Stilted Instincts

You would probably say I asked for it, if I gave you the chance. If memory serves me correctly, I very specifically remember asking for it, on several occasions; perhaps I was prompted by several bouts with fidgetiness or boredom or an inability to let rest the tooth-studded motor that bellows from a region somewhere between my heart and mind.

My requests might have gone something like this:
"I want a challenge. I want this to be difficult. I want to have my back against a wall, and have to find a way out, find some drive, and I want to be scared."

or..
"Australia is too easy, too much like America....this was not supposed to be a vacation for me"

Well, its most certainly been a challenge, and I've most certainly been scared. From the moment I arrived.

It was less of an arrived than a crash-landed actually. And it stung of the same stupidity as the ringing and singing of a mosquito, smashing as hard as it possibly could into the closest and brightest light source in sight. From a dark distance back, the mosquito had trained its eyes on this very light, yet somewhere along its course, it forgot to slow down and evaluate its position, let alone consider what it would do when it arrived, so violently and tortuously so, at the object of its pursuit.

So, to recap how i got to india in the first place...... Thailand ended splendid (I say this with the most fobby indian accent you can imagine). A jaunt into the cheese of the jungles of north thailand was blessed by the presence of a group of eventually warm Irish blokes, some of whom had the bad habi of carrying boars for broads, an italian with a goofy grin, a pair of swedish pastry girls, and most importantly, the most lasting Thai in my memory, MOONG. Moong, whose slowpaced walking reinvented Igor, Eric, and my renditions of Bob Marley into "Noooo vhiskeeee moooong daaaaiiiieee, no whisky moong die" was DOPE(y). Upon this tangle with Thailand's jungle country, our two day trek and its tumbling guides bathed us in waterfalls, took us on a tortured elephant ride (torture for both the elephant family and myself), swirled us through whitewater rafting currents, sunk us in bilge bamboo boats, and drenched us in a village reaching through the sky toward an altitude that provided refuge above the clouds from all the persecution they faced below. Very well may have been the best conclusion to a grueling hike I have ever experienced.

Our emergence, via side car swerving, eventually left us in Bangkok, where an innocent night of family reunions (with Igor's cousin) ended with an unexpected visit from our old old friend.. TEQUILA (ta dentadada ta da....tequila) except the trumpets were far more cacophonos than the original in this cover. A bottle and some dancing, and next thing i know, im deposited in front of a fried bug stall, tongue prancing with pin-pricking cockaroach limbs. PHHHITHOOOEEEEYYY! But igor wanted the whole bag. As we continue to pish away in hopes that night will last just long enough to bring us to our 2.40am flight, Igor disappears in Bangkok International, drunken eric wallows in the disintegration of his vacation, I manage to severely disappoint some traditional sikh hymm singers (gianijis) with my newly dreadlocked (yes dreadlocked!) hair. We do not board the flight without a scuffle at the airport security checkpoint (belligerence is the best when inappropriate and mischevious), a visit to the smokey cocoon wing of the airport, and an unhappy visit to the m&m stall without any money. Scrolling through the pictures of igor sprawled out on the curb, tangled in his bags, before we got on the plane left us all surprised as to how they were even going to let us on the plane. At which point, Igor and Eric intelligently (or incapacitatedly) passed out, but I, oh no, not I. I asked for a free scotch before we even took off to help with my coming hangover and to help me sleep all the way to india. She brought me two, and then some, and I, alone, danced up and down the plane half way to India, staring at peoples fluttering eyes as they slept, waking stewardesses from their trance for ill-fated conversation, and wondering in some dumbfounded self-concious way why no one would wake up to talk to me, and why no one like my new hairstyle.

Nevertheless, we arrived in Mumbai, jack-in-the-crack of dawn, welcomed by Swapnil, our local friend who we met in berkeley. I dont know if we could have made it home without him. In fact, im sure we would not have, especially considering the home was his office. Only a hallucinogenic delerium and some south indian food could postpone our taking leave of the world for a few hours of much needed sleep, ironically, alongside the workstations of his dilligent and much more sober employees.

Our next few days in Mumbai were highlighted by food: some long awaited kebabs, and street-side chaat that turned erics stomach inside-out. Swapnil was very good to us, but we really spent the bulk of the time adjusting, getting sick, and recovering. His Indian hospitality was overwhelming.

However, it was for entirely another reason that leaving mumbai was such a challenge. It was time to leave, in the way that a city riddled with 16 million people is hard to stomach for too long unless you're used to it, which eric and igor were most certainly not, and i dont even pretend to be able to swallow the horse-pill indian cities comfortably. We decided to get away to a hill resort, but getting there would take every ounce of energy the last few days hadn't already drained.

I liken our arrival in the hill station of Mathuran to the floppy grace one would expect from an ill-concieved attempt by a lanky individual at his first cartwheel. Neither he nor we should have dreamed of allowing our feet to leave the ground in favor of wobbling our hands, when already it was so clear that walking on our feet was stilted enough. It all began in one of mumbai's busiest train stations, where we ended up bouncing like little, feather-weight children trapped inside an unreasonably large sumo suit amongst a crowd hungry for space. With our 20 pound monkeys on our backs and two guitars, not to mention our other backpack-monkey's sagging at the waist where you might imagine a kangaroo pouch might hang if humans had them, we waddled like pregnant women in a futile effort to be one with the crowd. While we shuffled our feet and bumbled into things, everyone else used each other, and us, as stepping stones up to the train... before it even stopped moving. Infact, as the train passed by where we were waiting on the platform, dozens of grinning Mowgli-look alikes lept aboard the steaming train that already appeared as though it would burst at the seams. As we watched the jumping-bean spectacle, and some turn refried, we shuffled our feet in a feigning attempt to catch our train, mouth ajar, and terrified as to what we had gotten ourselves into. I, in particular, was scared because i was going to have to be so intimate with this for SOOO long. That i was going to have to reverse my instincts to even stay afloat in this country.

All the things that deterred me from india when i was younger, i knew i had conquered in my last trip here 4 years ago: the idea of wiping my ass with my hand and some water, the inevitable food poisoning, the lack of anything truly familiar, the inability to find beef, the bugs bugs bugs, all that stuff that comes when you lose the luxury of being in the worlds most prosperous country were acceptable to me. However, I thought i was going to exchange those comforts for a lifestyle that wasn't so hectic, not so numbed by a rat race, a life that knew how to relax. Now i realize that when there isn't enough of anything to go around (and i'm not talking about just food and money here), there is no room to relax, and that you have to carefully plan your stilted movements. I took this to mean that i had tolearn to reverse my instincts. I have to learn to berate people who overcharge me or hound me for my money in exchange for a meaningless service they offer, I have to learn to not apologize to every beggar for whom I dont have a coin jingling for, I have to learn that the Ashwin that can smile at everything in the world has to keep his eyes trained on his feet, watch his steps, so as to not trip over the long wooden appendages with which he know has to use to navigate this tight space. But I also have to make that my new and easy way of walking for the next few months. I have to avoid the pit I have been falling into this whole trip, that if i dont like something, i can always romanticize something on the horizon (a new country, the arrival of a new friend, whatever markers i dreamt up). India, it seems will be the ultimate test, if i can truly be content with were i am, irregardless of where exactly that may be... if i can find intrinsic happiness that colors every page of the world. It has been something I used to be proud of myself for achieving, and something i hoped to really cement on this trip. The process, needless to say, is ongoing.

Anyway, back to the story... our challenging journey would actually begin in an elbow-lashing stampede that finally landed us on a train in the right direction. There we stood, separated by only a few feet but surely an entire village of people, occasionally raising our eyebrows at each other perhaps to express our unspoken relief, exhaustion, and surprise, or perhaps just to shrug back the tears of sweat that were bleeding into our eyes. Though we thought we were close, it would take us another train to undo the overambition of our first express train, get us to our stop, at which point we were forced to abandon our dreams of taking the toy-train to the top of the mountain when we were informed that it was all but washed away by the monsoons. So, our alternative was a clench-eyed taxi ride right up the face of the mountain on a road slashed at by erosion and slippery crevices that seemed to invite certain death, Instant and Imminent and Impending Vehicular Death (IVD)! At what we thought was the top, we were hounded by "HOURSE!!, yooo wann rayd hoarse?" and a team of 8 hand drawn riksha men who eventually, and gruellingly carried us and our baggage up four kilometers more of mountain, poorly lit, things going bump in the night, and a road that at some points seemed so dark and void taht we had to institute role call to make sure we weren't being led to our macabre death.

The hill station, however, when we awoke was studded with a lovely family who mothered us when our mothers were so far away, stunning cliffs, and breath taking ridges. It goes without saying that we were not able to leave for a few days, as the journey to get the vacation was reason enough to take an extended break. A festival, a funeral procession, lakes, hikes, monkey junkies, and a game of cricket restored smiles to our faces and softness to our petrified minds. Many great conversations were had, a little sickness, but the fear slowly died down when the crowd did.

From there, eric and I split up to scope out goa (while igor intersected with his fathers business trip), spent some very slow hours on goas dramatic coast line, glimmered with colorfully spicey markets, glistened with salt water residue for two days on pristine beaches, and galoshed in a locals boat fishing at squealing at the dolphins. Goa was seasoned by Rajen and Igors arrival, conversation's profundity grew exponential though our numbers only grew linearly, and all in all, goa was a relaxing palm tree haven much like i bet most people imagine it to be.

We wound down the coast, many more random interactions, some tigers, (you'll have to forgive me for getting a little boring, im upset because for the last 30 minutes ive been writing only to recover what i've lost as a result of a computer crash), may more beaches through which we trampled on our own paths, played with our monkey families, and basked in each others company. Sometimes, i even got the feeling, when were sitting on a table conversing about all sorts of philosophical and convtroversial issues, that this must have been how the bolshevik thought parade or the beat movement or any sort of significant grass roots uprising started....

At some point, however, i decided that i had set out to learn some things, and it was tough to acheive them when everyone else had so much less time and therefore different priorities of seeing india. so, i decided to split up four days ago, head down to the very south of india while the boys romp around the backwaters and tiger reserve. I think my body reacted to the separation quite poorly.

On my sixteen hour journey toward a new, independent path, a very warm south indian family held the fort for only so long, but once they went to sleep, i was to spend the next 10 hours, all alone, wincing on the toilet, stomach turning inside out as my contorted body assumed quite a stilted pose in order to stretch the torso far back enough to remain above the poop receptacle poorly named a "western toilet" whilst my upper body and neck tried to land its own purged contents into the sink. All the while i sat wondering why i upgraded to the nicer air conditioned class if i was to spend the whole night on the toilet, rationing my limited supply of TP. In my discomfort and anger, i had much more creative musings about how i would describe it on the blog, but at the moment im tired of writing.

Im in varkala beach, escorted here by a couple of overly hospitable Keralites, almost to suffocating proportions. I am taking some yoga classes, which are alright, and i have been hanging around a restaurant that has allowed me to learn how to use their tandoor (basically and insertable indian style BBQ). I'm not allowed in the kitchen and i'm not learning so much, so i think im going to set out and try to do some things that ive been wanting to dedicate some time to for a while now. the time alone has been good so far, but i hope i have more to show for it when its all said and done....

blaaaaa...... no more

TuuK-TuuK Playground

Unexpectly, I find myself vegemiting to cool and tranquil places today (the pool is next) after getting my ass beat by a girl, small and Thai at that, under the guise of what has been repeatedly sung to us in pestering yet mellifluous voices--the call of the THAI MASSAGE... oh lordly lord... and somehow, i find myself even more knotted up and sore than after the aches of last night's contorted midnight bus ride, the very aches which drove me to the massage house in the first place in hopes that the tuuk-tuuk missooouses could ward them off.... no such luck

But more importantly, today is the first of its sort, as have been each of the previous days that mark my entry into Thailand... a country which is a runaway storm of sensory discombobulation and juxtaposition.... smells of sewers are met with smells of roadside skewers, perplexed faces turn into aanoold-flexed smiles and welcoming visages, chaotic streets transform into tuuk-tuuk playgrounds that are as splintered just as much by carnage and road death as they are by whooping laughter and arbitrary waves.....

Thailand reaffirms that travelling can be a full-body effort, one to which a wallet is hardly even attached, and that Asia was waiting for me just as much as I had aspired to be with it....

A quick log log update.... started of on the wrong cheek and woke up on the wrong side of the toilet my first day - the fiery bowel movements induced by a party of red peppers (tragically drown in a liquid that poorly passed for soup broth, especially considering the volcanic way it exited) seemed to build callouses in my stomach lining, because my quest for the most mama made motorcycle kitchen has proved to be an ongoing parade not lacking in loin-longevity, which from now on i will deem lo(i)ngevity.... but happy times, how thai tuk-tuk mamas love feeding us.... we have now been fed by a series of thai(ron) chefs, from family food flops that were really only for english practice, to waterfall mamas with skewers in her smile, to random roadside stall seamstresses teeming with kiwi green golbuldy-gloop, and so many more unmentioned and as of yet unencountered, ALL of whom refused to let us pay them or give them something in return.... food is conversation here.... and its my favorite kind, the more nonsensical and tangential, the better.... families crowd around us, share whatever little they have brought for themselves, and turn tourism on its head as we find ourselves the main attraction....

i supposed we dont help the situation much, especially when you consider thanksgiving, when we transformed our feast to flood, boozed ourselves passively but massively, as though it were an IV after surgery, and wailed on guitars that refused to be tuned, perhaps in solidarity with our drunken melodies (if you could call them that), until the majority of the restaurant found itself magnitized to us, even though they persistently pretended not to notice the madness of us (a few hippies and bogans aside)... nor did we shy away from the spotlight two nights ago when a brief reprieve from a live band at a bar left a gaping hole that somehow eric, igor, and eventually i decided was our responsibility to fill, and perhaps bury, with renditions of friend of the devil, carress me down, and creep with aims of providing the thai watering hole with some "real american" tunes!

so yup, now there are three.... eric has been a synergetic addition to the madness.... thailand has been the perfect venue for euphoria (without its large junk problem), the people have been the perfect stimulant, and the food and TAMARIND CANDY has been the ideal fuel.... god the food is sooo good.... and soo much of an adventure, especially point-and-shoot untranslated menus that boil into a pot of tuk-tuuk

(in case you were wondering, not that my explanation is going to ellucidate anything, tuk-tuuks are thai motor rikshas which have become nothing short of an obsession and long running joke with us)

as for the laundry list:
life is good.... we've done a lot. snake farms with drunken black bears and equally intoxicated snake handlers, canal rides into the crevices and intestines of thai life, screaming scooters woven through thai road death on the path to ruins (thankfully and safely someone elses and not our own, though i have found the occasional fallen scooter on my foot quite uncomfortable), piling up as many non-sensical friendly encounters with locals who seem to want to babble to us as much as we to them, numerous visits to temples (wats they call them, which has morphed and entered into our vocabulary as "WAT PHO(r)?"), great stays in lush guest houses, mo(re)tor bikes buzzing into national parks with the same reckless abandon as the bugs that shared the road with us buzzed into our domes, and dripping and enfuriated sleep in midnight buses while clawing at our mosquito bites and bed bug bonanzas, all interrupted every few hours with meals and mamas.... and so much more of the little things that Thai me down

Coming next- trekking into the bunghole of thailand...

Lag time...

Lag time for both, how long its taken me to write, and how long its taken me to reach the feeling I've just recently gotten...

I'm in Sydney now, its been a sunny-spirited few days, regardless of what the weather itself has been up to. I wake up giddy and giggling, talking all sorts of nonsense, making silly voices, singing really cheesy, off-the-top-of-my-head songs about pickles and mangoes and all things random, picking at Igor's hair like a grooming-monkey, pulling at his armpit hair and chest hair in a way that prompts him to fling at me the worst of insults we have invented these days "You not my friend... BUG" a rendition of my little sisters feisty proclamations as a child, but in the spirit of the fly and mosquito infested Outback (amu, you NAT my fend, SNAKE!!)

And, its begun.... i mean, in my head, it finally feels that way... its been a wonderful few days.... and yesterday, on the wings of this elation, a brief and beautiful stint at the Royal Botanical Gardens, in a cove of grass receiving breezes of comical relief from the Albanian Rambo tree climber (who happened to be walking barefoot, backward in circles around a tree for good luck, and raving through a tourist garden train at us about Nicole Kidman, Aussie sheilas, the socceroos, and none other than our beloved Dubya), a long awaited epiphany, or rather, an aggregation and conglomeration of the weeks lagging behind in the shed belonging to my head.... a (s)head perhaps....our day of selling our car (more on that later) turned to these gardens for refuge, and the mist of green and pollen held me in a fatigued delerium, staring at a glistening bay across, engulfed by not just the towers urban life on the horizon, but by the wooden towers as well, their fronds bantering with the wind, and their depths which housed other lives, much more fluttering and buttering, colorful, and squirrely than those behind them....

here, with a dank lung and tongue, i felt that, on the heels of all the disillusionment of what happened in the month of endless and unchallenging roadtripping around australia, that what i had anticipated and what i had reiterated to all of you before i embarked on this journey about what i wanted to happen finally begun doing so.... i gave it a hard turn and got it, and myself, back on track....

in the words of my hero, Dr. Theodore Seuss Guisel,

"Out there things can happen
and frequently do
to people as brainy
and footsy as you.

And when things start to happen,
don't worry. Don't stew.
Just go right along.
You'll start happening too."

so a little background and recap.... about 3 weeks ago, igor and i plunged into the outback and went for the heart in the red center.... right off the bat, in an opal mining town we had a run in with a strange crocodile-hunting, baton-toting BOGAN (def. an aussie country bumpking, akin to the american REDNECK) who difused a severely intoxicated, homosexual aboriginee on behalf of a vomiting igor and his poor lap which suddenly, though not for the first time this trip, found itself weighed down by unwanted company.... yup, plop went the aboriginee, unbeknownst to igor....

we moved on, tearing through what we soon found out was a much larger country than the maps hint (at 130kms/hr, we were hardly making a dent in this country, which happens to be larger than the states).... made it to the red center, an alien planet unlike any desert we've seen before.... pictures to come once i get to india..... at Uluru (a massive monolith that seems to have just plopped down from space) we snuck our way into the lap of luxury in the shape of a $400 resort to steal a dip in their pool and ice for our cooler... someone above must have been watching because withing 10 minutes, we were getting urinated on by the sky!!! no joke, water coming out heavier than if it came from a bucket above your head, as we sat merrily giggling and watching all the hotel guests flee.... at least until we were as wet as we had been before we dried off out of the pool.... we moved on to uneventful, BOGAN nights in alice springs and another days worth of nowhere stops in the desert, chased out by flies and mosquitoes and our baton BOGAN friend greg.... no stop could be taken in peace, thanks to the scorching heat that heated our water to spa-temprature, unshakable flies determinted to get into every orfice your face has to offer unheeding of swats and slaps to yourself, mosquitoes(or mossies as ozzies call them) whose mini-plane drone kept our eyes bloodshot and verging on insanity every one of the next 10 nights we were to spend in the back of our car essentially on top of each other and burried in one another's armpits, poisoned by the mindlessly talkative bogans and their godforsaken ROADHOUSE CAFES, which left us dreading each and every meal of egg filled, factory stuffed ingredients wanton of any sort of sauce or flavor other than their tomato sauce (they even managed to fuck up ketchup!) to reiterate, NO stop, no hike, no meal was taken in peace... its touch to sit around in a car driving all day, and then be antsy to get back in a few seconds after you've escaped because there seems to be no place to relax or enjoy the outdoors.... the eventual fly nets helped, but aside from making us look like mossy walking trees, could not remedy all the annoyances and shortcomings of the outback....

our long awaited arrival to the beaches and tropics of queensland took us straight to a sri lankan curry house to relieve our tongues, a wateringhole to ease our minds, and a hostel loaded with showers (whoa!!) a pool, and a number of good people fo company.... we explored the surroundings of cairns, its waterfalls, craters, rainforsts, beaches, and wineries with a belgian couple who were a great addition to the adventure, until we headed further south, checked out more national parks and bogans....

at the WHITSUNDAY ISLANDS, frustrated with the fact that all we were doing was not doing at all but just seeing and appreciating, we were struck by the annoying fact that we felt like we were on vacation, and worse yet, that it was like a vacation in a land not so far away, where things were no challenge at all, they felt the same as america (in fact, to this day, i wake up and go for hours without realizing that i am 7,000 miles from home) and they were not what i had set out to do... this was not supposed to be a vacation for me.... sure we could pay for our "adventure tourism" but that would be much of an adventure, or as much of an acheivement as finding my own path with a little bit of creativity and effort, and a lot of learning.... so i grabbed the blinding and gawdy stack of sailing brochures we were supposed to decide between, stomped over to the trash like a pouting young child who didnt get what he wanted at toys'r'us, and unloaded the burden....

for a few moments, we say on the beach, leaning against a palm tree, and decided that either we need to find a better way to do this, or to just leave to thailand early.... just so happened a BOGAN sailor came to shore to get diesel for his boat, and after a little up and down, we convinced him to take us out for a day to the island, in exchange for a lowly $50 each... we spend the days learning how to sail a bit, fishing, snorkeling in the famous great barrier reef, hiking on the islands to primitive aboriginee cave paintings, and shooting the shit with him and his girlfriend.... we spent the nights feeding them whiskey and delving into the life of a bogan... hear numerous tirades of homophobia, an illiterate thesis that all abo-s are violent and it is the White man's burden to save them from the fire water of booze that talks them into burning their houses and their children and their children's toys and ruining all the "help" white folks give them.... as a side note, australia is extremely racist, and it is even documented in the legal code, which holds that native, dark skinned people may under NO circumstance purchase alcohol.... justified because everyone has convinced themselves "its for their own good".... we ended up buying a large bottle of rum for a couple of natives our age and had a good chat, and im not inclined to believe the stereotypes hold anymore true for them as they do for anyone else....

so off from the whitsundays, and down the coast, few beach stops, until we, in a drive to start DOING something rather than just SEEING everything, get to sydney and hunt for temporary jobs... we settle into a very nice hostel, the one im still at 8 days later, register our car, and scour the hostels for flyers for backpacker jobs, following one to the magnificient suburb of Terry Hills, to shovel horse shit into garden mulch bags and begin painting a coffee shop for a man who proclaims he has an idea a minute, feels obliged to share each and every one of them with us, and proceeds to tell us about how the shit business is "the shit" and thats why he named his company "KING POO".... oddly enough, my biggest regret about doing that for a day was that i didnt get a shirt with the logo.... otherwise, it was a good learning expereience and an interesting glimpse into labor jobs that soo many impoverished immigrants are forced to take back at home... and we got treated well and paid extremely well in comparison....

since then, we've come back to our hostel, made a ton of friends, and been highly active... we got a job at our hostel painting a room, and a little bit of labor, which i am happy to say has made me a little more handy around the house, it was a great and convenient job, paid decently.... meanwhile, we happened to sell our car for $700 dollars more than we paid (which amounts to more than we've earned in both of our jobs combined), so we basically got to drive WOMP WIRED SCRUMP THE HAGGARDLY RED ROCKET around for free, and even got most of our gas paid for.... this trip is turning out to be almost free! i've had this great sense of activity and accomplishment, and hence the elation i've described above, in juxtaposition with my previous disillusionments....

now just trying to enjoy the rest of our time in this beautiful city, and excitedly awaiting our departure to THAILAND!!! we leave in four days FOOS!!!
im absolutely ready to dive into asia and stay there for a long time....

in the mean time, please tell me what you've all been up to..

so until then, i disappear into the waters once again

catch you all on the flip side....

THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA

From being out on the piss, to going out into the abyss

each morning, i rise, not to the caresses of the rising sun, nor the mellifluous tunes of bob marley, not even to the shrill t-mobile jingle that is my alarm clock, but to the harmoniously dissonant groans and mumbles of jumble that have become a staple in the lexicon that is igorshwinish, a strange dialect of the ancient blitherish-gibberish which has its roots as the oldest spoken language known to (yo)utes, me-ts, and us-tes. it is a tongue whose oral, and fecal history has traveled far and wide, and whose echos have burrowed inextricably into the white porcelain god in each of our homes that each and every one of us pay homage and bow to once, maybe twice, and in these blasphemous australian days, more times than can be counted on head-shoulders-knees-and-toes-knees-and-toes..... jon jacob jingleheimers schmidt, thats my name too

flatulence: (def) the vaporized shit molecules descended down into and out of the gastro-intestinal tract via a duct known as the mouth, which fuels its great ally, the anus, with this flatulence of which we speak, the bellowing tunes that sound from the sweetest of places

so yes, there has been much farting, much discussion of our parental roles, "dropping the kids off at the pool", and there has been record kept in what we like to call our Log Log, or log squared if you will, though usually, these logs of which we speak are not square... in fact, often times, especially after a large indian meal, they have absolutely no shape at all

so there you have it, a taste of the madness of words that has ensued since i have reached australia, to be united with one of my best friends from college who breeds in me, and i in him, the most nonsensical and profuse stream-of-consciousness form of communication there is... from the moment i hurriedly body-checked and backpack-checked all the people on my airport bus out of the way to tackle this igor off his feet, we have chatted like (wo)men in a knitting circle... and often times, it consists of the nothing that i have primed you for at the inception of this post.... the birth of post (oh lord dont let it run away from me again).... we wake each other up like dogs, jumping on top of each others beds and giving one another the "1-2-3 clear!" shock that hospitals use to revive heart-attack patients.... we are like mexican jumping beans, without rhyme or reason bouncing off of walls, constantly brewing some sort of mischeviousness and exploding (both literally and figuratively) when enough pressure has been built up.... and we ahve good conversations too, about books and life, and the attentativeness and epiphanies of observation, about the personal shifts weve watch each other take, and so much more... and it is soooo soo immeasuraable good... and we get giddy like tricycles at the thought of what we are about to do for the next three months together...

so far, we have gone to the horse races, had shopping cart carnage, been in a perpetual search for happy hour, i have fallen into rose bushes and woken up with van gough ear and unexplained injuries, wrestled on the side of the street, contorted a car's rearview mirror into a BEERview mirror, met up with friends and followed them around campus going to free events with bbqs, pretending as though we, like them, are students (which poses a problem if we actually try to interact with anyone), and romped around town looking to buy a car and find our way out of this urban tangle in hopes of tangling ourselves in the bush... and after a series of days that seemed to never end, we plugged back home with success, great success (not just in pooping matters).....

we've bought a ford falcon, 91 station wagon that is a bloody tank.... its sturdy, in good condition, and we bought it for $1750 aussie dollars, in hopes dragging it through the stretches of red desert, rain forest, white sand beaches, and then selling it for more than we paid for, by fabricating the louis voittonomics of inflated prices..... we'll see how that goes... we've been absolutely terrified of the strange beasts that roam this country, and thus, much to the humor of the natives here who find it quite cliche that the americans are looking for a gun, we have been in search of a weapon to defend ourselves iwth... yesterday we came home from the market with a 1 meter axe in our grocery bag....

oh, and more random stretching friendships accross the world, i just spend the evening with asha and ramneek (my brother and sister, and fellow walnutty-ans) out ON THE PISS last night (out on the piss, for those of you who cant decipher this upside down version of english, means going out to bars, and well, you know...) twas wonderful

so, on the the ABYSS.... we're gearing up to go across half or more of australia in our "i-think-i-can van", taking the neccessary precautions, buying the things we need and getting advice from the locals... we leave tomorrow (sat) so i thought i would send a hello and good bye, see you on the flip side of the moon kind of post. out there, its about as barren as the dark side of the moon, so houston, the blog-nog will be put on hold until further notice (two weeks or so)

it is what we do, and to never AXE why....
your muddy muddled ashmud

Carving my way through the (fiord)Land of Giants

on the wings (and tails) the last leg of my adventure, i decided that, were i to be suddenly and slyly transformed into an aMiNal, i would be the bastard product of a monkey and a penguin, both playfully and brilliantly mischevious while, at the same time, chill, awkward, and dedicated to keeping those close to me warm and insulated with blubber... (which of course explains why i fill this blog with lies and rants of the imagination) i keeed i keeed

but to tell you the truth, it feels like i have just returned from some imaginary land that humans have yet not touched, some foreign planet where ice swims among mountains, carves them into daunting landscapes that trivialize the man-sculpted works we revere so dearly... and at the end of each of those six days, that planet held me in the midst of its most prized works, engulfed me , hugged by this ever-changing earth, wondering how in *bloody 'ell* any of it is possible and why giants dont exist to help make more sense of the size of things happening there....

i got into queenstown, which was a beautiful, expensive ski resort town that is littered with lots of shops and restaurants, but also scattered with glass blue waterfronts and wonderfully inviting trees that just kind of put an arm around you.... rented a car by myself, and went on my merry way to the glaciers, which are ridiculous and made so much more sense of places like yosemite and how they happened, did a snowy hike, and then wandered around small villages, had beer and watched rugby with bloated old men and then proceeded to sleep in my car to make the expense seem more worthwhile.... got to a really nice lake town the next morning to sky dive, but instead found rain and a pensive french girl.... sooo.... i decided to go !!snowboarding!! on the last day of the season out here, climbing dirt roads in my puttering little nissan sunny only to tumble down the snow-blanketed ones on my my little bum bummy..... soooo goood.... it my first, last, best and only day of the season.... met some german lift operators and had a fluffly blast.... then met the french girl and some friends of hers at a movie theater (that served beer and cookies!! not together though) to watch a twisted new zealand movie about the sexual discovery of a rollie-pollie young lad who likes wearing wigs.... from there, headed out to milford sound, which is actually a fiord (glacier carved valley that is then backfilled with ocean water) , for which i have no words but soon pictures.... so incredibly strange and entertaingly enlightening... i was traveling with that same french girl, Alexsandra, and we did a cruise, picking up a fantastic spanish/portugese guy who has the exact same travel plans and ideas as i, and with whom i clicked immediately, got to practice spanish with, and most definately intend on running into like an unknowingly car-trapped bumblebee does to the window: repeatedly, and each time with a dumbfounded bit of surprise....

so anyway, dropped them off in queenstown, had a night of profuse drinking from tea kettles and outpouring our happiness to have made such close friends so coincidentally and so far away from home.... im back in auckland, drinking fantastic tequila with a mexican from jalisco, waiting for a flight to australia to meet with my lovely russian drandulyetka (for those of you unacquainted with the russian ways, that means peice of shit car) who goes by the name of IGOR!!! very stoked to have a familiar face and the ridiculosities of our complete loss of internal monologue when in any proximity of each other....

so thats that.... been feeling awfully well, healthy, and loved, thanks to the response of so many of you.... keep you own updates coming....

love wisping through the clouds to you all

The Rivers Meet in New Zealand

So, after what was supposed to be a grueling flight across the vast pacific that turned out to be a cake walk, or rather, a 10 hour nap on the comforting teddy bear shoulder of an oversized, extended seatbelt Maori New Zealander by the name of Jason, who kindly let me snore and drool on his shoulder in apologetic compensation for using half of my seat as overflow for his rotund happy belly, I HAVE ARRIVED IN NEW ZEALAND. It began on a bit of a dischordant note where things just wouldn't fall into place. I knew i had to make the most of my limited time here, and in doing so pished away too much of it trying to force the issue. But its gotten far better since.

I landed in Auckland on Saturday the first of October, and notice it\ bore strange resemblance to Vancouver, with of course a Kiwi twist (kiwi is the self-proclaimed blanket term for all New Zealanders).... I then fell into the pit of the "tv lounge" which harbors all things mindless and boring, found myself in some aimless hair salon chatter with two well fed girls from America (texas i think).... i found some fun canadians though, wandered around the city, which is small and for the most part a city just like any other.... parks, flea markets, etc.... they were cool, but they took off to go farm cucumbers... yup... kyoooks of the cumber.....

anyway, so this Maori fella fromthe plane gave me his address and phone number, so i woke in the morning intent on seeing what it was like to live in new zealand... fo weel newga!! (i make it sound like it was an easy decision, but you know me... i spent about half a day deliberating over it... indecision will be the death of me).... so anyway, i stopped in a thermovolcanic area called rotorua on the way, when my troubles with people void of personality lingered.....once again, the TV lounge.... BLAAST!!!! after an unexpectedly exciting few hours of wandering around the streets of this suburbian strip trying to hitch a ride to some hot springs, i gave up and just walked around the golf course and couldnt quite figure out what to do with myself... it was peaceful, but not quite the way i had imagined the trip's beginnings, so i got a little frustrated and began to regret my decision in auckland to wander around aimlessly down in the bay of plenty as the call it... and the bane of my existence, the TV lounge was in full effect when i came home... asked fools if they were down to go out to eat and grab a beer to lubricate our social demons, but i was met with blank stares and ugly faces.... everyone is ugly in the glow of a tv screen.... and it was raining outside too

so i woke up determined to change my flight and head down to fiordland in the south, but i was thwarted... blast!!! no such luck.... so i rushed to catch a random shuttle and thought i would make something of this land of leaking bowels and steaming buttholes that we call volcanic activity.... and as i sat on the bus and entered my third journal entry, i got really lonely and upset that i wasnt doing my best to make of my situation whatever i could... and then, on the verge of a breakdown originating in the armpit and festering up to the corner of my eyes, i remembered what jen had told me after her travels in europe.... "panta rai" she said... which was latin for "let it flow".... and folks, that was the pivot upon which all things mindful turned.... in no time i found myself shying back from bubbling mud pools and in awe of my first glimpse of a geyser.... and then, as i got dropped off at the attraction, i decided to wander down the road to a spot someone had told me about..... took off my shoes and all my clothes and jumped into a place where two streams, one hot one cold came together, and mingled in a lagoon... and mee, i mingled madly..... i had it all to myself, drooped over by an umbrella of strange, hanging new zealand trees, bathing in the hot waters from inner earth, checking out mini sulfur gaves, singing with the birds at themoment that the sun gifted me with a ray for a spotlight, and entirely engulfed in the beautifully eerie mist that seems to come together when opposite worlds meet.....needless to say, it was a good day...

then i hopped on a bus to whakatane to see my maori buddy.... staying in a quaint hostel, rented a bike and just chilled amongst fisherman of this wonderfully intimate beach town where everyone knows each other... and i went on a search, planting little clues in the community areas in the town in hopes that jason would emerge out of a sewer or something... had one too many beers comped for me by a bartender at an irish pub, who turned out to be the most uninteresteding person i have ever met in my entire life.... she took me to the beach a drive over the hill and did not have anything to say to any of the questions i asked her... the longest conversation we had was me explained to her what government does, and the differences between capitalism and communism...

but, i persisted in my maori hunt, showered off beach grim in the sink of a KFC, and finally found jason at his university, where his teacher invited me into their class, where they were having a discussion aobut their trip to america and what they notice culuturally that was different from their maori community.... it was gnar gnar.... yipee school again... how ive missed classes and all that jazz....

anyway, much more happened, we grabbed beers and became lifelong homeys, he gave me a traditional clay flute that i am still try8ing to learn to play, and then saw me off on a bus to auckland, had an eventful night with some girls from austria, norway and amsterdam (this one almost dreadlocked my hair for me, but fell asleep after two glasses of wine instead)..... the next day (today) i caught a flight down to the mysterious planet of new zealands south island.... im in queenstown now, and it is a ridiculous landscape... pictures are too come... ive rented a car and am looking for people to share the costs.... im going to head out to the fiords, glaciers and penguin beaches if all goes well.... more to come soon...

i love you all and miss you interminably.... i keep turning around thinking i hear one of you call out my name and that ill have someone to share this madness with..... i almost cry with the prospect of stumbling upon one of you.... and soon.... i will.... igor, you lousy son of a bitch ill see you in a week. (sorry for all the profane things i may write now and in the future, but i refuse to censor any/most of the things i am trying to share with you... if you wish to receive an edited version of these mails, have your people talk to my people... no i can arrange that if you so please...)

adios amigos

Beginning of the End

The first posting starts off as a scrambled writers block. I have nothing yet to mention, as I am still sitting in my Dads office, setting up for my travels, in a place that I normally find boring, but for some reason, this time around, I have this strange sensation that I am going to remember this moment more vividly than I believe now... well, until next time

Thus Spoke Zarathustra