Misson, Monkeys and Motorbikes – Oh MY!

Commence Operation Lose the “You can’t eat THAT in India can you?!” Weight!  My not so hidden stash of Swedish Fish, frosted Animal Cookies, gummy bears and pretzels stuffed w/ peanut butter, the latter two courtesy of my lovely mom… her homemade cookies didn’t even make it to across the Pacific, are totally gone.  I ate that shit like I was going to die so umm, I may have polished off all that processed yumminess with in the first week of me being here.  Oops!  Well, at least now I can focus on really using this as a cleansing, detoxing process and fully embrace our strict yoga regimen. And yes, unless it’s dahl, potatoes or rice, chances I can eat it here, are slim.  Sue was right, India will really put into play “eat only when you’re hungry” because it’s not like I’m partaking in Seattle restaurant week and every place has a new menu of amazing deliciousness, like Tilth… guh! 

…… sorry, flash back of one hot date night.  I’m back.  

I’m just going to say this and get it over with, when they say part of yoga philosophy/nutrition is eating natural food that’s easily digestible, they are NOT kidding!  It’s not only international travel w/ good friends where everyone knows everyone’s poop schedule and status, it’s also applicable to people who were strangers just a matter of days ago.  Speaking of which, in philosophy class we learned that the final Shatkarma, which are physical cleansing processes used in Hatha yoga to prepare the body for the final 3 limbs in Astanga Yoga, not to be confused w/ Astanga Vinyasa, is Basti.  Basti is where really amazing yogis can give themselves an enema!  I don’t mean like, not needing to take a trip to the Tummy Temple but they don’t need ANYTHING.  They can suck water up into their intestine through their own rectum.  Yes, I just said “rectum” and “suck” in the same sentence without saying “feltch.”  Ooops, I just said it.  Hm, maybe I should put the “adult content” warning back on my blog.

Moving on!  So big event of the week thus far, I got attacked by a monkey!  I was getting my mat set up for class and saw some pretty gloomy looking clouds off in the horizon and my laundry drying on the roof had already been dumped on enough for one day so I ran out to head across to the other side of our roof to grab my shiz.  As I approach the second to last stair landing getting to the roof I’m met by a monkey running down from the roof to well, stop me.  From my first day’s experience and seeing Dominic getting chased by hissing monkeys when he was just trying to ignore them, passing them in the hall, I opted to not run down the wet marble stairs to risk death by embarrassment from eating shit in a slippery tumble.  I instead took the approach of all the guys who work here and I met the monkey’s scream with my own in his face.  FAILED PLAN!  That little sucker screamed and showed fang and its gangly arms reached out to grab me, it latched onto my shirt and I batted it off.  I was shocked and had NO idea what to do.  I screamed back at it again and it lunged and grabbed at me again.  From below people are yelling at me to scream at him, I can distinctively hear Dominic yelling from the yoga hall, “show him who’s boss” and at the same time, from the same place, Ulla yelling, “NO DON’T!”  I think I must have looked so confused the monkey realized I was no threat and just walked off.  I was on a mission to get my fucking laundry cuz I’ll be damned if I couldn’t have a dry towel to use for my post evening yoga shower.  The monkey slowly walked away, I followed not so closely behind, grabbed my shit as quickly as I could and RAN back towards the stairs and across the way to get back to the yoga hall.

As I’m in sitting, ready for meditation to commence Dominic looks at my arm and says, “omg, you’re bleeding!” and I say, “no I’m not!!”  When I look at my left upper arm I see 3 distinctive claw marks and proclaim, “oh sweet!!”  I was excited to have a pretty rad battle wound but Dominic talked some sense into me and we ran downstairs to douse my wound in alcohol and everyone kept asking if I needed to leave immediately to get my rabies shot.  At that moment I didn’t think I’d need to get one because it really was just a few really surface level scratches but I would investigate later, and also, I very smartly, got almost every single vaccine I would think I’d need right after I got my layoff notice from the you know… cell phone man, the 3 part, $600-$900 rabies vaccine was one of those, so I had 72 hours to act.  The adorable little aussies came to my room after class w/ their travel information from the travel doctor, as I was just uploading the monster travel document my travel doctor sent me, and stated I really needed to get the rabies shots.  So alas, that was the plan, but it could wait until the next day, until then, I took a picture. =)

Fast forward to yesterday – hospital day!  Apparently you can get vaccines just about anywhere in India.  One of the main guy’s who works here said something about the back of a house?! “What do you mean?  I just go and buy the vaccine??” “yes,” he said. “And then what?  Do I inject myself?!”  “Oh no no, you will bring it back here,” he explained. “And then what, YOU inject me?!” He laughed, “NO, we’ll have a doctor come here to inject you.”  Somehow this sounded like a great plan.  When it came to the time to do the needle deed though, he opted to have me driven to the hospital across the river in Rishikesh.  I had a pick up scheduled at 4 and when I went downstairs, I was greeted by Manne, the kid who can’t be any older than 16 who helps in the kitchen during meal times, sitting on his motorbike.  “Are you even old enough to ride this thing?!”  He just smiled, I hopped on the back and away we went! 

I believe I’ve mentioned how the driving goes in this country.  CHICKEN!  This is no difference if you’re a pedestrian on foot, on bike, truck, car, vikram, motorcycle, unicycle, pogo stick.. whatever the fuck.  Everyone plays chicken and weaves in and out of cars, cows or whatever.  I don’t even know why there are lines painted on any of the streets in India.   After we made our way through Ram Jhula, across the bridge and onto the main street it finally hit me, “oh fuck, I’m not wearing a helmet.  Wouldn’t this be great.  Die in India because a the sweet 16 year old driving me on his motorbike like a crazy bastard, like everyone else, and I get into an accident on the way to the hospital to get a rabies vaccine because I was attacked by a monkey. Only me!!”  It sounded like a hilarious way to go but I haven’t mastered or even learned the whole “don’t get attached” part of yoga philosophy so I’m still attached to my “you can’t eat that in India” body and I really want to have a gin and cucumber, sushi (you know… both kinds ;), skype w/ my mom and pass out on my lady friend’s chest to her beating heart while she twirls my hair before I’m ready to leave this earth.  I’m gripping onto his tiny little waist with the force of a vice grip, I’m sure, and after about 20 minutes of my life flashing before my eyes and a detour because he got a wee lost, we made it to the hospital. BREATHS.  We go to the reception and I tell the lady I got attacked by a monkey and need to get the rabies boosters, she has me pay her 20 rupees, just shy of $.50 for my doctor consultation.  FIFTY CENTS FOR MY DOCTOR CONSULTATION!  Are you reading this REPUBLICANS?!  No, of course not.  We go w/ my little piece of paper to door 18 and pass a bunch of really sickly looking people on the way.  The hospital waiting area is dark and dingy and from what I could tell, it’s first come first serve to get INTO the room you’ve been assigned.  A guru or swami of sorts was in the room I was assigned to so I patiently waited but as soon as he started to walk out Manne told me to hurry into the room but some tiny girl squeezed by me first… that bitch!  Just kidding. J  I waited another few minutes and then I wriggled in the room the first chance.  The doctor looked at me like I was minorly crazy, which isn’t far from the truth but also looked confused as what to do.  I showed her I had my first 3 shots in the US in July and I said I only needed 2 booster shots.  Manne and I take my paper outside to where they sell ALL their medicine and shiz and I purchase my rabies vaccine for 380 rupees, which is just $8.50 USD.  EIGHT DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS for a vaccine that cost about 200-300 in the US!  I wanted to bang my head into a wall thinking about how much we pay for this shit at home.  I will be getting injected with anything I can dream up while I’m here, btw.  Well maybe, let me finish my story.

Next step is to get it injected because I’ll be damned if I’m doing it myself or letting Manne.  We get into a room that has 3 nurse looking folks, two women and a dude, shooting the shit and playing with stuff, I don’t know, maybe needles.  I will say, I was put at ease that I was given a plastic wrapped needle with my rabies vaccine so my potential to get HIV while trying not to get rabies from a damn monkey was low.  They motion for me to sit on a bed at the far end of the room and I take one look at it and pretend I heard they meant the OTHER bed, the one not covered in stains of only god knows what.  “No no, that bed right there.”  Ick.  I kind of rest my ass on the metal support underneath the mattress that has been peed, bled and secreted on by only god knows how many people.  One of the ladies comes up to me w/ a needle, which I’m assuming is my rabies vaccine.  Agreement #3 from the Four Agreements, Do NOT Assume.  She motions for me to drop my pants because she needs to shoot me in the ass and I look at her confused and I say, “really?!”  “Yes, please.”  So I drop trou, which I don’t just do for anyone anymore, and she pokes me in the butt and injects me.  I get up to walk away but she motions to sit and I again make an assumption, there must be some documenting that needs to be done. There's that assuming again! Then, I see the guy opening the box WITH MY VACCINE and opening up the plastic which contains my syringe and needle. Holy fuck me!  Really?!  He comes up to me and motions for me to lift my sleeve and I ask, “wait a second, what is that?" "It's the rabies vaccine." "Um, then what did you just shoot into my butt??” “dongkshdhgd,” he said.  “WHAT?!” I exclaim. “dkjfsdofijd,” he said again, “for infections.”  !Oh fucking christ!" I think to myself.  What the hell did I just get injected with and where did THAT needle come from?!  “Ok, so WHAT are you injecting me with now?!” “Rabies vaccine.”  Ok, just do it.  I’m a little distraught but there really is nothing I could do.  It’s like that time my bestie T and I were trying to do acid one night but one hit just wasn’t enough and when we asked for more, my friend dumped a pool in our hands.  Contact was made, no turning back now.  It’s a time to just hope for the best and cross my fingers I wake the next day, or more importantly, that my butt cheeks don’t go numb so I can use them to clinch onto the motorbike for the ride home.  Within 20 minutes, Manne and I blow that pop stand.  Back on the motorbike for some more chicken!  So, needless to say, I made it, I’m alive and now I have to go back tomorrow but finding one of those basement vaccine stores and a at home doctor sounds much more appealing.  I’ll see what I can do about that for tomorrow.  As we approach the Lachman Jhula bridge we see this huge group of people piling off the bridge hurridly, a big empty space on the bridge and than more people hurrying the opposite direction.  "What's going on?" I ask Manne.  "We get closer and oh look, MONKEYS!  There are 4 monkey's jumping up and down stealing whatever they can from people on the bridge and there are probably 20 more lining the upper supports of the bridge and 3 on each of the pillars at the entry.  "OH FUCK, You're kidding me?!"  I don't watch my language around kids.  He laughs and we proceed and I can tell he's trying to get passed the monkey business as quickly as possible.  I'm happy to report I didn't get attacked again, yesterday anyway.

Speaking of high – One of the Aussie’s got this Himalayan Rock liquid stuff that’s supposed to be magical and cure you of all diseases or something.  I took a taste and it was a mix of incense, straight up coffee bean and cocaine flavor.  Definitely not delicious on any level but with just a small taste, moments later I look at Dominic, feeling all flushed and zingy, and exclaim, “omg!  I think I’m high!”  So weird.  Some more may have been ingested since then but I didn’t get any zingy feeling, maybe because I diluted it in water by chugging it like water was a reasonable chaser for something that tastes so terrible.  That stuff better be awesome for me to not make me feel high but for tasting so wretched.  More research will be done on this. J

I’ve been a perpetual sweat, grease ball since I set foot in this lovely country.  Since day one I wished I had gone to Olympus to get their loofah mitts to bring with me, but alas, I did not.  It got so bad the other day I went on a mission to find a loofah in this city and low and behold Nagee had them!  Now, everything here is pretty much natural so I get this thing home, open it up, start up my cold shower (I don’t remember what a hot shower feels like) and take a closer look at this thing.  It looks like straight up sandalwood bits wrapped all decoratively in twine of some sort.  I start to scrub like I’m caked in cement and all of a sudden I feel scraping.  At closer inspection, sticks are poking out from everywhere and I’m basically scratching all the oils off at this point with twigs.  When in rome…

I’m going to save Lessons from the Mat for another post.  I think this is enough adventure and experiences for one entry. J

Xxxo,

Dirty