Mumbai

It was so wierd...

I walked out of the airport, and almost instantly a motorbike whizzed by, driven by a well-dressed man with a gorgeous Indian woman on the back. Her eyes met mine, and I immediately threw down all my bags and burst into song declaring my love for her. The skycaps provided the orchestra and backup dancers. The girl also sang a verse, though I don't understand how we heard it, since she must have been a mile away. I then leapt off to find her, discovered she is held captive by an evil industrialist, and set out to save her. Evil industrialist sends out hoods to hound me, but I win them over with my affable nature. Finally, there is a showdown, a sing-off. Industrialist is bested, realizes his folly, and grants me the hand of the girl. We're all friends again, the girl and I marry, my long-lost twin brother comes back from the war, and we all dance until everything goes black.

Then I woke up, of course, still on the plane, final descent to Mumbai. Forgive me, that's all my subconcious had to go on.

When I got into the airport, I noticed it smelled like the plane I'd just left. Curry. It's odd, the whole time in India, I haven't been able to go for more than a minute without hitting a wall of odor, either curry or poo. Those two aren't always where expected, however. Airport bathroom? Curry. Under-the-airport-overpass restaraunt? Uhh... not curry.

We landed at 4am, so I read for a while and watched sunrise over the cab-ranks. I didn't have a guidebook, so all I knew was I wanted to go downtown to find a netcafe, finding lodging from there. I hopped on a bus, not quite sure where it was going, but I got a nice tour of the Mumbai sluburbs before getting off at a train station. I tried to find internet around there, and ended up waiting for a shop that some guy said opened at 9, grabbing some tea at a tiny cafe. I was really surprised by the quality of English I was running into, or rather, the lack-thereof. I had always heard tales of Iowa-accented Bangalore call center employees, and how English was the common language in a land of over 300 tongues. I was rather suprised by how difficult it was to communicate. 9:00 came, but the 'internet cafe' I had been waiting for turned out to be a computer store. Still, I was content trying to chat locals.

I then grabbed a train to go downtown. I was expecting something metro-ish, but instead, I got cattle-cars. The doors and windows are all propped open, people are hanging out the doors or chilling on the roof, and there's a mad crush to get on or off the train. I missed the first train, since I didn't really understand the system of boarding. It seemed more akin to football, an offensive line driving to get on while the defense is struggling to get out. The next train came along, and I plowed in, aided by the mass of 80lbs of gear on me. I flowed downstream and ended up near the opposite door, hanging out of the train with one handhold and uneasy balance, but at least I got a breeze. We started off, soon we pulled along another train, and I watched some guys sitting on the roof, having a smoke. The situation didn't seem conducive to the physics of a cigarette, but these guys are probably aeronautical engineers working on a new ramjet engine.

Once downtown, I oriented myself and looked for a room. I finally tried a place which seemed to be a pretty nice hotel, but I asked for the cheapest room. I usually have a rough time finding the "cheapest room", but at this hotel the clerk just leads me back behind a kitchen and opens the door. The room is basically a converted pantry with a bed. It's perfect. So I found a hotel with great service, yet my room was only a few bucks, and room-service is near free. Well, first I tried to phone for room service, but when I heard the ring on the other side of the wall, I hung up, raised my voice, and just asked for some tea.

But prices in India are just nuts. During my travels I've longed to get back to "Chinese prices," where I could get a pot of tea for 3RMB, about forty cents. But here, that tea is three rupees, about six cents. Meal prices are similar, and I relish the ability to leave a $2 tip when my meal costs fity cents. So before long, the staff guys at the hotel were bringing me free tea or newspapers or other stuff I hadn't requested. They always got a huge grin when I'd give them their fifty cent tip, and the gift frequency just increased.

But after checking in, I crashed for a brief nap, then got cleaned up and went out to explore Mumbai. I still hadn't a guidebook, so I cruised around downtown looking for bookshops. Though I could only find a standard-priced LP, all the other books in Mumbai are about a dollar, so I ended up coming home with a huge bag of knowledge.

The following am I woke up at four, having now completely screwed my bioclock. I read for a while, then hollered for breakfast and went up to the roof to watch the sunrise. Breakfast in Bombay at daybreak? Magical. I headed down and went for a walking tour of all the tourist sights, but I couldn't even find something worth a photo. I hung out at the Gateway to India for a while, hoping to be picked up for a Bollywood flick extra, but I couldn't take the touts for long. I did get one interesting pitch though: Two men in Hindu religious garb came up and began blessing and saying prayers over me, despite my claims that I didn't have any money. They insisted it was merely a religious gesture, and then painted something on my forehead and tied me a cloth bracelet. One guy starts saying a last big, dramatic prayer, and his parter asks for a donation. "50 rupee will give good luck and happiness today. 100 rupee will give good luck whole week. No donation will give bad luck for whole trip..." and so on. I thought it was a hoot; we may have invented chain-letter spam, but these guys have perfected it.

So I was slightly disappointed with the tourist sights, so I opened my LP to it's Mumbai map and looked for a section that didn't list any attractions. I started off, and sure enough, found my way to some major slums. Bombay supposedly has some of the worst slums of Asia, so I thought it would complete my tour. I was fascinated.

I got back in the afternoon and suddenly decided it was time to move on to Delhi. Grabbed a taxi to Victoria Station and bought a ticket to Delhi for five dollars. Of course, this "General" car I had a ticket for turned out to be no better than the city-trains. The car was just a can of flesh, with about 30 people stuffed into each berth (each section which would normally hold 6). Of course, I'm counting the folks standing in the crammed aisles and the people sitting in luggage racks. I was crammed on an upper bench with four other guys, and the only way to relieve the pain from slouching was to stretch forward a bit. Of course, my 'seat' had a giant metal bar under my tailbone, preventing any sort of slouch, so it was always a choice between a pain in my back or a pain in my As we moved along I kept getting new bunkmates, full of prods and questions. Thus I got no sleep, but there were some interesting folks. One guy was passing around his rifle, which I recognized as an M-1 Garand. I only know this since it was almost exactly like our NRTOC drill rifles, only this one had a magazine loaded. I was also invited many times to join in for a smoke, but as these cigarettes were referred to as "Universal cigarettes," and smelled a bit like Beta house, I respectfully declined. And again, the train was opportunity for me to witness the lack of English skills, as I constantly got poked and questioned on random stuff that I couldn't make out at all. The comment that I always made out, however, was "Why you in General class?" Indeed, there was wisdom in this. These folks were only on for short legs of the trip, but my journey from Mumbai to Delhi? 28 hours.

I got into Delhi and broke my binge/fast. My train diet had consisted solely of fried curry balls, so I'm not sure if it was a binge due to caloric intake or a fast due to lack of any nutrients. Although there are guesthouses around here where I can get a bed for $1, I decided to spoil myself on a $6 room in the hopes my spine will recover. Of course, there's something alive in my bedframe that was scratching wood all night. Whoo, I need some tea.










I'm off to explore Delhi. Love yall.