jaisalmer

After walking around bikaner for like ten hours we cought the sleeper night bus. It would have been tight, but of course I had to eat some nasty cold dahl dish and it turned into the all night diarrhea butt barf rocky swayathon blow it out my ass and pop all the meds I have and just hope and pray I make it too the next stop…then we arrived at five in the morning too a dead cold empty town with no rickshaws and I felt like barfing the whole time…but eventually we got a spot and got some real sleep. Today we toured the world famous jaisalmer fort up on the hill in the middle of a town straight out of Arabian nights. Its about a thousand years old stone city with narraow alleys and more mindblowing carvings covering some of the buildings many which have been converted to hotels and or are still lived in by brahmans. Tonight we met our friend susanna’s daughters father praga who is a native from outside jaisalmer and tomorrow we embark on a four day camel safari out into the deserts near Pakistan. Praga is a funny little guy and he has lots of great stories about like abandoned cities with lost treasures and thieves and getting stung by scorpions and eating lizards and camels that kill their masters by sitting on them and all that fun stuff to get us pumped up…should be amazing. Code

camel fest

The camel festival was fucking fantastic…it was like 50k from bikaner in the middle of the dusty thar desert. There were tons of camels and thousands of locals…id say only one percent were tourists. It was pretty hot and dry…as you might imagine but the scenery was truly surreal. The best part was the camels…there all like burping and foaming at the mouths like ten feet tall but then they dress them up all retro futuristic glam goddess disco balls with neon bead work, fake flowers, banners, and swords. It like taking the most alien mammal on the planet and then being like all my pet pony about it on acid. The camel racing was a real hoot…running camels is like the goofiest thing ever…the camels just start going it full out, not always in the right direction, and some would vear off into the crowds at top speed and spectators would be running for there lives and diving out of the way…it was fucking hilarious. There was also sand wrestling, gypsy dance circles, and a bunch of air shows. Some parachuters even dropped in and its was insane when thousands of kids starting running after them across the dunes and they were like waving them out the way with there feet and shit just before landing getting totally mobbed. There were all these stage performance with traditional dancing and singing that made for some pretty awesome sound bites. Anyways, the pictures are pretty crazy too and ill get them up soon…at least on myspace.com/iamcode after I get back from camel safari. Camels are my new favorite animal…gotta get one…if only they came in mini. code

cow town

Left the organic farm and headed to cow town to check out the camel festival…we were in the last row corner and the only whities on the bus for eight hours…one thing that’s nice about being a traveler in India is that your never going to outnumber the locals…theres just too many of them. Like we tried to go to the rat temple on the bus and they jammed it so packed with people in the rows that I just couldn’t stand it and we had to bail out and catch a ride back after like ten minutes…the irony of the rat temple is your forced become one in order to get there.
India is a place where pigeons and parrots share the same meal and dogs and cows snuggle on the streets. Strangers share your blankets and fires warm us in the streets. It’s a friendly place…maybe a little too friendly even. The big question on the streets is what is your country and to this we say America…Canada…Michigan….new york…Africa…neener neener...or nothing, cause were tired of answering it. I have no idea what day it is and I don’t care…time is stress…forget about it. Its pretty cold here at night so we wear lots of scarf and shall to stay warm…the locals just walk around in giant wool blankets like slumber party on the streets and slumber party dinner.
Anyways bikaner we coined cow town cause theres literally thousands of cows living in the streets wandering around the city. There like giant garbage disposal eating whatever they can rummage up…the market vendors all have sticks to keep the cows from eating the produce…the cows got ahold of some union skins and cause a traffic jam...but its nice to have their slow demenor its such a busy country. India is always keeping us on our toes like walking the streets tonight it went piss, shit, cow, horn, moto, waste, gutter, dog…all with distinct maneuvers in a matter of three seconds. But its doesn’t always have to be like that…like in bikaner we walked for eight hours through the residential and commercial alleys of the old city…the building are magnificently carved out of stone with detail and beauty that is hard to imagine…its like walking around a museum that people live in...very special and ancient indeed.

amla bomb

We learned the importance of propagating organics at the amla farm resort jolly old binod. Had a live folk band come to entertain and we danced like possessed idiots till we would almost die and then dance some more…got some good sound bites and a clip of me dance battling little boy for the title. Swam every day in the pool and collected amla from the many thousands of trees for harvest in boiling, deseeding, drying, and crushing for powder for go selling at market. played music with the children did a photoshoot for the farms website and read from the ancient texts of organic farming. Learned of the many uses of cow dung and urine…mainly for burning, building the houses in which we stayed, and fertilizing the plants. Found the ancient recipe for fertilizer is gathering scraps from the butcher mixing with poopoo and peepee and fermenting for a few months before distributing…imagine being the lucky chap that gets to wear the sewage of death backpack sprayer unit… its like when does organic reach a point where death and poop is nectar…"at least its organic" has a whole new meaning.

organic farm resort

we finally escaped the claws of indian cities and we laxin and maxin at the saharia amla organic farm resort in the country near jaipur. its fucking fantastic...we eat amla berries all day and sip organic teas grown in the himalayas. we also work...chopping wood to boil the amla berries, collecting berries, catching chickens, drying fruit, doing photoshoots, and whatnots. its lovely to be out in the country away from the nightmare of indian city living...its absolutely absurd, the poverty, dirt, hassle, harassment, pollution, noise, smells, you name it...india is the mother fucker! getting out to farm is perfect though, we were both starting to get coughs from the pollution and now were just chillin in the country, swimming and eatting heaps of amla berries...one of the key ingredients in ayurvedic medicine also know as gooseberries. salvation at last! code