no sidearms necessary

4.17.13

Let’s take a reality check while we can here on living in SE Asia.  It’ll always be hot and when it’s wet, it’ll destroy a lot of your clothes if your accommodations are not dry and that can’t be understated.  Tropical means mold.

It will present a challenge, hey, wow, with a nice camera (?), a new city discovered, that would be cool, the weather, shit, it’s the weather.  I have to adapt to power outages, no, not really, ok, maybe in a big city in an apartment with not even a fan and walls perspire and rashes persist.

Give me a decent room and I’ll deal with everything else.  Really.  Memories of Huizhou are not pleasant when one asks about housing, food, everything to be too honest.

I think I’d need _________to live there before I saw a paystub and that includes getting there.  Lord, it’s just too much to ask. 

And really, are you gonna ditch the land of the droopy gonad and the country of your last employer in exchange for this, whatever this is, we’ll talk in a few days.

Oh well Jacky boy there goes plans to begin your retirement fund.  What to bloody do.  Have another peanut cookie and settle down. 

6:20pm—I walked to the grandparents for milk and sat on their porch watching Fantasia like clouds swirl dark and darker, the winds howled, thunder rattled and…no rain.  Here’s a new kind of pattern after three days when the ominous has no bite but what spectacular clouds they are outside room eight now, flaming red and orange skies above Annapurna and Lamjung with flashes and gusts keeping it going. I hate to whinge but if my writing were better than taking photos with a beat up camera I wouldn’t desire a nice camera, but please allow just a simple indulgence what life as a photographer would be like.  Ok, that’s enough.

9:19pm—A light rain falls, hardly enough to keep the dust down.  Before I went for milk a threesome checked into room three and came to the dining room for lunch. “I no pay this ten percent tax because we no pay tax in last place we stay.”  Maya, not wishing for conflict, said ok, perhaps a little too fast because a relationship of distrust had just been established.  No where in Pokhara or Kathmandu can you get away with not paying your tax and yet for some reason the Spaniard with a lisp and the Romanian dude thought it was in their rights to make this call. 

And while I was gone Maya gave the Romanian a second Gorkha beer and conveniently couldn’t remember when he was told he was going to pay for two and then says maybe I will go to another hotel.  Their guide, a squirrelly man with a baseball hat pulled low over his shady eyes, accused Laxman of cheating them and ya know, it begs the question how the Buddha or Jesus should handle Romanians and Spaniards with lisps who take the law into their own hands.  Who takes the loss?  Oftentimes it’s the Nepalese who depend on tourism and don’t wish to upset anyone.  A guide falsely accuses, a Romanian refuses to pay the tax.  A fine pair of hoodlums here, sleep with one eye open friends because the police are right around the corner. 

4.18.13

I don’t think the Dalai Lama would find that last paragraph too compassionate.  In Northern Ireland today, talking the culture of compassion, and the feeling I get is an unfounded anticipation.  Are there spirits who are just dying (no pun intended) to go somewhere in the end but are just as frustrated and losing hope fast that nothing is going to happen in this lifetime? I dare the gods.   

Don’t interpret everything, don’t interpret anything.  Accept whatever symbolism and stop your sitting. 

A pleasantly chilly yellow filled sunrise with the mountains returning, snow covered, behind a thin grey veil.

2:04pm—The skies rumble and threaten but nothing is happening.  The forecast for the next seven days is the same.  They look like rain clouds, they smell like rain clouds but for reasons I know not, they move ahead, holding on to that precious cargo.  Last night’s brilliant light and cloud show above the mountains left them snow covered so why not down here. 

A busy lunch and rooms two and three are occupied.  Room one is temporarily unattractive due to a stone that shot out a panel of glass facing east.  Within minutes of telling Laxman, two policemen dressed in blue army fatigues were on the scene and a young man quickly confessed.  Faced with going to prison and paying a fine or replacing the glass, the boy chose the latter and he managed to get another pane but he didn’t put it in, I suppose he doesn’t know how but now the glass remains unrepaired.  Would you sleep in a room with a broken window. Yes, you’d have to lower the price pretty good I reckon.  Postscript—window was replaced, all is good again.

Cold mountains appear.  The two guides who brought the two Frenchmen in their early sixties sit quietly across the white-bearded gentlemen and watch the grey steely skies darken.  Not even three and it feels like dusk, more people come, I help Maya prep the pizzas, veggie and chicken chow mein, chicken and veggie momos, chicken soup, vegetable soup and ohoy! Laxman arrives. 

When all is dark, the wind settles, silence brings children, chickens and a dining room full of people to focus.  I sat outside on the front porch with a cup of tea and a cigarette, next to the shop when the woman I haven’t spoken to in four years comes up, too late to move, she can’t not notice I see her and she sees me and her indifferent eyes speak the pejorative adjective that continues upwards.  I told Laxman she can wear this full length purple dress in America and people’d think she was Mennonite. 

Outside Beem walks by with a full basket of greens for the buffalo.  Rain falls lightly and hooray, steadily oh wait, it’s petering out, a little wind, the guides in room seven chat on their mobiles, the younger one wears the real red crocs too big for Suman now and Maya just isn’t gonna wear them.  I tried them on once and my feet started to sweat.  What is the attraction to wearing plastic or rubber on your feet unless you’re diving I don’t know.

What is it about FB and skype that leaves me skittish?  Once it starts I guess I’m ok but not initiating anything concerns me a little.  Oh, I see the red croc dude is an uninhibited soul and now sits on the bamboo chair behind me clipping his nails.  He speaks not a word of English.  Ok, I’ll go ahead and be free, now he wants to play with my mobile and let’s see if we can see the Dalai Lama in Derry.

The rain stops ten minutes later and painter’s palette fills the sky, orange hews, shades of blue white and grey, a masterpiece changes eastward.

The trio in three are purebread college students from America and I’ll not engage with any of them unless it’s business though one of the two girls is awfully cute, too cute to even think about and that is a good thing, right Kevin?  You can look at another gorgeous woman and think nothing of it because there’s no desire and when there is no desire there is…ta da…no temptation. 

Since that trunking system was officially turned on there has been a police presence in the village.  As long as they’re not wearing side arms welcome boys.