Global Nomad Travel

Kathmandu to New Delhi, India

03/24/10

While in the shower, I realized I could probably make a great living as an actor who specialized in commercial that require a character that has immense difficulty performing simple tasks: At least, this was the case traveling. Guesthouse showers have been making people feel moderately stupid for at least 50 years.

I had no chocie but to enter the shower bent over like a hunchback and a lonely prisoner’s dream, but without the blonde wig on, although wearing one might have been fun. I could barely turn on the showerhead, the heat would not turn on and found shampooing my hair near impossible. Something had happened to me while sleeping.

There was a sharp pain in my back as if metal fists were drilling into the muscle through to my rib cage. Somehow, almost unknowingly and seemingly from nothing, my back infused with pain. It was the same confusion I had as a Grade 8 boy when something used to pop up for nothing at all. “Not again!” Ah memories. This often happens to backpackers - back pain, not having an erection in public, just to clarify - from sleeping in worn-out beds without any proper support. Throughout the trip, Boxie-boo and I often rolled into each other sleeping, as our weight on an old bed caused turned the mattress into a taco. The last time I felt this hurt was after I was hit by a drunk driver who was driving on the wrong side of the road in Canada who smashed into my buddy’s SUV, causing us to roll into a gas station. On this day, a slight bend or turn, even a degree of angle while flexing a sexy pose, sent me into debilitating shock. I usually don’t feel pain when I’m being sexy, just sexiness, so it was a strange morning, nevertheless. My Tiger Balm later became my savior…at least for a couple hours.

If you pictured me in the shower, please note, Boxie-boo made me trim my nipple hair, I often lather my whole body shampoo and I had the facial expression of a grumpy child – arms crossed to try to heat myself with my lips extremely tight and closed, my tactic to avoid taking in any of the water that could cause traveler’s diarrhea or something worse. My legs constantly twitched, while my entire body vibrated, shivering uncontrollably.

Within a minute the entire bathroom was flooded since the building had poor plumbing. The water would not heat at the Garuda Hotel, bringing no relief from my pain. I toughed it out, rubbing ice cold water on my body, bending as little as possible to avoid agony, showing a complete disregard for my Mr. Chubbs, who apparently, was in the process of disappearing. Had Boxie-boo walked in during this moment, she may have asked me what my gender was. Shivering, I washed as quickly as my feeble state would allow, occasionally kicking away the garbage can that floated into my ankles, moaning from the throbbing pain, trying not to slip on the flooded floor, all the while, managing to balance without a penis.

At the airport, our bags were checked four times before boarding our plane. The airport had separate lines for men and women. For every 30-or-so men, there was one woman, which meant Boxie-boo spent a majority of the afternoon waiting for me to pass each checkpoint. This was no surprise. It was not until December 2005 that the Supreme Court of Nepal ruled that women no longer needed their parents’ or husband’s permission to apply for a passport. Although the laws had changed, the culture had not. This means that Nepali men are far more likely to travel than women. I think Boxie-boo secretly enjoyed watching the security officials pat me down. They seemed to enjoy it themselves, although, they showed little amused when I winked and never joined in my girlish giggling. I talked briefly with a young father who had a baby and told him his child was cute. Until I realized he was on the same flight as me crying. I then decided his baby was stupid.

The third time I was padded down, the security officer figured out my terrorist plot - give the pilot a Tiger Balm back massage, relax him, then take over the plane and smash it into the Taj Mahal. Wa-hahahahaha!

“No take,” he said, with a stern face, as if I had just asked to take his daughter out to dinner and he knew I had no penis and therefore could not give him any grandchildren. I used my usual handy trick and began playing the role dumb foreigner or the pathetic person from a commercial: When he was talking to me, I nodded and then thought about other stuff. Walking away, he placed his hand on my shoulder.

“No take,” he said again, confusing me this time, because he gave me a comforting smile.

It was the only medicine I needed, so I fought back. “Are you serious? Tiger Balm? My watch is more dangerous.” Again, his response was “No take.” He then placed it on the table beside him, the only item confiscated. Meanwhile, a man in front of me walked by with a metal framed umbrella, another with a wooden cane used for style, as the young man was fit and walking without putting any weight on it. When the Tiger Balm wore out mid-flight, I spent the entire ride sitting with the best posture of my life, moving on my hands and my neck only to avoid the aching agony, listening to a crying, stupid baby.

The Delhi airport was very modern, organized and easy to navigate. Custom officials were friendly and quick, although my guy held me up for a bit as he said I looked nothing like my clean shaven, short-haired and suit wearing passport photo.

“He hasn’t shaved for a while,” Boxie-boo said, the guard looking at me peculiar, as if I was wearing a dress.

“I also don’t smell as good,” I joked. He squinted, as if trying to divide pie by the square root of this-guy-is-an-idiot.

“Okay,” he responded, handing me back my passport, and with that gesture, we had entered India, our eight country to date.

My back was still sore, so we wheeled our bags on the airport carts, later greeted by a man holding a sign with my name spelt incorrectly. After stressful landings in other countries, we aimed for the rest of the trip to use guesthouses and hostels that offer airport pickup. He drove like a 16-year-old boy, swerving through traffic constantly to maybe save us a couple minutes on the drive. Like other parts of Asia, the painted lines were meaningless, people honked constantly and there were no flying pigs in sight. At red lights, beggars came up, while young kids tried to sell us giant wooden pencils. An hour later, we arrived at the Ajanta Hotel, two nights free including airport transfer, thanks to our travel agent at STA Travel.

The hum of the air-conditioner. Another small guest house room with only enough floor space for a mattress. It was the early evening after another long day traveling, so we decided to relax.

We had not only a working T.V., but one with a couple English-speaking channels, including H to the flippin’ B to the O. We were stoked, as sad as that is to admit, as we both love movies and it was nice to take a break from the chaos of the third world for a night and simply do nothing. We were in the comfort zone. We even treated ourselves to room service, including butter and tandoori chicken, with a side of rice, another of cucumber. we high-fived at all these free comforts. I had eaten so much butter chicken that halfway through, I could not remember a time when I was not eating butter chicken. I did remember to ask Boxie-boo for a tip and she told me, “Be careful when you zip.”

Nothing could ruin our spirits. We laughed when the air-conditioner - the first one we had since Thailand - conked out, leaving behind the smell of elephant farts. We laughed when the power to our lights went out mid-meal, leaving us in darkness while grabbing for our meat like cavemen. And we laughed again, this time when the power went out to our television, right at the climax of the first movie we had watched since Chengdu, China. We had been through this all before and I felt prepared, even confident that the two of us were ready to take on India.

I had organized our itinerary to build up for this country, our halfway point, as if its reputation was true, the culture shock slaps you right in the face constantly. We had already walked outside and seen the poverty, been hit with aggressive salesmen and beggars. We had been through this in other countries, from Thailand and Cambodia, to parts of China and almost every street in Nepal. In India, the heat was hotter and the population was over 1.1 Billion. As confident as I was, looking back, I realize we had no idea what we were in for.

That’s all for now.

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Last Day in Nepal with Liam

03/23/10

I love masks.

I always felt there was something in them, in the eyes and the eyeless faces, yet I could have not said what it was at those jungle shacks and makeshift shops where they were purchased from across the globe. When I look at them, I am not comforted for what I see in these masks; I find more than you would think. Each time I look at them, I feel utterly defenseless, and I feel within my heart the hollow throbbing of a muffled drum, like a backfiring car’s bass that shoots into my skin, while they look back, scowling darkly in their reply, these glances crossing like sword blades that I can feel within the marrow of my bones. Although there are no true human faces, and yes, I know there are no souls in them; it feels as though there is a person, or some other thing, scanning outwards. Smiling towards me.

During our last day in Nepal, Liam, Boxie-boo and I walked around Kathmandu, bartered at shops, including long battles between various stores, in the hopes to get a good deal on Thangka paintings and potentially another mask. Also known as scroll paintings, Thangka paintings often depict the life of Buddha, including various influential lamas and other deities, usually outlining the Wheel of Life, which is a visual representation of the Art of Enlightenment. Although Liam and I were not religious, we loved this art, the paint bright with colors and outlined in gold, which are still to this day used by traveling monks in Nepal to be used as teaching tools, rolled up in their bags as scrolls.

We all spent hours online at internet cafés researching our next destinations – Liam to bid us farewell and stay in Nepal, while Boxie-boo and I were headed off to India. My afternoon was only eventful for the bizarre site of a bag pipe band I saw outside the café’s window in Kathmandu. Strangely, though, in this band, a man carried a screaming two-year-old boy instead of bagpipes, yet the sound was the same. I took the time to think about our adventure in Nepal, from riding elephants and motorcycles, to seeing dead bodies cremated publically. Elongating with my arms out wide and swaying my hands up and down to stretch my shoulders between typed sentences, I waited for the screen to load up guesthouses options for New Delhi. I realized, suddenly, we’re probably accidentally giving ghosts’ handjobs all the time.

My messenger popped open. It was a buddy back home.

“Hey man, what are you doing?”

“I am in Kathmandu trying to figure out way to stay in India. What are you doing?”

“What? Wait a second.”

The usual questions began. Questions I would have to get used to back home in Canada. I told him that I had recently ridden an elephant that bashed a wild rhino out of a bush, saw dead bodies being casually carried by a river and rode a motorcycle through the Himalayan Mountains: And these were just the recent stories. I told him where else I had been and where I was going, outlining our itinerary without realizing he was responding sarcastically. I was trying to say all this as if it was the most normal thing in the world to be doing.

I should have tried harder.

“Sure buddy. Wanna meet up to watch the Canucks’ (hockey team) game?”

“I can’t. I’m in Nepal.”

“Cool. I’m in Nicaragua.”

“Seriously. I’m going around the world.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

At this point, I convinced him to check my Facebook to see photos of where I had been, though I had not uploaded many at this point. With the internet slowing, I knew it was time to move on.

“Namaste!” I wrote, logging off the computer and turning off the chat, but not before receiving “???????” in response. It was time for us to head back to the room to get our packing done before Liam, Boxie-boo and I met up for our last meal together.

Kathmandu really came to life in the dark, when the blackness seemed to increase the sounds, the back-firing vehicles, the constant horns and shouting salesmen, where within this noisy chaos and crowding of bicycles, cars and scooters, we dodged the rickshaws and Tiger Balm salesmen, in a darkness that encouraged yelling and the echoing of lights, spraying these images against brick walls, this dim light, where booming exhaust pipes and car stereos seized the remainder of our statements, causing us often to walk either screaming our conversation or staying in silence.

Liam was one the best friends we made on our trip. He had a great sense of humour and an eagerness to learn as much of the language and about the culture of places we visited together in Nepal and China. Sometimes, he told us hilarious stories about rednecks he had come across in his work in Alberta, Canada. He was fit and energetic, a man who overcame illness, culture shock and exhaustion without little complaints. He was a good man to travel with, though all this being said, Boxie-boo and I were ready to be alone again. Like all couples, we enjoyed our times with friends, but also, we loved spending time just the two of us.

At the top of a small building, we sat at a restaurant with no roof over our heads, silencing the city below, the stars glistening like dew drops, as if a gust of wind from the Milk Way collected all sounds. There were no clouds and a gentle breeze; Tibetan prayer flags moved erratically like a scared heartbeat; the heat still in the air.

Liam was traveling simply because he wanted to. I liked that about him. He had no real reason other than a genuine thirst for adventure. When he left Canada, he boarded a plane alone, but seemed to make friends quickly. Once we left Nepal, he continued traveling with a fellow backpacker he had previously met in China. I always enjoyed his blunt honesty, the way he never held back on how he really felt, from being one of the more motivated people to get even with China by sneaking into the Leshan Buddha, to immediately supporting the risky idea of riding motorcycles in Pokhara, all the way to Peace Padoga on his scooter up a nasty road of massive rocks and huge holes, all the while, on the edge of condemning cliffs. The three of us had enjoyed gorgeous sunsets over the Himalayan Mountains, using just our flashlights, when the power was out, to find our way up steep staircases to the roof of our guest house. He often joked about taking courses in Mandarin, only to return to China for what he called “The Revenge Tour.” We laughed, the three of us, each day and every night. Our last night together was no different.

Off to the side of the building, in the streets, one engine backfired loudly, a booming solitary note. I felt it enter my own heart through my skin, like a muffled, hollow drum.

This was when Liam revealed his present to me. A couple days earlier, I had bartered hard with a woman at a Tibetan village outside Pokhara. While Boxie-boo successfully bought many items, there was one thing I wanted that I never got down to a price I was willing to pay. Liam pulled this from his small, day backpack: A mask of Ganesha, a Hindu god that looks like an elephant. It was a welcomed surprised.

It was in every way, a beautiful a night.

There was light moving amongst the darkness, where the moonlight threw down shadows and our smiles fused with sweat. Our last dinner together was an event that occurred not fast nor slow, but in suspension, no heart beats or breathing, as if time did not pass, no beginning or end. I was simply happy to relax, having traveled hard and long distances with little rest during our short time in Nepal. This is what travel has already done for me, to give me this odd feeling of comfort: Deliriously happy, to levitate, to forget my head and listen to my heart, to be swept away, head over heels like love, this thrill ride of passion; singing, dancing, goose bumps, all these powerful emotions we forget we cannot live without, this craziness, to try for the madness, to stay open for the strike of lightning, the unknown, where it took me away, with each blink of an eye, the glances of wonderment.

Hanging on my apartment’s wall in Canada, I look at all the masks often, including Ganesha. Looking along its trunk and large ears, each time, it takes me back there, to that country hidden in valleys, hills, mountains and rivers that surround Mount Everest. I could see the landscapes we drove through, rode buses, motorcycles and elephants across; the village girl we met and the monks I played keep up soccer with; the Tibetan refugee camp; the glistening lakes and snow peaked mountains.

But in this mask, there are no backgrounds, only my apartment’s wall behind it; no image of Mr. Madman driving, no little boy holding on tight to the back of Liam’s scooter. There are no cows laying in the streets, no marijuana fields, water wells, Tibetan prayer flags, Tiger Balm salesmen or garbage-strewn streets. In them, I cannot see my arm covered in bed bug bites, my wrist gripping the throttle on an old battered motorcycle; no stray dogs or pigs or chickens by my feet. There are no rhinos hiding in the bushes, no crocodiles in the water, no monkeys hanging from telephone wires. No.

Yet, I still see beyond its face, beyond Ganesha’s trunk and ears. Every single mask I own is a collection of memories. In Ganesha, I see Liam, surprising me with this mask; hiking to the Leshan Buddha; eating chicken feet and drinking rice wine on a Chinese train. I cannot see him exactly, but he’s there. I see him in the darkness of Kathmandu, walking amongst the back-firing vehicles, horns and shouting, through the crowding of cars and noisy chaos, dodging scooters, yelling to us while we screamed back, leaned up against a brick wall in the dim light to avoid a puddle. When I look at Ganesha, I see Liam, smiling towards me.

This is an important truth of travel. Unlike the mundane predictableness of regular life, when you are immersed in the unfamiliar, caught in the glances of wonderment, your mind is so charged that it stores these memories in stronger detail than those moments we experience daily at work and in other repetitive routines. I can picture backpacking memories more vividly than my apartment, even with finer detail than the intricate details of my masks that take me away, even though I walk passed them every morning and each night.

What’s beyond them, beyond the eyes and eyeless faces, will always be more important; and in them, I see even myself, this apparition like my own shadow moving towards me from the darkness, scanning outwards as it moves into the marrow of my own bones.

That’s all for now.

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Pokhara to Kathmandu

03/22/10

“Are you a safe driver?” I asked the driver, examining his eyes. “Yes,” he nodded, then closed his eyes, giving me the same glowing smile a five-year-old gives when asked if he’s Superman. “We have precious cargo, you understand?” I asked, pointing at Boxie-boo. He looked confused, as if I had just told him I was pregnant with dinosaurs and she was the father. I asked Phil, the owner of Phil’s Guesthouse who recommended the driver, to relay my statement and remind him to be careful. This message in a bottle was lost at sea, later discovered by pirates who used it to make rum, then got drunk and sank to Davie Jones Locker. I realized this within minutes of watching our driver’s hands grip the wheel, turning him completely, and utterly, insane.

In his mind, I imagined, the driver was running from a war zone while being chased by a helicopter firing bazookas. The result: He broke late in mid-corners, the tires squealing and near locking up, sliding Boxie-boo and I together in the backseat, smashing my face into the window. He could have been a rally driver on time trials, bouncing the car over potholes, turning his suspension into mush. The taxi swayed like a boat white water rafting, knocking my head into the ceiling, causing my stomach to be pinched by the seatbelt.

“Please slow down,” I said, the first time politely.

His shifting was about as smooth as a Prairie Fire - a tequila shot topped with tobasco sauce - is on the stomach. My breakfast from Be Happy Restaurant was unhappy. The eggs had hatched in my stomach and the baby chicks were flapping their wings, flying through my bowels. I even thought I heard them chirping, until I realized it was actually the sound of us bottoming out so badly the tires were squeaking high-pitched against the car, while the metal frame scraped across the pavement.

Passing a sluggish truck, he turned us directly into oncoming traffic ever-so-slowly, before jerking back into our lane right before a head-on collision. In this moment, I knew, without a doubt that one day this driver would die behind the wheel. I did not care whether I offended him or not. I did not want to be there when it happened. I began taking backseat driver to the next level out of fear for our lives. This driving tactic continued – from speeding recklessly, to going slowly in the wrong lane, even through blind corners.

Each time I told him to slow down, it lasted five minutes tops. It was the first time in my life I was motion sick in a car without a hangover. I was going to puke and told Liam, who asked Mr. Madman to pull over. On the side of the highway, I swallowed my nausea medicine, then waited for Nepal to stop spinning around me. I was so stiff and tight from fear, I could almost hear my butthole tightening. Standing still on the side of the road, I felt the strain of my entire body, which was easy to do, since my brain and I were no longer on speaking terms. I had told myself that hiring a driver would be safer than taking public transit and not too expensive. I walked aimlessly on the side of the road, venting to Liam who tried to calm me down.

At this point, we had a solid four hours left to go before making it to Kathmandu.

“I’m gonna kill him,” I told Liam. “I am going to rip him out of the car and drive it myself. He has near sent us off the cliff a dozen times and almost caused at least five head-on collisions.”

Back on the road, our driver had calmed down for at least a few minutes. I thought he had finally come to his senses, until I realized he was not even paying attention to the road. Mr. Madman was busy searching his glove box and other holder areas, before he began throwing his cassette tapes out the window while trying to dial a number on his cellphone. Meanwhile – while skidding us into corners and constantly bottoming out, cutting off cars and coming within inches off the cliff edge – he showed us one of his favourite things to do on a long drive. He ironically liked to point at road-side wrecks, from rolled trucks, fire-burnt taxis to de-capitated buses, as if to say we should be careful. I hoped he wasn’t foreshadowing.

Take a hint you moron, I thought.

As we skidded on a late pass, cutting off a massive truck to avoid another head-on collision, while we bottomed out hard, my head slammed into the window and then the ceiling, almost simultaneously. I again asked him to slow down, this time sternly. By sternly, I mean I was screaming and cursing, while control the urge to not use the back of his seat as a punching bag.

He did slow down. I realized this was not a good thing because he lacked common sense.

The only time Mr. Madman went slowly was when he passed cars right before blind corners, then often in them, the engine bogging by his inability to drive a manual car properly. He was too stupid to down shift gears. Within a few meters of one blind corner, he bogged the engine, going 35 km/h in fourth gear. The one time we would have wanted him to go fast was while passing, but that was the one time he went slow, causing my nails to dig into the seat and every hole in my body to tighten, making me look ready to disappear into a puff of smoke.

“Please stay on our side of the road on blind corners,” I said, leaned forward between the two front seats, pointing with two open hands for extra effect. I never thought I’d have to tell someone this on a two-way highway with one lane in each direction, where there were no railings, massive steep cliffs and gravel, with only the occasional honk for our protection from certain death.

Minutes later, he swerved through a village at 90 km/h dodging children.

I. Lost. It.

Completely.

“Slow down you maniac, there’s children!” I screamed, adding in words that rhymed with duck and bucking. In response, his head shaked from side to side - the Nepalese way to say okay – while he honked at the kids. I swore I heard a rattling sound in my state of rage; his small brain bagging against his near empty skull. Had I choked him, his ears would have released a sound similar to a squeezed rubber ducky. For the rest of the drive, I took backseat driving as seriously as an erection problem, which looking back, may have possibly saved our lives. I literally would be surprised to find out that he was still alive today.

As we began to climb another steep road that would deposit us into Kathmandu Valley, we came to a grinding halt. We have found ourselves at a traffic jam outside the city that had us traveling no more than 20 km/h for well over two hours. Although tiring and time consuming, a part of me was glad.

I knew we had made it to Kathmandu when Boxie-boo spotted a bicycle covered in live chickens, dangling from their tied feet off the handlebars. I praised the gods for our survival, from Zeus to Allah, to Wayne Gretzsky and Oprah Winfrey. As he helped to lift out backpacks from the trunk, I looked down and discovered he was unable to tie shoelaces. We had put our lives in the hands of a man wearing Velcro shoes.

We grabbed a room at Hotel Garuda in the Thamel district, amid the madness of the “Seven Corners” - an area of Kathmandu for foreigners packed with restaurants, lodging, stores and Internet cafes. I talked down our room from 2500 Rupees per night to 3500 Rupees for two ($75 Canadian/US). It was not a great price, but we were too exhausted from being on edge driving for hours, from dealing with aggressive salespeople as we walked into the guest house, while at the same time, men grabbed our wrists to buy Tiger Balm and others attempted to guide us into their shops with gentle pushes.

At night, two hours later after refusing to move from the bed, we headed outside to discover a group of Nepalese blocking the entrance to our guest house. Traffic in the alley-wide street was at a standstill. Everyone was laughing. I stood above the short Nepalese men and peered out onto the street, telling Boxie-boo to stand behind me for protection. I thought this might have been a Maoist demonstration. A fight was lit up by stilled motorcycles, their headlights illuminating two larger men who had pinned down a small man, maybe 120 pounds. They pounded his ribs and face into the concrete, beside a small pile of garbage that was kicked by his flailing legs. The locals continued laughing. It was a two-on-one beat down. I was not amused.

“I’m pulling them off,” I said, moving through the crowd in a swimming motion. On my way, I saw the build of the young man, maybe in his early twenties, looking thin like a Grade 8 boy. A Good Samaritan pulled him out, dragging him against the concrete - and he ran. I followed an Internet cafe employee into his shop, who laughed out loud with each step.

“You think it’s funny?” I asked. He smiled in response. “Those guys easily outweighed that guy by 50 pounds each. I outweigh you by about 50,” I said, glaring down at him. “Would it be funny if I pounded you into the concrete?” His smile diminished. “No, it wouldn’t be,” I said.

Back in our room, I felt bad for scaring the guy. I just hate violence, especially when two people beat on the small and weak. Maybe I was still grumpy from the drive, annoyed by the salespeople, hungry, exhausted and pissed off by own exhaustion. Regardless, there was nothing funny about two men beating a small one. I will never forget the two sounds battling for control of my understanding – a crowd laughing, while one man yelped, coming up for air in agony between blows.

Maybe I would have felt different, I suppose, if the man had been wearing Velcro shoes.

That’s all for now.

Thank you for visiting Page59.com.

Motorcycle Day in Pokhara, Nepal

03/21/10

Within minutes of motorcycle riding outside the city, I felt my dream’s ambushed by reality: A beautiful girl holding on tight behind me, the road ahead stormy-eyed and circling tightly up mountains, freeing my clouded mind in this ceremony chiseling tires, ransacking the land, vibrating, fading my senses into one, the chamber of nerves electrified by the rumbling engine. As my skeleton infused with the metal frame, I felt the full sun, the engine’s eyes close blinded by fire, this torch of my joy, pulsating along the red network of each vein. The flesh of my skin wrapped the pistons in this feeling that only a motorcycle can bring; a man feeling one with a machine.

With each dip and turn, the shade spawned and disappeared, like black prowlers, darkening the corners, where within and through, the smells quickened – the grass scent spraying within the moisture, then the dry dust - as the midday sun cloaked through the wind, this stifling orchard of aroma, then, the smell of heat when the roadway straightened below the blue air, white clouds; this assault of radiant delight, as we passed grazing animals and small villages, smiling: Oil now, with my blood mixed in. It is only on a motorcycle where one moves the way the wind paints, creating landscapes with each brush, pulling the white reflection of the clouds downwards, across the black pond of concrete, this raw wound, consummating the appetite for feeling alive.

We had found exactly what we needed, the exhilaration of open roads.

Boxie-boo sat behind me with an ear-to-ear smile, her chin kissing my shoulder. She talked about the beautiful mountainside, which was cut in latches, appearing like giant steps used to hold rain water for farms. When swerving by cows and chickens, she pointed and laughed. Liam followed closely, sure to follow suit and honk while passing slow-moving vehicles. Horns were, after all, our only line of defense on roads that, at times, were so packed, we were needling slowly through bicycles, motorcycles, animals, tractors, trucks, street vendors, children playing games in the streets, buses and taxis, to name a few, all the while trying to avoid potholes that neared a foot deep. But it was the open roads between villages where we moved along the roadway that appeared like a blond pond, while the sun, like a Cyclops’ eye, flickered from the mirrors against my face.

The minute brown hairs rose on my arms and legs, navigating the slopes and changing tides, tilting with the winds, these arrows without stems, round and round and round they went by some uncontrolled storm of unheard sirens, the shock and shudder, bright as rage in the eyes and wild as waves in a glass reflection. All these feelings came from the exposed air, smashing my skin with a welcomed and soft agony, this onslaught of casual blasts of heat, then ice, the opposites, like a wrestle between angels and demons: Round and round and round they went. All sensations on a motorcycle are only consistent in their constant change.

While conquering larger hills, I was glad we had upgraded from yesterday’s 350cc to a 500cc Bajaj after I learned the brake lights had burnt out on the Yamaha. I remembered always to check the brakes, tires, lights and clutch before renting a motorcycle in a third world country, at a minimum. I also examined the tires. My headlight did not work, but I figured we would be back well before dark. The bigger engine cost me 50 Rupees more, about $0.60 Canadian/U.S., after bartering down on the price.

Outside the city, we pulled over to take a break from the ride, slowing down to a stop on rocks the size of softballs, foreshadowing our next challenging adventure. Boxie-boo examined our map and we tried to figure out which direction to head next. A young Nepalese boy pointed up a hill that looked like it could have been a former minefield, with giant holes and some rocks larger than our heads. “That is the way to the World Peace Pagoda,” he said, our destination for the ride.

The rocky path started with a gradual incline before coming sheer on the edge of a steep hill, with no railings. It was rough and intimidating, looking more like a dried creek bed than a road. Our silence was tense between the three of us, while layers of dust floated around our motorbikes. In the haze, a small red car continuously bottomed out down the pagoda pathway, adding the sound of scraping metal to our examination.

Liam smiled.

As I contemplated the scary road, a mosquito annoyingly buzzed around my head as I tried to read out foldup map. I tried to warn the bug that it was not worth it, but he was all “Screw you, white boy!” then landed on my arm. “Let’s dance,” he seemed to mimick. I had no choice. He went for the bite, I slapped him and now he’s dead. This act of savagely made me feel confident that I could do anything, but I was not so sure Boxie-boo was keen on tackling such a treacherous looking path.

“Should we give it a go?” I asked.

“May as well,” Liam said, as the young boy jumped on the back of his scooter.

I looked back at Boxie-boo and told her we did not have to go. I promised we’d go slowly, only if she was okay with the idea. She smiled and gave me two thumbs up, surprising me with her confidence.
Immediately heading up the road, the front tire bounced across rocks as I searched for the smoothest pathway.

The hillside to our left was near 90 degrees upright, sheer as a knife cut. I honked before taking each corner, hugging along the rock face away from the cliff edge, careful to turn slowly with little lean to avoid a back tire spin or a nasty slide. Keeping a slow pace, I was hard on the clutch, having to rev it up high when I had no choice but to bounce over large rocks and sea turtle-sized bumps. Within 15 minutes, my arms became stiff and tired, as if I had been lifting weights with one of my buddies back home. I had to stop to take a break, planting my feet while the bike skidded back a few feet.

I looked back at Liam who was busy testing the off-road capabilities of a 125cc scooter with a passenger. I always felt these little expeditions we did on our own traveling were the most important, and in some ways, the most exciting, and also, often very amusing.I watched Liam get stuck in one of the giant holes, at which point, the young boy jumped off the machine and began pushing Liam from behind in the lower back. I could hear his little engine screaming full throttle, while the exhaust fumes shot up and surround them both, as together, they tried to power the machine over the giant mounds of shaped dirt, spitting up dust, while the backtire whiplashed in both directions.

After 45 minutes of tight turns and steep inclines, we reached the trail to the pagoda. Exhausted, we stopped in a local village for some soda water, sitting in the shade of a road-side hut. Beside us, a local woman pumped water from the Earth, scrubbing her clothes clean while restedon roadway rocks, and out front of her, goats and other animals passed by being whipped along path by smiling villagers.

A short, five-minute hike led us to the pagoda, a large white monument overlooking the lake front City of Pokhara. The Buddhist stupa, as it is known in Nepal, was designed to provide a focus for people of all races and creeds with a goal to unite them in search of world peace. Balanced on a narrow ridge high above the Phewa Tal Lake, the large monument was constructed by Buddhist monks from the Japanese Nipponzan Myohoji organization. The shrine is a vantage point, which offers a beautiful view over the Annapurna range and the city. From the height of the stupa, we could see across the lake, all the way to our lodging at Phil’s Inn and realized how far we had come by motorcycle.

The pagoda was surrounded by grass, with prayer flags on its side. A golden statue of Buddha was centered up a white staircase, behind a sign requesting shoe removal. Boxie-boo found a spot in the shade, and although the hike was short, we followed suit as the heat and humidity and taken a toll on all of us. The three of us relaxed, munching on oranges. None of us were looking forward to the off-roading ride on the way down the mountain.

Back in this creek bed pathway, I almost immediately slammed on my brakes when a lone buffalo shot passed us with its legs kicking. The animal had apparently galloped in fear from our engines, and as it ran, it looked back quickly, nearly tripping over its own feet before pulling off towards a small home. I was afraid to pass the animal and was happy to lose sight of him as he turned a young corner, at which point, we realized a young boy was greeting him by pummeling the buffalo with rocks, while giggling at us from behind a tree. Apparently, a six-year-old boy was braver than me.

When the hill became extremely steep and rough, Boxie-boo begged me to be careful. She did this by digging her nails into my shoulder. I went as slow as possible, but not too slow, as a tire lock could have caused us to slide and lose control. The secret was to always keep moving and to allow the front tire to bounce over the rocks and not fight it. Any sharp turns or quick braking would have caused us to slide. I told her not to worry, as we turtle-paced along the rocks, reminding her to hold tight in sections where I had to commit, accelerate hard, to power over sections of large rubble. Thankfully, the Bajaj motorcycle had relatively strong brakes by cruiser standards and decent ground clearance. By the bottom, the muscles in my forearms were burning and my legs were turned brown with dust.

Back on the highway, the uneven and poorly maintained pavement felt smooth as snow, both soft and welcoming, after 45 minutes of rattling metal and tire-spitting rocks. It was glorious!

Cruising together, I realized we had become travelers hidden in a stranger’s landscape, blending in on our small machines, the locals’ most common way to travel. Many Nepalese seemed to not notice our foreign faces (though they often thought Boxie-boo was Nepalese anyways) while riding. They simply honked and stayed focused on the treacherous roadway. Unlike walking, even when riding at the pace of a crawl through pedestrians, we were no longer sale’s targets. On the motorcycle, no one begged us for money, asked us to buy their goods or offered us any services for money. It was freedom from more than the busy streets. It was freedom from being viewed as a walking ATM machine. To belong: This rare feeling we came to cherish whenever it happened on our trip around the world.

We decided to ride all day and made three more stops - a late lunch, Devi’s Falls and a Tibetan refugee village.

After paying the 20 Rupee entrance fee per person to the falls, we left fast, only staying long enough to split an orange between the three of us. This famous sight for us was about as exciting as watching a toilet flush. By Canadian standards, Devi’s Falls was an average-sized creek. It was beautiful, but tiny, only a meter or two tall and a couple feet wide.

After lunch, we rode back up the mountain highway with no destination in mind, the best kind of riding, simply keen to flow smoothly through the hills, refreshing our heated bodies in the wind. Every corner was a new viewpoint and we stopped occasionally for photographs. We met friendly locals at some stops, including a pretty young girl, maybe seven, dressed in a traditional white garment covered in blue flowers. Liam gave her an orange and she ran away excited to gather her friends, as if she had spotted Big Foot. Within minutes, we were celebrities, surrounded by young kids who, being many miles outside Pokhara, may have never had foreign visitors to their village before. We had to leave, unfortunately, as the sun began to move behind the mountains and my bike did not have a working headlight and had to be returned by 6 p.m. With one last stop, we braved a visit to the aggression sales town of the Tibetan refugee village.

The Tibetan community looked like a long motel room, covered in Tibetan prayer flags. We were the only tourists in sight, and as a result, we were offered cultural items from all directions. I felt like a male supermodel that had just walked into an all girls’ boarding school. The saleswomen’s’ voices surrounded all of us, making them all in comprehensible and simply one sound of female yelping.

Trying to be fair, we searched each stand individually, comparing prices and items, all the while being watched by a group of 20-plus eager saleswomen, who instead of taking turns, started by yelling at us all at the same time. We walked quietly at first, feeling nervous by so much attention, before becoming aggressive with bartering, raising our voices with theirs. In the end, the three of us all bought a couple gifts for some homies back in Canada. Many unsuccessful women yelled angrily, making it perfectly clear that they were upset we only bought from certain stands. They screamed sentences like “No fair!,” “What about me?”, “I sell nothing today!,” trying to guilt trip us into more sales. If you believe everything they say, salespeople in Nepal would lead you to believe they spend all day, every day, simply selling nothing. Yet for some reason, they never give up.

Boxie-boo loves to shop so she stayed a bit longer, armed with 100 Rupees, while I sneaked away to play keep-up soccer with Tibetan monks. Liam left to grab a cool drink at a small restaurant, or maybe he was playing hide-and-seek by himself. I’ll never know for certain. What I do know is this: The boys had lost patient shopping within 15 minutes, yet Boxie-boo persevered, ready to barter down to get everything she wanted.

The rain kicked in suddenly and we rode into town to discover Pokhara was again in darkness, the same as every night for most hours, without power. Drenched in sweat and feverish from the heat, I had dampened my shorts and t-shirt in the sink in order to cool myself to be able to somewhat sleep. This time around, the electricity came on at about 1 a.m., waking me up mid-sweat by powering the light switches we had tried to turn on hours earlier. And in this moment, something glorious happened: The ceiling fan began to spin, refreshing the humid room with cool air.

“It feels like I am having my first Slurpee,” Boxie-boo said, while I continually whispered “Yes!” with my hands towards the fan. The air whirl pooled across our bodies laid on top of the blankets, bringing me peace momentarily. Then things changed. Instantly. The light illuminated cockroaches on the wall, changing Boxie-boo’s focus and sending me to work. I unstuck my sweaty back from the sheets to chase bugs and throw them out the window (I hate needlessly killing them), sure to search every nook and cranny while the bosswoman criticized my routine.

An hour later, my sleep was interrupted by the sound of an engine cutting, the power diminishing, slowing the ceiling fan to a stop. Instead of crying, I could not help but laugh. At least even if the insects returned, there would have been no way to see them, and thus, no reason for Boxie-boo to panic. It was time for sweet dreams, the group of us: Boxie-boo, the cockroaches and myself.

That’s all for now.

Thank you for visiting Page59.com.

Riding and Wrestling in Nepal

03/20/10

It was amazing how staying in hostels and backpacking around the world really brought about a sense of celebration in us. When we discovered a bed that wasn’t rock hard, an authentic meal we enjoyed, a working shower, proper electricity, clean laundry, warm water, Western-style toilet paper, a stink-free bus, a scheduled event or departure being on time, a quiet street without people pestering us – all of these events, which were so insignificant back home, were to be celebrated. This day was no different.

Boxie-boo started the morning by giving me the play-by-play details of her morning dump. How romantic. The details were as beautiful as the overly mothering dogs we’d seen walking down the streets of Nepal with eight stretchy nipples dragging along the road. Boxie-boo had not pooped for four days, a strange problem with constipation, as most travelers have the opposite challenge - the runs. While finally relieving herself, she was so excited she giggled on the toilet while singing “Sweet Home Alabama.” I helped by Lamaze-class breathing through the door. When she left the room, we gave each other glorious hugs and high-fives, before I followed her lead in doing her happy Hawaiian dance.

In Hawaii, to hula means “to dance” and is a tradition that started from various myths. My favourite is the story of the goddess of fire, Pele, who told her little sister, Laka, to entertain her. She did this by imitating nature through body movements. This myth included honoring the god of the sea, Kuula, by swaying side-to-side to the rhythm of the ocean. This was the focus point of Boxie-boo’s happy dance, but she added her own flavor. She would snap her neck in the opposite direction of her retorting hips, then motion downwards with her hands out to her sides, ending the move by moving her hands up and down, looking like the breaking of ocean waves. While Laka did this to honor various gods, Boxie-boo did this to honor her bowels.

We had three goals for the day - Boxie-boo take a dump (success due to some natural herbs we got from a local pharmacist), buy wrestling tickets and rent a motorcycle.

The Ribatron-don loves motorcycles.

Renting one was easy. It involved only one step - paying 350 Rupees. No license proof was needed. No questions were asked. I could have been drunk.

Our bike was an old Yamaha 350cc, with about as much horsepower as a sewing machine. Back home in Canada, I ride a race-track-ready Kawasaki (aka. Kawasloppy, nimble-Japanese death trap, crotch rocket, high-revving rice burner, etc.). My motorcycle can reach 120 km/h in first gear within a couple seconds. The transition to this Yamaha was troublesome.

I had to get used to my feet positioned forward, reaching upwards for monkey handle bars, brakes that had to be wrenched on to work and a throttle that often needed to be fully open to climb small hills. Liam did not ride motorcycles back home, so he was smart, and jumped on a 125cc scooter that did not require shifting gears. His engine was so loose it sounded like it was ringing bells. My engine could have been sewing pajamas.

Although I had been riding motorcycles for years, I was about as prepared for this ride as an elephant is for scuba diving: I had to watch out for chickens shooting onto the street, open gouges in the concrete, vehicles passing in oncoming traffic, driving on the opposite side of the road, while scanning the browned roadway through the occasional rise of small dust clouds. We trampled across the thirsty earth, along sweeping rock-strewn terrain, dodging cow shit, cars passing in our lane on blind corners and cows, of course, which always seemed to think the middle of the road was a great place for an afternoon nap, on the burning hot concrete, surrounded by diesel smoke, jagged pot holes and high-speed two-wheelers dodging their tails. However, did prepare ourselves with all the sensible precautions: Our mini first aid kit, a backpack full of water, oranges, and of course, cherry blaster candies and the necessity to have Boxie-boo’s moisturizer with us. I was sure to ride as safe as possible, which wasn’t easy on roadways without lines, without rules and without common sense.

Following the waiter’s hand-drawn direction, we scanned for the flourishing white and red karate outfits of wrestlers, which materialized from the dust and honk-filled, monotonous tawny terrain that is Pokhara with a line of hundreds of crammed-tight, parked motorcycles. We had found the wrestling event in the middle of an outdoor soccer field. I pulled off the road slowly, possibly too slowly, as I received about 15 honks, before slowing to a stop to keep my tires from locking up and skidding in the gravel. My successful parking job was rewarded with the inhale of dust that circled us and fresh scent of cow shit, split open and freshened up by my kickstand. In the bike’s mirror I discovered my raccoon eyes created from the dust my sunglasses blocked, and smiled, revealing my gums and teeth browned from the grimy wind.

For the up close bleacher seats near the ring, tickets cost 1,000 Rupees ($10 Canadian/US) per person. Boxie-boo was about as excited for this event as she was after the words “transmission” and “engine” were used mid-conversation. With our tickets purchased, I pulled her hand and ran towards the stadium, displaying my poo-colored smile to all the locals. Running with us was Liam, who looked like he’d seen a dirty magazine for the first time - excited, dizzy and slightly aroused - as we neared the ring. Once seated, I knew the steaming hot weather and relentless humidity had taken a toll on us. We cracked open our water and waited. Directly under the beaming sun without any shade. And without any cold beers, which should be a staple at any fake wrestling event.

And waited.

We arrived at noon to secure good seats. The first fight was supposed to start at 1 p.m., but started at 2:30 p.m., on schedule for Nepal time. The arid dust circled the ring, leaving the wrestler’s to fight in what appeared to be grey smoke. While waiting, Boxie-boo shrugged her shoulders with the grace of a drunken pig, possibly contemplating my murder. Somewhere, a train or a massive semi-truck continuously honked, doing a good job of letting us know they were a solid five miles away. Boxie-boo had no idea how much I enjoyed sweating for two-and-a-half hours only to see a slightly overweight man in spandex enter the ring. My knees chattered together, before they bongo banged against the wooden flooring. I was clearly the most excited: Clearly.

When the local hero entered the ring - the infamous Himalayan Tiger, a chubby man with zero muscle definition and long hair - the children behind us mother-hen clucked, digging their knees into Boxie-boo’s back. She began to reach the beginning point of rage, then the middle point of rage, when I turned around and cheered with them. It was at this point, she made me aware of the knee bashing.

“Get them stop!” she asked me in a tone that was moreso a demand.

Not knowing what to do, I politely mimicked for their knees to move back. They nodded. Then I nodded. Then we both compared our guns. Feeling I had done a good job, I smiled at Boxie-boo, who only witnessed me flexing my guns. She then reached the full point of her rage by simply looking at me, a glare that could cause a grown man’s testicles to re-enter his stomach. I knew I was in trouble and I could not talk my way out of this way, so I instead choose to shrug my shoulders.

In front of us, the police and military were armed with sticks, riot shields and helmets, with enough body armor to play hockey. They positioned themselves between the ring and the fans, watching the crowd fiercely before relaxing to watch the fights. I asked a man beside why they were here.

“In Kathmandu, when the Tiger lost once, a riot started and everyone threw rocks at the ring,” a local beside me explained. I later confirmed this on the website of a Nepali newspaper.

“Is this safe?” I asked, looking like a whimpering puppy. His response was a sadistic smile, as if he was sizing my skin up for a new suit. He then looked away, rubbing his beard bristles in a pondering motion. At this point, I told Boxie-boo we would leave ahead of the crowds.

For Liam and I, there would two words to describe the matches - pure entertainment. We spent the afternoon hysterically laughing, making friends and imitating the wrestlers, while commenting, the whole time, on each detail: The silly faces, the missed punches, the distracted referees. While we had a blast, Boxie-boo did not share our enthusiasm. Her face had the expression of a Grade 7 student who had just been assigned a 2,000-word essay on the history of calculators.

When the main event began, the chubby Himalayan Tiger and a jacked American, likely sponsored by steroids, taunted each other verbally in the ring. This was one of the most important battles. It was to be one round, winner take the belt, loser to be shamed forever kind of match. The local favourite was to defend his belt against the nasty villain, who fired up the crowd by calling Nepali men “small and weak.”

It was, in every way, a hilarious fight. Each wrestler reversed each other’s holds, threw aimless haymakers; fake pummeled each other and did very non-athletic jumps from the top rope, dropping missed elbows. Each time they went to the top rope, I was glad I was over my Nepalese diarrhea as my excitement would have caused me to poop myself. Their facial expressions – a mix of constipation and shock, as if someone scared them in the bathroom – were so hilarious, it left the crowd howling and my stomach burning.

The American was constantly booed and cursed. He was, however, prepared to cheat his way to getting the title from the Tiger. Just when it looked like the hero was going to prevail, the referee got knocked down by another wrestler and acted unconscious. Thankfully, a new referee appeared out of nowhere – another Nepali fighter in a different weight class – who came in just in time, to save the day. The hero prevailed and the crowd went wild, jumping and dancing in the stands, screaming and cursing the American.

“Yay,” Boxie-boo said, with the excitement women have for their menstruation. “Can we go now?” she asked, while Liam and I high-fived.

After the Tiger destroyed the American wrestler, we left ahead of the crowd, while after fights broke out between all the wrestlers who were in support of either the villain or the protagonist, packing the ring with spandex. As the fights continued and more matches were scheduled, we figured it is better to be safe than sorry in case the belt was lost and another riot arose. Plus, Boxie-boo was ready to attack the kids behind her and likely would have if we stayed. She could no longer stand them hanging over her shoulders screaming towards the ring and digging their knees in her back, leaning forward, to get a closer view of the fights. Knowing she was pissed, I control my urge to flex with them one last time and simply waved.

Outside of the stadium’s fence, Liam helped me move a few bikes that had boxed my Yamaha in. We capped off our early evening with a lakeside ride, watching the sun disappear behind the Himalayan Mountains. We found a road away from all the stores, all the restaurants, all the people who wanted to sell us souvenirs and tours, before coming home to our boiling hot hostel without electricity, and thus no fan, no relief from the heat. We knew we needed another day with a motorcycle, to feel the cool breezes against our skin, to relax away from all the chaos and harassment of being a foreigner in a third world country, to feel open and unbound, to soak up the wonderful silence of the far-reaching hills, the air sweeping up from green valleys and down from snow-peaked mountains, to explore freely, these gorgeous mountainside roads of Nepal. To celebrate the simple comforts - this was a necessity.

That’s all for now.

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Pokhara, Nepal

03/19/10

Liam, Boxie-boo and I sat on the shaded patio of Chilly Bar restaurant facing the main street that curved lakeside in Pokhara. A public transit bus passed over packed, causing young boys to hang out the open door, while the driver swerved away from a cow who decided the middle of the road was a great place to sleep. A backpacker woman with a shaved head, dressed in all white, pulled up on a one-speed bicycle with a pink basket strapped over the back tire. Inside the basket was a small kitten that meowed as she walked into the restaurant. Beyond her, garbage covered the alleyway, while we enjoyed our soda water, content to people watch and relax after yesterday’s long day of safari and travel. Little did Boxie-boo know that our people watching would be something she’d soon regret. Her boyfriend would come to see too much and come up with a brilliant (albeit, insane) game plan.

Sitting beside me, Boxie-boo wore a beautiful long, red and white dressed covered in flowers and elephants, which she had bought in Thailand. This was the “wrong dress” she felt I had forced her to buy by rushing her. I thought it looked great. While I continued scanning the streets - spotting young men wearing t-shirts with professional wrestlers on them - she leaned across my lap and examined my bed bug bite trail, which had extended from my left hand, up my arm to my shoulder. She was always keeping an eye on them to ensure it was not a spreading rash that required a doctor’s opinion. Although it was terribly itchy, I paid them little attention. I was focused on the bizarre sight of professional wrestling fans I continued to spot in Nepal.

Minus the incredibly poor service, we liked Chilly’s, but the 20 minute wait for a drink, added to the waiter pushing Boxie-boo’s feet aside so he could stand closer to the table, meant it was our last meal there. We had grown fond of two Nepal meals, dal bhat and mo-mos, and ate them both twice on this day. On this patio, we ate vegetarian mo-mos. They tasted like samosas wrapped in dumplings, which we dipped in a curry-like sauce. It was half-Indian half-Chinese in flavor, which maade sense when I considered the location of Nepal, smack in the middle of the world’s two biggest populations.

Our meal was interrupted when a large truck covered in billboards drove by, blaring information from outward mounted speakers, old and bizarre in shape, looking like the ends of large trombones. As the vehicle neared, I noticed the small truck was wallpapered with posters of professional wrestlers. Young boys cheered, chasing the vehicle, while a date noted an event began the next day.

I suddenly had a crazy idea, but immediately discarded it. No way! This is insane!

I then thought about it again two seconds later.

Liam knew what I was thinking. Liam and I knew what we needed to do. We walked over and spoke to our waiter. It turned out, he was able to provide directions on where to buy tickets. We returned to the table and I tried my best to hide my excitement, failing miserably, I also may have yelled “Do you Smelllllllll what the Rock is cookin’!” on the way back to my seat.

“Babe..” I paused, making sure she was looking me in the eyes, “…I got us directions for the wrestling show.” I proudly showed her the waiter’s hand-drawn map.

“Sounds awesome,” she replied, rather more boringly than I thought she intended, so I indulged in her gusto. I pointed at the truck, now parked across the street in front of a group of flexing children. Then smiled at her. She did not smile back. I then realized that, perhaps, a young woman may not share a childish man’s enthusiasm for fake wrestling.

I scanned her brown eyes, searching for clues for how she really felt.

“Do you really think it will be awesome?” I asked, my eyes pleading.

“No,” she answered, with the monotone pitch of a hospital flat line. Okay, it was actually at this point I realized she was previously being sarcastic.

“I thought you loved fake wrestling,” I responded, thinking back to amateur shows we had been to back home. But then I remembered we were drunk at those events. She may have been too sober for this conversation. She gave me another blank and strong no, as if she was able to answer without really contemplating the question. This was one of those situations where a well-timed joke would have been perfect, but I had none ready. I then asked her if she wanted a drink.

She shook her head. Another no.

Okay, maybe it was at this point I finally, 100 per cent, understood that she was being sarcastic. I must say though, it was specifically because Boxie-boo hated fake wrestling that I had forgotten she hated it. Since she does not like to wear Hulk Hogan t-shirts or rock spandex outfits with capes, combined with the fact that we never fake wrestled together, and, we never watched it on TV. Therefore, essentially, the topic of her hating fake wrestling was not something we spoke about. In summary, my forgetfulness was caused by her.

“How could you forget?” she responded. Sometimes women lack rational thought. She looked annoyed, but agreed she would attend, noting I would owe her something. I agreed. I immediately was overcome with excitement, again, while Boxie-boo appeared to be contemplating her suicide, at which point, Liam showed me his awesome impersonation of the Macho Man.

As I wondered about fake wrestling’s popularity in Nepal, I was hit with the same confusion I would feel if someone bought me a breast pump for Christmas. Across the street, I watched the young boys as they began to wrestle each other. In their flexed positions, teeth growling outwards, for some reasons, the sight of these young wrestling fans hit me harder than King Kong’s head butt. I could not believe in a city in the Himalayan Mountains I would be watching a fake wrestling show. Nepal. Fake wrestling. The two together made as much sense has having a free speech convention in China. For the first time in a long time, I wanted to rip off my tank like Hulk Hogan and scream, “It’s on, brotha!”, but I was on a tight budget, so ripping it would have been a bad idea when I only owned two.

Sorry Boxie-boo, but it we were to set to watch Nepal’s version of the Macho Man, the Undertaker and Ray Mysterio.

That’s all for now.

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Chitwan to Pokhara, Nepal

03/18/10

“I’m glad I wore pants,” Boxie-boo said as our elephant bashed through the forest. Branches and leaves continuously brushed against our faces, shoulders and legs. We were sitting on an elephant’s back in a small box with two tourists from Holland, each person facing off a different corner, held in position with a piece of wood between our legs; our backs banging each other as the elephant thudded and swayed through the jungle. Boxie-boo and I were at the front, aligned with each shoulder of the trainer, his legs spread wide against the elephant’s neck, while we sat with our legs dangling against the massive shoulders.

When the bushes thickened our elephant did not mind. She simply smashed his way over them, through them, hiding us from the sunlight, away from the traffic and villages, from all civilization, from the sound of trucks backfiring against the morning howls of roosters and barking dogs. I could feel the roped on box gripping the elephant’s back, hear the vegetation snapping, feel the whirling chaos of spider webs incessantly brushing across our faces, the forbidden sensation of owning the jungle, of fearing nothing. All animals, for us, were small and scrawny in comparison to the beast we rode. Even tall trees, leaned against the elephant’s shoulders, were unworthy to stop us, simply pushed aside, whacking their branches against our legs and shoulders, while we paused, stopped silently in massive bushes, we moved aside the twigs and leaves to scan the world below.

“Welcome to the jungle,” I said in my best Axel Rose (lead singer of Guns N’ Roses) voice. Nobody understood why voice was suddenly high-pitched and heavy metal screaming. I choose to instantly stop talking.

Without warning, our trainer leaved the thin paths, slamming our elephant directly in an area of packed bushes. “Rhino,” he said, almost too nonchalantly, looking back at us. I responded by giving him the quizzical expression of a concerned dog. When he looked forward, I decided that what was about to happen needed preparation. I quickly put my hand in my pants to re-arrange the horrid wedgie I had developed from my crotch relentlessly slamming into the wooden post. Thankfully, my moan of relief was barely audible under the sound of the thrashing and trampling of plants. The trainer pointed towards a thick bush, about the size of city bus. I looked at Boxie-boo. She looked back at me. I instantly shared her prevailing and insightful appreciation for wearing pants. Although, it may not have been a smart move to take off my sweater. Hopefully the women on tour presumed they were the result of me being a great lover, not an obsession with giving cats piggyback rides.

Instead of moving around this colossal barricade of leaves and branches, he had our elephant ram through the bushes like a bulldozer. Through the incoming slash and whipping of wood, I spotted two rhinos hidden amongst the shrubs. My hat was closed lined by branches off my head, which I luckily caught quickly, as we crashed through the wall of heavy hedging. I tried to take a photo, but the driver told me to wait. He had a plan. Albeit, a plan I would have never thought of myself even though it was so simple. Instead of moving our elephant in a good position to photograph the rhinos, he used our elephant to crash into the rhinos from behind, then forcibly push them into an opening between the trees. Once head-butted by our elephant into the clearing, he called to the other drivers with a whistle. Within a minute, the two rhinos were surrounded by giant elephants and camera-happy tourists.

In this moment, the air was so still, I felt as if I could not exist within it. I felt my eyes swallow up every sight. I could still feel the tremor of whipped branches, leaves dragging against my skin. Beyond the rhinos were the remains of the great push, the rubble, the leftover debris from a collapsed wall of vegetation. Without control, my eyebrows were raised and my tongue pressed against my teeth. There were no more sounds of movement; the light of the sun now twitching through the canopy. There we were, within a couple feet of two rhinos, of one the most dangerous animals in the world, looking down at them from an elephant’s back. In my neck I felt my pulse now, throbbing, my voice slurring in and out of breath, and behind us, where we had been, a new opening allowed a low breeze to swing, shooting up leaves below us on the trail. With the chaos turned almost instantly into an overpowering silence, the new setting hit hard like an incoming fever, the nerves of my skin quivering. I could have been the montage of someone else’s dream.

In 2005 in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, I rode an elephant in the peak forests, possibly entering Burma. This experience was completely different. I had never seen an elephant used to bash down plants and move large and extremely dangerous animals out of a bush. On our safari a day earlier, we were able to get within 20 metres at best of some rhinos, but the dense forest made them barely visible and impossible to photograph well. On the elephants, we were within reach of touching rhinos, looking down at them casually, protected by our elephant’s giant frames and enormous feet.

The advantage of riding an elephant continued throughout the day. Animals seemed less likely to run away, in comparison to the sound of heading out on safari with the sound of truck tires spitting up rocks and engines roaring between gears. We were able to get close to many wild boars, various types of deer, fox and other small animals like rabbits. Unlike a truck, not only was the elephant quiet, it was able to cross rivers and enter areas without roads. It was, however, not without its challenges.

Riding an elephant was exhausting. It felt like sitting on an exaggerated horse, swaying a foot or two within our box seat with each giant step. The giant feet caused branches and even small bushes to break into small pieces, allowing the ride, although swaying, to feel relatively stable. Its massive movements were surprisingly quiet, almost gentle. Our elephant occasionally stopped to eat the vegetation, frustrating our driver, who used a bamboo stick to bash her in the head, making us feel sorry for the animal. Thankfully, he never used his metal, fire-poker-like stick, but other drivers did. One elephant’s ear was bleeding, which caused Boxie-boo to get a little sad. It was tough to see an animal’s head banged with a metal pole.

On the positive side, our driver was a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, content to point at various animals. At times, he pointed his elephant towards bushes to feed and gave the animal opportunity to rest. In total, we spent two hours on the elephant’s back, before dismounting on a wooden staircase.

Back at the Rainbow Safari Resort - again, ‘resort’ used very lightly as it rarely had electricity, dripping cold showerheads and gave me bedbugs - we packed our bags quickly after having scrambled eggs for breakfast. We left for another horrifying ride from Chitwan to Pokhara, a small, lakeside town in the Himalayas. It was a long drive along a similar highway from Kathmandu to Chitwan, often unpaved without railings alongside a steep cliffs and deadly descents.

We arrived in Pokhara and got a room at Phil’s Inn, a quaint lakefront guesthouse with a beautiful room by budget standards. This town reminded me of places in Thailand - a complete tourist trap - with multiple clothing, camera and backpacking equipment stores. There were internet cafes on almost every street and restaurants with local and western cuisine.

After a long day of riding elephants and swerving along one of Nepal’s dangerous highways for five hours, we ended our night on the roof of our guest house enjoying some local rum and cola. Looking off towards the lake, the distant mountains in the backdrop, we watched the sun slowly melt into the water; the light almost replacing itself almost too perfectly by the moon and enough stars to see all the constellations. It was a calm night, with few sounds and we listened closely to the hum of generators along the water’s edge, attempting to charge the city with power. We recharged with the city and relaxed, talking about the day and about how surprised we were to see so many kids wearing fake wrestling t-shirts. At 10 p.m., our room had power briefly, allowing us to shower with minimal light, while the leaky toilet damped the floor.

It was a relaxing night, one to be remembered, even though nothing happened beyond stars and conversations with us and Liam. I decided that this is what traveling should be all about: Cold drinks. Riding elephants. Sitting on roof tops talking about fake wrestling. But this was also because I was a little bit drunk.

That’s all for now.

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Chitwan Safari, Nepal

03/17/10

I was almost positive that angrily staring at my arm covered in bed bug bites wouldn’t fix them, but I decided it was worth giving a try. As I furiously examined my body at breakfast, a German tourist gave me advice in broken English about my bites. I had no idea what he was saying. I tried to look impressed by his information, but I could tell it was not working. He may have been telling me how disgusting my armed looked, so giving him an impressed look may not have helped. I instead replied what I always do when I fail to understand someone for a third time: “Totally man!” I said, thinking the conversation was over.

“I used to have some great cream for that,” added a woman with a Dutch accent. I was going to say the same thing, but with more passion, to really rub it in how a magic cream used to be available. Then I remembered, I had packed my go-to hydrocortisone cream and polished my bites down before we headed out on the water.

Our long safari day started out in a small canoe, dug out of one whole tree, which was pushed down the two-foot deep river by a large bamboo stick. The water was calm and quiet. Small birds walked along the shoreline while locals washed their clothes in the murky water, showing no fear for the fact that crocodiles hunted in this river. Our group of five sat on small wooden chairs, sitting on the flattened bottom of the boat. It felt like floating in a giant bathtub with strangers without the awkwardness that can be caused by bubbles.

“We have two guides, one in the back and one in the front,” Kumar said, as we floated slowly, deeper into Chitwan Park. “One guide is for fighting the animals, while the other take you away,” he joked. He then told us that tigers are afraid of his hand-carved stick. He had no gun. Not even a knife. Our best bet would be to reason with the tiger. Come on now, tiger, let’s talk first, I joked in my mind, then laughed by myself. Kumar thought I was laughing at his joke. This made me laugh even more. The result was him looking at me for the rest of the day each time he attempted a funny. I knew I had to laugh at everything he thought was funny, even making the mistake at laughing at the wrong time, which seconds later, I realized he was not trying to make a joke.

The water became shallower, scraping our canoe along the river bottom and we occasionally got stuck. The morning sun reflected against the water as green vegetation and white bubbles floated by. As I reached for the plants, I examined my left hand covered in bumps. These continued up my arm. I suddenly realized only this section of my body was infected. I had slept with my left arm out of my sleeper bag, rested under my pillow. I was excited by newfound revelation.

“Pillow!” I exclaimed to Boxie-boo, pointing at my arm, thinking this would disclose what I was thinking about. She looked at me, peculiarly, while I slapped away some insects on my shoulders that I’m quite sure she could not see. Sometimes, she did not understand me the way you do, dear reader. Thankfully, Kumar began yelling about an important sight, distracting her from my apparent stupidity. I took the cue and laughed. He did too.

Pointing to holes that appeared drilled along the mudslide bank of the river, Kumar explained that sparrows dug these holes, which were up to one-and-a-half meters long, to protect themselves against the rat snake. Kumar looked at me, then smiled, seemingly to cue me to laugh. So I did. This was the first time my realization happened. His smiled was replaced by a confused look. Near their nest holes, hundreds of sparrows circled the air, their wings reflected in the sunlight, hundreds of them, moving like leaves brushed upwards by a burst of wind. When the monsoon begins and the river expands, the little, creek-wide river we floated on will flood the surrounding plains and the sparrows’ homes will be destroyed.

Further down the river, Kumar spotted two crocodiles. “We must always keep a few meters back and presume they will attack,” he said. One sat flattened, completely motionless in the rocks. The other floated amongst the green foliage, waiting for prey. There are few personalities in the animal kingdom and none with crocodiles. They are purely cold hearted killers.

“Anyone want to go for a private moment?” Kumar asked, as we began our safari walk a few meters away from the crocodiles. I laughed, genuinely, at the thought of what he asking. I was confident that nobody would relieve themselves here and even if they wanted to, I’m sure they would have felt more pissing their pants than near the river, especially for a squatting female, here in the jungle, surrounded by tall grasses that wild tigers can easily hide in. That would be a tough letter to write home: I’m sorry to tell you this, but your daughter was pissing in a bush looking at some crocodiles, when a tiger…

Walking through tall grasses, Kumar warned Liam about his bright red shirt. “Rhinos are attracted to bright colours and they are dangerous,” he said. Liam put on his grey jacked, covering the t-shirt. This might have be something Kumar should have told us before getting into a canoe headed towards the middle of the jungle without any weapons to protect ourselves. It was a good thing I didn’t dye my hair purple the night earlier. Kumar told us to stay close and be quiet, as we walked along the footprints of rhinos.

“Maybe you should take off your sweater,” I said to Boxie-boo, who was wearing an orange and green hoodie. She obliged.

“The socks too.”

“Why?”

“The smell will attract them as well.”

“Very funny,” she replied, sarcastically.

“Thank you,” I added proudly, then smiled at Kumar, hoping to cue his laughter. If only he would have returned the favor.

She placed her bright sweater in her backpack, as Kumar pointed at tiger droppings. We knew to take everything he said seriously. Had he told me to poop my pants for protection, I might have done it. The reason: We were walking along a path surrounded by giant elephant grass, a place where predators could easily hide unseen. The sound through the grass was of rain, the constant hum of dry leaves brushing. In my imagination, each sound could have easily been that of a crawling tiger, hiding in the brush in preparation for an attack. I did the only thing that made sense. I pulled a snack bar from the backpack we had bought in Kathmandu. I would have never known if the bar would have given me super powers to protect us unless I ate it.

Once passed the open field, we turned towards the jungle, walking under the dark-green canopy of trees. Sections of the ground were black. Locals burned the grass so new grass will grow, Kumar explained, which is better for the animals. Our feet continuously crunched on fallen leaves, shaded brown and orange, covering the jungle floor and all I could do was concentrate on whether I was also hearing the footsteps of predators. Had my life flashed before my eyes, I may have only relived a dream for a burrito-flavored type of booze. Hearing a louder sound, one of movement, I felt my butthole tighten and my sperm screaming. I armed myself with a rock from the ground and prepared for battle. It was time to test out my snack bar.

A rustle in the bush like a fox.

All our eyes scanned the shrubberies. I did not mean to be a party pooper, but I felt I might need to leave our safari party to relieve myself. Then we spotted the horrifying, 20-pound beast. It was exciting, even though small, and made me realize how much of an adventure our safari in Africa would soon be.

A jackal crunched down about 10 meters away, before shooting through the foliage, looking like a burst of grey light. Other animals began to appear, more birds, a small lizard, a group of humans, the craziest of all, who reacted by aimlessly firing off their cameras and singing high-pitched notes, as if this would attract the small predator to come closer to us for a photograph. Further down, an owl sat in a hollow, watching us as we neared a jungle village where locals breed elephants. I swear he whispered, “Your book will be awesome.” It was great to meet a fan.

Inside the breeding facility’s information center, a photo showed an elephant surrounded by fire. The caption read, “Trainee calf accustomed with fire.” This facility trained calves so they are able to work. With fire. Something was not right here. Usually at tourist centers, companies will stretch the truth on how animals are trained to ensure foreigners at not offended. But not in Chitwan.

The life each one of these elephants live is tough. Between two and four years of age, they are taken from their mothers and kept in isolation for a few days with “restricted food and water”. The calf is then tied up with cotton ropes on a “Khamari,” or wooden post. Both front legs and the neck are tied to the post with chains to protect the trainer, the information board explained.
During the day, the cotton rope is put on the neck and two long ropes are extended laterally, pulled by already trained adult elephants. The calf is then moved around an open meadow, learning to turn, go forward, sit down and get up by vocal commands.

In the evening, flames are shown close to the calf, which is followed by a massage with the fire to de-sensitize the skin. I repeat, a “massage with fire.” The calf may be slightly injured during the training as the animal “vigorously reacts to the training process,” the sign stated.

After this so-called “mild training” is completed, the calf is taken to villages and highways to make them familiar with the noises of automobiles and of other domesticated animals, like dogs. The training lasts 20-30 days. Once trained, the trainers perform a ritual of worshipping the god and goddesses (Puja), with sacrifices of goat, chicken and pigeon, another signed explained.

Outside of the information room, calves were chained to post near their parents, which our second guide, Posha, claimed to know them both quite well. A few months earlier, two twins here were celebrating their first birthday party with fire and dancing.

“They are chained because they are naughty,” Posha said. Confusion instantly took Boxie-boo’s face hostage.

“What makes …” I paused, almost questioning whether this question even made sense. I continued, “an elephant naughty?” I felt very strange asking this, especially when he paused long enough for me to think about what I had said. I felt it was important to try out my inquiry, leaving me to feel clever and ashamed, the way a teenager would feel using a fake prescription note from his doctor to buy a dirty magazine.

“They will chase you and grab your camera and break it,” he answered in a matter-of-fact voice. That is naughty.

It was time to move on.

We followed our guides along a low-level bridge across a river; the bridge leaned with each step. We walked along bags of sand rested on two bamboo logs. Buffalo crossed the water in front of us, led by farmers, while I held my camera above my head in case I fell in. Behind the animals, village women bathed in public groups. I looked away, to show respect (they were clothed), took no photo and carefully placed my feet on the sand bags.

Watching our heads, we boarded the back of a truck under the roll bar and went slowly through small villages. Elephants, horse-drawn carriages and naked village children moved along the truck. Our driver at times slowed down, to wave hello to his friends. I thought back about the poor elephants training, but then saw how fun it looked to ride an elephant, which we were set to do the next day, already paid for. I weighed everything in my head – the fire, the rope pulled training, etc. – and shamefully, I decided I did not really mind.

We stopped farther up the river where large elephants were bathing with local men doing tricks on their backs, like front flips into the water, before pulling themselves up by the elephant’s ears and climbing back along the strong trunks. The elephants gathered water with their trunks and sprayed it across their backs, following the trainer’s instructions. Having this bath with an elephant was selling for 100 Rupees (less than $1.50 Canadian/US). Sections of the water were shallow and some tourists fell off. I decided not to risk it. They say (not sure who ‘they’ are, give me a break) elephants remember everything and after reading of their training, I felt they could turn violent, rather rightfully, at any time.

Near Boxie-boo, a local woman with rope wrapped around her forehead walked forward, which was used to hold a basket against her back while she fed the animals bananas. The massive elephants came up to us, lowering their giant heads offering for us to board, but we respectfully declined. Kumar warned that some tourists have been hurt and even trainers have been killed here.

Lunch was the vegetarian burger again, this time without the bun. Still horrible. Following lunch, we crossed the river by canoe to enter the jungle, our off-road truck waiting.

Along the darkened off-road track, my legs quickly collected dust from the dry, unpaved roads, turning them completely grey. With each moved of leaves, we hoped for a rhino or a tiger. I started our journey sitting on the truckbed’s bench, but after my bootae went numb, I decided to hang off the back bumper with Liam. The seat was as soft as a wet t-shirt is on rock and the roads were extremely bumpy.

A couple hours in, my stomach swayed with the truck, which moved more like it was out to sea than on a road, fighting currents, bouncing up and down through massive potholes, over fallen trees and bashing its way through bushes. When the dizziness kicked in, I moved to the front passenger seat and joined the driver. I had packed Pepto-Bismol chewable tablets in my pocket, but was hesitant to take them. I wanted to save them for Boxie-boo as she was having stomach problems in Nepal. When my face began to turn colours at the crocodile farm we visited in the middle of the jungle, she told me to take them. Twenty minutes later, I was fine.

In total, we saw many spotted deer, monkeys, rhinos, crocodiles, wild boars, peacocks and one Komodo dragon. It was a day of standing on a roof to see animals for five hours in the jungle, between long periods of trying not to knock our heads against the vehicle. Most of us failed at this at one point, as the driver often slammed his brakes, sliding each person in the bench into the unfortunate soul nearest the cab, who was slammed into the back window. By night fall, we left the jungle, to conclude our long day in town watching a local dance show. It was a mix of martial arts, walking in a circle while choreographed fighting with large sticks.

Before bed, Boxie-boo put me under quarantine for petting a local dog I felt sorry for. His hair was falling off from some sort of skin disease. However, the pup and I had bonded. I wished this dog could have made human facial expressions because he obviously sniffed my junk and I kind of wanted to know his opinion. To negotiate the situation, to fight on behalf of the dog to crash in our room while he assisted by whining against the door, I made a skeptical face for one second, then immediately gave up. Although we had bonded, quite frankly, she did not understand. Instead, she continued her quarantine of me.

Boxie-boo made me wash my hands twice before bed and told me I wasn’t funny when I said he should join us in our room to eat the bed bugs. Boxie-boo never got bed bugs as she did not have the problem I had with flailing my arms out of the sleeper bags once passed out. Thankfully we packed and used our sleeper sheets or we both would have been covered in bites.

That’s all for now.

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Kathmandu to Chitwan

03/16/10

As the bus bounced from the top of each hill the Himalayan wind tore through the ceiling, and at times, removed my hat, spraying occupants with slashing filth and the inhale of powdered rocks. The dust rose so strongly on the unpaved sections of the Nepal highway that neighboring trees were turned grey, appearing like a black and white photo. Out front was the crest of narrow cliff edges, a far-reaching tumultuous region, covered in loose rock and wind-driven bursts. It some ways it was marvellous, this play of low level clouds, the shifting of dust, wild with light; the sun illuminated greys and whites and sparkling the jagged edges of sharpened stones. The bus swayed with the balance of an untamed drunk, learning along each cliff edge spitting rocks down 2,000-plus meter cliffs, launched pebbles into an abyss turned grey and blackened by the dust that entered our windows.

The shocks wallowing, the brakes yelping for the mercy from steep and tight downhill corners, the transmission painfully trembling, each window pulsating, the scraping of rubber, bending, breaking away, shattering against the unforgiving road, each sound, united and battling, overpowered all my other senses. All colours were consumed by these distractions, the sounds. Below me, small stones bounced by feet, jumping up above my ankles. Each wrinkling of plastic, the bending and pop of metal, shot against my skin with electrifying volts. The rapid-fire falsetto of the rocks shackling on the undercarriage, the lost colour of the sky, waves of grey, the stone images of trees, and below, the foaming white of violent rivers, altogether, were jagged with piercing reverberations, colliding against the raging wind, leaving many passengers fearfully laughing: An expression of humour, tragedy and contempt, all released in hushed, fearful whispers.

Our ride from Kathmandu to Chitwan started at 7 a.m. at a bus stop crowded with backpackers and salesmen. The dyed hair, the never-shaved faces, the combat-damaged, the runaways, the drug runners, men possessed by no jobs, all of us homeless, the condemned, immigrants, explorers and photographers, and the not so far removed, the often drug and boozed haunted, giant meatless skeletons, and tiny ones, too, all shapes from all over the global, united by being foreign. In Nepal and India, it was common for us to come across many drifters and nomads who tried to look more backpackerish by having a couple dreads or randomly shaving one section of their head, almost always wearing baggy, pajama-like pants. I figured they did this to stand out, but they often looked the same, except one guy sporting a 1980’s rat tail and two Jamaican flag tubes jetting out of his chin pubes. He glared at me for having western clothes. I smiled and said, “Nice horns” before he boarded a private tour bus packed with tourists while we jumped on public transit. Locals in India later told me they found it offensive when foreigners dressed in worn, tattered and unflattering clothes, as they felt the western’s attempt to blend in mocked their poverty.

So many things had become routine for us. Boxie-boo reserved us a seat that looked down towards where baggage was stored so we could lookout for potential theft at “unplanned” rest stops, while I waited outside to watch the luggage compartment close before boarding the bus – these tactics, to ensure we arrived with our bags. A day before we had already prepared our snacks and food for the bus, charged up all batteries and had our bags packed, ready to be unlocked from their place against the bed frame before being placed on our shoulders. We knew the direction we had to head to get to the bus station before leaving our guest house, our tickets were laid out and our money belts hidden below our waists, always double checked for the essentials – passports, immunization records, etc.

Once we were out of the city, we climbed up and down the twisting highway, leaving the Kathmandu Valley behind us. The highway was tight, causing our driver to stop when the road was shared with other large vehicles. They slowly passed each other, sometimes turning their mirrors flat against their vehicle’s frames to make enough room. I helped by doing nothing. My specialty. My Dad taught me how to do this every night as a child while my Mom cooked.

Railings were limited or non-existent, standing a maximum of two-feet high, preventing only only small boulders from shooting off the cliff, where they collected the spray of dust. Construction trucks, hand-painted with dangling balls on the steering wheels, continuously passed. Their horns sounded like high-pitched adolescent elephants reaching puberty. I looked closely to see if their second exhaust pipe had dropped, while they cracked multiple, bizarre and out-of-tune notes. It was either a recording of moose in heat or the sound Dumbo would make before crash landing. While people around me started to relax, I found myself fixated on the deadly, unprotected cliff faces below us, the doom and gloom oblivion of guaranteed death, waiting to tumble down the mountainside, across sharp rocks to my demise. This way, I knew I would be ready for it to happen and this way it would not. It was quite the burden for me to be able to control situations with my manic alertness, but it felt good to save so many lives.

During our long haul, the bus driver pulled the usual income-earning tactic by stopping as various places for “breaks,” which were always markets. At one stop, we watched a Nepalese woman buy 20-plus oranges for 80 Rupees (about $1 Canadian/US). This same gentleman tried to sell us six for 100 Rupees. I knew that foreigners pay more, it is inevitable, but this increase was ridiculous so I refused. Six-and-a-half hours later, including a few seconds, we arrived in a gravel parking, an open field surrounded by tall grasses, located a short distance away from a sign that warned about wild tiger. I growled outside the window, but was relaxed, when some round Germans got off that I knew I was faster than. Plus, I looked less appetizing. Canadians are too mixed to taste good, same as cheap hotdogs.

Getting off the bus, my clothes stuck to my back, revealing my figure to a group of men yelling while holding up cards. I pretended, in my boredom, they were betting on me for a date at an auction…100, 200, etc. In actuality, they were holding up various signs for guest houses. In my delirious state, possibly mildly heat stroked, I followed Boxie-boo’s lead as she spotted a guy with the Rainbow Safari Resort catalogue. The term ‘resort’ is used lightly, as I later learned our stay with limited electricity and running water also included free bed bugs. We jumped in the back of a truck with no roof and bounced our way down the rapids of side streets.

At the “Resort”, we were greeted with mango juice. Lunch was tomato soup (good) and a vegetarian burger with one bun (horrible). Liam was still recovering from a night praying to the porcelain goddess, Boxie-boo’s stomach was still adjusting and I was walking around armed with Pepto Bismol just in case. Needless to say, we weren’t feeling the fake meat, but forced some of it down.

Our rainbow cottage was located inside Chitwan National Park. It was a quiet place. The only sounds by our cottage-like room were birds chirping and Boxie-boo humming the notes to “Final Countdown.” At 4 p.m., we met in the cook house before our first outing. Although our cottage came with a lock, I also added mine to the door, another routine that I did without thinking.

Our guide Kumar led the way through to the village, stopping at a large patch of wild marijuana plants, growing naturally a few feet from our cottage. I have a few buddies back home (Bumpy, Frodo, Ghetto Cowboy, Sir Darkness) to name a few, who probably would have been so excited by this sight, they would have stocked up with Dorritos, replaced the English language with the word “dude” and set up a tent next to the field. It was a pot head’s heaven on Earth.

Stopping at a hut built on straw, bamboo and mud, Kumar explained these houses are often destroyed during the monsoon season. “Only the richer people have homes with brick,” he said. He referred to these people as the “Chitwan Malaria People” due to their ability to develop their own defenses against the disease, like smoking out the bugs every night by cooking indoors. While Kumar continued, the family ignored us, continuing to eat and pump water from a well. It made me feel a bit strange; to have a guide point at people and talk about them in a language they could not understand. I worried about invading their privacy.

Originally from India, Kumar explained, the Chitwan people originally lived in the mountain jungles, before moving inland. They lived mostly off the land through farming. They also believe, Kumar noted, that if they eat spicy food, their blood will be too hot for the malaria-infecting mosquitoes.

Walking down the street, we passed an orphanage and a small hut called “Meat Shop.” Across from the butcher, local men worked together driving a large pole into the ground to build a well. Beside them, a woman walked by whacking a goat with a stick. Everybody seemed to know each other, many waved, offering each other help, while walking door to door to make small trades. A feeling of community rose in the air and you could feel that each person worked together and genuinely cared for their neighbors…but not the goats so much.

“Namaste,” many locals said to one and another. To show respect, I said it back, with my hands bowed together in a prayer position, bowing slightly. It is an important greeting here, one that honestly makes you feel genuinely welcome in a village where time has almost stood still for centuries.

But not everything was beautiful.

It was a common in Chitwan to come across villages with elephants attached to wooden posts, their ankles chained, their bodies pulling away, trying to break away for freedom, some hollering out depressed moans. One elephant’s head continuously swayed back and forth, seemingly gone mad and I stayed far away, extremely fearful of the massive mammal. We were told they are walked each day to feed in the jungle, had social events and were well taken care of, but still, a part of me felt bad for the animals, especially since I knew I was supporting this financially. We were only two days away from riding them ourselves.

That’s all for now.

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