A Load of Bull

Ever played chicken with a two-thousand pound bull?

I have.

My Polish friends had departed with invitations to Warsaw and Krackow reciprocated in kind, and I'd hired a sturdy bike and cycled out to a local stupa. After thirty minutes riding along the flat roads that laser-beamed through brilliant green paddy fields, I passed a pond where several bulls wallowed in the muddy water. They looked stupid trying to swim, with their heads poking out the water, so I decided it was a good time to take some pics.

With the bike lying on the tarmac on the other side of the road, I tiptoed up to the bank and snapped away. It was only after I'd finished taking shots that I noticed that the head bull had come out of his hut and was now keeping watch on me. Less than five yards away, the smell of sweat and dirt from his coat was rich in the air. His nostrils flared, and his haunches rippled. His horns looked a more useful weapon than my APS camera.


I stared into those tar-black eyes, big marbles of deepest night, feeling like I was peering at the Devil himself. I didn't dare flinch. I stared and stared. Then I stared some more. The bull's cloven hooves stamped and sent up blooms of dust, and his tail whipped against the weaved walls of his hut, but I kept focused on his eyes.


Eventually, he looked away, defeated -- and graciously let me take a photo.

Like Tarzan, Master of Beasts, I continued on to the stupa, a supreme feeling of wellbeing in my heart.

Overlooking the plains from atop a small, knobbly hill, the stupa was an odd mix of the old and new. Where the ancient one had crumbled into disrepair, the modern one had blossomed. A collection box for further restoration had been smashed in two, and then partially fixed with a Chubb lock. It was heartbreaking.