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India Round-the-World/John 5 of 7

India Round-the-World, July 2 - November 8, 1971

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7. [12 noon, 9/16: to ten days late at last!] Up in the morning and decide one solution to our lassitude would be to come, so John and I cuddle and I play with him until he comes up and do him, and the day seems somewhat more sparkly. Yesterday (I erred) we just ASKED for reservations and they said we had to have a letter from the American Embassy certifying we were students. But yesterday was Labor Day and it was closed, so today I went in, was told to try the Consular Office across the street, and was told there that they were directed to write NO more letters of occupation (and the bulletin board said "Beward jails for junk in India"), so I got him to write a letter like that. Back to RNAC and they say we have to get photocopy of our permits, so THEN I try photo shot and Everest tours, where I PAY the 126 Rp for the round trip to Pokhara, getting two of HIS reserved seats for Friday. Then back to Kathmandu Tours, to get refund from the deposit to the trip to Dakshinkali that didn't go today (and find ANOTHER car went from another HOTEL), and reserve two front seats for 80 Rupees apiece for the trip to the Tibet border on Thursday, and we're down to three rupees so we're back ANOTHER time to the black market for the 14 for traveler's checks. Then back to American Embassy to go around back blocks and finally ask inside the embassy for the Nook and it's a nice motel and restaurant right next door. They don't have lots of things but I end up with a mutton burger that's really not too bad, and we find their rooms are only sixty rupees per night, and decide to keep the place in mind. We ALSO in the morning went over to the CHINESE Embassy to see about going to Tibet. The man was most cordial, thanking us for our interest in seeing China, hoping he could help us, but sorry, Tibet is completely closed at this time. So that left only Balaju to see aside from Tibet and Pokhara, and we cycled out past the cruddy little town with its untranslatable hotel and down the hill and over the bridge and into the Balaju Industrial Development, stop in a chugging silk weaving factory to watch the flying shuttle going at about the speed of a glance, and up to the top for the nice view, then down into town to stupidly take a ticket for the bikes, and pay 10 pice for the Water Gardens, and there are little fountains and tiny gardens and mouths foaming falls, at the top two enormous tanks with four-foot carp and sturgeon and other colorful fish, and there are people washing in the fountain below, sadly not nude, but at least transparently white. Climb the hill in the awful heat (it rained late last night, but TODAY WAS the first day it DIDN'T RAIN AT ALL!) to see the sketchy zoo, the eating family and the lovely pool with one person snoozing and one person swimming, and decide to come back some OTHER hot day. Cycle back to town and write the last part of 242-250 (forgot to put in the date) and read a bit of "Podkayne of Mars" while John naps. and wake him at 7 and we go to the Park Restaurant for the worst accordion, saxophone, guitar, bass, drum combo in the world, and sexy dinner partners across the way, and that eliminated THAT restaurant for dinner. To square and watch the mad elephant rush around charging people, detour to Indira for beer and trifle, then back to watch the festooning of the idol, the squirting of water to the maddened crowd, the strange music sung and played, and coals cook up hash and pot and we learn to smoke the clay pipe out of the sides of our hands, and get quick rushes and it's over, and try it about three times as the crowd surges around. At 11 get very tired and go back to tired bed. This is the night we most got into the spirit of the Nepalese, listening to the endless verses of the songs, watching the crowds swirl past, turning to see the causes for the shouts from the people clustered around the heavy-breasted idols with the enormous eyes which were constantly being loaded down with popcorn, lace, money, flowers in leis and bundles and bunches and sprays, spraying the "miraculous" water that everyone fought over to get a mouthful. Tourists seemed as dazed as the inhabitants, cars and bicycles were an impossibility, and it seemed, like in Bali, that it would go on all night; the people having NO need for sleep.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8. The hotel is invaded with dozens of loud Indians as we get up, and we're told they're on a pilgrimage and will be here only tonight and gone tomorrow. They sleep in the back portion (past the family section that John wandered into and caused the directions to us to stay out please) on the floor and seem to do their own cooking. John's decided that this is the day he'll send his Garuda, and I get a package together to send with the small wood Buddha, five books, lots of junk, the glass pieces and Rita's ring (which I stuff into a pill bottle with paper, realizing too late that they have to check everything, so I simply managed to slip the bottle under the envelope, then gather everything up and take it to the side to repack. I get wrapped with paper and string this time, and John's angry because his person isn't going to be there until 12, and then he has to go BACK at 3 for the forms. I go back to finish "Podkayne of Mars," not feeling at ALL like writing, ennui with Kathmandu about at a height, cold still very bad, throat VERY sore, and then meet John at the Indira for lunch, where the guy recommends the chicken Maryland and I have it and it's great with pineapple and bananas. Then John goes to his assignation while I have the fruit cup for dessert, and it's a lovely deep dish apple/banana cream with sugar on top combination for three rupees. Stagger out intending to get to hotel to sleep, but I'm debating about Budhalakantil (but can't remember the name, and I feel like continuing, so I'm out past the Snow View Hotel and lots of little stores and into the country for the spacious Presidential Guest House and the many military installations out there, and get to John's turnoff of the muddy road, but it's just a short walk and a long downhill and I peddle and pedal toward the hill and go through tiny rutted villages and the gorges get deeper and deeper until I'm really in Alpine terrain with cool breezes, hills, grassy meadows, and deep river-cut gorges. But it's VERY hard peddling, as I seem to experience the tires as flat, and I fear I'll NEVER get back, and storm clouds build up over the hill and I don't even know what place to ASK for and I'm hot and have to piss, so I finally stop the bike and go down an embankment to get a tiny patch of shade, piss and back to the bike, delighted to find it's DOWNHILL all the way back, and THAT'S why it was so exhausting coming up! Get back in good time in half an hour, and shower and take shoes off and FALL into bed to sleep for about three hours, joined by John later. Wake about 8, feeling absolutely awful, but by the time we're on our way, it's OK. Decide to try the Annapurna, if they'll have us, and then think of the Min-Ming next to it. Inside the brick plush setting there are LOVELY waiters and busboys and barmen, and we wouldn't mind it if the doors were locked and an orgy was called. Order chicken and walnuts, but it's mostly walnuts, anyway cashews are better, and fish with ham, and there's more ham than fish. Beers and tea and out still wanting to do something, so we cycle over to the Yak and Yeti and have a nightcap, but there are still people eating and we sit around the fire and look at them and Boris isn't around and an older blond seems interested, but he's awful. We drink and drive down the driveway JUST as the clock tower strikes 12, and back to FALL, groaning, into bed. [[[I just can't think now, in 1972, so I'll start Thursday on this page and put the heading on the NEXT page, which will be Thursday in any case, knowing I can catch up with the long description of the trip to the Tibetan border.]]]] We wake at 6 and John goes down to call to check on the trip, and it's CANCELLED again: the road had been fixed from the landslide, but there's now been a flash flood. Would we like to go Sunday? No, we'll be in Pokhara! Disgusted to breakfast and ask about getting a car to go to Sundarijal, and the news that it's "40 or 50 rupees for 6 hours" makes me so happy that Nepal AGAIN seems a nice place to stay, despite the fact that the shouting, singing, flushing Indians kept John awake all night from the bathroom. Car gets there at 9AM and we take the canned goods we'd bought for Tibet lunch, but I forgot my binoculars. The driver is an absolute beauty and we take off down the road feeling great, stopping at Gokarna Gorge to look across at the Royal Game Preserve and stop at a small town with some FABULOUSLY techniqued stone carvings leading down a hill to a wonderful old pagoda that

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9. the local priests spy us looking at and immediately shut the doors in our face. Again the WANTON destruction hits me: the Burmese laughing as they throw rocks at their crumbling stupas, the children of Patan who kick at the gates, and here a tiny girl looks at us, frowning in concentration, and beats away at some delicate doorframe wood-carving with what looks like a metal rod. Stupefying! Across the roaring river on a rickety wooden bridge, and then back into the car at 10 to continue to Sundarijal at 10:30. Truck blocks road and we're out to walk under pipeline down hill beside huge stone steps, and we're up and up past colorful dwellings and somber people and porters lugging loads barefooted up and down. Up and up, and the road continues so WE continue to a rock with a falls on all sides, up to a training camp just beside the dam, and across the dam, which must have just been raised, since the reservoir walls were thick with moist mud. Reservists are playing cards on tarpaulins and we continue up hill as rocky stairs give way to crumbly path, and we're up and up until John flakes out in the heat and climb, and he finally climbs up to lie down under a lone tree on an outcropping, and I continue up the hill at noon, weaving along rice paddies until a girl shouts me down and the father waves me up another path to "Helambu," and though I'm not GOING there, at least I want to get to the TOP. Up and up, panting, feet getting sore in boots, sweating, and road is steeper and steeper and I reach a crest and JOIN the main trail again, families and groups and chains of trekkers again, mostly dour, some laughing at me, and look down over valley and go along slippery path through cooler forest and start skirting crest of hill, never QUITE going over, though I can see over a bit to the valley on the SOUTH and even get a glimpse EAST, but nowhere are the snow-capped peaks I want SO much to see. Finally at 1:15 I start down, fearing it'll take me to 2:15 to reach John and he'll have returned, and we're to have the car only to 3. Down and down and down, scraping toes in boots and dreadfully thirsty and tired (sneaked a gulp of stream at the very top, hopefully clean) and John IS still there at 2, and we're down and down, quite exhausted, and he stops to swim with some guy who asks "You came from HELAMBU?" and we say no, and I DASH down to car to EAT and DRINK and take SHOES off and breathe. John's down and it rains and we're back to hotel at 4, giving him 10 rupees extra and getting CHARGED 10 more, too. Up to SLEEP again for dazed time to 8, and to Yak and Yeti for more good dishes, though the kidneys aren't the best of the lot, and drink next drinks and immediately drive out the driveway at the stroke of 9PM this time. I KNOW I should write, since I'm now 9 days behind, but I'm just TOO dragged out by the days and I'm beginning to worry if I haven't CAUGHT something, like MALARIA maybe, that makes me feel SO listless and worn out. [[[Again, I'll put Friday on the next page, but here it starts]]] [2PM, 9/16] Also, ONE of these days I see the lock finally open on Tiger Tops and find FROM THEM that they open on October 1, and that's when the flights around Everest start. John wakes with the lovely idea that we have breakfast at the Annapurna, and we pass out through the hall and he INSISTS to know why we're not eating breakfast and I smile my nebbish smile and say "We just want a change." The room is air conditioned, the lobby smells of bug spray, and they want to close the shades on the very sun that John CHOSE the table for. I order sliced bananas and milk, but when that doesn't come WITH the milk, and the puffed wheat arrives, I combine the two and EVERYONE at Annapurna gapes at my original audacity. No tomato with the fried eggs and bacon, which is a bit green around the edges. But the service is snappy and it's not really a problem that it IS 33.33 for the meal. Back to the hotel to pack quickly, not even time to brush my teeth, and into the cab for the airport at 10:30 to settle the bill for the bicycles and other things, and we're off. Wait a long time for the bus to leave, while three girls try out their first shoes, and into the bus and to airport for long wait to 12:30 to find the flight CANCELLED. Grumble back to bus, chatting with lovely French trekkers and it starts to rain in torrents. At RNAC change to the special flight at 10:30 tomorrow, then walk down the street in rainsuits to the library to look up Malaria (we don't have it: eyesight good, no fevers and chills and Books in Print (Heinlein

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10. has 34, of which I have 26) and to Indira, where we have good lunch of chicken a la Indira and decide I'm GOING to Tibet and NOT to Pokhara for one day. John vacillates and decides to stick to Pokhara, while I'm quite sure that IF Tibet falls through, I'll be ABLE to get back on plane. RNAC says to go BACK to Everest and I go back and get refund, then sign up for Tibet trip in the REAR for 60, and they say it IS going. Get ALL that through and it's a NOTHING day and get back to room at 4 and write 250-255 and start reading "Farnham's Freehold" and get agitated about nuclear bombing again and have this growing feeling of FOREBODING and constant FEAR that I find terrible. Write and doze and talk about it to John (decided when singing up for the TOUR that I was going back to Manaslu, which was good because skinny guy behind DESK saw us in the STREET and assumed we were returning.) Decide to spend the evening going around town, and start at the Yak and Yeti for drinks, that goes into TWO drinks, and finally we decide WHAT the hell and stay for dinner, this time outside in the dining room, and I have the chicken Marechal, which turns out to be a chicken a la Kiev with added giblets inside, and we look at the German group at the far table, the ugly lady next door with the Indian, and wonder where the pretty boys go who seem to have the run of the house. A blond is LOVELY in the candlelight too, and Boris breezes past without even NOTICING that it's our fifth time there. Out past the dining room and see him and two boys and woman dining in splendor, and they might all be his FAMILY, since he IS in the place with his two brothers. Back to the room and John smokes and I don't, trying desperately to break through the tense feeling of depression that I have, having wished when the flight was cancelled to have had our luggage THERE so we could just hop on the next flight to Calcutta and get OUT of Nepal. Fatigued and STILL cold-ridden to bed, diary FORGOTTEN. [[[Yes, this should be Saturday, but there will be MANY pages to Saturday, and the heading will be IN Saturday.]]] Have trouble sleeping, wake at 2 and 5 and get up at 5:50 and order breakfast when he knocks at 6, and down to find breakfast NOT ready and fume while waiting for it, getting into cab at 6:35 and get to locked shop at 6:45. Just as well I DIDN'T call to check if it was going. French girl comes up and chats, as does Philippine woman, and up come the two Italians from the Indira yesterday, and the girl goes to eat and her two French friends come and finally at 7:05 the land rover comes and the FIVE front seats move in and the FIVE rear seats fill up, my knapsack with canned goods bought last night under my seat. Off on the road toward Bhatgoan, but turn off into new territory, and the clouds are still thick and when we reach Dhulikel we go around a fabulous curve at 6500 feet and he says "We usually stop here for the fabulous view of snow-covered peaks," and we sit in grim silence. Around and around hills and finally I can say "THERE'S a bit," and it's ONLY a bit, JUST for a moment, but I savor it since it might be the LAST. My seat, front left of the rear sides, turns out to be best: I can see up and forward, which no one else can, look BACK and across for the sides, and out the BACK for where we've been, and THAT's the best there IS. Stop for a truck off the road (see notes in "Farnham's Freehold," which are as follows: "Certain men are no good in time of war, and others are no good in times of peace; unfortunately, the latter are immoral, and endeavor to change the situation to one in which they ARE good, thus causing wars." Leave at 7:05, pass KM 35 at 8:10, around Dhulikel, at 6500', shrouded out of view. About half hour later catch FIRST glimpse of peaks above clouds, but it goes quickly---possibly one mountain with five or six peaks covered with snow, like a blunt-toothed comb. Then at 9:10 pass KM 75, and at 9:15 stop for a truck rescue operation, by two derrick trucks that traveled four days to get here, front tires Chinese, rear tires Russian, Russian characters on truck, English and Chinese instruction in the derricks. l learn to count Chinese by counting coolie hats, at least eight, but some of the Nepalese workmen adopted them too. Nice work by Chinese direction and Nepali workmen got the truck righted, drawn up, and towed away, and Indian and Nepali and our group (Philippine, Swiss, Milanese, British (Reading), French, Nepali and US) and another group, watch. On our way again at 10:10, and go

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 11. for a bit in increasing heat until we stop at 10:45 in Koshi Hotel for drinks (and drivers have lunch of eggs and other messes on a dinner-platter size partitioned metal plate, and we all sweat as most have tea and I have awful sticky sweet Lemon Squash, and it's a minute or two after 11 when we leave THERE. Then at 11:30 there's a huge rock, and at 11:54 we pass the 107 KM stone. Then at 12:10 we stop to take pictures, and 12:20-12:45 we all gape at the border and look at the red sign with white neat lettering (except where the last line is scraped off) on one signpost: IMPORTANT NOTICE (1) Photograph is prohibited here. (2) Prohibited to go beyond the xxxxxxxx (and there's a red painted line in the middle of the bridge, about fifty feet from where I stand. I wonder if the Nepali guard is instructed to USE the pistol at his side? Then just before 1PM we're back at the little white-banded blue sign, and we stop and disrobe to shorts (myself and the rust-slipped Italian) to bathe in the hot---almost too hot to bear---water and then down to a hot rock to eat lunch and watch the blond and a brown-haired fellow sunbathe in the nude and orange bloomers, respectively, and then swim and smoke grass in a clay pipe like at the festival. Italian strips off his shorts and the Britisher looks and looks at the ass, and I feel like saying "Don't stare, it gives away the game"; then I strip and sun a bit, cock caught between legs. Then dress and pile into car at 1:45, with Swiss saying: "Remember, it's always quicker on the way back." And then at the Koshi Hotel for drinks. To the border at 12, then down to the hot springs and rocks for lunch to 1:30, and back south to the swinging bridge that causes no one any trouble, but the villagers sure DO stare at the muscle-builder. Rumble quickly down to the valleys and rattle back up to Dhulikel, and I say "Can we stop to see the view?" and we're PAST the top. But everyone agrees we WANT to stop and I step over a silly thorn barrier and look out over green hills and patches of rice and furrowed hills in the twilight's shadows, and away from the Swiss "hotelier" and his Philippine pupil, the silence is lovely. Back into the rover at 5 and into town at 6, and wait around to talk to the owner about a trip to Nagarkot tomorrow. From 100-120 it goes up to 175 rupees, from five it drops to three people, so it'll be Monday, but he'll call to check with us tomorrow, and we give our names. Richard Jones suggests we stop at his Mt. Makalu Hotel for a beer, and I have two and he has three and we talk about our trips and life in Saigon and Bangkok, and he's got a nice shy sense of humor and as the beers mount up, he gets cuter and cuter and I think he WOULD be gay if he only stopped talking about GIRLS so much, even if they CAN puff a cigarette with their cunt. I urinate and feel AWFUL from the rusty water from the springs, so say so and he offers his showering facilities and I get up and strip and shower in the place across the hall, and get back to hear him say he'll do it later, and I put on his sandals and get down to dinner at 8:30. The chicken Maryland THIS time is a whole half but woefully underdone, but there's more beer and he has chicken and bamboo and we talk of families and roommates and friends and then he suggests a nightcap, which I agree to ONLY because I can PAY for it. So we talk on AND on about pot and LSD and novel and everything else, and finally it's 11 and I SWEAR he says something about "Our getting to bed," but I'm upstairs standing NEXT to him and I hear "So I'll see you 3:30 the day after tomorrow." At such an unmistakable exit line I put on my boots and cab home to be shocked by the guy saying, "Oh, 211's in the room," and I get up to find poor John sleeping and the plane had been cancelled AGAIN. He said he cycled all around town, waited for me to 6:30, assumed I was having mad sex and was jealous, ate at Indira, saw a dog orgy, and finally came home in despair, to sleep. Groaned my sympathy and very blearily drunk crawled into bed just at 12. {Sunday on next page.] [11:50AM, 9/17: Bus FINALLY got restarted after 15 minutes hot delay on way from Puri to Bhubaneshwar. The scene was idyllic: people swimming and washing in a pond, but I was happy to hear the noise of the motor again.] [8PM, 9/18] John sounded SO sad last night that I determined we'd have sex in the AM, and we did, great shooting fun for both of us, kind of perking up the day. Rent a car, but get a taxi at 9AM for a reported 60 rupees, but we pay 50 to the DRIVER and John

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 12. says the hotel managers were MOST perplexed, since they'd probably negotiated with the driver for 45 rupees and wanted 15 for themselves for just calling a CAB! Drive down toward Chovar and STOP the car when we get a GLIMPSE (my SECOND one) of the snow-capped peaks, and train my binoculars on them, but in five minutes the clouds have moved back in and they're gone. Then there are five or six paratroopers floating down through the air, and we gape and stop at the cliff overlooking the gorge (at the jagged rocks at either side of the small cleft through which the river passes, and it DOES appear that it might not be a natural cleft and someone could have done it. It WOULD have made a fabulous lake) to watch the transport plane buzz back over and drop a heavy load that lands in the river, then two MORE men who control themselves nicely into the fields, and we hop into car and an INCREDIBLY low buzzing as the transport flies BELOW us to check that everything's all right in the river. Down past many army units marching and assembling, and up the other side for great views over the valley, but no more of hills, and get to Dakshinkali to see the vermilion-dabbed ferocious goddess with blood-smeared marble around and a HILL of fowl feathers at the jointure of the two streams. Walk up the slope past pilgrimage houses, and quickly back to cab. Stop at the next place and look at the lovely clear water from the spring, the plump fat people bathing bare-breasted in the pools, and read the note headed "Jai Nepal" (much against K's non-nationalism) that says he's "left the world to win peace" and he has lovely eyes and a nice smile but is going about it the wrong WAY. ALL MUST DO, IF GOD DO NOT, WE BE NOT; WHO DOES NOT, IS NOT. Back to town at 1:30 and drop at Indira and eat, then to Mt. Makulu to see if the trip tomorrow is OK, and find Richard in, taxi to hotel to find Michelle Lherut NOT at Snow View, rent three bicycles to cycle to Balaju, crowded with 15-20 good-looking guys on Sunday, two lovely long-haired reading hippies, three pretty Nepalese with a wounded-foot Britisher, three or four shouting Nepalese, a Japanese swimming, a few more pudgy tourists, and a lovely wavy-haired thin fellow with a big crotch. Swim to sundown while drying on diving board, then to hotel for beer and find tour IS leaving at 3:30AM, then cart Richard to Yak and Yeti where we have two drinks around lovely fire, and I have sweet and sour pork on Chinese dishes and others like food, and Richard pays 100 or 250 check, and we can't thank him enough, so cart him to his hotel after cashing money at NEW place, and leave him off and pedal back to hotel and get into bed at 10, knowing we only have 5 1/2 hours to sleep before we're wakened at 3:30 for Nagarkot. ["Monday" on next page.] I look at watch at 12:30, then at 2:30, then at 3:15, and I'm washing as the car drives up the road at 3:50, and we're down to find a JAMMED conveyance, and John hops into the right FRONT seat and I get in behind him without listening to the TWO others who want to come along, and one's left BEHIND, but he was only the runner from one of the hotels. Out along the dark roads, everyone trying to catch some last winks, so I don't have to TALK (I DIDN'T shout on the trip to Tibet, but I found myself getting hoarse that evening, Saturday, and all day Sunday Richard and John had LOTS of fun laughing at my voice which finally even wore out at BASS register, and I could only squeak along in a sort of falsetto, that finally lapsed into a whisper by evening. By not using it on the trip OUT, I at least had some voice left to talk with the two VW people driving BACK, and talking with the Criles in the airport). Through Bhatgoan after changing drivers, and up the rocky road, gasping out over the sides as we move only three INCHES from chasms falling hundreds of feet, and the sky gets brighter as we near the top toward 5:30, and the first pink fades to gray as we get a glimpse of great peaks out through a pass, but the road maddeningly goes around and around instead of going UP, and then we can see high lit peaks on the left, and I curse and curse the driver for being so SLOW, and curse John and Richard for leaning back on their seats and breaking the bar loose into my lap every five minutes. Finally I just let it loose and let them hang on for dear life. To the top just at 5:50 and I storm out of the car in time to see the sun dimly about one diameter above the horizon in a cloud, and there's a sharp high peak JUST in the east that I take to be Everest, but

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13. there are no peaks AROUND it, which I think there would be since it's so far away, so I'm not sure. Snowy ramparts march up on the left in five or six places, but the clouds form quickly under the sun and rise as the sun rises, so at about 6AM the sharp peak in the east vanishes below the clouds and finally the others fade too (see notes in "Farnham's Freehold," which are as follows: Said to be there at 3:30, get there at 3:50, and had a hassle because THREE "extras" wanted to be added to ten tourists, but one stayed behind, leaving 12. Drove and drove and drove, seeing first gold at 5:30, at 5:45 see SOME peaks ALREADY sun-lit, and around AND around to top at 5:55, to see glow of sun above HIGH peak and smaller ones in far east, and five or six high peaks in north. In FIVE minutes ground fog had moved up and ALL was covered. Then, at 6:10, it washed over hill and I put on rainsuit to protect against damp. At 6:15 they announced tea at Mt. Everest Lodge (three rooms and outside john) restaurant, coffee 75 pice, LARGE pot seven rupees. The SUN came through and at 6:30 a peak REAPPEARED in north behind high hill, and at 6:35 I write this (to shouts of Nepalese Army giving early AM commands) and wait, hopefully, for early AM clouds to clear. 6:55 worse than ever, only tiny slit of small hills visible between eastern cloud layers. After that (7:10) the best to see were only semi-lit clouds in near distance to tantalizingly hide far higher peaks. Blow horn and FINALLY leave at 7:35, getting in at 9:35, and leaving at 10:10, to airport at 10:30, on place at 11:40, and into Calcutta at 12:45.). Finally honk the horn irritatingly at 7:30 to get us back to town for the plane, and we drive down somewhat more quickly, the time passing with the talking of the two guys to my left of their awful trip across masochistic Afghanistan, the tales of the six murders and two rapes of tourists near Bamiyan, and other horrendous tales of illness in Pakistan and pleasantness in India, and we decide THEN to not go further west than Amritsar in the north, and to spend most of the extra time in Ceylon. Chat back until an awful migraine shuts him up, exchange addresses with Richard, and thankfully get left at our hotel first, at 9:40. Get the bill and up to the room to pack, ordering breakfast and wolfing it down (I'd only had three cookies and a swig of water while the others were breakfasting) then order a cab because someone else (the Criles, it turns out) has the hotel car, and finally leave with a last flare-up of "Two rupees for empty Coke bottles" and "$2 charge for bicycle bill," and fuss with John about charging too much, and we're off to the airport for nine rupees, which was more than we planned THEN, and check in behind the Criles, whom John starts talking to and I quite frankly IGNORE until I hear she's Helga Sandburg, Carl's daughter and formerly married to Carl Steichen, or some such, and then we talk about Burma and Thailand and Ceylon and Cleveland and hippies and drugs until our plane leaves. [I take notes in "Farnham's Freehold" as follows: Ceylon : see Sigiriya for cave paintings, Ratnapura, the stones and Jewel city, the mountaintop cobra cave at the TOPMOST pass in Ceylon: ella pass, and work streams for jewels near Ratnapura. And look for a tour guide called Wijesenge, "We call him Wije" that they used in 1968.] Up and up and THERE are the Himalayas, in impregnable ramparts, from Annapurna on the left to Everest and her neighbors in the center to Kanchenjunga on the right, and we FLY at 29,000 feet, so I can SEE Everest is the highest, and she REMAINS in sight for forty minutes, as we fly 400 miles away and start to descend for Calcutta, a FANTASTIC sight that I can barely wolf down food past. Land next to incredible views over flooded northern India and MILES of settlements for refugees, and walk AWFUL distance with luggage in TERRIBLE heat to old airport, to get snack when flight is delayed twice, and take off at 4 and fly over huge flat delta region and over water, past gloomy gray clouds, only 6 of us in Fokker Friendship, and land at 5:05 past some [AND THIS IS THE END OF BOOK THREE AND THE BEGINNING OF BOOK FOUR] old temple and a series of digs for a city, and get cab for five rupees into the Puspak, full, and to State Guest House for sunset and invading shrew who goes down sink drain, which John sprays for MASS of cockroaches to jump out and have to be crushed messily, and we have passably good dinner, and we're tired from LONG day and get into bed at 9PM.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14. [7PM, 9/20. I simply DON'T know WHAT to do. Since Konarak there's been a general depression stretching from Nepal. Konarak WAS beautiful, there WAS a joy to be there, and in the Government Tourist Bungalow. There WAS a delight at the beach in Puri, if only for John's sake. The stupa railings at Calcutta Museum were staggering, but not MUCH in Benares was spectacular, not even the four corpses (white wrappings for men, red for women) going up in smoke on the one of two burning ghats. I thought I was TIRED, but smoked last night, had sex, and slept 8 1/2 hours and FELT rested but STILL felt out of place, not too humorous, at odds ends. YES I organized the trip this afternoon to Mother India, Monkey and Marble temples and Hanuman Ghats, but it was a thudding monotonous BORE. Tomorrow (if our place comes up on the flight) we go to Khajuraho---THAT might make a difference. I THINK I'm homesick! Got the $1000 check from Rita today and can spend 100 extra days in Europe (if Marty'll keep the apartment---must write him) but I think of RETURNING to NYC and RETURNING the check to Rita and ENJOYING NYC. I DO enjoy NYC, and the people there. I miss people I know in India. That's PART of it---we're not MEETING people and we're getting rather TIRED of ourselves]. [7PM 9/21] Up and breakfast and hire a taxi for 10 rupees per hour for whatever we want to see (and walk away when he says the caves are MORE), and go first to the caves, but even at 8AM it's blazing hot and I take notes (p. 255) until my notebook really threatens to get wet clear through. Some of the roof-support carvings, though totally un necessary, are nice and airily designed, and some of the details of scenes are just fine, while others are aged beyond recognition. Travel around and up and down the lower hill, getting very hot but liking the whimsy of the way one cave sort of led to another, and down and up through the trees the back way onto the Jain hill, and are very pleased when we get to the top to be greeted by a huge nude black marble Buddha with a stallion's cock, and balls, uncut and beautifully veined. Look out over the valley and see the temples in the distance, then into the car and he shows the way to Lingaraj, and we climb the viewing platform and I rove up and down the intricate structure with my binoculars, and though there is certainly much more nice carving, there's none of the pornography we'd looked forward to so much in India. Down and find our driver, glance at the rough mud figures being made for some sort of festival, and to the first of the temples, Parameswarum, that we can go into, and get the first of the "I'm a priest of this temple" and remember not to give them anything. We're back in the bat-dung smelling chambers that are tacky to the bottom of the feet and malodorous, and again there's not much in the line of pornography, but the rough figures on this early one bode nice things to come. Muketeswer is a big disappointment. Much of it was in ruins and the rest was rather crude. No "poem in stone" THIS. Then to a few others we can't go into and John and I begin watching the bathers in the tank, and the women quite easily show their breasts, but the men are careful of their genitals, keeping clothed at ALL times in and out of the water, and only when they let the wet sheer material cares their cocks is there a clear outline. To a few others, living, watching the gamboling and the washing and the baby-tending going on in the sanctuaries, and around the large and formerly grand tank to Rajrani, and here, finally, there are a few scenes with cocks and fucking, but we begin to wonder if India isn't just a cop-out after the fairly crude glories of Nepal. Meet two Germans there and chat a moment, then succumb to the heat and go back to the car and the hotel at noon to eat lunch, after cashing money in at the bank at 7.35 after a long involved clearance procedure. Lunch and decide to take a cab rather than wait for the 5:30 bus that would get us to Konarak after dark, and get driver to the museum at 2:15 with instructions to pick us up at 3:30. Museum was fine (see previous notes), (write 256), but we get out at 3:30 to no cab, and finally just before 4:15, after two calls from John, he showed up smiling as if nothing was wrong, and I merely said "Get us to Konarak, FAST," and it was a mistake. Hundreds of incredible lovelies on the road had to jump out of the way to let us past, and John said his eyes were dizzy trying to take in their faces, chests, dangles and toes at a quick pass. Sun goes down but we're there first at 5:30, stop at the Orissa rest house to get directed BACK to the Tourist Bungalow right next to the museum across from Konarak. Taxi driver "introduces" us to a pesky guide who tries to sell us himself, his services and his bicycles before we tell him to get LOST. Bungalow is empty. We're at the end in room 1 with two fans, lovely john, open spaces with lots of silence, and JOY, lots of chilled boiled water! Watch a silent sunset and go over for the first look at the Black Pagoda, detour to Kali clankings in a neighboring house, write 257, and back to shower and a GREAT Indian dinner for the two of us, and we sign in and leave word to wake at 4:45 for the walk to the beach, and John in desperation sleeps WITHOUT the mosquito nets since it cuts off all the air and he's too hot to sleep. I crawl in without covers for first time in AGES and the netting makes nice shelter and we sleep at about 9PM.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15. [9:45AM 9/24: Ten days behind AGAIN, dammit. Waiting for the National Museum to open and wanted to record two INCOMPARABLE experiences from Agra: (1) Looking and looking and soaking in the sight of the Taj Mahal, watching the effects of the light and the movement of people, and then see a porter with a heavy sack on his back leading in a BLIND man. How would a blind man get ANY idea of the Taj? It could be described to him, but how scanty that would be. He could hear the birds in the park and feel the spaciousness from the breezes and echoes in it, and hear the echoes in the upper chamber and feel the heat in the lower. He could get a VERY small impression of the inlays by running his fingers over them (though, in fact, that might be a GOOD way of getting an impression of the DIFFERENCE between a REAL flower and one as depicted in ART); he could feel the roughness of the stones in the walk, the heat of the sun on the terrace, but cool of the marble inside and feel the intricacy of the marble screens, even tap the mica. But the changing light? The glow of the semi-precious stones? The hanging lamp? The effect of candlelight on the screens, or of the changing sun values? Or the Taj in full moon? (2) Standing in the awning-fast darkness of the garden in back of Lauries, hearing the air raid siren for the trial blackout, going back to London looking in fear at the starry skies for black shapes against them and the flash of bombs on the horizon, drawing closer. The eternally-lunged animal's wail in the night, screaming in warning and fear. And then waking in the night in the room and finding it the BLACKEST possible room, oppressive but for the squeal from the air conditioner, as I felt for the cool water for a drink. And now I'm back because we have so much time in Delhi, but Ram Lila IS active outside, Dusshera HAS started, there IS a chance of Son and Lumiere at the Red Fort, and I NOW have a chance to see at leisure the exhibit at the museum, AND get rid of the junk to be mailed, AND even might have long enough to get a consoling reply from Barclay's that our checks will be returned to us, and I might get my shaver fixed. SANTAL paintings of black devils are fabulous, must get one. How lovely it would be to HEAR the ragas while looking at the Indian miniatures that PORTRAY the ragas. (Story: "A Full Life" of a man who DOES this, PHOTOGRAPHS the 100 load carriers from Indonesia, ANIMATES the elephants and dancers from Knoarak, MAKES the great movie of "The Ring" (both WAGNER'S and TOLKEIN'S), and the OTHER things I'd LOVE to do, like the semen-fountain film. JAIPUR miniatures 1825-50 the MOST fabulous. Great Kashmir "Krishna revealing his Divinity to Arjuna," where Krishna is COMPRISED of people, animals, gods, fish, birds, mountains, monsters, monks and monkeys. Stupefying complexity of artistic traditions exemplified in Bodhisattva hand from Buddhist shrine in Ming-Oi, China, of 6th-7th centuries AD, showing Gandhara influence of North-west India at 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, which had been influenced by Greek art features brought with Alexander. FANTASTIC! In Astana Village in China, graves from 8th century AD had gold coins "in imitation of Byzantine issue" in the mouth and silver Sasanian coins on the eyes. CHINESE faces on the typically Indian "twined nagas" are mind-blowing, as is the WHOLE GALLERY on Central Asian antiquities. Incredibly powerful, all-knowing, serene and aloof carved wooden head, painted and undated (or 600-725 AD), from Kara-Khoja, near Astana, in North China, midway in the extensive 1st-10th century silk routes between Alexandria and Korea. How LIMITING our US study of art IS. India, Greece, China, Tibet, Nepal, Japan, all sort of fade into our Buddhist aura of glory. [12:20PM. I seem to have blown a fuse. On one hand, all former neat categories of art seem useless: each piece is itself and nothing more (not a member of a category). On the other hand, each piece of art is connected to each other piece of art in a far more complex way than I'd ever realized, not even after mind-blowing sessions in compartmentalized Louvre. A time-space interweaving of artistic influences and movements makes a topologically highly complex interlinking form through millennia over the surface of the globe. But it seems useless to look at anything more, my look-see circuits are overloaded and blown. I'm just numb. Not physically tired but mentally exhausted. I want to sit quietly in my room. And? Not read, because that puts more in. Write to get it all unclogged again, I suppose. Not shop, for the idea of possessions, linked with the artist and craftsman and seller and buyer and museum and possessor, seems fruitless and uninteresting. Not sleep, because my blank mind is in such a turmoil that I wouldn't be able to. Not sex; there's a cute body on the street and it's still cute, but not tactilely engaging. [12:50PM] So I drink my Fantas in the little restaurant and catch a cab to the hotel, still feeling in two ways (1) absolutely depressed, now there's nothing at all I want to do with Delhi and the trip (2) absolutely exhilarated, now I don't HAVE to do anything about Delhi and the trip. I can't say this is a new feeling, since it's been building up since Kathmandu, but it's certainly reached a peak now. Before I would conjure up a feeling of "I want to see" for Benares and Khajuraho and Agra and even the museum this morning. Now I don't care to and couldn't care less about seeing ANYTHING else. Even food leaves me cold: I'll eat lunch, when and if I do, here in the hotel. That's fine. It just may BE fatigue with the trip. My counting the number of days left (44), the number of flights left (20), the number of countries left (7) (India, Ceylon, stop 1, stop 2, Greece, Italy, Portugal) has certainly shown I'm getting impatient with the trip. Interestingly, the Europe trip two years ago lasted something LIKE 82 days, and THIS trip has now lasted 84 days, and I calculate that three moon-cycles are 383 or 84 days, and vaguely wonder if THAT has something to do with it. But by now my mind seems to have worked its way out of the funk, I can observe and analyze my thoughts more clearly now. Yes, it's certain that I'm depressed by losing the $250 last night, though there are vague hopes of getting it back in refund. Yes, I'm behind in the diary and was looking for a chance to get caught up. Yes, John wanted to shop (and exchange money) and I didn't want to do it with him, so the museum may have furnished a convenient excuse. ALSO, I was very saddened when they didn't have a museum guidebook, nor a special folder about the Central Asian antiquities, nor could they furnish me with copies of Indian miniatures that I so liked from Jaipur. So am I now a sulking child? Now the feeling of listlessness after the museum is passed, eased by writing, and I begin to be the tiniest bit impatient to DO something. Read? Don't feel like it. Eat? Not hungry. Mail stuff? Don't have the energy. Maybe I'm just sick? That WOULD make a nice excuse. Well, let's try a few days of diary and see how THAT works out]. I wake up minutes before the guy knocks on the door at 5AM, and we're up and out at 5:15 to walk along the road, since the bicycles didn't come and "it's only three kilometers." But it's about a mile and a quarter out to the intersection and a mile and three quarters to the beach, and we walk and walk and it gets lighter and lighter and I speed up toward the end, causing John to say "I don't like it when you walk about a mile ahead of me," but I can SEE that it's getting toward dawn and the idea is to SEE what the people DO AS the sun comes up. Get to the beach JUST as the sun's a hazy ball one diameter above the horizon at 5:45AM, and there are very few people along the beach at ALL, and there's very little color in the sky except for a heavy silver-gray, and there's only the driver of a loudspeaker truck on the beach, along with a few families from the tiny shore community walking toward the sun. I walk the other way and see what I take to be a nude, but he's some sort of beach-sadhu with a small black cache-sexe on, stooping into the sand, I suppose digging for crabs for breakfast. The crabs are all along the beach, and the waves are big and powerful, and John goes in just a short while to say the shore drops off VERY steeply and the undertow is strong, so I write 257 at 6:30 and we start walking back, watching the wife washing crockery and pewter ware in a muddy puddle, while the man sits and talks in the doorways. Find that the shore road IS finished to Puri, but back at the hotel he says there ARE no public vehicles, so we MUST take the bus. Shower and breakfast and find the museum isn't open until 10, so back to the Sun Temple and carefully look over lots of it, taking juicy notes on 258 after 9:30, and 259 at 11, then to the museum for a quick look and buy a couple of books, then BACK to the grounds to get ALL the pornographic salesmen I'd shouted away all morning to come close and give me the photos the guide book DIDN'T have and buy a set for 2 1/2 rupees and another for 3, and satisfy myself I have ALL the good ones to be had. Back to climb the top and down into the sanctum I'd missed before, for the fabulous two-ended beasts, and re-see the good pornographic ones and catch up on the things around the outside, including the nine planets OUTSIDE the wall, take a look at the idol in the hut in the daylight with someone being paid to chant prayers, and back I think early at 12:15 to find the bus leaves at 1, so I eat (John did) and take a quick shower and get to the bus stop as it starts to pour rain. Into rainsuits and out of town at 1:15, and past pleasant scenes and beautiful people and down roads and around ox carts until 4:15 we're in Puri after stopping for a scheduled time check, a religious stop to get a point of vermilion for the forehead, crowded passageways of teeming town, and off to a rickshaw for a long sweaty ride to the Panthnivas for one rupee. Take room 2 and NO towels, and we're changed and dash to the beach for a lovely warm swim and sun, then walk toward town and see the net-menders and the array of boat-shapes out of lashed and pegged pieces of shaped wood, and more and more people on the beach picking up seashells, and John goes back and there's a lovely sunset and swimmers adjusting their bathing costumes and I'm back to the hotel in the dark and write 759-768 from 7:10PM to a bit after 8:30, when we go for dinner (I angry at John for PUSHING me when I just want to finish a FEW more pages of writing) and the food is quite good, lots of it, and John extends an invitation to the three Germans for grass-smoking. They come in and talk uncomfortably as John fixes the broken water-pipe, and they insist they get nothing and I smell German rats and we lapse into silence and I feel fearful and tired and nauseous, so I go to bed and stretch out, fearing a robbery. Awake but giddy and find cute one's gone and they're all napping, one across bed, one on floor. Wake John up and get them out and it's 11:45 and I'm QUITE ready for bed, John again sans netting.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16. Wake at 5:30 and simply don't feel like moving, happy to feel everything safe and whole after the Germans left. But at 5:45 I feel I'm missing the sunrise, so up and out as AGAIN the horizon is misted, and when the sun peeps above the CLOUDS is when the people perform their ritual dunk in the sea. And funny it is, with old men scrawny and bald and old wizened women ducking their entire bodies into the rude waves and scrambling out to catch their old breaths. The lifeguards are out in their white pointed caps with large black tubes that nonetheless barely fit around buxom mothers with fleshy thighs and six kids who demand to be dunked wearing their best lovely saris, earrings and nose bobs, and hair done up in pigtails. Little girls shriek and shrink but are forced in, older brothers fatly waddle in themselves, father comes later and manages to retain his dignity while losing his dryness. Shell-pickers out in droves and AGAIN it's high tide, even higher than last night. Back to the room at 6:35 just as John comes out for his early morning swim, and we arrange to meet for breakfast at 7:30, so I'm inside to write 265-270 in the meantime, feeling good about getting some done, and the vegetable fritters are very hot for breakfast and John adores his fish cakes. Cheery hello from Germans and I go to office to see what's where, and John likes it so much we decide to stay an extra day for the beach, and I hope to get lots of diary done. Decide to take the three southern temples, passing a corpse going up in smoke at the Hindu cremation grounds, at the end of Swarga Dwar Road, and get to Tota Gopinath Temple, which I'm SURE should be off limits, but the guide says we can go in, and we're met by an absolutely spectacularly built monk, with a body almost as defined as Joe Farinas, except that it's tanned and softer and has lovely hair-lines down to a prominent frontal bulge. His ass under the transparent orange material is perfection. He unveils the altar and we have three huge-eyed replicas of the Jaganath trio, and another has a black goddess of many hands with sharp gray slaty eyes and black pupils, and another guy with the most beautiful dark, shiny, amused, steady eyes pulls aside his curtain to small clothed images, but I can't take my eyes off his magnificent face. John and I are dazzled and speechless, and we make a temple donation and leave, shaken by the beauties and the HUGE bulge of the older priest. We really can't believe the beauties here. Onto the dusty back paths to Lokanath, but this is down many steps to some yellow-plastered plain temples, and they see us coming, shout "Hindu only" and we're back upstairs. Down the road a bit and stop to admire the huge human-cocked horses and the Samson-figures controlling them at the side gate of Jaganath, and get entranced by the tinsel creations across the street. See one that's fixed price for six rupees, and he insists it takes a man a day to make it. Takes HIM about half an hour to WRAP it, but time IS cheap here. Around to Jaganath and climb to the top of Raghunandan Library thanks to a Plaut-like librarian and look down into the temple, devoid of décor except for the people pouring through the gates in droves and the red sandstone, new, doorframes. Watch elephant taking coin for his mahout and gaze at the Jaganath car in the bazaar and down to look at the shops. I find a fabulous painting for 15 rupees that John likes, too, and then we're back toward the hotel and the bank, and I get stuck with a snakeskin and a sawfish sword while John cashes $40 inside at official rates, and we later find we could get 8.50 on the Puri black market, but it's better in Calcutta. John doesn't want the six baby alligator skins for twelve rupees, so we're back to the hotel at noon, and want to have lunch at 1, so John goes for another swim and I write 270-276 and we have lunch and John's out to the beach again and I write 276-281 from 2 to 2:50, and only ONE more session will finish the third book! And I'm only about 5 days behind! Then out to the beach and swim and sun and delight in the shallow sand bar that allows rolling with the waves, and waves again flow BACKWARD to meet incoming waves with high spume, and lay in the sun until 4, when we're back to go shopping. Walk down the road and I buy a ring for five rupees and John shops for cloth, and he sees pictures for 50 rupees that he loves, and we're to main drag and back by way of Orissa Handicrafts and all I can buy is two postcards. Walk back in the dark and read "Konarak" while waiting for dinner and John naps, and then we're to dinner and it's good again, and we're back to the room but I'm simply too tired to write, so I read a bit while John fusses around with the packing and we figure we'll go BACK to the shopping area tomorrow and for the first time this really appeals to me. The ROOM, however, is pretty horrid, though the fluffy cotton curtains make good towels, but the john doesn't work at all and we have to throw buckets of water into the hopper to flush it. There's no hot water, which isn't bad, but it's so hard there's a slime of soap everywhere and hard to make a lather so we use lots of our private soap stock. Then the dogs out back set up a howling every so often, and there are yowling kids next door that I'd gladly kill. Stuff the earplugs in my ears about 9:30 and fall into bed, knowing I'll GET that eight hours of sleep before dawn comes at 5:30, FINALLY getting boiled WATER into the room!

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17. [3:50PM, 9/24] Wake at 5:45 again and get out to see an incredible array of something over 150 sails going out from the left shore and crossing toward the right as they sailed further and further out. The sun came out of the clouds about 6AM, and there were even fewer people on the shore this morning. Watch until nothing more changed, then back to the room to shower and have breakfast at 7, and get the same cyclist to wheel us all the way out to Sonar Gaurang, a cluster of white-lined cupolaed buildings surrounded by a wall near the shore, and though the sign clearly said "Entrance for Hindus only" the guide led us into look at the harsh paintings on the walls of the eternal Jaganath, and he lingered behind and I warned John out, and the priests came out shouting to our guide and the young man who seemed prepared to show us around, and that very quickly and effectively solved the problem of tipping. Pedal very hard in the hot sun as I guess he knows we have to catch an early bus, and we get to the huge enclosure of Gundicha Bari to which Jaganath is wheeled during the festival, and again we can't go in, so we look at the shops around and the spattered images and the beautiful men talking to each other, and barely letting him rest we continue down to the huge square pool he SAYS is Indradyumna Tank but which is Narendra Tank on the map, and we look at everyone bathing and regret that the boys all wear trousers, take our shoes off and go across the stone bridge to the temples in the middle, white and bright yellow and blue painted, and again there're the prayers and the monks and the temples, and back to the main square for shopping, John buying the OTHER painting he wanted, I resist buying a nice black and white one for 35, but get a nice altar that gives some of the MENACE I feel from the space-helmeted god with short arms, and a drawing of the fabulous beastie with all different animal parts. Back to the hotel about 11 to pack and pay the bill, then off to the bus station, paying the fellow the twelve rupees that he loves, and onto a "special" bus for Bhubaneswar. It's special because it stops for gas, people, timings, and the red dog, and FINALLY goes off to take people on and off, averaging 15 mph the first 15 minutes, only 10 mph the second half hour, and it takes two hours to get to the capital, only 29 kilometers away! Out hot and dusty and get a rickshaw back to the State Guest House to have two free lunches, but we have to pay for the six Fantas we have. John showers in the manager's office, then we take over the lounge for our repacking. Find we're being charged six rupees to go back to the airport that cost us five to COME from, but there's no other taxi and the people in the infernal office have a blank Indian way of doing nothing that infuriates me. Finally TAKE the cab for six rupees, silent the whole way, and find the flight is delayed. I sit around and read and finish "Farnham's Freehold" in 9 days, a new record, and start "Worlds of RAH." Up to the roof to watch the placid sunset over the far hills, and John delights in the social habits of the cow herd. Plane comes in at 6:30 and we're FINALLY off at 7 for the flight to Calcutta, smooth but still queasy, over black nothingness below, even Calcutta, which itself is a fabulous array of lights. Land amid the gaslights and bonfires of Dumdum and take bus for forty minutes through HORRIBLE squalid streets and people sleeping on sidewalks and loudspeakers and cows and smells and dim lights and awful traffic to office, try to get tickets but we leave at 9:15 by taxi for Grand, check in and have FABULOUS chicken Kiev and vegetables and poire belle Helene for dinner, then down to squalid bar for free welcoming drink next to expansive fellow from Pittsburgh, then bed at 11:30.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18. Wake at 7 to quick sex, then down to restaurant next to dance floor for breakfast of filled Lorraine omelet and John has braised chicken livers on toast and the orange juice is STILL awful. Out to Pan-Am and explain our new itinerary and she says we should come back to pick it up, and then we part (after I chase after John because I have no money) and get to the National Museum JUST as it begins to rain hugely, and John's there shortly afterward to join in my amazement with the stupa railings from Sarnath from the second century BC! Then lovely Gandhara sculptures and other goodies through time, as fabulous series of bone from the Siwalik Hills of the Himalayas, and then past sculptures from everywhere and it's 12 so I'm out and down a market street and a runner comes up and asks if I'm looking for anything. "No." "Change money?" I look at him and ask rate. "10.50." OK. Into market area and past stalls and sign checks and GIVE them to them, awfully stupid, but the money comes back and it's 1050 rupees, and they don't even force me to buy anything. Back to hotel to find John still out, and pack and shower and he returns to say HE'S cashed for only 9, but it all goes into the kitty and we're RICH. Cab to pick up our NEW tickets, thanks to the lovely gal at Pan-Am, and taxi out to airport in time to wait the required hour for the flight to Benares. It's delayed and John gets to eat in the restaurant and brings me a boxed sandwich and half a huge Cadbury's date-nut chocolate bar and I read lots of my book and he reads lots of his. Finally onto the plane at 4 and we fly to Patna through the flood-filled vistas, and wait there for half an hour and then fly on to Benares, getting in at 6 after a series of horrendous turning take-offs and twisty landings that I quite HATE. Unbelievable train of passengers crowded onto the roof in white lumps and hanging ALL over the sides. Looked for the Himalayas but they weren't there. Only three of us get off in Benares so we ask the driver to let us off at Clarke's, and we drive through the darkening countryside past many villages and even have to wait for a passing freight train. To the hotel in the dark, carrying our bags through the ornate gate to the open desk, and have an air conditioned room on the end near the wrangling cab drivers, but they place is cool and John falls in love with the printed curtains for bed covers, and there are flasks of cooled boiled water, the john works, and there's even a radio that John can get nothing on either long or short wave. Shower and get out to dinner and it starts with a good pea soup, goes on to lovely fish in cream sauce, pheasant that John says is even better than at the Stonehenge, and a lovely creamy ice cream for dessert. The service is excellent, there are a couple of single guys nearby, and we quite fall in love with the place, happy to spend only 100 rupees for BOTH the room INCLUDING such great meals. One bed is on boards, so I give that to John, but I sleep very badly again, as I did last night on the awful swaybacked beds in the otherwise pleasant (though we had to walk a mile through halls being remodeled at the Oberoi Grand. Write 281-286 from 8-8:50 before dinner, getting INTO the fourth book AND numbering all the pages. Only FIVE days behind, lovely! [Sunday will go on the next page]. [5:45, 9/24. But I'm now SIX days behind, and things get WORSE, not better. FRUITLESS, FRUITLESS, WITHOUT FRUIT. I blow my mind at the museum and decide against sightseeing at the moment, but feel compelled to write about it. That removes the freeze on action and then I began to read. But "Unknown Kadeth" leads inanely to "Childhood Boston," and I feel EMPTIED having finished that long story. And this is the next-to-last book.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 19. So what happens when I finish the last book? I buy more! What happens when I catch up with the diary? Another day rolls around and I'm behind again! What happens when I'm in a funk? I write it out and it goes! What's happened right HERE? I've written myself out of my funk and can now continue with the diary, knowing that soon I'll be FORCED to change money, buy books (or risk having lots of time with NO BOOKS TO READ), and send souvenirs home OR ELSE I'LL HAVE TO CARRY THEM TO SRINAGAR. Oh, well, one day wasted to rejuvenate myself for the next isn't bad. Back to the DIARY!] [And I can always tell myself that I saved all the souvenirs so that I could write the account of the days BEFORE I send them off. At least I'm not lacking for SLEEP and SEX now, since I've had a lot of both regularly for the past few days. And of course at this point I'm writing a lot of words to get to the bottom of this FILLER page so I can increase the pages for Sunday by one and still not have to write more than two double pages for it. Enough, I've done it, got ON with it.] Up and have sex and eat breakfast and hire a rickshaw man for a tour of the city, since most of the temples are not enterable and only a guide would know where all the vantage points were. Travel for a long while and only reach the Sanskrit University, so we now know that the city is large and the map quite small. Go and go down innumerable streets and finally get off and tell us we're going through streets so narrow we must walk. Through alley after alley, brushing past people and cows and beggars, past hundreds of Siva temples that I surmise fits Benares because he's the god of destruction and everyone comes to Benares to die, which I believe even THOUGH John doesn't agree with me. Then finally come to the Golden Temple that we can see the turret of from a street, and a cow pushes us off our doorstep and we go into a narrow alley where we can watch people making offerings to the god inside, then up and around to the Aurengzeb Mosque, which is huge and completely featureless inside, only straw mats for carpets. Then down to the Panch-Ganga Ghat, and there are few people on the steps and we can watch everyone bathing, wondering whether the water they put to their lips is either actually or only symbolically drunk, and then we're down to a far busier ghat, the Dasaswamelk Ghat, reeking and slimy with mud from the recent high waters, and far above us is the yellow line marking the high waters in 1948. We catch the river in a between state, still covering many of the walks and bases of the temples, but far below the most flooded point. Then to Manikarnika Ghat, and see the white-sheeted men and red-robed women being burnt, and the smell is pungent and we're told about the babies and the holy men that are put in a rock-filled box and dropped into the Ganges, along with the deaths by smallpox. It takes four hours to burn a body, and it goes on all day and all night, the owner/manager of the ghat living in tiger-statued splendor above. We see temples knee-deep in the flood, watch the many bathers, then back to the cycle for a ride to some silk merchants. John had been out last night when I was writing and looked at some scarves that he said were fabulous. We look and look but they're not as nice and quite expensive. Guide then asks if we want to see a Muslim dealer and we do, so we go a great way back to the hotel and get more cold drinks free, but the stuff is LESS pretty and costlier, so we leave despite our causing them "bad luck" for the rest of the day. For something 50% too high, a 10% discount is nothing. Back to hotel for lunch at 1, paying the guy his eight rupees, and then, tired, out to the silk place to get John measured for his shirt, and I look at lovely silks, finally buying four pieces for me, Mom, Rita, and Grandma for 450. John buys a woolen neck scarf for 40. Back at 4 and sleep till 6, then finish reading "Worlds of RAH" and eat dinner, again great kidneys, and out to a large area (I think this was LAST night) for a very late performance of Ramayana. Women on one side, men on the other, without constant moving back of areas where people can sit, like in Nepal. Kids thrown around and pushed down, some NOT in good humor. Very strange transvestite Andrews sister act, as thin fellow who seemed very professional coaching country bumpkins whom I HOPE were stand-ins for sick REHEARSED people, and fat floppy actors who charged around laggardly, kids parroting their lines, and an "old-actor" type, who lived every word and stormed up a passion, and I saw a deep and TOUCHING kinship among stage-struck people everywhere. Dreadfully boring even with audience participation, and we left to get off the GROUND at 11:45, very tired to bed.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 20. Decide AGAINST the ghats this morning. [5:30PM, 9/25: Loud kids are certainly the bane of my existence: stupid shouting baby-like girl at Volga Restaurant last night, and the squally baby in the room with the door hatefully open right onto OUR balcony yesterday and today. DAMN them! Sleep on the floor the last two nights, to avoid the swayback beds, and have lovely sex this morning. Breakfast and take a trip to the Varanasi Cantonment bus station across the Varuna River and wait half an hour in front of a laughing crowd for the bus to Sarnath, and when it finally comes at 10, it's comfortable and not crowded and fairly fast. Pass the old stupa with the old octagonal tower on top that Akbar built, Radio India, the museum, and get let off at the far corner of the grounds. Start with the Mahabuddha Society's building, and the Japanese Buddha-store is Disney-like and fairly insipid. Out and backward to the Chinese temple and it's a horrible squat yellow concrete thing with a dusty Chinese Buddha inside and nothing more, a joke as a sight, then back around the first temple to the tall old stupa with its intricate swastika designs, back to the ruins of the monastery and the deer park, sadly fenced off from people, unlike the lovely Japanese one, and it's only nice that the many speckled fawn-like deer have the weed-ridden lotus lake and lots of greenery to themselves. To some current graveyard, visit the painted Jain temple with its scratched-out cocks in the lower reaches, then over the grass to the main attractions, where everything is in low ruins: the one that "strikes you eye" is a brick mound about four feet high. Look at the ruins of the Ashoka pillar, walk under the covered passageway, look at nothing much else under another built porch, and we figure we've had not only Sarnath, but also it killed my idea of going to Bodh-Gaya, which sounded even LESS interesting than SARNATH did, though much of Sarnath's glory is in the stupa-enclosure at the Calcutta Museum. Across to the Sarnath Museum and it's nicely laid out, except the duster is at work shocking the dust from these sandstone statues, and the force of his blows has already dislodged a number of nameplates---one fears what he's doing to the STATUES. The broken umbrella can hardly be believed in its original position on the pedestal, and some of the carvings are nice. Out at 12:30 to eat our Clarke's boxed lunch on the verandah and finish with Fanta under the tree while waiting for the return bus and buying cards and photographs. Back to town and decide to see the REST of the Benares temples, and John takes his Buddha and incense burner to be measured for boxes and gapes at the camels placidly cropping branches from the gingko trees as we pass. Then to Air-India and the "Mother India" temple for the dirty vertically-exaggerated marble map of India, and point of Kerala ARE high, then to the Monkey Temple (since the Vizwayanath Palace has been taken over by the military) for a great view down to the offerers and the strange chanter knocking his head against the floor, and the monkeys thankfully respectful of the sticks we're given by our guide, which we feed with the handful of corn for a quarter rupee. Then to the rather empty Hanuman ghat and back to pick up John's boxes and his silk shirt, and back to the room to write 286 at 7PM, then dinner and to the 8:30 tabla recital at 9:05, just before its start at the hippie-filled tourist bungalow. It doesn't seem like a very good tamboura player who's overly pleased with his own fingerwork, and the tabla is fiercely unimaginative, but the 25 in the audience applaud appreciatively and half of them leave at 10 and others come in and we leave at 10:30 and get to bed at 11, prepared to wake at 5AM! We're sorry to see that there's so little to be done in the evenings, and since this is the center of India's religious life, we expected more of everything, but found nothing much more different from what we'd already found in the few towns we'd visited. Maybe in our defensiveness and determination that Benares was NOT going to exert its hypnotic influence over us, we shut our eyes to its charms; but as we looked at it, it didn't seem to have charm at all.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21. Up promptly and out to find NO taxi that we'd asked for, and end taking a very slow rickshaw that we despair getting on time with, since he's small and old and slow, but we dash up alley to boats docked before the sun comes above the horizon at 6:05, and sit waiting for the two rowers to come down, and we ARE out on the rushing brown river when the sun peeps above the hazy clouds at 6:10, and the rather empty ghats get somewhat more crowded with women who remain fully dressed and men who strip down to the barest essential g-string, everything pulled up tightly so that the pubic hair on each side is visible but the genitals are only a squashed mass. A pimply hippy comes down and takes off his shirt, but carefully pulls the clinging white robe away from his front as he crawls out, and other men put their hands down to cover themselves. Some of the other ghats are more crowded and we're pointed out the Palace of the Maharajahs of Jaipur and Udaipur and Nepal and Mysore and a couple other places, and we're amazed that the river is STILL so high that some temples are still completely covered and some promenades still are under water, yet we can see heavy mud on some flights still uncovered, and huge banks of silt in arcades one and two stories ABOVE the present river level, with the HIGH water mark about FOUR stories up. Some steps are so tilted and knocked about by the water they'll have to be repaired before use. Back to burning ghat, with two faintly blackened feet sticking out far apart, tapering to burnt calves and black bones sticking into the fire, and the turners matter-of-factly beat the body to break the knees, one leg falls into the side and they poke it back into the fire, and they attend the other burnings and I frankly feel a tiny bit nauseous, though I agree with John that burning the body IS best, that since the soul is gone it IS just garbage. Back to hotel at 10, passing in the street a man who first appeared to us back-to, and I could see no waist-strap at all, and I poked John and as we swung past we saw his dark beard and pubic hair, and this thick short uncut cock the same dark color as his ranting face. Either mad or a sadhu or both. People seemed to notice his ranting as much as his nudity, which was not much notice. To the airport at 11 and find we're flying a DC-3 that is "full" when 18 of its 28 seats are filled, and it's boiling hot until we take off and the cooler air starts blowing. Levelest take-off on record and lots of bounces before climbing above the dust layer. Flat, then hills with no terracing at all, the fabulous cunt-falls, with two roads forming perfect lips around the hole, the strange sheered-off hill halfway between, and then the gradual lowering after an hour of flying and I see three or four scattered temples to the east, while John sees the whole western enclosure. Out and get told we don't need to stay more than one day and we can arrange flight back at hotel, and they assign us a taxi free to the Tourist Bungalow while the bus takes the German group to the Chandela, which charges twice as much WITHOUT food. Snack on part of the second Clarke's box lunch and get right out to the temples, hugely gratified to get the LOVELY handouts from the tourist office, and around the first four temples before the heat and eyestrain get through to me, and we're back to shower and have surprisingly nice sex, then doze for a bit, watch the VERY pallid sunset which makes up for in LONGEVITY what it lacks in splendor, large green-tailed birds calling; and at 7PM I write 287-288, then at 7:30 to dinner and walk down dark back roads to look at stars and listen to drums and singing in the too-far distance, and back to the hotel along the dark roads, holding hands and talking very generally about John's pleasure with the trip, not too fast after all, the pleasantries of India, and MY agreement with "let's see how it is and stay as long as we want." Feel very good and together and John injects "I love you," and bed at 10. [Notes from Khajuraho map: Doves sound like horses of warriors warming up for a slaughter. Chausath Yogani, far out, looks like a series of little beehives set on the edge of the platform. Laxmi temple is next to Varha Temple. There's a nice orgy on Laxmana Temple. Kandariya has a great vertical trio that I got a photo of, the outer wall is comprised of oddments, and Chitragupta has a nice SMALL cock on a corner. There's even a TRANSVESTITE: a bearded man accosting another man. Vishwanath has a trio, but the bottom of trio is not erotic, middle of trio has "shocked maiden with hands to blushing cheeks" and top is a fabulous group. To see John's cock study, stand ON lingam platform INSIDE and look to upper right, slightly BEHIND. Further along on Laxmana is a fellow fucking a HORSE. The road is out to the South Group. Dula-Deo has lots: a guy whose cock goes all the way across his leg to a girl, and another of complete-leg fucking. Plus, right-leg near border, woman straddling fuck. And the upside down cock-masher. And girl kissing guy's nose, all outside legs raised. A number of "both facing forward, male soft." In the Jain group sculpture well, one lotus-seated figure had hands broken off and cock is carved BEHIND them. Pratapeshwar temple has honeycomb look to outside, few carvings. Parvati Temple is a lovely shrine with a good doorway. Shantinath Temple has lots of pretty tiny Buddhas in one chapel; lovely cadence to singing by priest, and phallic coat hooks out of wall. Parsavanath Temple DOES have good lintels and posts. Sinuous gods, yes, but NOT erotic. A few nude Jain standing images thrown in. Some nice things INSIDE and Jain panels polished cylinders with dark wiping. Adinath temple has a strut which hangs DOWN from ceiling, flowers ending with fuzzy fronds. Ghantai Temple has bells like Papal tiaras blowing in the breeze, hanging out of the mouths of dragons. Duladeo is great, TINY little blue and red flowers, larger yellow, and river was NOT dry. Higher pale yellow fringe-head daisies, and even tinier white ones. Chaterbhuja has LOVELY carvings, ceiling goes up like Dante's vision of the Divine Empyrean. No elephant frieze, back wall ALL leogryphs with tails of COME to tiny women beneath, but many headless and destroyed niches. One of the nicest images yet: feet and hands beautifully natural, lovely halo of heads and figures, natural body poses, and modified lingam base and the STATUE like lingam; buzzing of 1000s of flies!

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22. Wake about 6 and get outside to watch a sunrise as placid as the sunset, listening to birds (no crows since Calcutta, a nice blessing) and frogs and the stack of broken brick that I guess are going into the new wing under construction (which furnishes an amused audience for John's shirts and shorts and a radio for our "pleasure" that we tell them to PLEASE turn down, as well as the loud radio at the fairly good dinner). Back to the Western Section to take notes on the maps and re-see the good section and scan the temples I missed and back to breakfast at 8, then into taxi at 8:30 for a run to the Jain temples, and the lovely sunken sculpture garden, then to the Romanesque ruins and get told that the other two Jivari and Vamana have no roads to them. Back to the Dula Deo and find we have to walk to it, too, but are gratified to find that THERE is the source of most of the more exotic photographs. Back past natives walking, farming, digging in the ground, and washing their kids in a ditch, and into the car for Chaturbhuj, where the road is washed out and we walk FURTHER past a wandering black pilgrim and a family happily swimming in a pool that will sadly vanish in too few weeks. Nice Vishnu statue and we leave NO donation with the guardian of what must be the LONELIEST temple in the whole STATE. Back to the hotel and I make the mistake of saying he can go, and we pack and wait for the HOTEL car after the Air India bus leaves, and it turns out we would have completed our tour for 30 rupees at the AIRPORT. Oh. Call and get a cab and get to the airport at 11:45 and an annoyed flight officer quickly makes out our new tickets to Benares and Agra, takes our bags out to the plane (where mine flops open AGAIN, the catch being bent, I guess) and we get the SAME rearmost side seats as before and take off PROMPTLY at 12:10. Over the same territory except there are FAR more clouds and it's very turbulent, and even John says he's never felt such an unsteady flight. Take a hellishly long time flying just at the worst bottom of clouds, and land a bit behind schedule at 1:25. Into the airport for a ludicrous cheese sandwich and beer for lunch, read a bit, and onto the 2:10 flight to Agra, and the 737 cuts through the air the DC-3 joggled through just BEAUTIFULLY. Settle back and watch the ground for flooding, but there's little, and the horizon for Himalayas, but there's none that can be truly distinguished from far-off clouds. Land at 3 and get met by a grand fellow from Laurie's who puts us into a hotel car, and we'd already SEEN the Taj, huge and white, on landing. To our air conditioned room with the news we must be back at 7 for dinner because of the "just routine" blackout practice for war between Pakistan and India at 8PM. Grab a cab for four rupees for the Taj, avoid all the guides, thread the ante-alleys and booking office and through the gate. Just as I remembered, and John says he can't see how anyone would say "it looked SMALL." Inside and John loves the echo effect of the main room, down to the hot tomb chamber and BUMP my head resoundingly coming up (which I think I did before), and then around the side for the "Changes" effect in the mica-glass panels of the ivory doors, and watch as the sunset illuminates the stones in the grille from the side till 5, then outside to watch the rosy ball set MOST unspectacularly, and rickshaw back to the hotel by a MOST talkative fellow who INSISTS on taking us to a shop and John shouts "No," and guy amazes me with "OK, lady," that John does NOT hear. To hotel at 7 and fairly poor meal in a VERY hot and stuffy dining room, and we RATHER decide to leave TOMORROW. Look at the stars in the blackout outside, and then back inside to shower and get to bed as early as 9:45.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23. [6:50PM, 9/25. My God! Only THREE days behind! I think this is the MOST up-to-date I've been since Bangkok! INCREDIBLE. I can only hope I can put in ONE more 3-day-done stint like today tomorrow, and I'll only be ONE day behind. Oh joy!] [5:30PM, 9/26] Up and pack and get luggage out of room because they say we CAN'T be in room after noon, and breakfast in not quite so stuffy dining room. Out to see the Red Fort and take another talky rickshaw driver, and get there just before 9 but it's open anyway and we get a neat gray little man who uses his monkey stick as a cane but walked briskly and shouts with a harsh ring. Through the royal palace and all the rooms that used to be roofed with gold, and again I fall under the spell of what it was: acres of canopied, carpet-spread gardens with rosewater fountains and fish-filled ponds, jewels and gold and marble everywhere, and the richest silks and best foods and snake-mongoose and elephant-tiger fights from the terraces. Around for an hour and a half and he says we MUST see Fathepur Sikri (which I veto) and Itmud-al-Dalud, which we do. Cycle past the long high red walls of the fort and marvel at how it must have looked, and now look at the funeral procession to the burning ghats, the quantities of water buffaloes in the Jumna River, and all the squalid tire and body and battery repair shops along the shore road to the bridge. As we ride, we look to the left and there's a thin fellow tying something around his waist, but aside from that thin cord he's wearing nothing at all! We gape at his flat stomach and protruding genitals under a scarf of black hair, and he sticks his tongue out at us and makes a derisive face, and we look behind to see him strutting unnoticed by others across the road. Look for others but see none. To the busy, thankfully shaded, bridge and the traffic is our way and lumbering tires on oxcarts and speeding motorcycles have advantages that the lighter and slower have to cope with. Through the small village with the melodious hawkers selling their fruits and vegetables, and pass up a guide to go straight to the small pavilion, and up to a tower to look down on it, enjoying the way we're free to roam around after the closed austerity of the Taj. The old Colossal Cave vs. Carlsbad Caverns effect. The carvings are grosser, but the floor is carved, too, which is pleasant. Around and around inside and out in the increasing heat and back to the hotel at 12 to stop for a few shops but see nothing, and then see water reflections on the roof of the pool and get our trunks and find the deep water about five feet deep and the shallow part varying from 0 to 18 inches and it's very nice to splash in the shallows, getting sun and water all at once. Over to eat a grand meal for lunch until 2, then taxi to the airport at 2:30 for the 3:30 flight, read a bit, and onto the 737 on the right for a final glimpse of the Taj and the twenty minute rocket to Delhi, bouncing in the smoggy air. Fly past Qutb Minar and land and get bags and John has trouble with Srinigar flight, but we finally book for Monday and get in bus to city, where he meets fellow who says "11.50" and John agrees to meet him at Ranjit at 6. To room and settle in and down to be put into a cab and taken to the Delite Theater on Ali Asaf Road, showing "Guddi," and they say their boss is busy so we drink Fanta, one leaves, other leaves with the UNSIGNED checks, and never comes back! We leave at 7, and go back to hotel to get full numbers and taxi to telex office for an exasperating 90 minutes to START to send Telex, and we finally leave at 9:45, having to come back tomorrow, to cab to the Moti Mahal for fairly good meal, then tired back to the hotel to fall into bed at 11, irked by the theft. [Text of Telex: Robert Zolnerzak lost two unsigned Barclay 50 dollar travel checks numbers 71693068-069 and John Vinton lost three unsigned Barclay 50 dollar travel checks nos 71693095-096-097 between 1800 and 1900 near Connaught Place, crowded shopping area, Delhi. Other papers lost. Passports OK. All were carried in shoulder bag. Checks issued on 01 July 1971 by Plaut Travel Inc., 701 Madison Ave, NYC. Please advise us. We leave here on 27 Dept. Next known address is Connemara Hotel, Madras. John Vinton, Hotel Ranjit, Delhi, Staywell, to Barclapark, Newyork, 620-449, 420-4032, from the Hotel Ranjit, Room 234.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24. Up at 6:45 for GRAND sex, then shower and fart around till breakfast at 8:30, go back to pick up the copy of the telegram and get to the National Museum at 9:45, where I write 289-290, then it BLOWS my mind, see 290, and I go back to hotel and write 291 at 12:20, then write 292-298 from 12:40 to 2:30, read the end of the story about Kadeth, then write 298-302 from 3:30-4:30, then read a bit more, and write 302-305 from 5:45-6:15, when John's back and we talk a bit about my strange problem, and then he looks through the guides and suggests the Volga Restaurant for dinner, having had only VERY small chicken sandwiches in the room at 3:30 because neither of us bothered to eat lunch when we SHOULD have. As a result we were starved at the Volga, and the chicken a la Kiev and the chicken Cocotte Volga tasted VERY good, though the square of chocolate ice cream with chocolate sauce called a chocolate sundae was sad. The apple juice for 4.50 was tasty, but not worth it. The horrible quartet of bass/ singer, drums, flute/saxophone, and piano went off duty at 8 when dinner started, and I finally decided I was TIRED, really, and we got home at 8:45 and went immediately to bed. [Which leaves me with the problem of filling in the rest of the 2 1/2 pages for FRIDAY.] [6:10PM, 9/26: And I have something to write about: these damned Indians! They can be as absolutely PERFECT as the guy at Konarak Tourist Bungalow, as abrupt but efficient as the server at the Bhubaneswar State Tourist place, as delightful as the woman at the Pan Am office in Calcutta, or as oilily unpleasant as the desk boy at Bhubaneswar, the taxi driver there, the desk people here at Ranjit, the "friend of the fellow in the end shop," and the last of whom was supposed to mail my stuff today and give me a RECEIPT. "He'll be here in half an hour" answers his friend at 5:20, but at 6:05 he's not here and the fellow knows NOTHING of showing regret, even if he DOESN'T feel it. I guess that's partly it: they don't have the well-developed HYPOCRISY of the Americans. If your problem doesn't interest them, they ARE uninterested, they don't FEIGN it. If they WANT to help they can be cloyingly clutching, but if they CAN'T help; well, it was only a FAVOR they couldn't do, so why should they be SORRY about not being able to help? They're not HURTING you, are they? But they ARE. John's against the wheels within wheels of non-fixed prices, the changing black market rates, cuts for rickshaw drivers or guides who bring you into shops, even clerks who quote a water-pipe price to John at 20 when he actually BUYS one the next day from the SAME shop for 8! And the SAME fellow may have quoted BOTH prices!! If a plane doesn't show up, well, it's not there. But if a PERSON is there, then SEEMS to want to help but gets everything WRONG, it's somehow far more frustrating. Maybe it's because they never get angry. We can shout and raise our voices and they look slidingly away from us and shake their heads in their damnable way and utter phrases that mean absolutely NOTHING. On one hand, they try to tell you you're their BEST friend and they'd do ANYTHING for you, then their eyes widen in innocence when you catch them in a LIE, or when you ask them to do something, they SAY they'll do it, and then they DON'T. Ask for an omelet and blandly get served fried eggs, and ask for breakfast at 6 and get it at 6:30, laundry takes two full days, though they SAY it should take only one. IT'S ALL SO HELLISHLY FRUSTRATING!]

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 25. [HEY, man, this was YESTERDAY!] The English are a far-traveled lot: there's been a huge-windowed bus from Bournemouth parked outside for three days now, and today "Albert," a double-decker bus from London, via Vienna and Teheran, is parked outside and the halls are crawling with repulsive squat birds and little, nicer, guys.] [6:45PM: His friend said he'd CALL when he comes in, so I can only sit, fume, cry on John's shoulder, and WAIT] Up for sex (don't think we HAD it yesterday. We seem to be down to every other or even every third day, what with my getting up for dawn, and various tours and compulsory early risings. Looking forward to the north to RELAX) and down for breakfast at 8, then out to the Red Fort with a driver who says it opens at 10, would we like to shop? (like the driver today who asked "And where do you want to go AFTER the Hotel Ranjit?"), but it's open at 7. I don't want a guide but John does, so we pay FIVE rupees for a large sweating fellow with the unpleasant habit of drawing me aside and giving me VERY friendly advice. This fort is MUCH less nice than Agra's, further depleted in beauties and with far fewer things of note. But he DOES rave about the museum in Hyderabad and we think of going there. Tour ends at 10 and he takes me to look at Jaipur paintings, but all I can find are lovely pages priced at 300 rupees that I'd give 150 for, but even the "early morning luck" play doesn't keep me. Then the guide comes up with the "setting up a NYC shop" ploy and there's an awful scene with 100-10,000 Rp paintings floating around, and some museum quality stuff IS for sale, but the PRICES start at 4000, and even if it would go down to 400, I'd think twice before buying. I'm just not THAT rich. Finally disentangle ourselves from him at 11:15 and stop at a bank to take 45 minutes to cash $50 WITH receipt at official rates, then to hotel to find that the shopkeeper will mail the stuff FOR me, so I'm up to write letters to Mom and Rita and Grandma and take them down to him. Good vegetarian lunch downstairs at 1, then up to the room to SLEEP from 2-3 to get strength for Ram Lila tonight. Then out to shop for a swimsuit for John and three books for me, and then AGAIN I feel out of it and irritated with John's shopping, go back to read and write 305-311 from 5:30-6:50, and then we're out to the YMCA Tourist Hotel for the dance program and it's VERY effective. [7:05, 9/26, and I'm stopping to go to the Y, and I'm only 24 hours behind in this CRAZY diary!] Hear that tomorrow's performance will be different and decide then and there to come again [7:25, 9/27. Two days behind again]. Then taxi to the Tandoori Restaurant in the President Hotel and the waiter recommends we share a chicken, fish and roast mutton dish, and they're all quite fabulous in the red-pink glow and peppery taste. Have a strong screwdriver to start, so we're glowing through the meal and I'm quite high. Have a silver-paper-covered pistachio ice cream roll for dessert and John determines to bring about half a pound of silver paper home. Then walk past numbers of people sleeping on the sidewalk, or forlornly selling betel nut leaves, seeming to work 18 hours a day for very little money, which depresses me, and we get to the VERY dusty brightness of Ram Lila, amazed at the PEOPLE pumping the ferris wheels around, and the brazenly sexual MEN powdered and dressed as women who act as come-ons for the motorcycle shows, freak shows, nature acts and circuses. One strange pot-bellied 30-year-old hops up and down on his haunches, moving constantly as a loudspeaker shouts. Very tired at 11, and walk directly back to the hotel in the dust-raising traffic and fall into bed almost as late as midnight, for an unusually late night.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 26. Also stopped off for tickets for tour 4, taking place only 7AM - 1PM on Sundays, that looked to be the ONLY interesting thing to do in town on Sunday. We'd ordered breakfast at 6, but I got up and shaved and showered before John called and it finally came at 6:20, and we had two of everything I ordered and nothing of what JOHN wanted. Taxi to the Block L, Radial Road 6 of Connaught Place at 6:45 and get the first two seats on the crowded bus. Off at 7:15, after reading the Statesman, for Taluqabad, past dozens of stone quarries and ample evidence that people SLEEP exactly where they work: at taxi stands, on roadways, at building sites, and everywhere else. Stop at Taluqabad and we'd been amazed at the extent of the ruined fort walls, and we got out and went through the gate and clambered to the top of the next-highest peak and looked around, and I saw the highest plateau and left John behind and went to that tallest peak. Look over the inner taller citadel and the far outcroppings of far-flung city walls, reminding me of the old feudal demesnes and the high keep in the center to which everyone retreated at time of attack. Down and to outside walls falling sheer to grazing cattle 80 feet below, monkeys scampering over the sloping rock walls. Down three more levels and find stairs and a dank tunnel with bat-filled and smelly storerooms too dark to see their extent. Back to the bus and everyone's sitting there, and they DIDN'T tell me the stop is only thirty minutes, but I see John is inside and then go across the road to the slant-sided tomb of the king of the place in 1350, and see the bare tombs of "father, son, mother" as the bare-backed floor sweeper informed me, and I clamber around walls, and see John back at the bus and the driver comes to get me with a SCHEDULE, and we're off for the two-hour stop at Bucla Kund, which looks to be only a stepped old swimming and washing hole, and I refuse restaurant and wander uphill to watch in fascination as one fellow splits off a huge shelf of sandstone, another below knocks a square granite slab into rectangular bricks, women put limestone chips up on a pile, goats leap around, and a one-legged man makes dexterous use of a simple crutch. Keep getting pesky thorns in the shower clogs, but we go across looking for group and find the road and the spring which is cruddy and muddy and probably a dammed stream, and pretend not to understand they want us to "accept" marble stones for baksheesh. Back and drink two cold beers at the restaurant, and the ride back into town seems very pleasant. Past Hamayun's Tomb and LOTS of old arches and gates and mosques, and to Buddha Jayanta Park, not quite finished and fairly hot, and wander around while John lays in the sun and I clap for some "twist" and "shake" by cute guys and go to give them a Touch-Me but it's completely black! We get off bus at Embassy Restaurant at 1 and it comes back to normal WITHOUT an air bubble and with BEAUTIFUL black/blue/green effects. Try it AGAIN! Club sandwich, banana shake and ice cream and fruit for tasty lunch, then back to the hotel to look through train and plane schedules and sleep from 3:30-5PM, and want to go to Ram Lila, but the guy with my MAILING wasn't in (see before) and I disgustedly write 311-315 from 5:30 to 6:20 waiting for him, then down at 7 for the YMCA program and he's THERE, saying the packages are wrapped but the guy hasn't come in yet. The post office closed at 8:30, so if he's not here by then, it's no luck. OK. We go to YMCA and it's the SAME program [From notes on program: Manipuri Dance much like St. Denis' "Incense": girl does simple steps in stiffly belled skirt, then topless guy comes in and they both ring tiny hand cymbals. Kathak: during the fast jiggle, it looks like he's aiming at an orgasm. Solo fellow with swift successive turns, fast bell-ringing with feet, and languid head and hand movements counterpointing drumbeats. Feet slapping and hand clapping; hand motions of flute-playing, rope pulling and singing. Earrings, and big beads and rhinestone-clip necklace. From North India, a religious dance that was taken over by the court. Gujerat Dance from West India: Stick dances with all four dancers (friends). Clacking sticks together, in pairs, on floor, pair dancing mostly. Snathal Tribal: Two girls and simple bowing and stepping movements, clapping hands and going around in a circle. Tiresome. Bharata Natyam: Solo girl in bird-like quickness and posing, fast precious eyes, head, hand and feet movement, alternating rest and staccato movements. Tarja: Bengal folk lyric: Aloof girl, confident, then crushed, then happy when he's finally captured, much facial movements and beating back and forth by the couples, but with few movements close together. Quite explicit motions of smoking a clay pipe to get happy. And SHE knows a KARATE chop. Fantastic father-son idea came from eye similarity of older tabla player and young Kathak dancer. First evening: Assamese Folk song by sparrow-plain gold-glassed matron (House of 270 rupees) Odd songs with HUMMED sounds in with music. Second evening: Folk tune on flute (House of 175 rupees, but I suspect MANY of them were freeloaders but for about 100 rupees worth). Flute, hand cymbals and drums, not much of anything. SECOND look seems much FASTER to me, thus when I'm ABSORBING NEW stuff, time SLOWS. When I see what's familiar, time passes quickly. Fewer eye fixations? Costumes: Rajasthani girl: Heavy Tibetan looking, mirrored skirt and very colorful, much jewelry (hand ornaments, facial jewels. Maharashtrina (Deccan, Bombay): Sari drawn up in the back for easy movements. Nine yards long sari. Teenagers: Tight pajamas are Mongolian, long overshirt. Lucknow Begum: Influenced by Persians, green flowing pants, so long previously that they dragged on ground, have to be carried by servant or slung over arms. Kashmiri girl: Long overblouse and flowing skirts and lots of jewelry, STOVE burns dry chinar leaves and they wear it UNDER chemise! Bohra Costume: Fabulously beautiful in stark black and gold elegant veil.] and we're out disgusted. At hotel the packages come too late, so I give him 10 rupees for wrapping and forms. Then John says he's feeling very bad, won't go to dinner. Oh oh. I go walking past animals and sands to Tandoori for mixed grille, but lamb is cold, fish is overdone, and I don't like being alone, so they're a flop, salad is too big, and MY stomach begins to feel bad in sympathy with John's. Back walking at 10 and John says he had to ARGUE with guy to get ONLY soup and tea. Try to comfort him and bed at 10:45.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 27. [8:45PM, 9/27. TODAY AT LAST!] [Finally cross the LAST line off the old Hotel Manaslu stationery that I started keeping Kathmandu notes on way back till August 31, almost a MONTH ago, and I can now throw it AWAY!] But I don't sleep very well at ALL, looking at watch at 11 and 11:30, deciding I'm worries about the damned flight to Srinigar, and awake at 1:15 and 2:30 and 3, and just figure to be ALWAYS awake. At 4 there's a rush of rain and a continuous series of lightnings beyond the clouds about 40 times a minute until I get tired of watching. Back into bed and finally get up at 6, tired and dreading the flight, counting the hours and half-hours left. Shower and pack and down for breakfast at 7:30 to hear rest of English crew wailing: "But I TOLD you I needed it and last night you said I'd HAVE it, but it's not HERE." "What are you trying to do, make a FOOL of me?" "I ASKED for the box lunch but I don't HAVE it yet." And utterly so forth. Manage to get and pay for the bill, and I clunk my head putting my suitcase into the cab back, and John buys 15 rupees worth of silver paper at 10 pice apiece. To the airport at 8:45 and I'm cursing my fear but fearing anyway, and John's feeling worse and worse, having gone to the john five times already. Read a bit and get onto the plane at 9:45 and off at 10:10, cold sweat coating my palms and feet, and we rise above smog and clouds and go along for thirty minutes before seeing snow-capped peaks off to the right, even OVER the wing, and there are some glorious tops before we start down over large hills, and come in at Srinigar at 11:25. John's almost immobile so I collect luggage and sign all forms (military is everywhere: armed guards, caravans of trucks on the roads, military tents everywhere) and to bus to the Tourist Reception Center, where I insist on Class A houseboat for 90 rupees for four days and we get Buckingham Palace. Cab to ghat for two rupees and take a shikara across, and John falls in love with the lounge-like cushions and low gunwales and flowered canopies. Across shallow arm of Dal Lake to our older white place, and it's 12 feet wide and about 100 feet long, with four feet of porch, 6 feet of entry into sunken (HA!) living room of 18 feet, dining room of 15 feet, gallery of 8 feet, with stair to the awning top deck, two bedrooms of 10 feet, master bedroom of 15 feet, bathroom of 6 feet, and back deck of 8 feet. Settle four days rent for 400 and up to lounge from 1-2 in sun, quite warm though day is cool. Then good English lunch of soup and five chops and good French fries and perfect cauliflower and lovely baked apples. Then off at 3 for a shikara with two rowers and our boy across the ENTIRE length of Dal Lake to the Nishan Gardens, and John again goes to the john and I ADORE the huge floppy dahlias that are a double handful of sensuous smelly pleasure. Told the waters flow only for the Sunday tours, and enjoy multicolored marigolds of spectacular radiance, tons of strawflowers and beds of variegated petunias that knock my eyes out, along with cannas and zinnias and daisies and dozens of other things. Out at 5 and decide to forgo Shalimar, stop for a brandy and soda at an island and talk to some Sikh kids that are CANADIAN by birth, then watch sunset of a lovely pearl/gold/purple progression and cuddle under a blanket to get back to the houseboat at 7. Put sweater and long pants on and write 316-318 before dinner at 8, but it's AWFULLY hot and salty mutton and CAN'T finish it and have beer bought on island and spicy potatoes and TONS of stewed apples and John can't take it and goes to bed immediately at 8:30, and I'm back to write 318-321 right NOW, listening to shouts and motorboats and kids on the river, and maybe this wasn't such a great houseboat AFTER all. And NOW it's 9:20 and I'm UP TO DATE again, and will wash in COLD water and get to bed! [Tuesday on next page.] [Nagan 10 km, Sharif 26 Km, Yusmarg 48Km] [2:20PM, 9/28: Hands cold and nose dripping for the first time in ages. I sit in the guides' room at Yusmarg because there aren't any empty chairs in the other room and it's raining outside and no one seems to have the sense to say we should go EARLY, since we're not scheduled to leave until 4 and probably we're NOT going to leave until 4. Impressions: the sound of John groaning and saying "Oh, whoa, slow, stop, not so fast,

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28. stop" when his backside is worn out with the saddle of the ponies that take us to a little lake overlooking what would be the Valley of Srinagar if the haze weren't so thick (I'm sure we can SEE it because we can see the hills across the way; it's just that there are no details visible), and then to the "Milk Ganges" that they name a perfectly ordinary stream in the effort to make each view seem interesting, significant, and worth a tour BESIDES the fact that there IS a road going there. I'm afraid that's ALL there is! True, there are sights of fabulous steep peaks looming over the near ranges, but the sight from the plane was far superior and the fact that the haze obscures the valley and the low clouds the near hills and the high clouds the far hills, and the rain clouds close in with cold winds to make the hands colder and colder, the sweater AND jacket very welcome, and the sunglasses unnecessary. The over-grazed hills and eroded valleys with only the scantiest start of walnut and apple orchards, broken by a few stands of tall thin willow trees, and terraced fields that grow corn and rice, all look like the sun-blasted, dusty, animal uprooted hills (though these are not so rocky) of Palestine and Syria. And John very well points out that the rocky stream bed surrounded by tall pines looks VERY much like the wilds of Maine. The stupid boy from John's pony who insists on trailing along asking alternately for "one more rupee" or "only 8 annas" in ADDITION to the one rupee "baksheesh" I allowed to be extorted from me by mine, in addition to the set rate of 10 for the horses to two locations. The relief in John's face and voice when the stream turned out to be CLOSE to the rest house. The rest house is a real joke: all open doors onto a large dark room with one table and six chairs, and a covered hall to another completely bare room and a small, dirty, water-splashed room where the horse drivers eat and drink, and the little room off the porch that I manage to find four unused chairs (and two unused beds) in and sit and write by the brightest window while listening to the tearless screams from the damnable little girl sitting across from us on the bus with the insufferable father, placid mother, and quieter older sister. The poor porters had their hands full: the head-beating child of the pleasant couple who asked me to snap their picture, child dressed in the colorful orange and yellow-orange shirt, skirt and cap of the Kashmiri well-dressed peasants, carried by one of the porters the whole way, the TWO kids tended ALL the time by two porters, and the large lunch suitcase of two couples carted out to the rock by THEIR bearer. One hopes THEY tipped better than I did. Then there's always someone who thinks he can sing, and his voice rises crooningly and uglily above the chatter of the crowd and clatter of forks on the plates on the porch. John and the older tourists and four guides huddled around the rock-sheltered fire by the side of the stream. The old fellow decorously turning his back to his wife as he pisses in front of her, and she ducks beside a rock, doing something to her pale blue sari to enable her to piss. And a guide comes into the room and starts to hum into ripply song, accenting the nonexistent beat with a tapping foot. I'm obviously out of place but they don't tell me to leave, and one fellow even smiles and says a sentence at me that I nod to and smile back, and whenever the last one leaves, they always SHUT the door BEHIND them.] Well, I GET into bed at 9:35, and rather quickly fall asleep on the quite convex mattress of straw, bundled up against the cold. Wake at 2AM to listen to the sounds of water and people, then at 4:30 to the crazy incessantly crowing cock RIGHT outside our window, and there's a SMALL amount of light coming in the windows when I get up at 6, freezing cold and sniffling because of the frigid air, even putting the bedspread over the two thick blankets. Shave in the cold water and John asks for and gets hot water, and we eat breakfast of two VERY hard eggs and toast at 6:45, and they delay until 7:15 packing the lunch, and we're across in the HOUSE'S boat to a tonga that INSISTS on two rupees [8AM 9/29] and we only give him ONE rupee and I suspect the boat owner gives him an additional half-rupee. To the Tourist Office Booking room to find all the tours are INDEED taken, but we pester and insist and ask about cancellations and argue and fume, and finally at 8:30 there's a cancellation for two for Yusmarg. Out of the valley by way of Nayan and wind our way up the hills to Choisi-i-Sherif, and out for some 600-year-old tomb in a lovely wood-carved building, and another older place across the way, all Moslem, and urinate in a "slide" john and back to the bus munching a cookie John bought. To Yusmarg about 11AM and eat lunch by a dry stream bed and there's four (3 hard, 1 soft) boiled eggs, lots of buttered bread, two large pieces of nut cake, and, just as we despair of finding chicken, two roast halves of a small chicken. Eat and throw the rest to the crows that croak very bassly above us in the pines, and then go back to the ponies we'd engaged earlier. The saddle and stirrups fit well, and for the most part they walk, but the runners begin drawing the horses downhill faster than they'd normally care to go, and urging them frequently into trots and gallops which elicit cries of pain from John and clenched jaws and held breath from me. How quickly could I get out of the stirrups to avoid falling with the pony down the sheer ledges only millimeters from the sides of the unsteady hooves? See previous notes for the day. Everyone decides to leave early at 3:05, and we trundle without a stop down the dusty hill, having changed our seats to the rear to avoid the blasting volume from the single speaker in front of us. Decide then NOT to take the tour to Wular and Gulmarg as being the same, so we now only want Sonamarg and Pahalgam. Into town at 4:40, and can't check on reservations, and buy two tickets for the 16-hour bus ride to Pathankot and John refuses and sells back one ticket and finds the Indian Airlines office JUST closed at 5 so he can't make reservations for the Friday plane to Chandigahr, where we'd meet later in the Kulu Traveler's Lodge. Back to hotel with the miraculously-present Gulam, and order a hot bath tub full of water, and I read a bit and follow John into the tub, but can't pull the plug) and then we eat a gloriously bland English mutton chop broiled onion and potato and carrot stew at 7:30, followed by diced apples in sugar. Then get boat with Gulam across to town, stopping at Subhan "The Worst" and get told to come back, cab to bazaar and hear gongs and chanting and a beautiful-eyed Hindu tells us about Hanuman and prasad of honey-filled dough puffs and we look at lovely carved marble lingams and go out to the waiting Gulam. Watch Hindu chapati making and shops close so it's too late to have Kashmiri tea. John's flaking out from fatigue and we're back across in a lovely shikara in the moonlight to our white floating palace at 10PM, and go straight to cold bed.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29. Wake at 2 and 4 again, and up at 5:50 to shit for the first time in two days and dress warmly for the day. John's up at 6:25 and we have good fried eggs for breakfast followed only a LITTLE later by toast made over a crackling pot of glowing coals, piece by piece, and lots of cups of not-so-hot tea. Out at 7:05 across to a taxi which two girls join us in, and WONDERS, they're selling two tickets for the super deluxe bus to Pahalgam! Outside and inside and outside and inside from counter to counter for seat assignments, and get told we can ONLY arrange for return from Pahalgam. Pity us if we have to STAY there tonight. John shrieks when he finds bus will return at 7:30, but manager assures us we'll have hot baths waiting. Get a bus at 7:55 and I start writing, finishing up to NOW at 8:30AM, STILL waiting to leave. This bus is so much BETTER than the old: four speakers to blast us instead of 1, what sounds like a chorus of kids in the back row instead of just three, but thankfully MORE comfortable seats with slightly lower backs and quite a bit lower, and gray-tinted, windows. We even get a newspaper salesman through. R. Vasanti (studying to be an M.D. in Delhi) makes the obvious comment that we're the LAST tourist bus still left standing in the yard. Sun through window feels good, sunrise MAY be at 6:15, but it takes until 7:25 for the orb to rise above the steep Sankaracharya peak to warm the cold waters of Dal Lake. We have the SAME guide as yesterday and again it seems we do NOT have a loudspeaker. We finally get underway at 8:25 after ANOTHER check of tickets by the guide for some sort of inevitable Indian confusion. Avantipur 9-9;15, a perfect example of almost obliterated Hindu carving in a temple where (he reports) Hinayana and Mahayana Buddhism was separated. 10:30-11 gardens and springs of Kokarnag, with inducements to drink the iron and calcium-filled waters that did NOT influence either John or me (despite signs pleading "Do not make ease against walls" and "Please use laterines.") The gardens weren't nearly so abundant as Nishat (though John liked them, seeming not to notice that the lines were straight here, too, except for the pleasant island in the stream that people jumped all over despite signs to the contrary, but then the signs said "Don't walk on the lawn" but that was the ONLY way to get to the steps obviously meant for tourist use. I also had them open the john of one of the guest houses, and was nicely impressed with the neatness and simplicity of the rooms. And we finally take off all but the last sweaters we wore. As we got higher the roads got more pleasant, bubbling streams and herds and some green and gold fields of still current rice, and the brick high-rises still amaze, one towering five floors to a prettily gabled roof overlooking the hillside. As we got higher the haze seemed to lessen except when the bus paused, and then everything was obscured in the fine sifting dust that took ages to settle, but lodged in the nose and throat dryly. 11:40-12 Achabal Mogul Gardens prefaced by a trout farm with questionably-speckled supposedly-rainbow trout, and then led to the ruins of the old palace from which a stream flows which some minister added dye to prove it came from Lahore, and there were the first roses, only a few sweet smelling. 12:30-12:45, Mattan, the best spring of all, huge aquamarine pools with thousands of black and gold catfish that fill your shadow in expectation of food, and go into a flashing feeding frenzy when handsful of breadcrumbs are thrown to them, superceded only by the quick splashing panic when a boy dives into their midst "for a joke" as other boys delight in splashing the crowds at the edges, saying "Oh, it was the fish." Starved, and we "break out" a hard-boiled egg to keep us on the road. 2:45PM Stop at quarter to two after an increasingly nice ride up a narrowing valley which widens out at Pahalgam to give a fabulous view from where I sit on a rock in the middle of the island in the middle of the stream in the middle of the valley in the midst of the peaks. From the three o'clock tall peak with the scoop of snow in the hanging valley I can look counter-clockwise (or WOULD look counterclockwise, but some gregarious Indians just came over to make conversation, so I ostentatiously, rudely, selfishly kept my head DOWN until they left) to three smaller treeless peaks to 2:30, a long low hill covered with pines and swatches of fall yellow to 1, then in the far distance a cloud-dappled, granite-ribbed peak just touching the clouds, with a treeless peak in front and a low hill in front of that at noon, then from 12-11 a long cloud-shaded mound, with an Everest-shaped sharp high peak over its left flank, then the low point at 10 where the stream comes from, filled with clouds and distant peaks, then a huge multi-peaked mass in the distance at 9:30, with a huge bulk at 7, comprised of two or three near mounds, two low hills, a hump to the right behind which a treeless top is visible jaggedly, then two crests at the side with a barren peak towering overall. Then at 6:30 a sharp valley with a little hill before, a central filling peak, and, quite symmetrically, two very high distant ridges visible on either side. Then an enormous slab of rock at 40° to 4 o'clock, actually two slabs with a sheer tumbled valley at their cleft, and the sun between the clouds sends down huge streamers of light, putting the ridges into fabulous light and shade (and I pause to say "No, no" to the most enterprising salesman of them all, who came down the slope, across the bridge and over the rocks to where I sit and opens his suitcase to display four quarter-sized polished disks of marble, a string of coral, a piece of old inlaid silver, and other assorted things until I ignored him, he said a few more words in Kashmiri, then left), then the higher low valley where the stream exits, with a ridge and a four-peaked massif with a high peak jutting above its left shoulder, then four progressively higher ridges of pines, to a bare peak, then a multi-pointed pyramid and finally the Matterhorn-shaped snowy summit. Whew! Then it's 3PM, still shaded and chilly, so I decide to put on my boots and wander around the town until the bus leaves, hopefully in just one hour. Sit on a broken bridge abutment over a foul-smelling sewer-stream, and watch the ponies and sales people wander past mingling with the tourists, and I wander up and down the main street looking at the burnt buildings, getting a brochure for the Maharaja suite at the Khalsa Hotel, and look up the road toward the Pine View Motel and waste time in general. The bus DOES leave at 4:10 and John dozes while the bus crosses the river and goes through some fabulous views of the valleys, getting held up in Srinagar by a truck full of Dushera celebrants and bands and a multi-armed Kali. Gulam meets us as usual and we take cab and stop for two beers and back for tea at 6:30, then John goes to take his shirt-cloth to the tailor and I strip for shower, but there's only cold, he says wait 10 minutes; I freeze and it's STILL cold and grab blanket and sit reading while they try to fix, but I end with only a hot bath. John has his and we have great mutton LIVER and chops and vegetables and apples for dessert, and it's 10PM already and we're both dragged out by the tour, so we get right to bed.