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Monday, May 31, 2004 Kabul, Afghanistan. I'm making a run for the hills. I sent my visa application in to the Iranian Embassy yesterday and it will take anywhere from 5 to 15 days. The latter could pose some pretty largish problems. But I have a few days to kill and I'm heading up to Bamiyan, the site of the Giant Buddha statues that were destroyed by the Taliban. So no full update today. I'll give one when I get back in a few days. Wish me luck. TTFN. Posted by devon @ 09:19 PM CST [Link] Sunday, May 30, 2004 Kabul, Afghanistan. I arrived safely in Kabul last night after a tough day of negotiations and bumpy roads. I'm not prepared to write anything about it just now, but a more robust update will come within a day or two. TTFN Posted by devon @ 10:20 PM CST [Link] Saturday, May 29, 2004 Peshawar, Northwest Frontier Province, Pakistan. The last few days have been a blur. I have seen so many brain twisting scenes on my bussrides through Pakistans (and doubtlessly the worlds) more rugged reigions, that I dont really know how to make sense of it all. I've seen at least three peaks over 8000 meters, one of which was directly outside my guesthouse window. More mule carts and horse drawn chariots than you can shake a stick at and far too many perfectly tended santa claus beards. Northern Pakistan, I almost dont want to say, has to be one of the most enchanting places on earth. The people are fair skinned, speak a russian related language, and strangely they all speak good english. They are Ismailies, which means they follow a spin-off of Shi-ite Islam. Their Imam, his highness Aga Kahn, is a decendent of a man who broke off from Ali's 6th grandson, for anyone who knows or cares about such things. The Karokoram mountain range is a part of that long string of mountains stretching from the Tibetan/Nepali Himalaya to the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan that is a result of the Indian subcontinent colliding with the Russian Plate. Sure there are some nice peaks here and there on the other side, but in Northern Pakistan, it seems the collision is happening before your eyes; the ridges soar almost vertically out of the river cut valleys. Add the human touch of weathered, costumed ladies swaying through the terraced feilds under the weight of giant baskets filled with tea leaves on their backs, and perhaps you can imagine the magic of the place. Western Pakistan, my current locale, is more or less what you see on CNN. Its sheer madness. Peshawar has been converted into an Afghani city-state because of all the smuggling and refugees, and there is a definite feeling of lawlessness here. Its hot as hell, dusty and very, very noisy with the sounds of big fume spewing diesel engines and autorickshaws competing with horse traffic on the street. If I wasnt completely numb to any sort of sensory stimulation after so long on the road, this place might actually scare the pants of me. Luckily I'm young and stupid so nothing really scares me. I had some supremely bizarre experiences coming down. Including having a woman yell at me because I took a picture of her (not odd at all, happens all the time), and then having a crusty man come up to me in his surly islamic way and tell me in broken english "She's mine!". I'm hoping that he meant she was his wife and he was also offended. Whatever he meant, the way it came out sounded positivily barbaric, so I had to laugh. I had to tell a policeman that borded the bus to point his Kalashnikov somewhere other than my face, at which everybody laughed, and he grudgingly moved it upright after a short period. And of course, I'll never forget signing myself in at a checkpoint in the middle of the night under the light of a gas lantern in the company of a gun-toting military man. I had just been woken up and the stark reality of my current location and situation became quietly clear to me as I wrote down my particulars. "Shes mine!". What a thing to say. Well, thats me from Pehsawar, I'll doubtlessly get on in Kabul in a day or so. TTFN Posted by devon @ 03:13 AM CST [Link] Monday, May 24, 2004 Rawalpindi Cantontment, Pakistan. All is right with the world. This is the first of probably a few short posts that I'll be delivering while I'm on my manic dash across the middle east. So I hope its not so bad, perhaps my audience would prefer shorter posts anyhow. Good news, Pakistan is a fabulous place, despite what any Indian will tell you. Well, it has been so far, I'm off to some different parts of the country tommorow, so I suppose we shall see. First stop after Delhi was the Sikhs Golden Temple. Sikhism is the dominant religion in the Indian Punjab, and the Golden Temple their most important place of worship. It sees tens of thousands of pilgrims every day, as well as feeding them and putting them up for the night at no charge. Hundreds of rotating vollunteers in the service of the golden temple make it all possible. It is open to all living humans (yet I'm sure a few have died there along the way) and they even let me, a vile troubadour, walk through the gates. The central temple is located in the middle of a very large pool of water, more like a lake and is made out of pure gold sheets for the walls, and solid gold for the domes on top. I'd suppose that is probably worth more than 10 of the poorest countries combined, just to get an idea... I almost got skewered by the purple turbaned, trident toting guard at the gate because I was wearing shoes and no head scarf, but once I got myself properly attired, I made my way into the inner walkway around the pool and set my first gaze on the Golden Temple. The golden temple has always been on the roster for my trip. It was a place that I knew I had to go all along the way, yet I've seen my share of places, so I wasnt particularily excited to see it. This is a good thing. I had a simmilar experience with the Taj Mahal. I honestly wasnt even thinking about the Taj Mahal untill it was right in front of me, getting there was just another chore, then all of a sudden BLAMMO! THE TAJ FUCKING MAHAL!!!!!!!. It was a great experience to have. Winding up completely unexpectedly at one of the worlds most incredible monuments. At the golden temple the experience was simmilar. After the rigamarole of getting there and putting my stuff down, I leisurely set off amongst the pilgrims in the floodlight marble expanse (night had fallen before I got there) and as I approched the classic archway, the golden temple, lit like a million suns in a silky blue pool rose up before me and left me without a breath in my lungs. I could only shake my head and keep walking. Now, it was most definitely a spectacular thing to see. But remember my current condition, I've been busy making my way to every impressive place the world has to offer for the last year and a half, so I need something more than just aesthetic beauty for something to leave a strong impression in my memory. At the golden temple, I was not only stuck by the perfection of the Temple and its surroundings, but indeed the perfection of all the systems and people working in the service of the temple. For example, there is a food hall that feeds 30 000 people per day at no cost. I just couldnt figure it out. It took me the whole day and two meals in the place to figure it out. Basically the sheer volume of vollunteers means that labour is an endless and costless resource, so with careful and intelligent planning, such a feat is possible, and they are definitely doing it every day of the year. You can hear the bangs and clangs of a hyper organized dish pit, like a waterfall of cutlery and metal plates as you walk into the temple. After staying up all night taking photographs and numerous trips between my bed in the pilgrims rest house (also free!!! they put up thousands at no cost every night!!!) I started getting the strange sense that I was somewhere special. Somewhere holy. I've got this sense at only two other places. One was Angkor Wat, and the other was at Mount Everest. It isnt something I can explain, but just a feeling of power and rightness in a place. It kind of feels like a magnet, pulling you towards it. So chalk the Golden Temple up on the list of Holy Sights in the new, international and exciting religion of Devonism. They're pretty scattered so far, making puja a very difficult undertaking, but if anyone is interested about how to get from place to place, I'd be happy to let them know. That was the Golden Temple. The next day I witnessed the most shocking display of national immiturity imaginable at the Indo-Pak border, and I'll write about it all in my next post. TTFN Posted by devon @ 08:21 AM CST [Link] Friday, May 21, 2004 Delhi, India I'm leaving today for the great expedition. I train today to the Border with Pakistan. I should be there tommorow. After that, I will have to get my Afghanistan Visa in Islamabad, then I'm off to Afghanistan. There I will try to get my Iran Visa, and then I will work my way through Afghanistan to Iran. Once I have finished in Iran, I will travel non-stop from the Turkish/Iranian border to Paris hopefulling arriving in time to meet my little brother and friends. I shouldn't have to say it, but Im not going to have a lot of internet access, but anytime that I have a chance to get on, I will make sure to update and I'm planning on giving detailed accounts of the places that I'm visiting. So that means I can have no loose strings like the Visa madness story. Basically after yelling at the british lady, I went to the Pakistani Embassy, and they basically told me that they didnt care. Nice. I then simpered over to the Canadian HC, pleaded my case to them, and as they were at the very least polite to me, I handed over the money, and they told me to come back at 4PM for the letters. I was seriously demoralized and decided that hanging around embassyville for too long would make me kill myself, so I limped back home in my pathetic state. The next day I picked up the letters early and made my application at the Pakistani High Commision. Long story short, I have the Visa now in my Canadian Passport, yet I am currently travelling in India on my British Passport. This means trouble at the border. You should have seen the cruel looks that the Pakistani HC clerks gave me when I asked about this. They were just too happy to take my money and not care what happened at ther border. Bastards, all of them. So thats me. I'm off on the craziest expedition I have yet devised on my trip. Crazier that the Tibet one I think, and hope in in my small masochistic way. Wish me luck and may Allah be with me. TTFN Posted by devon @ 10:04 PM CST [Link] Thursday, May 20, 2004 Delhi, India. So here I am, writing again. Writing is becoming increasingly more fun, becuase its taking less and less effort and becoming slightly clearer (feel free to disagree). So lets see what I can whack out today. Visa madness is the phrase of the week folks. Since I arrived in Delhi on Friday it has been no small fiasco trying to get those stupid little stamps that you are required to get (and pay dearly for) to enter any given country. I dont know where to begin. After I arrived, I spent my first day visiting Agra, meaning I saw the Taj Mahal and Red Fort there. Inspiring places to understate them. The next day was sunday, so I basically had to wait around what I've since found out is "downtown" Delhi. Its called The Main Bazaar and can more or less be described as garbage, filth, filth producers (cows), beggars, con-men, pedestrian traffic run down by rickshaw traffic and broken tarmac laid out in a rough grid, with bombed out cement buildings filling the squares between. I am living in one of these bombed out buildings, and so is every other backpacker and poor indian traveller in Delhi. It is an awful, awful place to be, and if it weren't for the fruit shakes and sublime italian food (restaurant run be nepalis of course) that I can get at a pittance cost, I would be in as bad shape as the street outside my hotel. This is not my first time in a place like this, so I am quite accostomed to the shouts, cons and rickshaws that are magnetically attracted to tourists, but the Main Bazaar truly takes the whole travel freakshow into uncharted territory. Come monday, I set off early in the morning towards "embassyville". Thats my word for Chanakyapuri, the area where the majority of the worlds embassies are located in Delhi. Delhi is a divided city. To the north, where all the old rulers had their capital is Old Delhi, and its the typical mess of randomly placed streets, medieval living conditions and small bazaars. To the south is the massive expanse of new delhi, which is more or less where the British buldozed a large chunk of Indian Delhi, planned, then rebuilt a new city in their image. It looks like a hyper organized electrical schematic on a map. Smal or large nodes connected by small and large pathways. To cross through that part of the city, The roads are huge and spacious, but somehow it still manages to be ruthelessly chaotic. For me it was an ironic place to experience, becuase I could almost smell the frustration with the indian way of life that must have gone into the building of New Delhi, yet today, almost 60 years after independence, it is Indian in all ways except appearance, and even that seems to be deteriorating. So I got out of the rickshaw with a vague plan. Iran, and Pakistan I knew required a letter of recommendation from your embassy, and as I am currently under my UK passport, I went first to the British High commission. The guards at the checkpoint were all ghurkas, which I have come to know means big, smiley nepali teddy bears that could break your neck in the blink of an eye. They are the most friendly lethal weapons that I am aware of. It was all chuckles and smiles as I got through with the bumbling lovable ghurkas, and I made my way into the suffocatingly sterile environment of the British High Commision Consular Office. After a two minute wait, I went up expecting some short, inane formalities followed by me walking out with a stamped and signed peice of red tape. Once I made my request, the indian clerk looked at me and with a straight face that only made only a slight tick as he said, "Yes, a letter of recommendation, that will be 3000 Rupees". (thats about 80 US Dollars and twice the cost of most Visas.) At this my heart skipped a beat or two. I'm known occasionaly as "the miser" with my family, so naturally such a perverse inflation of cost left me liable to have a brain anyurism. I thought he was joking or made a mistake, so I inquired. "3000 Rupees? for one peice of paper?" "yes" he said as he cracked a smile, "I can understand your concerns." So at least this guy knew he was working for rutheless bastards. The exchange lasted only 10 seconds. After he confirmed the price. I very promptly said goodbye. As I was walking away and exchanging my pleasantries with the machine gun toting plush toys at the gate, only vague thoughts of my sad expectations for that miserable little island resurfaced. It was a minor setback, surely I would be able to bamboozle my way into getting those visas. By now I have confidence in my abilities to completely pull the wool over peoples eyes when I need to, and I wasnt worried about one little formality getting in my way. I decided that the smart thing to do, regardless, was to give a visit to the canadian embassy on the way and suss out getting my letter of recomendation there. Canadians, despite originating from the very dregs of British Society have surely evolved into an undeniably superior race, and there was no way my devine rulers would impose such a cruel and unusual fee on its subjects. Or so my primitive thinking was going. On the way there, I chanced upon the Afghani embassy and picked up instructions and an application from from the exceedingly kind and understandable man at the reception. From here I made my way down to the Canadian High Commission which was still on the same massive, boulevarded street that is the heart of Chanyakapuri. I was dissapointed right from the get-go. The checkpoint was extremely slow to get through, because the security was so tight, people had to wait one by one to get in the gate and be searched. After cracking a few with the security guard, I got in to the still more sterile environment of the Canadian High Commision Consular Office. You had to talk to reception through a goddamn microphone. Just because I feel unsympathetic for any kind of personal failure just now, I think the man who designed that place deserves to die. As I sat down and waited I read through the news clippings they had lain out. I couldnt help but notice that nothing was going WRONG in Canada. The papers seemed to really be pulling at straws to throw out some negative headlines. Things like "Northern Ontario residents direct lack of high speed internet access complaints towards provincial government". This is why I love my country. I get called into a small cubical with a bulletproof window and yet another microphone to talk with the consular officer. I tried to frown and let them know that I disagreed with such impersonal contact (for selfish reasons, its harder to bamboozle people through buletproof glass), but gave up on it and just asked straight up for the recommendation letter. 1700 rupees. My small setback was becoming a looming disaster. But at least I was satisfied in the knowledge that the Canadian HC was only half as bastardly as the British HC. I again said goodbye very quickly and decided to throw my stake in at the Pakistani Embassy. Due to erronous signs (placed on purpose just for me I'm sure) I walked a solid mile in the wrong direction around the Perimeter fence of the Pakistani HC. Along the way there were a few booths, but none which serviced visa applicants. When the guards inside recieved the surplus of my wrath about the costs, they were as shocked as I and told me that many people recieved these letters free of costs. In fact it was the first time they had heard of such an astronomical charge. It felt nice at least to have somebody on my side, even if they didnt count towards me getting the visa for any cheaper. When I finally arrived to the correct counter, I found it had closed untill 4 hours later, and I wasnt willing to wait. So after I returned to the Afghani Embassy (the subject of my last post) and was a step away from handing in my passport, but decided that I would need it for tommorow. In hindsight, this was a crucially important decision. I rickshawed home for free because I was taken to a curio shop that gives gas tokens to drivers who bring tourists. I was tired by this point and had nothing to do but lament my sad, sad situation. So I veged out in the dogpile that is my current home. VISA MADNESS!! ROUND #2!!! I set off early to keep my chips up, planning first to go to the British Embassy and try my luck at bamboozling. I strode in as if I was on a white horse, threw my hands down on the counter and demanded to know why they levied such a proposterous sum for their letter of reccomendation when other embassies provided it for free. It was the perfect approach with the man I dealt with, because he was so intimidated that he brought in another, larger and more solid looking sikh man to talk with me. I didnt let up however, and talked the man into a corner. This is when they brought out the big-guns. Lets just call her the "Sycophantic Hideous Gorgonhead Bitch From Hell" or SHGBFH for short. As soon as they brought out SHGBFH I knew I was in for some trouble. She was short, fat, ugly, British, and to make matters worse, a women. This is a bad thing because I simply cant bring myself to bamboozling women. I've tried it and it gives me a hard time sleeping. These horrible creatures such as SHGBFH are the most unassuming people to look at, but I've dealt with enough of them to know one when I see one. They are the kind of power starved people working behind desks who exact the revenge of their pathetic and miserable existance on those unfortunate people working under them, and all those people on the other side of the desk. I changed my tack immediately with this woman, and tried my best to be dignified as I laid out my case logically, carefully watching the SHGBFH for any sign of humanity. But alas, none came, and all I could get out of here was her mindnumbingly nasal British voice re-itterating the same senseless lines. We've all been there. You ask a question which if answered honestly would prove your point, and instead, you are left with some official line that you can not possibly imagine that they themselves hold as true. As I started to get more frustrated with sheer stupidity of the SHGBFH, she dug her claws in deeper and played off my hatred. So gradually, the SHGBFH broke me down peice by peice, untill my argument was drivin into obscurity, and I was left asking her for just a straight response. As you can expect the SHGBFH seemed to be enjoying every minute of this. All I wanted from her was an admission that a peice of paper costing 3000 rupees constituted a failure of logic somewhere, but she just wouldn't do it. In fact, the SHGBFH even tried to go as far as demeaning my entire existance, kicking me while I was down by saying that I was a poor backpacker and I didnt want to pay the "proper" fee for the letter. I decided that my hands were already dirty, so I took the opportunity to embarrass her and said very indignantly, "Backpacker? I'm a backpacker?" At this the SHGBFH stumbled and said flusterdly "well, I assummed that..." "right, you assumed... you dont know the first bloody thing about me, so dont assume". She shut her tart little mouth at this, but ultimately, it was an awfully petty thing for me to do. I only regained a small amount of my damaged pride at sinking myself to her lowness, and effectively burned my bridges at the British High Commision. I turned away to gather my things, and left her standing there with her stupid face gazing out the window. The SHGBFH asked in a stubborn, yet slightly damaged way whether I was going to apply for the letter, and I was tempted to ignore her. Instead I turned around and said no rather sharply before walking out. It was a real scene, the other indians inside the consular section offered their sympathies to me as I made my way out, they must get that kind of thing all the time, worse even for being indian I'm sure. As I got out into the open space between the office and the Checkpoint I let out a yell. "I HATE BRITISH PEOPLE!!!" My most honest apologies go to all my family in Britain and all the British readers, for there are so many wonderful people in Britain, but this woman really emphasized a particularly bad bit of bureauocracy that in my frustration I incorrectly linked with all things Brittania. So please my anger doesnt reflect my true thoughts of Britain or more importantly, British people. I was in a right state however. Angry not only at the obstinancy of the SHGBFH and my newfound problems, but also with myself. I couldnt believe that I behaved like such child. I strode up to the Ghurkas at the checkpoint and told them in a rage what a misjustice I had just been handed by the British HC, and they (not surprisingly) were completely on my side. It was like talking to 5 grandpa's. They were all cooing, "my my my," "you poor boy" "thats just unfair" "and for their own citizen" And so on. I was about as angry as I get. When I get angry, the whole world is my joke. I get in a state where I would smilingly tell George Bush to his face that I thought he was a stupid monkey fucker, or give Margeret Thatcher a kick in the fanny, just for the fun of it. It's part trying to see the humor in whatever calamaty I am in and half flying completely off the handle. But I never completely lose control, The humor in me always keeps me smiling, and I try to make a joke out of my ordeal. I stormed out of the gate and very soon ran into a young african male. I'm typically scared pantless of young african males while travelling, because they are often linked in the local papers to organized crime, but this man came up to me and asked me if I knew where the british high commision was. Almost before he finished asking me, I told him, "you dont want to go to britain, there all fucking bastards, dont go there, really...Bastards, all of them." I said this in such a humor that it caught him completely off guard and he just smiled and looked at me like I was crazy. "no seriously, dont go, you see down there, " I pointed down the road, "the canadian embassy is down there, you WANT to go to canada, trust me, no bastards". At this he let out a big laugh and said that I must be canadian. I told him I was, and then told him the direction of the british high commision, but not without another warning of the bastardization inside. So I set off for the pakistani HC to try my chips there, in my current state. And the results of the rest of the fiasco I regrettably will have to continue tommorow, as I'm out of time. TTFN. Posted by devon @ 10:48 AM CST [Link] Monday, May 17, 2004 Delhi, India Where am I? This is going to be diffucult... So I'm in Delhi now after 27 hours on the train. Arrived the other day. The main job here is to get my Middle East Visas, which brought me to the Afghan embassy. It was by far the most friendly of the 6 or so that I visited, and in fact, I had a wee teary inside. This is the hard part. I'm trying to work out how to explain it. Basically There were two families inside waiting on chairs for something or another. Two women, their husbands and a bundle of rug-rats. I've seen a lot of people from war ravaged, or desperately poor nations along my trip, so being around people from places like Afghanistan never provokes any kind of emotional response or thoughts in me. But something was different in the Embassy. Initially, the room felt very male dominated because of the presence of quite a number of very typical looking, longbearded, turbaned men with murderous expressions on their faces. A few random thoughts of their male dominated society drifted through my mind, but nothing stuck. Later on, when most of the older, intimidating men had left and only a few people were left along with the two families, my attention became focused on those two families and their children. I love watching children. I could do it all day long. It never ceases to bewilder me how simmilarly children around the world behave. I've had the opportunity to watch so many different children to interact, and also to see how their parents deal with them. I'll often associate family dynamics that I observe to my own or other families that I know, and in a way it makes the people in the seemingly foreign country that I'm in seem much more.... real. Having said this, I've been more or less appalled in India at the way some children are treated. I've seen so many mothers beating the crap out of their small (4 or 5 years old) children and fathers who just treat their kids as nuisances. It makes me want to scream when I see it, but all I can really do is scowl at the neglectful parents. The issues that are behind this are complex and wide ranging, so I'm not going to bother placing an overall judgement of it. But regardless, it makes me angry to see it. So when my attention was brought to the rambuncious kids splashing themselves with water and fighting over objects like waterbottles or cellphones, I carefully watched the parents. I couldnt help but gaze in wonder at one of the mothers, she had her hair parted in the middle with a bun tied in the back, still youthfull in her middle age yet she had dark circles under her eyes. She seemed to have a quiet, severe yet tender way about her. I've seen other quiet, unexpressive mothers like her who beat their children in public, so after my first look, my interest was piqued. Her husband very quickly gave the impression that he was a kind hearted, doting father. I watched the family go through the motions. The mothers wrangling the flock when the got too unruly, or the father tenderly cradling the toddler who had just bumped her head very hard on a table corner. I watched the husband and wife share a few exchanges which suggested they still knew they were in love... even watched the mother smile warmly as her baby started crying. As any of my colder judgements about the family started to melt, the overwhelming sense of tragedy that the family must have to deal with began to seep in slowely. I couldnt help but feel the perverse contrast of trying to raise a family with solid foundations in Afghanistan with the cold, devastating reality the Soviet Afghan war or the Talibans regime. The family seemed so real and human to me, but the conflict in Afganistan has always been a distant, unprovoking fairy tale, but getting to watch the family brought the tragedy one step closer to me. I remember looking at the men. Their faces. Men the world over seem to bear tragedy in their lives with a quiet solidarity, pushing onwards to provide for themselves or their dependants. But these mothers, the carers, and the childrens key to survival, they wore the tragedy on their faces and it felt like a solid blow in my chest. I havn't had many chances at all to be around women at all on my trip, mainly because I cant talk to other tourists and women play a secondary role in the societies that I am visiting. Having the opportunity to bathe in those two mothers maternal atmosphere brought all the brewing feelings that I've kept at bay bubbling to the surface, and came out as a choke in my throught and welling in my eyes. I tried to look away and control myself, which I was mostly successful at, but I still caught the attention of the family. It was embarrassing. They must have thought I was crazy. At anything it deepened my resolve to visit the place, for if just one room full of afghanis had a strong enough pull to bring me to tears, a country full of them must be a incredibly moving experience. Afghanistan is so much closer to being real for me. I'm looking forward to visiting. This was a completley spontaneous, embarassing and unexpected thing to happen to me, and was in that way important to me. In words, it might seem staged or contrived. I'm sorry if its come off that way, just try to see it through my eyes. I'm increasingly overwhelmed by the world. Its such a fucking sad place. On a scale that so supercedes anything I can emotionally process. I'm so glad I've done this. TTFN Posted by devon @ 08:07 AM CST [Link] Wednesday, May 12, 2004 Mumbai, Maharashtra, India So, I'm in an internet cafe just down the road from where I'm staying, suffering the delayed consequences of procrastination. I've put off uploading my photos for so long and now I've got so many to put up. What this means is I"m going to be here for a while and I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to write about. Just for fun I'm going to do two posts. One random blabbering just now talking about my day today, and the next one I think I'm going to continue with the Tibet expedition, If anyones interested. If anyones forgotten what happened, here's the first one, andhere's the second, andhere's the third, andhere's the fourth, andhere's the fifth, so far. Just to whet your appetite you know... So I woke up earlish today after a night out with a family friend. They took me to a local bar and childhood friends of my dad would walk in randomly and when they were told that I was his son they had the most bizarre looks on their faces. I could imagine that it would be strange to meet the child of somebody you hadn't thought about for like 25 years. Anyway the plan was that the same girl that took me out would bring me out to Daravi, the biggest slum in Asia. Apparently a lot of strange things went down there and it sounded like a perfect place for me to go and shoot. I've kind of been lacking inspiration in Bombay and was looking forward to a location like Daravi. She picked me up and we went to her office where I got a nice sandwitch and tea for breakfast (I'm so taken care of here its blissfull!) and after that I set off on my own. Before I wanted to go to Daravi, Nikita (The girl mentioned before) told me to go to some church on a hill. The area her office was in was heavily Christian and there were churches everywhere. I rickshawed my way up there and was instantly struck by the strangeness of the hilltop church. In the middle of the road was a crusifix loaded with colorful marigolds and other flowers that are commently used at hindu temples to decorate the sacred images. There were many Indian Christians up there and a smattering of stalls selling devotional trinkets to lay inside the church on one side of the street, or a massive shrine on the other. It was just plain wierd considering I was in India. I couldnt help but think that a little bit of hindu tradition had made its way into the way these people carried out their devotion. For instance in that area of town, there are tiny little churches with single image of christ inside for people to give offerings too. This is strikingly simmilar to the way that hindu shrines are layed out in any given area and something I've never seen done in a traditionally Christian country. After I got all the shots I wanted, I hopped in another rickshaw and set off for Daravi. I was pretty excited because I knew I'd get a chance to just walk around and take photos at an easy pace. Also I was interested to see what a gigantic slum looked like. Nikita had told me to go into one of the shops nearby that sold leather and ask to visit their workshop. Apparently Daravi was well known for leather clothes shops. How it went down is the slum dwellers would work in little sweat shops owned by slightly more affluent slum dwellers who would open a shop on the main road that would be a showroom for all the goods made in the factory. I was shown very quickly by a friendly shop owner to his "factory" and all it was was a tiny little room with two sewing machines and a big pile of leather. It was made out of concrete and was fairly clean, albeit cramped. The workers inside seemed happy enough, and when I asked where they slept, he said inside the shop. In fact he lived just around the corner from the sweat shop. His daughter, wife and mother were sitting outside. It was almost surreal talking to him, because in the back of my head, I knew he was living in a slum, and he was very poor, and hardship was all around. But I couldnt ignore the fact that he was well dressed, everybody was cheerful and happy, and he actually seemed to lead a really happy life with his family. He lead me to his new "factory" that he was building beside the old one. He showed me all the improvements that he was installing and you know, it looked pretty good. So I asked him if everything was like this here in Daravi, considering that if it was, then Daravi wasnt such a bad place after all. He said that there were many shop owners and many factories, and if I went down the road and turned right, then I'd walk through the real heart of Daravi, known as 90 foot road. I was happy that I had a good introduction to the place, but I was still wondering. After the madness that I experienced in Bangladesh, with people staring or yelling at me, kids following me around and just a general sense of discomfort, I was a little bit sensitive about going into places like Daravi. So I ignored the first few invitations to go talk, and just walked along and took my photos. I framed one of a group of about 40 playing cricket with two by fours and a giant rock as the wicket, and as soon as they saw the camera, the entire group came running full speed at me. I got a great shot of them running towards me, but turned around right away and ignored them when they came up to me and asked me questions. It worked to some exent and most of them went back to playing but a few lingered on, following me. I didnt mind just a few, and continued to take my photographs and after about 5 kids followed me for a few more minutes than I liked. I told them to get lost and to my amazement, they did. By this time I was starting to get my confidence back. Some of the people walking around the slum even seemed to behave a little dignified. It was nice. I definitely didnt get a sense for exactly what this "slum" was right away. I mean I was on a cracked and broken paved two lane road with ramshakle shops on either side. Dirt, dust, rocks and garbage littered the ground everywhere and there were the odd fruit stand or shoe shiner scattered amongs the rocks and garbage. It was quite a wide street, about 50 feet between the shops, and every hundred of meters or so, there would be another smaller street leading off the main one. There were even communist style condominiums that looked like they should have collapsed years ago. I decided to follow one of the smaller streets and found that the shops would continue for a bit before breaking off into a complete and utter maze of cement hovels, electrical wires and open sewage gutters that were peoples living environments. I suppose that in some areas of Daravi, which is HUGE its all tin shacks and no electricity, but perhaps this was the "nice" part of town. After about half an hour, I really got the feeling that I was in a city within a city. I took lefts and rights and there were so many different neighbourhoods, with the usual mix of shops to service every distinct locality. Every little once and a while, the poverty would be punctuated by the odd familly sitting on a straw mat in the middle of everything, holding their shockingly dirty naked babies and mustling about with the garbage that was lying on the ground about them. There was also the odd tin shack selling this or that on the main street as well. Most of the people would smile and wave at me, the odd one would simply want a picture taken, smile and say thank you after I had. Down the allies people were a little more curious because I was right near their homes, but all in all, everything seemed surprisingly tame. Still rediculously impoverished, but not beyond what you might expect in a small rural town in one of these countries. The only difference between one of those and Daravi, was that Daravi housed tens of thousands of people living on government property. They had even set up a few police stations inside. A man on a bicycle smiled and waved as he went by, then yelled "welcome to India!" over his shoulder. I'm sure he said it in upmost innocence, and the irony of that statement even took me a few seconds to realize. "Welcome to India" "Welcome to Daravi" "Welcome to our world of hardship and poverty" Events like that always leave me smiling inwardly. Theres nothing quite like letting yourself be overwhelmed by the magic of reality. You never know when somebodies going to cycle up to you and excite new thoughts in your head, then be gone as quick as they came. As I walked down those streets, I thought to myself "this is what I love most, I'm learning" There is nothing like learning. And no better way to learn about things like poverty then spending a day walking around a place like Daravi. I could have spent more time there. My batteries weren't finished nor were my cards full. But the reality of the place that I had been fighting was admittidly tiring, and I figured that it would be better to move on while the going was good. I made my way back to the busy street with all the leather shops and took a train back towards downtown Bombay. Afterwards I bought my ticket at the Train station for tommorow. I'm leaving to Delhi. Doing this meant having to go to the "foreign tourist" booth of the registration building, and more importantly, it meant that I was going to be in close proximity with Europeans. Sure enough as I walked up the steps there were a group of young trendies waiting in the line or at the counter. All German as I found out when I landed behind them. On one count, I was happy that I was in a "european" line up, which is decidely more sane than a indian queue. But on the other hand I felt really uncomfortable having to be so close to them. I'm trying to figure out how to explain it. But I try to avoid other tourists at all costs. Firstly, other tourist always want to talk to eachother. So that means when they see me, they assume that I want to talk to them, which I dont. Every time I have a conversation with another tourist, it always fails horribly. I dont know what to say to them. Everybodies so happy, so friendly, and they always want to talk about the same things and the same places. Its just mind-numbing for me. Another thing that bothers me is when I see a tourist, I realize that I'm not the only person travelling, which I can forget being on my own and avoiding popular places. It makes me feel cheap in a way. I dunno. Its a whole bunch of reasons, but basically, when I see tourists, I kind of get the feeling like I want to run away. Thankfully I only had to share a few words with the german people and they didnt fully get me into a conversation. I know its stupid, they seemed so nice and friendly, I'm sure under different circumstances I'd get along fine with them, but I've met so many people who are on their 2 week or monthlong vacation, that I simply can't get motivated to talk about all the same things all the time. I went downstairs and rang up nikita to tell her what my plans were and as I was dialing noticed a shirtless doonga hovering around. I motioned for him to get lost and when he didnt, feinted a blow at his face which seemed to kind of shuffle him off. You see after a year of being targetted mercilessly by beggars, I have very, very little simpathy for even the most disfigured unfortunate. Engaged in discussion with Nikita, I heard a loud crack and turned around to see a policeman very close to me and the doonga behind looking abused. It was hard to divide my attention, but I saw out of the corner of the eye the policeman whacking the doonga once over with his wooden stick very, very hard and a loud sqeal emit from the homeless beggar. I got off the phone and the policeman explained to me that the doonga had reached into my right cargo pocket, which thankfully had nothing in it. I frowned at the beggar and told the policeman that nothing had been taken. The doonga looked at me plaintively and I knew he was guilty. The policeman gave him a fresh volley of strikes with the stiff cane, once in the thigh, once on his head and once on his back. It looked excruciating. The man let out subdued groans as the policeman looked on at him with fury in his face. I told the poiceman not to hit him anymore and he agreed, but when he asked the beggar a question, the response prompted a flurry of beatings more severe than the previous ones. I tried to plead non-violence, but this man had his way. I left at this point with no idea what to think of the malicious scene. The man was guilty, and the policeman had a point in punishing him, but the punishment I knew was cruel and severe. I knew however, as I walked away, that although I pitied the man, I couldnt help but feel cold satisfaction when he was beaten. It was a confusing mix of emotions that I had a hard time understanding. Part of my satisfaction I believe came from the betrayal I felt when my bag was stolen. I dont know. The world is a very confusing place. The rest of my day was boring. I hope you enjoyed the interesting bits. TTFN Posted by devon @ 07:13 AM CST [Link] Mumbai, Maharashtra, India So, I'm in an internet cafe just down the road from where I'm staying, suffering the delayed consequences of procrastination. I've put off uploading my photos for so long and now I've got so many to put up. What this means is I"m going to be here for a while and I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to write about. Just for fun I'm going to do two posts. One random blabbering just now talking about my day today, and the next one I think I'm going to continue with the Tibet expedition, If anyones interested. If anyones forgotten what happened, here's the first one, andhere's the second, andhere's the third, andhere's the fourth, andhere's the fifth, so far. Just to whet your appetite you know... So I woke up earlish today after a night out with a family friend. They took me to a local bar and childhood friends of my dad would walk in randomly and when they were told that I was his friend they had the most bizarre looks on their faces. I could imagine that it would be strange to meet the child of somebody you hadn't thought about for like 25 years. Anyway the plan was that the same girl that took me out would bring me out to Daravi, the biggest slum in Asia. Apparently a lot of strange things went down there and it sounded like a perfect place for me to go and shoot. I've kind of been lacking inspiration in Bombay and was looking forward to a location like Daravi. She picked me up and we went to her office where I got a nice sandwitch and tea for breakfast (I'm so taken care of here its blissfull!) and after that I set off on my own. Before I wanted to go to Daravi, Nikita (The girl mentioned before) told me to go to some church on a hill. The area her office was in was heavily Christian and there were churches everywhere. I rickshawed my way up there and was instantly struck by the strangeness of the hilltop church. In the middle of the road was a crusifix loaded with colorful marigolds and other flowers that are commently used at hindu temples to decorate the sacred images. There were many Indian Christians up there and a smattering of stalls selling devotional trinkets to lay inside the church on one side of the street, or a massive shrine on the other. It was just plain wierd considering I was in India. I couldnt help but think that a little bit of hindu tradition had made its way into the way these people carried out their devotion. For instance in that area of town, there are tiny little churches with single image of christ inside for people to give offerings too. This is strikingly simmilar to the way that hindu shrines are layed out in any given area and something I've never seen done in a traditionally Christian country. After I got all the shots I wanted, I hopped in another rickshaw and set off for Daravi. I was pretty excited because I knew I'd get a chance to just walk around and take photos at an easy pace. Also I was interested to see what a gigantic slum looked like. Nikita had told me to go into one of the shops nearby that sold leather and ask to visit their workshop. Apparently Daravi was well known for leather clothes shops. How it went down is the slum dwellers would work in little sweat shops owned by slightly more affluent slum dwellers who would open a shop on the main road that would be a showroom for all the goods made in the factory. I was shown very quickly by a friendly shop owner to his "factory" and all it was was a tiny little room with two sewing machines and a big pile of leather. It was made out of concrete and was fairly clean, albeit cramped. The workers inside seemed happy enough, and when I asked where they slept, he said inside the shop. In fact he lived just around the corner from the sweat shop. His daughter, wife and mother were sitting outside. It was almost surreal talking to him, because in the back of my head, I knew he was living in a slum, and he was very poor, and hardship was all around. But I couldnt ignore the fact that he was well dressed, everybody was cheerful and happy, and he actually seemed to lead a really happy life with his family. He lead me to his new "factory" that he was building beside the old one. He showed me all the improvements that he was installing and you know, it looked pretty good. So I asked him if everything was like this here in Daravi, considering that if it was, then Daravi wasnt such a bad place after all. He said that there were many shop owners and many factories, and if I went down the road and turned right, then I'd walk through the real heart of Daravi, known as 90 foot road. I was happy that I had a good introduction to the place, but I was still wondering. After the madness that I experienced in Bangladesh, with people staring or yelling at me, kids following me around and just a general sense of discomfort, I was a little bit sensitive about going into places like Daravi. So I ignored the first few invitations to go talk, and just walked along and took my photos. I framed one of a group of about 40 playing cricket with two by fours and a giant rock as the wicket, and as soon as they saw the camera, the entire group came running full speed at me. I got a great shot of them running towards me, but turned around right away and ignored them when they came up to me and asked me questions. It worked to some exent and most of them went back to playing but a few lingered on, following me. I didnt mind just a few, and continued to take my photographs and after about 5 kids followed me for a few more minutes than I liked. I told them to get lost and to my amazement, they did. By this time I was starting to get my confidence back. Some of the people walking around the slum even seemed to behave a little dignified. It was nice. I definitely didnt get a sense for exactly what this "slum" was right away. I mean I was on a cracked and broken paved two lane road with ramshakle shops on either side. Dirt, dust, rocks and garbage littered the ground everywhere and there were the odd fruit stand or shoe shiner scattered amongs the rocks and garbage. It was quite a wide street, about 50 feet between the shops, and every hundred of meters or so, there would be another smaller street leading off the main one. There were even communist style condominiums that looked like they should have collapsed years ago. I decided to follow one of the smaller streets and found that the shops would continue for a bit before breaking off into a complete and utter maze of cement hovels, electrical wires and open sewage gutters that were peoples living environments. I suppose that in some areas of Daravi, which is HUGE its all tin shacks and no electricity, but perhaps this was the "nice" part of town. After about half an hour, I really got the feeling that I was in a city within a city. I took lefts and rights and there were so many different neighbourhoods, with the usual mix of shops to service every distinct locality. Every little once and a while, the poverty would be punctuated by the odd familly sitting on a straw mat in the middle of everything, holding their shockingly dirty naked babies and mustling about with the garbage that was lying on the ground about them. There was also the odd tin shack selling this or that on the main street as well. Most of the people would smile and wave at me, the odd one would simply want a picture taken, smile and say thank you after I had. Down the allies people were a little more curious because I was right near their homes, but all in all, everything seemed surprisingly tame. Still rediculously impoverished, but not beyond what you might expect in a small rural town in one of these countries. The only difference between one of those and Daravi, was that Daravi housed tens of thousands of people living on government property. They had even set up a few police stations inside. A man on a bicycle smiled and waved as he went by, then yelled "welcome to India!" over his shoulder. I'm sure he said it in upmost innocence, and the irony of that statement even took me a few seconds to realize. "Welcome to India" "Welcome to Daravi" "Welcome to our world of hardship and poverty" Events like that always leave me smiling inwardly. Theres nothing quite like letting yourself be overwhelmed by the magic of reality. You never know when somebodies going to cycle up to you and excite new thoughts in your head, then be gone as quick as they came. As I walked down those streets, I thought to myself "this is what I love most, I'm learning" There is nothing like learning. And no better way to learn about things like poverty then spending a day walking around a place like Daravi. I could have spent more time there. My batteries weren't finished nor were my cards full. But the reality of the place that I had been fighting was admittidly tiring, and I figured that it would be better to move on while the going was good. I made my way back to the busy street with all the leather shops and took a train back towards downtown Bombay. Afterwards I bought my ticket at the Train station for tommorow. I'm leaving to Delhi. Doing this meant having to go to the "foreign tourist" booth of the registration building, and more importantly, it meant that I was going to be in close proximity with Europeans. Sure enough as I walked up the steps there were a group of young trendies waiting in the line or at the counter. All German as I found out when I landed behind them. On one count, I was happy that I was in a "european" line up, which is decidely more sane than a indian queue. But on the other hand I felt really uncomfortable having to be so close to them. I'm trying to figure out how to explain it. But I try to avoid other tourists at all costs. Firstly, other tourist always want to talk to eachother. So that means when they see me, they assume that I want to talk to them, which I dont. Every time I have a conversation with another tourist, it always fails horribly. I dont know what to say to them. Everybodies so happy, so friendly, and they always want to talk about the same things and the same places. Its just mind-numbing for me. Another thing that bothers me is when I see a tourist, I realize that I'm not the only person travelling, which I can forget being on my own and avoiding popular places. It makes me feel cheap in a way. I dunno. Its a whole bunch of reasons, but basically, when I see tourists, I kind of get the feeling like I want to run away. Thankfully I only had to share a few words with the german people and they didnt fully get me into a conversation. I know its stupid, they seemed so nice and friendly, I'm sure under different circumstances I'd get along fine with them, but I've met so many people who are on their 2 week or monthlong vacation, that I simply can't get motivated to talk about all the same things all the time. I went downstairs and rang up nikita to tell her what my plans were and as I was dialing noticed a shirtless doonga hovering around. I motioned for him to get lost and when he didnt, feinted a blow at his face which seemed to kind of shuffle him off. You see after a year of being targetted mercilessly by beggars, I have very, very little simpathy for even the most disfigured unfortunate. Engaged in discussion with Nikita, I heard a loud crack and turned around to see a policeman very close to me and the doonga behind looking abused. It was hard to divide my attention, but I saw out of the corner of the eye the policeman whacking the doonga once over with his wooden stick very, very hard and a loud sqeal emit from the homeless beggar. I got off the phone and the policeman explained to me that the doonga had reached into my right cargo pocket, which thankfully had nothing in it. I frowned at the beggar and told the policeman that nothing had been taken. The doonga looked at me plaintively and I knew he was guilty. The policeman gave him a fresh volley of strikes with the stiff cane, once in the thigh, once on his head and once on his back. It looked excruciating. The man let out subdued groans as the policeman looked on at him with fury in his face. I told the poiceman not to hit him anymore and he agreed, but when he asked the beggar a question, the response prompted a flurry of beatings more severe than the previous ones. I tried to plead non-violence, but this man had his way. I left at this point with no idea what to think of the malicious scene. The man was guilty, and the policeman had a point in punishing him, but the punishment I knew was cruel and severe. I knew however, as I walked away, that although I pitied the man, I couldnt help but feel cold satisfaction when he was beaten. It was a confusing mix of emotions that I had a hard time understanding. Part of my satisfaction I believe came from the betrayal I felt when my bag was stolen. I dont know. The world is a very confusing place. The rest of my day was boring. I hope you enjoyed the interesting bits. TTFN Posted by devon @ 07:10 AM CST [Link] Mumbai, Maharashtra, India So, I'm in an internet cafe just down the road from where I'm staying, suffering the delayed consequences of procrastination. I've put off uploading my photos for so long and now I've got so many to put up. What this means is I"m going to be here for a while and I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to write about. Just for fun I'm going to do two posts. One random blabbering just now talking about my day today, and the next one I think I'm going to continue with the Tibet expedition, If anyones interested. If anyones forgotten what happened, here's the first one, andhere's the second, andhere's the third, andhere's the fourth, andhere's the fifth, so far. Just to whet your appetite you know... So I woke up earlish today after a night out with a family friend. They took me to a local bar and childhood friends of my dad would walk in randomly and when they were told that I was his friend they had the most bizarre looks on their faces. I could imagine that it would be strange to meet the child of somebody you hadn't thought about for like 25 years. Anyway the plan was that the same girl that took me out would bring me out to Daravi, the biggest slum in Asia. Apparently a lot of strange things went down there and it sounded like a perfect place for me to go and shoot. I've kind of been lacking inspiration in Bombay and was looking forward to a location like Daravi. She picked me up and we went to her office where I got a nice sandwitch and tea for breakfast (I'm so taken care of here its blissfull!) and after that I set off on my own. Before I wanted to go to Daravi, Nikita (The girl mentioned before) told me to go to some church on a hill. The area her office was in was heavily Christian and there were churches everywhere. I rickshawed my way up there and was instantly struck by the strangeness of the hilltop church. In the middle of the road was a crusifix loaded with colorful marigolds and other flowers that are commently used at hindu temples to decorate the sacred images. There were many Indian Christians up there and a smattering of stalls selling devotional trinkets to lay inside the church on one side of the street, or a massive shrine on the other. It was just plain wierd considering I was in India. I couldnt help but think that a little bit of hindu tradition had made its way into the way these people carried out their devotion. For instance in that area of town, there are tiny little churches with single image of christ inside for people to give offerings too. This is strikingly simmilar to the way that hindu shrines are layed out in any given area and something I've never seen done in a traditionally Christian country. After I got all the shots I wanted, I hopped in another rickshaw and set off for Daravi. I was pretty excited because I knew I'd get a chance to just walk around and take photos at an easy pace. Also I was interested to see what a gigantic slum looked like. Nikita had told me to go into one of the shops nearby that sold leather and ask to visit their workshop. Apparently Daravi was well known for leather clothes shops. How it went down is the slum dwellers would work in little sweat shops owned by slightly more affluent slum dwellers who would open a shop on the main road that would be a showroom for all the goods made in the factory. I was shown very quickly by a friendly shop owner to his "factory" and all it was was a tiny little room with two sewing machines and a big pile of leather. It was made out of concrete and was fairly clean, albeit cramped. The workers inside seemed happy enough, and when I asked where they slept, he said inside the shop. In fact he lived just around the corner from the sweat shop. His daughter, wife and mother were sitting outside. It was almost surreal talking to him, because in the back of my head, I knew he was living in a slum, and he was very poor, and hardship was all around. But I couldnt ignore the fact that he was well dressed, everybody was cheerful and happy, and he actually seemed to lead a really happy life with his family. He lead me to his new "factory" that he was building beside the old one. He showed me all the improvements that he was installing and you know, it looked pretty good. So I asked him if everything was like this here in Daravi, considering that if it was, then Daravi wasnt such a bad place after all. He said that there were many shop owners and many factories, and if I went down the road and turned right, then I'd walk through the real heart of Daravi, known as 90 foot road. I was happy that I had a good introduction to the place, but I was still wondering. After the madness that I experienced in Bangladesh, with people staring or yelling at me, kids following me around and just a general sense of discomfort, I was a little bit sensitive about going into places like Daravi. So I ignored the first few invitations to go talk, and just walked along and took my photos. I framed one of a group of about 40 playing cricket with two by fours and a giant rock as the wicket, and as soon as they saw the camera, the entire group came running full speed at me. I got a great shot of them running towards me, but turned around right away and ignored them when they came up to me and asked me questions. It worked to some exent and most of them went back to playing but a few lingered on, following me. I didnt mind just a few, and continued to take my photographs and after about 5 kids followed me for a few more minutes than I liked. I told them to get lost and to my amazement, they did. By this time I was starting to get my confidence back. Some of the people walking around the slum even seemed to behave a little dignified. It was nice. I definitely didnt get a sense for exactly what this "slum" was right away. I mean I was on a cracked and broken paved two lane road with ramshakle shops on either side. Dirt, dust, rocks and garbage littered the ground everywhere and there were the odd fruit stand or shoe shiner scattered amongs the rocks and garbage. It was quite a wide street, about 50 feet between the shops, and every hundred of meters or so, there would be another smaller street leading off the main one. There were even communist style condominiums that looked like they should have collapsed years ago. I decided to follow one of the smaller streets and found that the shops would continue for a bit before breaking off into a complete and utter maze of cement hovels, electrical wires and open sewage gutters that were peoples living environments. I suppose that in some areas of Daravi, which is HUGE its all tin shacks and no electricity, but perhaps this was the "nice" part of town. After about half an hour, I really got the feeling that I was in a city within a city. I took lefts and rights and there were so many different neighbourhoods, with the usual mix of shops to service every distinct locality. Every little once and a while, the poverty would be punctuated by the odd familly sitting on a straw mat in the middle of everything, holding their shockingly dirty naked babies and mustling about with the garbage that was lying on the ground about them. There was also the odd tin shack selling this or that on the main street as well. Most of the people would smile and wave at me, the odd one would simply want a picture taken, smile and say thank you after I had. Down the allies people were a little more curious because I was right near their homes, but all in all, everything seemed surprisingly tame. Still rediculously impoverished, but not beyond what you might expect in a small rural town in one of these countries. The only difference between one of those and Daravi, was that Daravi housed tens of thousands of people living on government property. They had even set up a few police stations inside. A man on a bicycle smiled and waved as he went by, then yelled "welcome to India!" over his shoulder. I'm sure he said it in upmost innocence, and the irony of that statement even took me a few seconds to realize. "Welcome to India" "Welcome to Daravi" "Welcome to our world of hardship and poverty" Events like that always leave me smiling inwardly. Theres nothing quite like letting yourself be overwhelmed by the magic of reality. You never know when somebodies going to cycle up to you and excite new thoughts in your head, then be gone as quick as they came. As I walked down those streets, I thought to myself "this is what I love most, I'm learning" There is nothing like learning. And no better way to learn about things like poverty then spending a day walking around a place like Daravi. I could have spent more time there. My batteries weren't finished nor were my cards full. But the reality of the place that I had been fighting was admittidly tiring, and I figured that it would be better to move on while the going was good. I made my way back to the busy street with all the leather shops and took a train back towards downtown Bombay. Afterwards I bought my ticket at the Train station for tommorow. I'm leaving to Delhi. Doing this meant having to go to the "foreign tourist" booth of the registration building, and more importantly, it meant that I was going to be in close proximity with Europeans. Sure enough as I walked up the steps there were a group of young trendies waiting in the line or at the counter. All German as I found out when I landed behind them. On one count, I was happy that I was in a "european" line up, which is decidely more sane than a indian queue. But on the other hand I felt really uncomfortable having to be so close to them. I'm trying to figure out how to explain it. But I try to avoid other tourists at all costs. Firstly, other tourist always want to talk to eachother. So that means when they see me, they assume that I want to talk to them, which I dont. Every time I have a conversation with another tourist, it always fails horribly. I dont know what to say to them. Everybodies so happy, so friendly, and they always want to talk about the same things and the same places. Its just mind-numbing for me. Another thing that bothers me is when I see a tourist, I realize that I'm not the only person travelling, which I can forget being on my own and avoiding popular places. It makes me feel cheap in a way. I dunno. Its a whole bunch of reasons, but basically, when I see tourists, I kind of get the feeling like I want to run away. Thankfully I only had to share a few words with the german people and they didnt fully get me into a conversation. I know its stupid, they seemed so nice and friendly, I'm sure under different circumstances I'd get along fine with them, but I've met so many people who are on their 2 week or monthlong vacation, that I simply can't get motivated to talk about all the same things all the time. I went downstairs and rang up nikita to tell her what my plans were and as I was dialing noticed a shirtless doonga hovering around. I motioned for him to get lost and when he didnt, feinted a blow at his face which seemed to kind of shuffle him off. You see after a year of being targetted mercilessly by beggars, I have very, very little simpathy for even the most disfigured unfortunate. Engaged in discussion with Nikita, I heard a loud crack and turned around to see a policeman very close to me and the doonga behind looking abused. It was hard to divide my attention, but I saw out of the corner of the eye the policeman whacking the doonga once over with his wooden stick very, very hard and a loud sqeal emit from the homeless beggar. I got off the phone and the policeman explained to me that the doonga had reached into my right cargo pocket, which thankfully had nothing in it. I frowned at the beggar and told the policeman that nothing had been taken. The doonga looked at me plaintively and I knew he was guilty. The policeman gave him a fresh volley of strikes with the stiff cane, once in the thigh, once on his head and once on his back. It looked excruciating. The man let out subdued groans as the policeman looked on at him with fury in his face. I told the poiceman not to hit him anymore and he agreed, but when he asked the beggar a question, the response prompted a flurry of beatings more severe than the previous ones. I tried to plead non-violence, but this man had his way. I left at this point with no idea what to think of the malicious scene. The man was guilty, and the policeman had a point in punishing him, but the punishment I knew was cruel and severe. I knew however, as I walked away, that although I pitied the man, I couldnt help but feel cold satisfaction when he was beaten. It was a confusing mix of emotions that I had a hard time understanding. Part of my satisfaction I believe came from the betrayal I felt when my bag was stolen. I dont know. The world is a very confusing place. The rest of my day was boring. I hope you enjoyed the interesting bits. TTFN Posted by devon @ 07:08 AM CST [Link] Mumbai, Maharashtra, India So, I'm in an internet cafe just down the road from where I'm staying, suffering the delayed consequences of procrastination. I've put off uploading my photos for so long and now I've got so many to put up. What this means is I"m going to be here for a while and I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to write about. Just for fun I'm going to do two posts. One random blabbering just now talking about my day today, and the next one I think I'm going to continue with the Tibet expedition, If anyones interested. If anyones forgotten what happened, here's the first one, andhere's the second, andhere's the third, andhere's the fourth, andhere's the fifth, so far. Just to whet your appetite you know... So I woke up earlish today after a night out with a family friend. They took me to a local bar and childhood friends of my dad would walk in randomly and when they were told that I was his friend they had the most bizarre looks on their faces. I could imagine that it would be strange to meet the child of somebody you hadn't thought about for like 25 years. Anyway the plan was that the same girl that took me out would bring me out to Daravi, the biggest slum in Asia. Apparently a lot of strange things went down there and it sounded like a perfect place for me to go and shoot. I've kind of been lacking inspiration in Bombay and was looking forward to a location like Daravi. She picked me up and we went to her office where I got a nice sandwitch and tea for breakfast (I'm so taken care of here its blissfull!) and after that I set off on my own. Before I wanted to go to Daravi, Nikita (The girl mentioned before) told me to go to some church on a hill. The area her office was in was heavily Christian and there were churches everywhere. I rickshawed my way up there and was instantly struck by the strangeness of the hilltop church. In the middle of the road was a crusifix loaded with colorful marigolds and other flowers that are commently used at hindu temples to decorate the sacred images. There were many Indian Christians up there and a smattering of stalls selling devotional trinkets to lay inside the church on one side of the street, or a massive shrine on the other. It was just plain wierd considering I was in India. I couldnt help but think that a little bit of hindu tradition had made its way into the way these people carried out their devotion. For instance in that area of town, there are tiny little churches with single image of christ inside for people to give offerings too. This is strikingly simmilar to the way that hindu shrines are layed out in any given area and something I've never seen done in a traditionally Christian country. After I got all the shots I wanted, I hopped in another rickshaw and set off for Daravi. I was pretty excited because I knew I'd get a chance to just walk around and take photos at an easy pace. Also I was interested to see what a gigantic slum looked like. Nikita had told me to go into one of the shops nearby that sold leather and ask to visit their workshop. Apparently Daravi was well known for leather clothes shops. How it went down is the slum dwellers would work in little sweat shops owned by slightly more affluent slum dwellers who would open a shop on the main road that would be a showroom for all the goods made in the factory. I was shown very quickly by a friendly shop owner to his "factory" and all it was was a tiny little room with two sewing machines and a big pile of leather. It was made out of concrete and was fairly clean, albeit cramped. The workers inside seemed happy enough, and when I asked where they slept, he said inside the shop. In fact he lived just around the corner from the sweat shop. His daughter, wife and mother were sitting outside. It was almost surreal talking to him, because in the back of my head, I knew he was living in a slum, and he was very poor, and hardship was all around. But I couldnt ignore the fact that he was well dressed, everybody was cheerful and happy, and he actually seemed to lead a really happy life with his family. He lead me to his new "factory" that he was building beside the old one. He showed me all the improvements that he was installing and you know, it looked pretty good. So I asked him if everything was like this here in Daravi, considering that if it was, then Daravi wasnt such a bad place after all. He said that there were many shop owners and many factories, and if I went down the road and turned right, then I'd walk through the real heart of Daravi, known as 90 foot road. I was happy that I had a good introduction to the place, but I was still wondering. After the madness that I experienced in Bangladesh, with people staring or yelling at me, kids following me around and just a general sense of discomfort, I was a little bit sensitive about going into places like Daravi. So I ignored the first few invitations to go talk, and just walked along and took my photos. I framed one of a group of about 40 playing cricket with two by fours and a giant rock as the wicket, and as soon as they saw the camera, the entire group came running full speed at me. I got a great shot of them running towards me, but turned around right away and ignored them when they came up to me and asked me questions. It worked to some exent and most of them went back to playing but a few lingered on, following me. I didnt mind just a few, and continued to take my photographs and after about 5 kids followed me for a few more minutes than I liked. I told them to get lost and to my amazement, they did. By this time I was starting to get my confidence back. Some of the people walking around the slum even seemed to behave a little dignified. It was nice. I definitely didnt get a sense for exactly what this "slum" was right away. I mean I was on a cracked and broken paved two lane road with ramshakle shops on either side. Dirt, dust, rocks and garbage littered the ground everywhere and there were the odd fruit stand or shoe shiner scattered amongs the rocks and garbage. It was quite a wide street, about 50 feet between the shops, and every hundred of meters or so, there would be another smaller street leading off the main one. There were even communist style condominiums that looked like they should have collapsed years ago. I decided to follow one of the smaller streets and found that the shops would continue for a bit before breaking off into a complete and utter maze of cement hovels, electrical wires and open sewage gutters that were peoples living environments. I suppose that in some areas of Daravi, which is HUGE its all tin shacks and no electricity, but perhaps this was the "nice" part of town. After about half an hour, I really got the feeling that I was in a city within a city. I took lefts and rights and there were so many different neighbourhoods, with the usual mix of shops to service every distinct locality. Every little once and a while, the poverty would be punctuated by the odd familly sitting on a straw mat in the middle of everything, holding their shockingly dirty naked babies and mustling about with the garbage that was lying on the ground about them. There was also the odd tin shack selling this or that on the main street as well. Most of the people would smile and wave at me, the odd one would simply want a picture taken, smile and say thank you after I had. Down the allies people were a little more curious because I was right near their homes, but all in all, everything seemed surprisingly tame. Still rediculously impoverished, but not beyond what you might expect in a small rural town in one of these countries. The only difference between one of those and Daravi, was that Daravi housed tens of thousands of people living on government property. They had even set up a few police stations inside. A man on a bicycle smiled and waved as he went by, then yelled "welcome to India!" over his shoulder. I'm sure he said it in upmost innocence, and the irony of that statement even took me a few seconds to realize. "Welcome to India" "Welcome to Daravi" "Welcome to our world of hardship and poverty" Events like that always leave me smiling inwardly. Theres nothing quite like letting yourself be overwhelmed by the magic of reality. You never know when somebodies going to cycle up to you and excite new thoughts in your head, then be gone as quick as they came. As I walked down those streets, I thought to myself "this is what I love most, I'm learning" There is nothing like learning. And no better way to learn about things like poverty then spending a day walking around a place like Daravi. I could have spent more time there. My batteries weren't finished nor were my cards full. But the reality of the place that I had been fighting was admittidly tiring, and I figured that it would be better to move on while the going was good. I made my way back to the busy street with all the leather shops and took a train back towards downtown Bombay. Afterwards I bought my ticket at the Train station for tommorow. I'm leaving to Delhi. Doing this meant having to go to the "foreign tourist" booth of the registration building, and more importantly, it meant that I was going to be in close proximity with Europeans. Sure enough as I walked up the steps there were a group of young trendies waiting in the line or at the counter. All German as I found out when I landed behind them. On one count, I was happy that I was in a "european" line up, which is decidely more sane than a indian queue. But on the other hand I felt really uncomfortable having to be so close to them. I'm trying to figure out how to explain it. But I try to avoid other tourists at all costs. Firstly, other tourist always want to talk to eachother. So that means when they see me, they assume that I want to talk to them, which I dont. Every time I have a conversation with another tourist, it always fails horribly. I dont know what to say to them. Everybodies so happy, so friendly, and they always want to talk about the same things and the same places. Its just mind-numbing for me. Another thing that bothers me is when I see a tourist, I realize that I'm not the only person travelling, which I can forget being on my own and avoiding popular places. It makes me feel cheap in a way. I dunno. Its a whole bunch of reasons, but basically, when I see tourists, I kind of get the feeling like I want to run away. Thankfully I only had to share a few words with the german people and they didnt fully get me into a conversation. I know its stupid, they seemed so nice and friendly, I'm sure under different circumstances I'd get along fine with them, but I've met so many people who are on their 2 week or monthlong vacation, that I simply can't get motivated to talk about all the same things all the time. I went downstairs and rang up nikita to tell her what my plans were and as I was dialing noticed a shirtless doonga hovering around. I motioned for him to get lost and when he didnt, feinted a blow at his face which seemed to kind of shuffle him off. You see after a year of being targetted mercilessly by beggars, I have very, very little simpathy for even the most disfigured unfortunate. Engaged in discussion with Nikita, I heard a loud crack and turned around to see a policeman very close to me and the doonga behind looking abused. It was hard to divide my attention, but I saw out of the corner of the eye the policeman whacking the doonga once over with his wooden stick very, very hard and a loud sqeal emit from the homeless beggar. I got off the phone and the policeman explained to me that the doonga had reached into my right cargo pocket, which thankfully had nothing in it. I frowned at the beggar and told the policeman that nothing had been taken. The doonga looked at me plaintively and I knew he was guilty. The policeman gave him a fresh volley of strikes with the stiff cane, once in the thigh, once on his head and once on his back. It looked excruciating. The man let out subdued groans as the policeman looked on at him with fury in his face. I told the poiceman not to hit him anymore and he agreed, but when he asked the beggar a question, the response prompted a flurry of beatings more severe than the previous ones. I tried to plead non-violence, but this man had his way. I left at this point with no idea what to think of the malicious scene. The man was guilty, and the policeman had a point in punishing him, but the punishment I knew was cruel and severe. I knew however, as I walked away, that although I pitied the man, I couldnt help but feel cold satisfaction when he was beaten. It was a confusing mix of emotions that I had a hard time understanding. Part of my satisfaction I believe came from the betrayal I felt when my bag was stolen. I dont know. The world is a very confusing place. The rest of my day was boring. I hope you enjoyed the interesting bits. TTFN Posted by devon @ 07:05 AM CST [Link] Friday, May 7, 2004 Bombay, Maharashtra, India After the madness in Bangladesh, I made my way back to Calcutta, in Eastern India, with the intention hopping right on a train to Bombay to meet up with some family friends. After much frustration with waste of flesh beaurocrats, I managed to dump my bags at the station and roam around Calcutta for another day because my train wasnt leaving untill later in the evening. Its been a long two or three months for me. Ever since I left Laos, in South East Asia, I've been more or less running. I had to run through China, a week in the back of an open lorry through tibet, an ass-crunching 4 days down through the Nepali border with a disorienting stop off at Everest base camp, No time in Nepal, Long hours on the train in India, absolute anarchy in Bangladesh which was followed by three days of straight travel to arrive in Bombay. In Bombay I knew I could relax. Its my fathers home city, and there is still a fairly large contingent of people who are still connected with my family. But, After one night and one day getting out of Bangladesh, then another day travelling to Calcutta, and catching a night train that took 33 hours to reach Bombay, you can imagine that I was properly exausted when the train finally pulled in to the incredibly famous Victoria Railway Station in Bombay. Without a hint of exaggeration, the British built it like a palace. I knew a shower was not far away, and as I turned around to pick up my bags once everybody else had left the train and only the homeless children picking up the empty bottles remained, I looked back to find that my red shoulder bag with everything I cherish was missing. Panicking, I looked high, I looked low, I looked in every birth around me. When it became impossibly clear that it was no misplacement of mine, and the bag had in fact been pinched in the 10 second period that I had turned around, I let out a string of expletives that I dare not repeat and ran down the length of the train. I dropped my bags outside with some of my seat mates who had some porters and they found out quickly from me that my bag had been stolen. Thank god for Indian curiosity because within moments every able male anywhere near the train was aware that my bag had been stolen and everybody was looking for it. I went back inside the train and ran down a few cars, snatching a few of the potato sacks held on to by the ragged beggars and looking inside. I passed an old lady who was obviuously completely insane, but she seemed to know exactly what had happenend. She let out a few grunts and with wide eyes pointed out the train to the opposite side of the platform, where there was just other tracks and a big fence. I didnt know what to make of it, but I ran back to my train, had another look around, then looked where the crazy lady had pointed and saw that there were indeed other doonga's (I'll use that for homeless people) on the side of the fence and also some just along the bottom of the train amongst the dirt and grease. I came out where everybody was waiting with my bags and talked to a few men about what had happened. Imagine that this was all going extremely fast and every experience and second was precious to me, and I could feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins. Then, out of nowhere, I sawa a blue shirted railway employee get my bag from what looked like thin air, then it was more or less ejected from the train. By the time I had a chance to look inside the train and find that my camera was missing, the blue shirted man was gone and so was every trace of where my bag had come from. Another string of expletives erupted from me and this time I jumped down off the other side of the train and made my way through a gap in the big fence, as I had seen one of the doonga's do, and then i ran out to where a few of them were sitting. And nearly shook the life out of them in my inquiry. I knew they knew something about it, it was obvious from their faces, but I could get nothing out of it. Finally a police man joined me and we questioned one doonga who was sitting ceremoniously below the train. I knew right away that he was keeping six for whoever had taken my bag but he refused to say anything. He got angry at one point and recklessly picked up a giant stone from between one of the tracks and made a very unthreatening feint towards me. I almost tore the skinny, ragged, malnutritioned creature to pieces, but restrained myself at the urging of the police officer. I abandoned both of them and hopped on another train and continued looking. I ran into the crazy lady again, and without prompting, she made a camera signal with her hands and pointed in the opposite direction from the time before. I'm positive that this lady was 100% nuts, but I swear she knew everything. I knew I could get nothing else out of her then that grunt and a point, so I ran down where she pointed and saw beneath another train the one doonga who we had questioned walking towards something. I followed him for a while, but I think he saw me because he very quickly turned around and picked up a very large rock. I asked a few more people, but by this time almost 15 or twenty minutes had passed, and I was considering giving up. Crawling underneath and amongst Indian trains and hassling bottle collecting street kids wasnt exactly my idea of time well spent either. Finally, I was led to the railway police station and I filed an application for lost property. I had absolutely no faith in them, the officer who I dealt with seemed more like a used car salesmen than an effective inspector, but I tossed my lot in with them, and then looked inside my hip wallet to find that that they had also taken all my money, but left my passport and important docuemtns. I could be thankfull for that at least, but after about 3 days of solid travel, improper nutrition and now this debacle, reality was really not something I felt like accepting and I kind of slipped into a daze. I agreed to meet with the police the next day at 10, which was inconvenient because I was scheduled to be staying outside bombay with some family friends, and then I slowely shuffled out amongst the masses at the Victoria Station and made my first sojourn into the much anticipated city of my fathers upbringing. Bombay. What an introduction. I felt violated. Not by the theft of my camera. To be honest, I definitely get attached to my material belongings, but at the same time, I am always aware that they are just that, material. So I wasnt overly upset. But this feeling of violation came from dealing with these lowest of the low unfortunate human beings. Surely they were the most vile and dishonest of people, but whose fault was this. What choice did they have? Bombay houses the biggest slum in Asia. Hundreds of thousands of people live in conditions that would make most readers cringe with disgust, or quite possibly surrender to dispair. With the experience of having my camera stolen, and my determination to recover it under my own steam, I unwittingly exposed myself to the raw, unprocessed poverty that persists in large cities like Bombay. I'll admit it, I was a little bit disturbed. So in my pseudo concious state, I managed to convince a taxi to take me to the Royal Bombay Yacht Club for whatever change was left in my pocket by explaining to him that I had just been robbed. At the club, things began to improve. They new me by name immediately, and one of the porters looked wide eyed at me and told me that he remembered Grandfather, and father, as a child very well. I reached Jeannie on the phone. Jeannie is one half of the old family friends I mentioned earlier and they were going to receive me later at her beach house just outside of Bombay. The other half is her husband, Kerse. She was happy to hear that I had arrived safely and arranged for me to have a shower and breakfast. As I walked down the palatial hall that reverberated with victorian superfluity, I noted my grandfathers name on a list of commodores and was struck with a completely new aspect of my history. I had no idea I was in any way connected with such wealth, but here I was, known by name and family reputation in one of the most exclusive institutions in Bombay. The shower and full service breakfast put me immediately back in my senses, but I was still doggedly tired and they arranged for me to get on a launch out to Mandwa, where Jeannie and Kerse stay to seek refuge from the rigours and smells of Bombay. I almost passed out on the ferry, and as I stepped outside the dock I looked out and saw scenery that had been absent from my sight since the tropical Islands of the Pacific. They had a porter waiting for me who took the burden of my bag and we walked down the beach, arriving finally at my destination. I was scolded profously by the ever vibrant Jeannie, whose now 78 (you wouldnt put her a day past 40 for her attitude) because of all the worry I caused her when she heard that I was in Bangladesh. But I was immediately made to sit down underneath the giant sunshade, on their stone varanda that is perched directly on the beach overlooking the arabian sea. Before I knew what was going on, a glass of ice cold coconut water and a mug of beer was in front of me and I was engaged in comfortable conversation about my adventure earlier in the morning. As the hours wore on, I became more and more aware that I was in the perfect place and in the perfect hands after spending almost 3 months on the go. With the closest thing to family I am going to get in India, in one of the most relaxing locations I could imagine, and a soft bed to sleep in for a few nights. Relief came to me in waves throughout the day and I could feel the tension in my shoulders release and the adrenalin in my blood dissapate. I came back to bombay this morning to inquire about my camera, with every sceptical thought imaginable in my head. But, they got it. It took them only 1 and a half hours, but they found my camera without hitches, and all the pictures were intact on the card. I couldnt believe my luck. I've mentioned before my luck on the site, but for all the non-believers out there. This one is undeniable. Even the officer said after I complemented him, that it was more my good luck than anything else. I smiled inwardly when he said this and realized that this was yet another event which pointed directly to this bizarre spirit of fortune that seems to follow me around. So, I've got everything I need, and feel great. I'm in good hands here and I'm going to write and take photographs in Mandwa for a few days before once again launching myself forward into the rugged lands of northern Pakistan and Afghanistan. I'll get one more update off from Bombay in the near Future. TTFN Posted by devon @ 12:18 AM CST [Link] Sunday, May 2, 2004 Rangamati, Bangladesh. Oh what a day. I broke the seal today by going outside and spending about 5 hours photographing the place. It was extremely hard considering that I have a TV playing hollywood movies in my room, my music, my guitar and my photos to occupy myself with. Compared to outside, my hotel room is like a sanctuary of sanity. Nothing I dont plan on goes on inside. Outside however, there is no plan to anything. It took about 15 minutes for there to be around 30 - 50 kids aged from infancy to about twelve to start following me around. I usually get pretty excited when kids follow me around because they can make for some great photographs. But today was the first time where they followed me around for an EXTENDED period. I felt like I was a shepard trying to herd a very unruley flock. Eventually I just had to escape and move to another location, and naturally, another mob. This mob wasnt as bad as the first one, but they still really screwed up all my shots. If they werent in the frame, which took a lot of yelling and shooing, then their shadows would be. Or theyd be pulling my arm, or splashing in the water. It made it impossible to shoot. I kept good humor though and kept making jokes with them, more to maintain my own sanity then anything else. The heat really made me a little loony. As the sun started to go down, my 4th or 5th mob was really getting out of hand. and as anybody who takes photographs will know, every second of a sunset is important, because the light is great and it just doesnt last long. So I was getting a wee bit impatient, but only expressing it in jovial shouts and pretending to run after the kids in an attempt to get them out of my way. I set up a perfect shot with a kid holding a baby, with the pink light making everything glitter, my batteries were dying and because I had to spend so long getting kids out of the frame, my batteries died before I could squeeze one off. This kind of thing really makes some people snap, and I felt I was close, so instead I decided to do something that would make all of them laugh, and then I'd feel better. I began one of my mock chases of the kids, except this time I had the intention of actually catching one. I singled out one of the little monkies that was purposefully trying to screw up the baby shot. It wasnt hard to catch him and I very quickly whisked him into my arms with every intention to toss him in the water. The other children lost it completely. Hitting the floor holding their stomachs and everything. Then I noticed the kid that I had picked up was shitting his pants, screaming not with laughter, but shock and terror. I had forgotten that while the kids were playfull and curious, I still was a very foreign entity, and I must have just gone a little beyond this kids trust. I let him down, all the other kids were still laughing histerically, but the one I picked up just kind of went off outside the circle with one of those temper-tantrum looks on his face. I didnt feel mortified about what I did, but I did conclude that perhaps I should have chosen one that was a little older to pick up. Poor little bastard. It was still a funny escapade that I wont forget. I leave tommorow for Bombay. I have a little bit of a red carpet waiting for me there, which I really dont deserve, but wont say no to. If you know what I mean. Lots of updates from bombay. TTFN Posted by devon @ 08:28 AM CST [Link] Saturday, May 1, 2004 Rangamati, Bangladesh. So. Bangladesh. I've seen the crowds, I've seen the streets, and I've seen the way that the country is run. Yes, Bangladesh is a crazy, crazy place. Its a little bit of a sleeper. The poverty here at first looks more or less the same as anywhere else, but then a queer sense of disaster begins to set in. I spent all day in my hotel room trying to gather up the bravery to face the street. Its really thrown what I previously thought of myself into question. I thought I could handle almost anything, but today I kind of chickened out. The good news is that I got some spectacular photographs and I'm going to spend all tommorow out and about. I've gotten more or less used to the rediculous behaviour that they extend to me here. It really could take an entire book to explain properly, but the general sense is that any time any one sees me, they stare at me. About once every ten seconds or so, somebody will scream at me, asking me "what country" or "your name sir!". Literally scream this accross the street. And everybody wants me to sit down with them and drink tea. So far I think the count is at one or two for people that I've spoken with who HAVN'T asked me to personally rescue them from their lives of hardship, and very very intimidating people in muslim garb give me looks of death. The immigration officer at the border said nothing regarding the formalities, but instead rubbed his beard contemplatively and stared at the ground as he lectured me on his personal feelings about Tony Blair. This morning they were screaming through a loudspeaker, burning things and putting on red headbands. Not only that but there is constant noise of babies crying, people banging things, men arguing. And all the women are virtually non-present. I just dont know where the men keep them. In a box perhaps. Just imagine about 300 sweaty males in very close concentration all arguing and throwing shit around. That is Bangladesh. This happens EVERYWHERE. I met a nice Hindu boy on the ferry who was having his 4th or 5th beer of his life and he decided to share his "special moment" with yours truly. He told me that 5 years ago, you could not see the other end of the river we were crossing. It was almost 10 Kilometers wide and flooded 75% of the country every year. I wondered if any of the corpses I saw in the ganges at Varanasi made it this far. It was the same river. I really can't believe anybody would choose this as their country. It seems more like India lumped off the shittiest part of their country to the muslim people. One boy here told me I was the first foreigner he has ever spoken with in person. He chats with canadians regularily on Yahoo. They really dig the whole chat thing in India. You have no idea how many middle aged men I have seen looking for "babes" on "Channel #Bombay-Boom-boom". Or whatever. Its kind of funny. I have other things to do and this is a worn out old shack with a dialup connection. I was very lucky to get on because it wasn't working all day, so I have to run. Obviously I'll write more when I can. I'm going to be resting in bombay for a little while, so I'll have a chance to update then. TTFN Posted by devon @ 08:02 AM CST [Link] [Archives] Search entries:

2004, Devon Walshe