13/7/12
Nearly every single faucet in Phey Gompa tells me to
‘Smile.’ This really is a wonderfully uplifting reminder, particularly when
violently evacuating one’s bowels. I am not being sarcastic (well, a little
bit), but it really does lift my spirits whenever I go to the toilet for a pee
or a poo, and am reminded to smile.
Every morning, like clockwork, roughly half-an-hour before
10 a.m., based on quite a strong feeling in my bowels, I find myself reasonably
compelled to go to the bathroom. And surely enough, every morning for the last
few days, I have taken a poo at nearly the exact same time. I suspect it might
have something to do with the various pills I have been taking for the allergic
reaction and infection that developed in my right hand thanks to a very nasty
bug bite and muscle fatigue.
Only after the fact, have I realized that the antibiotic I
was prescribed for the infection inside my right hand is Amoxycillin, a derivative
of penicillin. I used to be allergic to Amoxycillin, penicillin in general, as
the first and, until now, only time I had been given Amoxycillin was as a child.
I vaguely remember being given it for the stomach flu, but this would not make
much since as the stomach flu is a virus, or so I am led to believe, as
antibiotics do not work against viruses. Anyway, several hours after taking the
first dose of Amoxycillin, which I remember being a foul tasting pink liquid—though
less chalky than Pepto-Bismol—I found myself doing a lot of scratching all over
my body. And soon enough, my mother noticed I had developed a great number of
red blotches, all of which I found to be quite itchy. We rushed to the doctor’s
office, or maybe it was the hospital as it was the evening and the doctor’s was
likely closed; they declared I was allergic to penicillin and all its lovely
derivatives, and that was the end of that. I’m pretty sure I was able to get a
new toy out of the whole ordeal, so all in all, not so terrible an experience.
Now, however, it seems that I have outgrown my penicillin allergy, as for the
last five days I have been taking two tablets of Augmentin 625 Duo daily, of
which one tablet is, according to the box, “Amoxycillin Trihydrate IP
equivalent to Amoxycillin 500 mg [&] Potassium Clavulanate IP (as Potassium
Clavulanate Diluted IP) equivalent to Clavulanic Acid 125 mg.” Therefore I have
been taking a gram (that’s 1000 mg for those of you unfamiliar with the metric
system) of Amoxycillin on a daily basis with no side-effects, at least that I
know of, on top of 250 mg of Clavulanic Acid, the effects or purpose of which I
haven’t the slightest clue. No itchy red blotches, no evening trips to the
hospital, no new toy. Things sure have changed since I was five years-old.
30/7/12
Back on Amoxycillin following the motorcycle accident, this
time with no obvious gastrointestinal side effects; I’m pretty sure it dries
out my skin though.
There are so many attractive blond girls…why are they here?
My mind is in the gutter. Or rather, my mind is the gutter.
4/8/12
The Israeli children, blond-haired and blue-eyed, are among
the least Jewish-looking children I have ever seen. What is strange though, is
this is only true of girls. The male Israeli children are for the most part,
unremarkable in their Aryan qualities, but by Moses, the little Israeli girls
look as though they could be in 1930’s Germany’s Mickey Mouse Club.
I can quite safely say, without exaggerating in the least,
tourists now completely outnumber the Ladakhis, at least in the more frequented
parts of Leh. The tourist demographics have shifted as well, with White people
now far outnumbering Indians. This does not sit well with me, and it is now
easy to see why traditional Ladakhi culture is disappearing as fast as it is.
With each successive season, a new tsunami of tourists washes away ever more of
the Ladakh with which I first fell in love. It is a very real fear of mine that
before this decade is through, the soul of Leh will have died, replaced by or
rather subsumed by materialism and hollow Western tourist culture. This once
fertile oasis of unique culture and religion thus rendered a soulless backpackers
and tourist ghetto, Nubra and Zanskar soon to follow. Fuck Lonely Planet,
they may mean well, but the effect of guide books on Nepal and India (and
elsewhere I am sure) has been to stifle the dynamic nature of life; transplanting
the cage of order, constancy, and control that dominates life in the West onto
life in the East…and strangling it in the process. A life lived according to a
schedule is not lived at all. As people become more and more reliant upon the
order of things, upon schedules and reminders and SIRI, they lose the ability
to respond spontaneously to difficult situations, to remain calm in turbulence,
and to appreciate life as it unfolds, regardless of whether or not in conforms to
our best laid plans. Life is full of river crossings where there are no
bridges, something learned quite readily here through personal experience. You
either get your feet wet, or you don’t cross. In the West, we build up so many
layers of insulation between us and the world we inhabit in a vain and
misguided attempt to escape the pain of life. But in doing so, in subscribing
to a life solely of comfort we lose our connection to the world, we become numb
to existence and fail to appreciate the dynamic nature of being. Any real
reward demands struggle and sacrifice, the sort of experiences which touch and
uplift the soul cannot be ordered with a few clicks on Amazon.com. A golden
cage is still a cage.
Why do so many (White) people who come here dress like
hippies and bums? I truly do not understand it. No living being ever native to
India has ever dressed like this…ever. There is no basis for it at all, no
cultural precedent or antecedent. Is it that people (tourists) are so ignorant
as to think this is a part of the traditional culture? Or is it that by
dressing as hippies they are somehow convincing themselves that they have
achieved some sort of materialistically endowed equanimity? Truly, I am at a
loss. And the jorts! So many people in jorts! Here’s some advice, take it or
leave it: if ever you find yourself wearing jorts whilst in India or Nepal, it
is time you go home.
Tattoos are stupid; they are either an advertisement or a
reminder, the epidermis being a terrible place for both. That’s just my
personal opinion. Here are the only things, I think, permanently worth etching into
one’s skin: “All life is suffering.” “Everything is impermanent.” “Go read a
book.”
-Doug B.
