Varanasi part 2

Today has been a sequence of many small tests, that taken in part may seem insignificant, but as a whole there is some kind of message, the meaning of which is unclear to me… First, I went to have lunch at a place that was supposed to be good and a man told me it was closed due to a problem with some monkeys. We sat and talked about it for a couple minutes and then I looked around a little confused about where to go and he told me to come look at the view and I said I was hungry so he said I should go up to the restaurant and have some lunch. But you said it was closed I said and he said no, so I walked up, deciding not to probe the insanity of the conversation any further. Then I decided to walk 7km to some Lonely Planet suggested site for no other reason than I was feeling uncreative. I did not follow the suggestion of Mapquest for no other reason than I was feeling smart. Instead I walked along the edge of the Ganges and encountered many things not factored into a day of sightseeing through the eyes of a Lonely Planet journalist, one of them being a bottomless mud pit disguised as solid ground that will swallow your leg up whole. I’ll have to write them and tell them about it. It will be my one major contribution to the world at large. So my leg got sucked into a mud pit almost up to my knee, to the fascination and enjoyment of the old folks out on their porch and the kids playing cricket in the dirt that wasn’t a bottomless mud pit. One of my red Vans came out three inches thicker and brown, and I know my mom and my Uncle Greg won’t approve when I tell you this, but all I could say was “Fuck.” And then as soon as I said that this little kid was like “Wait there! I’ll help!” and he ran inside his house and came out with a little pot of water that he splashed on my foot and it didn’t make a bit of difference with the mud, or cow poop, or whatever it actually was, but it really made me feel good inside. Then his big brother decided to help some more and ran down to the Ganges, the holy river, to wash the holy cow poop off with some holy water. He brought the pot back up to me and started splashing it around and rubbing the mud off my leg with his hand and this got some of the little kid onlookers all worked up and one started humping the other’s leg like a dog and it was a bit embarrassing, but we all pretended it wasn’t happening. Finally I took my shoe off and the older brother took it riverside and gave it a thorough washing in holy water. I thanked him and continued on and crossed the river on a pontoon bridge that was under siege by forty billion bugs and they were stuck in my hair and eyelashes and in everything and then I got to the place I was going and there were guys with guns there that laughed at me and told me to come back at 10am. So I turned around and went back where I came from. I got back where I came from and washed the holy cow poop off my shoe and went to have dinner. I sat for an hour and forty five minutes and watched many people get their dinner and eat and mine was not coming. I was feeling really pissy about it but just trying to keep cool because I knew being pissy wouldn’t change anything. Then I asked in a pissy way where my food was and they just made up some story as is customary and it took like another half hour to show up. I left feeling pissy and decided to go to the internet place to make a phone call I’ve been putting off and I tripped and fell on my way up the stairs after someone asked me if I wanted to rent a boat and then a bunch of people laughed at me. Now I’m here making this phone call and it won’t take my call because the machine is saying they have too many calls to answer. Is this sequence of thwarted expectations the universes’s way of telling me I’m uptight, or am I being too literal? Maybe someone that is smarter than me can help… Anyway, that photo up top is the bugs. Damn bugs.