Wild times in the jungle - part one

Let's start at the beginning - Last Saturday night - which feels like a year ago now Javier - a young percussionist from Spain and I had had enough noise, air pollution and general insanity here in Chennai and bought a plane ticket - 45 mins to Bangalore - which was 10 times worse traffic wise - wound up in an absolutely hellish traffic jam crawling along sucking in pounds of carbon monoxide with each breath - I get dizzy thinking about it -

Made it down to the train station which on a Saturday night was nothing short of mind boggling - People here really are aggressive in cues - Will push and shove and cut in line without thinking twice - Wound up staying at a clean hotel with a cranky clerk in the funky Majestic, kinda sleazy part of town - air pollution sting my eyes, you could cut this schitt with a knife! Incredible movie posters everywhere -

Best ones are torn with others popping through underneath like wild haphazard collages - The whole city was just buzzing - Up early the next morn thanks to a crowing rooster with tuburculosis - sounded like Waits - Hopped the Semi Deluxe bus to Mysore With a road full of pot holes and no shocks on the bus it suddenly dawns on me - the origin of Mysore -as in my sore ass! But a sweet, beautiful town with a great bazaar and absolutely stunning palace - My favorite spot so far -

Flowers, incense, perfumes, beads and the most psychedelic sarees and clothes everywhere - these Hindus are such hippies! So we hop in a 4 wheel drive with an Indian family South to Mudumalai past incredible banyan trees, naked saddus, lush green fields, cocoanut vendors, - they drop us off in this tiny town just north of Ooty where the resort is -

Don't wanna stay in some stinkin' resort on New Years - This town, Masamgudi, is like something out of McCabe and Mrs Miller - incredibly rustic - cows, monkeys, everywhere in the street - 3 mosques in a one street town - All hotels are booked! It's New Years Eve... and the sun is going down and its getting cold - we're in the mountains - when some young guy with a jeep offers us his "high class" tree house for the night for about $20 - Cool - I'll send the pics -

a little bamboo hut up on stilts with two beds and a tiny toilet - Javier and I end up providing the entertainment on bamboo flute, harmonica and kanjira - Indian tambourine - which he teaches to the kids - after some curry i say i wanna walk into town for some wine but our host says "No, when sun goes down a wild boar on the road attacks" - Ah, just like the good old days - a monster in the dark -

So we drive hearing the call to prayer reverberating from loud speakers over the hills - a voice that sounds like its saying"God is lonely - Come visit!" We return and sit around a blazing fire with a bottle of red sticky sweet wine and play - more neighbors arrive entranced by the music - "Like Lord Krishna" a young smiling woman from Burma says - After New Year hugs and distant fire works everyone starts talking to me about politics - the execution of Saddam and of course Bush but I don't care because driving into town I got my first eyeful of elephant - Froze my ass off all night while Javier kept running to the toilet with a bad case of the runs -

Up at five am to eat eggs fried in olve oil but J. is sick, pale green, shaking so I give him my blanket, say a prayer for the cat and take the trek into the jungle alone with a guide (pix to come) The eggs are warm and delish but J. can't eat them - so I down 4 eggs - 4! more than I've had in a month - having high cholesteral I usually never touch them - But I'm hungry and don't know when or if I'm getting back from this jungle trek - The jeep drops us by the side of the road and we start to walk through the bush as the sun rises casting long shadows across blonde straw grass -

My guide walks so carefully and quietlt and although I try - branches crackle beneath me feet with nearly every step - there's animal schitt everywhere - no respect I tells ya - they'll crap anywhere - sparkling white quartz, flowering cactus - "Too see tiger you need big luck," is the only thing my guide says all morning -