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I save a human life......

Sri Lanka, Negombo,
22-04-1995.

It is late afternoon I`ve just come back from my room after a shower, 75 laps I did in the hotel`s swimming-pool.....Can`t believe I managed that after my negative life style of the last 5/6 months in India. Tonight I`ll be on my way back to Amsterdam - if that is the wish of Lord Shiva - but now I`m freshly showered, have got my best clothes on, have an expensive hotel courtesy of AirLanka, just done 75 laps around the pool...

I need a beer cold and straight from the bottle. The pool is busy now, mostly locals, middle class Sri Lanka families with their kids. The open air bar is located right next to the bar, the atmosphere is good, some young indian ladies at the bar give me a nice smile, life is good...

The beer is cold just the way I like it. I look around to distract myself from the indian beauties who sure seem to have the hots for me. Just mere meters away from me, at the side of the pool I see a small boy in swimming shorts, lost and alone, tears in his eyes, in the middle of all these local people having fun and being merry, our eyes lock and my mind goes into a different realm, something is seriously wrong here...

I get up from my bar stool leaving the indian beauties alone, ignoring the disappointment in their eyes and walk over to this kid, not knowing why but the feeling of something bad upper most in my mind.

He looks up at me with his big brown eyes full with tears and point a bony finger down at a dark shape two meters down on the bottom of the pool, without a moment`s hestitation I jump in - forget about the nice clothes I was gonna wear on tonight`s plane to Amsterdam - .....the shape turns out to be his father and when I come up from the pool`s depth people are suddenly aware of was is happening, help to get the poor bastart out, I walk back to the bar, wed like as a fish, grin at the indian ladies and drink my ice-cold beer.

Twenty min. or so later the little family comes over to the bar, father still shaken, mother a few shades paler and the kid bearing a beaming smile, to thank me. Other people have already been ther to shake my hand and tell me what a big hero I am...

Strange end to my trip.....

The "DOG-CLEAN-PEOPLE", baba.

India, Trivandrum,
21-04-1995.

An indian on the beach told me this morning why his dog - a typical indian mongrel - has got a blue colored robe around his neck.

"To show the DOG-CLEAN-PEOPLE that my dog has a boss, baba, otherwise the "DOG-CLEAN-PEOPLE" will give my dog an injection, baba, not good for dog and I`ll no longer have a dog, baba".

I`ve moved to Trivandrum this morning because it is closer to the airport and I now suffer from the usual frantic worrying just before departure, will my plane be in time, do I`ve the actual flying date, will my plane make it to Sri Lanka or will the Tamil Tigers shoot it out of the sky, will the plane have enough kerosine aboard to cross over to...well, I`m sure you get the picture.

I did a desperate search for beedies - a handrolled india tabacco leave very popular among the locals - to sell at the dutch Queen`s Day once back home...though I am totally in the gray colored mists inside my f*cked-up mind what I really wanna do oncde I get back to Amsterdam after all this time.

Animals in Kovalam.

India,Kovalam, 19-04-1995.

When I wake up at four o`clock in the morning, still drowsy but already desperate for a Kerala grass joint, I see a huge cockroach walking on the wall of my room.

A dark green frog hides under a table in one of the beach restaurants while half a yard away a crab desperately digs a hole in the sand trying to save itself from being stepped on by one of the many passing waiters.

In the morning I`ve breakfast and watch two black/grey colored crows tip the lid of the sugar-bowl on the table, gorging themselves on the sweet delicacy inside while a third crow, perched high on chair, keeps a look out for the restaurant`s waiters.

I guess there is no spiritual quest - or the disappointment of failure - in their animal minds, just the daily worries of getting enough food inside, necessary energy for movement and procreation...

Divine inspiration.

India, Kovalam,
18-04-1995.

Sketchbook at the ready I sit on the beach and wait for divine inspiration, scenes to sketch.

Actually there is so much to sketch that it would be better to say I can`t choose and wait for Lord Shiva to tell me where to lock my eyes on and start drawing...

Like the middle class families that have come by bus from Trivandrum for a family`s outing to the beach. Husband carrying a freezer with food and drinks dressed in his best suit, wife - dressed in her best sari and busy with her kids - dragging an enormous suitcase with all the necesities for a day on the Kovalam beach. It reminds me of my own childhood, but only temporarely...

The memories disappear fast in the dark and endless void - I`m sure of it - is hidden somewhere in the fast volumes of open space that make up my mind. Well, at least I got my inspiration now!!!!!!!!!!

A desperate spiritual search.

Kovalam, 17-04-1995.

When I left Amsterdam nearly one year and six months ago now, I felt like going on a spiritual quest, a search for myself. I remember Lord Shiva's test, sending me that dark-skinned Surinam beauty that tried so hard to make me return to Amsterdam within months of the trip, a fruitless feminine attempt to convince me of the crazyness of my search for my inner being...

Now, sitting here late into the night, hearing the waves of the on-coming tide outside, in the closed confinement of my room that I rent for a meagre 50 Rp. a night, I`m still searching desperately for an answer to my excistence, the very reason for my presence here on this planet, just a mere speck of dust in this infinite universe. And however hard I have tried I`ve found no answer......Krisna or Jesus, Jaweh or Allah, Shiva and Ganesh, Vishnu nor Manitou; they all left me alone on my spiritual and lonely quest.

All these months alone travelling around Southeast Asia, immersing myself in the hippy scene, trying to do it the Sadhu way smoking charras from the holy Chilum...

Exhausted and in sheer fustration I light yet another joint......stumbling to the bathroom to clean my mouth of cheap tabacco fumes and "expensive" Kerala grass. I see myself in the bathroom mirror, a face I hardly regocnise, hollow and covered by a long bushy beard. I think about sexy thai Hot Mommas and gently phillipino Hunting Girls.

My desperate quest a fruitless one. What a shitty time to come to that conclusion, just five days before my return trip to Amsterdam......

My dairy, a life-line!

India, Kovalam,
15-04-1995.

Two days passed and I don`t remember much of them apart from a feeble and half hearted attempt to "ride" the waves again.

I didn`t get out of my room much apart from the necesary exits for food which I mostly took back to my room and ate inside.

I didn`t do much on this dairy either and have come to realise that this dairy, the stories I write down, the sketches I draw of the world around me the way I perceive it, the dates I put down every day, are my life-line to the actual realitiy.

Not the Indian Express that I usually read in the morning skipping over the dates and reading mostly world news only, though some local news stories can be hilarious, but mostly it all goes way beyond me.

Amsterdam where I`ll soon be...back home again....all of it seems way beyond me, maybe diving into this alternative hippy scene in India was not such a good idea after all.

I mean this is obviously more than just short time memory loss, this to my wesdtern trained mind, seems more like a complete back-out.

Shit, I`ve to go back to Mr. Bart Stokvis his Tae-kwondo dojo and work out like mad for the next few months after returning and hope that that will repair some of the physical and mental damage I`ve done to myself these last six months in India.

My head full with home.

India, Kovalam,
12-04-1995.

I still smoke Un Monton De weed at night alone in my room and spend time En La Playa at sunset tripping on the blood-red sky while smoking my treasured Kerala weed, the waves that roll in as they have probably done for only Lord Shiva knows how long.

Long walks alone along the beach, old restaurants have closed down while new ones have become popular - partly becuase of their newly bought video equipment - my head full with home, full with thoughts of home, my friends and my foes, going back after nearly one year and six months in Asia.

Riding the waves.

India, Kovalam,
11-04-1995.

Every morning while I have breakfast, and for the rest of the day untill about dusk I wonder about the hilarious screaming of the "Idiots-Who-Ride-The-Waves". They swim up to a big wave - quite big waves here - and turn back swimming as fast as they possibly can just before being engulved by the wave.

If you turn back at the precise moment and swim fast enough you can end up "riding" the crest of the wave for some time. It is then, by tradition, you scream at the top of your lungs.

I tried it today and the increased level of adraline while "riding" the wave justifies a healthy scream.

The smell of roasting fish on the display tables in front of the beach restaurants, fills the nostrils of my nose while I sit on the beach in darkness and ponder about my imminent departure - and subsequent arrival - back home.

A fly in my chicken fried rice.

India, Kovalam,
still late at night.

A fly had the "honourable" luck to land on my Chicken Fried Rice under preperation in the kitchen. I find the poor creature back in a heap of rice on my spoon 10 minutes or so later. His body fluids having coloured the rice around it a deep scarlet red.

The color reminds me of Rona`s menstrual flood that came out of her private female part together with my male member - both of it prematurely - only a few short weeks ago in our room in the Evergreen Hotel in Jaipur.

Our last attempt at Cupido`s game allthus ended abruptly and, in a way, disasterously

African death camps.

India, Kovalam,
10-04-1995.

Kovalam`s men in blue - In India their finest are actually dressed in khaki-brown - stroll aimlessly on the beach while Kasmiri businessmen try hard to sell chilums at inflated prices.

Gorgeous japanese ladies alone and on their own, devour me with their hazel-like eyes. I walk past them my head high on my last Kerala grass.

I try so hard to smoke it all that late at night and alone in my room I start hearing the screams of the african death camps I was at so incredibly long ago...making me realise maybe this wasn't a spiritual quest but search for oblivion of scenes that I will probably take to my grave...

In the sounds of the waves that roll in with the on-coming tide it starts to sound like something out of a horror movie. Oh, yeah, I can hear it all again very clearly now......crying babies and screaming mothers standing helplessly by while their infants starve to a miserable death.

All of that shit in the peacefull sounds of the waves just a mere twenty meters outside my room. SHIT I`M REALLY STONED NOW!!!

Nearly going home.

India, Kovalam,
09-04-1995.

It has been well over five months ago sice last I wandered around in the small fisherman villages in this area, alone and sober untill I met Christina...

Strange and almost bizarre to be here now nearly at the end of my trip. A trip that toke almost one year and a half.

Strange feeling to go back to Amsterdam in just a few short weeks.

When I left I was fit working out at the Dojo every night, got my black belt Tae-kwondo only days before leaving.

Now, after having done the alternative circuit, following the hippy route around India, hanging out with them and trying to understand their way of life, their facination with the infamous indian charas and chilam culture, on a spiritual quest that had no right of excistence to begin with and was totally fruitless...

It`s almost over now, my last Kerala grass disappearing fast, time to shave off my full and bushy beard, cut off the pony-tail that has nearly reached my bum, time to return to Amsterdam and my "other" life.

Kerala grass side effects.

India,Kovalam,
08-04-1995.

Smoking soft Kerala grass has got several side effect. Apart from getting mellowly high - not a bad feeling - it gives you gagging dry throat and serious attacks of the munchies. Not so good in India where the local chocolate is rumoured to stay in one piece only because of the huge quatities of oil added, now that cannot be very good for your health.

Insomnia, yet another side effect I suffer occasionally. But I spend my sleepless nights smoking yet more grass and sketching in my sketch book, eventually faaling asleep out of sheer exhaustion.

A desperate expert.

India, Kovalam,
07-04-1995.

With the eye of a desperate expert I look at the lone women on the beach of Kovalam. Most of the day, though, I spend in my room trying to recover from my 57 hour train trip from Dehli to Trivandrum.

A three day train trip part three.

Day time, somewhere across the Indian Sub-continent,

The one year old baby-boy of one of my fellow travellers has a shit and a pee in the gangway. While I sit and count how many people step into fresh baby-boy shit and urine, the mother is desperately trying to clean it all up with a dirty piece of her sari. I wonder why she doesn`t give her sprout a diaper.

In this part of the world some people are so poor they don`t even have the salt for their soup or diapers for their babies I`m afraid.

Another kid - quite a few years older and belonging to a middle class family - but his more advanced age not withstanding his parents feed him by hand. Not that the little shit appreciates it. He spits his food all around him. In a childish way his dad gives him a soft pad on his behind. Surprised by such "violent" punishment "Señor Grande" screams the whole train together.

The hours strech into yet more endless hours, more boring and exhausting hours. Every so often somebody pulls the emergency brake, they are near the village where they live so why bother waiting untill the next station when you can get off here? Saves you the money for the transport back to your village as well as time.

But everyting has got an end and in pouring rain and late afternoon the train pulls into Trivandrum station, I get off and take an auto-rickshaw for Kovalam.

A three day train trip part two.

Nighttime, somewhere across the Indian Sub-continent.

It`s three o`clock in the morning and the whole train is dead asleep when the train makes a stop in an extreme small village. I`m fast asleep myself in in the middle of an erotic dream featuring myself and half a dozen beautiful women spanning as many different nationalities and skin colours, when I wake up with a start to a very loud and very persistent CHAI...chaiCHAICHAIchai....CHAICHAIchai. It`s the local chai wallah CHAICHAICHAI again.

How this particular nasty fella has managed to get across all that junk outside in the gangway, all the people sleeping there with their animals, his only illumination the dimmed light from the station`s platform, I`ve no idea....nor do I care much. I`ve serious intentions to take his bloody head off...but let`s not do that, I`m a guest in this country nor do I wanna end up in an indian jail for manslaughtering a crazy chai wallah, let`s leave it to the locals, surely they`ll kill this nutcase. Well, no, everybody wakes up, gets a dirty one Rp. note, buys a chai and goes back to sleep.

A three day train trip part one.

India, New Dehli,
04-04-1995.

Like always when I take a train in this country, I`m acutely aware I`m in the third world. It`s India for real on the train!!! Since I`m a western tourist and have to dough to prove it, I was clever enough to reserve a bunk bed in a train compartment. Only the middle - and upper class can affort a bunk on the train. All the other passengers either travel on hard wooden benches,third class or outside in the gangway.

I`ve heard a rumour that the indian railway company is trying to discourage the locals from taking all their junk with them on the train, judging from the 50.000 kg. outside my compartment I would say that they are not having much success.

A trip to the toilet is quite an adventure trying to get across all that luggage, people sitting patiently on top of it, chicken and piglets - probably a food gift for whoever they gonna visit - rowdy children - mostly boys - but I manage, well, excuse me but I still have to get that indian off his free seat, that is..... the toilet seat, sorry mate but I need to have a pee, hope you don`t mind. Now I need to make it all the way back to my compartment acroos all that junk, across all that live pet shit.

I`ve no doubt that I`ll wake up to the cockerel`s crawing, as a matter of fact I`ve seen several cockerels so sure as hell they will try to outdo each other tommorow morning early.

A lone elefant.

Delhi, later the same day.

An old and sinister looking indian with dark-brown stained teeth - too much beetle juice I guess - on the lawn of Cannaugh Place wants me to take a look at his recomendation-book telling me he does good massage. I tell him I`ve a big problem as far as massage goes "I only like massage from ladies".

A flicka frän Sverige agrees with me and tells the dirty unkempt bugger to piss off. I quietly agree with her.

When I walk back to Pahar Ganj to pick up my gear - I`ll leave tonight for the three day train trip to Kovalam in the south - I watch a lone elefant marching down Pahar Ganj - where in the world does one see a lone elefant marching down the street in a big metropole like New Dehli? - I think about Rona and her obsession with these huge giant mastodonts, she must be in Bhuj by now.

I play with myself.

Dehli,
03-04-1995.

"I play with myself all the time" showing me and Ivo her fingers. "From the front and the back and for blue movies for Europe", an asian woman tells us in one of the many restaurants in Panhar Ganj. The crazy little bitch looks like she is on something and we decide to ignore her. Probably one of these lost souls, lost in India and lost in life. Too bad because she surely is not bad looking with a nice personality.

She reminds me a little bit of the Hot Mommas on the boulevard in that Male Kingdom called Pattaya back in Thailand. One of these poor Isaan women who has waited for ever for a farang to take her home, back to fabled Europe, give her a better life and a few children. It never happened, instead she had to make ends meet, sell her nubile young body to an endless stream of sex-hungry fat european lone males who introduced her to King Alcohol, sigarettes and the like. To deal with all that shit she started taking Yaa Baa.

I have met so many of them during my many trips to Thailand. And I`ve seen them going downhill fast and with no hope.

This little crazy bitch might well be one of them but I don`t wanna know. I presume I could show off my thai to Ivo but what is the point???

Pahar Ganj.

India, Delhi,
02-04-1995.

Rona kissed me adios this morning at 04.00 o`clock before leaving for Bhuj. I was hardly aware of her departure from my life untill I woke up several hours later and realised yet another woman who passed by in my life is gone, maybe forever.

The 6 hour train trip to Dehli streched into a full 9 hours and together with Ivo - a dutch bloke from Amsterdam I met on the train I took a room at the Hare Khrisna guest house in Pahar Ganj, the big shopping street right opposite the main train station.

Pahar Ganj is full with little guest houses, tourist restaurants and tourist oriented shops. Many of which cater especially to people from the recently collapsed Soviet Union.

These people come here en masse now to buy whatever they can put there hands on and sell it back home with enormous profits. Many of these shops have syrilic signs above their businesses trying to lure the former soviet people in.I see them leaving the shops burdened by huge packs.

Little alternative tourist ladies with rasta hair and sitting at the next table watch in wonder while I make quick sketches in my travel log.