Rasool

It was a bit of bizarre politics to eventually settle on a houseboat. It was very complicated between different owners, and the one owner allows the other one to use their phone, and then that one is at the mercy of the other one and then he has given away his room to another couple and is sensitive to our needs of not wanting to spend so much so shows us a friend's one that is cheaper but really owes the other guy to refer us to him and we were black with pollution and really just wanted to shower or something and had to sit through the quarrels that made no sense to us, sipping delicious Kashmiri tea and surrounded by dripping tranquility.

The houseboats are very homely and also quite luxurious. Occasionally a shikara will float by, where you can buy water or fruits or plastic buckets or biscuits or anything really. The water, and waterways are covered in green furry matter, and toward the end of the day the birds go crazy and start making a real racket. You can watch falcons or hawks (or one of those types of birds) play and fight. Somewhere in the distance you can hear Muslim prayer over a loudspeaker. You can hear faint dripping sounds of the oars, and the silky slither of the boats gliding through the water. In the distance you can see the mountains.

Our boat has a big dining room that can seat eight people around a handcrafted table. Kashmiri carpets all over, and all the walls are wooden.

The owner's name is Bob or Peter or Rasool. I smoked some Hashish with him and the jeweller out on the patio and Rasool sat down with us and wanted to talk philosophy. It was all about his wife - some tangled mess of thoughts that I couldn't quite make out if there was a problem or if everything was Ok between the two of them. He went off on several tangents and everything seemed to be coloured with money, even though he kept on explaining that money is not a problem - he doesn't care for it. And the more he revealed the more you thought it made sense until it just didn't really. He's an interesting guy, though. Nothing is a problem ("There's no problem").

Everybody seems so generous, and they're perfectly willing to lend you a few thousand ruppees for a few days until you're able to draw money yourself.

Played with a Lotus Leaf - incredible things. They don't get wet - even if you hold it under water. It just adopts a silvery sheen, and when you take it out again it is perfectly dry.

I have a horrible cold.