Gore wants to put a man on the moon in ten years, or something even harder, and he wants to do it without the help of the military, the oil companies, or the long shadow of the USSR. This is a grand goal with no grand moments, no televised spectacles. ...

According to a recent op-ed on worldpres.org, last February Arab League information ministers outlined new guidelines for Arab satellite channels, specifically prohibiting the broadcasting of negative reporting on heads of state, religious or national figures. It's very easy for the Western mind to see this as a classic violation of ...

The whole world watches Hollywood movies. I once found X-Men 2 on cable in Oman, the sex and violence airing between the preaching Imams. The whole world reads Western books, either in English or translation. The Da Vinci Code graces the dirty blankets of sidewalk booksellers in Mumbai, and Harry ...

On January 2, 2008, an American soldier stationed in Iraq was electrocuted in his shower due to an improperly grounded water pump. I've been shocked by showers in Bolivia, India, Thailand, and Ethiopia. Fortunately not seriously, but it did make bathing more exciting. You learn not to touch the taps. Actually, ...

In the developed world, everything works. The power is always on, and most things are on time. The economists tell us we're actually more efficient at just about everything; a quick look at a table of GDP per capita shows that the developed countries make dozens of times more ...

Ian departed last night and I am suddenly, calamitously lonely.



This is unusual. Many people have asked me how I can stand to be alone on the other side of the world for so long. I usally answer that I'm never really alone: there are people everywhere, and in fact I make a lot of friends on the road, mostly other travelers who are also in freefall out here in the big wide world. But as others have long since suspected of me, this isn't quite it.



The truth is that I'm one of those people who just like a lot of time alone. This makes me suited for solo travel, and for writing. Hooray for a path that fits my proclivities.



However, it turns out that I do need people. And not just "people". Those are everywhere. What I need are those deep connections. Friends, in other words. I have a lot of conversations out here, but not a lot of really good, soul-searching, world-reforming conversations. I maintain a certain amount of contact with the people I love (mostly, but not only, in San Francisco) yet nothing, it turns out, is quite the same as being there. Traveling with Ian, I was reminded how wonderful it is to have someone to reality check and discuss your experiences with; and while I can and do write home about the things I have seen, it is precisely the inability to get across "what it's actually like" that makes travel so rewarding.



"Did you see that?"



"Holy shit."



"What the hell?"



Those are the moments I'm talking about. And then we would both form theories about what the hell was going on there, discuss it, and eventually conclude correctly that we had no idea. If you've spent time outside of your native civilization then you know what I mean.



It's a valuable experience, but I'm having one of those moments where I'm wondering what I'm doing out here. I can't say that what I'm learning is always clear. I think it becomes clear later. I saw a little of this in long discussions with Ian and Slim. I realized that the worldview that I've been developing out here is already rather well articulated. I had stories and ideas and models and knew certain things. I had a perspective which they felt was valuable. Doubtless, I will understand this far better when I return home.



Which is what, exactly? I have a home culture where I am comfortable and reality appears to make sense: the industrialized West. I have a group of friends and people who love me in San Francisco. I have a community there. To a certain extent, I don't belong there any more. To a certain extent, I've never felt like I belong anywhere. I realize that this is a totally normal human experience, but I've chosen to see it as my gift. It's the thing that makes my lifestyle possible.



But the people who support me are also what make my lifestyle possible. If I appear not to need you, it's only because you are there for me. Thank you.



I miss you all terribly, but it's not quite time for me to return.

I hestiate to say "adventure", because, really, riding a motorcycle around on public roads is hardly a groundbreaking experience, but just being in India does have a way of scrambling the Western brain.



Last night Ian and I ended up in the town of Palani, Tamil Nadu. There was no reason for us to be there; it's not a tourist spot and isn't even in the index of the Lonely Planet. It was simply a good place to stop for the night. Pulling into town, we discovered that we were in the middle of a festival.



I have no idea how to truly convey the sense of being in this place. Like all of the developing world, India is dirty, crowded, noisy, short on privacy, and full of people trying to cheat you in various minor or major ways. But India has an energy all its own. People are doing things; it moves, it seethes, and it's all color and scent and sound.



There's a temple on the hill in Palani. This is the season for Pongal, a giving of thanks for the harvest. Those people walking on the highway (I use the term losely) were pilgrims, on their way to ascend the hundreds of steps to the shrine. Almost every lodge in town was full; entire extended families were sleeping on the streets, waiting for the temple to open at 5 in the morning. When we visited at about 9:00 AM, the approach was already packed. Stalls on both sides sold coconuts, powder for marking the forhead, garlands, camphor pellets, and other religious necessities, as well as great varieties of cheap plastic trinkets and toys, soveneirs for the visitors and their children. The crowd itself was all of types, men in suits, women in gorgeous saris, groups of shirtless men in black lungis running through the crowd and chanting. People knelt at fires of burning coconut husks on the street, bringing light to their third eye. Hawkers moved throught all of it, selling mosquito nets or plastic bags or banana jam. For a single rupee the elephant would bless your head with her trunk.



I left Ian as he made a call, and walked a few paces away to examine a jam stall. I turned to find him again, and discovered that a family of 15 people had meanwhile settled on the ground beside me, eating a meal off of banana leaf mats placed on the pavement, blocking my way.



I tried to photograph them. I tried to capture bright orange robes and the beatiful women in technicolor saries and the frenetic kneeling prayers. I thought about filming it. I let myself swim in the noises of the crowds and and the honks of the bikes and rickshaws and even trucks pushing people aside. I despaired. Nothing I could write would take you there; one day, maybe, I'll be able to describe the overwhelming sense of the real and the sacred in the same space. But you are not disoriented and overwhelmed. You do not see what it is to be in a truly alien place. I have failed to get the sense of the scene across to you.

We are in a little town called Panvel which is not in the Lonely Planet because there is nothing to see here, unlike (it seems) just about everywhere else in India. But it was a logical place to stop today, really just outside the suburbs of Mumbai, which is incredibly huge. We finally left at rush hour, after days and days of delays in getting the last bike, and so today was our first day on the road. It was exhilarating and terrifying, because of the traffic. I don't know how to describe it. There are no lane markings here; you just go wherever there is a spot for you to be. Everyone honks constantly but that's actually a safety measure to let people know you're there. Sometimes there are carts or cows in the road. It's utter chaos, and feels and probably is very dangerous, but somehow it works. Ian and Slim, both far more experienced riders than me, are exhausted and elated just to be still in one piece. Myself, I feel energized, glad to learn that I can do this, and somehow at peace with the difficulty and risk of this task. When I am riding I am fully aware, every sense engaged.



Fortunately we are out of the city now and the rest of the road should be much easier, and safer. We're also probably the only riders in India wearing not only helmets (rare enough) but armoured jackets and pants, just as we do at home.



We're going to get up at 6 AM tomorrow in an attempt to make the ~450 km to Arambol, Goa by nightfall. So I can't write much right now, except to say that I am ecstatic to be on the road, on this my first day of motorcycle travel ever. I am also completely delighted to be with Ian and Slim again. We've been talking non-stop. I had forgotten how much I enjoy lovely, deep, fast flowing conversation. Furthermore, it's completely wonderful to see them adjusting to India. Today they had (as Slim noted) their first interaction with locals that was not mediated in any way by money, in the form of these children who came up to us while we were stopped -- ironically, beside a McDonald's at a junction in the highway (but the menu is completely different, no beef, separate veg and non-veg sections).



The kids were sharp and engaged, with the fire of intelligence in their eyes. They came up to us out of curiosity, and we took the opportunity to ask if there was anywhere to stay in Panvel. They told us yes, and gave us good directions ("When the highways splits, go down! Do not go on the brige! It is expressway, no bikes allowed!") In turn they asked us where we were from and where we were going and other basic questions. The oldest, a skinny fiery girl of about 11 in a yellow t-shirt, produced a worn notebook and had us each sign it, a memento, she said, of our five-minute lifelong friendship. "Friends not beggars," she said.



It was completely lovely, one of these quintessential travel moments I've had so many of now that I almost close myself off to them. I'm forgetting… I was in Europe for so long and then mostly in tourist-overrun Goa. I've forgotten somewhat what it is to be here. Everything is all new with Ian and Slim. They are still astonished at the crowds of onlookers, at the way that everyone stares at us when we're stopped in traffic, at the gentle dissembling and slow crooked progress of the developing world. And of course, inevitably and beautifully, they are struggling with the dawning realization of how rich and educated they actually are, and how much not like home the rest of the world actually is. "It's all real," Ian told me, "and I don't think I could ever communicate that to anyone who hasn't experienced it." I am looking forward to re-learning all of these things and more, with two of my closest friends.

I pulled up on my stylin' Bajaj 180. Grass parking area to the left, crowded flea market dead ahead.



"You park there."



"What?"



"You park there okay?" The young Indian man was pointing.



"No no, I want to go back to Anjuna. Does the road really go right through the market?"



"This is parking. You cannot park inside."



"I know. Look. I'm not parking. Is this the Anjuna road? Anjuna?"



"You have some soap in your ear."



"What?"



He pointed to my earlobe. "You have soap there."



"Oh." Still sitting on the bike, I reached up a wiped my earlobe with my fingers.



"No no, still soap!" He brought his hand quickly up to my ear. I flinched but he grabbed it, and I let him do whatever it was. I was afraid he was going to stick something in my ear, but he didn't.



"See?" he held out a short piece of thin steel rod, with a big glob of yellow ear wax on the end. Funny, I'd just taken a shower.



"Still more! Wait!" And he lunged at my ear again with both hands. I had a brief panic that he was going to stick that rod through my eardrum. There was a small scraping in the folds of my ear, and again the road came away with a big chunk of wax on the end.



Hmm.



"One second, now I use cotton." He snapped open a small leather pouch around his waist. It was filled with raw white cotton. He pinched off a piece and began to wrap it around the rod, like a home-made Q-Tip.



I guess he found a lot of soap on people's ears.



"No thanks, my friend," and I gunned the engine, heading into the crowd. At least it was paved in that direction.



"Wait!" he called. But I did not wait.



Weaving through the crowds on a narrow path. Dodging vendors, tourists, other foolish motorbikes. A flea market built on and around the main road; no choice but to go ridiculously through it.



I took a sandy turn and stopped to check the traffic ahead. A man approached me, his dress shoddy, his cheeks dark and round.



"Clean your ears sir?"



And he was already opening his pouch as I pulled away.

and on this night sea

what I miss are the moments

immediately after when

you could say anything

like

in you I can feel the ocean

or

do you see me when you close your eyes?

or

we’ll be drifting forever

now those moments are

the reference stars

for certain words





[critiques appreciated]

and on this night sea what I miss are the moments immediately after when you could say anything like in you I can feel the ocean or do you see me when you close your eyes? or we'll always be adrift those moments are the reference stars for certain words

She thumped the big book down on the counter. Textbook of Surgery, International Student's Edition, he read. "You're a medical student? "A doctor, actually. I'm starting my surgery internship next week." Her English was clear and spoken easily. Educated, confident. He saw that her eyes were that strange golden brown unique to ...