Surviving the Post-Alice Apocalypse

Dear faithful readers,

Some of the previous blog posts may have led you to believe that I am an incompetent invalid who couldn't possibly survive the dangers of traveling without a certain Alice Muirhead to manage my affairs. I thought this too. I mean, I get lost all the time, I'm a huge sucker when it comes to getting scammed, I speak with everyone on the street who says hello, and I have barely looked in the travel guide over the past 4.5 months. However, like a bird violently pushed from its nest in order to learn how to fly, Alice's abandonment has pushed me to new limits.

While Alice has been living it up in the lap of luxury, working on her bendy skills, I have been having solo adventures, meeting old friends, making new ones, and defying death at every turn.

Alice and I split up in Agra, with her going to Goa and me going to Pushkar. I took a bus from Agra to Pushkar and narrowly avoided an accidental trip to Delhi which would have added a handful of hours to the overall amount of travel to Rajastan (I didn't look at a map and thought that Delhi was where I wanted to make a connection to Pushkar but it would have meant going from Agra to Delhi and back again).

There wasn't much going on in Pushkar. It is mainly known for shopping and a camel festival, but I didn't shop and left town before the festival started because the cost of accommodation quadruples during the two week event. It was dusty and I sneezed a lot because of the mix of dirt in the air and the camels walking around in the streets. I met a really great guy from California named Peter who let me share a room with him for 3 nights so I could stay at the same guest house as Noy and Ira from Minali/Rishikesh.

In Pushkar there is a sacred and ancient lake associated with the legend of Shiva. I was given a handful of 'free' flowers to put in the lake for good luck, but when I went down to put them in I was grabbed my a Brahman who recited a blessing for me, my friends and family. He prayed to four different gods, asking for health and happiness for seven people. Afterward, he did some math and multiplied the number of people prayed for by the number of gods prayed to and told me I had to make a 'donation' of 3000 rupees (70 dollars). I told him I only had 300 rupees and he told me it wasn't possible to give so little. I was annoyed. It smacked of extortion combined with some old school Medieval absolution vending. The good thing about making a 'donation' at the lake temple was that afterward a string is tied to your wrist which indicates that you have made an offering - this string tells the many beggars on the street to leave you alone. I don't know if the string system is actually an effective deterrent because the string was tied so loosely that it came off the next day and I received plenty o' hassles...

The good karma from the lake actually carried forward because I nearly lost a silver spoon eagle ring (from Haida Gwaii) to a henna making gypsy, but in the end I got it back (my never ending faith in the goodness of people validated despite the nay saying of others)... I was walking in the market when I was grabbed by two women who started doing henna on my hand before I could say no. I figured "this is happening" and allowed them to drag me into a chai shop where they told me their life stories and covered me in swirls and squiggles. Despite my better judgment I allowed one of them to pull of my ring so that she could henna my middle finger. She slipped the ring onto her finger and I cringed anticipating some sort of problem. It quickly slipped my mind and off I went to meet up with people for breakfast. When I went to wash up before eating I realized that I left without the ring. The people I talked to on my way back to the market (to essentially find a needle in a hay stack) all assured me it was a scam and that the women are thieves etc... I didn't believe them because the women were so sweet, and hoped in my heart that it was all just a mistake. I looked and looked and after 30 minutes gave up the search. As soon as I gave up they appeared bright eyed and smiling. It seemed as though they were looking for me with the same enthusiasm with which I was looking for them. They gladly gave me my ring and I was touched my their inherent goodness. Yippee!

The only other interesting things that happened in Pushkar involve near death experiences. The first notable event was an earthquake that shook the city one night. I was asleep, but I spoke with people who said that things were really moving - but there didn't seem to be any death or destruction which is really lucky. The other nearly fatal story involves an Israeli pizza bread called a ziva. I had a ziva and went into anaphylactic shock. My throat closed up, my eyes and face puffed, I couldn't breath and I was super itchy all over my body. The Israelis I was hanging with immediately tapped into their army training and laid me out, elevated my feet, gave me a bunch of stuff to drink and went by motorbike to get some antihistamine pills from the pharmacy. I was better in no time, but it was really scary an totally lame. I asked for the ingredients in the ziva and there wasn't anything out of the ordinary so this may be an experience I'll have to repeat until I hone in on what it is I'm allergic to.

To sum up, I'm still alive, and doing fine without my old friend Bad Alice. I miss her, but know that she is off bending somewhere and that makes me happy because I know it makes her happy.

I'm lazing about on the beaches of Goa. Got here from Pushkar by train - 35 hours. Longest train ride of my life, but it went really quickly because I was traveling with great people. When we arrived in Arambol we rented an apartment overlooking the ocean for 5 bucks a person. It was a sweet pad with a humongous patio but I couldn't take anymore Hebrew and have settled into my own bamboo hut on the beach at the whopping price of 150 rupees a night - just over 3 dollars.

Sorry I didn't take any photos over the week. My camera was out of batteries and I am a lazy bastard. I've snapped a few photos here in Goa and will upload whenever I get sick of splashing around (yeah right...).

Comments?
xoxoxoox