Day 76:

I've been reading "On the Road" lately. Ginsberg's "Howl and Other Poems" has been in my kit on every voyage I've taken in the past few years (including Korea), but strangely enough I've never bothered to check out the stories of his good buddy Jack Kerouac. Odd, that.

In the dedication to that book, he says that Kerouac "spit forth intelligence into eleven books... creating a spontaneous bop prosody and original classic literature" (3).

Kerouac's book makes my heart ache. Here I am travelling across Asia, when 50 years ago, Kerouac told everyone quite clearly that the REAL action is in North America. Back in Korea, M spoke often about going to England and Australia on a working holidaymaker visa... spending nights at hostels and days working various odd jobs. How romantic would it be to do that in Canada or America? Impossible because of all of our rules and regulations regarding work and employment, I'm sure, but it FEELS easy enough... moving from town to town by greyhound. Hostels are cheap, you know?

But it's impossible. A contemporary "On the Road" is rendered impossible by the trappings of twenty-first century government and bureaucracy. C'est la vie.

And, of course, I haven't actually finished the book, so maybe it's not quite so romantic as it is presented in the opening few chapters.

Interestingly enough, travelling in Asia makes voyaging in Canada and American seem a little bit easier that it would have seemed in the past. Rough sleeping, either in a dirty hotel or on a train station bench is no longer so intimidating, and fifteen hour bus rides are no longer such a hassle. Wandering around all night a la "Before Sunrise" in an American city instead of paying for a hotel seems quite safe and a smart idea, now. And going three weeks wearing the same clothes every day? No problem!

Anyways, I really want to see Canada. I want to see Nova Scotia, which is a place that is quite foreign to me, actually. I want to "go west." I want to visit friends. I want to count my final dollars.

What I want, desperately, is to have a job.

Sarnath, shortly. Then Delhi.