Ratfinks

I listened to this song called, "Ratfinks" by Rob Zombie on the way over here...by accident actually...Well not by accident...I first heard the song in the movie "Beavis and Butthead Do America"

Beavis and Butthead are stuck in the desert and they accidentally eat some peyote and this crazy Rob Zombie song comes on while they're hallucinating and seeing all these demons and devils melt out of their pours...An appropriate song in title, sound, and film: I'm in the desert about to visit a rat temple and considering what I'm doing I may as well be tripping....

Here's the scene to provide context: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5pR5ktDwts

I'm tired of Delhi. Time to peace. Hop on board to a bus to Jaipur. I like this about India, no plans, you can just get on a bus and show up...Real free lance...Adventure time...Jah ready?

This bus is nice, flat screen TVs, warm (with a/c if need be) overhead lights, and reclining seats--makes me wonder why the hell I took that bus that belonged in the scrap yard 26 hours across North India a month earlier when these kind of buses operate here...whatever...I mesh better with the insanity...

I'm learning travel is an art not a skill. A skill, imo, implies that there is a single way to do it and it can be perfected. Travel, however, is an art, meaning it can be done in any way and you don't need to follow any linearity or even rules for that matter...

I've also learned my own style of travel is best solitary. I have this disregard for sleep, food, showers, and shelter when moving from place to place that I don't think I could pull off with other people. Other people like to eat more than once every 30 hours and that just slows me down...I can get by 30 hours with half a bottle of water and three packages of chocolate cookies...no need for real food...I don't drink much b.c. that means you're stuck holding it all in since you have no control over bathroom stops. Fast and ration--the theme. Endurance. Kick up the pace..

I skip meals and don't rest, hoping from one bus to then next and just mentally pushing through, utilizing the deadly combination of a majestic Indian landscape and heavy metal with mellow music sprinkled in to keep me going.

...I prey on the weak. I fall victim to myself...

I hoped onto a bus to Bikaner at 6 this morning. Drove seven hours across the Thar Desert. Some trees but mostly barren. Lots of camels though. Wasteland. Emptiness. Dull sand. An elderly man on the verge of death rode three hours sitting in front of me with his son. He smelled like he passed two weeks ago...I noticed when he got out to leave some putrid looking liquid was coming out of his nose and mucus and such from either his nostrils or mouth had poured out onto the seat he was previously leaning his head against. He was on his last leg for sure and looked in bad shape, real bad shape...

1.) Old man

2.) Sickness

3.) Death

4.) Ascetic

...why?????....figure it out...

We arrive in Bikaner. I get my hotel (its clean!) and then hop onto a bus for Deshnok--home of the epic rat temple. A large old Indian man in a turban and robes sits down next to me. He has a crazy big mustache and has a large polished wooden stick as a cane. Twenty minutes into the trip while we are stopped waiting to cram the rest of the bus with all the remaining 1.2 billion people of India, the man stands up, leans over me to the window and hawks out a couple bottom throat loogies...His splatter sprays down upon me. The flies bouncing off me lick it up. Thank god for those fuckers. The man sits back down but has one more loogie left. Not wanting to stand up again he just spits out the bus door into the street. However, we are on the far side from the door so he hawks his loogie like a missile which sails like a coiled projectile inches past the people's face sitting to our left out into the street. They don't react. I don't react. The turban man falls asleep. Its fucking hot here.

If I wasn't going to a temple full of rats I think I might actually mind....probably not...fuck it...I haven't changed my clothes in like two weeks. That shirt I wore on the bus ride to Lucknow at the start of ISP for 26 hours. I'm wearing it now. I haven't washed it. Filthy ass shit, man. Still smells alright too (honestly, I've had people smell it and they agree). suck it cleanliness.

Background on the rat temple: The Karni Mata Temple in Deshnok houses and cares for thousands of free-roaming rats. These rats are said to be the reincarnation of all the Charans (a caste of musicians in India). It is said that Karni Mata, who was sort of a Hindu mystic figure born in the 14th century made it so all the Charans (who believed that Karni Mata was a incarnation of the goddess Durga) would be reincarnated as rats because it was the only creature Yama, the god of the underworld, could not power over...makes perfect sense....hurray religion!....

So pilgrims come to this temple, worship the rats, feed them, allow them to crawl over them, while walking barefoot through a crusty floor covered in feces and nibbled food...I wore socks....

Sidenote: On the way to the temple I see a man holding another man who is unconscious and covered in blood. His arms are limp. The man holding him is swinging him back and forth. Our bus keeps moving and I don't know what or did happen. Looked like he was hit by a car or rickshaw. He might have already been dead, I don't know.

"Why am I doing this?" I keep asking myself...Well, the answer, I suppose is simple, what the fuck else am I supposed to do? Was there a purpose to anything I've done thus far, a meaning? A greater cause? Actually, yes. I went on pilgrimage for peace, more or less....

but a rat temple???

This on the other hand...This is just because my goal (other than peace) is to entertain you all. So why am I going to a temple that houses thousands of rats? So you don't have to! I'm here for the kicks anyway, so fuck it. Rats galore. Pour them on. If I can't be enlightened I'll spend time burning your eyelids off with the glorious repulsion of the third world. Spectacle of madness. Cultural relativism--don't get sucked into your reality tunnel there too much McCarthy.

Capitalist pigs meet the sacred vermin. Bring cheese and milk.

When you just hang out with yourself and a bus load of Indians who don't speak English you're kind of stuck listening to your own internal dialogue whether you like it or not. After several hours of this I got a mental zap and snapped out of my train of thought/stream of consciousness, whatever you want to call it, and thought, "hmmm I hope other people aren't as self-absorbed as me b.c. if so, then man we are fucked"...then I looked around and realized this must be the case, which would explain the general state of affairs we find ourselves in globally...legggooooo my ego. Pop culture references, I never thought I would have so many...

We get to Deshnok and thank god I wore socks. I walk inside and well...There were thousands of rats alright. I saw a huge cockroach before any rats though. The temple was nice and actually had a peaceful vibe to it. But, of course, there were thousands of rats, so unlike my Hindu brethren who relaxed on the steps, I didn't feel so welcome...Cheese and rat shit is everywhere, man...Little kids and adults ran barefoot dodging, worshipping, and photographing the rats...

I saw one man lower his little baby who could barely walk two feet in front of a wall covered with probably 150 rats--not good parenting. I should note that almost instantly after this, a pigeon took a massive, filthy, disgusting shit all over his back--instant karma--fuck you, you deserved it. Its a baby, not a hunk of cheese...Maybe give it a hug every once in a while rather than offering it to the rats like this is goddamn indian jones and the temple of doom...

Sidenote: Karni Mata, the mystic for whom the temple is built for, died on my birthday (March 23, 1538). Wikipedia is telling me she lived to be 151 years old...Thats a long time...

India is wei--no fucking insane is more like it....To solidify this belief...On the way back I see the silhouette of a man coming up in the middle of the road--odd...We drive closer and I see its a old, dark skinned Indian man in a turban with a vest and no pants, only underwear, walking down the middle street taking big, wide goofy steps with a jolly grin on his face while his tongue hangs out. He's holding a steering wheel thats been ripped off a vehicle and he's pretending he's driving while holding up traffic, Indian horns screaming...Keep in mind this is in the middle of the desert and were like 7km from Bikaner and another 20 from Deshnok...Where the fuck this guy was coming from and where he was going--only God knows--oh and maybe Karni Mata also knows...

So that was my day. I couldn't make this shit up if I wanted to...

I catch a train to Jaislamer tomorrow. I'm going to do a Camel ride through the desert and camp out under the stars. From there I'm planning on taking two buses (12 hours each) to Mumbai...I'll visit the slums and shoot around the city...From there Hampi, Goa, Kerala and wherever else India drags me...

I must be excused now though. I need to take a shower, like really fucking badly....

I'll post pics of this business in a bit. In the meantime, I'm uploading them to facebook.