill just have to say it in person, everything that has happened here has been typical of my life; hilarious. I may just have to keep this thing up.

Clubin'

So on the night of Holi I went to some clubs in south Mumbai. It was funny the first one that I went to consisted of a bunch of wasted westerners dancing to techno, being German, did was bad. ha. The second club was more mellow, serving designer drinks at outrageous western prices. Indians here like noise, the music is always so loud that it becomes distorted by the speakers. At 3 in the morning I was exhausted, couldn't hear, and kind more drunk then I would like to admit after my four gin and tonics. I am out of shape for this whole party thing. I have been waking up at dawn too often and going to bed before midnight just as much. This weekend my change this. Apparently the beach is full of people wanting to lounge on the beach and drink. I may just sit sleep, and relax. HA.

DAY 67 !

I think that's the number of days, I have been trying to keep track, but not very hard. This last week was spent mostly with me saying "aaaaahhhhuuuhhh" and griping my abdomen, in pain. Actually after half the week, I took some anti-biotics and felt much better and was ready to sit on a bus for several days time. Which I did. It was a bitch though. People here are really friendly but, they cant say no, or tell you that something is wrong. So when a bus is full they will just tell you it is coming, and not that it is coming full and I should figure some shit out. Or they will say yes it is a 10 hr journey, but only if the bus doesn't stop at every town and hut to pick people up and drop others off. It was one hell of a trip to Hampi. I had thought that I was smart taking the seat behind the door, you know more leg room, the nice breeze to cool (it is really fucking hot) me. This turned out to be a bad idea with so many people getting on and off, some fat guy with the same idea and sitting next to me, and the wind just became annoying and loud coming through the door. I was able to watch Mad Max 1 and 2 and read a fair bit. But that may be the one plus to the ride. Hampi was great, and the ride back I just layed down on my weird rubber bed, and watched as Indian fields and farms rolled by. To break wheat here some farmers just through it in the road and let cars, trucks, buses and carts roll over them, and then quickly sweep up the wheat.
Last Wed. and Thursday I have tried to go out of some bars, and check out the night life here in Mumbai. No luck, in this "24 city" everything closes at 1, so after getting done with clinic at 10:30-11:00 and then eating, there is not much time for much fun. We tried going to some 'club' that turned out to be more like a Red Robbin, and the most "Posh" bar in Mumbai, only to find that the upper crust here get it done early and also end just as lamely. Last night this guy Guarev invited me out to what I thought was some going away party that involved lots of drinking. Instead it was just him and his Indian buddies asking me about girls, and smoking huka. Huka bars don't serve beer, and I was in bed by 12:30. Maybe its my bad luck but people here dont really like to drink, I will see what I can do.

A Shit Time

Looking back I should have realized that eating some mutton malsala would only lead to bad things, but that doesn't matter now. At the beginning of the weekend I was struck with what Indians here call 'lose motions'. Unfortunately I did not have the time to oblige to such motions because I was on a mad dash though the city to catch a train to Goa. Try having to take a huge watery shit while running though train stations and streets (people here really get out of the way of a 6ft white guy running at them with a giant backpack) to just make the train, which I did with only 1 min. to spare before it left. It was a very rough ride on the sleeper train, in which I did not sleep much. After taking enough narcotic derivatives (yes that's what the prescription actually is) to freeze any addicts bowels, I had to hunch over on the top bunk, trying to make my bed only to see that the previous user of the sheets appeared to be in similar intestinal distress. Fuck. Still sweaty from running, I was very glad to have my sleeping bag and wondered why I even bothered with the stupid sheets. When we got to the beach I had lost half my weight in water and by the time I drank it back, had some food, had a nap and felling better I had a horrible sun burn, that reversed my state of being back to really shitty. I had forgotten that the malaria pills that I had been taking so diligently as of late make you burn very very easily. FUCK. The only good thing, I did not get bitten by a mosquito, so I guess I didn't actually have to take the medicine in the first place. Goa is known for its beach party atmosphere, as you can imagine I was excited to go, but the only thing I could do was sleep. After an over night train spent farting I am feeling better and ready for this, my second to last week, in Mumbai.

More and More and More

I hate pants. They are the bane of my existence. I wouldn't say they suck the life out of me, because they just keep heat in. Why people here don't ware shorts is beyond me. I am at the point that if I found a place that would sell running shorts (yeah the ones that are shy of a banana hammock) I would wear them. Fuck the stares, I mean I get enough as it is so whats 5 more out of 100000. I want some ice water, not just cold water, I can find that, but actual ice, a fuck load of it. I want my tongue to freeze to it, and eat so much that my teeth get that frozen acing feeling, and my throat is about to seize. I would like to drive my car in the cool Cascade air, on streets that don't have farm animals, old men laying in them or children defecating on the side of them. I would like to be driving the vanagon, listening to the Strokes, screaming the lyrics out while chewing on ice from fountain soda (pepsi), with short shorts on and the cool wind hitting me just as the vanagon hits her top speed of 60 mph. If I couldn't have that I would at least want a bed. There seems to be some kind of translation mistake, the Hindi word for what ever they sleep on has been translated in to the English word of 'bed', when in fact it should be 'pad'. If anyone here ever slept on what we know as a bed (not pad) they would surly become the modern day Rip VanWinkle. That is what I am dreaming of here in a tacky orange cyber cafe sweating my balls off in fucking pants.

p.s. I have recently viewed the Sasquatch line up. Yeah... so it may not be the best, but despair not, for I am on a mission to get the majority of the music that will be played there and become intimate with it (well maybe just familiar). Anyway GET YOUR FUCKING SASQUATCH TICKETS. I would rather be spared from hearing some whiny story about you being a pussy about going. I am sure as hell not going to start regretting not going now, after never regretting going (well maybe that one time, but luckily a substance abuse coma prevents me from remembering it) and I know you wont either.

Going up stream

Its very difficult for me to express the feeling of being in India. It involves lots of noises like "AAHHHHRRRGG", with hand and arm waving that is precisely coordinated with facial expressions that involve bug eyes, and cockeyed grins and grimaces.
I spent last weekend looking for a drinking hole. My first challenge was in determining if people call it a pub or a bar, I found that people will use one while not knowing the other but with no consistency on which one. As a drinker you are treated like you are a fine dinner, once you slosh down your glass the bar-waiter, intently watching you, will move it back into its optimal grabbing location, with a chipper smile. They are a bit fancy and people drinking are well to do men, who may get up and dance to the techno or 70's disco if the mood its them. After I made it to two places, by luck, I met some fellows that (after yelling at them first if there was another bar for some time, then pub, until they took me outside) took me to a huka bar. As they became gooked, I very tastefully tried their selection of beer (after gins on the rocks, it seemed time) and proceeded to have a loud conversation about American influence on India. The loudest (actually only two talked, the others just stared at me) a baby faced fellow, who may or may not have been sober, made some very interesting points, that completely evade me now. They did make it very clear to me that they loved Harry Potter and JK Rowling (and LOTR) and that there was another book written by an Indian that rivaled the actual series in its excellence, where Harry does something else. I took this well, being from some tie wearing business Indians. The next day, being Valentines and all, I was off to a club that these seemingly nice fellows told me to go to, hoping that it wasn't a gay bar, pub... whatever. As it turned out I couldn't find a single rickshaw that knew where the damn place was, if it really existed, and after walking around, I became very tired (partially from not sleeping the night before) and passed out. Drinking has, again, moved to the backseat and I have proceeded to spend most of my time in a Jabba the Hutt position.
This week (before reaching the rankest smelling fish market) my shirt gets soaked daily with more foreign sweat then a punk concert in the summer (or my 21st birthday...ok not that much). Thank you Indian Trains. Yesterday I was freaked out more then usual due to an old, short man, looking as if he may be dying, continually coughing in my face and all over my left side. And today I almost lost a birkenstock (luckily it flew on to the platform) due to me being pushed out of a train as it was taking off. Here you are an ant with other ants crawling all around you, over you, or trying to go right through you. I dont think that I will ever get over the amount of people. Dont come to India if you are claustrophobic, or maybe you should.
One last thing: Taking a pill everyday fucking sucks ass! My brain is suffering from some kind of block (I might be hypnotized, which I have become increasingly interested in/worried about) because I cant remember to take my Malaria pill. Thus I will take several every cuppla days. And even more when I found a huge grouping of red bites all over my ankles (the perpetrator is a mystery). Oh well, whats a really bad fever and possible death anyway, eh?, at least its not a kid.