Out of The Falafel Pot & Into The Curry Pan
Trip Start
Sep 29, 2007
1
165
221
Trip End
Ongoing
Delhi,
India
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Oh, the Places You'll Go!
Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You're off to Great Places!
You're off and away!
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You're on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go.
You'll look up and down streets. Look 'em over with care.
About some you will say, "I don't choose to go there."
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
you're too smart to go down any not-so-good street.
And you may not find any
you'll want to go down.
In that case, of course,
you'll head straight out of town.
It's opener there
in the wide open air.
Out there things can happen
and frequently do
to people as brainy
and footsy as you.
And when things start to happen,
don't worry. Don't stew.
Just go right along.
You'll start happening too.
OH!
THE PLACES YOU'LL GO!
You'll be on your way up!
You'll be seeing great sights!
You'll join the high fliers
who soar to high heights.
You won't lag behind, because you'll have the speed.
You'll pass the whole gang and you'll soon take the lead.
Wherever you fly, you'll be the best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.
Except when you don' t
Because, sometimes, you won't.
I'm sorry to say so
but, sadly, it's true
and Hang-ups
can happen to you.
You can get all hung up
in a prickle-ly perch.
And your gang will fly on.
You'll be left in a Lurch.
You'll come down from the Lurch
with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then,
that you'll be in a Slump.
And when you're in a Slump,
you're not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself
is not easily done.
You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they're darked.
A place you could sprain both you elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose? How much can you win?
And IF you go in, should you turn left or right...
or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it's not, I'm afraid you will find,
for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.
You can get so confused
that you'll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place...
...for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a sting of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.
NO!
That's not for you!
Somehow you'll escape
all that waiting and staying.
You'll find the bright places
where Boom Bands are playing.
With banner flip-flapping,
once more you'll ride high!
Ready for anything under the sky.
Ready because you're that kind of a guy!
Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done!
There are points to be scored. there are games to be won.
And the magical things you can do with that ball
will make you the winning-est winner of all.
Fame! You'll be famous as famous can be,
with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.
Except when they don't.
Because, sometimes, they won't.
I'm afraid that some times
you'll play lonely games too.
Games you can't win
'cause you'll play against you.
All Alone!
Whether you like it or not,
Alone will be something
you'll be quite a lot.
And when you're alone, there's a very good chance
you'll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won't want to go on.
But on you will go
though the weather be foul
On you will go
though your enemies prowl
On you will go
though the Hakken-Kraks howl
Onward up many
a frightening creek,
though your arms may get sore
and your sneakers may leak.
On and on you will hike
and I know you'll hike far
and face up to your problems
whatever they are.
You'll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You'll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life's
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.
And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3 / 4 percent guaranteed.)
KID, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!
So...
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea,
you're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So...get on your way!
---Dr. Seuss
This is an inspiring book for all, one i have gifted to special friends and most relevant to our travels. It's the best. My best girlfriend Alana just reminded me of it in an email.
So with brains in our heads and shoes on our feet (still have the Birkenstocks although a litle worse fir wear) we tackle India.
We flew on complimentary seats courtesy of Emirates Airways who accidentally refunded AU$1200 back into our bank account because of an online and phone conversation misunderstanding. At the Cairo Int airport we had to ask somebody to show us on a remote controlled light up world globe souvenir where Abu Dabai was as we had a long stop-over at the airport there and no idea where it was. Turns out to be in The United Arab Emirates, an interesting part of the world where wealthy Arabs are building state-of-the-art modern developments. We paced the airport there for 4 hours, checking out all the colourful characters whilst waiting for our flight to New Delhi on Jet Airways. The airport was like a casino and all the boarding gates ran in a circle around a giant mosaic pillar, the tiles of which ran onto the ceiling and floor like an ocean giving the effect that you were standing on the set of a futuristic sci-fi movie. There were people from all over the world in various clothing styles making you feel like you were on some future dreamscape of a planet where all races lived together. We were joined by all the turban wearers for our flight to New Delhi during which all the Indians drank scotch in the middle of the night and constantly pressed the buttons around their seats. We had some friendly chats with Indians on the plane and we like them already, they`re very funny people. Monkey hid in his bag because he was scared to get to India.
We could see all the taxi and hotel touts yelling in a mob outside arrivals so we decided to wait around until the train office opened before leaving the airport in a pre-paid taxi. We like to get the basic feel of a country in the first couple of hours before moving on and doing our business. The train ticket guy was pretty much the first person we came across in India and he was a good representative with his red turban and bobbing side to side head as he talked and told us we were too late to buy tickets to Ajmer and that we would have to go to the Old Delhi Station directly. The side to side like a dashboard bopper toy head thing is a common trait of the people and i love the animation of it all. I`m sure i heard him say "thank-you, come again" like the Indian guy from The Simpsons series. Cool bananas.
The taxi ride gave us our first glimpse into crazy, congested New Delhi. No tickets available at the station, we had to go to a tourist centre at another station. Locals won`t let you buy tickets for some reason and there is big line ups and lots of push and shove. After taking a rickshaw from Old Delhi Station to New Delhi Station and back again in peak hour, we had gotten a fairly good introduction dose to India and we were loving it. We got a good look in at the street scenes. many beggars, lots of street food, traffic, many children, extreme poverty, pollution to kill you dead and all aspects of humanity on display out on the streets. 360 degrees views of chaos, but organised somehow, this city functions. The hectic randomness of it all was like bits of every country we have travelled to so far all rolled into one country, good, bad and ugly. I would seriously be wearing a gas mask if we were to be spending more time here, the pollution is fatal. We were very tired and took a feral hotel for 5 hours to sleep whilst waiting for our train. Once at the station we had our first Indian meal of a thali (mixed dish) before doing the wait on the platform with rats as big as cats scuttling around us. People sit, sleep, spit and wee on the ground and it`s not for the faint-hearted. People dress very well and have pride in their appearance. The women stand out in their brightly coloured saris against the smog of the pollution like flowers growing from concrete. I had the feeling that i would have liked to breathe some clear, fresh air and was fairly well suffocating in Delhi. The lone trees we did see in the city were dull with layers of filth on their leaves. The crushing traffic is made up of cars, rickshaws,cows, people pulling carts and other contraptions with wheels and legs. The assault on the senses has to be experienced to be described. We were heading straight out to Pushkar.
We took an air-conditioned 3 tier sleeper train which was a surprisingly comfortable and fairly quiet ride apart from the snorers which i tackled with a pair of emergency earplugs pilfered from the plane. There were six of us in a cabin. You have to wake up and jump off the train fairly quickly because there`s not much time at the stops. We made it to Ajmer and then on to the Pushkar Camel Fair in time and wow, what a trip that festival was, effort to get there well worth the hassle.
