ah... manali.

Getting out of delhi i took the "volvo" bus.

If busses in india were arranged by some hierarchic system the volvo bus would

be right up there! maybe second only to a helicopter and sometimes would

probably be higher than the helicopter under some circumstances.

The volvo is often referred to as "the king of buses" the "archbishop of road transportation"

and lately also the "Megatron of tourist mobilization".

in reality, once you get on one of these revered vehicles you realize

it's just another bus, although slightly bigger. still the same pushback seats... still the same scorns

of indians boarding it on set locations to try and sell you potato chips. still impossible to sleep on.

(in fact, sleeping in any kind of vehicle in india will prove impossible when your driver takes

u-turns around mountains at 80 Km/h).

whenever you mount one of the night traveling buses here, you are essentially given 2 choices:

1. the driver is listening to up-beat indian music at 175 decibels (5 decibels beneath "death of hearing tissue" loudness) and you live to tell the story of the ride.

2.no music, driver falls asleep. you die along with 40 other passengers and you get to tell

the story to your great great grandmother in a cocktail party in the afterlife. (adding juicy details to make her proud...)

in case your ipod (other player brands encouraged) is just out of battery, by the end of the ride the 2 options are so close to each other you can hardly choose which one is better.

well... luckily for me my seat neghbour was an israeli-arab acctress and we had enough to talk about to get my mind of the music (that's one of the things i can say in favour of the conflict, if i find an arab girl to mary there will never be any awkward silences...).

when we weren't debating border locations she felt sick and the for some reason the indian

lady throwing up 2 seats ahead of us didn't make it any better. she pleaded me to ask the driver to stop so she could clean her stomach, afraid for the well being of myself and especially my clothes i got up and crawled up to the driver seat while the bus is swaying like a frigate during a tsunami.

reaching the bus driver cabin just in time to see the mountain side coming right at us and the driver turning non chaulantly to the left only slightly scraping the side of the allready very scratched bus... (don't worry. it's perfectly safe, statistically you have more chance of being run over crossing the street than falling off a cliff with a bus, chances of being run over though are just around 57%...)

i appeoached the driver and tried to explain the situation of my sick neighbour:

me: could you stop for a minute please?

driver: what?

me: stop for 1 minute please!

driver: why?

me: err... my friend is feeling very sick and other people are throwing up and i'm afraid if

we don't stop soon someone will either suffocate on his own vomit or go on a killing spree in the bus.

driver: friend not feeling good? use bag. - hands me a plastic bag the size of my fist -

me: err... what about the suffocating people and the killing spree?!

driver: - hands me another bag - here, take 2.

me: and i need to go pee pee. (i use my superior mimeing skills to show him what pissing is...)

driver: oh... ok, stop in 5 minutes.

i go back to my seat, defeated and knowing that the son of a bitch is lying and he's 5 minutes will probably be at least 30...

2 hours pass and we finally stop. my neghbour "R" is already changing betwean shades of red and green getting ready to fill my clothes and hair with vomit (since the tiny bags are definitely not going to help...) BUT! once we stop, she goes of the bus running, and when i get out 30 seconds later she's fine. like nothing happened! nothing! she just smiles at me, happy as a hippo! i find that amazing... women having the ability to just forget whatever they felt just 2 minutes ago. it's like they have no long term memmory of physical suffering, i'll have to research this phenomenon when i start my Ph.d in sexual applied sciences or something...

the bus stopped in buntar which was my original destination. i was sleeping... got pushed awake by some israeli girl whom i met on the previously mentioned stop only to tell her to bugger

off and go back to sleep untill manali.

arriving to manali i was hoping to find a room me and the israeli arab girl could share. for reasons i would not like to share with you narrow minded people...

we visited about 11 guest houses, some were full, some were too expensive, eventually we split up and i found a room with a great view and only a mild history of robberies. (they happen a lot in manali, so if your room get's robbed, remember, i told you so...)

manali is pretty conviniently divided into 2 parts. new manali and old manali. new manali is controlled by the local indians while old manali is pretty much over flowing with israeli tourists and you can even find some other nationalities if you look hard enough.

not wanting to break that gentle balance i stayed in old manali and after buying a small amount of some very good garas shaped like a pita bread i went down to the ATM and made the "decision" to wait in line for 50 minutes to take out some cash.

the reason for this extended waiting period is because a lot of indians have an apparant problem with "lines" (the kind you stand in)...

they just don't get the hang of it. or maybe it's the west that has a distorted view of how a line

should act... basing my knowledge on the geometric definition i'm pretty sure we got it right though. anyway... i'm standing in a line with 5 foreigners in front of me. i have 4 minutes to wait. when all of a sudden another line forms next to our line. this line however consists of only indians... i look bewildered at the new line, then at the door hoping to see a seperation for foreginers and locals like in the taj mahal, but there's nothing.

they just decided that they don't like our line and think they can make a better one... and it works... they keep pushing through the door going before the first man in our line and so we keep waiting there... after 45 minutes i've had enough and learning from my indian friends

i push my way towards the door. and... no one seems upset. they seemed more confused when we were just standing there waiting patiantly... (see? i just wrote a small culture piece!! hurray!)

i'll go on with one more culture shock i had and then we'll leave this town...

setting: it's the beggining of july in manali, its cold, the rain hasn't stopped for 6 hours.

mud is on the road riksha driver are hiding in their rikshas with the curtains pulled...

even homeless people are not sleeping in the street.

a river is flowing on the way from old manali to new manali.

a rope is stretched between the banks. on the rope, a man is hanging in a saddle of sorts.

aanother indian guy is swinging the rope up-down. the man in the saddle get's he's ass and legs

wet in the freezing river in the freezing cold and screaming with happiness...

my point: these people are completely crazy, who would think of an attraction like that in the fucking winter!!! crazy people! that's who...

on my way back from downtown manali my auto-rickshaw got a flat tire. i was moved out of the rickshaw and used as a human jack, holding the thing tilted while the driver changed the tire using a hammer. a hammer is your all around tool in india. it's the only one they have and it somehow eveolved to the point you can actually fix anything with it. i've seen a guy change a lightbulb using a hammer... honest...

dearly beloved, finally another post is published. next one is leh and kashmir. i hope. also i hope it will appear here today... love. ben.

delhi stories Pt.2 The mighty TAJ!!!! (tam tam tam ! ! !)

"OH! your going to india?! you simply must see the Taj Mahal! it's a fuckin' wonder!"
that's what every idiot on the planet who's ever heared of
a country called india can tell you..
"it's amazing, and enlightening and blaaaaaa!"
the only real wonder is that this over-sized building can somehow convince people to come
and see it in any kind of weather. obviously i'm one of those idiots... and this is my story...
I remember it like it was yesterday... the date was, err... something like the beginning of june...
i think...
what i'm sure of is that i was sitting in my A/C room with 2 ceiling fans spinning on top of me
watching yet another so so funny episode of sex and the city... err... i mean robocop 3... yeah.
i was watching the manly movie of robocop 3 lying down in my underpants and was only mildly sweating thanks to the abundance of cooling devices in my room.
after all the killing of criminals on the TV stopped i went out of the room to the slightly warmer
computer area (only 2 ceiling fans with no A/C... cheap assholes...) and through the magic of
facebook messaging found out "C" is coming to delhi for a few shopping days before flying back home.i met them later that day and they informed me of their plan to visit the very place this post is trying to warn you about. they lured me in by assuring me everything is taken care of and
all i needed to do was say "i do" and i'm done. (being stuck in delhi for over a week now i had very little to lose) disregarding all my friend's warnings i said "i DO" and 2 days later i was forced
out of bed by a call from the reception at 6:30 AM. (i should have seen dawn as a bad omen
and quit the expedition at that moment... but nooooo....)
they got me inside a car with a driver\guide\random person and got on our way through
foggy delhi towards boiling agra. 3 hours after we set out the driver takes us off road to a
tourist trap disguised as a small temple\castle. we walk inside and take a seat, all around us are
"best quality" over sized wooden elephants... (you simply must have the best quality elephant, even if it does cost 150$ more than a similar one in the main bazaar (cost: 10$), but if you buy one there... what will your friends think?!)
now the plan of these establishments is to pay a handsome commision for your driver if he makes you stay and eat there, luckily for us our driver saw that we know how this works and
after we pleaded him for a few minutes to take us elsewhere he yielded and saved us from the 8$
cheese sandwitch (2 slices of bread, one slice of heap cheese) and took us 300 meters on to a dhaba who tried to rip us off by placing bottles on the table when we arrived but the prices were
reasnobale so we decided not to kill him just yet... (i forgive you old dhaba guy... i forgive you)

we got back in the car and continued our journey. the driver decided to be nice to us and to his

desired extra tip by pointing out monuments in the area with an accent we did not understand

("so this is a palace for who?!", "this be rhddadfg for 200 dsfkjh and that one...") but we smiled

and kept asking questions as expected from us tourists.

we reached the main gates, our driver looked around, decided it's too dangerous for him and drove 100 meters further to a safe haven in the form of a restaurant.

while pushing us out he mentioned a few more words of advice of which what i could understand was "say no to anything your offered" and "don't take your clothes off when they tell you".

we walked back to the main gate and 5 meters from the entrance were attacked by a blur of Indians.

first offering to take us by rickshaw instead of the 3 minutes walk and then offering us water

when they can see us with full bottles and then offering nothing but still asking for money in return.

oh yeah... forgot to mention... the heat... it's un-fucking-bearable!!!! i was sweating the second we got out of the climate controlled car. i was sweating from areas i had no idea had sweat glends and i was soaking wet a minute before we entered the main gate.

soaked tourists always look like easy targets. it means they're suffering and being children

of capitalism we are trained to consume to feel better. so i bought another bottle of water...

25 minutes and 750 rupees later i found myself in one of the longest lines i've seen in my life but also the most un-organized one. my female friends passed through the ladies line (4 women) and

the people in the men line (248 men) let me go in front of most of them (probably hoping to help me have sex with all 3 of them, man solidarity has been put to a test and won!)

Now i have just 6 people ahead of and i could actually see the light glowing through the metal detector. but then! out of the blue and grey and offf-white! comes an indian whale! looking very much like the fat guy in some movie you've seen. and sweating like that same guy on a tredmill.

unlike a fat guy on a tredmill this was a fat guy in line just behing me and he was hoping to get me killed by making me smell his armpits which were convinientlyplaced on top of my head.

after my shirt was soked with his sweat in an equal amount to my own i finally passed through

the metal detector and met with my friends who were hiding in the shade of a dog and a small

child with a toy umbrella.

the marble floor is said to reflect the rays of the sun beautifully.

that happens only between 5-6 AM, we on the other hand were there around 2 PM.

at this time the only thing reflected by the marble floor (or the parts you can see between the scorns of indians...) is UV radiation.

seeing all this people and knowing how you feel makes you go "WOW!!! what the fuck is wrong with them?! what the fuck is wrong with me?! and then... you finaly walk through the arc and see the taj, and now what you'll probably be saying is "err... is that it?!"

unlike the fantasy i had in my head there were no drums, no red ribbons flying my way,

no great spiriual enlightment... no nothing, just a lot of hindu mumbling all around me and a very

distinct smell of sweat. along with our ticket we were handed 2 extras (having paid 75 times more than locals) a 200 ml water bottle and shoe covers. i though they should be used

to protect your feet from the puddles of sweat but appearantly it was another clever way

to go against religion and towards tourists.

shoe covers - a thin paper like cloth with an elastic band, placed on shoes to confuse god and

make him think your barefoot while wearing your favorite sandals underneath.

the reason shoe covers were invented is because your supposed to enter the Taj barefoot.

as you know, the entire building and it's marble surroundings are heat traps and will burn

any foot unlucky enough to be western or just not hard working in the farming sense.

so we got those on, took 20 minutes around this nightmare and moved out. on our way back

we could see entire families trying to get shoe covers out of the garbage bins since the entry

fee for locals (10 rupees) does not include them and why buy them when you can get them for free?!

getting out of the place i still felt it was too hot and bought a small globe of the Taj with small

white stuff covering it. i was offered to buy it for 10 USD and got it for 5 rupees after the kid

ran next to our rickshaw for around 5 minutes which was pushed from the back instead of

being sat on and driven like you would expect...

that's enough of this story, i'm tired and it's not going anywhere.

oh, and on the way back we had a mouse in the taxi, the driver assured us it was ok, but

it didn't seem to convince the 3 ladies in the car who refused to put their feet down during the

following 5 hours drive and kept screaming everytime they saw a wire or a piece of paper moving around in the car.

conclusion:

send me an e-mail, i'll send you all the high quality pictures of the taj mahal i have. i'll even

pay to have your photo stitched to it in photoshop by someone. just do yourself a favour and don't go there.

love. peace, coolness.

a visit to a mosque, anarmed!!! (ta da...)

delhi story #1
the red mosque, the great the mosque, the mosque with no end... it has been called all those and more.
and that is why, yours truly (me! me!) has decided to do you all a favour and take a look
at all these claims of grandeur and splendor. well...

it was more this czech guy's fault... he turned up one morning when i was drinking my
morning coffee and pretending to read the morning paper. this guy just got up from his seat
two tables from me came to my table and said " hai can i sit with you?"
naturally i said "no you fucking idiot! i don't want any company!" he backed away in disgust and alarm and it took me another 20 seconds to see he doesn't understand cynicism and say something like "relax mate, just kidding, ha ha, ha ha". at this point everyone were looking at me in disbelief
and i had to clean his chair and make room for him.
naah... i'm kidding. he's a nice guy, i told him he can sit right away...
he told me about some czech liquer and offered to bring it for a taste. i said yes and so we
parted to our rooms for a few minutes.
five minutes later i came back to see my new czech friend involved in a conversation and number exchanging with a bald old indian with a laptop. i came closer to discover that he was actually getting direction to the great mosque in which he can get raped... naah... kidding... just a mosque. no rape in the working hours i'm sure...
(Mr. angry Muslim; I would say the same thing about a synagoge if i had a chance, so no reason to kill me yet. thank you for your kindness)
anyway a short while later we went to the metro to do my first Delhi touristy thing.
the metro was amazing, just like modern ones, but with a constant announcement to beware of pickpockets and the constant feeling of claustrophobia surrounded by a wall of Indians who
for some reason just like pushing each other for some reason and for another one (probably the same) refuse to use deodorant or shower before attending public areas.
it's not everyone. just everyone i had a chance to stand next to in the subway...
we finally get to the mosque area. a guy with a bycycle riksha comes up to us and offers
his services for 60 rupees. but ha ha! we were warned by the bald indian to not pay more than
20! and so we say "10" he says "20" and we get on... organized chaos is all around us.
we reach the mosque. 2 guards are standing there, neither one is even looking at the direction
of the gate. i guess they either don't care or maybe fanatic christians are not found in abundance here...
we go to the main gate. a welcoming sign informs us that in case we are interested in taking photos inside (well... we did just travel in the boiling heat for an hour and were covered in some
random indian's sweat.. so yeah... we would like some memory of this place) we would have to pay 200 Rupees. we pay for one camera (but i had another one! ha ha! take that radical islam!)
and take off our shoes. before we go inside a guy asks us to pay another 100 rupees to make sure
our shoes don't magically disappear while we are inside. and finally we get in, escorted by an old
guy with a limp who obviously doesn't speak any language since he explained stuff by pointing
and mumbling (rgagr rgahgsg rgahg! eh... aefar far faerasd) and that's how we came to know
about 5 prayers a day for mouslims and the best areas to take a photo at (the guy would
go to a corner, make a square sign with his hands and show us the right angle for the photo, so
helpful these people...) after we took a walk around he tried to get us outside but we asked
to see the tower (oh... don't get me started about that one...) when he showed us the tower he
decided he's shown us enough and asked for some money for his services. he did a 2 sign with
his fingers. obviously we thought he meant 20 but noooo.... he's one of those greedy old mumblers... he asked for 200 and made sure it's from each of us. we gave him 100 for both (the whole fucking tour took about 5 minutes! he wanted 8$ for mumbling at me! to be honest... if
he would mumble at me. i mean, if i could feel genuine concern from his side and the tour would take around 10 hrs... sure, i'd give him the money... or anyone else who'd like to mumble at me
for that amount of time.)
ok... enough about that... we climber the damn tower (another 100 RPS a head) took some damn photos, mine were illegal with my damn camera being un-paid for... and got out of there.
not before some nicely dressed Muslims mumbled at us some more and took our picture.
we got out of the mosque and met this riksha puller who's around 70 and i was so impressed by his english i just had to go with him. (he could mumble at me for 5 hours and i'd give him 400
rupees, easy... i mean this guy was older than my dad and he pulled us for 15 minutes through
traffic on a bicycle!!! he must be getting so many women... damn!)
we got out of there and went to counaght place. to see the magic garden in the center.
now this public garden which is about 10 sqr kilometers. so we had to go all around it to find
the thing. then the guard tells us we cannot come in with a camera!!!! i mean... what the fuck?!
it's a park in the middle of delhi but your not allowed to take pictures?! i offered my czech friend
to the female guard as a sex slave and she accepted so we were able to get my camera inside.
when we got there the only reason i found to prevent cameras (although phone cameras are allowed, again, what the fuck?!?!) is because theso called "biggest fountain in india"which is supposed to be in the center of this huge park is not working. so they are probably trying to hide incompetence or something similar... anyway i took a picture inside!! I AM soo bad! i think
i'll try stealing something next. maybe i'm missing out on a career...
that's all folks. next one is about agra. which is probably where god sends people to burn when
hell is over booked...

the story of a luggage and the way to delhi.

this one is more informative than good. so it's up to you to decide when it's
too much for you and you can skip to older or later posts.

so...
The way to delhi was amptwith surprises. the first one being my one night stay (not stand... sorry)
in istanbul.
our flight from israel was delayed and a very helpful (although kind of scary) girl kept telling us that the connection flight in istanbul will wait for us.
i decided this is a good time to get drunk and headed for the dan lobby to fuel up on beers.
after several visits to the lounge and one visit to the local gas chambers (they call it "smoking room" there...) i pissed twice and got up on the plane.
2 times wasn't enough and i had a strong urge to piss during the two hours which i didn't please since a turkish mother and daughter were sitting next to me and i didn't want to bother them
(that's what being nice and stupid will do to you... learn from my mistakes!)
just when i was about to burst we landed.
got off the plane and found out none of the connection flights didn't wait for us and so a group of 30 hot headed israeli's stormed the help desk which for some reason thought everything will go
smoothly after everything went wrong...
2 choices were presented by the shocked-crying-nervous breaking down staff of turkish airlines.
1. aquire a foreign passport and fly through dubai.
2. stay the night in a hotel paid by the company and fly on the same flight the next day.

since i was in no hurry (and i don't have a foregin passport...) i chose option 2.
i couldn't tell you much about turkey... lot's of people, all the women look angry and everything
on the radio sounds like war propoganda... (don't worry, they're not going to brainwash me, it's safe)
now if i had to guess i would say that at this point mu luggage was hiding from airport security and assembling it's weapons in the basement area of the airport...
i also met a couple of israeli guys, one of them was a tv producer which was accidently gay as well, and when we talked about traveling and sex he was utterly shocked that we straight people
actually have to do anything more than smile and wink to have sex in israel and for that reason
he thought it should be even easier abroad. (like just thinking about someone and sex will
immedialtely bring her to you and give you a night of never ending pleasures...)
well then... NO! it's not even fucking close to what we have to undergo to get that thing you call
intercourse... obviously for some of us it's easier than others... much easier (B' i hope your reading this for a change) but for most of us normal and moderately shy people it's the equivalent of studying a semester in physics studies...
the next day i got back to the airport.
while i was going through security checks my luggage was outside the government building plotting to kidnap the prime minister's son.
i wen't through all the security exams and passed with blazing colors. asked again regarding my luggage and was once again re-assured it's coming with me wherever i go. we entered another lounge, this time because the israeli's had their way with one of the clerks demanding compensation and once again i got to get drunk before the flight for free. this time i pissed for 3 times before boarding to make sure.
on the flight i was seated next to an 18 yrs old very rich indian (who might as well have been 30 by the way he looked) who tried to ask me questions and tell me things which i did not understand. but i filled everything i missed using my superb imagination and so i know that
he is a transvestite who came to india to become rich by putting up a show with sex and horses and his real dream is to dance in the russian national ballet group.
back to my luggage for a second... it has kidnapped it's target and was now driving towards a safe
house it prepared with some of it's luggage friends. they were just going through their list of demands when i was touching down in delhi.
i arrived and went to the luggage belt to wait for my best traqveling companion. (i call him deuter... cute isn't it?) after everyone from my plane got their companion and left i went to ask the in-charge guy what happened to mine. after filling out some forms i was released only to be called back 3 minutes later during my "this flight is finally over" cigarette by the same guy who said they found my luggage. i came back with him and he is pointing and a light blue with white dots trolly saying "this is yours sir!, your luggage!" (he's not asking... he's telling me it's mine!!!) now...
this got me a bit confused since only ten minutes ago we went over my name and luggage description... and what he showed my couldn't be further from what we just talked about.
i should have accepted it as a bad omen for what's to come but as always i'm too innocent to understand.
went out again and found a hotel in the main bazaar. delhi experiences will be written in coming posts, this one is dedicated to the luggage.
by the way... at this point my luggage was at a shoot out with police forces after their hideout has been discovered. several of my clothes were hurt but it was still usable.
after a few days of "the luggage is coming tomorrow don't worry sir" the 4th day was marked with "sir, your baggage is lost" with an indian accent which only made it more annoying.
at this point everytime i called them they got me furious at "hello".
my luggage on the other hand was very calm in her prison cell in turkey. the last thing i got from
it was an e-mail saying "prison, sorry, goodbye"
so i know it is lost but they refuse to pay me any compensation... i kept at it untill i sent them an angry e-mail threatning with a law suit and telling them they have caused me great grief... (it's always good to be in great grief when you want to sue somebody)
and demanding my "delayed luggage" compensation. their regular response up to this point was
"sir, your luggage is lost so we cannot give you delayed compensation". i always though that if something is delayed and then lost doesn't change the fact it was delayed. so i made a point of claiming that money.
eventually i got a call from the manager who said he's sorry and told me to collect the money the next day. i was happy i made progress and went outside to celebrate by buying a new mp3 player. on the way to the ATM i was stopped by some producer who aid she needs extras for some commercial or something for the next day. that's nother story but for this reason i did not get to collect the money once again. 2 days later i went to the office only tofind out it's closed (closed!!!!) after i've been told it's open by yet another turkish airline employee.
i decided to send everything to hell and went on the bus to manali. more stories of delhi will be published shortly. much more interesting than this one, i promise...

the holy land and the unholy deeds.

after 10 months abroad i have finally returned to the mother land! no... not russia... israel!!
hurray!
when i arrived to the apartment at first dressed in my blue suit trying to make somethnig different
of the environment i left back home i was immediately pushed back into reality by E "what are you wearing? what are you a faggot?!" (no offence intended toward faggots) . i wanted to say "no i'm not a fucking faggot", but instead; took off the jacket and sat down to smoke some of the local stuff i missed so much... (i know i'm weak, but it's hydroponics... you try saying your not a fagot to give that up... don't judge me!!!)
and then everything came back to normal, staring at my big screen tv, stoned and drunk and happy.
now back to moderately priced alcohol and the biggest (per tel aviv)
amount of beautiful women to walk the earth.
now that, in my opinion, is the only reason jews or israelis are the chosen people/country

(honestly, i don't think anyone thought we really were chosen until bikinis were invented...)
some of god's angels must have come to tel aviv in the summer and stayed at the beach for a few hours.
(angel A: "Oh maan! would you look at that?! should we kill her and take her with us?"
angel B: "naaah man... she's still a virgin, wouldn't want those terrorists getting her right? let's just wait for a while...")
this is un-fucking believable! especially after coming back from India. just walking around in the streets and smiling like an idiot. that probably took most of my 2 weeks there. i love this city!

I got there because some friends and family members forgot how much they hate me and decided they want to be reminded about it, so they bought me a round trip ticket to israel and back to india just to make sure. (haha! what done is done! stupid...)

as loyal readers already know i never say no to free stuff, let alone a free flight. so there i was. with my new suit at the arrivals terminal in israel... hugging and kissing anyone unlucky enough to come in my way.

after the formalities i was lovingly kidnapped by my parents to the wasteland which some people call a social desert and others (city council...) call a social settlement.
i spent a night in family solitude and moved on to greater and much more socially pleasing areas. e.g tel aviv.
the beating heart of Israel and the middle east (at least...). Moving back to my old apartment i realized that life is different when you are un-employed and most of your friends are busy students or working cooperative bees...( you know who you are! you slaves of Americanization you!!!)
Obviously that didn't stop me from getting drunk daily and enjoying the free city life
i so much needed and deserved.
the beaches as i mentioned earlier were just one of the many reasons to come back from a vacation to a different vacation several thousand miles away.
my 2 games of matkot during the 2 weeks reminded me how come i stayed in shape in israel. and that really is all that kept me from being the skin and bone i am today. (don't look at me! i'm almost hideous!!!)
i've visited most of the holy places in israel during my stay obviously... (me being a very religious person)
i've been to la champa bar to attend the ceremony of cava drinking and getting too drunk at least 3 times.
been to the holy city of jerusalem to visit holy love and drinking shrines...
and who could possibly forget my visit to the not so holy but good food and free vodka shots shrine headed by T.
T is an old acquaintance of mine from a time of hard work and desperate struggle for money (convincing people to buy things they don't need is never easy...) so we met with a few friends in the bar she works at.
one shot of vodka led to another to a total of 13. 2 beers accompanied those 13 and one benny became kind of intoxicated. we moved out of there swaying from side to side back to T's apartment for a puff. we made it
with the help of a friendly taxi driver and sat down for a smoke. Z at that point (we have me... T,O and Z) was laying down on the sofa, giggled for 40 seconds and puked for 3 minutes.
she was taken to the shower, puked for another 10 minutes giggling senselessly while me and O were busy
making sure were high enough to stay drunk enough.
Z was then taken to the bed, puked there for 5 more times and moved back to the shower. (she's also available for house and room puke painting, contact me in person for additional info)
at this point i looked at O trying to listen to what he says and all of a sudden the whole room moved a little to the right. i held my head and shaked it, everything was aligned again. 2 minutes pass and the same thing happens.
T walks out of the shower, i smile at her, i get up and walk to the toilet. i look down, i let go of my insides and spill them all over the toilet. and now to the word of advice: try to stay as close to the bowl as possible when that happens. i puked once and it took me 5 seconds. it took me another 10 minutes to clean the walls of the toilet which were filled with particles of green beans and stuff... i stumbled back home afterwards and a few days later re-visited the cava shrine for my goodbye party. getting inside my costume suit again i was kept in a drunken state for a few hours couldn't really tell you too much about that party except it was touching but only in a mental way. (again with the sexual connotations... I'm horrible...)
the next and last day we went out to another place and this time B has decided he's keeping me up untill dawn. so we were walking aimlessly around tel aviv sometimes drinking sometimes eating until we got to a place that simply refused to notice we are there and made me thank god for it and convinced me it's time to sleep.
the next day i took a train to the airport and from here a new traveling and luggage saga begins. stay tuned
and keep your browsers on target!

delhi, the place where suits and dreams come true...

out of kasol and back to delhi.

where it all began just a couple of months ago.

arriving at the main bazaar is kind of like arriving to the inside of an oven with 5 different people trying to sell you something every 5 cm or so... lucky for me that after a month and a half in india i already got some of the repelling products like the divia tank top and the cheap handmade bracelet...

once you have those they know your not new there and the harassing gets cut down in about 95%.

but people are still prone to make mistakes. especially when your like me and you have

the curiosity of a crow and the shopping enthusiasm of a 30 yrs old single career woman...

(which means it's high... do i have to explain everything to you people?!)

one of my mistakes was that a guy came up to me with a sun glasses case and told me it's

a ray-ban. i wanted to see, i tried it on. i said i don't like it so he started to bargain.

1200 rupees!

no... don't need.

1050 rupees!

i don't want it... i think it's ugly...

800!

NO!

500?

i just don't like it... can you leave me alone?!

300 rupees! that's it...
(at this point i decided that the only way to get rid of him is to make sure he loses more of the deal than i do...)

ARGHH!!! ok, for 50 i'll take it.

no no... look at quality, Rei Bun original! 150...

50!

150...? only 150...

Get away from me! let go of my arm!! WTF is wrong with you?! i don't like the shades!!!

at this point he let me go and even that happened only because he spotted another tourist

looking around aimlessly...

so now that you know all of this it would be pretty easy to understand how i ended up dragging

B around clothes stores to find a suit. everyone's looking for the highway to success these days, and i decided that whatever it is i plan to succeed in i'll be wearing a suit, so why not cut the middle hard work part and skip forward to the suit part?! genious! i thought that with a suit i might even get laid... (that one didn't work as i planned, appearantly "hey, let's do something with me, you and that clitoris" is just as un-effective with a suit as it is without one...)
During our almost a week stay in india we were able to pass all the clothing shops in the branded area of delhi the "caunaght place" and drive most of the sales people frustratingly mad.
since our shopping hours were somewhat different than those of the "working people" a lot of the times the ratio between us and the sales people was 8:1 against...
imagine entering a shop with about 20 zombies... err... sales people and their all desperate for brains! err... sorry... customers... so we get in and immidiately they start stumbling on each other to reach you and show you something and hide behind doors to shout at each other...
they're persuasive skills were good. but they didn't hold against our special "we have no money"
powers...
Eventually we found a shop with only one salesman, wasted about 2 hours choosing inside and got out of there with a suit, a song in our hearts and no holes in our wallets.
i'm really trying to keep this one short so i'll finish wih an anecdote...
i'm sitting in front of a computer in one of the hostels in the area.
a woman walks in, asks if she can use a computer and when prompted for her hotel and room
number she gives my hotel and my room number...
i look back, and tell her "eh, that's my room! surprised i never noticed you there".
she gives me an angry look and spits out "i don't remember the exact number! it's on the second floor" and she sits down on the PC next to me.
so i'm a nice guy and i start a conversation...
"it's funny i havent noticed you there, we've been staying there for 4 days now".
she says " really? me too, almost a week"
me says "were leaving soon though, my friends bougt me a ticket back to my country, where are you from?"
she goes "switzerland, your from?"
and me... i'm not thinking, i just go "israel"
and then she explodes! "it is you singing in hebrew in morning?! you suck! all israelis are fuck!!"
you can probably guess from knowing me and how good natured i am that i'm just surprised and shocked... but she doesn't care... she goes on...
"you don't care about anything!" (i was singing in the shower at 12:30 PM which i think is ratehr reasonable but hey...)
i try to reason with her "well you can always knock on my door, i'll stop, i have no ambitions to be more annoying than i allready am..."
she just gets up, throws a "fuck you!!!" at me, throws a 10 rupee note at the indian guy in charge and storms out.
turnong around from the other side of the glass mouthing "FUCK YOU!" at me again...
i greet her back with a fuck you and a finger through the window hoping we'll meet again for tea in the afternoon...

and then i'm off to israel...

a bit late, but this is the kasol story...

dear blog, it's time to wake up...

so... we were leaving bagsu and going for kasol.
what we found out from refugees who visited and ran away after a period of hours to days back to the loving bosom of bhagsu is that "arsim" could be found there (arsim - a kind of low intelligence goblin with the ability to speak hebrew and use hair gel, bred in urban reserves around israel).
so without much to go on but driven by our desire to see at least one more place before my 5 months in india are over (to the point of leaving B' on his death bed, or so we though

t) we packed our bags and headed towards the un-known.
D was so stressed out by the possibility of arsim that once we arrived to kasol she immidiately began running in a frenzy screaming "we have to get out of here, let's find a taxi, no! let's start walking!! we have to ruuuun!! they'll catch us and make us go to habad house to pray to god!
needless to say we simply threw some encouraging words and a few mint tea glasses at her to calm her down. after D has been pacified and tied to a joint we decided to find a place to stay.
after a few days of looking for a place we finally found it:

nirvana, The Taji house, huge room, shower, lawns, serene river flowing under m

y window, mountains on the horizon, 3 friends with diarrhea (2nd most common cause of death in infants!)

it was a clever scheme probably designed in some dark basement in one of old kasol's buildings.
they know nobody wants to stay there because of the arsim. so once a group arrives they choose
one or several people to poison with food and that keeps the tourists inside the area.
ingenious isn't it? well, it worked on us. 3 of my friends got hit with the free flow disease...
and so we stayed at the taji day after day while i'm watching my friends waste away one liter
of shit after another (pardon my french...)
After a few un-eventful (outside the cabin's toilet) but beautiful days in kasol we finally decide to go up to the villages. but not before B decided to have a verbal conflict with a waiter in

one of the restaurants...

B: can i get orange juice?

waiter: papaya juice is very good.

B: ok, can i get orange juice

waiter: papaya mango even better than papaya.

B: ... (confused look) err... can i get orange juice?

waiter: no mango or papaya?

B: orange juice?
waiter: papaya orange?

B: orange juice!

waiter: ...waves hand in dismissal.

B: orange juice?

waiter: shows an angry face, and goes away.

so basically the customer is always right untill the waiter is right and then the customer is just

definitely wrong and has no idea what the fuck he's talking about

as long as we're on the subject of things that happen all the time in india... one more thing that tends to happen to a lot of people is that they tend to get obsessed with something indian and feel like it's something they have to do because that is what actually defines they're connection to the country.

For most people it's drugs. for some people, the privileged few it's something else.

"A" for example has turned into a kind of a mislead peanuts eating rodent. every place we arrived to he spent the first 30 minutes looking for "masala" peanuts. and on top of that he starts taking it personally. a place that doesn't have masala peanuts will have a taste of his jewish wrath.

"what do you mean you don't have any?!"

"don't have... only regular peanuts"

"you mean you don't have any now and you will later or you mean you never had any and your waisting my time?!?!"

"sir, you come my shop..."

"what has that got to do with anything?!?!, find me some MASALA PEANUTS!!!!"

at this point we usually have to grab a hold of him before he turns green and huge and sarts throwing tanks and other machinery at random indians...

anyway... we moved on to the villages. Tosh was first.

there were about 15 of us so we decided to order two jeeps. after about 10 minutes a jeep arrives. 2 minutes more and a car arrives (suzuki maruti). something about the size of a mini cooper with the prestige of an auto-riksha.

when inquering the guy in charge where are the 2 jeeps we were promised he points out at the jeep and says "here, jeep. and over there small jeep". first we tried to explain that the small jeep is actually a "car" and even if it was a small jeep it's still not big enough to carry everyone. after going outside and walking around the mini car for about 5 minutes we finally got him convinced that the only thing getting into the small jeep car is a dog, a handbag and if we try really hard we might squeeze in a midget as well...

another real jeep was ordered and got there after 20 minutes.

we started stuffing the insides of the jeep with people and the top with bags. i got the honors

(or so i thought) of sitting up front with our driver. 2 minutes after we started our journey i noticed that although there was about 30 cm between my leg and the shift for some strange reason his hand kept sliding over my leg for no reason. and all the while humming weird shit in

hindu. the rest of the passengers disregarded my pleas for help ("he's touching me!! why is he doing this?!") just kept cracking up and encouraging the driver (gotta love my friends eh?).

i tried to move as far as possible towards the door but it wasn't enough, he started using the

"can anyone give me a ciggarette" trick and the known follow up of "can you light this please" asking me to light it myself and pass it to him. probably a sick way of getting a taste of my young boyish sexy lips...

apart from that incident the whole jeep ride was accompanied by scared looks of the driver outside with remarks like "look, bags sit good?" and while he kept repeating that never once did he even consider slowing down or offering us to make sure it's tied... ah well... eventually we did get to tosh. i ran out of the car and did my best to prevent all eye contact with my assailant. (which was licking his lips suspiciously, i've been told)

Tosh is beautiful, surrounded by waterfalls and an abundance of river paths. playful children and happy (alas very bored) grown indians.

after "A" had his way with one of the kiosk operators, we met some indian guy travelling before

he goes studying electronic music production in the UK. (he belongs to the "industrial" cast that decided to move on to the "D.J having sex with models" cast).

A short while of taking showers with buckets and freezing to death from lack of blankets we have decided it's time for another village and together a group of 20 of us decided to carry on.

And so again a group of 20 people with bongs chilums and guitars are walking the wilderness. (not exactly what colombus had in mind when he decided to start exploring, but he got his continents mixed up so i guess he doesn't know shit anyway)

an hour or so of walking later we arrive at kallga. not as pretty as tosh. not as welcoming. not as anything really... but i did get a couple experiences nailed there.

first and foremost it was my first real stomach ache and diahreah lesson! hurray for me!

i'll let you in on the details because i know you like that...

i've had a few days in which i had no apetite and arriving in kallga for some reason we decided to stay in the cheapest place we could find. an example would be a toilet which lets out the shit water right next to you when you flush, getting the bottom part of your pants literally "shit wet".

so i go to sleep, wake up, go to the woods with a book. look at a tree, puke at a tree. go to the toilet, and that kinda finished my day.... i've read about 140 pages in that toilet session. (and i'm not a quick reader, i can preomise you that).

i have moved on or should i say moved back to eating plain rice and plain toast for the following 5 days. which would be great if i was in 16th century china but sucked ass in 21st century india surrounded by munched people stuffing their faces with all sorts of chickens and spices while i am forced to eat 2 Kg of rice and 1 Kg of bread a day. (sure, i could have anything i want but that would mean making a concious decision to stay in the toilet for the rest of my trip)

that was my confession. the other thing i've learned in kalga is that there is no god.

i can promise you that... a guy who travelled with us stepped on shit 6 times in about 40 minutes. while no one else did. which means there has to be some devine intervention for that to happen. and if there is devine intervention for that it means god really has nothing better to do.

which doesn't make any sense and thus creating a paradox. conclusion: no god.

i think that makes perfect sense.

who would have thought you'd get to learn something as important as that from reading all this crap i'm writing eh?

so that's basically it. we came back to kasol, i was told that my friends and family bought a 2 way ticket from india to israel and back so i can take a look at all the progress that has been made with the "ha bima" building in tel aviv (and also i had a birthday) and next post is about glamorous delhi and the quest for a suit get ready, get drunk!