India: An Experimental backpacking to the North & Goa

Part 4

Udaipur

06.09.2005

That morning after, I met up with Martin and Ina at Dream heaven for breakfast which at that time might be a last breakfast because they were planning to leave for Jodhpur and my brother, Kee and I were suppose to depart for Jaipur. We ordered a lot and that morning seems like a breakfast spree for us. Though it was a huge bill and I was on a budget trip, I insisted to pay for the bill. Ina left us for Monu’s painting session while Martin went to the loo. The most wonderful thing happen when I was alone and when Martin was in the loo.

There she came, one of the beautiful girl I saw twice, yesterday, one at the bazaar and the other time was during dinner time. But this time it was only the blonde, the brunette was nowhere to be seen. It was the third time I saw them and yet I don’t know them. Somewhere inside me, I knew that they were interesting people and for that reason alone, I felt compelled to approach and talk to her. I decided to hold myself together and walk to her place. It was just opposite our table but somehow the funny thing was, it seems long especially the blonde girl was looking at me coming at her. My mind must had been wandering what the hell went through her mind while I was walking towards her? Anyway, I introduced myself and we began breaking the ice. The blonde girl’s name was Maria, and she’s from Germany. A very interesting person. At only 21, she had been to so many places. She had been to Malaysia and she fall in love with Pehentian Island once. She had also been working for one year and traveling in Australia. While I was interestingly in conversation with her, her friend came, yes, the brunette, my definition of prettiness and gorgeous. She was busying snapping off the remaining of her roll. Her name is Kathrin and she is also from Germany. They are heading to Varanasi for their next destination. I was a little bit down. I mean I just met them and we are going separate ways that days itself. I guess that’s the fact. Part and parcel of traveling. You will meet a lot of interesting people while traveling.

There seems to some kind of unexplained bonding that will bring and keep us together. Even though the time spent together was brief, or the fact that we just met, but somehow it felt like we had known for quite sometime. I am not only saying it just because I met two beautiful girls, it happen to all the travelers I met, boys or girls, any country. The bonding was like we are all belong to a same nation. Like United States of Travelers, India branch. It is not a bad thing though, in fact, it is one of the good thing. Through this, you get to learn a lot through the wisdom and life experience of these people. Most of the things were indeed very interesting.

In the evening, Martin, Ina and I were dining at my guest house’s rooftop. We been talking about Bhang lassi for quite sometime and Ina and I decided to take before we left for our respective destination. Bhang Lassi is a special lassi that contains bhang, a liquid derivative of cannabis, which has effects similar to other eaten forms of marijuana. This form of drink is legal in many part of India especially in the state of Rajasthan. Hannes the Austrian guy had recommended that the best bhang we can get is the one from our own guest house. So I took Martin and Ina to my guest house that night, for one purpose and one purpose only, bhang lassi. I asked the runner to prepare me two glasses of Bhang. One was suppose to be kind of surprise gift for my brother. But not surprisingly he rejected it, despite the fact that he was smoking with us the night before. So, before the sun set, I took a one full glass, straight down to my stomach.

In the beginning, I didn’t feel much thing. And when Ina and Martin arrived, I ordered another one, for Ina. I was being warned by the runner that the maximum one can consume is one glass because the amount of bhang he mix was grave enough the send you to bed right away, when the effect take place. So when Ina decided to drink only half a glass- I decided not to waste such thing away and I acted out of my mind and drank away the rest of the bhang. Gradually, I begin to feel that I was being lighter, and my view became blur, and grayish, shady and my mind begin to wander faraway. Dizziness strike and at the same time I become more sleepy. The weather was getting completely dark. I remembered I was making joke with Ina and we were imitating one of the advertisement where it feature a hippo and a dog, dancing to the tune of Beach Boys’ s “The lion sleep tonight” .

And just like that, all hell break loose, hell freeze over- all of the sudden, I became hallucinated. My mind begin to see various images of animals, the characters from the movie, Madagascar. And it all jumble up with super sonic sound and techno-color shapes of geometry, in various color. And it was all moving in a complete animation. From hallucination, I became depressed and developed great sense of paranoia. At that time, I still denied my cosmic trip to the cosmic universe. I tried to convince myself that it was all just a gimmick. But the gimmick was defeated by the realism of my situation. Ina was freaking out and Martin tried hard to calm me down. My body was shivering a lot and I felt a terrible coldness. The supersonic sound was still amplifying in my head, and so are the images kept messing up with my mind. My knee and my arms at time felt like being nil by a hammer and the sound of hammering was so supersonic that I became even more paranoia. Everything scared me including the appearance of Martin. I was jive talking in both English and Hokkien. The consciousness of my mind was splitted by the shady reality and my hallucination. Last but not least, I became afraid and depressed. I started to talk nonsense and losing control of my balance. I felt like an 80 years sick old man because I couldn’t walk by myself unless I was being supported. The whole craziness was begin to contradict myself, my paranoia and my depression. My consciousness was asking me to leave for Jaipur for I had purchase the ticket and the clock was ticking, but my unconscious mind was convincing me that something bad will happen if I ever walk out of that place. If that is not all, my hearing was being block by invisible clouds. I could heard nothing but myself and everything uttered by me was being amplified and echoed. There seems to be disconnection between my senses and my mind. And when the situation became so helpless, Martin slowly took me down to the owner. My brother and his friend, Kee, was there to witness this embarrassing moment of mine. The runner was feeding me lump of butter so to lesser the effect that had been sinking in. The pain was grave. I felt like a sound of thunder was striking my hearing and the running train was hitting through my head, weakening every cells and blinding every molecules in my body. My brother and Kee decided to stay for another day, at least until I regain my strength and composure. On the bed, my state of consciousness was deteriorating. Images kept wandering inside my mind. My feeling changes constantly, from being scare to being happy to being over concern and so on. Even when I was throwing out, it was not just throwing out. The images of my hallucination hallucinate me to puke. It was a goat crawling out through my throat, forcing my throat to open wide- so I could throw everything out on the floor. And in between that late evening until early morning, I kept waking up and dozing off…I was completely in the state of delirium and was completely intoxicated. If only I follow the advice, maybe thing might be different. If only I didn’t overdose.

And when I woke up in the morning, Martin and Ina was already gone to Jaipur. The feeling was indescribable. It is like I was just being born anew again. My eyes still unable to absorb the amount of morning light but I was 70% sober. I felt like a newborn baby. All around me became so new and so serene. It is like the first time I see the world, after a 30 years being locked underground. My skin was so fragile and so tender. This was the only consolation and the best thing ever happen out of the bhang consumption. I wouldn’t say it paid off but somehow I felt like I had been walking for a hundred miles in a desert and then when I reach the sand dunes I was being awarded by tons of cold beer or like I was fasting for 100 days and at the end of 100 days I get to make love with Heidi Klum. The utility was at its height.

Somewhere deep inside I felt some kind of guilt that the farewell I gave to Martin & Ina was my state of delirium and intoxication and full night of jive talking.

They said once bitten twice shy. If you ask me would I do it again, I mean the bhang lassi, I wouldn’t say no, but given the right time and the right place and the right people, I might have do it again but only this time with right amount of shot.