The first two questions this week come from Ryan, who articulated very clearly what many of you have been wondering too. So, without further ado…

1. Are you locked in for 2010 in the USA?

RIKU: First of all, we’d like to thank each and every one of you who has appreciated Madventures, given away your time to watch it and given us feedback or even praise – you just don’t know how much it means to us!

It’s been extremely hard to work with a foreign language and to make a genuinely different “no-compromises” show for American TV and after your feedback, we’re more than happy with where we are now, no matter the dramatic events of this week – this all has been worth the effort!

Especially thanks for those who have expressed their opinions to the Travel Channel, via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter or TC’s own message board.

I’m sure they will appreciate direct feedback, too. After all, Travel Channel was the channel that decided to give green light to a fresh but controversial show, so let’s not diss ‘em too much for what happened, huh? Right now there’s a lot of changes going on there, check out the latest news here: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ad8ed368-bea2-11de-b4ab-00144feab49a.html

So, finally, to the answer: we’re not yet locked in for 2010, as there will probably be a lot of changes to their programming anyway. But all of us: me, Tunna, the whole Mad team and our great producers in the Travel Channel want the same thing: the triumphant return of Madventures – most probably in the first half of 2010!

The same situation in the UK – programming is not locked yet, but 2010 it’s a go.

And soon we’ll be able to give you other interesting news about 2010 stuff…

TUNNA: Yeah. What Riku said. : )

2. Will you continue to run this blog?

RIKU: Sure! We’ll keep on trucking, updating this blog weekly, sharing clips and pics, posting in Facebook & Twitter and delivering all the news to the friends of Madventures!

TUNNA: Absolutely! Although I myself will soon be in a total radio silence for a month or so, somewhere in the deep tropics, locked inside my hammock. I’ve been editing our huge DVD box for the last two months like a lunatic and now it’s time for a holiday!

3. Jahcure has a question about the latest blog entry, where we discussed the Aghori.

Do these men believe themselves to be above or even beyond local law? Has any sort of government authority ever approached these men, or are their “sacrifices” far and few?

RIKU: When you read Indian newspapers, sometimes you notice news about the most hardcore actions in Aghori sects: human sacrifaces.

Human sacrifice is pretty rare and you’ll have to remember that there’s more than a billion people there – many things can happen, especially when there’s extreme poverty, illiteracy, ignorance and fundamentalism, especially in the rural areas…

According to our research, most of the Aghori taboo-breaking has to do with shocking people, not really actual murders etc. But of course we do not know what kinds of acts Dhobia and his followers have really commited.

One would guess that even in the countryside India you can’t easily get away with a murder. Here’s more about human sacrifice in India.

TUNNA: I assume that Dhobia Baba meant that God will forgive them seven murders, even if people will not.

4. Have you seen Sadventures, the parody made of your program?

RIKU: Yeah! Laughed my ass off, good job guys! You know you’ve reached a certain level of notoriety when there’s a parody about you!

TUNNA: I’ve heard a lot about the parody and people said it’s funny. I just haven’t had time to watch it. Ok, I’m gonna watch it right now!

SADVENTURES

TUNNA: Okay, that IS funny. They must have been watching our show a lot to be able to imitate us so perfectly! Great tribute guys!

My vocabulary seems to consist of one sentence: What the fuck? Well, they are three great words, what else you need!

5. Plans for the rest of the year?

RIKU: I need to rest and get my infection fixed. It’s been around since PNG, got an abrasion while trekking in the jungle and it got infected… There’s been an open wound – from all af the possible places – in my ASS for six months already. Bombo claat!

Can’t bike, can’t sit for a long time, can’t have a sauna, can’t travel into the tropics this winter… Of course this is not really dangerous and I’m lucky to have a good health after all we’ve done, but I have to admit, this starts to get on my nerves.

Today, I go for the operation #4 – time for the good old epidural again.

Until this heals, there’s three assholes in Madventures instead of the obvious two!

TUNNA: What the fuck?

See, I told you those are the only words you need.

No, seriously, my plans are as much hammock as possible.

And that’s it for this week, you all have good weekend.

R & T

EDIT: As I’m uploading this, Riku sent an SMS from the hospital – the operation went well and he should be back home later today. – A

I think I have understood Hinduism correctly when I say that it is eternal, all-embracing and flexible enough to suit all situations.

– Mahatma Gandhi

Hinduism: hundreds of Gods and Goddesses with thousands faces, interchangeable yet individual, all facets of the same Supreme One and playing important roles in the eternal law of reincarnation and karma and dharma. And then there is Tantra, the Hindu mysticism where our whole universe is the tangible manifestation of divine energy that must be ritually channeled.

Normally, those sacred forces are rerouted and administered through animal sacrifice.

Normally.

We went to India to see if human sacrifice still exists.

Some hundred years ago, the notorious crime organization called Thuggees robbed and murdered traveling men all around India. The M.O. of theses vicious scoundrels and shitheels was to slaughter a large number of folks in a single operation. Many believe this band of highwaymen and at steppas were actually a religious cult, whose thirst for claret was explained by Kali worship.

A more recent example of human sacrifice is a tale from the year 2002, which involves a girl who was allegedly tranquilized, gagged and tied by a group of Kali worshippers. It is said that she was stripped naked, shaved, sprinkled with holy water and rubbed with cooking fat. Then the rank bastards sawed off her hands, breasts and her left foot.

Apparently she bled to death immediately, as the villains left her mutilated body in front of a photograph of a blood-soaked Kali idol.

She was said to be only 15 years old.

So are beheadings, dismemberments and burnings in the name of Kali really still occuring in the 21^st century India or are these just murders of the more secular kind, disguised as something more mystical in order to receive whatever gain violence and brutality gives to the deranged fuckheads that exist among humanity, be it India or Indiana.

Posing as true tantric monks some ruthless conmen, cold-blooded blacklegs and other incurable impostors promise the poor and uneducated of India that Kali will look after those who look after her. She will give bring bread to the impoverished, justice to the oppressed and anklebiters to the childless, if only they turn to human sacrifice to end their misery.

In many of these cases it has nothing to do with real mysticism or spiritualism.

It comes down to pure and simple greed of those who are willing and able to exploit those who are desperate and superstitious.

They are not true Sadhu babas, devout mystics who have dedicated their lives to achieving Moksha, the liberation from the cycle of reincarnation.

These days there are four to five million of these spiritual adventurers around, constituting about half a percent of the country’s total population.

These occult rebels are spokesmen of the gods and sometimes even worshipped as ones.

But can you reach holiness by being unholy? In Varanasi, we crossed Ganges, the river of life and death in search of some very strange mystics attempting a direct and personal experience with God on their own terms.

Both Goddess Kali Ma and Shiva are said to inhabit cremation grounds. Along with cemeteries, the burning places reinforce the idea that the body is temporary; flesh and blood are but passing things. They are deemed taboo by most Indians. Those are the places where the Aghori dwell.

Aghora is the left-hand path of tantric mysticism, the most hazardous path there is.

By breaking and transcending all taboos, both cultural and social, the Aghori are trying to penetrate the illusion that is the world.

They worship Shiva with alcoholic and cannibalistic rituals. They fornicate with lower caste women during their menstrual period. They are known to fish dead bodies from Ganga and feast on their bloated flesh in order to make themselves immortal and gain superhuman strength and powers.

The Aghori believe their internal purity protects them while they practice these forbidden practices.

The aghori is trained to see through the illusion of taboo, therefore he can not be corrupted by it.

There is no good and evil for him, only reality. Reality is the only God and that’s why all paths lead to that God, whose name is Shiva.

Kali is the counterpart of Shiva and they both are destroyers of unreality. Shiva and Kali being so close, we hoped to extract inside information on human sacrifice from those holy madmen.

We got more than we bargained for, as we gained access to a midnight puja. The Aghori got drunk and gathered around the bonfire. One of them ripped the throat of a live chicken with his bare teeth. The blood was drunk straight out of the headless chicken. There was urophagia out of human skull and eating of a stray dog carcass. They started speaking in languages. No, scratch that, more like screaming in languages.

What followed was pure chaos and disorder. The madness took hold of us too. We did some of the things they did. It was as if being possessed.

Most of it is very hazy. There were embers from the fire floating into the night and droplets of blood on the lens of the camera. At some point, we were strictly told to leave the puja, because evil spirits were about to enter the area.

We didn’t need to be told twice.

After daybreak, we went back to the scene of the insanity. Here is the transcript of our interview with Dhobia Baba, conducted that morning.

RIKU: Can you explain what happened yesterday in these pujas?

DHOBIA: When we sacrifice chickens, dogs, goats, pigs, sheep or human beings, our crematorium, people and God are all happy and satisfied. This is when Shiva speaks to us directly and we can get whatever we desire. We do this kind of a meditation in secrecy to gain more. Sacrifices allow us to do harm on our enemies. Sacrifice transfers one from Hell to Heaven.

RIKU: I have heard that some Aghori also eat human flesh. Is that true?

DHOBIA: Yes, we do eat human flesh. Dead or alive. If you mess with me, I will chop off your head right now. I will peel off your skin and reveal your bones. Seven murders are forgiven. No hanging, no prison time. That’s the way of the Aghori sect.

RIKU: In the Tantric history there has been human sacrifices. Is that still happening?

DHOBIA: Human sacrifices are for doing good. If you have to save somebody, if someone is in danger or some misfortune has taken place, we sacrifice a human being. To save somebody we have to kill and sacrifice someone else. This is the only way we can save somebody.

We left, in silence. These were the one of the most extreme individuals we had ever come across.

In closing, we’d like to point out that the Aghori are exceptional part of Hinduism and not at all a common sect.

Worshipping Kali does not automatically equal “evil”.

The name Kali comes from the Sanskrit root word Kal, meaning time.

Nothing can escape time.

Love for Kali, the ‘Terrible Mother’ means to conquer the trepidation for death.

She brings the death of the ego.

She brings the death of the delusional self.

She brings the death of the point of view.

Goddess Kali Ma’s symbolism is easy to misread, if seen through bias. It is like saying Christianity is a religion of death worship, cannibalism and torment. Well, the faithful do drink the blood of Jesus, eat his flesh and wear a symbolic torture instrument around their necks.

But that’s not the whole picture, now is it?

Everything dies, because life would be worthless without death. Only through this awareness one can triumph over death and the fear of death.

R & T

Fact: most of this planet’s population lives in the third world countries or conditions.

For the privileged minority, picturesque ruins and exotic shopping malls won’t cut it anymore as the tourist attractions of the noughties.

The social and political problems have become the sights to see – therefore, the phenomenon of poverty tourism: guided trips through the slums and shantytowns of developing countries, even catastrophe sites.

Famous poverty tour destinations include Dharavi slum in India, Soweto in Johannesburg and even some poorer neighborhoods in major European and American cities. Mexico City, Cairo and Manila all have huge dumpsites that have become attractions. It has been reported that after hurricane Katrina, New Orleans became a popular destination for poorists.

Is poorism just another version of slowing down next to a car crash in order to get a better look?

There is definitely more than an ounce worth of truth to the claim. If you are taking a guided tour to a place without official infrastructure, you can never be sure if the subject of your gawking gets even a cent.

But there is another side to this phenomenon. I’m willing to bet these treks are real eye-openers to many. Make your homework, think about your safety and then decide if you really need an organizer to your trip or are you able to do it independently.

Obviously, there are places that are too dangerous to visit on your own, like many of the Rio de Janeiro’s favelas.

The business of taking holidaymakers into slums has also brought out the less principled impresarios always after the tourist shekel. For example, don’t let a huckster organize your visit to favela – you might even get a bullet in the head as a souvenir!

Then again, the unspoken law of the favela is that if you mess with a non-carioca, you are in a hard row to hoe. It’s never in the drug kingpin’s interest to induce the wrath of tropa de elite, the special police operation battalion, so rest assured a bit of shantytown justice is dispensed for all those who attack gringos without permission.

Fact: at least 3 billion people on the planet live on less than 2 dollars a day. If you are about to partake in poorism it’s up to you and your wallet to decide if you are going to treat them as human beings or as animals in the zoo?

Throw some money at the place and make sure it ends up in the right hands.

The best way to do this is to find a decent grassroots level non-governmental organization in whatever area you are visiting.

They might even have some use for you as a volunteer as well – and then you’re not just gawking at the car crash anymore.

R