Magic, impulsivity, and pests
Friday, January 12th, 2007If you leave a place while you still love it, it can remain magical forever. Maybe that’s why I finally peeled myself from Alaska. That’s why I just left Cochin. Wanted to preserve the peace, the awesome sea sights, the masterly music and theater, the taste of Kashi coffee and wrap it in my mental saree before the “smooth” seductors and seafood salesmen marred the picture.
So, I sat on a bus leaving for another beachtown, reading my xeroxed guide pages when a paragraph about Thekkady caught my eye: “this cool mountain town sits at 3,000 feet above sea level in the Cardamom Hills….you don’t need air-conditioning here.” The mountain goat in me ninnyed and gave the sand flea a swift headbutt. So, I exited and hopped a bus two bumps down.
Eight hours later, I reflect on that nasty bus ride and wonder: will my impulsivity be worth it?!? My first bus ride in India: the conductor scowls at me for taking a seat space with my hefty backpack, insisiting that if I shove hard enough it MUST be able to fit between the seats, me balled up behind it. I shrug apologetically; he charges me higher fare. People stuffed in seats and the aisles, cockroaches filling the extra spaces. An old man who stumbles on board decides to try to molest me, “subtly.” But, in case I haven’t mentioned, nothing is subtle in India and after a 10 minute seated sparring match he is escorted to the front of the bus. Blugghh. But, in the process, I meet a lovely lady who invites me to her home tomorrow. [By the way, that man was an anomaly. Men in India are certainly friendly, but usually respectful. The others who sat next to me wrestled the grab bar to make sure they didn’t so much as bump me while the bus careened around hairpin turns.]
So, tomorrow I wake up to discover “where the hell am I?!?” then turn around to head back to the beach….maybe via private driver. : )
“You’ve got to bumble forward into the unknown.”
Frank Gehry quotes
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