As I went into my harmonica solo for Bruce Springsteen’s “Darkness on the Edge of Town” I realized that something was wrong. Well, I had switched to a D harp for the previous Springsteen song. But they don’t know the difference. Do they? . I quickly popped my A harp back into my holder and completed the song to the mild amusement of the onlookers. They seemed happy.

Landslides are a pretty grim reality here at times. In the middle hills in front of the Himalayas. Every year hundreds, if not thousands, of people die during the monsoon across the large swath of Himalayan foothills likely from Pakistan all the way to Eastern India. Sometimes whole villages. Buried.  Communities and families destroyed. Farms wiped out. Then they rebuild. Karma? Hmmmm.

They are also a daily occurrence along the roads.

Today we were lucky enough to experience three. One that lasted a long time as the villagers nearby armed with a big backhoe device cleared the road. As I shared my driver’s spliff (yes my driver likes to smoke pot while navigating these winding treacherous dirt roads as we roll down from 10000 feet to near sea level.) “Two hours sir.” So I pulled out my travel guitar and harmonica and perched myself on the nearest errant boulder and started to play.

What started as a few people, quickly grew to 20 (maybe 100 people are waiting on each side. Growing every minute.) As I looked up at the end of the first song and saw the people, I had my first real connection with the people here. I got a good laugh and smile out of them when I smiled. Realizing  I was the only westerner there and we were all in the same boat. Pictures and videos ensued.

It has been so hard to connect with people here as I have mentioned. So any chance I get……

So the rest of my time in Tawang was great. It’s a beautiful place and you likely saw pictures of my taxi ride to the Bhutan border. I am crossing into Bhutan on Sunday to see my friend Chhimi from Grad school. Everyone should have a Bhutanese friend!  Haha.

But I’m crossing a different border. The one I visited I am not allowed to cross. But the Indian guards made me fill out all the forms so I could walk 100 meters past their post. Then fill them out again when I returned. I got a good laugh with the army dudes.

My taxi driver,  Tashi, was a nightmare. If you can imagine 9 hours in a taxi with an Indian guy with very basic English trying to impress you enough to go back to the US with you. “sir one time I have tourist and they said I’m the best driver” in the first five minutes. “Sir you bring girlfriend next time and I marry and come to USA” And my favorite. “More rice sir? ” No. More rice sir. No. More rice sir. No. More rice.  NO!!!

AND he insisted on making me skip songs on my iPod he didn’t like.

I kid you not that was the exchange. “Sir I come to hotel with gift later.” Dude just get me home.

So the drive was basically like driving thru the Nepalese foothills weaving thru valleys and villages with the highlight being the giant white Tara statue I put in pics. Just staring out over the valley. Stunning.

My long drive back was me trying to figure out how to get out of this painful situation. Knowing full well I got fleeced on the fare.

We finally left yesterday to make the now two  day drive back to the heat in Guwahati. The highlight  today being my driver, not high yet, flying down the twisting and turning dirt roads in the densest fog I have ever been in. And I lived in San Francisco! No shit maybe 40 feet of visibility. Maybe. He hates using headlights. Some mild buttpuckering moments as he leaned his head out of the car to see better,  then slammed on the brakes to avoid an oncoming vehicle. Careful not to slip too close to the side. Its a one lane road. It’s an absolutely stunning drive thru rolling mountains and steep drop offs and waterfalls and rivers and streams.

We dropped thru the fog enough to start to feel the heat right when we stopped with these 100 or so cars eventually. Parked on this landslide road, totally exposed. Light drizzle. Bugs. Sweaty.  Steep 500 foot drop down to our side. And I am just so happy not to

have the shits.

So we climbed out of Bahlonpong to start driving thru the foothills and up to Sela pass. Which is redundant as La means pass here. A solid ten hours and a day and a half brought us to the relatively low approx 14000 foot Sela. Landslides,  Indian military (we are close to Tibet) and rainy mountain scenery. It’s closer in geography to Bhutan or Nepal. The comfort of prayer flags and stupas makes me feel at home. 

For some incredible reason, once we got over the pass, the road was lined with Tibetan women (well they looked and dressed Tibetan)  breaking and moving rocks by hand. Young and old. Some with small children.  In the cold and rain. What? Very humbling. All women. 

The Tawang valley is incredible. Beautiful. Steep hills. Amazing waterfalls. Warmer. 

The relationship with dogs here is different. They seem to have the same bulletproof quality as cows. They sleep in the road and people avoid them. Of course they are the ubiquitous black or brown. 35 lbs. All look alike. You know the ones. Like the Adam and Eve of street dogs started populating years ago and they look and act the same across Asia and Latin America. 

Now where these dogs seem bulletproof, they are the dirtiest, dingiest, skanky  assed dogs I’ve ever seen. Mange. Half of them are limping. Yet they remain fearless and don’t budge as cars whizz by while walking or sleeping. . 

And the Yaks. Clearly the most regal of animals and I am continually mesmorized by them. They must live at high altitude . Now there is some scientific dispute on whether they can’t live low because of heat or genes. But you don’t see purebred yaks below say 8000 feet. Once when trekking I awoke in the middle of the night to pee of course. There had been a thunder and lightning snow storm. A foot of snow had fallen since I went to bed. Sadly before digital cameras,  my stunning picture of a yak, asleep in the field next to the tea house,  a foot of snow on his back,  steam emanating into the night, didn’t come out. Wow. 

Tawang is beautiful. The growing wealth of the Indian population has made it a tourist destination. And if you had taken the road here,  you would be astonished at its size. Big. No lack of new cement buildings going up. Markets. The smell of smoke that accompanies this culture and takes me back to every small village I have ever been through up here. 

Watching cultures grow up can be tough. I mean you want them to thrive but at what cost to both their culture and the planet?

A book called Ancient Futures published in the 80s looked at some of these questions in Ladakh. Knowing these folks will all want cement homes (and certainly have every right to them), and cars or motos  (same),  you feel caught in the cross hairs. 

The maze of thought I was caught in whilst volunteering in Guatemala a few years ago was just that. The people have a right to develop, but when they cross the chasm from needs to wants the planet inevitably suffers. Needs are predictable. Poverty is somewhat predictable. Food, clothing, shelter right? 

But wants? Man. Say goodbye to the planet if every person can fulfill his/her wants. And I have this theory that education regarding ones actions on the planet tracks slowly behind in a culture that starts to become affluent. They get a few extra bucks. Want maybe some education but man. TV. Meat. Cell phone. Moto. And they don’t know the ramifications. 

I’m not saying they shouldnt have it. I’m saying its an emotional conundrum when doing any development work. Where do you put that in your brain? 

I love this place and this culture. Always.  Language is hard. Communication difficult. But the Tawang Monastery filled up my heart. 

I specifically asked the owner if the tour company for an English speaking guide. He said “Sure. But you need to pay more. ” I’m like, I’m spending a week with this dude. I don’t need to discuss foreign relations or the difference between Hinduism and Buddhism with him. It’d be nice but I would just like to know a tad about what we are seeing. When we are eating. How far. What time we are starting. The bar is not high. I mean I HAVE to take a guide by law. 

I showed up last night and the owner said “I wanted my friend to go but he said no so I am going.” Great. I’ve been waiting four days. Let’s f ing go! 

He was supposed to come to my hotel at 9 am the next day. Not there. Finally at ten I walk across the street. He says “I’m sick. Stomach. Dysentery.” I’m like “dude. I told you not to go to KFC! ” HAHA. Seriously. He looked sick. 

“But my friend will take you.”

Ah so I’m traveling with the reluctant friend and driver for a week. Can’t wait. He shows up and his name is Rinku Roy. I ask him if he’s was a Bollywood porn star with a name like that. Or a Vegas act. The driver’s name is Manoush. And there English is non existent. 

We set off for our five hour drive to Bahlanpong. I’m exhausted as i woke up to pee around 2:30 AM or so (promising myself I wouldn’t set the alarm. But the internal clock….) Maybe I will just check how my hometown Cleveland Indians are doing against the hated Yankees…..

Bad idea. 5 hour game.  Watched it all on my IPhone  Via gamecast on ESPN. No video. Just pitch by pitch. They won. I’m tired. At one point gamecast was not working right (of course in inning 13) and my friend Rita in Cleveland had to use facebook to comment and give me highlights. While driving. 

So off we go to the mountains. Before leaving town we had our obligatory stop at the drive by Ganesh. Ganesh is the elephant looking Hindu god. They have these roadside shrines (one in Kathmandu is actually a drive thru), where you can get a good luck blessing and toss in some rupees. So we pull up and toss some in.

It’s an 18 hour drive but these first five hours were more the  traditional India I’m used to. Beautiful green farms along the valley. The Brahmaputra river. Bamboo farmers. Shops. Kids on bikes. Women in traditional saris. Farther up the road some monkeys. And cows.

 Tons of them. Man. If you’re a Hindu or a Buddhist and/or believe in some sort of reincarnation, make sure you get it right when you’re ready to come back as a cow. Don’t think Indiana instead if India. You will end up on someone’s plate instead of being allowed to walk around naked overweight and/or pregnant. Sleep wherever you want (especially the middle of the road) and have even the most determined driver/madman slam on his brakes at 60 and nearly swerve into a bicyclist to avoid hitting you. 

It’s a crime to kill a cow here if you didn’t know. A person accidentally?  Not so much. 

The people here are not particularly friendly and can’t speak much English. I was warned via guidebook. My guide and driver are nice. But man it’s hard to get even a smile out of anyone else. I don’t know enough about it. I’ll have to ask neighbor Frank who comes here a lot. Culturally what’s up?  I mean in Shillong I thought it was because they were all Christian (seriously they were)  so maybe they all had some guilt complex instead of hey,  my karma man! 

But no. I did get sort of a smirk from the police dude checking my permit. He says “which country?” I said USA. He smiled. I’m sure he’s like “you got THAT dickhead for president? I thought WE we uneducated! ”

So I am finally at the base of the hills. As you slowly move away from the city, the feeling that progress and capitalism are like a large Pacman. Slowly chomping up bits of nature as you move north. The farther away from the city, you feel more like the Pacman has less to fuel him so the the greenery is spared. For now. 

I finally got the chance again to experience the living, breathing organism that is India. The madness. The side saddle girls on the back of motorbikes. With the kid in the middle. The fact that nearly every man, woman and child, but especially the women, look like they just came from a photoshoot. Clean beautiful clothes. Hair perfect. No sweat. It’s still 95 degrees! The weaving in and out of traffic. The buses and taxis whizzing by within a hair of people waking in the street. Nobody flinches or shows fear. That’s the ticket. Don’t hesitate. Let the symphony of Indian street life play out. Karma. It’s beautiful to watch. And you get used to it. 

Hills finally tomorrow. Back in Buddhist country!

I knew I shouldn’t have gone to KFC here in Guwahati. I mean, it seemed so out of place. But so did the one in Chengdu 22 years ago and I mean, how can you f up chicken right?

Well I walked in “just to look” and it had A/C. I had just succumbed to a one hour car ride from Guwahati airport and the dude wanted to charge me 100 rupees for AC during the ride! I’m like, do you m know who I am? Haha. No I tell him with my silent monologue saying “it’s only 12 miles”. High noon. 95 degrees. 90% (at least) humidity. The sweat starts the minute I, well, leave the airport. Long pants. Long shirt. T shirt under it.

By minute 15, I’m drenched. By minute 30 i consider ever so briefly to ask him to put it on. Pride took over again. The crotch sweat was back with a vengeance. The traffic thru town was horrific so no wind to aid me. After an hour I got into my AC room and crashed.

I needed food though and the KFC seemed like a great answer. I mean why would I sit in a sweaty local place and likely get sick from spoiled meat. I walked out. I walked back in. Self justification wins out. I DESERVED that chicken sandwich and wings. Likely fresh. Haha.

When she put the ice in the coke i raised an eyebrow. No. She knows I’m a traveler. She knows better. They must be purified as she handled them oh so delicately.

The rumbling began about 2 am. Oh it’s just the chips I ate after. It continued. It’s just me getting used to stuff. 6 AM. Kablooey. Uh oh. I gotta jump in a shared jeep for 2 1-2 hours at noon.

I got time. Back to bed. At 11 after my 4th trip to the can, I succumbed once again. Ciproflaxin. Come to my rescue.

I had had little water that night and no brekkie. I got this. We will be up in the hills and cooler in no time. I can hold it.

Well the “shared” taxi guy caught my eye. Shillong? Why yes. My head told me take a regular taxi. My ego again said shared taxi. I got this. When you leaving? 20 min he says. It high noon again. I put my pack on the roof and after 10 min decided in my infinite wisdom I wanted a window so I jumped into the back seat that were all black and waited. He’s gotta go soon right? He’s not full yet. Shit.

He pulls away after 30 min and does a slow loop thru traffic. Shillong Shillong. Ending back where we started. Jesus dude. You’re gonna have a sweaty shitty mess back here. Get on with it!

Our two and half hour ride turned to four counting the waiting. I was lucky enough to sit next to a local that spoke English and wanted to describe every banal point of interest on the road. There’s a lake. No a river. No a lake. All the while I’m inching towards defcon 5.

We stop to wrap the roof bags as rain is coming. The driver gets food. Here is my insurance policy. I sprint to toilet out back (if you want to call it that) and squatted with my day pack on and averted disaster. Try using toilet paper in that position. Ain’t easy.

So both Guwahati and Shillong are dirty hot places that I have no desire to see. It’s higher and cooler thank god up here. But during the day. Pain. I have to kill two days waiting for my permits.

The locals rarely embrace their culture and dress like frat guys from the 80s. I know. I was one. The locals are not particularly friendly or communicative except with their horns.

So I walked my extremely sweaty and stinky ass thru the traffic jam and up the hill. Denied by two hotels the third was like heaven. I mean, it had a bucket shower sort of but it saved me.

I used to say to friends I don’t need no stinking gym membership to lose weight. I’ll go to Asia and eat and drink and trek. It works. I’m bulletproof with Cipro for three days. Wish me luck!

A pretty recent article on the area of Arunachal Pradesh where I am going end of the week (well assuming the guy arranging my ride doesn’t run off with my passport. Rookie move? Hope not!) that gives some history and an even handed view on the border dispute between India and China.

https://www.google.co.in/amp/m.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2083799/why-china-india-and-dalai-lama-are-pushing-boundaries-tawang%3Famp=1

It’s an epic trip through the mountains I am told and neighbor Frank James coincidentally is involved in a clinic there.

It also happens to be where his Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 nearly ten years after China invaded.

Most everyone that knows me knows I’ve been practicing Buddhism for about 19 years. I traveled independently in Tibet for about a month in 1998, traveled Nepal extensively in 95, 98, 2000 and briefly in 2006. That same trip I visited Dharamsala (home of the Tibetan Govt in Exile) and got within maybe 50 feet of His Holiness before he gave his talk. I also spent a month in Ladakh and Kashmir in 2010 and a month in India and Bhutan in 2012. Yeah I work believe it or not. Well not now for a bit.

It is my spiritual home and I have not even scratched the surface of many facets of their culture and religion. The Dalai Lama is likely the single most influential person in my life.

The area I visited in Tibet in 1998 had this stunning mountain range off in the distance. I have attached a pic but I dreamed of going there. It seems Tawang is in the area of that range. I also was told by the guide I hiked one of the passes (in reverse) that His Holiness took in 1959.

I will be up where Bhutan, India and Tibet intersect. I will write more about the emotional aspect of Tibet and the Dalai Lama once I am there, but when planning this trip I had no idea the spiritual and cultural significance of the place. I guess you could say I was winging it and got kinda lucky. Stay tuned.

I feel like I live in a bubble. Bellingham is the last great town that is finally succumbing to greed. When I’m with my backpack or in my van and long ago with my dog, I created an insular world that kept some kind of barrier between me and violence and sadness like what just happened in Vegas. 20 people were also trampled to death here in Mumbai India two days ago.

If you happen to know someone, or know someone that knows someone. Or connect with one of the poor souls you see on TV. Your heart breaks.

Add the madness of the three hurricanes and the Brutish childlike figure in the Whitehouse who has never had a non staged heartfelt empathic response in his life and I just feel devastated inside.

For years we blamed the “other”. You know. The dude that just got here from a faraway land. Or the sometimes mythical terrorist who always seems to be Muslim until you read the paper the next day and someone jumped to a conclusion. WE, the people of the United States have contributed to this shit. We put mental health on the back burner way too much, we make questioning unfettered gun ownership a political battle because some boogeyman is coming for your assault weapons you need to kill deer or zombies or whatever. We make the almighty dollar the benchmark with which we measure our success, our pride, our ego and put that above compassion, not making sure your neighbor is not hurting and your kids have a life where they can grow up to be productive compassionate people. Not Americans. PEOPLE!

We are humans before we are Americans. And we are no better than any other race or culture or religion or creed. And we are failing.

We sometimes force people to play along with this sick race to accumulate as much as possible. Til one day they wake up and find they’ve failed based on our rules we have jammed Down their throats. Or they wake up and realize they have made a mockery of their internal life intentions and ambitions just to grab the brass ring. So they’ve failed twice. Then they snap. And pain is passed all around.

This breaks my heart. Glad I’m going to hang out with the Buddhists. Oh shit. Not the ones in Myanmar! Not Buddhists too!!

Meanwhile I will be in Arunachal Pradesh next. This is what’s going down nearby  if you haven’t noticed. It won’t affect me.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/26/opinions/the-rohingya-are-being-ethnically-cleansed-why-wont-the-world-take-action/index.html

I can’t imagine our dumbass in chief can even find it on a map let alone prioritize it.

So I am leaving for Guwahati in the morning. No offense to Mumbai but it’s not my, um, cup of tea. I was only planning on spending two days here but the part of town I am in (Colaba) is very touristy and small. I am not interested in seeing the show of opulence surrounded by abject poverty. Of course the people are all nice here (except when I visited the famous Taj Majal Palace Hotel for a $10 martini). Man, I thought the Chinese invented selfies!

I finally found some great street food last night. Chicken tikka rolls are my calling! Had the usual inquiries as to whether I wanted a tour, a taxi, hash or cocaine. Normally all from the same person.

It’s a holiday here. I think it’s Ghandi’s bday today. I couldn’t do a tour etc. I am not against them per se. But there is something about an organized tour THROUGH world famous slums that I can’t get my head around. Call me close minded.

I am heading northeast in the morning via plane on my quest to get to the Tawang Valley near Tibet. Then will make my way thru to Bhutan to see my buddy Chhimi from Grad School and finally get a new hat!

Stop raining up there! Doesn’t the monsoon end EXACTLY on Oct 1?

At the stoplight she came and looked me in the eye. She tapped on my window and pointed to her mouth. A girl no older than my youngest nephew, yet tall and skinny. I shook my head no as years of traveling here has taught me not to encourage begging. She tapped again. No. Again. No. Again. No. I stared back at my smart phone. Riding in an uber (more on that later) and was like wtf? Why must I make this decision? As the light turned I pulled out 100 rupees (about a buck fifty) and gave it to her as she dodged traffic to get back. Was she part of a begging ring? Is that her life? Is it a scam? I’m not the first person nor the last to be put in that conundrum. But for some reason when in another, poorer culture it seems more vivid. What part of that life did she choose? Or did her karma choose it for her?

So Mumbai is big and crowded and dirty. Since I arrived at midnight, I stayed at the airport Holiday Inn. At 60 bucks easily the most expensive hotel I think I’ve ever stayed in in India. I booked on Orbitz.

A friend of a friend said to use Uber to get around. Prices are set. No ripoff. Now I have my issues with Uber aside from the dickhead founder. Yes it provides some work. Yes it can break the monopolistic hold taxis have on some communities. However, what it really does is exploit inefficiencies in a market, pass a small amount of the savings to a person, and aggregate the majority of those inefficiencies outside the community to a small group of shareholders. Is my 2 dollar savings worth sucking that money out of the community? Ask yourself. More on accumulation at a later date. Likely my rant on Buddhist economics.

So the second Uber of my life was to get downtown today. Of course I booked another $50 hotel as I normally would just show up but there is some holiday here and I didn’t want to walking around this huge downtown with my sweaty pack and no clue. As the dude pulled up I checked the first few digits of his license. I jump in. Uber? I ask. Yes. He says. As we drive he points to where we are going on his ubiquitous smart phone attached to the dash. That doesn’t look right. His English is bad. Hmmm. My cell phone rings. It’s the CORRECT Uber driver at my hotel. He asks me to cancel. My current driver dumps me on the side of the road (shakes me down for 100 rupees) and I summon another Uber at 50% more, all the while succumbing to the sweaty crotch I was so desperate to avoid in the 90 degree heat with 95% humidity.

It seems India is more dialed in tech wise than we are as their economy has grown up this way. However, it seems to enhance the digital divide and make that first big step out of poverty a much more giant leap. I doubt that little girl punched her 100 rupees into her account or converted it to Bitcoin……

Over lunch I had a nice micro and macro economic discussion with Michelle about our dear president’s misguided approach to America First. About how fully 1.2 billion people on the planet don’t have electricity yet they, and many Americans fully feel broad swings in the economic, political and environmental arenas. They rarely have a chance to affect those swings individually. Interest rates, cost of firewood, cost of corn, access to capital, super storms, rising sea levels. But those at that subsistence level of the economy bear the extreme brunt of those swings. Geez see Puerto Rico. And earlier this year India, Nepal and Bangladesh. From a global economy standpoint one can argue that the free movement of capital fosters growth and creates opportunity. But does it? What are the true impacts?

I have a philosophy that the farther one gets away from his/her money the more the planet suffers. You don’t see how the local environment is affected by investing in property in another state. Your corporate stock holding does not identify fully its investment in a large damn that creates 100 temporary jobs but cuts down trees and displaces villagers. You don’t take notice that your Monsanto stock does well but it’s GMO products have cross contaminated the original corn plants in Chiapas Mexico. So in the interest of keeping up with your investments, you can just possibly wreak havoc on the most vulnerable in our country and others. It is not necessarily an intentional damaging of other peoples and cultures and environments. But rest assured, globalization and the free movement of money and investments, unfettered and unwatched, DOES hurt those most vulnerable. Both directly and indirectly. Consider that (and I will too) when you have the extra little bit of cash to invest. What impact do I have with my choices and who am I impacting that have none?