End of the Road...

...or is it just the start?

A month on the global road:
--16,860 miles traveled by air, including a perfect circle around the globe, heading on an east-bound course the entire way (NYC to NYC) 
--Seven flights
--Six countries, three continents
--At least four different time zones (I've lost count)
--Temperatures ranging from 45F to 115F
--Modes of transportation: Airliner, boat, rickshaw, tuck tuck, tram, train, 4x4, car, van, elephant
--Food: vegetarian, seafood, mutton, beef

--Average amount of sleep per night: 4-5 hours
--Number of currencies: Four
--Terrorist attacks while en route to Dehli: two (both by Maoist Rebels aimed at the railroads. Total dead and injured: 100+)
--Top memories: The burning of the dead in Lumbini. The cleansing of the body in Varanasi, the giant orange swastika a holy backdrop. Monsoon rain and winds pummeling our little boat on the upper Ganges, and a human skull lying jaw up on the banks where we anchored and held onto our ratted rooftop tarp for dear life. Swimming downstream in the Ganges, nearly drowning when we hit a stretch of water so deep, the clear-over-gravel-color river turned to blue. The overnight train to Agra, sleeping beside dozens of Indians, young and old. The woman who rushed the train on a stop from Occha to Agra, slipping between the car and the platform, her right leg cut off just below the knee as the train pulled out of the station. Touching, for the first time, an elephant's ear, its smooth almost silky texture taking me by complete surprise. The nervousness of a rhino cooling itself with mud only a few feet away from where I stood in the back of the 4x4 ...

Next stop...who knows.

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Border Crossings: Northern India

(Note: Please excuse the grammatical errors. I'm writing on the run...)


The sweat that soaks my khaki shirt has nothing to do with the relentless heat that covers this land like a heavy, hot water-soaked, wool blanket. I'm at the border between Nepal and India. It's six in the morning. Skies ominously overcast with gray/black clouds that threaten monsoon season rain. It's been raining heavily on and off all night and the narrow road that accesses both countries is nothing more than a thick layer of gooey brown mud that, taken along with the ramshackle single and two-story wood, concrete and brick buildings that flank it, looks more like the setting for a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western.

My guide and I are stopped by a soldier dressed in olive green who bears a World War II era bolt-action rifle over his shoulder and a thick black leather belt around his waist. He tosses our backpacks onto a wood table and begins inspecting them inside and out. India's mega Hindu population gets along swimmingly with its smaller, but major Muslim population. However, no one gets along with the radical Islam component that has snaked its way into the country via Pakistan and other ports of entry. That said, the bags are checked thoroughly.

After looking us over ...up, down, and up again...the solider gives us the go ahead to proceed across the border. I've already made it through Nepal customs and received my stamp. But it wasn't Nepal I was worried about. What's in the back of my mind is all the trouble I got into recently at the American India Embassy back in the States. The short of it is that the embassy wouldn't issue my journalist's visa unless I met with them in person in Manhattan and attended one of their "press lectures" regarding the benefits of the "New Era India." An invitation I blew off entirely. I didn't come here for politics, but something else instead. Originally that reason was to research a new Chase Baker novel, and to write a couple of travel pieces while also writing for the Vox. But now, having spent a little more than a week in this part of the world that will slam you with a million different sensory alerts at once (from the persistent smells of curries to cow shit, from huge, colorfully decorated trucks speeding directly for you, to millions of people who peer at you with their dark, penetrating eyes as if you are the very first westerner they've ever seen), I'm not entirely sure I can put my reasons for being here into mere words.

Trudging through the mud past the many overloaded cars, 4X4s, and trucks queued up before the wood-pole gate, my guide points out the immigration office and, heart in my throat, I immediately go for it.

It's not much of an office. A couple of rooms in a very old building the interior of which is shaded by old wood shutters left over from the filming of Gunga Din. There's a counter on one side, and a wood table on the other. An overhead ceiling fan blows the hot humid air around somehow pleasantly, while behind the counter, a pot of tea boils atop a hot plate set upon an old wood desk that also supports a computer and a Royal typewriter from the 1950s.

There's a middle aged man manning the counter. He wears loose slacks and an even looser button down shirt. He collects my passport, along with those of a half dozen other people waiting to cross over the border. College kids mostly who look like they haven't slept or bathed in weeks. It makes me smile inside to know that I must appear as a much older version of their wanderlust-filled selves.
After filling out the immigration form, I hand the passport back to the counter man. He in turn hands it over to a second, smaller man, who takes it with him to the computer. As he runs the passport over a scanner I see my face pop up on the computer screen. This is it, I think. The moment where they'll ask me to accompany them into the back room where they'll spend hours lobbing questions about my intentions for visiting India. "Why did you not attend the lecture in New York?" the men will shout while blinding me with a single bright white light. Eventually, the tall one will turn to the smaller one. "See if you can get him to talk," he'll say. Then, as the tall man leaves the room, locking the door behind him, the smaller man remove his shirt, bearing a chest filled with scars from knife fights too numerous to count. He go behind a desk and pull something from out of a drawer. A pair of brass knuckles maybe. As he slips them onto his right hand, he'll smile at me, bearing a gold tooth. "So what's the weather like in New York this time of year?" he'll say.

But within a few minutes, something far different occurs.

The little man behind the desk takes hold of his stamp, and positioning it above the page that contains my visa, brings the inky business end down hard onto the page. The little man hands the big man the passport. And the big man, in turn, hands it to me. He smiles politely but genuinely.

"Welcome to India," he says. "I hope you enjoy your stay."

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Check out the first Chase Baker adventure novel, THE SHROUD KEY, and look for CHASE BAKER AND THE GOLDEN CONDOR coming early this Fall. 
 

Kathmandu's Cavalcade

For the life of you, do not attempt to travel half way around the world by flying three different, back to back flights. No matter how good a flier you are, you will find yourself exhausted from lack of sleep. Your eyes will sting from lack of moisture. Your stomach will distend and cramp from too much gas buildup, and the interior mucous membranes in your nasal cavities will crack and bleed. If you insist on flying to four different countries on three different continents over the course of 2.5 days to make for a total of 26 hours in the air, make sure you break the trip up. And don't fly over the Bay of Bengal during a severe thunderstorm...It will scare the crap out of you. Unless of course, you're 19 and don't give a shit.

But the ill effects of three sleepless days and nights were quickly forgotten upon landing in Kathmandu, Nepal. Sure this is the home of Everest and expert climbers from all over the world who come here to scale the tallest mountain in the world (I know this debatable, but it's my blog so bear with me). However, Nepal's capital city of Kathmandu is a vibrant, ancient metropolis congested with people, young and old, who all seem to be moving rather quickly to some unknown destination. The bazaar itself is made up of narrow roads connected at odd angles as if no planning went into them. The roads are boarded with crumbling ancient architecture interspersed with Buddhist and Hindu temples. The smog pervades the air to the degree that, like in many Chinese cities, the locals don masks over their faces to filter the pollution. Some of these masks are made by famous clothing designers. The masks might match a woman's outfit and I imagine they cost a lot.   

Cows and rickshaws share the roads with cars and motorcycles, the latter combustion engine-powered machines forever competing for the finite space that exists on the byways but miraculously never smashing into one another or running anyone down. Drivers honk horns relentlessly and at times, you find it impossible to know who is honking the horn at who. 

The night life is vibrant to say the least. Kathmandu is a musician's paradise with the rattle and hum of live bands competing with one another from the many bars and eateries that exist within the bazaar. Last night I enjoyed a couple of beers while listening to a middle-aged man play trombone not to an accompanying band but instead to digitally pre-recorded tracks. This is 2014 after all, even if the Kathmandu of today could easily fill in for the Kathmandu of 1970, or 1935 for that matter. He was dressed in a long tunic over pantaloons that looked like pajamas. His feet were bare and he wore a long gray/black beard and even longer gray hair pulled back in a ponytail. I took him for a SoCal transplant, circa 1985, who came to find something to smoke and never left. 

I could tell you about the food and how fresh it is ... nan prepared over a stone fire...chicken and beef drowned in savory curries...cool and crisp vegetables cut up in chunks...but I need to head back out to explore more in this city of adventurers and ancient history. 

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Want Visa to India? Be Prepared to Wait...and Wait...

Want your India Journalist's visa? Go here ... But plan on waiting in line for weeks...

Oh the insanity.
Over a month ago now, I submitted my paperwork, along with my precious passport, to the India Consulate via a company called BLS International, in order to secure my entry visa to the great Asian land of mystery and enchantment (Couldn't resist that rather dramatic opening). I'll be heading to India and Nepal in June in part to research new material for what will become Chase Baker III, but also to photograph and write a few travel pieces for both the Vox and whoever/whatever will buy them...

...Oops, did I just say I will be working in India????

Scratch that...I will not be working. You see, I can only enter into India as a journalist because, well, I make my living as a journalist and writer. But here's the catch, India will only grant me a visa if it's a journalists visa and only if I make a solemn promise not to perform any journalism while I'm there. Huh? You with me here? Or as fucking confused as I am? 

Three weeks ago, I (along with a crew from The Daily Show) was summoned to the NYC India Consulate where, inside a sweltering basement room cooled by non-effective ceiling fans, made to sign an affidavit swearing I would not practice any journalism while visiting India. That is, unless I agreed to attend a news conference about the upcoming India elections and engage in writing some "positive stories" about them. "Yeah, I'll drop everything and get right on that..."

Well, I haven't attended any news conferences about elections in India, however (and at this point, miraculously), I have been told (via email) that my visa and passport have been processed and, low and behold, approved. But here's the thing: I still haven't received my priceless materials from Fed Ex, even though I've forwarded three separate pre-paid return envelopeds to BLS. That's right, three envelopes. Now I get an email just this morning telling me BLS is about to go belly up in a matter of ummmm, days.

Oh, the humanity...

I suppose I might have to haul ass back down to NYC and strangle someone in order to get my goods back. And then, if I can avoid arrest and have finally made it to India, I will swear to God that the camera in my hand, and the laptop in my satchel, and the notebooks stuffed into my pockets on my bush jacket, are all just for show. I'm not really a journalist and I'm not being a journalist. Who says I'm a writer? I'm just being a stupid nobody, doing nothing, for no good reason.

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Look At Me I'm Walking

Look at me I'm walking.
After three months spent sitting on my ass waiting for my surgically healed foot to heal, I'm not only walking but somehow managing a gimp-style jog that leaves me fairly exhausted after only a couple of miles. A word of warning: When your surgeon sits down with you to discuss an upcoming surgery, listen to him/her. You will spare yourself a lot of grief in doing so. I am such an idiot, I half listened to my doctor and in turn, assumed I'd be back in the gym after only a week or so.

Two weeks later when I had my stitches removed, only then did I realize the full extent of the surgery. I'd had a bunion the size of a walnut removed; a hammer two repaired with two screws, a tendon replaced, and a cracked bone also screwed back together with two more screws. There's a six inch pin that had been inserted in my toe which eventually got removed with the help of a pair of common construction pliers (no shit!).

In a word, my foot looked like I'd stepped on a landmine.

But all the time on my posterior did not go wasted. In that time I wrote the second in the Chase Baker series: Chase Baker and the Golden Condor. I also wrote the first draft of what might become a serial novel called Orchard Grove. I also wrote a third draft of The Breakup. All this, plus a script for Pathological which is being shot as a short movie in Albany, plus my normal journalism duties for Globalspec.

Maybe my foot didn't work, but I used the time to my advantage, and now it's time to get back into some kind of shape for my upcoming field research trip to Nepal and India for Chase III.

When you're down for the count, don't just lie there. Put the time to good use. Otherwise, you'll go bananas.

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