varanasi

so last night i electracuted myself. see i was trying to plug in the rice cooker that i borrowed from dr. raju... but the plug has been taken off, as is common practice in india, and i just stick the three wires into the three holes in the wall. something happened and my hand started bouncing around until the wire dropped out of it and i regained control. it felt odd.

then the top to the rice cooker broke (well technically I broke it) so i couldnt make rice anyway. this whole rice thing is much more inconvenient than one would imagine. today i just ordered it from a restaurant even though ive been given strict instructions to only eat it within 5 minutes of being prepared. fuck it. i needed rice.

so varanasi. it actually breaks my heart that i cant use my camera here. this is a city that is made for pictures and its what i think about as i walk around the alleys - maybe they are roads as there seem to be sub-alleys off of the alleys but no one can drive down any of them. its really very dirty here. not just the water, but everything. more so than the other places ive been in india... i have discovered a new trick though... i pretend to be italian. i mean i am italian, but i pretend to be an italian speaker that knows no english. this has two benefits: i get to practice my italian (which i failed to do before even though ive been hanging out with italians since i got to india), and people stop begging once they realize i dont know what they're saying. i feel a little weird about lying. but truthfully not very guilty.

so back to the dirt... like in the rest of india trash is burned at the end of everyday, so i turn my fan to high and hope the windyness blows the smell away. there are a lot of drugs in varanasi... it seems to be a theme, "hash... coke... blah blah... yes miss?" i try to tell them in italian that i cant even drink juice, never mind smoke weed, but they dont understand. so i listen to this as background music and try not to step in cow shit. well... its actually buffalo shit as the buffallo are hearded through the alleys from the ganges where they are washed. i prefer buffalo because they have yet to bruise me. two cows have headbutted me in the hip so far in india. once yesterday as i climbed over a fence in the middle of the road to escape traffic (true i did get in its way), and once in delhi. i think it was delhi... whatever. there are cows everywhere.

(these are the water buffalo)

so after my sunrise boat trip to view the ghats i think i will be ready to leave varanasi. im not loving it so much as you told me i would joanna! but i am enjoying myself. im just craving seeing some green things growing or something. just one little patch of clean... it can even be a patch of dirt thats not laced with remnants of used toilet paper. just one little patch of pure. :)

this is by my hotel in the evening.