Fire and Lightning

I was in line at customs preparing myself for an eight hour layover at the Delhi airport on my way to Sydney from Kathmandu, woot! Out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed a curious sign that read, “Airick Vain Gelthens,” being shown by a less than enthusiastic man to the queued up travelers. I did a double take. Could someone have a name so bazaar yet so similar to mine? When in line for customs in a developing country one should never take chances, so I flagged the gentlemen down. “I think this could be me,” I told the vacant eyed airport employee with the sign. He was satisfied and gave me another paper with a name and number on it. I did my best to suss out the purpose of this vague and slightly disconcerting message but all I could gather is that the number was for a travel agent who urgently wanted to talk to me. Thankfully I still had my cell phone with airtime on the Tata Indicom SIM card so after a successful visa check I sat down with my luggage to eat a sandwich and ring the mystery number. I was confident there was just some simple misunderstanding I could ignore or smooth out quickly or that there was actually an Airick who wasn't me but then I could also imagine some catastrophic disaster waiting for me on the other end of the phone. I took a deep breath. Indeed, the number was for me. The travel agent I purchased my Kathmandu to Sydney tickets from in Mumbai over a month prior somehow knew I didn't have a visa for Australia. Ouch! Was that my fault? I swear she told me I didn't need one. She advised me to get an online visa and she would book a flight for a few days later. She had already canceled my tickets for the flight that evening. It was as if India were an inescapable vortex sucking me in and I might be stuck there forever. I hung my head and drug my bags to the prepaid taxi stand to head into the heart of the beast, the Delhi backpacker slum.

Amazingly, I was able to get a visa equivalent for Australia instantly at an internet cafe, a drunk Canadian in a dirty stained T and beads of sweat on his forehead cursing at his Facebook behind me. There was still time to catch my original flight! Enthusiastically, I rang my agent to organize the tickets and rushed off to the airport at 21 mph in a CNG three wheeler. I was relegated to the waiting list but it didn't matter because by midnight I was sitting on a plane ready for fifteen hours of in flight, back of the seat movies courtesy of Air Thai.

Then there was ten days in Sydney, Australia. Thanks Kartini for the beautiful and loving home away from home. There was instantaneous mingling with lovely friends from six years past with wonderful friends of their own for me to meet. It was a cascading triumph of joy. I had my twenty seventh birthday. I wont go into details since my mother reads this blog but let me just say that someone brought three bottles of sparkling wine and they were all empty by the end of the night. We also happened to find a steam sauna. There was camping and fire dancing on the beach complimented by an offshore lightning display. That was super cool but my favorite highlight from my time in Sydney was lecturing third graders about the Earth Goddess, Gaia. They totally got it.

Now I find myself in the fabulous island nation of Papua New Guinea in the twilight of my great adventure. My awesome friend, Sally, is taking care of me here. PNG is a wicked place. It ain't so big but has heaps of rainforest, second only to the Amazon, with the worlds largest butterfly (I hope I see one) and the best snorkeling anywhere. And of course awesomely colorful tribal life. I am pretty relaxed with my month here, keen to do some snorkeling, maybe go on a trek or two and otherwise hangout. I brought a pile of books to massage that ranges from spiritual enlightenment to global catastrophe. I will have read more books this month than ever before, probably five. I am a slow reader. I am also working on my CV and gearing up for a safe landing in the lovely California. Ill blog again from Fresno. Here we go.

Instant Noodles!?

The morning after the wedding I hopped into a great big winged metal global warming machine with dozens of others and we flew to Delhi then Kathmandu where I rocked my Pierce Coop connection and met up with my lovely friend form Uni Mike Slouber. Mike is living in Nepal for the year studying Nepali and Sanskrit for his PHD work at Cal. Pretty cool eh? He is also spending some quality family time with his wife Corinne and two baby daughters, Anna and Lilly, two years and two months old. Thanks Slouber family for letting me stay in your spacious apartment and feeding me good home cooked food. The steamy hot showers were a nice touch as well.

Kathmandu is a lot of things. It is the capital of city for an epicenter of Eastern spirituality with plenty of devotees, shrines, temples, and spiritual merchandise. It is also very polluted. The rivers running through town are stinky toilets and on a bad day the hazy air beats Delhi's for opaqueness. Nepalis are keen to the pollution problem, however, and are often seen wearing urban survival masks to filter out some of the gunk before they breathe it in. There is also battery powered electric public transportation! Thats right, three wheeled electric cars carrying a dozen or more commuters all over town. There are hundreds of these Safa Tempos (Clean Busses) operating in the city every day and they have been around for a dozen years competing successfully with their C02 emitting counterparts using way primitive lead acid technology. It makes me wonder why we are unsure of electrics in the West. Ok so these guys only go 25 mph but that's kinda nice and they only cost a couple thousand bucks. As you can imagine, I am stoked on Safa Tempos.

After a week of hangin' with the Sloubers and doing some more shopping (I got a silicon mouthpiece for my teeth grinding at night and some wild paisley pattern clothes made for the price of a big night out in SF) I went on a fancy big hike in the Himalayas. Looking through a Lonely Planet I chose the Langtang Valley hike which ascends from 4,000 feet to 12,000 feet, wow, with peaks up to 23,000 feet towering above. The hike took 6 days with an extra day on a sketchy overloaded windey cliff side bus ride to reach the beginning from Kathmandu. I had my pick of lovely lodges to eat and sleep at along the way up and back. No sleeping bag or camping stove necessary on this adventure. The day I started happened to be Tibetan New Years, 2136, the celebrations of which lasted the whole of my hike. At one particularly memorable instance I was getting drunk on home made rice beer, Chawng, before noon at 10,000 feet. The new years fried bread twists handed out to guests quite readily was my favorite trail food. The bread is best when served with a steaming cup of Tibetan tea, or Yak fat with salt in hot water. The scenery was spectacular, on par with Yosemite back home. I saw plenty of Yaks as well, grazing on the late winter brown thorny alpine bushes. On my way down I bumped into a Buddhist ceremony parading my way. Dozens of villagers were carrying sacred texts wrapped in orange cloth to the local monastery where they would be read by monks for blessings. Singing and dancing around an altar of Chawng at the monastery ensued with plenty of food and drink after wards. It was all a beautiful experience. I highly recommend it.

On the bus ride back, not quite as overloaded, I had my very own Nepali spiritual enlightenment experience. Painted onto the side of a village shop in the brightest of colors was my very own spiritual mantra, "Boom Saka Laka." Back home I had been awakened to this prayer in a dream and had been using it accordingly but it wasnt until now that I discovered its true meaning here in Nepal. Just below the sacred mantra is written a reference to the great one, Instant Noodles. The great Western learning Easter sage, Michael Slouber, says that the Earth is Food so Food is the Earth. This whole time I had been chanting to Gaia, "Boom Shaka Laka Gaia," but really I should be chanting to instant noodles, "Boom Shaka Laka Instant Noodles!" Thank you oh holy noodles which cook so quickly when added to boiling hot water and are conveniently seasoned with a small packet of MSG for delivering me from my material prison.

Next stop, Sydney Australia.

Rajasthani Wedding

So I trained it up from Goa to Jaipur only about an Amtrak's 10 hours late because of a derailing ahead of us. I bought some pirated DVD's of Indiana Jones, James Bond, Lord of the Rings, and Kung Fu and watched Octopusy on my laptop like a geek showing off. The Kung Fu turned out to be King Kong. Some kid also repaired some zippers for me for a few cents. I was quite impressed.

I haven't shopped at all during my travels because I didnt want to carry anything extra around with me but I decided to go on a massive spree in Jaipur and ship a parcel back home. So I spent the better part of a week getting ripped off in jewelry stores, buying cashmere wool shawls, etc., but it was loads of fun and now I've got plenty to share when I get home just in case I need to make new friends. I also had three suits tailored. Two for myself, a fabulous white linen Colombian drug lord suit and a blue pinstripe three piece business suit. And one for my brosther, a gray pinstripe three piece business suit.

Then I got to try out my new fits at the wedding. The ceremonies lasted two days with delicious catered lunch and dinner. The brides father owns a fabulous restaurant near by. The first evening were song and dance performances from friends and relatives. It was quite impressive really. The second evening was the ceremony. The princely groom rode in on a white horse, waited for his bride to be on a throne, then lassoed her with a flower necklace. At midnight, after several hours of photographs with the hundreds of guests, the actual marriage ceremony began at a temporary altar with the remaining guests sitting around it being served tea and coffee. The ritual has to be hundreds of years old with Sanskrit recited and dozens of steps involving parents, throwing rice, fire, smudging colorful stuff on foreheads, etc. At three in the morning they were married. I have several weddings to attend back home this summer (big congrats to my brother Tom and his fiance Kendra!) and it will be fun to compare traditions. So that's my second Jaipur wedding in Just 5 years and I am not even close to tired of them yet. Thanks Kochar family for inviting me!

Just before the wedding I got caught up in a Bollywood movie. I found myself spending the day wearing a cheap British officer uniform circa 1930 on a fancy movie set by a lake for the day. Mostly I just sat there but it was quite the eye opener to be inside a movie set and watch all the works that goes on. Look for the Bollywood movie "Veer" when it comes out in a year or two. Its an action romance musical and should be a big hit.