Played by a Cockroach

I made it to Mangalore on India's west coast (yep Mangalore is different than Bangalore but they both suck just as much anyway) in a day of bus rides. Confused as ever about the 'serenity' around me I walked out of my hotel room in Mangalore without paying. Given that folks are always 100% honest in India, I was really ashamed to admit my mistaken deceit.

I knew then that my psyche had begun to undress my ass in revolt.

While waiting for a bus over a cup of coffee at the local and lekker Coffee Day franchise, I was about to sob when my boy Menno called and invited me to join him at a beach in Goa. Hearing Menno's sane voice pumped me past the need to beat myself up.

It took me a day of travel to reach Menno. That is Menno sitting under the palm trees and staring at the beauty of Agonda beach.


I walked with my shoes off in the warm water. I liked it so much that I did not even stare at the naked European folks who were laying out in the sun like you see on the Travel Channel.



I did however almost bust a vein later when I witnessed an irate Italian patron smack a waiter called Sureg. On my next visit to Italy I intend to smack a waiter to see what it is like.

Oh and Angela you will love the fact that this pig chased my ass around the yard of my hotel. I apparently woke her up tip-toeing towards my room. How do you spell pepperoni?

The next day we joined Menno's sister, Laurien (on the right of picture), and her roomie, Josephine, at a beach up the coast from Agonda. (What's up in Holland julle?)


You know I was relaxing when I agreed to share a hut with Menno and a few frogs on the beach.



I even let myself be talked into riding a bicycle around the resort areas. It was all good and I tried my best to forget that I still needed to get to Delhi.




Here Menno is seen riding the 'costly' racer bicycle while Laurien looks on from behind.

Three days after meeting Menno I bid farewell with plans to travel north and make my way to Delhi in a week or so. It was Sunday the 7th of January and Menno, Laurien, and Josephine, were flying out to Delhi later in the afternoon.

But instead of travelling onwards I ended up at the airport in Panaji the same day with the hope of finding a stand-by ticket to Delhi.

All the way to the airport I kept singing that song that goes: "get me a ticket on an aeroplane .... I'm gonna be on the Wheel of Fortune game ... hey Vanna, send me a letter."

Just four hours later I was sitting in my flat from hell and relaying to my mom that I will never ever leave home again ... well not until March when I travel to the center of terrorism, the US.

While complaining and talking to my folks in SA, the bell rang and there was a friendly man with my pizza in hand. I bid a quick bye-bye to moms and opened the box of steamy delight. To my dismay there was the addition of a dead cockroach I did not specify in my order.

Read about and see the cockroach on this "Pizza Hut" pizza in Australia: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/pest-topping-made-diners-skin-crawl/2006/05/31/1148956417307.html


As fate would have it, my cockroach turned out to be a princess sent to me by Sai Baba as a gesture of appreciation (I think). We danced the night away till the wee hours when Kafka showed up pissed out of his head. You know how a drunk ex-boyfriend can really make a party suck. Apparently Kafka, and what I thought was my fairy, still had some unsettled issues. He wanted to work on them and she seemed undecided.

I watched as they argued in part amazement and part "ummm what the hell is happening" mode. I mean she was fine and all that but I could not tell if she was a sista fairy and I don't want to piss Corinne off and be wrong.


My patience was growing a little thin and I needed to change the Luther CD I had on shuffle mode ... you know how us 'old-school' brothers role ... :0)


You know, can you say Jerome in the house?!!!





See Jerome's playa web page at: http://valdefierro.com/martin16.html

But alas, all playaz get played and my fairy princess turned from me and left with the white boy. I ran into the fog and smog that is Delhi at 5am to see who else was up but damn, it was cold and so was the whole episode.


I returned to my flat and wondered what my boy Fred Sanford would do.


You know Fred G. Sanford is the original Mac-Daddy. When I closed my eyes I could hear him faintly say" "you big dummy ... dummyyyyy ..."


I ignored Fred but my heart wheezed out what Teddy Pendergrass said so eloquently: "think I better let it go, it looks like another love TKO."


And I did let it go. There in the Delhi smog my princess turned to fairy dust.

And I went to bed hungry. Again.

Well, there was still the pizza and the dead cockroach had reappeared. But all I could think of was that if I was in shape I could of kicked Kafka's ass. Really. But since I did no such thing I just accepted that he was a really lucky man.

But was he?