Greetings LMC lurkers... I have left the website into disrepair for a week, but here is a hearty update, sent to you from northern India. I made my way from Udaipur and its monsoon palace to Jaipur, a city of artistry and blatant commerce - mostly for jewelry and textiles. This was the city I would have spent four months of my life, had my study abroad program continued as planned. I felt like I was intersecting a parallel universe.

Along the way I met a Frenchman, Yannik, who, like many Frechmen, says "idee" instead of "idea," and in a way I am happy to hear the mispronunciation, as if it hints of a mental pathway groomed to the beat of a different drummer. He's the kind of person you're happy to chat with, because the shared philosophies on travel, life, and its priorities make you feel less of an aimless wanderer. And, as the senior by six years, I appreciated his advice. Alas, after two days he went east and I went north... to Delhi.

And there I couldn't help but consider the World Health Organization's estimation: that each day in Delhi is the equivalent of smoking one pack of cigarettes. That means I've smoked 100 cigarettes now. I wonder if I'll feel a withdrawal tomorrow, when I wake up in Dharamsala, having fled India's capital to Tibetan exile country on the oustretch of the Himalaya.

Here in Delhi, you'll see a city striving to be both Indian and a part of the global world. The newspapers were writing oddly excessive news articles about a local concert performance from Bryan Adams. And simultaneously, when I arrived there was an international military weapons convention, with posters declaring: "India's Air Force: A Cut Above." Streetsellers peddled bandanas of orange and green and the text; "I am proued to be Indian." There are signs declaring: "Green Delhi, Clean Delhi" but it is as dusty and smoggy as any city I have seen - like much of India it is as though you see everything through a soft tint of brown. I wish there were a way to give the website a faded font and random smudges of dirt.

The Brahmin and the Shoe-Shiner

They are everywhere here, the shoe-shiners. They sit smiling next to a magical box of multicolored oils, pointing to your shoes. Others follow after you, making the hard sell. One day, for reasons I'm not sure of, while walking through a small park, I had to concede and allow the man a chance to show his ostensible talent. I sat down and took off my shoes, trying to arrange a price but he insisted... "after.."

What ensued was not so much my first shoe "polish" as it was my first tune-up for a pair of 3 year old hiking boots. With the deep focus of a mechanic, the man removed the shoestrings and used his cigarette to burn their ends to a sharp point. Then used his fingers to pinch out the end of the cigarette, then scratched some of the smoke and dust out of his eyelid. He declared that my shoes were very angry with me and vigorously brushed a new polish. He would even handsew one side, where a seam had broken. At the end, the shoes looked as if they weren't even mine. The buffs were gone, and the new stitching was strong. I was impressed.

But then, of course, came the sweetmeat that turned bitter. He demanded ten times what I knew was the usual price. I was shocked, and tried to explain that I knew the price range. To this he seemed ruffled, and said, "No you go for free. You want to kill me. Go for free." I offered him twice the standard price, but he wouldn't touch it. I had no sympathy for his claims, after intentionally dodging how much he would charge at the start. I ended up dropping the money in the grass in front of him and walking off.

And so continues the repeating and inescapable pattern of my Indian experience. So long as I try to remember the good bits, the whole experience was quite worthwhile. But I cannot get through the slick of oil on each of these many cupfuls of inspiration.

Out of contrast, I reflect also on my encounter with Shiv, a Brahmin-caste man who appears as Western as anyone in America. He told me that God has been good to him, providing him with plenty of money, but that money is not everything and he is searching for what makes him happy, after an eight-year relationship recently came to a close. In his company, no matter what we purchased: food, beer, a rickshaw ride - he bickered to the last rupee. I asked him how much he would probably pay for the scarf I was wearing - itself a Brahmin blue - and he answered a fourth of what I paid. We shared some stories over some drinks and I couldn't help but feel, as a traveling American, that I am a Brahmin of a different caste - the American caste - and that perhaps we share some peccadillos, and struggle with similar questions.

The Heretofor

I had been looking forward to visiting Nepal, in the interest of exploring the impact of the yeti in Nepalese tourism and spirituality. But insurrections have escalated, and a State Warning from the USA government has forced me to abandon my travels in eastern Nepal.

I am not to be deflected - with one dash of potential and a pinch of spite, I now trek to Dharamsala, along a thread of hope that some Tibetan water-based monsters will prove fruitful. And for the first time in my six months, I have a semi-permanent guide and source of inspiration. Along the march to the mountains, I join another blue-eyed compatriot, Kate, to the land of wintry yak-butter hills.

Kate's soul sings the traveler's songs, with frequent inclinations to Bob Dylan and Jerry Garcia. And alongside these lyres, good-spirited moments are never far away. Having both traveled now for a half year, to various corners of the globe, we have many stories to exchange, and our conversations resemble endless loose ends happily tying an endless knot.

She's full of funny quotes too: in the return taxi from the airport, she remarked, "I've always wanted to go somewhere where cows were important," before admitting that's a strange thing for a Vermonter to say. Fair enough, we have both been far from home for a long time now.

Only then did I realize an element lacking in Delhi's streets: long as our ride was, we didn't see a single cow. I'd grown to appreciate the constant appearance of cows blocking narrow alleyways in Rajasthan and Gujarat. Their holy Hindu presence, whether in markets or resting on the medians of a busy street. elicits a spectrum of love from Indians going about their business. Some of this love is evident with foodsellers, who often smile and throw some of the day's unsold produce to cows on the street. One traveler told me that many cows aren't even owned by anyone, but survive on the street through this generosity. There is even a small twinkle of appreciation in the eye of the rickshaw driver, honking his horn to encourage the cattle to stoicly saunter to the sides. You will never see a hamburger on the menu - goats pick up the slack in the diet here.

The Ubiquitous Delhi Bus Fiasco

"Sometimes I feel like everything I've learned in India, I learned from the street cows."

It seemed to make sense at the time, pinned between a bus and loudly honking Tata vehicles. I stared off into the so-much-chaos-it-looks-like-nothing, assuming a meditation not unlike a sacred cow on the streets of India, turning my own horns to the car horns, and waiting. Wishing I had some cud to chew.

Loud as this all of this was, it was a quiet moment of suspense and anticipation. Heated debates carried on around us, in Hindi, Tibetan, and perhaps a third language, to our left, right, above, and below. And in this brief space, we knew something important was being decided. But I didn't assume that it could be our seats were being baksheeshed from underneath us...

We apparently had handed over our legitimate tickets to a conductor who apparently had no authority, and that was that. Below was a man in a long police jacket with the word "STAFF" written on masking tape across his chest. Of course, any excuse would do. The manager stated that he had reserved the seat in the cabin for his relative. He recognized, but seemed unphased by my accusation of corruption. So, no matter how much I argued, it was clear that we (two Americans and a Czech) were being tossed off of the bus an hour into our ride, to a twilight throng at some remote location north of Delhi.

God bless you Rosa Parks.

Is it India, is it karma... is it a blessing in disguise? Questions without answers and adrenaline without a target pulsed through my head during the long and cramped rickshaw ride back to our hostel.

In the wake of this fiasco, we've more energy than outlets, and have no interest in cooping up in a steel shell for 13 hours. Never again! Kate and I don knee-length leather boots and hobo bags on sticks, packing plenty of naan, paan, and Kazakhstani apples. We hope to soon wake up from a campsight to a surprise of jagged peaks on the horizon, unseen from a previous night's journey. Or so the Tarot cards seem to have decreed.

[Time passes...]

Alas, some fantasies don't intersect with reality. The next day, we abandoned the footmobile and decided that our best tent is the cabin of the bus. We made another go the next day, to more success. And, for the recounting, I leave you the words of a guest-writer who, in her own words, has slipped through the looking glass:

I.

The sun had rapidly sunk into the dust and grime of Delhi, leaving one last dull street-tangerine glow as I stood, dazed, next to my luggage on a dirt road to and from nowhere-in-particular. The pious-looking Czech that was stranded with Buck and I just scratched his shaven white scalp and muttered, “That’s India, that’s life”.

II.

‘There’s eight in the bed and the little one said, roll-over, roll-over…” and so it was. There were eight of us in the cabin; a most auspicious number and a righteous path to follow. Like an eight we were twisted and tangled together enveloped in the familiar odour of dirty bodies and midwest bowling-alley shoes. The lady with the lamp prayed out the window holding silent vigil over rickshaw madness, and turned her attention to the moon after the ninth hour or so. The Tibetan woman with the long black hair shared dreams with me as our crowns touched. My lost boys were there, too: one whose name I never knew with his oiled black hair resting a weary head on my thigh and another one whose name I might remember, blonde and hailing from just across the pond (you may know him, too) dreaming on my breast. As my hands and feet tingled into numbness I meditated on the Himalayan moon bouncing along with the bus, and waited for emptiness.

III.

Jerry Garcia can turn an Indian Tourist Bus en route to Himachal Pradesh into a good-old Vermont harvest hayride.

IIII.

It's good to have you here with me, Mr. Frodo.

P.S. Fear not, soon we'll light the signal fires and send more words from the mountaintops of McLeod Ganj