I grab ahold the bike and head for Boudhnath, my former home and holy site for Tibetan Buddhists in Kathmandurkkha durkha muhammand jihad. I’m following Chandra on a mountain bike but in a city of congested street trash and an ocean of pollution that makes the Exxon Valdez spill site look like thirst quenching drinking water, there isn’t much chance this is going to be—uh—tasty. Three minutes in and I can feel my throat fibers being singed to the cellular, perhaps even atomic level, as each breath in and out feels like I just smoked an entire pack of unfiltered lucky strikes down to the crisped butt. My throat reaps the sizzle from the vehicle napalm while I drink from the smoggy filth of the haze-child spawned from the second most polluted city this side of the known universe. Lick off the shot like the smoke billowing out of a fresh gun wound tripping off the top of my skull, these words erupt a negative picture far from the truth of real illusion. Coagulate the rewind, pick up the fragmented chunks and glue together this chipped skull because we haven’t even started. I zip down the road, violent music erupting through my abused ear drums with a desperado bandana hiding my emotional responses, leaving only a single set of coal hallowed eyes to haunt the child beggars without pants and greasy tea-wallahs who shriek like banshees at everything and everyone. I occasionally reveal the lower portion of my face to ask directions, revealing a kind smile that brings laughter to the locals butchers, burnouts, and three wheeler taxi drivers—either that or I’ve managed to turn myself into a complete visual freak-show since arriving in this shirt staining humidity that defines the subcontinent.
I’m forced to skid to a screeching halt and almost topple over as my back wheel kicks up one full meter in the air due to the abnormally large monstrosity of a Hindu holy cow that has decided to sleep directly in my path, only occasionally giving a sweep of it’s angel white tail to swat the flies off its floppy asshole, nearly smacking me directly in the chest. We break gravity going over speed bumps on cobbled paths where life hasn’t changed in over two thousand years—aside from the motorcycles and cellphones—passing cripples, tripped out opium psychotics, lepers with rotting faces painfully clutching wrapped stumps and beggar jars containing eleven gold Nepali coins—bones and souls exposed, causing a vibration to resurrect my ethical purity, only to change as quickly as the scenery…The chopped animal carcasses dry out in the steamy sun on the butcher stands—goat heads, hoofs, tongues and all. The blood flows like the bullshit from the priest’s mouth and drains into the gutter with the rest of the trash. The synthesizers kick up and the energy fuels me as I continue to dodge the brilliantly colored sari wielding women who support 15 kilos of farm village product straight from the malarial terai atop their heads, clutching small beautiful children on a dirty sash. The children, for some culturally perverted reason, are wearing heavily applied make up and are staring at me with doe eyes, wondering what twisted dimension I stepped out of.
Madness and civilization, bending physics from the blown glass and the voices aren’t calming down—I’m starting to like it—just a comparison between the two chaos’s for you to sink your teeth into. Come on you’re fucking smart, don’t overestimate me. A cacophonous spider web of external enjoyment holds back the seething psychosis of my psychosocial degradation. I lick my wounds clean (twice) while the sun shines brightly over the tiny bridge Chandra and I share with 9,000 motorcycles vomiting gasoline over the sooted skin layer of Kathmandu. The dark, ashy river of never ending trash in the form of American plastics floats from here to the depths of Hades. Charon is sulking in the darkest corner of Kathmandu’s very own Pashupatinath—the holiest of Shiva’s temple in existence—hidden behind the sadhu’s chillum smoke, puffing on hashish, awaiting his three hundred rupee fare clenched between your grinding teeth and tear stained eyes, as you reap what you sow. The river to the underworld flows from Shivapuri into the boiling chemical soup of the inhumane Bagmati. “I am become death, the destroyer worlds” and I don’t even need to drop the atom bomb. Your hate is the real sarcophagus of the world, fuck radiation; my words are enough to cause a brutal mutation…I just sit and laugh watching you slowly die from head trauma and linguistic contamination.
The smoke from a pooja combined with the burn of incense creates a floating mystical Hindu haze for me to slice through as the bells ring from the rotting red-wooden temples, the Brahmin in ankle length shirts dissipate and I figure-eight through the crowd almost catching a mouthful of an elderly Muslim man’s foot long beard…We smuggle ourselves through labyrinth of ancient alley ways, dodging dog shit, vegetable carts, and outdoor shaving/haircut stalls the whole way through.
We arrive in Boudhanath and duck past the admissions desk to break like roaches out of the garbage pile into a smooth serenity that is the circular clockwork of the sky scraping Boudha stupa. Either everyone here is partially sedated or they just managed to keep the place sane, as the intensity level drops to the point where I almost—almost—consider not worrying about being crushed by a stray animal or colliding with a renegade, heavily pierced Nepali on two-wheels. This thought only lasted momentary as I nearly ram into a couple red robed Tibetan monks, spinning plastic prayer wheels, mumbling mantras, and thumbing with Buddha beads.
Business on the East-side of Kathmandu completed, second task is to trip out to the West end to the relocated immigration office—solo. I break out into the street traffic smoothly avoiding hatchback taxi drivers, tiger balm freaks oblivious to personal space, and open soared street urchins pushing heroin straight from the golden triangle. Escape the drug runners and rip offs—stage five complete. The claustrophobia of Kathmandu’s ancient streets allows me to speed past the herd of motor vehicles. I occasionally steal a speed burst of engine fuel by snagging a grip onto the back handlebars of the local buses or waste removal trucks—hurling me into an oblivion of South Asian fury. This is probably dangerous but up until this point has anything about this been safe? My matted hair trails off in the wind behind me as I streak past jammed up motorcycles and move onto the crowded side walk, occasionally skidding to a halt to avoid the men carrying an entire clothing dresser or three on their back using a belt strapped to their forehead. Health Insurance? About that..
I maneuver my way into the political side of town where masked riot guards in Robocop body armor and urban camouflage patrol the flooded sidewalk, clutching long barreled assault rifles, black shields, and “crowd-dispersal tools”. Barbed wire in threatening coils cling to the grey metallic walls, protecting the national royalty from their own citizens. Freedom is intimidation. A social statement on the eve of the chemical ape’s apocalypse is truly fucking worthless but continue floating from box to box if it will take your mind off the sinking ship. There’s a reason the sharks in the aquarium don’t eat the other fish but you can’t stay fat and happy forever…I just won’t let you… Traffic cops in smog protection make hand gestures but no one gives a shit as the lava flow of traffic disregards any authority but survival of the fittest. You can’t fight the cyclone of mechanical animals and the only way out is through…My legs ignite as I pump blood up the bamboo forested hill, leading to the immigration office…The burning trash moves off the sidewalk and infects the streets as it forces me into a near head on collision with a flamboyantly painted industrial truck with four shirtless screaming Nepalis on the roof, blowing a novelty horn that belongs on a clown car to warn any living creature to get the fuck out of the way or else. Massive yawning cows with primitive back humps take siesta in literally the middle of the road, wedging themselves between two concrete slabs for protection and comfort. Stray dogs aggressively pack around a shy calf and chase it away, snapping at its tail while their goofy tongues hang off their nubbled teeth. A wandering billy goat jumps up and slams its front legs onto the counter of a vegetable stall, causing the owner to erupt and chase the mutton chop off with a thick bamboo stick. Nepalis in cone shaped sailor sorta looking hats and patterned vests chill on stoops, chewing teeth-staining Beatle nut, spitting enough to refill the ganges twice and then once more, occasionally sharing a naturally rolled beadie cigarette between themselves.
Focus on brevity. Focus on sarcasm…
I break into the plastic first world hippie shopping mall of Thamel. Bike rickshaws offer me a ride when I step off my bike…I have a bike, I don’t want a ride on your bike? They squeeze their horns at me, which are actually empty shampoo bottles with crazy peacock feathers attached to the handle bars that squeak at ear piercing levels, enough to for you to loose bowel control. Their attention level makes a two year old seem concentrated and they instantly begin harassing other white skinned travelers wearing Birkenstocks, Ali Baba pants that sag like you shit yourself eight times, tank tops with Aum symbols plastered across them, or a meditating ganesha smoking a blunt. Europeans? Canadians? Americans? South Americans? Whatever. They carry with them brown satchel packs with other stereotypical Eastern religious symbols pinned onto them. Seven different couples sit down, each with their personal copy of Lonely Planet and figure out where all the other white people hang out—“oh yeah maaaan, riggghhtt here! Whoooaaahhh Faaarr Outttt”. And in the span of 14 seconds I am offered drugs 10 trillion times by toothless sweaty sketchballs who can’t keep it in their pants. “No” is never an option, you just need to keep walking until another foreigner walks by or their sense of territory becomes jeopardized and they retreat like a dog meeting an electric fence. Zap.
Out of the hundreds of stores in Thamel, they can only be one of four options—restaurants with American names and “free Wi-Fi”, travel companies that offer the same packages for the same price to the same places with the same pictures to advertise them, book stores with the identical maps, the same travel books, the same spiritual texts, and the same novels (Shantaram, The White Tiger, and Into Thin Air—nothing else is sold there. NOTHING! FUCKING NOTHING!!!) and hostels—lots and lots of hostels. And more Hostels. No other shop exists in Thamel, this is a known fact and it cannot be disputed as western science has measured such social dynamics with electron microscopes and other precise machines of such nature. The good thing is that if someone asks you to go to Thamel there aren’t many things which they can be suggesting and you will instantly know that you will either be buying a highly popular (and therefore the best ever) spiritual book that leads to enlightenment faster than instant coffee, or going on facebook to look at peoples’ bullshit who you left the country solely to escape while enjoying a extremely overpriced meal that tastes like re-fied goat puke, or booking a ten thousand dollar trip to Orwellian Bhutan for three days to listen to people stuck in the 5th century get starry eyed bragging about a “selfless King” who retains all the power and wealth, throwing people in prison who object to the fact that maybe serfdom should have been abolished sooner than ten years prior to the fucking moon landing…or..,OR! if you’re really goddamn lucky—you will take the absolute wrong drugs and be getting a hotel room to have unprotected sex with a drunken European chick who actually turns out to be a guy and is carrying 24 different STDS that he recently acquired from that Thai hooker in Bangkok who, you know, “said she was clean!” All of this on a mattress filled with every kind of known (and unknown) human fluid—still moist and soggy from the party three hours before. Fortunately, the bed bugs do their best to suck up the juices right before they go to town on you…I am a happy pile of burning trash, floating angrily into your lungs to be coughed up like morning phlegm….To be totally honest that was way too harsh I actually like Thamel a lot, the food is really good (chipotle-esque chicken burrito for 3 dollars, so awesome) I like facebook because I love my friends and family, Pilgrim bookstore is the shit (every book you can imagine and more!), Bhutan is an amazing place despite some issues I have with their political structure, the hostels in Thamel are cheap, clean, the staff are really friendly, the place I stayed at had really great, kind people and it was like 6 bucks a night for a double and that European guy who took advantage of me only had like 15 STDS.
I head south and the city morphs into “Old Kathmandu”, the fake presentation of Thamel has shed its superficiality into temple ruins, small time shops, and local hangouts where you can feed a family of five for six dollars. More butchers and blood. I sneak past the 250 rupee charge for Durbar Square. A flash wedding occurs and a band pours in from all angles while a car drives at a fraction of a single kilometer per hour, causing a traffic jam that will last until the second coming of the Zorarastrian leader, who or whatever the hell that is—a balance of good and evil? I don’t know what I’m talking about I thus spoke...Its me and I’m beyond good and evil…Everyone dances like fools during the wedding and random people join in on the fun, abandoning their shops, routines, and sanity.
I then squander my time around “Freak Street” for a while, checking out tattoo parlors where burnout Nepalis and Westerns mingle over their mutual love in body modification—mortification…More sketchball encounters but they seem too obliterated to even follow me…The melt into the gutter and dissolve into a giggling pile of a shattered skull and broken bones…
I see this guy with a sticker on his shirt that says, “I am named Randy” somewhere between Thamel and Freak Street. He won’t stop dancing and everyone is frightened by him.
The afternoon showers of the monsoon season start and it is a known fact that Nepalis melt if they come in contact with rainwater—but not Sherpa people because they don’t listen to music on Thursday.
While you are reading this, ask yourself this question, “how many fingernails have I consumed this year? Has the number gone up or down compared to 2010? And could there be a direct correlation between this statistic and the rate of canker sores I experience?”
So you know, I love you all, when I die—come follow me to the other side look for the spot where the cow pasture goes into the sunset, the music stays on forever, and the lights never dim. I’ll be standing in the corner with a noticeable smile, just quietly nodding my head, eyes permanently open watching you all dance, dance, dance on…let go here for best effects.
I need to apply my ointment.
If there was a God,
Im sure he would be hated.
For making bugs, in this hell he has created.
Get on a coat, put on a hat,
I am infested
It happens just like that.
Im sure I hate 'em
There ain't no maybes,
Bodylice, and crabs,
Headlice, and scabies.
You take your pick,
they make me sick,
While I scratch until I bleed
Soon they'll be scabs for me to pick.
It drives me mad,
As I scratch my body raw.
Sometimes it feels like sex
When Im scratching with my paws..
Sometimes it feels better
When it gets wetter
Lubed up with puss and blood
But later, Im upsetter.
The rash becomes inflamed,
I simply lost control..
The scabies can't be blamed..
I am infested!
I am infested!
This time it's gone too far,
My body is infested!
One bug, two bug, three bug, four.
These bugs just fuck and eat
Soon there'll be hundreds more
To Infest my head,
Infest my bed,
These bugs won't stop infesting
'Til I kill 'em all, dead!
Then, there's the eggs
They'll fucking hatch!
If I dont delouse again,
In seven days, they'll hatch!
And at this time,
I will truely go insane
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