Tuesday, September 27, 2005
And then the dam just broke
Maybe my kinehoras weren't properly fervent. Maybe I didn't beat my breast enough. Maybe going Pooh pooh pooh over your shoulder isn't enough, you really have to hock and spit. Maybe the wood I was knocking on was formica or medium density flake. Or maybe it's just that there's a limit to one's felix felicis. Because a day or two after crowing over the fortitude of my bowels, a particularly delicious chicken korma pulverized my intestines. I haven't been right since. I'm down to about three Cipro, for all the good it does. I was thoroughly incapacitated one day in Kathmandu--naturally the hottest day since Shanghai, as well as the day I had to find the post office and ship stuff home.
This is the Nepali GPO. The biggest post office in the country. The last post office I was in was the supremely efficient Lhasa post office, where the man whose sole job it is to tape and wrap parcels has got it down to an art form. He's the kung fu master of taping, fast as lightning, deadly to his enemies (careless parcel handlers). This, though, was a small compound of very unairconditioned concrete rooms. The parcels department, where I spent an hour, doubled over with raging diarrhea and starvation (having thoroughly voided my body of nutrients throughout the morning), is, aside from the desk where they overcharge you, mostly an old man and woman sitting on a bench, with a younger man next to them. This last turns a red stick of wax over a candle-flame, and the woman measures a length of muslin to fit your box, which has probably traveled around the world five, six times already, then tears it, the old man slowly, very, very slowly sews the muslin around your box, and finally the guy with the wax drips it over the stitching and seals it. Finally, you write your address in marker on the muslin. The process takes forever, and what you are left with at the end is a dubious box bound up in a pillowcase. Then they ask you for $40, and of course they don't take Visa, you idiot. Aiya.
Anyhow, I recovered somewhat and made it here to Cairo largely without incident. The Doha airport was something: crazy duty-free, whiteclad sheiks walking around, hot as all hell on the tarmac (we are in full desert). The bus in front of us had an ad for Al-Jazeera Children's Network. The prices, though, were the most stunning part. It makes you realize just how cheap Nepal and China are when suddenly you're conronted with a three-dollar Coke. Finally I settled on a meager $3.50 burger. That place was scary, man. Woof.
And to Cairo then I came. My bags, against all odds, did arrive, and I somehow found Ben in the middle of the city. We checked into my hostel ($2 per night) and went for some food, koshari, a local mishmash of macaroni, rice, potato shavings, fava beans, tomato sauce and I'm not too clear on what else. Egyptian food is disappointing. And by disappointing I mean it pretty roundly sucks. You think one of the most longest-surviving civilizations in the world might, in the course of 6000 years, have gotten their shit together and whacked up some decent nosherei, but no, they were too busy doing, apparently, fuck all nothing between the Ptolemaic period and the Nasser era. No, really. The Egyptian museum, for instance, has no evidence of anything past the era of Alexander's invasion (Alexandrian graffiti at Luxor, by the way, is awesome). Basically they have three dishes: koshari, which Ben eats daily, and with inexplicable relish, fuul, which is a spiced-up mush of beans and taamiya, which is essentially falafel, only apparently death to my innards, because it was, I think, a few consecutive meals of taamiya which touched off this second bout of Ramses II's Revenge. This time, it hit on the train back to Cairo from Luxor, which I will get to presently, as it was brilliant. First class my ass; I slept on the floor. Slept is a relative term, though, as I spent just much time athwart the throne as I did par terre.
I must go meet Ben now. I think we may try to find me a doctor. This affliction is very tiresome, and I didn't get all that damn travel insurance for nothing. More anon. One love.
UPDATE: The Yankees, with what, one week to go, and a series with the Red Sox imminent, have come from five games down in the AL East to finally push ahead of those fuckers up North by a half game, as well as draw even with the resurgent Cleveland Indians for the wild card. We make make the playoffs yet. Come on, kids. Redemption.
This is the Nepali GPO. The biggest post office in the country. The last post office I was in was the supremely efficient Lhasa post office, where the man whose sole job it is to tape and wrap parcels has got it down to an art form. He's the kung fu master of taping, fast as lightning, deadly to his enemies (careless parcel handlers). This, though, was a small compound of very unairconditioned concrete rooms. The parcels department, where I spent an hour, doubled over with raging diarrhea and starvation (having thoroughly voided my body of nutrients throughout the morning), is, aside from the desk where they overcharge you, mostly an old man and woman sitting on a bench, with a younger man next to them. This last turns a red stick of wax over a candle-flame, and the woman measures a length of muslin to fit your box, which has probably traveled around the world five, six times already, then tears it, the old man slowly, very, very slowly sews the muslin around your box, and finally the guy with the wax drips it over the stitching and seals it. Finally, you write your address in marker on the muslin. The process takes forever, and what you are left with at the end is a dubious box bound up in a pillowcase. Then they ask you for $40, and of course they don't take Visa, you idiot. Aiya.
Anyhow, I recovered somewhat and made it here to Cairo largely without incident. The Doha airport was something: crazy duty-free, whiteclad sheiks walking around, hot as all hell on the tarmac (we are in full desert). The bus in front of us had an ad for Al-Jazeera Children's Network. The prices, though, were the most stunning part. It makes you realize just how cheap Nepal and China are when suddenly you're conronted with a three-dollar Coke. Finally I settled on a meager $3.50 burger. That place was scary, man. Woof.
And to Cairo then I came. My bags, against all odds, did arrive, and I somehow found Ben in the middle of the city. We checked into my hostel ($2 per night) and went for some food, koshari, a local mishmash of macaroni, rice, potato shavings, fava beans, tomato sauce and I'm not too clear on what else. Egyptian food is disappointing. And by disappointing I mean it pretty roundly sucks. You think one of the most longest-surviving civilizations in the world might, in the course of 6000 years, have gotten their shit together and whacked up some decent nosherei, but no, they were too busy doing, apparently, fuck all nothing between the Ptolemaic period and the Nasser era. No, really. The Egyptian museum, for instance, has no evidence of anything past the era of Alexander's invasion (Alexandrian graffiti at Luxor, by the way, is awesome). Basically they have three dishes: koshari, which Ben eats daily, and with inexplicable relish, fuul, which is a spiced-up mush of beans and taamiya, which is essentially falafel, only apparently death to my innards, because it was, I think, a few consecutive meals of taamiya which touched off this second bout of Ramses II's Revenge. This time, it hit on the train back to Cairo from Luxor, which I will get to presently, as it was brilliant. First class my ass; I slept on the floor. Slept is a relative term, though, as I spent just much time athwart the throne as I did par terre.
I must go meet Ben now. I think we may try to find me a doctor. This affliction is very tiresome, and I didn't get all that damn travel insurance for nothing. More anon. One love.
UPDATE: The Yankees, with what, one week to go, and a series with the Red Sox imminent, have come from five games down in the AL East to finally push ahead of those fuckers up North by a half game, as well as draw even with the resurgent Cleveland Indians for the wild card. We make make the playoffs yet. Come on, kids. Redemption.
 |  |
 | |
 | |
 | |
| Graphic Design Job |
