India First Days

On arrival in Mumbai we hit the warm blast of tepid air and head to the customs que. The little guy looking at my passport is singing - Who let the dogs out...who, who, who etc. and I respond, "not me". Strangest customs entry I've encountered but then, it's all a bit strange here. Our hotel is a big old (very old) building and our room is on the inside and windowless, a bit like an enclosed tomb when you turn out the lights. Everything here is old and dirty and crumbling but functional.

The first morning I leave Ivan to do email and go for a walk and in less than 5 minutes I encounter a lady with a wee baby and a monkey on a leash who wants me to buy her some milk along with countless other beggars wanting either milk, rice, food, money or the shirt off your back. She tells me she wants to go home to Madras tomorrow and needs milk for the baby (I am also wondering how she is feeding that big monkey)! So, I tell her we will buy her some milk and when Ivan is done emailing, she takes us on a long meandering walk to a shop where we find out the powdered milk she wants is exorbitantly priced and tell her no, this is too much and she sulkily walks away. This is a scam we discover, as several other beggars want to take us to this shop to buy milk and rice. I think that the store hires them for a commission on the milk and rice, we buy it, they take it back, they get some money and the store resells the commodity. Ya gotta love the marketing schematic on that one! At any rate, the only money we are giving out is small rupees for the blind and destitute and we gave away our leftover take away to some kids last night. Begging is a full fledged industry here and a backpacker could go broke by generosity very quickly.

We've tripped around Colaba, the area we are staying in; lots of big old buildings and plenty of colourful people and clothing. the saris and outfits the ladies wear are mind bogglingly beautiful, gzillions of little black taxis buzz about in a frenzy all vying for your fare and life is awash with colour and noise and smell ( oh the smells, gasp). We took a ferry boat to a place called Elephanta Island where nasty monkeys harass the visitors as we make our way through caves as old as 25o AD to look at statuary of Shiva and other deities bigger than life are carved into the cave walls.

The proprieter of this internet cafe just dropped a Buddha carving on the floor of the shop and I wonder if his karma is in peril?!!

The food - omyBuddha...the food is so good! Dal and masala and tikka and naan bread, all fresh and hot and steamy, this is my favourite food yet. I was surprised at how bad the food in China was and am equally surprised at how good it is here and cheap too. Mumbai is apparently the most expensive place to stay in India, our room is about $30.00CAD a night - very high for a broom closet but as we move on it gets cheaper according to our book. Tonight we take a 17 hour train to Delhi and from there will do a circle trip around the north of India.

We shipped Ivan's guitars to a friend of ours in Germany so we don't have too many bags to watch and there's not much chance of gigging or busking here (are you kidding, busking to beggars - ha) so we can move about more efficiently. You have to watch all your stuff here like it's got legs. We will meet up with them later although Ivan may have withdrawal, we shall see. My ankle is still icky and sore and I saw a doctor here who told me they should not have scraped it in Thailand, and you know, I actually knew that somehow, but it is slowly healing and another week I should be back to better if not good. Everything here is a picture and the light is amazing so we will post some soon. On to Delhi.

Hey ya'll, if you're reading this, send an email or two. We're getting to the point where we are emailing each other just to see something in the inbox! Cheers and Namaste.