Archives for the year of: 2015

My Madcap Adventure Episode 18

March 14, 2015 //

The effects of this trip had reverberated in the core of my being for well over a month, following my return. Landed in New York, I traveled upstate and spent a week hanging out with a friend. It was a quiet scene, talking philosophy and spending time checking out the old Erie Canal. The mundane was beautiful.

Back at Helena, I was asked what I thought of the trip. By this time I knew the sisters had the then popular astrologer, Zipporah Dobbins, choose the trips date; it would be an ‘auspicious’ time. Based on this intelligence, I answered “Those girls should be jailed.”

I went to Starr School on the Blackfeet reservation, to pack up and head south for a few months, coming from the tropics into a Montana winter was not an appealing thought. I dropped by to visit Pat, my medicine man friend and he laughed at me … Native America has perhaps the darkest humor on Earth and the prevailing joke in the community was “Ron shot Mrs Gandhi.” It was a pun on the shamanic aspect of life not understood in western culture, but similar perhaps to a joke on someone who’d followed an astrologer into a disaster. Kind of like saying ‘your medicine man sucks’ relating to consulting over preparation for a journey.

Reprising a trip from over a decade earlier, when I’d driven a Volkswagen ‘bug’ to Arizona, to escape Montana’s cold, following my return from tropical Vietnam, here I was again, driving a Volkswagen bug to Arizona, to escape the Montana cold, following my return from tropical India.

It was at Agua Prieta, just on the Mexican side of the border with Arizona, I’d asked at the local grocery a simplest possible question; of a proprietor who’d probably never been beyond the borders of his native Sonora. My imperfect Spanish couldn’t find the impersonal ‘are there’ and instead I blurted out the personal ‘do you have’ .. eggs? His reply was:

“Sì! Dos grandes!!”

-end-

notes to follow-

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

Tags Astrology, auspicious, cahones, shamanism, Zipporah Dobbins

Categories assassinations, crime, culture, Folk Stories, philosophy, satire, Travel, Uncategorized

My Madcap Adventure Episode 17

March 13, 2015 //

It was mid afternoon on 4 November I was free in Cairo. I was able to amend my original return ticket from India and would be able to catch a plane from Cairo to New York with a plane change at London, on the 6th. I caught a taxi to Giza and checked into a ! Swiss Chalet ! or cheesy imitation thereof, a sort of motel configuration, not too expensive. I laid down and was dead-out until I heard the muezzin calling people to prayer at daybreak, or about 12 hours. It was that kind of sleep where you offload immeasurable amounts of stress. But surrealism apparently doesn’t simply vanish but follows some trips like a con-trail. Or maybe I was just tripping, but here is what I experienced: This ‘chalet’ had a dining room and I was by now thoroughly sick of curried vegetables, the mainstay on my diet for the past six weeks. I wanted red meat. English boiled beef, fine no argument with that. Feta cheese was a treat. But here is what made the journey cartoon just keep going on; the ‘chalet’ dining room had an American ‘Old West’ theme … with waiters dressed in paper-felt cowboy hats with plastic sheriff star pinned to vest and toy revolvers holstered on their hips! This was the very outfit American parents bought for their 10 year old boys and here we were in Giza, Egypt!! I understood I wasn’t hallucinating but still .. face in my palm.

May I take your order?

This was the evening of 5 November. Earlier in the day, I’d been visiting the home of the taxi driver who’d fetched me from the airport and brought me to Giza, his home village. We’d had lunch with his family and he was wanting to know when I’d like to see the pyramids .. Haji Hassan El-Koly was stunned to hear a westerner state, and his daughter nearly fell on the floor laughing at his amazement .. when I’d gestured to the window and said “I see them, they’re there.” It was almost inconceivable to him I was more interested in discovering who the Egyptians of the present were, than going to some presentation or touring any archaeology site. We spent part of the afternoon discussing contemporary Egypt and regional geopolitics, as well he became curious and was asking questions about myself. El-Koly stated he would never forget me on account of my name: “Where the Sun goes down.” He probably never did forget me; I had paid him an honest fare for my trip to & around Giza and return to the Cairo airport .. but then tipped him one inferior quality counterfeit USA $100 bill, courtesy of a Guardian Angel.

Arrival in London (L) from Egypt (R)

At Heathrow in London, I had to clear customs to walk across a street into another concourse, to catch my plane to New York. Two British counter-narcotics officers were waiting for me as I entered the second concourse, they wanted a look inside my carry on day-pack. I had a collection of perfume oils I was returning with, to give to a woman friend. Eight brown glass vials about 3 inches tall and one inch wide, probably seen in some x-ray scanner my pack had been through. Asking me questions about the movie ‘The French Connection” as they pulled out the flat box containing the vials, I merely replied ‘Not everyone’s life fits a movie script.” They sorted soon enough it was oil of musk & other scents and one of them asked “What are you West, some kind of a rat?” And then let me go. I ate a ‘drop into dead sleep over the Atlantic’ pill I HAD smuggled, just for that purpose, and woke up at JFK in New York.

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

Tags Cairo, Egypt, Giza, London, New York

Categories Author, crime, Folk Stories, narcotics trafficking, philosophy, politics, psychology, satire, Travel, Uncategorized

My Madcap Adventure Episode 16

March 13, 2015 //

On 2 November in my room at the Taj Palace, watching Indian state tv was like watching science fiction; with expressionless humanoid faces telling us not to believe “rumors of communal violence.” As I watched Rajiv light his mother’s funeral pyre on television, I could coincidentally look out the window at a column of smoke rising in the distance. Indira Gandhi’s body going up in flames or another Sikh home? There was no way for me to know, as these were simultaneous phenomena. So, what was the point of the television lie? Another trait India holds in common with the western democracies – ‘what you’re told isn’t the reality.’

Meanwhile I’d picked up a security detail shadowing me, no one believed for a New York second I was Old Babette’s grandson. It’d been better if she’d said nothing. I took care of that with fortuitous circumstance. I was sitting in a lounge in the morning when some vile looking, dowdy and incredibly wealthy (her gold and jewels hanging on her like kites tangled in utility wires) old woman decided to abandon her huge purse that appeared to be so heavy as to be filled with gold bars and leave the room. I spotted my security man across the room in a doorway, looking the other way. I walked swiftly over to him and, without mentioning the owner, I told him “There is an untended bag.” He immediately followed me into the lounge where I pointed out the purse, as it happened the old woman was returning to claim it. After, there was no further suspicions; they didn’t care who I was, other than an extra set of security eyes. No one wanted a bomb going off. A little later I frightened the ‘bejezuz’ out of myself with a stupid trick. Heading back to my room I turned the corner to see the elevator doors were beginning to close. With a sprint & leap worthy of some caped hero, I flew into the elevator as the door closed behind me: squarely into some VIP”s armed security detail! And fortunately for me, sans VIP. I wasn’t shot. If only they’d taken a photo of my face in that moment, some things are absolutely priceless. Recovering my composure in the stare of several ‘men-in-black’ security types, I simply said “Sorry” and pushed the elevator button to my level.

3 November simply dragged on in some sort of time warp that makes a day seem as though it will never end, as Indian television insisted despite rumors, there was no communal violence. Meanwhile I’d encountered an American who said a mob had boarded at a stop and killed Sikhs on the train he’d taken to Delhi.

Meanwhile Old Babette had been showering me with promises. Grateful, at least momentarily, for engineering our escape, she insisted I was going to be put up in Cairo and take a boat tour with her on the Nile, all on her dime. I listened but said nothing. Underneath, both of us knew we were absolutely incompatible personalities. That, and I recalled her brief episode of delusional belief she was a siren of eternal youth. That made me more paranoid than the rioting city we were looking to escape.

On the morning of the 4th, the Guardian Angel Sister’s Muslim travel agent manifest, to be certain Old Babette and myself made it onto the airport shuttle. For that fact, I totally forgive her for -on my departing the Hotel Imperial- passing off to me two, inferior quality, counterfeit USD$100 bills as a means of getting rid of them. On the other hand, her Bandit Sister was prone to absolutely angel moments (time to time.)

Cairo

In our (cheap) silk kimono jackets courtesy of 1st class tickets on Japan Airline, we were among the first people out of Delhi. No sooner than we we’re in the air, Old Babette’s immense gratitude began to wane; she was certain I wouldn’t mind a 2nd class hotel in Cairo. The truth is, other than reassurance as escort on absolutely insane taxi rides, there hadn’t been much I’d done she couldn’t have done for herself. It was the Muslim friend of the Guardian Angel Sister had made our departure possible. I don’t know if Old Babette had ‘male companion’ in mind for Egypt, but as far as I was concerned we were parting ways. As we were disembarking our plane in Cairo, her plans for us were getting reiterated and I said nothing until we’d passed through customs; her needing assistance with luggage, and myself with two carry on totality of luggage, I turned to her and said “I’ll take a rain-check” with a wave of the hand I strode away .. and the look of complete surprize-shock-amazement on her face was the last I ever saw of Old Babette.

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

Tags Cairo, communal violence, Delhi, Egypt, Hotel Imperial, India, Indira Gandhi

Categories assassinations, crime, culture, Folk Stories, philosophy, politics, satire, Travel

My Madcap Adventure Episode 15

March 13, 2015 //

Of the numerous photos of the 1984 ‘riots’ I could have chosen, of Sikhs being beaten to death, burned alive, arson of their businesses or simply bodies of children, women and men alike murdered by the mob, I decided instead to show a taste of the opulence I’d escaped to .. and is likely an accurate picture of the Gandhi family’s life; even as Rajiv was setting fire to his mother’s funeral pyre while powerless Sikh families were being burned alive in their homes:

^ Interior of Taj Palace Hotel at New Delhi

I’d put on my day pack and shouldered my small sport duffel, the totality of my luggage, grabbed one of Old Babette’s suitcases (she had two) and escorted her out of the Hotel Imperial’s gate, past the Sikh security contingent, all armed with swords or batons, one of whose face was severely beaten. We turned right outside of the gate and walked maybe a hundred meters or so to an area where there was a taxi business. The taxi people pointed us down an alley where there were a few taxis with drivers willing to risk exiting the area and hired one to drive us to the Taj Palace Hotel … for one hundred US dollars. Working was an affront to the memory of Indira Gandhi and could get a taxi driver killed, with no safety promise made to the passengers. We made the trip with a wide-eyed, nearly panic stricken driver speeding through the empty streets of Delhi – it looked like a ghost city with scattered debris and the occasional smouldering ruin. Suddenly we breezed through an army checkpoint into the upscale area of the city where life looked like a calm calendar holiday. We arrived at the marble & brass edifice that we’d call home for the following three nights, without incident. Then, Old Babette made her first screw-up. She quite spontaneously decided to create an alibi for the character she was traveling with (that would be me) and went into an unrequested, convoluted, unconvincing explanation I was her “grandson” at check-in. Of course all this did was raise suspicions; as I bore no resemblance whatsoever to her. A medium-short, dark, muscular male with no scent of money whatsoever in his attire, in the company of a clearly wealthy, slender, taller, translucent-White woman who’d burn in the sun in less than 10 minutes without her protective hat and sunscreen. For purposes of cover, I would never bring myself to pose as her male prostitute; as well, we had separate rooms .. otherwise that might have almost been the story that fit her unnecessary, unwanted, counter-productive attempt at an alibi. In a way, we WERE using each other. But now I was marked by hotel security in a venue that was filling up with high profile guests arriving for a state funeral.

Now, things became more stupid in a blessed sort of way; We discovered there was to be an ‘inaugural’ Japan Airlines flight out of Delhi on 4 November, the day the airport would reopen for regular commercial traffic. This stroke of luck made available to us was on account of the Guardian Angel Sister who’d an Indian professional travel associate who came to see if we’d made it to our destination alive. This Muslim man, I do not recall his name, impresses me as one of the finest people I’d met on our trip. The catch was, I subsequently discovered, in order to secure tickets, we had to visit the Japan Airlines travel agency office, precisely located one city block from Hotel Imperial! Old Babette and myself had to get a taxi and retrace our route and return!! Argh!!! None of the travel businesses were overtly open but if we went to the back door of the business, we were told, we’d be allowed in to acquire plane tickets. This would be my fifth trip across the burning city in two days, if one counted destination and return separately. I told Old Babette she could either come up with a few thousand cash for myself to transact the business for us or take the ride and bring along her credit cards. She got into the taxi with me. Two wild rides & two hundred dollars in taxi fees later, we were back at the Taj Palace with a pair of first class tickets to Cairo.

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

Tags 1984, Hotel Imperial, New Delhi, Taj Palace Hotel

Categories assassinations, Author, crime, culture, Folk Stories, philosophy, politics, satire, Travel

My Madcap Adventure Episode 14

March 12, 2015 //

The term ‘surrealism’ in the common vernacular is about more than any school of art or literature. In the collective conscious of humanity, it is sometimes expressed in the vulgar tongue as ‘shit happens’ .. as when life itself becomes surreal. As surreal as my adventure might have seemed to now, suddenly it took on that psychosis that does not belong to the ego of any one individual, no matter it was both; arrogance & narcissism of the individual had initiated some few days mayhem & bedlam worthy of some South Asian ‘El Greco’ portrait. Except these inmate behaviors were exterior to the walls of the asylum. But first:

Indira Gandhi was an arrogant woman. From the time of the so-called ‘Emergency’, it was clear India is no exception to the general rule of democracy; it is the selfish ambition of the individual rises to rule, and the rights of the ‘little people’ are run over. After, when a militant Sikh separatist had taken over the Golden Temple (some would justly believe he’d been radicalized by Gandhi’s Congress party acts) she could have waited him out. Instead, this woman had her army storm the Sikh sacred temple, as Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was an affront to her ego. Her long time body guard, the Sikh Beant Singh, consequently ended her life. Then, Gandhi’s Congress party empowered a massacre of Sikhs in Delhi. This is what I’d been caught up in. These organized (by Indian Congress Party officials who’ve never been held to account) riots were from the evening of 31 October, the day Gandhi was assassinated, through the evening of 3 November, when the authorities finally began moving to have order restored. Meanwhile, thousands of Sikhs had been murdered and countless Sikh businesses and homes damaged or destroyed. The Hotel Imperial was a Sikh owned and operated business.

I managed to get out of Delhi (and India) on 4 November and needless to say, I am no fan of the Gandhi dy’nasty.’ Reflecting on these events is not fun but I’ll seize any black humor opportunity in the narratives that follow.

The Hotel Imperial is first of all, a walled fortress. A late colonial period construction, it was probably built with defensive features in case of rebellion. There was a large population of Sikhs in the neighborhood and this resulted in two phenomena; every Sikh in the area that could make it alive, came to Hotel Imperial for refuge … and Hotel Imperial became a point of focus for the anti-Sikh mob or what was essentially an organized pogrom. It wasn’t the Alamo, but the potential for one seemed real.

Insofar as the surrealism, imagine this: after their evening dinner, European tourists are camped in lounge chairs in the garden by the pool, with waiters serving drinks while profoundly apologizing; for the occasional Molotov cocktail that comes sailing over the wall.

The morning of 1 November, I tested the waters beyond the walls; it was quiet during the day. Walking out the gate in my western clothes, past the Sikh guard contingent, I drew looks from the Hindu mob’s sentries across the street but no one made any move to accost me. Taxi fares were over the moon. You could get rides for wads of American dollars but it was clearly dangerous. I made it to the American embassy where I gave the details of our party and asked for their assessment. They said there appeared to be no hostilities directed at westerners but frequenting any Sikh neighborhood or associated business was definitely not good. I inquired what area of the city was secure and they recommended any hotel in the ‘diplomatic enclave’ as that was the only area the army had moved to secure. Back at the Hotel Imperial, I gave my report. Old Babette wanted out. The Guardian Angel Sister was more philosophical; “Oh, I love these Sikhs, I’ll stay here.” Of course that would have nothing to do with her carpets arranged for export having been commandeered to fortify windows; where muskets that looked to have been retrieved from a colonial museum were manned from behind her precious bales.

Meanwhile, Old Babette and myself struck a deal – using her money and my experience, we’d get out.

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

Tags 1984, India, New Delhi

Categories assassinations, crime, culture, Folk Stories, philosophy, politics, religion, Travel

My Madcap Adventure Episode 13

March 12, 2015 //

Eight Finger Eddie’s legacy needs the whistle blown on him. Back in Katmandu, this was the man we all (the Bandit Sister buddies) were told we had to meet. This patron saint of the anti-materialist Goa commune of South India, spent his summers in Nepal, probably to escape the heat. We had a precise address of where to find him, thanks to Jasper® and his unfailing ability to tie dubious connections together throughout South Asia. Eddie was not at home, having returned to Goa something like ten days previous to our arrival at his door, or so we were informed by the very well dressed lady who came to quell the commotion in front of the gate; at a posh townhouse in a very upscale neighborhood of Nepal’s capital city. Eight Finger Eddie sounded like a name of some pool shark who’d hustled the wrong people. Anti-materialism? Enough said.

When our Katmandu days had run out after this last (aborted) misadventure, we flew back to Delhi. This departing Katmandu is where two amazing but very suspect characters, Jasper® & Socket™ (and constant aroma of ‘herbal’ chillums), drop out of our story. Jasper® is now known as ‘The Late Lord Whatever’, born an English aristocrat destined to a next life as a dope dealer running a chai shop in Almora.

At the airport, on arrival in Delhi, an Indian Army major asked my nationality. “USA” I answered. He kept staring at me, but now with a skeptical look and I stated “American.” He accepted my second answer, even if it did not seem wholly satisfactory. Back at the Hotel Imperial, I had a by this time urgent medical matter to attend to. My innumerable sins determined to leave my body by the route of my ear in the form of a fungus (initiated with my ‘cleansing’ bath in the Ganges) had to be addressed. I called the American embassy to ask who they sent their people to, for ear problems. I took this measure because the hotel’s doctor on call had prescribed antibiotics to the Canadian minister for his malaria, at the beginning of our trip. They connected me with a Sikh trained in the USA and I made an appointment.

After a couple of days in Delhi, the Bandit Sister took Sensible Sue, the Montana dyke & Bummer John south, to some baba’s ashram. The Guardian Angel Sister and Old Babette stayed in Delhi. The Tibetan headed north to Dehradun and I was supposed to catch up with him there, in a few days, after I’d resolved the sins in my ear. I’d seen the Sikh doctor and he’d used something like a tiny ball on a wire attached to a power device that made it spin. Inserting this tiny ball into my ear, he powered on the device and beat the sins out of my head. Now I was to use anti-fungal drops in my sinful ear but he wanted me back in a few days, to make certain I was clean. I never returned to the doctor or Dehradun. This was on account of the next day, Indira Gandhi was shot.

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

Tags Delhi, Ear Fungus, Eight Finger Eddie, Katmandu, New Delhi, South India

Categories Author, Folk Stories, philosophy, psychology, satire, Travel

My Madcap Adventure Episode 12

March 11, 2015 //

Our days at Chitwan behind us, the bus we hired to bring the group back to Katmandu broke down. The Tibetan stayed with the main group and the bus together with the Angel Sister, while the Bandit Sister, with some of the more adventurous souls, took off up the road to ‘hitch-hike’ back to Katmandu. I rather quickly strode out beyond these people and when about two hundred meters ahead of them, looking back, I saw a commuter bus blow past this crew dressed in western clothes with thumbs out, as though they did not exist. ‘Thumbs up’ likely meant to the driver of this bus ‘it’s all good.’

I’ve worn something resembling a turban exactly twice in my life; the first time in 1972 when hired as an extra; for a movie that bombed at the box office, a remake of ‘Lost Horizons.’ Oddly coincidental, this movie was supposedly set in the Himalayas (however filmed in the USA.) I’d like to believe this dubious literary venture will someday fare better.

While in Nepal, I’d purchased a long piece of brightly colored cotton cloth, a print, and wore it wrapped around my head in a manner similar to some of the locals, enhancing the native dress I’d adopted. Extending my hand, palm down, at the approaching bus, with a sort of wing-flap gesture I knew from Vietnam, the vehicle stopped for me. Climbing onto this typically jammed with people commuter bus at the rear entrance, as there was no possible space to enter at the front of the bus, I sorted the fare by deliberately producing more than it could possibly cost, an Indian twenty rupee note. Nepal was, in those days, a triple currency nation; Nepal rupees, India rupees and American dollars. The India twenty rupee note was passed, hand to hand, from the rear of the bus to the front of the bus, where it was deposited and a Nepal ten rupee note and some coins were passed, hand to hand, back to the rear of the bus and given to me. The simple people are good to, and honest with, each other. I didn’t initially know the fare but the result proved I wasn’t cheated.

^ Similar but my commuter bus was bigger

By using the India currency, it put the curious off the mark. To each language put to me by fellow passengers, I merely smiled and shook my head in the negative. Nobody asked me a question in English and clearly no one suspected I was a westerner. Normal in Nepal or India, this all took place standing at the open rear door of a bus that would see the driver jailed and company shut down, if it were to happen in the States .. there were that many people on board.

I was the first back to our hotel in Katmandu, by several hours. The Bandit Sister and the few with her wandered in next, followed by those who’d stayed with the bus, that evening. Meanwhile, Jasper® was in an ebullient mood, regaling us with stories, no doubt solo immersion in the Katmandu hashish/opium dens had lifted his spirits considerably in our absence. Or perhaps he was actually, genuinely, happy to see us. One story he told has remained etched in my memory, something one such as myself would never be prone to forget. But first: One must understand these sisters have known South Asia intimately since the 1960s. Covering India (the Guardian Angel Sister primarily), Pakistan (both sisters) and Afghanistan (the Bandit Sister primarily), among other nations, if one could reinvent Kipling’s ‘Kim’ as two 20th Century sisters who’d discovered the South Asian street life and could competently negotiate the associated intrigues of the latter era, it would be these girls. With that said, I’ve no real idea what the sisters were doing in Islamabad in December, 1971. Especially considering they were in the company of not only Jasper® & Socket™ but Kathy McNamara! As Jasper® warmed to his story of the hotel room they were together in subject to air-raid blackout during the short India-Pakistan war of 1971, he brought up the fact of former (and much reviled) United States Secretary of Defense and then World Bank President Robert McNamara’s daughter present in the involuntarily darkened room. Then, with an expression of amazement apparently undiluted over the 13 years that’d passed since; Jasper® announced and I’ll never forget this .. “And Socket™ screwed her!!”

Socket™ did not deny anything, rather looked, for the only time ever, somewhat uncomfortable. Normally, he was gathered and complacent image of cool, closely resembling another drummer anyone should recognize, that is if one were to imagine his face thinner & darker:

Who knows what method might have been employed to seduce Kathy McNamara .. no matter circumstance .. when a daughter of one of the world’s most powerful and evil men is seduced by a village musician from Bihar, that my friends, is the stuff of legend.

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

Tags Katmandu, Nepal

Categories culture, Folk Stories, philosophy, politics, satire, Travel, Uncategorized

My Madcap Adventure Episode 11

March 10, 2015 //

After a late breakfast, we’d continued a short distance on the river and disembarked. Land Rovers brought us into Chitwan and our safari camp, which consisted of somewhat primitive huts surrounded by a wall of some satanic thorn growth that looked truly formidable. Everyone seemed to vanish into this camp; as though no one wished to talk to anyone at this point in the journey. Or perhaps we were all just tired. It was a quiet refuge and a blessing .. I spent the afternoon soaking up the silence. Staff at the camp seemed invisible except when manifest at meal times. I slept soundly under mosquito netting covering my bed, just like some sahib in a B quality adventure movie. Recalling John Lennon’s ‘Bungalow Bill’, our crew who’d been checking out all sorts of Hindu religious experience would, tomorrow, take an elephant ride to check out the park, albeit sans firearms.

Following coffee and late breakfast, the Tibetan & myself managed to avoid whatever morning activity it was the others had run off to experience. It was before noon yet, when a young French couple had been dropped off, and no one from staff was there to greet them. They’d accosted me and I’d told them someone would make an appearance, just to be patient. In the meantime, they decided to have a walk out into the surrounding forest on their own. I told them this was definitely NOT a good idea but with typical French superiority -a roll of the eyes & wave of the hand- they dismissed my advice and wandered off on foot, out the gate and beyond the thorn walls. After, someone from staff made an appearance; there was an elephant ready for the Tibetan and myself.

Now, I’d never ridden an elephant, this was the stuff of Tarzan and Hannibal in my preconceived notions. But here I was, climbing a short stair onto a platform and stepping onto a flat wicker saddle on an elephant’s back. It seemed more of a cargo platform than a passenger seat, as there was no rail, just a sturdy flat surface of woven sticks with some thin cushion strapped on. The mahout was in front of, and lower to us, astride the elephant’s short neck, behind the head. Riding the wicker platform was ok, you soon realized the elephant’s gait was at most, a mild sense of a ship at sea. The Tibetan could understand the mahout’s language and they were conversing. One of the mahout’s statements was, “This is a really good elephant, I’ve had him for seven years and he’s never freaked out.” I pondered that, as I watched him dig his big toes into the elephant’s ears, prodding & pushing inside the lobes, while time to time tapping the large creature’s head with a stick. ‘Please, just make one more trip without freaking out’, was was my thought.

A half hour ride through the forest brought us to an open area of tall reed-like grass and we were pushing forward through this, when suddenly we were among rhinoceros.

We were able to get alongside these large animals that were dwarfed by the creature whose back we were on, if I’d had the mahout’s stick, I could have bent down and touched one, we came that close. The rhinoceros were not in the least disturbed by the presence of the elephant, with no natural sense of enemies between them. It was really quite amazing.

After awhile among the rhinoceros, and a bit more sight-seeing from ‘elephant-back’, we headed back into the forest, returning to our safari camp. The Tibetan’s sharp eye spotted a brown cobra, slithering across the forest floor, apparently cobras get out of the way of elephants, not vice-versa. Then, from over 100 meters distance, we saw the French couple waving from high in a tree .. HALLOOO!! .. they were calling out as loudly as possible. I nonchalantly waved back at these intrepid souls, as though in passing at persons calling out from the far side of the River Styx. The Tibetan and myself briefly speculated at which creature they might have encountered and the mahout did not deviate from our trail. Funny thing is, I don’t recall seeing them again; perhaps they were rescued by the Foreign Legion, with brass anthem and medals all around.

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

Tags adventure, Chitwan National Park, elephant ride, French, rhinoceros, safari, travel

Categories culture, Folk Stories, philosophy, religion

My Madcap Adventure Episode 10

March 9, 2015 //

We left Jasper® & Socket™ waiting for Katmandu to catch up to them, or something upside down like that. Our itinerary now took us out of the city, across a mountain range, and into a steep Himalayan valley hosting the Trisuli river and our raft journey to Chitwan National Park.

On one of our riverside stops, Old Babette had an epiphany of immortal youth, had lost or run out of her lithium actually, and after being fished out of a riverside eddy and narrow brush with death that did not even register in her mind, with wet dress clinging to her thin body, began dancing; imagining herself a siren from the Coen Brothers’ ‘Ulysses.’

She was taken into protective custody by the Montana dyke whose ability to impart reality was better than any anti-psychotic medication. A few short words suffice to explain: This dyke ‘lady’ from Basin, Montana, was veteran of a war that is legend. The derelict Montana mining town of Basin was the preferred habitat of an artist community with a fairly large percentage of lesbians. The town’s bikers didn’t behave in respect to the lesbians and after awhile, when push came to shove, the lesbians pushed the bikers out of town. The Montana dyke was along as an insurance policy-enforcer in the original Montana libertarian style; be as crazy as you please, but don’t cross a line. Old Babette decided to behave.

We camped overnight at the confluence of the Trisuli & Kaligandeki rivers on a sandy spit across from the Devghat temple. We had no idea what the temple was across the river. The ‘Bandit Sister’ and myself swam over to investigate and upon entering the temple grounds, we saw crocodile effigies! “Oh shit!!” was the reaction on realizing we had come so far into the lowlands that we’d entered this creature’s territory and would now have to swim back. I swam on my back returning to the camp, maybe not so much because it is quiet but because I wouldn’t see a croc coming, if that was to happen. Perhaps the water wasn’t seasonally warm enough, for them to be up the river to where we were.

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

Tags Devghat, Kaligandeki River, Nepal, Trisuli River

Categories Author, culture, Folk Stories, philosophy, psychology, Uncategorized

My Madcap Adventure Episode 9

March 8, 2015 //

On arrival in Nepal we were held up an hour at the airport, with the exception of the Tibetan who magically walked through customs as though he were invisible. The holdup was we weren’t offering a bribe, essentially daring customs to shake us down. Jasper® & Socket™ had departed separately from the group and were coming to Nepal overland, by bus. Apparently there were some issues with them getting into the country in any straightforward way, which by the way, in south Asia includes bribes. If Jasper® & Socket™ had been with us, there’s no doubt in my mind we’d have had all of our luggage gone through with a fine toothed comb. Maybe that’s why the sisters had sent them packing on a different route.

The officers looked totally annoyed at us all, as we pretended to be too stupid to understand the custom of offering a gratuity to speed our entry into the country. Finally they let us in, sans tip. When I asked the Tibetan about his magic act entry, he explained he had no proper passport and could not get a visa. Therefore he’d pressed a 100 Rupee note into a customs officer’s hand with the remark “Here is the better identity” and was waved through without a problem.

Bummer John had to leave his dope in India, as he’d been advised he wouldn’t want to risk the hospitality of a Nepali jail trying to bring it into the country via the airport. Now, at the hotel in Katmandu, he looked even more bummed out. I was relaxed on a 2nd level veranda and noticed what looked like potted marijuana plants on the adjacent building’s rooftop, actually within easy reach. I’d inquired and discovered they were hemp of a variety for making nutritional oil. It was not the cannabis variety that gets you high but more similar to a feral cannabis variety known to dopers in the American mid-west as ‘headache weed.’

Bummer John was too depressed to notice horns had sprouted on my forehead as I went back into the hotel and told him of a discovery he’d no doubt be interested in. Desperate, he took the bait and filched some cannabis flowers off the hotel neighbor’s plants; to my visceral satisfaction when I noticed several hours later his perennial expression of stressed helplessness had degenerated into something more resembling a Van Gogh painting, or perhaps a modern work titled ‘The Scream.’

Old Babette, who to now seemed a perfectly reasonable person, with the singular habit of avoiding Jasper® like the plague, was coming a bit more into the conversation in the absence of Our English Lord Ram Giri. The Montana dyke had been nearly invisible throughout our trip, usually wandering a bit behind everyone else when the group was together, to solo sight-see, with relaxed demeanor and pleasant smile belying eyes that never missed a thing. Sensible Sue managed to adroitly negotiate all of the cliques by now, demonstrating a real cross-cultural talent with an infallible instinct to know when and how to discreetly make herself vanish with upcoming scene not to her taste.

Bummer John had the occasional extended downer (with assists from myself), between consistent lows.

The Tibetan and myself took off into the city to get a sense of things more along the lines of Nepal’s authentic culture than the hashish dens the city is famous for in counter-culture lore, ZZ Top reputedly frequenting these locations notwithstanding. I’d a glance inside the Yin & Yang Café at the western burnouts therein and decided leave that to Jasper®’s ‘alternative’ city tours & interested parties, when (or if) he’d caught up with us.

Katmandu is an interesting city reflecting Nepal’s makeup; proper Nepalese Hindus, others speaking a Hindi dialect my Tibetan friend understood, a Tibetan subculture that was interesting, as well, many proper Tibetans. My friend looked up someone he knew, a Tibetan ‘Foxy’ and had a good visit. After, we visited the temple of the living virgin goddess, a Hindu site where a young girl lives as an immortal until puberty and then is married off and replaced with a new virgin. We visited an open market where I found, and this amazed me, a package of authentic American Camel non-filter cigarettes, and stumbled onto a !Mexican restaurant! precisely on the other side of the planet from Mexico. I sat down and enjoyed a quite reasonable bean & cheese burrito, quite reasonable, that is, if you didn’t mind the Italian red sauce.

The ‘Tibetan’ (L) and myself (R)

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

Tags Katmandu, Nepal, Yin & Yang Café

Categories culture, Folk Stories, philosophy

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