Mumbai Magic

I am currently writing this in what is quite possibly the smallest cyber cafe know to man.  It's basically a very small corridor/broom cupboard which is about 1.5m in width and has four computers in it.  So here I am in Mumbai, a day more than expected due to a slight mishap on our parts with trains (we live and learn..)  I'm now three days in to my India journey and starting to acclimatise.  Well sort of...  The heat is like nothing I've ever experienced in my life.  I thought it was hot in Cuba but no, it really wasn't that hot.  It's absolutely scorchio here.  And so humid.  I've pretty much accepted that I will look like a total ming-bag for the next two months, with hair of an indescribable and there's really not a lot I can do about it.  The thought of shaving my head has crossed my mind, I'm not gonna lie.  But I suppose you start to accept the heat because there's not a lot you can do, and you slow down and take breaks when you can.  I find myself feeling jealous of the flee-riddent mongrels who can do nothing else but just lie on the hot stone, in total surrender to the heat.  Do you think people would judge me? 

How to describe the millions of flashing impressions, sensations, images, smells, colours, as I took the taxi from the airport on the first day?  I don't think I'll even try...  I had heard so many anecdotes before leaving about the magic of India, the 'je ne sais quoi' that you feel when I first arrived.  And as I trundled through the airport on the first day I thought, 'Shit, what if I just don't feel it?!'  Expectations can be a let down.  I’ll have to fake it.  But on that first journey from the airport, it slowly came over me and I did indeed feel 'it'.  Whatever 'it' is.  One thing that has been quite a pleasant surprise is that Mumbai actually smells quite nice.  Well the bits I have seen, for the most part.  I'd imagine the slums are not particularly fragrant or salubrous..  But generally when you walk around the street, it's not bad.  I was expecting that with the heat and sun, and the fairly stomach clenching smells I'd experienced in Abidjan, that it would be overwhelming.  But quite honestly, the smells from the bin juice on the streets of Barcelona when the sun rises is far worse!

I have been quite surprised to discover that Mumbai is not as cosmopolitan as I had imagined and generally people are quite intrigued to see white people.  We seem to provoke quite a bit of curiosity and have a very high comedic value.  Yesterday we went to try and get tickets for a boat trip to Elephanta Island (which was closed) and while resting in the shade for a moment, we attracted all sorts of attention.  I noticed this family with young children standing huddled together and who shyly looked over at us and giggled embarrassedly.  The little boy looked over timidly and the Dad sort of gently nudged him over, probably saying something like 'Go on!  Don't be scared'.  The little boy came over and stretched out his hand and said 'Hello, how are you'.  So we shook his little hand, and in turn the hands of all the members of the familiy.  It was a bit like feeding time at the seal tank in Dublin zoo. Then they headed off all chuffed with themselves, as quickly as they had come!  Straight after a couple of young guys came over and asked if they could take pictures with them.  So we obliged and posed with various people who all took it in turns to pose, then take the camera so that the other friends could all be in the picture.  Pretty soon this got somewhat out of hand and there were no fewer than ten to twelve people who had amassed before us, all gesturing which way to pose and begging for one more picture.  I’d say we were there a good fifteen minutes.  So this is what it must be like to be famous.

Finally, I cannot finish without mentioning our, thankfully, former lodgings.  Lise and Cyril (my travel companions) where already staying in the Salvation Army Red Shield Hostel (yes, I'm serious).  Well I can tell you, this place exceeded all my very worst pre-departure anxieties and worst case scenarios.  And in the most evocative manner possible.  The place is run by a man who could almost certainly transition into other career opportunities, say for example, playing an evil  and stingy uncle in a Bollywood film, who beats his servants and shouts angrily in hindi all time.  The place is basically a complete and utter dump.  There’s just no other way to describe it.  It is the architectural and structural equivalent to a big poo.  And it is also has an interior décor theme of poo, in fact.  Filth infested, no running water (though this was apparently a recent development)  blocked toilets that don't flush, flee-ridden matresses...  And the man has the audacity to get angry when we enquired about a few different rooms!  Every time I went to the toilet (a traumatic affair indeed) I had visions of the toilet in Trainspotting when Ewan McGregor is going cold turkey and hallucinates that he is sucked into a cack-infested toilet bowl.  Lovely...  And I must mention in passing the breakfast which consisted of a hard boiled egg, two slices of American sliced pan-style Wonderbread, a dodgy banana, and a little cup of ghee (clarified and disconcerting butter) and a little dollop of jam.  Jam is an exaggeration, it was more like fluorescent melted jelly cubes that taste like sweets.  Anyway, fear not!  We since moved into a far superior hostel where the owners actually take into consideration the fact that you are human, and get this, it’s CHEAPER!!  Right, I must go as we are off to catch our train to Ahmedabad and then a night train to Udaipur.  Mumbai is actually a surprisingly green and beautiful city, with plenty to see and do.  But the humidity is daunting so we are off north into the dessert where it is technically hotter I think, but a different more bearable kind of hot.  I hope.

Namaste!