Mumbai

Sasha:

Today is a bit of a crunchy day. And by crunchy, I mean that we are feeling cracked-out and tired, weary of the traffic and the constant noise around us. Weary of the people, and of the guardedness that comes with being a tourist. And so I sip my latte with my headphones on, and take comfort in the company of my own thoughts. It isn't a bad way to take a vacation from our vacation.

I'm writing in a cafe in Mumbai. As in a proper cafe that serves 10 different varieties of coffee beans, and offers thick foamy lattes with hearts drawn in esspresso circles. For some reason, in this part of the trip, I am craving coffee. Or maybe I am just craving a little bit of something western. As it turns out, the 25 other people in the cafe (all Indian) are appreciating it too.

Mumbai is a modern city, filled with nightclubs, high rise buildings, train stations that have more to do with European Cathedrals than with any Asian tradition. The soundtrack to the city is a constant symphony of cars, scooters, and buses buzzing around and honking at one another. In a city of 16 million, that is a lot of motor vehicles. The young men walk down the street with their arms around one another, and holding hands, while couples walk a more modest distance from one another. In peak hours, the commuter trains in and out of Bombay will squeeze 16 people per square meter in their cars, creating a “super dense crush.” While we stand on the sidewalk, looking at our guidebook map, strangers will appear over our shoulders eager to help. This has mixed results since only the more educated speak English, and our ability to communicate in either Marathi (the language of Mumbai) or Hindi (the official language of India) is minimal. Personal space and privacy aren't a high priority in Indian culture. A family of four can make a motor scooter look downright roomy. There is less space allotted to each person here, both because the people are typically smaller, thinner, and shorter than the average American, and because they don't need the buffer zone that we do. “The Indian people have a strong need for touch,” we were told by our couchsurfing host, Ashish. I can't say that they eager look forward to being canned sardines on a train car, but they relax into physical contact in a way that we don't. We took a bus from Panjim to Palolem Beach, and they bus seats were a challenge for Ra and I to fit into. For a little while, an Indian man sat next to me, and I strove to keep and elbows width of room between him and I.

One of the things that I enjoy about Mumbai is that it so much more than a tourist destination. It is a world class city, buzzing with people in their everyday lives- dealing with design, finance, government, and transportation. We ventured into the tourist districts, and our blinders come up, guarding us from the vendors and scams. In Palolem, it was inescapable (which is why we escaped to Agonda Beach). In Mumbai, all we have to do is cross the street and I can look up, make eye-contact and smile with out being accosted with dolphin rides, bangles or tshirts.. I've read about how men here would interpret the smallest encouragement as a come-on, so I reserve my smiles for women. Having spent so much time in the past month and a half being on the defensive against the press of shop keepers and taxi drivers, I take so much pleasure in making a momentary connection, and opening up for 4 seconds at a time. Almost all of the women return my smile. In fact, it sometimes goes farther than that. With a little encouragement, they approach us and ask to take a photo with us. Usually we say yes, although this can get out of hand by the time the 5^th or 6^th person in a row asks. We've decided to take these requests as a compliment. Part of me wonders how different the two experiences are- in one we walk through India as a set of dollar signs, and in the other we are a novelty- a pair of white faces. In both cases, we are objectified. However, I'd much rather offer a smile, than the rupees in my wallet. I'd rather trade a hand shake for a handshake, than haggle over the price of a cheap trinket. The question we ask ourselves is how do we interact as individuals here, and not as anonymous objects.

We have found that it is easier to make a connection with other tourists than it is with locals. Part of the reason we liked Agonda Beach in Goa so much is because of the other travelers we met. It was so much easier to meet people when we aren't being hassled every moment. The defensive blinders come off, and suddenly we are being invited to pull up a chair at our regular cafe (we had two of them in Agonda, Arabian Nights and Lily Moon.) Before we knew it, we started seeing the same people every day. Annie and Cambell from Scottland (by way of Lisbon) and John from Manchester (by way of Sri Lanka) Brandon from San Diego, Carol, Moon, and Lily who ran our favorite restaurant, and Bobby from Albuquerque (who surprised us by being 21 years old, on his third trip to India, who had a wisdom and curiosity beyond his years). In 6 days we had built up a nice little community that we were sad to leave. 5-6 days seems like the minimum time it takes to get a regular routine, and to create a circle of expat friends. On our last evening, Cambell (who is a professional musician) got out his guitar and we had a sing-along at the Lily Moon cafe that lasted 6 hours.

Couchsurfing.com may also be a saving grace for us in our travels. Sure, it is great to save some money on hotels, but it offers a way to meet local people in a meaningful way. Ashish hosted us in Mumbai for 3 nights. He is 31, and has a masters in Finance, and clearly loves his wife. The irony is that his wife was out of town while we were there, but it was really sweet to hear the way he talked about her, and about their life together here. They bough an apartment in the suburbs 6 months ago, and it was the nicest place we've stayed in India. It had double paned class, AC, and a hot water heater that worked within 5 minutes of being turned on. We met him at 10pm the first night we got into the city. He met us, drove us to dinner, and got the tab (despite our best efforts to pay instead). Turns out buying an apartment in Mumbai is almost as expensive as buying real estate in the Bay Area. However, people in Mumbai make $.19 for every dollar that they would make in the states. (These are the things you learn when you stay with someone in the finance industry.) Ashish was smart, open, and an all around great host. Our only regrets was that our schedules didn't permit us to hang out with him as much as we would have liked, and that we didn't get to meet his wife. The beauty of it all, is that as a guest and host, the usually boundaries fall away, and we get to make an actual human connection.

Hampi

At 4:30am, our alarm went off.  Quick shower before the Anjuna Villa staff fixed me a bowl of yogurt with a banana and honey, and a masala chai.  Brush teeth, grab 25lb, 45 ltr backpack, and head out to the "van."  Sqeeze in to th eback seat with Tom and Penguin, with Ra up front, and drive 80 minutes to the train station in Margao.

The train station has its own aromas, most of which are blocked out by my stuffy nose.  Many of those smells derive from the fact that the bathrooms on the trains empty out directly onto the train tracks.  All around us are the calls of the chai wallas, and the samosa wallas- "chai chai chai. . ."

"samoSA samosa SAMosa samoSA. . ."

Like a vendor yelling out "Peanuts!  Get your fresh roasted peanuts!"  at a baseball game, the canteens, baskets and accompanying calls are just part of the adventure.

We are seated in sleeper class, which means no AC, but three fans are mounted on the ceiling, and the hardbenches are long enough for a person of moderate heighth to lay down on.  We are seated with Ken and Imame- from Japan, and the two guys from Bath, England who come to India every winter to escape the coldest days in Britania. 

Chai chai ch-ch-chai! comes in little plastic cups, at 5 ruppees a cup.  (We could buy 9 cups of chai for $1.)  The tea is spicy- a mix of black tea steeped in warm milk with spices and a bit of sugar- and it goes down easy at 7:30am.  We are more dubious of the veg bryani and dahl, but we order it anyway.  I'm pretty sure that the black lump was a black bean. . .

The smells range from the burning trash, to the dampness of the fog over rice paddies, to the pungent odor or urine in the train station.  Ra lights incense in our train car to create a little bit of atmosphere.

Once in Hospet, we take a tuktuck ride of doom through that town to Hampi.  Our 3 wheeled car is separated from the passing busses, bicycles, cars and cows by no more than a few inches, a metal frame, and a leather roof.  The sides of the tuktuk are open. 

We get to the hotel, and somehow the numbers have been transposed, and although we have made A hotel reservation, we intended to make it for a different hotel.  Oh, well.  We will take our one AC room for Penguin, and the two others for Tom and ourselves. 

We wake up this morning to see monkeys running around the banana trees on our patio.  A girl comes downstairs to feed one of the many wandering cows the remnants of her breakfast.

I go up the street and get two newpaper parcels filled with 10 little spicey rice pancakes with coconut chutney for breakfast. Om nom nom nom.

Our tuk tuk driver's name is Vikram, and his birthday is the next day.  He takes us around from temple to temple to temple. . . So many of them, it gets almost overwhelming. 

There are groups filled with school kids from neighboring villages.  As they pass us they stare, they wave, and at first they say "Hi," very shyly.  Slowly, they get more bold until we find ourselves surrounded by 25 Indian school kids while one of their friends takes a picture of us.  This is amplified until someone else also puts a baby in my lap, with 25 indian kids surrounding us, and takes a picture of the whole group.  All day the kids are eager to talk to us, and to shake our hands.  Though it seems they are most excited to talk to me.  Ra is afraid that I will begin to feel too much like a celebrity here in India, and it might go to my head. 

Ra and I eat lunch at an Indian place, and NOT a tourist resaurant.  We each get a vegetarian Thali, and it is really spicey and good.  Penguin is skeptical, and decides not to eat anything.  So far, my stomach has been fine here!

Hampi is beautiful- a much less populated place than where we were in Goa.  The palm trees and rocks look like they are out of a prehistoric dinasaur movie, the boulders are so HUGE and the palm and banana trees so big.  There are temples and ruins for days, and who knows how much more is burried underground. . .

Sadly, we have to leave already tomorrow to make the Zakir Hussein concert in Panjim, and so Penguin and Tom can catch their plane back home on Saturday.  I would have gladly stayed here a few more days.  Oh, and if you want to come to hampi, I have the name of a really great tuktuk driver. . .

Land of Palm Trees, Beaches, and Prem Joshua

Sasha:

Ahh, we landed in Goa.  And what a welcome landing it was after the craziness of Egypt.  We had a one hour flight from Mumbai to Goa with King Fisher Air, and in it they managed to serve us a full meal.  We had tasty vegetarian dal, paneer, and rice.  Ra and I looked at one another and said, 'We're home."

My first impressions were of the lushness here- the weather is sultry, humid, and almost-but-not-quite too hot.  There are green grasses and palm trees, interspersed with lots of dogs and half sized cows.  At night you can hear the alarms of howls as people walk past the packs of canines, and all the time on the road you play chicken with the cows.  (Hint, culturally the cows win).

We are paying too much for our hotel- about $37/ night, but we have a pool, air conditioning, and the food here is pretty good.  What is even better is how awesome the staff is.  Bejamin, Lucky, Mengel. . .  We have been here 3 nights now, and it feels good to know people's names.  We have also met other travelers- Emma from Cambridge with the dreadlocks who is here to volunteer at the animal shelter, Sabastian (like the crab) who is French and was able to guess that Ra was from Israel within the first 5 minutes with whom we engaged in an intense political discussion about the occupied territories, and the two, blonde,  22 year old guys from Sweden, who picked up the poi and got the 2 beat weave in about 45 seconds and the 3 beat weave in about 20 minutes.  But he was drunk, and probably won't remember today.

Last night we went to Mackey's Night Market in Baga.  Every 3 stalls was playing a Prem Joshua mix, and everywhere were strappy dresses, cotton shirts, and carved elephants.  I got a so-so dress for 150 rupees that I probably didn't want, and a leather belt pouch for 475 rupees (about $10.50 instead of $90-150 in the US).  Within 5 minutes of being in the market, Ra recognized a passing couple.  Turns out they are Emam and Yashoda, good friends of Ra's uncle Shabda. Hopefully we will meet up with them later on today.  After shopping, we saw some acrobats from Africa who tumbled, balance, juggled, and put fire torches out with their breeches.  For a moment, I couldn't remember where I was. The people around us were from all over the world, and we had just looked at some earrings for stretched lobes that would fit in as easily in Berkeley as it would have in Baga, or Barcelona.  It was as if we were at a county fair for The World.

I am loving it here.  My skin eats up the humidity, and for the first time since march, my face has cleared up.  Speaking of eating, my body is loving the food.  I have been traveling for a month, and this is the best that my stomach has felt.  My meals of rice, dal, and curry last me a perfect 5-6 hours before I need to eat again, and am starting to loose some of the hummus weight I put on in Israel. And finding something to eat here is so much easier for me!  I have eaten enough Indian food in the states that I know what dishes are safe for me, and which ones aren't.  (okay, I accidently ordered Veggie kufta hoping that kufta was sauce, not the dough balls, whoops.)  My only complaint is that the tourist restaurants make the curries too bland. 

There is poverty here, but I know that it gets much worse.  This is the wealthier part of India, thanks in part to tourism, and in part with some of the local traditions. So far nothing has shocked me- god knows that they drive far crazier and with less clearance between vehicle in Cairo than they do here.  The cars are so narrow here, to go with the narrow streets where cars pass one another with a couple extra motor scooters between them for good measure.  Exploring India by starting out in Goa is kind of like easing into a cold swimming pool by beginning in the kiddie pool.

We haven't decided how long we will stay in Anjuna, much less how much time we will be in Goa.  I am hoping to be in North Goa for perhaps another week, then head down to Palolem Beach and Gokarna.  We will be in Mumbai for Anisa Qureshi's wedding reception from Dec. 28-30th.