Kathmandu to Gonda! Pt.6 - Lost in Circle 2!

A ride through the Nepali Terrai into India
KTM to Nepalgung (Indian border) – 508 km
KTM to Gonda (India) – 636 km

The ride:
Kathmandu to Mugling Bazaar – 110 km
Mugling Bazaar to Narayanghat – 34 km

The story so far:
Mr Felix continues his search for the Lost Divine Spark (LDS). After a ride down through the mountains and the rain out of Kathmandu, he’s now stuck in Narayanghat with a bad flu and a state of mind that’s approaching terror. He's just left the hotel room for the first time in two days, and is at the internet cafe.

Part 6: Lost in Circle 2!

You have come to a place mute of all light, where the wind bellows as the sea does in a tempest. This is the realm where the lustful spend eternity. Here, sinners are blown around endlessly by the unforgiving winds of unquenchable desire…

I'm reading about myself on the web in a little internet café in Narayanghat.

I set off from home over 12 months ago in search of the lost divine spark, the reason to live again, and now it’s come to this: stuck in Narayanghat with a bad flu, and in Hell.

I find it laughable when people say they don’t believe in Hell. They must be looking around with their eyes closed. I once spent six months in a small hut on an island in Sri Lanka staring at the wall and let me tell you, Hell exists and you don't have to die to get there. All you have to do is stop running.

...the unforgiving winds of unquenchable desire...
...the unforgiving winds of unquenchable desire...

I’m searching through the Dante’s Inferno pages on the web, trying to get a little perspective. I’ve been stumbling around in the dark for over twelve months, beset on all sides by demons and monsters, and it’s high time I looked at a map.

I guess I have that very male thing of: "Hey, I know where I’m going, no need to look at a map! Klunk! Thud! Hmm, maybe I’m lost."

For my money you can’t beat the Inferno (originally published as Commedia by the Dante Alighieri Company) for a good map of Hell. Decent scale, all destinations clearly marked, easy to follow.

It seems I’m lost somewhere in Circle 2 where the ‘infernal hurricane never rests’ – yep, that sounds about right, and ‘whirling and smiting’ – yep, yep, tell me about it, and ‘you have betrayed reason at the behest of your appetite for pleasure, and so here you are doomed to remain.’ Jesus! Is that how I got here! Hmm, bad road, Feely.

The good news is that Cleopatra and Helen of Troy, two of my fave people, are down here with me, but I do wonder where Janis Joplin is.

I passed briefly through Circle 5 with the ‘wrathful and the gloomy’ and I didn’t see her, so maybe she’s in Circle 6 with the heretics. Woo! That’s a place I avoid like the plague, like maybe Sierra Leone, or Starbucks.

Being burnt at the stake is not my idea of a fun Sunday ride with the family.

Note: For those of you who would like to know which Circle you’re riding on, there’s a fun, and surprisingly accurate in my case, little multi-choice test at:
http://www.4degreez.com/misc/dante-inferno-test.mv
For a summary of Dante's Inferno go to:
http://www.4degreez.com/misc/dante-inferno-information.html
See you 'round!