I flaunt my arrested development in Jaipur with cocky ignorance

Classes are over. We take the train out into Jaipur at 5:30 in the morning after Diwali. Fireworks are still going off in the morning. Smoke and empty fire cracker capsules cover the streets.

We board the train. I pass out. I have a dream I return home and its a total nightmare. Everything thats ever bothered me comes out in full force. I awake intensely only to find I'm on a train in India in the middle of Rajasthan which looks like a bland version of Arizona with small foot hills. Whoa. I was utterly convinced I was back home and I wake up to find I couldn't be farther from it..reminded me of the twilight zone or something...

We arrive in Jaipur and a military jeep picks us up because...wait...I need to go back...

There are five of us going to Jaipur: Louisa, myself, Vivienne, Kate, and Teddi. Vivienne's roommate, Sohini, who is Indian but American has an Uncle who is way high up in the Indian military (he is 1 of 5 in his position, general or something) and so Sohini contacted him and asked if if the military could pick us up when we got into Jaipur...word up...

So a service guy meets us at the platform and loads us into this paddy wagon/jeep esque car and drives us like 200 yards to our hotel. Entirely unnecessary but cool so whatever.

nap until 1 p.m. because I am tired...now i am sweaty...

Head into Jaipur. We pass lots of drug addicts along the way. This place is kind of sketchy. I also see a Ronald Mcdonald plastic statue thats sitting cross legged on a bench like they have in America...I think that made me more uncomfortable than the glue huffers...

I restrain myself to vandalize it.

We see Hawa Mahal...kinda lame but whatever, get a view of the city so thats cool. We walk around looking for for shit to buy and I find fireworks....excellent...I pay 75 ruppees (less than 2 dollars) for ten of these little green balls that look like plastic explosives. I tell the vendor I want the loud ones that go "Boom!" and he goes, "yeah, these boom!"

I love fireworks.

Word. The cover on the box has a picture of King Kong or some monkey destroying a city...more excellent...The good thing about being in a third world country is that simple things we take for granted in America like safety regulations are only about as 1/2 as efficient so naturally you can buy dangerously powerful fireworks right off the street in the middle of a bustling city...I'm trying to find reasons to return home and they continue to elude me...limitless juvenile anarchy...im back in middle school...no cops this time around...

We walk through alley ways and they're totally deserted because of Diwali the night before. Empty pooja cups, flowers, and fire cracker remnants litter the switchback nooks and turns.

Some of the girls shop at one or two of the open stands and I sit down on a dirty piece of concrete. I look to my left and suddenly two large monkeys about a foot and half away cross in front of me headed towards the garbage pile to munch. Several more climb down from the rooftops...

Some kids run up and chase them away after a few minutes. One kid storms after the biggest monkey with a large slab of concrete and chucks it at him, shattering it everywhere and scaring the monkey up the side of building.

I don't like monkeys so I laugh (may all beings be free from suffering)...back to duality...nvm that.

We take a bike rickshaw on the way back to the center of the city. I get off and this homeless old man with raggedy beard wired on some dirty street drugs comes up to me and won't back away while making odd hand singles. I think he may have wanted me to allow him to take a picture...Idk...I turn around and he grabs me. Pusund nahi he!! I toss him off and he does it again.

He keeps getting in my face and this is getting weird. In retrospect I wish I had my fire crackers handy.

After a while he looses interest in the outside world and walks away laughing, mumbling to himself. I understand why certain people would not feel comfortable traveling to India on their own or even with a group.

We buy a bottle of rum ("India's number one rum my friend!"...whatever man...) and head to a roof top restaurant for food. After chicken pakoras, weird pizza, kingfisher, and a few glasses of rum we head back to the hotel. I decide this is an excellent time to test out my newly acquired fireworks since everyone else in the city is still celebrating Diwali with leftover explosives. I won't stand out.

I'm worried the fire crackers I bought might not be legit so I decide to light one off in the street. BOOM! They're loud, like really loud. Like gunshot loud. I run off laughing like a little kid lighting a few more. The local Indian people in the surrounding homes..or rather, the guards of the surrounding homes love it and one guy applauds me with a jaggedy tooth grin as I continue to detonate explosives in the neighborhood. Bahut accha!

There doesn't seem to be any regulations with fireworks here. Light off whatever you want whenever and wherever you want.

My friend Kate wants to light one off and I place it apparently too close to an SUV.. When it goes off it was powerful enough to make the car alarm go haywire. Too funny.

Pause...Time for Baskin Robbins...Resume childish destruction....

I only have one left at this point and as we duck into the alley way where our hotel is I see several Indian men peeing on the side of the wall. I light one about 15 feet behind them and run off laughing. They heard the sparks flaring so I don't think I made them piss themselves...at least not literally...

Drink more rum and rail neer while smoking cigarettes in the bathroom listening to various dub step artists. Rail Neer, btw, is the water they give you when you go on a train ride. It is the holy elixir of Jesus and the essence of life itself. If you have tasted it, you know why...or you probably just think I'm insane. Either one will suffice.

Next Day:

We head towards Amber Fort. The city of Jaipur is kind of shitty. Like a big tourist trap. However, just past the city are these beautiful foothills (tiny mountains) whatever you want to call them that overlook the city and are covered in tons of forts, palaces, and gates that make it a pretty spectacular place despite the destitution of the city below. Everyone says Jaipur is the most romantic place to go. We didn't understand what the hell people were talking about until we got out of the city.

Anyway, before we can leave the city we have to find a rickshaw. So we walk up to Hawa Mahal and yes. Yes. YES! YESSS!!! Thank God. I have finally found what I have been looking for this entire time. A dark skinned Indian man in a crazy multi-colored turban is charming two large black cobras. He sees my face light up and waves for me to come over. I snap a few pictures and then grab the rest of the girls who are looking at quilts or some stupid shit and have them take my picture while I sit down next to this squirly guy who gives me his turban hat, flute, and cobras. He wraps one around my neck and has the other rise up from the basket. The cobras strike at him and although they are defanged or de-poisoned (not sure which) I'm kind of like ...wtf..is this safe? Probably not but whatever.

sidenote: flutes don't charm snakes. Snakes can't hear. They sense vibrations and the tapping of the foot of the charmer puts them into a "trance".

Kate also has her picture taken with the cobras wrapped around her neck. This day has already been awesome and it hasn't even begun.

We roll up to Amber Fort via rickshaw passing camels, elephants, and this giant lake with a palace/temple in the middle of it tucked beneath the mountains. We start to come up into the mountains I'm reminded of driving through Shenandoah national park although there are several more elephants here...

We get to the Fort. BAHUT ACCHA (means very good...one of like 6 hindi things ive learned in two and a half months of living here...I passed the class though so word...)...So we climb into the fort and we need food. We see signs for a restaurant and we climb to nearly the top of the fort and find the restaurant....

I just finished reading this book called "the power of now" by Eckhart Tolle. Read it. Its about enlightenment and all that stuff. dude is a very interesting person....Tolle talks about how when you enter into the eternal present/now its as if you suddenly become aware of the stillness and quietness of life. Its as if in normal consciousness there is a large fan or air conditioner perpetually running so you just get used to it and forgot about it, but it never goes away. Then you awaken and enter into "the now" and all of the sudden that fan or whatever unconscious noise stops and you're like holy shit! its still. Its quiet. It always was and my mental chatter just prevented me from seeing it. Infinite bliss...

So, we climb these stairs to the restaurant. We step inside a little archway into an open air courtyard (no roof) and its extremely fancy (modeled after how the people who used to live in the palace there ate) but there is no one there other than the maitre d' and us. and it was like how I would imagine entering into "the now" would be. It was like woah! It is quiet in here. Stillness. Because just outside the little archway was this massive courtyard where all the people visiting the fort were along with an elephant and guards and kids running around and for some reason the acoustics of this restaurant/courtyard just shut ALL the sound off and it was like entering into an entirely fresh, serene, and still state of mind. I pulled Louisa outside to show this to her. She agreed.

The food was trey fancy and we even had some guy play us music with a little hand made wooden one stringed violin. All in all I think I would have spent more money had I gone to Ruby Tuesdays back in America (or some other crappy chain restaurant). Taking mental note of economic disparity...

god grant me the serenity to accept the things i can't change

the courage to change the things i can

and the wisdom to know the difference between the two...so it goes...

is this Kurt Vonnegut or a 12 step program. both, neither, who cares...carry on...

We leave and get a rickshaw to (we thought) Tiger Fort to overlook the city. Instead this guy just takes us back down to the city. We're pissed and he's clueless. Some people help us diffuse the situation and this one friendly older guy with fat rings sitting near where the rickshaw parked finds us an unmarked cabbie who will take us up and back to Tiger Fort for 300 rupees total (6-7 bucks).

I sit in the front and he drives us up. We see some spectacular views of the city and its starting to get dark. This guy is weird. Goofy, speaks bad english, and seems generally insane--like many people who you would expect to have his job. The roads suck and it seems somewhat dangerous. He tells me 40 tigers live in these hills (out of the 1400 left in India (wild))...not sure if thats true...probably not...

We get to the fort and its pitch black but we get to an overlook and see the whole city of Jaipur lit up at night. Also, people are lighting off those big mortar fireworks that explode in the sky because its still kind of Diwali so its pretty sick. Gigantic explosions flash across the skyline followed by echoing booms. cool.

We get back into the cab and the girls inform me they think the driver is drunk or on drugs because they saw him swaying back and forth and he's slurring his words. They're all convinced of this and have a really horrible time on the way back down. I'm not convinced and I'm like...I just think he's crazy...he breaks out in laughter after saying mumbled words in English and does weird shit like ask us for water and tell us his feet hurt. cool man...However, his driving is fine and he's going slow enough so I just kind of go with the flow. We make it back down and he tells us his heart is full of happiness. Super dooper.

The girls look pissed off and angry. I found it funny and somewhat amusing. Tension for them can only be diffused by one thing--shopping...

We go to this quilt/sarai place and three of the girls go downstairs. Louisa and I not wanting anything down there stay upstairs. We each buy some gifts for people and in between purchases they give us these 660 ml beers and we talk about random shit. Collectively between the five of us we dropped some cash so they were down with us for sure.

We get a rickshaw to head back to the hotel and the main dude whose 25 yrs old offers me a ride back on his moped. Sick. I pass the girls on the rickshaw zipping in and out of Jaipur traffic, which, for the record is a lot more tame than in Delhi. Jaipur is a city 2 million. Delhi is a city of 17.5 and its like 1200 more come everyday I heard so, yeah.

I pass the girls and I arrive waiting for them. They apparently got lost because their rickshaw driver was insane (like actually) so they had to get another one. I, in the meantime, talk to two cab drivers about American women, films, and other stuff. One guy tells me he has sex ten times a night. Bahut accha. you win buddy.

Eat. Feed. Mate. Kill. Repeat.

Train Ride at 6 in the morning. Sleeper cars. Thank god. Sleeper cars are cheap cabins with "beds" for everyone. We all pass out until this one fucking piece of shit kid decides it will be fun to scream this single incoherent word at the top of his fucking lungs for 3 goddamn hours straight. His parents look on as if this is no problem. I wake up and murderous thoughts flood my head. I try to fall asleep--not happening. I sit up. His parents aren't there. No one's looking. I turn my head to both sides and just say, "fuck it". I walk up to this kid grab him by the ankles, dragging him as he screams in terror. His nails are digging into the crusted metal floor and when we reach the exit I hurl him off the train into the winds of Rajasthan while we cruise at a smooth 60 mph.

The kid deserved it. I feel no guilt for doing this. Fuck that kid. You may want to keep your children away from me...

I used to do shit like that 24/7 when I was kid so maybe I should be more understanding...in fact, I think I still do it...we don't like our own kind...

anyway, so rather than listen to the irrational screaming of children I get up feeling as if I've been awake for 5 days straight smoking meth due to exhaustion and decide to stand between the cabins and hang out the door listening to music. Distance-Fallen....Choppy emotions pulling through...I see camels, mountains, fields, peacocks, and farmers.

We arrive at a train station (not our stop) and the trains headed the opposite direction of us each have like 50 people on the rooftops. This was made illegal like really recently and I didn't think people still did it. Dumb of me to think that because rules don't really exist in India. Louisa was telling me her friend saw a car run over a beggar and kill him than just pay off the police...no questions asked...

I, on the other hand, have been hand cuffed for drinking beer...America land of the free....

They made it illegal to ride on rooftops I was reading because something like 18 people died in one weekend. However, they just pack some of these cars with so many people its like...the only place to go is up...

My two stereotypical perceptions of India: people riding on trains and snake charmers have been experienced. However, I still have yet to ride on the roof of the train myself. I will report back if this is achieved.

I went to this Buddhist talk by a Tibetan Monk the past two days on the dharma (spiritual practice) and his final word for the whole workshop was something along the lines of, don't just listen to the dharma, hear it, then practice it, and become it. I will try....

So, during the talks there was this quirky old Indian guy there who sat near me during both lectures I went to. Or at least during the second one and I saw him at the first.

So about 10 minutes after the talk is over I'm at Jor Bagh metro station buying a token and I'm one of two people there. There is one guy in front of me making a purchase and just me. Then, out of nowhere, this old guy from the talk comes up and just blatantly walks right in front me taking my place...I don't think he heard the dharma...I laugh at this but somehow still feel like...really? after listening to someone discuss the virtues of selflessness and interconnectedness to others you just take my place. This happens all the time here. However, I usually get my spot back by yelling at the person and the venders respect your place and don't serve those who take spots. This time I was just like, fuck it, this is too interesting. While I thought that to myself another lady cut me....sigh....if i didn't make an issue then im not going to bother now...passive aggressiveness...

I buy my token, walk down to the platform, and the train isn't even there yet and here the three of us all are in the same place at the same time....was it necessary?

Indians also seem to have this problem when riding the metro of allowing other people to get off. Everyone is trying to get on while all the other people are trying to get off. Needless to say, it doesn't work. I stand to the side and watch them run into each other throwing elbows, screaming, and getting squished in a hyper frenzied panic. Then, once the collision between the two walls of people have subsided and those who want to be in are in and those who want to be out are out the doors are still open....and I calmly, delicately, and slowly step in without anyone around me while all these people watch crammed together in the car...

There are a few other indians who have learned the magic of patience but many have sadly not. Also, 95% of the people wait in line and FIGHT to get onto the escalator where they're crammed like cattle when the stairs--which are 4 times as big--have no one on them. I don't understand this. Its like 34 steps. You can do it.

Reminds me of when we went to Gwalior and this same problem of people not allowing others to get off first before they try to get on occurred and it was utter madness--worst ive seen--I stop and think to myself, "this is dumb" I turn my head and see the other door is entirely empty 20 feet down. I calmly and slowly walk over there and get off no problem while I literally hear passengers screaming in attempts to get onto the train...unconscious...running my head into a wall...me or them? both of us...sigh...

However, I have had to power my way through a good number of times. When your on the back side of the train car and you need to get off at a stop where no one else is (and the train is packed, like you can't move its so packed) its a pain in the ass. Fortunately, I played defensive line in football for 11 years and I'm a pro at maneuvering through the line of scrimmage in a limited amount of time. I've swimmed, ripped, and bull rushed effectively taking no prisoners. Stomping small children and crushing old women without compassion...

The worst time I was literally the only one out of 300 people getting off at this stop and I was like the last bit of tooth paste being squeezed out of the tube. I got stuck between two people and when I finally got through the momentum carrying me forward almost caused me to loose my balance and face plant....I didn't... but feelscrazyman. When I got out I started laughing and raised my arms in triumph and ran up the stairs like I had just scored a touchdown or something.

Sidenote: I'm not living with my homestay anymore because technically I'm on ISP right now so I've been staying in a hole in the wall backpacker hotel for 8 bucks a night in connaught place (center of the city, awesome location). However, I've had to re-arrange all this shit and plan out my pilgrimage so I've been riding the metro constantly from the north side to the east side to the south side to upside down sideways backwords side....my head is spinning, man.,.. I think I've taken 45 metro rides (or more) in two days. I've mastered public transportation (bus, metro, train, rickshaw, and cabs) and the city of Delhi like it was my backyard....However, every now and then i fuck up. Today, I went over to my homestay for a free meal and I was riding the bus and got off way too early...Goddamn 2 click walk here i come...

Another note: I've been taking this medication for malaria prevention called mefloquin. It cost 120 dollars in the states for 12 pills. You take it once a week. I ran out. So I went to buy it here and I got 20 pills for 20 bucks...yeah....buy that here if you come over...oh and the good thing about it is it fucks with your dreams. I keep waking up and hallucinating. I see people float across my room and for some reason it never scares me, just confuses me. I keep trying to talk to them. Its weird because I'm conscious. I'm awake. But its like my rationality hasn't fully returned. So I'll see this figure float across the bed next to me and I'll say really calmly, "hey, why are you in my room? Please Leave" as if it makes sense for a floating person to be hanging out with me...(no, no it doesn't)...

Then I turn the lights on and I realize I'm fucking seeing shit that isn't there. feelsweirdman.

on a positive note I haven't had night terrors since i've been here...and...

Baltimore is currently the top rated team in the league on ESPN and NFL.com...sick...Hopefully the super bowl is aired in Nepal. I haven't seen a football game all year.

I go to Kushinagar tomorrow. Truth seekers unite. All hope is gone. Meet me in Bodh Gaya...

"Gave up trying to figure it out

But my head got lost along the way
Worn out from giving it up

My soul I pissed it all away
Still stings these shattered nerves
Pigs we get what pigs deserve
I'm going all the way down I'm leaving today...

This isn't meant to last this is for Right Now.."

-Last by Nine Inch Nails

...figure it out for yourself, yo....

~peace