bhang bhang!

So I have been in india for about 3 weeks now. that means for the past 3 weeks I have not eaten meat, or drank alchohol, or fornicated. Time definately has taken on a new meaning here.

We went to pushkar which was amazing. a small holy place on a lake surrounded by the ghats for athing and cremations apparently. There were many signs all over listing city ordinances of no alchohol no meat no public displays of affection and no eggs. The only thing they had there were lassi's. the refreshing indian beverage made of yougurt. Me and sweet-T each had a bhang lassi one night. A bhang lassi is a suppossed religous drink made from natural herbs and other natural things. now after having one i believe those other special ingredients are probabley magic mushrooms, hash, and opium with a sprinkling of crack rock for good measure. We each hung out at the cafe enjoyed our delicous abd refreshing lassi then hit a rooftop cafe for a bite to eat. we sat down ordered some vegetable and some tea and thats when the madness hit. the entire room turned into a hunter s thomspon novel. me and sweet-t could barely speak let alone walk. so we sat there in silence drooling on ourselves as the paranoia took hold. the entire resturant was a symphony or bad techno music drowning out the sounds of the hebrew from a large table of isrealis. To our left wa a table of 4 english girls who kept complaining how everyone was staring at them. Thats when i realized I was staring at them. i then glanced around and noticed the blank expressions and drool on a few other patrons faces as well. It seems almost eveyone in the place had also enjoyed a refreshing lassi that evening that is if there were actually other patrons in the resturant at all which neither one of us can be sure of. Sweet-t was busy obsessing with the fact the the resturant had 2 stereos and kept paying two songs at the same time yet at the time heard no music at all. After a while we decided it would be for the best to try and climbdown 4 flights of stairs from the rooftop and find our hotel. i cannot recall how we actually got down the steps but apparently we did. the hotel was about 100 meters away. It was the most ardous walk of my life. We had to navigate through about a dozen cows who sat there silently judging us. When we did finally arrive back at our hotel we both were unable to talk and i decided it would be best to lie down and let shiva take me. right now i am not sure what actually happened or what caste i know belong to but we are still in india quasi-enjoying a life free of meat alchohol and fornication.

1 year anniversary

It has been 1 year since Professional Man of Leisure has become a full-time operation. A lot of start-ups never make it this far. I have been trying to understand why most enterprises never make it to the 1 year mark while we have been expanding throughout the Asian markets at unparalleled speed. Next month we plan on branching out to Bangladesh then perhaps even Pakistan come march.

I guess our biggest strength lies in or company mission statement:
"We want nothing then always strive to succeed in getting it."

business indian style

so we are bailing from jaisalmer to pushkar this after noon.

jaisalmer is a pretty famous touristy place and the men here arelike sharks trying to get every penny they can off of foriegners.
last week me and sweet-T needed to take a rickshaw that was about 10 rupees each and 2-3 km away. the rickshaw driver kept telling us it was 12 km and 70 rupees. i told him i had a map and knew how far and how much it should cost and his response was you are maerican who cares how much it cost your rich give me 70 rupees? how can you argue with logic like that?

on the way into jaisalmer we met a guy on the buswho offered to take us to his hotel he showed us a brochure and told us it was 150 rupees for the 2 of us. we like the place but was as far away from everything as could be. but we didn't mind because we both felt ill and wanted a quiet place.

thats where the scams begin. they gave us a cheap room so they could make the real money in other ways. namely a ridiculously expensive camel safari through the desert. everyday this guy hounded us. We have both done some real travelling and been to real deserts and were not interested in paying like $30 to go ride camels and sing kum ba ya with a bunch of 60 year old europeans on holiday. everyday he kept asking and then would say ok my riend we talk tomorrow.

then when that broke down he started on the one day evening camel sunset dinner thing. we inquired as to the price he wanted 1200 rupees. $40 for an evening dinner and local touristy show in a village. we are spending less than $10 and living well. no way we aregonna drop $40 for a 3 hour trip. not to mention this same trip is advertised for 800 all over town. he eventually offered it to us on a friend price for 350 rupees but only if we promised not to tell anyone. but he also said that when he offered us the secret friend price of 1200. anyways we declined.

then sweet-t took off early one morning leaving me to hang solo at the place and then the guy and his buddy sat at my table and asked me again if i wanted desert trip but this time he promised to get us hookers. he then asked me if i liked pussy. then he asked me if i like opium. he told me he did some opium the night before and fucked his wife for 2 hour and wasn't able to finish he was so high. i declined the opium. he pushed it then i said no i have a cough and opium is bad for a cough. he said nonsense and dropped baggie of brown gooey stuff on the table ( i assume opium ) and kept telling me you try it for free and if you like it you can buy some from me. i declined unfortunatly.

he then proceeded to sell me the bus tickets we needed that cost 320 for 450. i declined that as well.

this morning was check out. i was in the bathroom pooping and apparently he stormed into the room and told sweet-t in a huff. we didn't buy safari, desert sunset, or bus ticketes from him like we said we were so we needed to be out by 9am.

that was that and when we checked out they didn't have the 30 rupees change he owded us and that was that.

they tried there best to make money off us in every way including hookers and opium addiction but you can't squeeze water from a stone.

vegetarian hate crime

India is full of cows. hundreds of them just wandering around eating garbage. kind of like stray dogs. some are bulls and are big and scary. the other day me and sweet-t were wandering around town and two bulls charged each other and thumped their horns together. then one went charging in our direction. he quckly lost steam, but the damage was already done and a fresh pair of boxers was soiled.

anyways all this newly free time i have on my hands from not having to chew meat have left me with plenty of free time to hatch a diabolical scheme.

I really don't understand the whole vegetarianism thing or the holy cow thing. cows are holy and dont eat meat so people dot eat meat or something. anyways... fuck that.

In town i heard there is a tibetean resturant i a going to go scope it out and if they have momo's the tibetean meat filled dumpling then tomorrow i am going to buy a shit load of them and then I am going to wander about town feeding them to wayward cows.

I figure if the cows eat some meat it will be like crossing the streams and the cycle will be broken.

jaisalmer

not sure what to say me and sweet-T have been sick in in bed for a few days. he has had dehli belly. Meanwhile I have felt OK except for a terrible cough. i bought a bunch of vicks vapo rub cough drops and some bullshit all natural cough medicine and i am almost better. unfortuneatly i am an erupting volcano of mucas.

anyways i am still just doing holga stuff and am way behind developing photos from my last trip.

so i am just going to steal photos of the place i am off google for blog purposes.

jaiselmeer

not sure how to spell it and i forgot to bring my gps.

map is here

anyways after a rough 8 hour local bus ride me and sweet-T got here. this place is more like it less stressful more beautiful and our hotel is only 150 rupees. $4.30ish and is cool.

i am still a little sick which is worrying since today is day 8. i am sure all the 8 hour overcrowded bus rides haven't helped. i feel fine but have a terrible cough. nothing a little nutritious and delicious street food can't cure.

anyways. not much has happened. indian men are particularly handsome and have a keen eye for festive shirts. me and sweet-T are on the hunt for pimp shirts before we hit mumbai. we figure we work the clubs a bit in our fly new shirts and then perhaps we can score a lucrative movie contract....preferably in porn but we are both willing to take on some mainstream work until the porn thing happens.

other than that still no meat or alcohol. me and sweet-t are both tired all the time at first we attributed it to jet lag then lack of protein. now we have come to the harsh realization that with out meat or booze we really have nothing to live for and our bodies have no reason to wake up in the morning,

peace and tranquility

In India these things do not exist.

After 1 week in india I have found that there are no quite little place where on can relax and read a book. I am even in a small town now and it is still constant madneess and noise.

Also after 1 week there has been no meat. not meat at all! cows are EVERYWHERE! yet they are not in resturants in the form they should be in!

I thought maybe after a week of forced vegetarianism i would some how reach a break through that my energy would go up and i would feel great or whatever bullshit vegetarians tell you. anyways after 1 week of just vegetables. I have noticed the following:
1. I am always hungry
2. I am always tired
3. I am ALWAYS farting!

i would tear up a mcdonalds hamburger but unfortunately in mcdonalds there is also no meat patties.

the only plus side to this is food without meat is cheap. and after 1 week of travelling ALL i have spent is about $90.

that makes india the cheapest place EVER!

punjab

So after a day me and sweet-T jumped a 6AM train from Delhi up to Punjab. the goal was to head to the Pakistani border to watch the daily ritual of closing off the border.
we ended up getting a hotel room in armistar about 25km away for 250 rupees. about $6.50 ( divided between the 2 of us.... with HBO ) we then decided the next day to take the bus out to the border. we were told by the hotel that there were no buses to the border but they would arrange a private care for 150 rupess per person. we then asked around town looking for a bus to the the border and were told there were none. i personally found it hard to believe that no buses existed and when local people wanted to go to the border they hired a private car. so we went to the bus station sure enough there was a bus every 20 minutes 15 rupees.

we got to the border early enjoyed a mountain dew in a glass bottle a few chais then a burger (with a potato patty... fucking hippie vegetarians ) anyways between the two rival nations is an elaborately ornamented India gate with a square design motif and a curvilinear Pakistani gate and their is a small amphitheater is on each side and the two crowds are waving flags and screaming chants for their countries. they main difference i notice was the crowds n the India side were divided between men, women and VIP. I was obviously in VIP because that's how i like to roll!

the Indians were far more rowdy and it had the feel of a college football game.

also on the Indian side they stared blaring an Indian techno music and all the young ladies from the crowd moved to the street and started dancing. indian girls are just really hot!

after a while this was stopped and the guards started bellowing weird ear piercing commands and then they stomp their way to the border line and the Pakistani and Indian guards get into this strange stomping competition right in each others faces but still staying on each others respective side of the border the crowd cheers as this goes on. this went on for a while with guards stomping up and down the street yelling back and forth. overall the Indian people just seemed way happier than their Pakistan counterparts. i kept thinking of the Berlin wall.... but at least the east Germans had booze.

it all was settled with a lowering of the flag and a slammin of the gate and that was it the border was officially closed for the day!

I was on the Chinese side of the Pakistani border just 3 months ago. i don't know what keeps bringing me back. there is no booze or scantily clad women in Pakistan so i am not sure why i keep getting drawn towards it. anyways a trip to Pakistan might be in my future.

we were gong to head off to the Himalayas to meet the dalai lama but i checked his schedule and he wont me giving any lectures until 14th so we might have to head to Kashmir for a while.

this a poorly planned trip and if anyone out there had India recommendations please let me know! all i have left on my checklist is to bath in the Ganges.

here is a photo i stole off the web of the sikh temple outside our hotel.

india

So after around 12 hours of airplane hell i arrived in india!

first problem in my layover in the guanzhou airport walking through the customs area i set of some high tech device. a sensor noted i had a high body tempeture after which i was wisked away to a quarintine area where they took my tempeture with a real thermometer. i did in fact have a tempeture. 38 degrees in whatever the fuck units chinese use to measure fevers. I was all worried they were not going to let me on the plane. but they did. i guess it makes more sense to send disease to india than to keep them in china!

other than that in dehli now. after one day i now totally understand the concept of paying taxes in exchange for infrastructure. india has none that i have seen so far. no sidewalks crumbling streets piles of trash everywhere and wayward cows eating the trash. when i say lots of wayward cows i mean more than you would see dogs in america.

tomorrow i head right off on a 6am train to some place called attari or something to see the pakistani border and the traditional changing of the guard.

me and sweet-T ( tommy ) decided to skip the taj mahal for now. we might boycott it not sure yet. then we are going to work our way down the western coast and might even find ourselves in goa. not sure i want to boycott goa as well.

as for sweet-T he arrived 2 days before me and already got picked of the street to act in a comercial. he even got paid $2 and got free food.

new years eve

spent new years eve in a place in hunan province at a park called called zhang jia jie. It is one of those naturally wondrous kung-fuu-esque chinese landscapes.

hunan is also the place where the chairman mao was born.

other than that no exciting stories at least that i am gonna type today after an overnight train back to the 'jing. I am am kinda lying low until i fly off to india on thursday. then its 2 months of spicy curries and who knows what else. maybe i will get a piercing or stalk the dali llama or something.