TRAVEL WRITINGS

kudos to Hunter S. Thompson who helped me through osmosis

In the true spirit of journalism, I had brought my faithful attorney with me on my adventures in North India. It seemed to me unavoidable that at one point or another I would need his counsels.

After a confusing rickshaw ride that took us to every ends of Delhi all I could see were blaring lights and people huddling inside our little three-wheeled cart… I tried to explain that we didn’t hide the Dalai Lama in the back seat, but it was useless. The Indians just didn’t want to listen. This trip was going to be awesome, even if there were no dealers to be seen.

We were too far away from the Delhi ghettos of Paragange, where all the lost western souls go to find themselves in the 60’s style. Sex, drugs and tabla, rock&roll is squarely replaced by mediation… a truly sad reflection of this country.

Squished together the white western souls live and get lost in an India that is not india, confining themselves in monasteries and ashrams they look at the greater spiritual Gods. Indians used these same gods like so many pills and drugs to forget fighting hunger, floods and so on, while the white souls (try to?) find a greater understanding of the human nature in these vengeful gos of war.

The bus looked at us with an evil grin. I think it knew full well we had tried to replace the good old traditional ways of traveling by the government buses with a deluxe bus, just as my attorney had advised me. However, the deluxe bus had already ran away to far away lands, and the government four-wheel monster looked at us with that grin that is only known to the masochistic community. It rattled it’s metal shef skin with pleasure, letting the bolts roll and shake in their socket for an intensive 14 hour session. Lady Dominatrix was in the house.

Shaken, stirred and sleepless we got off at Kulu… we still had a 1 hour jeep ride to Vashisht.

“As your attorney, I advise you to take a taxi and get there as fast we can to satisfy our basic requirements: beer, food, shower and bed; in any order available.” And so we were off.

The roads in the mountains are truly unforgiving, and it is with a constant obsession that the Indians in this region continue to build more and more roads. Roads that look down on a cliff one kilometer downwards. Roads that allow the holy cows to climb mountains while still playing in traffic. The only comfort of this obvious danger is that if our jeep was to swerve off the road to avoid killing one of those holly beasts, we would then fall directly into the Ganga (the Ganges)... as my attorney advised me, we would be twice holly and would have to be granted access to the greater heavens—which I am not quite sure to have access to under present circumstances.

Our Jeep crossed a construction team. The road was blocked, we didn’t know for how long, but this was more comfortable than the bus and so I just got comfy. But then, I saw him.

I did.

Everyone has been looking for him, but I know where he his. Ten o’clock at night, in the Himmalayas, not a white folk for hundreds of miles and so he stood outside the jeep looking at us. He seemed confused and curious, but I knew what was going on. The long white turban. The black and grey beard. Osama just looked at me as I stared right back at him… As a good journalist, just too tired to have an interview I took notes on his whereabouts to come back later, now, it was time for a hotel and bed…

Arriving in Varshist, we faced a great stairway that climbed into the darkness of the Himalayas. Far up there were the lights of our hotel in the deep deep darkness – or was it the eyes of God looking down upon us?

We started to climb the stairs. All our pack sacks seemed able to do to help us was to pull us down. I felt like someone had drugged my drink. Fifteen hours on an Indian bus certainly does strange things to you. Clearly, I couldn’t see straight.

We were half way there, when a sound came to my ears.

Rattle. Rattle.

I turned to my attorney. “I think we have a rattle snake in our path.” He wanted to run back down, but nothing was going to keep me from having a warm bed and a good night sleep. I went first. Squishing myself against the opposite wall I walked as far away from the sound… When I was level with it, it seemed to have increased.

My heart was beating as fast as Jacques Villeneuve when he was with Williams.

I took a stone to throw it. It landed in the bushes and the snake burst into loud hissing… I waved to my attorney to come and make his way to the higher level while I crouched and squinted my eyes through the darkness of all nights watching for the invisible reptile…

“As your attorney I think we will have no problems pleading insanity,” as he ran up the stairs and I wasn’t far behind him, this story was getting just all too weird for me.

It’s only when we got to the room that I started to feel comfortable, safe and secure. The hotel room is like the safe haven from the outside world. It becomes your base of exploration for the world, and saves you from those evil times.

Turning around to close the door, before throwing myself on the bed… my plans were yet again halted. A large spider the size of Godzilla was hanging over the door, motionless just waiting for a pray… and I wasn’t going to offer my hand. In true gonzo journalism style, before doing anything I had to record the event: I took pictures.

I went to the bathroom to find my weapon of choice: a toilet brush. The multicolored stick in one hand I approached the door, laying low… you never know with these creatures, they might be planning the invasion like the well documented movie Arachnophobia. Making my way around the bed, I noticed a long line on the wall. I must have been one meter long. One on the spider’s friends had been squashed and repainted the wall to my room… her legs still stuck on the wall and pointing outwards towards the live one. Even though Indians would not allow me to kill her under fear of getting the Gods mad, I was ready to sacrifice to my karma points to my soul.

I swung, letting the rainbow colored sword come down where the live spider stood. It was as large as my hand, but still it would have no chance against my powerful multicolored weapon.

The darn thing was too fast. It flew out of sight. I could only imagine that it went to communicate to its other friends that killers slept in this dear old room.

I was too tired. I slept with with my pink, blue, orange and yellow sword at my bedside.

The next morning everything seemed like a bad dream. As I stumbled to the bottom of the stairs to fetch breakfast at the German bakery my rattle snake was still there. In the form of a broken hose. The rattling sound of the water coming out and hitting the grass. I even went down to the construction site. Osama had disapeared. Only my pictures of the spider remained.