The Adventures of Bindi Girl: (2012) (20 page)
Read The Adventures of Bindi Girl: (2012) Online
Authors: Erin Reese
“We’re from Czech Republic!” she replied with gusto. The couple, who introduced themselves to me as Lenku and Tomas, explained they were on their way to deliver said-ripe-and-luscious mangos to another Czech on Beach Number Seven, whom they had met the day prior. “Is his name Jan?” I asked. “Oh yes! You know him?!” “Yes,” I said, “I’m heading there, too. Jan’s my boyfriend.” Lenku and Tomas informed me that Jan was awaiting us all in his Pláž Paradise camp.
Once we got to Beach Number Seven, the four of us spent a few days together as a team. I was happy for Jan: he must have been thrilled to befriend some fellow Praguians so he could relax in his own language a bit. However, I began to feel frustrated and bordered on bored as I could not understand a damned thing the Slavs were saying. I kept an open mind and a positive attitude, even as Led Zeppelin’s “Communication Breakdown” quickly became our camp theme song.
Before we’d said our goodbyes on the mainland last month, Jan had painted a picture of our time on the Andamans as some sort of paradise, in which he would focus on keeping a cozy camp, and I could while away the hours wistfully writing, practicing asana, and learning guitar.
NOT. The first few days of our “Back to Nature” experiment in remote island living, I wanted nothing more than to sit on my ass, to be honest. Frankly, after the Ack-Barf trip, I needed a righteous rest. But by Day Three, Jan had enough of my apparent freeloading, and said, as sweetly and unfazed as he could possibly muster, “You know, Erin, it’s sort of nice when the people share a little bit of the work in a camp. Maybe you could at least get firewood while I start cooking.”
My first thought:
You mean to tell me we’re gonna be living some sort of primal
Quest for Fire
experiment here? I came to do yoga and get a tan.
My second thought:
I’ll show him!
Like a trooper and proper teammate, I stuck to the second thought and set to work, collecting wood, keeping coals, and fanning flames.
2
nd
of March, Havelock Island
I got my first taste of being taken under in the islands, just as we were leaving the prime-snorkel-spot of Havelock at Elephant Beach. After a day of coral reef exploration with the Czech couple, Tomas and Lenku, we had to get back to the main road—quickly. Nightfall threatened as we tried to find our way, slogging through a mangrove and hesitantly tiptoeing through the puddles. Trying to cross a stagnant expanse of swamp, I stepped into what appeared to be a two-inch-deep pool of muddy water.
Uh-oh.
The moment my feet plunged into the murky muck, I knew something was wrong. I’d been engulfed by some odd Andamanese form of quicksand!
Instantly, I was calf-high in sludgy, leech- and mollusk-ridden brown goo—and going down fast. My toes went
squish squash
, and I looked down to see hundreds of black mollusks surrounding my legs, which were quickly sinking in the syrupy substance. Coming up behind me, Jan quickly grabbed my arms and pulled me out like I was drowning in molasses, with the vise-grip of vile substance clinging on, blowing out both my flip-flops in the process.
Squishy in my destroyed sandals, the four of us made for a hard haul up the jungle slope as darkness descended. We were in a race against time, as the exotic nocturnal creatures began their night calls.
I trailed behind the three spirited Slavs who had proper footwear and were happy as clams. The gorgeous blonde, Lenku, seemed to me to be floating and bouncing gaily over trees and puddles, hardly sweating and never stumbling.
In that moment, I hated them. All of them.
How much longer can I do this?
I asked myself. Rough and thrashed, thrashed and rough. Such was my physical, mental, and emotional state after one week in the relatively tame jungles of Havelock. It was only the beginning.
Finally, after several kilometers walk, we made it back to Beach Seven and, completely done-in from the day, called it a night. I buried myself in my hammock nest and crashed out. In the middle of the night, I awakened from a deep sleep during the Witching Hour, to absorb the lunar rays and experience the magic of a lunar eclipse. I offered up a small prayer for strength to
Chandra
, the mystical Moon, before slipping back into my exhausted slumber.
4
th
of March, Havelock Island
The next morning after the quicksand incident, Jan and I said goodbye to our driftwood digs on Beach Seven and took off to catch the ferry for the next leg of our Andamanese Magical Mystery Tour. On the way to the bus stop, we ran smack dab in the middle of Holi celebrations!
The Full Moon festival of Holi celebrates the colors and vitality of spring, and the blessings of Lord Krishna. Beauty is everywhere, created by showering each other with vibrant paints and powdered colors. Children, tourists, merchants, priests, mothers, grannies—no one, but
no one
is immune from the paint and play.
Jan and I fell seamlessly into the ruckus, playing full-out with huge smiles in our hearts, pummeling each other with powder and colored-water balloons. We hooted and hollered, laughingly layering color after color on each other and anyone that moved. Even the village goats and month-old kittens were plastered with paint.
Waiting for the ferry to Neil Island, the Holi play was still going strong. The ferry was hours late as usual, so after downing several cups of chai, I pulled out my guitar in a makeshift playground near the jetty. Indians are a forgiving audience for an amateur musician—and Indian
kids
are an
appreciative
audience for an amateur musician. Everyone was in a celebratory mood at the jetty park. The children swarmed around me, giggling, clapping, ogling and laughing along with my songs. They smeared me with oodles of wet powders as I strummed and sang. I looked like a spumoni ice cream sundae!
This is why I lug my instrument around!
I thought. These moments of pure, unbridled joy are what I came to India for! I felt my heart crack open even wider, and ran off behind Jan to catch the ferry to Neil Island.
11
th
of March, Neil Island
All I wanted was a shower.
Or at least a clean pair of underwear.
You know. The little things.
Our Andaman adventure was getting riper by the day. Hence the sincere need for a shower. But that would be a long time in coming.
Once we got off the ferry that transported us from Havelock, Jan and I schlepped our gear several kilometers deeper into the heart of our second jungle, heading to an isolated, picturesque stretch of beach on Neil Island.
I was a bit frazzled in nerves, and the discomfort I felt played out in the relationship zone. A little crabby, perhaps? More than a little. I’ve never quibbled with a travel partner so very much as the time spent in the Andamans with Jan. There’s something about the hardships of backpacking with a new boyfriend in a developing country. It tests our meddle. It summons the best in us, out of necessity and moments of shared triumph and exhilaration; AND the worst in us, out of discomfort and physical and mental taxation.
Add to that a total, forced surrender into survival mode, thrusting yourself into shipwrecked status like a
Lost
or
Survivor
drama, and you’ve got a setup for explosions of volcanic proportions. Wondering where your weak spots are? You’ll find out. Every button you’ve ever had is raised, just asking to be pushed, prodded, and poked. This is where patience comes in. Patience, and shifting into a completely different mindset than the one you’re used to.
I decided to make this time on the islands into a personal experiment. How balanced can I keep my mind, even while feeling totally off-kilter much of the time? In hindsight, I have to give myself a huge pat on the back. No, make that a flippin’ gold medal.
Embittered and lacking confidence in my ability to play the part of Miss Family Robinson, I began my time on Neil Island in a sour mood. Luckily, I quickly grew tired of my own whining and wallowing in my emotional cesspool and opted to pray for help: “Please, India, let me be strong! If you want me to leave, show me the way home. If you want me to stay, I pray, grant me strength, and grant it now, lest I lose my only two remaining marbles.”
Prayer worked! I woke up the next morning with firm resolve in my heart to keep my chin up. If I hoped to have any fun, not to mention keep flailing sanity intact, I’d need to transform into a Jungle Jane to match Jan’s Tarzan game.
So kick into gear I did, once again surrendering to island life with great gusto. Sometimes, the only way out is through.
In spite of my own internal difficulties and the external rows, Jan and I were blessed to scout out and find a nice slice of paradise on Neil Island—a joyful jungle nest we affectionately named “The Octopus’s Garden.”
“I’d like to be under the sea, in an octopus’s garden in the shade.” Indeed, The Beatles’
Abbey Road
was our shared soundtrack, and Ringo’s quirky little ditty suited our home just perfectly—an Octopus’s Garden of Eden in a cleared-out palm shelter just off the beach. The Garden was, in my opinion, the nicest camp we made in the islands. Jan was truly in his element, living out his long-cherished fantasy of the Ultimate Andaman Experience. I was getting stronger too. By this point, my dusted-off camping skills were becoming nicely honed.
Mornings were marked, Aquarian Water Bearer that I am, by stealthily snagging our day’s water from a vegetable farmer’s nearby well. Catching me hauling up the bucket the very first morning, the old man gave me a head wobble in approval, so we were good to go in the hydration department. We also had no qualms about drinking the well water—our immune systems were surely stable and steely by this point. Plus, empty packets of pesticide were strewn about the well’s stone wall perimeter. Hardcore as we were, we figured, A
in’t nothing gonna live in that water—there isn’t a microbe left with all these chemicals nearby.
Toxic, but true. You’ll do what you can to stay alive in the wild.
Living in such ideal surroundings gave us both more energy to get creative. We played chess in the sand, with figures made of seashells. Knights, rooks, pawns, queens and all—represented by abandoned crustacean homes, found right in our front yard.
We also made some of our best grub in The Octopus’s Garden. Jan built a harpoon from found objects, including the filed-down handle from my stainless steel spoon. Donning diving mask and snorkel, Jan speared two fish within twenty minutes. Clearly, his scout years as a youth in Communist Czechoslovakia were paying off in spears.
Together, Jan and I prepared scrumptious fish tacos for dinner, fashioning tortillas out of campfire-cooked chapatis, topped off with lime and cilantro. Life in The Garden was truly divine.
13
th
of March, Neil Island
After a week on Neil Island, I had really begun to hit my stride—wood-hauling,
masala
chai-making, water-bearing, and more. I’d long since given up on the idea of a proper shower, opting instead to plunge into the surf whenever I felt a bit gamey. Honestly, at this point, I didn’t notice—and I most certainly didn’t care.
Jan and I were having such a good time, I wanted to play and stay in the Octopus’s Garden for many more a day. But, we were scheduled to depart the next morning for our final destination, Long Island. Since the ferries ran only twice a week, we had to get moving and pack up.
In honor of our last full day in The Garden, as Shakti paying homage to her consort Shiva, I offered Jan a strand of sacred beads, called
Rudraksha
, known as “Shiva tears.” I had purchased the mala in the Tiruvannamalai Shiva temple, as a remembrance of my beautiful night of Maha Shivaratri. Jan gave me a thank you kiss and promptly donned the mala, wrapping the gift around his wrist. In a loving mood, we set out to enjoy a romantic last evening by our cozy campfire.
Jan was, by default, the leader of the camp when it came to the day-to-day details, and he often assumed a teaching role when it came to the art of surviving so far off the beaten path. He made a special point to learn a few things from me as well—things like sun salutations, really-really-strong-coffee-making, and other useful skills.
Tonight, our last night in the Garden, Jan was keen on learning something else from me. Jan was interested in tantra.
“Really?” I asked him. “
You
, Mr. Non-Spiritual, are interested in tantra? You’re not just mocking me?” I knew Jan well enough by now. If something smacked remotely mystical, he wouldn’t take it seriously, which was one of the biggest chasms in our communication.
“Yes, show me tantra,” he assured me with a playful gleam in his eye, like any good Gemini.
So I began, talking into the late evening. I shared with Jan the tiny
bit I know about tantra, carefully pointing out that it is much more vast and mysterious than most of us can even begin to understand, and I had hardly any personal experience with it. I readily clarified that, while I don’t know much, I
do
know that it is an art that must be taken sincerely and seriously, for powerful energies are awakened upon its practice. Sex is hardly a fraction of the foundation.
“It is said,” I explained to Jan, “that the Kundalini serpent goddess, coiled at the base of the spine, is aroused and awakened through tantric practices. I do know one basic tantric exercise we can try, if we both agree to keep an open heart and an open mind. It’s called
yab-yum,
where the female sits astride the male—like this.” I demonstrated, sitting on Jan’s lap and wrapping my legs around him. “It’s actually a meditation position evoking perfect, divine balance between Shiva and Shakti.”
Fully at attention, Jan was, of course, up for it. And if this were a Bollywood film, we’d cut away at this point to a song and dance in fields of grass. You get the picture.
Taking the tantric invocation to heart, I prayed to Shiva and Shakti to manifest through us, through our devotion to each other in an act of sacred sex. As the last candle flickered and the campfire flames died down, we lingered a bit longer, stretched out on our straw mat on the ground. Content, I made myself comfy and cozy, to lay and gaze up at the jungle canopy just a few moments more.