I have travelled enough in third world places now to know exactly when I am getting sick, so today when I encountered the all too familiar internal percolations, I rushed back to my hotel. I was anticipating a long and drawn out stay in the bathroom, so I brought an arsenal of toilet paper and reading materials which I was careful to organize for easy access. I placed my book on top of the toilet, behind the bowl and then turned around to double check that I had enough toilet paper ( Nepali bathrooms do not come with the stock equipment of an American facility, so we fend for ourselves and prepare in advance). I turned back to face the toilet only to watch my book slide off the top of the porcelain and drop neatly into the bowl. The book’s title was Angle of Repose.


I have only myself to blame for the tragedy of my bowels because I have not been taking very good care to maintain the status of my good health. Upon our return from the Khumbu, Dave and I have met with an unexpected and vibrant social life rife with colorful characters from all over the globe. Understandably we seek to learn all we can from these people, and understandably we must drink until all hours of the night to do so.
This is easier said than done in the new Maoist controlled government of Nepal. In efforts to improve the safety of their streets, the Maoists have instituted a curfew of 11 pm for all locals and tourists (barking dogs are exempt). I have come to view the Maoists as “fun-haters” much like the various brands of Puritans that lobby against gay marriage and drunk driving in the states, mostly because of a certain apocryphal incident involving the severe beating of a poor farmer and bootlegger of chang, a rice beer tasting vaguely of goat and containing chunks of rotten rice, when making chang was outlawed. I later found out that the outlawing of chang was to help artificially raise the price of rice in the local market as a sort of economic stimulus, but I see the Maoists as fun haters nonetheless. These fun haters have allegedly cut off the hands of hashish dealers to discourage the bourgeoisie vice of "getting a little stoned," but as the propensity of dealers to hastle tourists would attest, this has been no deterrent whatsoever.

One must beware of looking aimless while roaming the streets in Thamel, Kathmandu's tourist district, lest every third stranger muble "hash, marijuana, speed, LSD, coco-puffs" under their breath as you pass. Which begs the question, what are coco-puffs? Or maybe you'll see the guys who just mumble "you want something?" as you pass, to which you might respond "don't we all want something?" I wonder what exact "something" these people would be capable of supplying, if asked. The possibilities are limitless no doubt, as I have been approached by the same low-voice-mumbling hawkers who query "you like pucking?"
The hawkers of legal goods can approach the transaction in a much more audible manner. Several times I have been screamed at by purveyors of Tiger Balm. Selling Tiger Balm, the asian version of "icy-hot," is the entry level in a slow ascenscion to the top of the hawker hierarchy. Much like one must build Karma to assure ascendancy in the next life and eventually escape the cycle of death and rebirth, so must one first sell tiger balm before one can traffic narcotics. The rhetorical lessons learned in Tiger Balm sales ("Tiger Balm! Good medicine, very cheap!") will be useful later in narcotic sales in the more muffled tones ("hash, marijuana, Good medicine, very cheap!") and in the rhetoric over the flesh trade ("pucking? Good medicine, very cheap!"). One moves from Tiger Balm to Swiss Army Knives to miniature screechy violins to chess sets to drugs to pucking in much the same way s I went from paper route to bagel boy to pizza delivery to teaching high school to unemployed climbing bum, Nirvana being the obvious end goal.