Author: Nic Olson

There has been a few wild phenomena (plural of phenomenon, is phenomenons or phenomena? hell if i know.) in the past few weeks that I’ve noticed in my travels. Every city I leave, the day I leave, it rains hard. Right now is not really the rainy season of India. Sure it may rain sometimes, but not often.. Something is happening. The country is crying for me, or trying to flush me from it’s veins, or it just knows how badly i need a shower. I dont know, but it’s a phenomenon.

Also for the past two weeks, my stomach has not been as ironclad as i brought it up to be. It hasn’t been sloppy beyond repair, or really painful at all, but it’s been weird. Anyways, whenever I need to utilize the latrine, my mouth begins to salivate and give a tinny flavour that i’ve never experienced before. This happens just seconds before my stomach turns and gets slightly angry. Soon I’ll hone this skill and be able to tell when other people have stomach issues, then I’ll be able to tell through salivation when danger is going to occur. I’ll be one of the X-men. The crappiest salivating X-man ever. What a phenomenon.

The final phenomenon that i’ve encountered, is that I’m in Kerala right now. Phenomenal. Mostly this is phenomenal because I’ve already been in India for 3.5 months. Phenomenal.

I’m going to the beach.

For some reason I caught myself singing ‘Part of that World’ from the Little Mermaid. Then I listened to what she and I were singing.

First she lists all the things she owns (thingamabobs, whozits, whatzits, forks).
Then she begins to complain that she wants more. (something, something else, I want more!) and so on. No, she doesn’t want more from life, she wants legs, so she can marry a prince and get more things. It’s what every woman wants.

This is what some of the male part of my generation and 100% of the female part of my generation grew up on. I mean, I don’t remember the movie exactly. All I remember is a fat lady, a king with a trident, the priest that got a boner (youtube it), and how hot Ariel was. And this song of course.
Either way, no matter what happens in this world, the so-called recession was caused by children watching this movie, and basing their lives on these words.

The train is my new life. Three (at least) more train rides. Rats biting my face, cochroaches eating my food, and so on. The last train was unreal. A very feminine male, dressed very femininely (I don’t know what to call her/him) came and sat next to me. Very close to me, and put his/her hand on my thigh. He/She asked for 10 rupees, showing me with her fingers how many ten was, which comforted my and my inner thigh. I shook my head. He/She said it again. I shook my head again. Then I thought he/she was leaning in towards me for something (we almost made out), but he/she got up and left to grope some Indian men. This train also had large piano keyboard salesmen, dvd salesmen, and everything else you’ve ever wanted salesmen. Amazing.
The train I rode before this, I met some men that asked me if Canada was a Free Sex country. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I asked what that meant. They thought that in Canada you could go up to any woman and ask for sex, and that they’d say yes. I mean, Canadian girls are trashy, but that might be a little far. I guess that is what we get for having kissing in movies.

Slutty Canadians.

Last night I had a dream and in this dream I had discovered the secret of time travel. It was complex but truly simple. If I could remember I’d tell you by showing up at your deathbed to say that there’s still time. You can make up for your wasted life!

Starting Sunday a journey begins. Google Earth it if you don’t know the places. It’s quite a journey.

Guwahati to Siliguri.
Siliguri to Kolkata.
Kolkata to Chennai.
Chennai to Pondicherry.
Chennai to Kerala (Trichir, Cochin, Trivandrum/Thiruvananthapuram. Yeah, what?)
Kerala to Delhi.
Delhi to Chandigardh.
Delhi to Home.

Lyric: Propagandhi – Last Will and Testament

Here in the few remaining moments we have left, just what do you propose we say in our defense? That much was decided before any one of us were born. Nothing more than objective observers to the madness, and through up your hands in sadness? We’re powerless to change anything anyways. So just lay back upon your deathbed and gaze idiotically back up the chain of command from which we recieve our directives. I guess it’s just common sense to preach what ought to be but to ensure it never is in the present tense.

Busy times. I’m in Guwahati. I spent one night at a friends again, sleeping with goats and a Bihu festival. I danced. I ate. I laughed. Then I spent three nights in the heaven that is Kalapani, Guwahati, Assam, India. But this time I did not dance. I did however, eat lots. As well as laugh. I also, nearly died. April 17th, 2009 is my new death birthday. Or Not-Death Birthday. Or Near Death Day. Something. All I know is that myself and a man named Jiten should have died, if it weren’t for an incredible feat of strength, a few long toes, and one single branch. And my lucky Habs hat.

Remember that time that I said I could feel that I was going to die soon? Well this was it. This was where I was meant to die, impaling myself on a large rock, and being eaten by the local tiger. I called my death a few months ago, predicting that it would come in India. April 17 was the day it was supposed to happen, but something went wrong, and I’m still alive. Here’s what happened.

These photos explain it all. The first picture shows our size in comparison to the rocks at the bottom of the second picture. Yes? On the second picture the small blue scale is about six feet, the height of myself or 1.5 Jitens. The thick red line shows our approximate climbing route. The red circle is where we ended up with not much help.
Firstly I followed Jiten’s words, “Oh, very easy.” and climbed his way instead of the alternate way, which turned out to be much easier. When we arrived at the red circle area, a plane of about 60degrees with nothing to hold on to, we got stuck. Basically we couldn’t go anywhere because there was a lack of things to grab and a lack of places to go. My feet began to slip and I reached up to grab his ankle, and pulled myself up to his area, pulling him down slightly. We both started slipping down the rock and somehow Jiten reached up at a previously unreachable branch, pulled himself up, and offered his foot for me to grab hold of. We ended up at the ridge at the top the circle and tore through piles of thorns to reach a flat rock and a pathway.

I’m not much for bragging, but I nearly died. Because we were climbing barefoot, the skin of my feet peeled off as I was slipping, reaching for my life. My hands and arms were scraped from the rocks and thorns that we had to rip through. In the end, I’m alive, and to celebrate, I cut my hair very short and ruined my life instead. Biggest mistake of my life. I should have died, then people would have remembered me for my unreal Jesus/Samson/Triple H/Lead singer from the Used hairdo, and not my cowardice.

In other news, I can now read and write Hindi. Blogger offers Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam script, so if you have a Mac or a computer that is able to read Hindi, here you go! This means (with likely incorrect spelling), Good night! सुबह रहती !

Short and incredibly wise. No, not Danny Devito. Proverbs, or just famous quotes. Usually those short ones are better (TWSS*) than long drawn out pieces of work. You can find millions of cheeseball and/or wiseball sayings all over the place. In India especially; you can buy really nice 4’x6 posters of Bollywood stars, cricket masters, maps, fruit trays, epic scenery, great architecture, a vase of flowers . Usually with any of these you’ll get a zinger of a proverb to set you straight. For example on a friend’s computer desktop, “Anyone can be at the helm when the sea is calm.”
Or on a beautiful bouquet poster in the house of a steel worker who doesn’t speak English,
“When all else fails, the future still remains.”
Or a poster of a giant city in the desert, “What men call civilization, always ends up as dust”.
Or in computer store office, “Service without reward is punishment.” This one I had I hard time grasping. Should I have rewarded the man serving us, or was he supposed to reward us…?
Or on a mans Tshirt in Assam, “Recyclers do it over and over.”
These all have unknown authors. Think of how famous I could be if I became the unknown author of a poster worthy quote.

So I want to begin writing these. One daily is bound to produce a few wise as hell proverbs.
Here’s my first crack at it.

“If hell exists, then there is nothing wiser than hell. If hell doesn’t exist then there is nothing wiser than the person who invented it.”
-Nic Olson

Hell yeah! I literally just made that up. That is amazing. Most famous quotes and proverbs would usually have a few wise words surrounding the famous quote said at the time of the quote. But that’s not for me. I can compact all that 20 year old wisdom in one single contextless proverb.

I think India loves them so much because they’ve had some of the most quotable people in history in their history. Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Hanuman the monkey boy god, Shah Rukh Khan, and soon enough Nic Olson.
And apparently, according to the back of some book I saw at the book store, this is what Mark Twain said about India.

“India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend and the great grandmother of tradition.”

Suck it, Danny Boyle.

PS I still haven’t seen that movie.

*that’s what she said.

If you want an accurate depiction of what Myanmar is like, you should watch Stallone’s First Blood, First Blood Part Two, the third one which I cannot remember (Rocky III maybe?), and the newest one, Rambo, or as makes sense to me, Fourth Blood. First Blood doesn’t really give you any ideas about Myanmar, as it is just Rambo killing Americans in America, but for your own good and for a more followable plot, I suggest you watch it as well. Fourth Blood was actually set in Myanmar, but I don’t know about the other ones. So, watch Fourth Blood especially carefully.

Being there for a week really opened my eyes to how many men I could kill in one day. I mean, I killed everyone. Bow and Arrow, gun, bare hands, bamboo shanks up the shank, you name it, I killed a man with it.
I think, no, I know, that mainstream media doesn’t properly represent a place like this. I suggest that when you see pieces of Myanmar from Lloyd Robertson or Kevin Neuman, or even Peter Mansbridge, believe very little of what you hear. If you are going to trust anyone as to the status of a foreign land, trust the writing of Stallone. He has never told a lie.
I visited a place called Kalay, north part, near India. A friend stays there. The people were so nice, nicer than any person i’d ever met, that I don’t see how Stallone could kill any of them….

When I was in Rangoon I met a friend. He is about 50 years old and is from Myanmar. He is famous worldwide for poor English that is nearly impossible to decipher. He talks like he is speaking in hieroglyphics, but not even that simple. When he heard I was in town he traveled all night by foot (i think) with a giant bag of dry fish and peanuts slung over his shoulder, meant as a gift for the special visitors. He was also sure to mention that lunch was his responsibility. But the way he said it was, “You eat. My duty.” Unreal. This changed my life.

But now I’m in India again. Caught a sleeper train from Kolkata to Bangalore, and now I’m chilling in the technologically advanced world of Bengaluru. Tourists are crawling all over this city and this whole country. I think it all started with a little blog I call Balls of Rice, two years ago. I was obviously the first white North American male to visit India since Jesus did before his ministry.

Right?

Myanmar goes through the same test as every country that i’ve been to.

The food: I haven’t had any yet. I’ll update this at the end of the week. It smells like Northeastern India food and looks more like thai food. I’m expecting it will be great, and I’ll love it.

The girls: I haven’t met any yet. But if any of them come ask me to marry them, I probably wouldn’t say no. But I might not say yes.

The intangibles: This category could be long. Being the country it is, tourists have to stay in certain hotels, or so i’ve been told. So our hotel only runs in USDollars and something called Foreign Exchange Currency (FEC). Neither make sense to me. I’m in Myanmar, use your own money. Also exchanging money isn’t easy either. Rupees are not well liked in these parts. So a -1 for that.
+1 for the fact that their money is spelled Kyats and said Chets. That is what i’m talking about. Stick it to the English man. You know how i feel about phonics. or if you don’t, now you do. I hate them.
+1 for all the people on the street. They are all very friendly, and not because they want to get to know my wallet or my ass. They seem just generally cool.
-1 for lakes that cost money to walk around.
+1 for Buddhism.

Myanmar. After one day, it’s the weirdest place I’ve seen in my life. We’ll see what a week does to me.
Hopefully it’ll be Rangood.

The underlying theme of my trip has been, besides learning Hindi in a multiple language (but rarely Hindi) environment, besides seeing how dirty of a hotel I can get/how dirty my feet can get, besides seeing how long I can go just using my hand (you know what I mean), besides dudes asking me for sex (it happened again. Do I put out some sort of gay vibe?. Besides all these, the theme has been marriages. Not solely mine, or the lack of mine, but there seems to be a wave of proposal, love marriage, wedding and divorce talk these days. Not that I didn't hear all this garbage in my two previous trips, but now some of my friends are getting married, small boys are proposing to girls, and people are questioning my intentions as this is my third trip in three years. (Hey man, I'm married to the land and it's curry. If a girl comes along it's not my fault. It's the curry's.)

Here's a few stories from my trip. A girl's husband left her, but not until after poisoning his baby inside her, or that's the rumour. A couple married love marriage, a big deal where they came from. A friend left by his wife, alone with his new child, remarrying very shortly after.

I am just lucky that most dudes here don't get married until around 30. So I've got ten years until all my friends get married and there's a serious wedding fest like Canada last summer. And I've got about ten years until I should worry about my own dowry.

The reason I bring this up is to invite you to my wedding next month, the 31st of April, TwoThousandNine. If you're serious about coming, RSVP to NicWedsPotofcurry@yahoo.co.in

I guess Canada isn't the only place that the wedding fever is blazing hot like a chili on a nipple. Raja calls the male reproductive organ area the mainpoint. It seems completely logical here to find a wife by closing your eyes, spinning around with your mainpoint hanging out to guide you. I could be married by next week if I wanted. If the dowry includes a good enough curry, I would have to say yes.