wakethebigdog

Hiking has always been a moving experience for me. I have loved the feeling of accomplishment I get when I overlook a beautiful glacial lake in the Cascades (Washington State, USA), the yellow, orange, and red of Fall foliage in Vermont (USA), and an incredible array of glaciers in the Annapurna Himals of Nepal.

For the last couple years however, this feeling has deepened into a very spiritual experience. This is a common feeling among experienced hikers. As fellow Annapurna hiker Peter says, “Whether they know it or not, everyone on this trek is on a spiritual journey.” I say “experienced” because I think it takes awhile to start to value the walking meditation that naturally begins to occur. Instead of fighting with body and mind to reach the next resting point I try to silence my mind and relax into the joy of the journey. If I can reach this point, I achieve a very heightened state of awareness and all my senses open up.

A particularly moving experience on the Annapurna Circuit is turning the Tibetan prayer wheels that mark the beginning and end of villages along the trek. The prayer wheels of each village are vary unique and reflex the energy of the village that built them. Some elaborate; painted brightly with 50 or more wheels, and some are very simple made of old coffee cans or even just mantras carved on stone.

I feel these prayer wheels are a great example of how one religion’s practice (Buddhism) can invoke a universal spiritual experience. A Christian can turn the wheels and pray to Jesus. A Hindu can chant their favorite mantra. I choose a more silent meditation as I begin the next leg of my journey.

The prayer wheels in the Himalayas make it very easy to channel spiritual energy while you hike, but it’s not hard in other places too. The next time you go, I encourage you to leave the iPod at home, depart from your group a bit, concentrate on your footsteps and breathing, and see what happens.

Full Power.

Twenty-four hour.

No toilet. No shower.

NO TOILET!!! NO SHOWER!!!

(This is from a song I kept hearing while I was staying on Kudle Beach in India. And I promise this will be my last post with some freaky self-portrait of myself for at least one week.)

My dad was and still is a lovable goofball. I loved him when I was younger because of his silly jokes and clumsiness. I believe he knew that, despite our outcries to the contrary, we loved when he undid his pants in the kitchen to tuck in his pants. We would laugh when he smoked because he would sometimes light the wrong end of the cigarette and I never could figure out how he could dump motor oil on his head each time he changed the oil of one of the family cars.

But my dad was also prone to loosing his temper. When I was younger most of this was absorbed by my mother but as I grew older more and more of the anger is what I saw in my father. By the time I was 16 I think we had a lot of resentment for each other. For me, he was no longer a heroic goofball but rather an angry alcoholic. For him, I was no longer good little Mikie Boy but rather a troubled and rebellious teenager. He knew by then that I was messing around with my girl friend and he resented it. I used this to rebel more and to stay at my girlfriend’s house every weekend. I gave my love freely to her parents and brewed more resentment for mine.

Last year at my sister’s wedding I played the guitar with my father. I had been practicing some songs that I knew he would know. My father and I will probably never be close like we were when I was dripping glue on the windshields of model cars and pressing the brake pedals of real cars for him as he checked braked lines. But when we played those songs together I felt all the resentment of the years fall away. Those few songs: Dylan’s Don’t Think Twice, The Beatles Rocky Racoon, and Cash’s Streets of Loredo were conduits of forgiveness that words could not express. My goofball father and his goofball Mikey Boy.

Surrender.
To dust in your face.
To the smell of burning plastic.
To cow shit and bed bugs.

Surrender.
To the market.
The rickshaw wallah.
The disfigured beggar and
The four year old pickpocket.

Surrender.
To the cop collecting his bakshees.
To paranoia.
To a good smoke. Boom!
Surrender to Shiva.

Surrender to the waves.
Surrender to the sunset.
Into your hammock.
A spicy curry and masala chai.

Surrender to your sex.
To your desires.
To your ego.
Surrender to India.

After five months of bumping around on trains and buses and one 16 hour flight from Mumbai I’m back in Brooklyn. (Yo!) God, it is great to be back in the land of toilet paper and sidewalks. It’s a little chillier than I’m used to, but seeing as how it was about 80 degrees Fahrenheit in Mumbai in February and getting warmer every day, I consider myself blessed to have a chilly winter in New York City.

And blessed is indeed the word. It’s amazing to land in Newark, New Jersey in mid February with wind and rain pouring down and feel blessed to be home. Blessed to live in a such a vibrant, clean (relatively), and culturally rich city. Blessed to be surrounded by amazing people with talents ranging from playing the electric cello to delivering babies. And food! Oh my God… How blessed are we to walk down 5th Avenue in Brooklyn and be able to choose between a steak at a French bistro, a hummus salad at a Middle Eastern joint, or a bowl of Vietnamese noodle soup all within the same city block? Red Wine, Kentucky bourbon, Guinness on tap. Pizza, tofu, fresh seafood… ahhh I’m in food culture shock!!

Some folks are already asking the inevitable question: What are you going to do now? Simple, I just took a yoga class at the Park Slope Yoga center, and I’m thinking of signing up for Capoeira series. We’ll see how things progress from there.

As much as I’m loving my travels in India, it can not be ignored that everything here is covered in pooh. Cow pooh, dog pooh, human pooh, you name it. Giant cow landmines litter the main bazaar in Jaisalmer, women in the village of Khajuraho spread dung in front of doorways for good luck, and every bus and train seat is covered with a thin, suspicious film. I’ve spoken a lot about the food of India, but it’s not all delicious curries and creamy curds. To keep the balance of good and bad in check, I must tell the tale of the Pooh Samosas. Warning: This is not for the faint of heart.

It was a warm morning in Delhi and I made my way to platform number 5 of the New Delhi Train station to catch the noon train to Haridwar. Being a little too cautious, I arrived at the platform a good 45 minutes early. I had skipped my breakfast this morning and when the my train had still not appeared by one I started eyeing the numerous samosa wallahs on the platform.

Shortly after my eyes shifted my stomach into first gear, my nose picked up a rather foul odor coming from the train tracks. Having taken a few trains in India at this point I was all too familiar with their toilets. To call them toilets is being a bit facetious. They are really just holes in the carriage floor that empty onto the track below. It’s quite mesmerizing to watch the track zip by through the little porthole, but I digress. Another thing I’ve noticed about trains here are that many of the passengers choose to use these “portholes” when the train is stopped at a station to avoid having to balance themselves when the train is in motion. This has devastating consequences at a station as busy as New Delhi.

Due to the filth of this station, I had also noticed an excessive number of flies buzzing around my head, buzzing around the samosas, and of course, buzzing around the pooh. “I’m not going to eat those samosas,” I told myself. “Those are pooh samosas.” It was now 2pm, my train was two hours late and because I had moved to a less stinky spot on the platform, my stomach had shifted into second gear. 3pm: still no train and I am hungry. How bad can a pooh samosa really be?

I wish I could tell you that my train pulled up at this moment and whisked me away from the filth, but not all stories end happily. I’m not exactly sure the exact moment my stomach won the battle over, eyes, nose and, let’s face it, common sense. It must have been about 3:30 when I realized that I had three samosas in my hand. They were still warm.

Yes, friends, I ate these three pooh samosas and I lived to tell my tale today. I wish I could say there is a moral to this story; some vital life message about pollution control, food shortage or poverty. I can only leave with a question: Haven’t we all eaten a pooh samosa at some point in our life?

The chai wallah fires have died.
The goro have reached the stone of their last chillum.
You might think the streets at this hour are ruled by the India’s sacred cow,
But these bovines are content to munch rotting vegetables and plastic bags.
In India everyone knows the real rulers of the night.
Here, every town becomes Dog Town.

Mangy mutts sleep in gutters by day.
Bitches with sagging teats nurse pups.
They run, tail between legs, from rickshaws,
scooters, and stick wielding gypsies.
By day they are the abused reincarnations of criminals,
wife beaters, alcoholics, and cheaters.
No one escapes karma.

Night tells a different story.
These karmic convicts take the streets as great maharajahs.
They battle for land, spice routes and women.
Dog Town wakes with battle cries of victors and wounded warriors.
Take head: Avoid these gangs of rabid canines.
Get home safe, put the bottle down, kiss your wife,
And always remember karma.

Nameste from Udiapur! Sorry for the radio silence for the last couple weeks. I was in the wonderful Rajasthani town of Jaisalmer. Jaisalmer is in Northwest India about 100 kilometers from the Pakistani border. Despite incredible food, beautiful saris, and wonderful people, the Internet connection left much to be desired. My new friend Om who runs Dylan’s Cyber Cafe had the perfect solution. Half his space is devoted to intermittent Internet service and half is a great chill-out lounge where DJ Abdul serves delicious chai and aloo paratha. Internet down? No problem… have a chai.

It’s a new year; 2008. And with each new day, we create a new reality. In Jaisalmer I’ve found not just the heart of India, its people and culture, but I’ve found more of my heart as well. 2007 was a year that I dug deep inside myself. I’ve found, and created a lot of joy. In 2008 I will continue this journey. For a long time I felt I needed to find my path in life. Now I work towards creating my reality.

I remember hiking in the Andes Mountains in Peru last year. As I traveled along the Inka Trail to Machu Picchu I thought, “If only life’s path was so easy to find and follow.” Now as I sit looking out at the Thar Desert rather than thinking of life as a narrow path I prefer to think of life as a great expanse.

Wishing you all the best in 2008!

One is always tempting fate a little when you eat food from the street vendors of any country, but some of the best food/culture experiences I’ve had while traveling have come from the street vendors. Here’s my list of the best street food I’ve eaten while in India. (Not in order of preference.) With two more months in India, I’m sure this list will grow.

Pineapple Lassi at Sardar Market in Jodhpur

Sardar Market in Jodhpur is a great place to get your pockets picked and an even better place to enjoy a refreshing lassi. Lassis are usually a sweet, yogurt-based drink blended with whatever fruit is available. You can also get a salt lassi. I went for a pineapple lassi and it was served with saffron on top. The pineapple was really sweet and the saffron gave it a nice floral smell.

Spicy Samosas in Pushkar

From a cart in the market near the Pushkar clock tower I got two crushed samosas served in a bowl made of leaves with really spicy channa marsala (curry and chickpeas) poured over the top and sweet plum sauce on top of that. When I get the hick-ups it means that it’s spicy enough for me.

Sweet Curd from old town Varanasi

Cooked in huge iron, wok-style pans and served in little terracotta pots this sweet curds is wonderful. It’s like the “cream” of the ice cream. You sit on a stoop to eat it to let the cows and hash pushers walk by. When you’re done you cast the little clay pot into the street where it crumbles back into the earth where it came from.

Marsala Dosa from the main ghat in Varanasi

A super thin, savory pancake served folded with spicy channa marsala inside. It’s cooked to order so it’s usually much fresher than the samosas you find. I’m looking forward to eating lots of these in the south of India.

Marsala Chai from the Varanasi ghats

Don’t think about where the water for the chai comes from just pay your three rupees and watch the sunrise. Sugar, black tea, marsala spice, and a warm red morning sun.

Marsala chai
Red sun over Pushkar Lake
Blue temple domes
Tobacco buzz
An international gathering; French, Italian, Israeli, Indian
Drums and Royal Enfield motorcycles
Holy men and dreadlocks
One more chai please