Running the Border

JIAGON, India - We came up with the plan over dinner, chicken with a creamy cheese sauce with butter roti on the side. The plan required our party of three to divide in two groups: the whites and the non-whites.

 

Jeremy, a Chinese-Canadian, blends in with the local mix of Bhutanis, Nepalis and Hindus. He could just walk across the border, since local people were allowed to cross freely. As a precaution, he'd wear a plain white shirt, leave the Diesel knockoff shoulder bag in the hotel and stash his camera in his pocket. There'd also be a passport in his pocket, in case something went wrong.

 

After he made it through, Zack and I would make our attempt. Zack is from California, and just like me, he's rather white. No one would mistake either of us as locals any place south of the Tropic of Cancer. I'd been subconsciously preparing for this crossing the past couple weeks, reading travelogues where people drove overland through Latin America and West Africa. I'd learned much about the bribe and how to use it.

 

Zack and I would approach the border checkpoint casually. One of the security guards would blow a whistle and direct us to a sitting pair of officials on the left side of the gate.

 

One security guard would start thumbing through my passport, flipping past the seven Chinese visas and Latvian entry stamp, looking in vain for a Bhutani visa. Finally he would give up and ask: "Excuse me sir, do you have a visa?"

 

Zack and I would stand there, dumb-founded. "We need a visa? I thought this was a free town, and we could come here for the day. Our guidebook says so."

 

The security guard would shake his head, apologetically, and inform us the policy had changed.

 

"But we've come all the way from the United States, and we really want to see Bhutan. Is it possible to just let us in for the day, perhaps if we pay a small fee?"

 

We look crushed as our Bhutanese dreams begin to crumble, but at the same time I reach for wallet and take out some Indian rupees. I press them into the guard's hand, and Zack does the same, and then we walk through the crimson gate adorned with Buddhist iconography and enter one of the most isolated countries on Earth.

 

That's how we'd do it.

 

Our journey to the border began in the Indian town of Silguiri in West Bengal aboard a white and green Bhutan Transportation Services bus. Jeremy and I shared a seat while Zack conversed with a large Bhutani woman, who insisted she had once been engaged to American also named Zack, but had to break it off for some convoluted reason. She said Phuntsholing, Bhutan was a wonderful place, where we could expect to see temples, alligators and crocodiles. For a small fee, we could also feed these large reptiles.

 

It sounded exciting, especially as we wouldn't be able to venture past Phuntsholing. The tiny Himalayan country of Bhutan is barely discrenible on a middle-school size globe: it can easily be seen as a smudge on the east side of Nepal. But despite its small size, the terrority has erected some of the largest barriers to tourism in the world. All tourists - except those from the country's patron state, India - are required to book a tour and spend at least $200 a day in the low season, $250 a day in the high season. There's a limit to the number of visas and those with the cash aren't guaranteed entry.

 

But the current edition of the Lonely Planet describes a wrinkle in that policy. Five years ago, the Bhutanese decided to open the border town of Phuntsholing to day trippers, who could come without a visa or spending outrageous amounts of cash. A Google search produced photos and travelogues confirming that some amount of smelly backpackers had crossed the border. We added the town to our interinary, desperate for the unusual passport stamp and bragging rights to be the first among friends to visit.

 

The Bhutanese bus made no stops in the tiny towns of West Bengal, not even a bathroom break. I gulped a Mountain Dew shortly after getting on, so by the time the tea estates ended and the small textile shops of Jiagon, I'd christened the route the Bladder Busting Express. When we arrived I sprinted to the nearest toilet, which turned out to be in a hotel/restaurant. We took a room, and with the guidebook claiming the border would be open until 10 p.m., headed for dinner in Bhutan.

 

Jiagon is a couple long streets which slope downhill toward the border. At the bottom is a sign, "Welcome to the Royal Kingdom of Bhutan." Turn right at the sign, go under the gate and you're in.

 

"Sir, can I see your passport please?" It was a border guard.

 

They were not expected; Lonely Planet promised free entry into the town of crocodiles. Instead aman in a teal uniform told us that the policy had changed, pointed to a sign that said visas were required for all foreign nationals, and sent us up the hill, back into India.

 

The Ashoka Hotel Restaurant's selection of Bhutani dishes seemed a small consolation for what lay on the other side of that Buddhist gate, but the chicken was quite tasty. Zack, Jeremy and I drew up our plan, and later in the evening, as we watched Bollywood music videos on our 13-inch television set, I separated my money into 400 rupee denominations, to make for easier bribing.

 

I woke up a little before 11 the next morning, to the sound of torrential rain. Outside Jiagon was under several inches of water. The monsoon raged now, throwing buckets of water down each second. I went down to the restaurant, where I found Zack and the day's Kolkata Telegraph. Roads were out throughout the northeast of India, landslides had washed away the rail track to Darjeeling and another foot of rain was expected in the next 36 hours.

 

Jeremy arrived at the same time as my masala omelet soaked to the bone. He put down a small plastic bag on the table. Inside were three postcards. He'd gotten up early, snuck across the border. He showed us pictures of the other side: men wearing capri pants, signs warning about the high rate of malarial infection, Buddhist temples with broad roofs and gold spheres on top. For breakfast in Bhutan they have pork, which we hadn't tasted in three weeks.

 

But he had bad news. Security in Phuntsholing was tight, there had been police at most intersections in town. Even if we could make it past the border, we'd have no paperwork to pass these check points. Besides, the rain continued to fall so fast that my passport might disintegrate before the border guard made it past the fourth visa.

 

We needed to leave before we were stranded in this No Man's Land. I left with a postcard to send my parents, a stomach full of chicken and cheese, and 10 glorious seconds in Bhutan, standing under the arch, hoping that there would be many more.

The Fast Talker

KAKARBHITTA, Nepal - "Excuse me,. but do you mind if I take this seat?"

 

It was 11:30 p.m. on the deluxe bus from Kathmandu to the Indian border. The bus, I'm afraid, had few luxuries. The windows all opened and closed, and so did both doors. Most seats had padding, although a couple arm rests were missing. But the box in the front meant for a television had been locked, and posters of Jennifer Lopez and Avril Lavigne covered the hole. Shocks would have been beyond the pale.

 

I hadn't expected to keep the empty seat for long. At first, a big Nepali man with a ponytail sat beside me. He took up half my seat and kept falling asleep on my shoulder. Then a skinny Nepali man took over. I had more room, but he also kept falling asleep. This new potential seatmate looked wide awake and not terribly big. "Sit down," I said, and he did.

 

"Can I ask where you are coming from?" he said, but he said it with a Subcontinental accent that did not change pitch or stop between words so I heard, "Caniaskwhereyoucomingfrom." I had him repeat the question, twice.

 

"NewYork. IhaveasisterlivinginVirginia."

 

He was 23, working on a degree in arts and planning his escape from his war-torn, poor but very beautiful country. The number one choice was America, where he could earn $10 an hour in a big city. Perhaps he'd go to a smaller city to continue his education with less money. He thinks Colorado and Virginia would be good chocies.

 

"Canyouunderstandmywords?"

 

"Yes," I said, not knowing what else to say. "It's pretty good."

 

From there, he launched into a serious of statements on random topics, many of questionable fact:

 

"India is at a higher level of development than the China."

 

Ehhh.

 

"The universities of Australia are more prestigious than the universities of America."

 

Not really.

 

"New York is the second biggest city in the world."

 

That one hasn't been true for 30 years.

 

"Right now studying Nepalese language and culture is very popular in America."

 

Perhaps. I haven't met anybody engaged in any serious research, but I suppose there are academic professionals who are. This man claimed two weeks ago to have met an American who spoke fluent Nepali, which I imagine led to this not quite true extrapolation.

 

"America is a strong ally of the Nepal."

 

I'd had enough. This statement had to be challenged. I brought up the American ambassador, who in his farewell speech last month attacked both the Maoists and the king, the two major sources of political power in the country. The Bush Administration, whatever its faults, correctly condemned both the Maoist violence and heavy-handed response by the king. I think the general attitude in America about Nepal is a cautious hope that the country doesn't take a wrong turn that destabilizes the region.

 

The student nodded, and accepted my concerns. But he added that he still supports the Maoists, "because they will help the poor."

 

"But Communism hasn't worked in any other country, what makes you think it will work in Nepal?" I said.

 

"China is a Communist country. They have good economic development."

 

Sigh. If it weren't past midnight, I might launch into why China's not really a Communist country any more, and why the country's economic successes are not because of its command elements. But that would take hours, and I wanted some alone time. I doubted I could sleep on these rough roads, but for now, I'd had enough conversation. I was ready for a sleeping shoulder.

The Power is On

KATHMANDU - When blogging for pleasure, there are few deadlines. But typing yesterday's entry about the trip near the Tibet border for some bungee there was a deadline. When I returned from the border, after three and a half bumpy hours on the road, I found the entire backpacker ghetto dark. The power was out.

 

In our hotel, the man who works 12 hour days was still at his post. At the desk he had a candle, half-burned. The power apparently had been out for some time. I asked him when he expected regular light.

 

"I do not know," he said. "Maybe eight."

 

I squinted and saw the clock above his left shoulder: 6:30.

 

Our room had no light, not even enough to poke around for the cheap Chinese flashlight I had in the bowels of my bag. My iPod had no charge. We had nothing to do: I went to find an Internet cafe.

 

Thankfully the Nepalese power grid is sporatic enough that several places have generators. I found one down the street from Cosmic Hotel, and started playing around on Facebook, reading the New York Times and slowly typing a blog entry. With 90 minutes to kill, I didn't do too much typing. Then I heard an annoying screeching sound, like the sound a microwave makes when done cooking, only this was a constant note. After 30 seconds, it went away, and I went back to typing.

 

A little while later it started again, only this time it didn't stop.

 

"Sir," the manager of the Internet cafe said, "little power. Only five more minutes." The generator was about to go out, shutting down the computer and deleting my prose. I typed franctically, adding several paragraphs in just a couple hundred seconds. I felt the surge that I did at a newspaper, with a half a front page story to finish and an editor stoppping over every few minutes to see if it was complete.

 

I finished the piece (although it probably would have benefitted from an edit or two), and the power soon came back on. Now, the next day, I have another deadline: a bus to catch back to India. And with 30 seconds to spare, I can say that this is another deadline that I hit.

On the Way to the Land of Snows

BARABISE, Nepal — Driving north from Kathmandu, the road to Tibet is a series of sharp turns around blind corners, ascents of steep hills with subtropical vegetation and breathtaking views of quaint Nepali villages. Four hours north of the capital the paved road abruptly stops, disintegrating into a mess of pebbles, stones and small rocks. About 100 meters into this section there is a yellow sign on the left sign of the road. "Welcome," it says, "to the Last Resort."

The Last Resort is the playground of the Westerner on vacation. Here, 8,000 feet above sea level, is excellent river rafting on deep, fast streams, luxury tents with thick mattresses and oil lanterns, a full bar with a selection of several dozen cocktails and a restaurant that makes a mean macaroni and cheese. I came for the bungee jump, the second highest in the world. My travel companion Jeremy paid $90 in Kathmandu to walk off a 500 foot high bridge and plunge very close to a raging river. He did this willingly, placing his life in the hands of a Swiss-made rope.

I came just to watch. The bungee bridge connects the road to the resort, and also provides access to the couple dozen villagers who live on the other side of the deep canyon. Between jumps the villagers carry heavy baskets of hay or herd goats across the bent beams of steel. Then another Swede spends four seconds in free fall.

Calling it The Last Resort is accurate, because it is one of the last businesses before the Chinese border. After The Last Resort the road rises even further, and by the border it's left the subtropical Nepalese climate and entered the frigid Himalaya.

The resort is popular with tour group coming and going to Tibet, as its huge bridge makes for the most entertaining pit stop in a fairly monotonous seven hour drive from the border to Kathmandu. This is how I met a party of seven Chinese men who stopped at the Last Resort for lunch.

I heard their Mandarin as they worked their way past me on the road side of the bridge. I was there waiting for Jeremy to bungee. After he went I crossed the bridge and found the party at the resort's outdoor restaurant, playing cards and sipping herbal beverages they brought from the Motherland. I introduced myself, in Chinese, and they invited me to sit down.

They were from Guangzhou, the huge city of trade near Hong Kong. They worked in different companies, but were on a trip to Nepal that mixed business and pleasure. There were a couple business meetings, dinner with contacts, but mostly the trip had been about seeing Nepalis dance and good food in Kathmandu.

I tried to figure out the card game they were playing, which involved dealing 24 cards and then throwing them down in an aggressive manner (the harder the better). Twos seemed to be good, but not as good as threes, although sometimes a player would save the threes only to lose the game. They bet with Chinese money, and a couple hundred renminbi changed hands each round - a fair chunk of change for the Chinese.

"He doesn't get it," one man said to another, gesturing over to me. I didn't, so one man took me aside for some additional conversation. He showed me pictures of his wife and son, who recently performed in a talented competition in Macau. He played the drums, and in the pictures the boy of seven or eight looked thrilled on the set of the television program.

Later today the men would travel to the border town of Zhangmu, where they would reenter China. There they planned to visit a couple friends from Guangzhou who now worked in the Tibetan government. They were Chinese, and the man said they were helping to develop an undeveloped region.

"Wen Jiabo and the Chinese government care about Tibet. They have given aid to build schools, hospitals and roads there. I'm proud of my government."

This was close enough to the border that Chinese politics found their into innocent conversation. A couple hours later I got back in the bus, heading south, away from China.

Red Dances

KATHMANDU - Nepalis are not a tall people, but it appears that the dancing performances in downtown Kathmandu attract the giants. I fought for positions with several of these, trying to get a clear view of the stage a few meters away. The pre-recorded music was inoffensive, a keyboard melody and soft drumming, and so was the dancing. Eight people swayed back and forth, never breaking a sweat or looking at the audience for several minutes.

Hundreds of people, all but a few Nepalis, gathered to watch the traditional dancing of the country. It could have been anywhere in Asia, save for one crucial detail. These dancers wore military fatigues and bright red sash, proclaiming their loyalty to Maoist Party of Nepal.

I don't write enough about Communists here considering this blog is called Mostly Red. The problem is that in Red China, Communism is so infrequently a topic of conversation. But in Nepal it's definitely on the agenda.

 

Five years ago, the heir to Nepal's throne got drunk and killed most of the royal family. The throne passed to a cousin, a moody man who ratcheted up the long-simmering insurgency in Nepal's rural region through a series of violent crackdowns. The insurgents are Maoists, who apparently are fighting to form a government based on the political ideas of a man who killed 50 or 60 million of his own people.  It's a little strange.

 

The king suspended Nepal's Parliament in early 2005, declared a State of Emergency and started killing ev en more Maoists. The Maoists responded by blowing up bombs around the Kathmandu Valley, which was supposed to be a safe zone. In response I, along with thousands of other tourists decided not to visit. For a country heavily dependent on tourist revenue this was a serious problem. The Maoists teamed with other political parties in a general strike, which convinced the king to restore parliament's power last year. A provisional government now is in power, and elections are scheduled for a few months.

 

 

(That's where I'll have to leave it for today, as I'm typing on a co mputer wi th a run away  s pace bar.  The perils of filing from the  fi eld.)

 

 

Harry Potter and the Nepalese Holiday

KATHMANDU - An middle-aged, mostly bald Indian man in a black and white striped Polo shirt approached the small cashier's desk at Annapurna Books Sunday afternoon with a question.

 

"You have the new Harry Potter?"

 

His daughter, who looked about eight, eagerly awaited the answer to the question.

 

"No," the owner said without looking up. "Maybe tomorrow."

 

Annapurna Books is the typical Kathmandu book shop, one long room of half-new, half-used titles on traveling, climbing Himalayan Peaks, classic fiction, and the complete works of Dan Brown, author of the Da Vinci Code. It's a place where backpackers deposit what they've devoured during two weeks of trekking, and stock up before 18 hour bus rides through the Tibetan Plateau. The books are cheap and the selection quirky. It's a nice place, something that any American city would have had 20 years ago, before the rise of the mega chain stores.

 

But the owner and his some of colleagues around Kathmandu appear to be some of the last people on Earth not affected by Harry Potter fever.

Harry Potter went on sale around the world (except in America) at 12:00 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time at Saturday, July 21. Here on Nepal's strange time zone, that meant 9:15 a.m. After sleeping in and have a leisurely lunch of buffalo burger and Mountain Dew, I set off in search of the title.

 

The first place I went was a tiny affair, and had a large German section.

 

"Got Harry Potter?" I asked.

 

"Over there." The owner pointed to the used book section.

 

"No, the new one."

 

"What?"

 

He obviously didn't get it.

 

Twelve million copies will be sold in the next few days and this man doesn't know about the biggest event in the history of the publishing industry. Where am I?

 

Barnes & Noble Books -- no relation to the American book chain, a function of Nepal's poor copyright laws -- was a little more friendly. It might be in tomorrow, they said, perhaps the day after that. Today was a holiday, so the publisher couldn't send the books.

 

In the interest of learning more about Nepalese culture, I asked what holiday. 

 

"Weekly holiday," the bookseller said. Saturday? They couldn't get Harry Potter because it's Saturday? The man who squeezes juice on the street works on Saturday. The traffic police work on Saturday. A couple people in the publishing industry couldn't put in a couple hours of overtime to get a book to a half-dozen stores?

United Books might have the least imaginative title of Kathmandu bookstores, but they are the most organized. They arranged for several dozen books to be flown in from India, and started selling at 9:15 a.m.

"We've sold quite a few," the German owner told me, even though he's selling the book for 1,600 rupees, what an average Nepali makes in three weeks.

During our conversation, the Indian family wandering in. They'd seen a copy in the display window, and the young daughter clutched the book in her arms. She looked quite happy.

Stop If You Must

SONAULI, Nepal - This is the easiest border I've ever crossed.

 

The border between Canada and the United States is more guarded. There most people are in cars, and the queues can be two hours long. The last time I went across, during my trip from Kansas back to New York (blogged here, although those entries are currently hidden. Someday I'll get around to editing them.), a suspicious American customs officer poked around my trunk for five minutes, looking at worn socks and empty Cool Ranch Dorito bags that made it hard to close.

 

He waved me through, but shot a disapproving looked that suggested he'd phone my mother to express his disgust with my dirty automobile. Thankfully he didn't have the number.

 

Here the bus deposits its cargo a couple hundred meters from the Indian gate. The border town is a one-street affair, a wide unpaved avenue with puddles of stagnant water leftover from yesterday's monsoon dumping.

 

The end of India is a large cream colored arch with a seated Buddha near the keystone. Just in front of it, on the side of the road is a small, hand-painted sign requesting foreigners to come into a small enclave and have their passports stamped.

 

Yes, it is requested. There is no barbed wire, drug sniffing dogs, bomb detectors or snipers on rooftops, only a man offering some suggestions about the border. Don't bring 500 rupee notes into Nepal, they're illegal there, and you'll want to have a passport photo, you need one for the visa on the other side of the arrival. He quickly makes a copy of my creepy grin in my passport picture for five rupees.

 

Stamp, stamp, stamp and I'm finished at the Indian side. I walk under the arch, leave India, cross a ten-meter strip of No Man's Land filled with grazing bulls and empty plastic bags, and then cross a much smaller taupe-colored arched, and I'm in Nepal.

 

The border post here is also off the main line of sight, down a path on the right side of the street. Indians and Nepalis pass without entering, they can travel the border freely if they leave by nightfall. I went to the post, where I was handed a short form and a blue pen.

 

I completed the form, handed the man $30 for a three month visa and was legally in Nepal. The man handed my passport to a middle-aged woman with a bindi and a long, black dress. She wrote some numbers down in a logbook and handed me my passport.

 

"Welcome to Nepal!" she said.

 

That's the first time someone's ever welcomed me to their country, and to her credit I think she meant it.

But This Bottle of Water's Free

AGRA, India - With my wallet 750 rupees lighter after visiting India's most famous sight, the Taj Mahal, now seems like a good time to discuss the country's duel pricing system.

At the Taj here's how it works: foreigners (including those of Indian descent, although I'm sure this requirement is not enforced) and Indians are seperated into two separate ticket queues. The foreigners pay 750 rupees (about $18.75) and the Indians 20 rupees (50 cents). Then the two groups merge into a single to pass through a security checkpoint. A stern mustached man in a military unform rifes through bags to make sure no guns, explosives, iPods, headphones, cigarettes, playing cards or bottles of Jack Daniels are brought into this shrine to Muslim monarchies. Then Indian and foreigner are free to mix again freely, to enjoy the same fabulous views of this 400 year old wonder of the world.

To be absolutely clear, foreigners do enjoy a couple extras. For a fortnight of wages for an Indian working at the legal minimum wage, the entrance fee comes with a pair of shoe covers for walking around the base of the Taj and a 500 millileter bottle of water.

Is it fair? I think so. The average Indian makes less than a thousand dollars, while the average person able to travel to India might not make 35 times that at the moment, but certainly there is a high probably that they will in the near future (persuming they are not looking for a career in journalism). How much a person is charged for an attraction should have some relation to how much people pay, especially for a one-of-a-kind item like the Taj; this is how traffic fines are computed in some Nordic countries.

Duel pricing isn't unique to India. Plenty of countries, mostly developing ones, allow residents to enter attractions free or with a minimal fee while socking it to visitors. At Angkor Wat in Cambodia, nationals can wander the temples for free while visitors have to cough up $60. Entrance fees at the best game reserves in Africa can run in the hundreds of dollars.

But there's something about the system in India that bothers me, and that something is related to the origin of the second tier. Charges for many, many years remained equal. The system changed just seven years ago, when India was ruled by the Hindu BJP, a political party which pledges to uphold the 'Hindu Idenity' of the country. The government wanted to generate extra revenues that would be used toward keeping these monuments, statues and relics (several hundred tourist sites were allowed to charge duel admission under the bills). The law implies that foreigners are basically responible for subsidizing Indian culture upkeep. I don't agree with this, there are many rich Indians who are allowed to visit these sights nearly free of charge.

I find myself more in line with Chinese admission policy. There admission to historic sights is a flat rate, athough concessions for senior citizens, students and army veterans are in place. Attraction charges have risen steeply in the last decade - far too steeply, actually - but people are charged the same. This profiteering by local governments effects affulent Chinese along with foreign tourists. I believe things will soon reach a tipping point and admission fees will begin to fall, and when they do, they will fall for everyone.

While I respect the Indian government's right to charge through the nose to foreign guests, I'd rather the current government, led by Congress Party, reconsider.

Famous Books

DELHI - After half a year in media-starved China, coming to India is a chance to reimmerse myself in literary culture.

 

Every place I've been there's been wonderful book stores. As an example, in Dharmsala I picked up collection of Russian short stories written by a young woman during perestroika. It cost 90 rupees, which is a little over $2. The bookkeeper slipped a bookmark in between the text with a long poem about a free Tibet printed in raised olive ink. He called it a "bit of propaganda" to go with my purchase.

 

Delhi is the center of it all, with hundreds of tiny shops on the streets peddling modern and classic Indian authors and contemporary work from overseas. Unlike most non-English speaking countries, where the books are imported and prices even higher than in the States, the books are printed locally and priced around 50% of what Barnes & Noble charges.

 

I've taken advantage of the bounty at hand, stopping each store, even if it means groans and rolled-eyes from my two companions. They're all pretty good, but one place deserves a special mention, Jackson's Books.

 

Jackson's is located on the main backpacker strip, Pahanganj, in a two story structure that resembles a garage, which probably what the building served as many, many years ago. On both floors are piles and piles of books, with new and popular titles kept in a plastic coating, and used books stacked on the floor.

 

Customers are given free range of the collection. On my first visit, I was allowed to climb the shaky aluminum ladder and access books on the second floor, many covered in dust and some decades old. I found old accounts of journeys in Nepal, encyclopedias, photo books and novels from obscure Latin American authors. Given enough money, I could have bought out have the store.

 

I grabbed a travel book about a Vietnamese-American travelling by Pacific Rim by bicycle, and headed downstairs to pay. On the way out, I saw a copy of Paul Theroux's "Milroy the Magician," an old and out-of-print title from one of my favorite authors.

 

I asked the man in charge the price, but instead I got a biography. The man, now 53, had been in book business for 35 years with his brother, who stood a few feet away talking to another customer. He loved books, he knew the Theroux title and also that it was out of print; he used that information to charge $7 for the book, about $3 more than if it had been a regular title.

 

He showed me a white binder of clippings from travel guides and newspapers. The Times of India quoted him in a feature on comic books. The Rough Guide says his shop is a great place to browse for rare titles. He claims to be in the Lonely Planet, but I have the most current edition and did not see a mention.

 

"This book store is not famous in India," he said, "but it is very famous outside of India."

 

I can see why: The selection is excellent, the owners informed, the location is extremely central, and I left very satisfied.

March, Scream, Clap But Don't Cross the Border

THE INDIAN/PAKSTANI BORDER -- One day after the army stormed a mosque in the capital city, killing several dozen militants, and mass riots and retaliation expected meant the entire country stood on high alert, is probably not the best time to be here.

 

But from the wooden benches at the customs post, Pakistan didn't resemble a cesspool of Islamic extremism, it looked pretty much the same as India: flat rice paddy fields and the occasional palm tree.

 

I came here to watch a strange ritual in the complicated relations between these two countries. Every evening around sunset, the enemies perform at the only international border crossing open to residents from all countries (Indians and Pakistanis can cross elsewhere). Thousands of people come by bicycle, motorbike, auto-ricksaw, van and limousine the 25 miles from the Sikh city of Armistar to watch.

 

At 5:00 p.m. the border post gates opened, and the assembled crowd rushed down -- the most determined sprinted -- the several hundred yards to the stadium. There they met another line. The stadium opened the same way, without prior warning, sending a wave of people toward the narrow entrance passageway. The crush of people was intense, I felt as if I was a platlet, being squeezed along an artery.

 

Large bleachers have been set up each side of the border, the Indian part with concrete painted tan, and the Pakistani side with a much simpler, white facade. On both sides women and men were separated, this was especially apparent on the Pakistan part, black is in style for men, yellow and red for women.

 

As foreigners, we were directed to the VIP section, filled mostly with backpackers. Why, 60 years after colonialism, unemployed college students qualify as important people, I'm not sure.

 

To pass time, a man with access to the stadium's microphone led chants.

 

"HIN-DU-STAN!"

 

The crowd roared back in reply. "HIN-DU-STAN!"

 

Men in brown pants and dull short-sleeve button down and women with colorful saris ran in pairs from the entrance of the stadium to the border gate, each person holding an Indian flag. Not all went as planned. One young woman, who wore blue jeans instead of a sari, tripped several yards in, and landed hard on her head. A few grandmothers on the sidelined rushed over to take care, and the laps continued. A much older woman got her flag so tangled as her strolled in the border that a solider had to come and untangle it.

 

The Pakistan border stayed quiet, except for a sound system that blasted very chirpy techno music in Urdu.

 

The ceremony proper started without warning, as a half-dozen Indian soldiers with formal uniforms and a hat that resembled a Chinese fan marched with incredibly high forward kicking motions toward the border. Pakistani soldiers, dressed, unsurprisingly in black, rushed at the same frantic speed. The wrought-iron gates swung open, the two commanders shook hands, and the crowd cheered.

 

It's strange, this place. Each crowd is whipped into a nationalistic frenzy, trying to scare the other side with chants and screaming. But yet this is ultimately a ceremony about coming together, that while this border may never disappear, perhaps someday there won't be a need for so many guards. Or maybe just ceremonial ones.

Silly Luxuries

PATHANKOT, India - Three types of buses serve the main routes in India: local buses, where a seat isn't guaranteed, deluxe buses, which are for tourists, and air conditioned buses, which supposedly exist but I've yet to see one.

 

There are things considered luxuries in India that even in China would be considered normal. Take for instance, water. I'm used to living in a place with limited hot water, but I'd never heard of a place where the actual water tap could be cut off. At our wonderful guesthouse in Dharmsala, a bright yellow colonial building with a dramatic view down a steep, pine-filled gorge, the water ran only six hours a day. Washing hands at three in the afternoon required bottled water.

 

Already I've seen dozens of Indians ravaged by diseases that China and many other developing countries eradicated years ago. The number of lepers on the streets of Dharmsala is amazing for a small town in the mountains. Here in this transit city we've seen so many people without legs, arms or with body parts blown up with elephantitis.

 

I arrived in this transit town on a local bus, the first one we've taken this trip. It was a warhorse -- the company name hand painted in white on the outside and a boxy frame with spherical headlights that would have been in style just after independence. But it ran fine, and after a series of stops at small towns outside of Dharmsala it was packed fill of locals with a few foreigners mixed in.

 

Another one of those "luxuries" one does without on the Indian transport system is a toilet (although given how many rural bathrooms smell in this part of the country, that's probably a blessing), and bathroom are determined by what roadside stall the driver wants to frequent. We were over two hours into a descent out of the Himalayan foothills before the bus released its air brakes and the hordes descended on the loo.

 

I went first for a samosa, asking the shopkeeper where I could find a bathroom. He shook his head.

 

"No," he said. "Go over there."

 

He pointed down the road to a broad, damp field on the bank of a small stream. I think the man wanted me to use this field as a bathroom, but it seemed wide-open to passing by local residents. I spied on the far side of the field a small concrete structure that resembled a latrine. On close inspection it did turn out to be a bathroom, with two large toilets labeled "ladies" on one side and two small stalls for "gents" on the other.

 

I went inside, and started to release two liters of water and an orange soda when I heard a huge DUNK! on the door. I would have wet my pants if that wasn't already in progress. Something hit the tin door of the latrine. I continued to go until 15 seconds later I heard the same sound again.

 

DUNK!

 

Right after this second impact I heard the unmistakeable sound of children giggling in the same direction of the projectile. I was being stoned by school children.

 

I left the latrine; I had no choice. The bus would leave any minute, and this primitive toilet had no emergency exit. I assumed a confindent gait and marched back toward the main street. It seemed to work, as I came out I saw three children in blue and white school uniforms sprinting away from the latrine.

 

School pranks are a luxury even Indians can't do without.

Unexpected Guests

DHARMASALA, India - At dinner this evening, a man with a knotted, leathery face came into the Indian-Chinese fusion joint and started talking with another gentleman, eating alone in the back of the restaurant. I couldn't see their exchange but after a couple minutes I heard the sitting man saying in American-accented English, "No, no thank you. I'm not interested."

And then the old man headed for the door. He got stuck between our table and the one directly across from it, his several canvas bags wedging themselves on one side of the table while his body went to the other. Facial hair sprouted out of every corner of his visage, with bushy eyebrows and a beard half a foot long.
 

After he left, I turned to the man at a table, who an although much more conservative demeanor, and asked what the conversation concerned.

 

"He wanted to sell me some watches," he said. "But as you can see, I already have one." He rotated his left arm to show a gold-plated wristwatch.

 

Dharmsala is a hodge-podge. There are of course the Tibetans, many of them in full monk regalia. A sobering documentary I saw in a tiny screening room off the town's main drag made this clear. It showed the 33 day walk a group of six refugees made to escape (some rather horrific) repression in China. The Tibetans also man the shops, especially ones hawking "Free Tibet" shirts and incense sticks.

 

There is an Indian presence here as well. Most work as the town's backbone, running food shops and driving auto-ricksaws along the narrow streets.

 

This is a major pilgrimage site for Buddhists and believers in alternative religions, so there are plenty of Western people wearing robes, bindis, and Buddhist iconography. They come to see the Dalai Lama, take courses or just meditate in the pine-scented air. There are many backpackers, too, people on summer vacation or wandering around Asia. They can be hard to separate from the devotees, as they also have acquired plenty of mystic articles of clothing during their Indian stay.

 

The young, the old, the poor and yuppie, they all have a place in Dharmsala. There is even room for a group I didn't think I would encounter. They gave themselves as with their matching blue visors and parading down the rode to the Dalai Lama's monastery in a long, thin line.

 

They were East Asian, but I thought surely they must be Japanese or Korean. But then I saw the characters on their matching backpackers, and heard the standard Mandarin coming out of their mouths. They were Chinese, dozens of them.

 

I found out later they were a group from Taiwan, the same group that is sponsoring this week's teachings. The teachings are a dialogue between a senior Chinese Buddhist and the Dalai Lama, so it makes sense that the (Republican) Chinese are in town. But it still is strange to hear Chinese here.

 

Hippies with crazy beards and strange watches I expected, but "ni hao" I did not. 

Teaching

DHARMSALA, India - Flanked by half-dozen other monks and wearing his trademark Coke-bottle glasses, there he was. The 14th Dalai Lama, aged 73, just a couple of feet away. Flanking him were a half-dozen senior monks, all dressed in crimson colored robes. He stood almost at arm's reach.

 

At the sight of their religious and political leader, the crowd of Tibetans and international followers rose to its feet and bowed their heads and clasped their hands together. Even on this, the fourth day of a week long teaching, most people were in awe.

 

A low chant played over speakers. Some mumbled along as he made his way from the monestary entrance toward the center of the temple. He stopped at one point, grasping a white woman on the sidelines. He said a few words, I couldn't make out what, and then kept going. All around the woman seemed amazed.

 

The lectures are held here in Dharmsala and celebrate the Dalai Lama's birthday last week. They are free to attend, but participants must register with Tibetan Security Forces in town, present a primitive green paper ID card with a passport photo to enter. I was frisked twice going in to ensure I did not bring a gun, explosive material, cell phone or a camera into the venue.

 

I came with Casey, a woman my age who is taking a year off from Tufts. We met on the streets of Dharmasala yesterday, when she poked me and asked, "Were in my Chinese class?" The answer was yes. She knocked on my door at 6:30 a.m., and we walked through early morning clouds to the temple. The complex is not the Potala Palace, the massive fort that looms over the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, but it is a big airy building that marries Indian post-colonial styles and Tibetan ascetics.

 

Casey led me to her spot, in the main chamber 20 meters from the Dalai Lama's stage. Attendees mark places with a pillow or piece of cardboard, and tradition means that these seats are saved for the entire lecture. Casey mentioned a stop nearby that had no been occupied for a couple days. I went to the tiny square of concrete, folded my legs and waited.

 

Within ten minutes my foot fell asleep, and when a Chinese man came a half-hour later and said that this was actually his seat, and I was relieved. I went downstairs, where I caught the close glimpse of the Dalai and then leaned against a tree.

 

His Highness (official title) took his seat and the congregation sang a long, exuberant song. Then they did another chant. Monks, mainly teenagers, gave everyone a piece of fresh oval-shaped Tibetan bread and poured hot cups of tea. Then the teachings began.

 

The Dalai Lama spoke in Tibetan, answering the questions of a Taiwanese Buddhist in long answers. The Taiwanese spoke in Chinese, and an instant English translation was available on a local AM radio frequency. Having no radio, I just listened the man's deep, throaty voice for an hour and a half.

 

The lectures go on until around noon, but I'd had enough. I wandered to the back of the temple and prepared to go back to my beautiful cliff-side hotel room. I looked back toward the temple and on a television screen setup for people downstairs I saw him one more time, still teaching.

Peaceful but Steely-Eyed

DHARMSALA, India - For every 10 people that visit China this year, just one will make it to the other Asian superpower.

 

That doesn't mean that there are same combinations of visor wearing tour groups, elderly Germans and wild-eyed church groups from Middle America that wander around China.

 

India attracts a different type of traveler, the kind relishes the 15-hour journey from Delhi to Dharmsala, the capital of the Tibet Government in Exile. Parts of the route follow the Great Trunk Road, an ancient highway that connected major cities in Northern India and Pakistan. The route is mostly paved now, but the trip still takes plenty of time thanks to prearranged stops and surprise matientance failures.

 

The first bus stops by a small lake in the outskirts of Delhi. There I start talking to Kara, already in India for five months. She wears baggy olive-colored stiff cotton pants and strings a large money belt on the outside of her button down shirt.

 

Kara decided against going to college home in Britian six years ago. It took her four years to get to Barcelona, then another two before she left the European continent. But after half a year off the grid, she seemed serene, convinced she'd made the right decision.

 

"I'm happy now," she said, and listed off adventures in Kashmir, Nepal and in Dharmsala. She was on her way back to Dharmsala to surprise a friend, and kill two weeks while her passport was replaced.

 

The document went missing on a long bus trip. "I actually should have lost it earlier," she said. "I had one of those bags with no zipper, just a strap thing."

 

All is not always calm. A Spanish woman yelled at the driver that she'd been promised a single bunk and did not want to be placed with a companion. She calmed down when an attractive and talkative Italian offered to share the bunk. Some other Americans were not pleased when the waiter the dinner rest stop tried to blatantly tack 60 rupees on the bill. But these incidents are soon forgotten. These people have seen it before and certainly will be come across it again during their extended stays here.

 

The bus didn't leave the roadside collection of outside tables and vendors selling Bollywood CDs, Menthos and chilled pudding until after 10:30 at night. The cabin's interior lights went out and conversation slowly died down. Someone in an upper bunk lit a joint and the sweet smoke drifted down to the passengers in the cheaper seats. Forty foreign visitors drifted toward the hill station of Dharmasala, peacefully.

 

Sloop Anoop

DELHI -- The city's overstretched power grid keeps cutting out spoartically this afternoon, so I will keep this entry brief to increase the odds it won't disappear in a crash.

 

This morning I saw India for the first time in the light and it was everything I expected it to be and so, so much more: women in colorful saris, mostached men hollering for me to by sweet treats, counterfit books and jewelry, and very sad cripples looking for a rupee or two. After a mile on foot, I switched to auto-ricksaw, an enlarged motorcycle that is more and less what's called a tuk-tuk in Thailand. On the road I looked to my side rather than right in front of my face and saw even more.  Cream white bulls taller than a man served as obstacles even the most audicious auto-ricksaw driver swerves to avoid. Most seem to spend their days snacking on large piles of roadside refuse, although a few pull wagonfulls of scrap materials from bazar to bazar.

 

Every new region requires a different parameter, rules that will guide the traveler as he goes from attraction to attraction. I am feeling out India's now, and making plenty of mistakes as I go. After clearing customs in the early-morning hours yesterday, I steered our group of three to the pre-paid taxi meter. There a middle-aged man with a crescent-shaped faced wrote down on the back side of a reicipt that it would cost 545 rupees to town, around $14. Split between three people that seemed reasonable, but the man checking us in the at Anoop Hotel told us we'd paid more than double the price. I'm not sure whether to trust him because as he filled out a lengthy entry in the hotel's registar (as Indian businesses seem to do) he appeared to charge us 50 rupees more than a comparable party of Germans.

 

This morning I capped things off by giving 80 rupees to that auto-ricksaw driver and then giving another man 45 for the same journey at a government pre-paid stand. The government ricksaw left the meter on for the five kilometer jaunt. The cost: 21 rupees.

 

And so I will need to have my eyes in front of me on the person trying to rip off and my eyes to side to the wonders wizzing by, as a search for a new way to look at this completly new place.

Special Edition

BEIJING -- Right now over a dozen people are sitting, standing or squatting in different parts of Beijing's mammoth transportation system, all converging on this location. Well, almost.

 

Caleb is on the subway ring line from Xizhimen, Zach's in a couple with a couple other people, Jean is walking/skipping from Guomao and I'm not really sure the girls are.

 

If my life in China was a television program, today would be the season finale. With classes over, the plan is for things go on hiatus for a couple months. Most people are scheduled to return for the next season, some are the fence and a few have confirmed that they won't be renewing their contracts.

 

In the calculating style of television Sweeps Week rating events, tonight nearly every important person from the past four month is scheduled to come down here and send out the Spring Semester 2007 with some debauchery.

 

I have no phone, so I've made sure to get down here early. Here is the Sanlitun area, where we can find nice restaurants, sleek bars and fashionable clubs. There's enough sweets and booze to guarantee I won't have excess RMB to dispense at the airport tomorrow.

 

Walking here from the Indian Embassy (last-minute visa pickup), I passed many places that featured the past few months: the Mexican restaurant with salty chips, the Swisshotel that hosted the worthless job fair, a beverage stand where I once bought two yellow Gatorades. But there were also unfamiliar places. I realized I'd never taken this route to get from Ritan Park to Sanlitun. I wandered down a hutong in the direction of Sanlitun, only to be turned back by three security guards, jovailly yelling "No!" and pointing me another way around the building. Why couldn't I go in that way? What else didn't I know about this area of Beijing where I spent so much time the last four months? And If this the part of the city I understand, what about the thousands of acres where I've never set foot?

 

Stay tuned.

Closed, Looted and Demolished

BEIJING – The tiny restaurants that form the backbone of the lower
middle-class Chinese professional appear timeless. Inside there is
usually only three or four tables, each with a quartet of stools,
perfect for slurping bowls of spicy noodles and woofing down plates of
dumplings before heading home to sleep.

But these places are not immune to the pressures of the pre-economic
boom. Today after a visit to the Kro's Nest – that pizza place with
the great pies and lousy service – my friend Andy and I went to
investigate a rumor from another friend that a favorite haunt at
Tsinghua's West Gate has closed.

Where I used to enjoy spicy Lanzhou noodles and lamb kebab skewers now
stood a pile of concrete slabs, haphazardly thrown around the
half-demolished shell of the building. The roof had been completely
thorn down, but the walls remained as they had the last time I ate
there, two weeks before. A poster on the wall advertised Beijing Beer
on draft for three renminbi. I saw the counter where the cold
beverages were kept. The place looked abandoned in advance of a
steamroller.

I went with Andy to the restaurant next door for answers. I found
someone at an outdoor barbecue, grilling chicken wings for a party of
middle-aged women seated outside.

"Go to the big building," he said. "They've changed."

Whew. Here I thought my friends at the restaurant had been driven off
murderous thugs or corrupt government officials. Perhaps they
relocated to better digs. The fuyuan said the new place was 30 meters
down the road, on the right side. It was a strangely precise figure,
and we set off south for 23 footsteps.

Ten minutes later, we'd found no restaurant so I went back to the
fuyuan for a second set of instructions. This time he dispatched an
underling to accompany us and in under half a minute we were at a
Muslim restaurant with a large green sign called Twelve Tree Card
Restaurant. Perhaps I'm translating that wrong.

He took us to the restaurant's laoban (boss), a friendly man with a
broad smile sitting opposite his establishment's front door, leaning
against a metal pole.

"Two weeks I ate at the restaurant over there," I said. "Now it's
already demolished. We often ate there. What happened?"

"They demolished it. It wasn't clean. The sanitation was bad. They had
to close it." He didn't seem concerned. "You should eat here. We have
spicy Lanzhou noodles."

I wasn't interested. There was something about that old spicy noodle
and kebab joint that made it ours. The way I found out one day while
exploring the west side of campus toward the beginning of the
semester. I came back most weeks, usually on Friday nights right
after class. We would drink beer, eat fresh roasted meat and complain
about Brown or some grammatical point the Chinese had put in their
language only to infuriate foreigners. We planned nights out downtown,
ones that would end many hours later, miles away. The sudden
destruction of the restaurant reminds me that those nights now are
gone too.

A Literary Journey

To make up in part for the interruption of posts, I'm going to send
over a couple pieces that I wrote or partially-wrote in the last
couple months and for some reason didn't get put online. It certainly
wasn't quality control, because there's none of that here. This post
is from the very beginning of the semester, right after I finished my
Trans-Siberian jaunt. It's a reading list from the trip, with small
blurbs about each piece. After finishing it, it seemed a bit
superfluous, but considering this a Web site that frequently discusses
chicken wings, I don't think it's too out of place.

BEIJING - With classes starting, it's time to stop pretending that I'm
still travelling and on vacation and start spending some serious time
with those Chinese textbooks. As a way of tying up the trip, I wanted
to run down the books I've been reading in the last few weeks, when
I've been freed from the turgid pages of the "New Classical Chinese
Reader," and had dozen of hours to kill on trains, bus and disco-vans.

1. "A House for Mr. Biswas," by V.S. Niapaul

Acquired: Albany Barnes & Noble

Current Location: Sweet Arbat Hostel, Moscow

When I offered to trade this for someone else's book in Moscow, I
described it as the story of an unsuccessful man, controlled by a
dominering family, as he fails to make a life for himself over four
decades. Those may be the basic plot outlines, but it misses the
spirit of the novel, which is witty, quick and sometimes
laugh-out-loud funny. I couldn't convince the person to take the book,
but hopefully some other travel with find it next to the computer.

2. "The Emperor," Ryszard Kapuscinski

Acquired: Local Bookstore, Warsaw

Current Location: Gave to Caleb in Ulaanbaatar, presumably in Hohhot, China.

Kapuscinski died a couple days before I arrived in Warsaw. Touring the
city with a friend, Dorota, I saw obituarities and tributes posted
outside Warsaw University's Journalism Department. Dorota recommended
this title, about the fall of the last Ethopian emporer.

3. "The Innocence of Loss," by Kirian Desai

Acquired: From my sister, although I gave to her for Christmas. I
bought it Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Current Location:

I heard about this book on a NPR round-up of Booker Mann Prize
Finalists. "The Inheritance of Loss" won the award, and I grabbed in
an excellent New York bookstore. My sister read it quickly, and the
book was free for me to take on the trip.

4. "I Didn't Do It for You,"

Acquired: Barnes and Nobes in Albany.

Current Location: Leo Hostel, Beijing

I got this one because of the subtitle: "How the World Betrayed a
Small African Nation." This account of Eritera from colonialism to
independence suffered from hackeneyed writing and the author's hatred
for Ethiopia. The author finds much to admire in Eritera's rebels, but
fails to mesh that wtih a hatred to current, authoritarian regime.
Probably the lest favorite of the books I read on the trip.

5. "Collected Short Stories, Vol. 3" J. Somerset Magnum

Acquired: From Caleb in Ulaanbaatar.

Current Location: Leo Hostel, Beijing.

Caleb gave this to me as we headed out on our tour of the Mongolian
countryside. I read at night in our gers, before turning off the solar
powered electric light. These are stories about a spy during World War
I, but what's notable is how little "spying" is actually invovled.
Instead these are about characters met and lives described, in full,
well constructed prose. I'd like to read Volume 2 if I can find it,
which features stories set in Malaysia.

6. "The Old Man & The Sea," Ernest Hemmingway

Acquired: English bookshop, Ulaanbaatar.

Current Location: On my shelf. The novella is paired with "The Green
Hills of Africa," which I plan to read later.

Somehow I found the struggle of the Santiago and the massive fish
relavent to the peasants I saw out the sleeper bus window on the way
from the Chinese border to Beijing. Both seemed

7. "Kim," by Rudyard Kipling

Acquired: Borders in Albany.

Current Location: On my shelf. I'm planning to bring it to Leo Hostel
and exchange it for another book soon.

Paul Theroux mentions this book quite a bit in his writing, and
Borders sells a cheap classic edition with helpful footnotes. This is
a wonderful book about a boy drawn to a monastic life and that of a
spy. That the spy ultimately wins out isn't presented as a triumph,
but the result of tough realpolitik decisions.

8. "A Dark-Adapted Eye," by Barbara Vine

Acquired: Leo Hostel in Beijing

Current Location: My desk. I'm reading this when I get bored with
Chinese dialogues.

Leo Hostel had a book swap, the first swap I've seen since New York. I
thought I'd score several sweet books, but this was the only one of
remote interest. The book said it was free with "Country Living"
magazine, and if so, I'd like a subscription. A crime book where the
mystery isn't mentioned until the last 10 pages, and the killer is
known from the first page. Vine reinvents the genre by breaking the
traditional whodunnit rules and focusing exclusively on the
characters.

If Old Things Don't Go Away, New Things Won't Come

BEIJING – This space has been quiet for a while. It started without
any warning, any sign that I'd be silent for a few weeks. But after a
couple of days of not posting, I decided not to restart without
reason.

Walking down a main pedestrian lane on the Tsinghua Campus near sunset
I heard words echo through my head. "The humid, still air slowly wrapped around me like a sleath boa
constrictor." These weren't just the thoughts of a famished, parched
mind. This was someone who needed to start writing again.

So here I am. The past four weeks there have been dozens of vignettes,
sad and poignant, funny and amusing, that I'll probably never share
here. Everyone experiences these each day. Now I again want to record
some of these – the most notable, the things that stick out late at
night when I return to my laptop – on this space.

But first a few notes on more general topics, overdue housekeeping if you will:

1. Class at Tsinghua is over. Today I took my listening final, and
tomorrow comes speaking and on Wednesday Brown will test my grammar.
Regular undergraduate students have been finished for a couple weeks
now. My roommate successfully defended his biology thesis and is now a
graduate. I'll miss his commencement, which will be in the middle of
the month.

2. I'm missing his graduation because I'll be on the road. I haven't
mentioned my summer vacation plans on this blog, mainly because I'm
afraid they change, and they have, slightly. I've got a plane ticket
for Saturday on a direct Beijing to Delhi flight. It should be two
months before I return to Beijing. I'm not desperate to get out of
Beijing, and the reasons why I most want to leave – the traffic, the
heat, the humidity – won't be solved in India. But India holds a
special attraction to me, something completely different from China.
This is a group I've wanted to take for a long time. Hopefully I'll
come back to this in a future post when I'm there.

3. The Gazelle is gone.

I looked in my shoulder bag after class one Wednesday to see a bottle
of water slowly leaking over the contents. Inside were most of my
valuable possessions: school books, wallet, cell phone, iPod and keys.
I tugged at my shirt and started furiously drying things off in order
of importance: first the iPod, then the phone and finally the books.
Somehow the keys wound up lost. On that key ring were both keys to the
Gazelle. It was immobile.

Then I forgot about it. I never carried it to the Bike Doctor to
remove the lock or got someone to snap it off where it lay. After a
week, I couldn't remember where I left it. I looked around some, but
it was gone.

I've got a plan to capture a new bike, but that my friends, is another post.