the fab four are back in rishikesh!

*here is something for all my loved ones other than forwarded porn... sorry guys, still working on the new email account*

at a whoosh and a gallop we have gone west sweeping up noah and then kerria into our loving arms. eb, noah and i spent a few days in varanasi; a city of cow poo (and those who make it), low speed collisions (and ensuing fist fights), drug dealers (and their saree shops), o yes and spiritual absolvation for all hindus who die there. what a madmad beautiful city of small alley/streets spilling you out towards cremations and ghats on the holy (and dirty) ganges river! if you want to go on a boat ride, i know a few hundred men who might just be able to offer you the service.

a night train took us further up the sacred river to haridwar, which is home to the kumbha mela festival every 12 years. the river there was crisp, blue, beautiful and once again filled with hindu people. men strip down to their teeny tiny underpants while women go bobbingly bathing in their full sarees. it was there that we picked up a certain red haired ragamuffin, miss kerria gray.

next stop along the ganga- we are now in rishikesh, famous for at one point being visited by the beatles. in honour of this, i have now got a fine moptop hair do, crudely rendered over the bathroom sink. the rest of the town celebrates this past honour by selling overpriced western food delights to people like us. we have all been debating the dark chocolate so enticingly waiting across the street. damn you tourist towns and your available luxuries!

soon we will head up north for a few days of trekking. well, that is if everyone can contain their bowels long enough for the bus ride there... we've all indepedently managed to pick up ailments that result in long bathroom lines. but it's great to see old friends and remininisce about the good old days. like the days when you had predictable and solid bowel movements.

quoth joni: you never know what you've got till it's gone.

early to bed

this is going to have to be a quickie as the entire town of kalimpong seems to be closing down, i haven't had dinner and our hotel has an 830 curfew. what would i do without disclaimers?

i feel muddled about what i wrote last. caught between idealising poverty and craving creature comforts that come along with modernisation. all i know is that there is a deep weariness in myanmar. it sticks like molasses to all the chaos, lively streets and smiling people-an almost impercepticle undercurrent in a very vibrant culture . after being there awhile it starts sticking to you as well if you're not careful. it definately started sticking to me.

but india! i can feel myselff getting less sticky every day. the streets of calcutta, throwing paint at hindus on holi, hiking in the foothills of the himalayas (five km barefoot thanks to my fantastic new shoes), sipping three second super fine tippy golden flower orange pekoe darjeeling tea! kali temples, goat sacrifices, tibetan prayer flags, the azan once again and god knows what else....

this is india?

everything and nothing to say

so, you know how sometimes they have those tiny clown cars at the circus and holy crap! do they ever fit a lot of clowns in there!!! all the clowns tumble out and then everyone cheers and laughs. hilarious!!! now imagine that instead of clowns, those are people from myanmar and the clown car is actually a bus from the 1940s that breaks down with predictable but surprisingly lower than you would think frequency considering the way it looks/sounds/smells. next, imagine that this act lasts not a few mere minutes but rather 8-16 excrutiating hours (don't worry, it's only 6 hours longer than you were told it would be). of course, you will also have to imagine that throughout the act you have been holding your urine for 2-3 hours and you're most likely not sitting on a seat- perhaps a geranium plant or a sack of gravel instead? o, and picture this- there's no big top, just endless series of potholes around which pockets of "road" can be found. the bus struuuuuggggles strrruuuggles up hill and then whooooooooooosh i hope the brakes work downhill but i'm not counting on it! ok- last of all, imagine seeing this not from the perspective of a whiney foreign tourist girl but from the eyes of those myanmar people who accept this as all as part of their lives, a comedy of errors largely born out of poverty and a history of oppression. not so funny. no one's laughing anymore.

so we've returned from myanmar and i have no idea what to tell you. myanmar is fantastically beautiful and interesting for travellers. people there are very curious and friendly, not to mention often quite attractive (especially the Indian ladies who still wear saris, or burmese girls walking and swayswayswaying as they carry excessively heavy things on their heads). tea shops with miniature furniture are ever present and lovely in all ways. ok- so the food is often hard to locate beneath a greasy veneer but it's manageable (although my bowels might tell you a little different story)... flickering lights and candles making it all so rustic and romantic, too bad it's because the power supply is touch and go. people live near their family members in seemingly tight-knit groups-but how can they leave even if they want to? many people we spoke to don't have enough money to even visit places far from home. we only met 3 people who had ever left the country. try telling these people that you've been to singapore, malaysia and thailand and plan to carry on to india. also, perhaps mention that you haven't seen your family and loved ones in months... people riding bicycles swarm the streets of mandalay, great from our ecofriendly perspective but the reality is so far away from from that kind of intellectualisation. fact: cars are expensive, petrol is scarce and strictly regulated by the government. so. so. so.

who knows what is actually going on in myanmar. you can't travel outside of a designated foreigner-friendly area and who's gonna mess with the guys with big guns? not me. you get snippets of unrest, whispered conversations in the dark, a few harsh words that slip out about things. but people for the most part keep quiet. they carry on.

i think the government dreams of making myanmar the next thailand. they want their share of the south-east asia tourist dollars. they've got an easy job in many ways because myanmar's a fantastic place. it's scary though. i'm hesitant to voice any opinion on the matter, but for the moment i think that perhaps myanmar is not ready for that influx of foreign influence. here in thailand it's already gone so far that it feels like there' not a lot left to lose, culture wise. i think that myanmar has a lot to lose.

for the last week or so we've been bumped around in various metal tubes being propelled through time and space and which have eventually spit us out in the tourist armpit of the world, khaosan road, bangkok. feeling a little heartsick, a little homesick and a little intestine sick.

tomorrow we will be arriving in kolkatta, india.

love y'all.