Motorbike Diaries from Luxor to Goa via Bollywood Part II

OK... so we arrived in Mumbai on Monday, November 3, at dawn. Since this is our third international airport arrival on this trip, we are already hardened to the taxi and hotel offers and were very put off by the man that overcharged us for using the public phone and the man that swore to us that we would never find a room in Mumbai for under 2500 rupees... we did find one for 500 rupees. Sidenote: if you visit Mumbai or India, make use of the prepaid taxi stands at the airport so you don't have to haggle over the price, if you have no idea what the proper rate should be... the Mumbai airport is far from the "center" of the city... we took a ride to Colaba and the taxi ride was insane but I still managed to doze off... we found a place rather quickly... like the 4th we checked... they had rooms with windows but we opted for the cheaper room with no window and a super fast ceiling fan... not such a good idea, in hindsight... damn that hindsight 20/20 stuff.

The room was a sauna. If you turned of the fan you were instantly in a puddle of sweat. For those of you reading from Hawaii... Rue's Haole rot came back but the easy pharmacies provided a very cheap, very fast cure. The fan only had super fast setting, so although it was stifling hot... I managed to get a sinus cold yucky bug. Almost immediately upon check in, a man knocked on our door and offered us parts as extras in a Bollywood flick that evening... the job paid 500 rupees, with free food and transport... at the shoot was from 8pm to 8am... of course being the fierce negotiator that I am and coming from a union gig... I tried to see if they would pay us more for 12 hours of work thru the night... they wouldn't, they said it was also an experience... he was right. By the way 500 rupees is currently about $10. Long story short, that shoot was canceled but we did end up in another shoot during the day later that week... It was very fun and interesting... to see them set up and break down sets and feel for the nervous actors who were forgetting their lines and having to do like 9 takes... We were journalists at a press conference in Pakistan first and Rue and I were in the front row and when the director yelled ACTION... Rue had specific in structions... he had to start on his knee with his camera and flash off like 3 pictures and then move back to his seat next to me and take a few more... the second shot of this scene started with a zoom on my face... unfortunately they would not tell us the name of the movie but we did get the name of the director and main actor so we will look it up in about 6 months... the head of wardrobe was this really cool chic that took down our emails and promised to send us the name once she could. We were in another scene which was very different and more serious... it was a supposed shot of a press conference at the White House... it was very funny. We were the only Americans there and they asked us many questions about "American" details, like where are the flags placed during the press conferences... I pretended I knew but I didn't... I don't understand why they just couldn't google a previous REAL press conference??? The scene was very silly and weird too. The "president" was making a speech about Osama Bin Laden and how "we" were finally going to get our man... WEIRD.

So we made our film debut... cool huh?

But lets rewind a little... the second day I hired a car to give me a tour while Rue slept... I went to the Mumbai laundries were 500 men are employed to complete the city's washing orders. It was very interesting... rows and rows of outdoor cement pools filled with grayish water... and on the roofs surrounding these pools were hundreds maybe thousands of clotheslines strewn with articles drying. From their I got a quick tour of the financial center, Marine Drive and Malabar Hill. I went into an awesome temple made of silver and took many photos. I saw the hanging gardens, which aren't hanging at all, just a park built over the city's reservoir system... It had hedge carvings and lots of birds and grass, banyan trees (which are sacred), mango and jackfruit trees... I felt very close to Hawaii. Then we went to my favorite place... Ghandi's Bombay House, which is now a small museum but I spent about an hour and half there, reading and seeing all the photographs. There is even a letter that Ghandi sent to Hitler and FDR at the beginning of the war. The last stop was the famous Victoria Train Station which is a very British building... and now referred to as the CST the acronym for its new very long Indian name. Then it was back to the sauna room...

That night we went back to Victoria Station aka CST to try and get tickets to Goa, which everyone was telling us would be very difficult... there are a lot of rules and this train is usually sold out months in advance... on the walk to the station we stumbled upon a small guitar store and hung out there for over an HOUR! I talked to the guys while Rue sampled the guitars... oh I also played the drums. At the station, everyone pointed us to the "foriegners" que... and when we got to the window the lady was frustrated because it was time for her to go home... she did help us... by basically telling us if we wanted the cheap seats we had to come back the next morning... so we walked to Marine Drive and had a great dinner... and then walked back to Colaba... Our hotel name was the Sea SHore....

In the morning we took a cab to the station at 8am and got our tickets for the sleep-night train on Friday... which worked out because we had the Bollywood filming all day THursday. When we walked out of the station we we trying to get a glimpse of the newspaper headlines because this was the day after the elections... but because of the huge time difference all the headlines just said "Obama expected to be winner".. later that night after napping all afternoon... we were hanging in our room. Rue shut the super duper fan off to tune the guitar and thats when we heard it for sure... through the slats in the ceiling of our very hot room.... dripping sweat, we overheard Obama's victory speech coming from someone else's TV... later that night we tampered with our TV and got it to work and they re ran the victory speech again... It was very intense for us and being the cynical Americans that we are, we found ourselves inspired and hopeful. I felt a little sadness about not having voted and not being there, in the states... but I still felt proud.

Fast Forward. On the train we met Milan and Mattias... from Germany. They had been to Goa on several other occasions and recommended Arambol for a more quiet, less disturbed ambience... we slept on the twp upper berths of the train... which I would say are about 2.5 feet from the ceiling... and neat the fans... but all I needed was my tapestry to cover my face and I was out... Rue had a little harder time because he hardly fit especially because he had to spoon the guitar. We got off the train in Pernem... and it felt like the most isolated place with barely a platform... but after we found the walkway over the tracks, instantly there was a cab driver negotiating with Milan... and we split the taxi thru the jungles and small villages to the coast. When we arrived in Arambol, the small road to the beach was lined with colorful shops and the beach was lined with hut restaurants... but not the entire length, Thankfully. We sat and had a drink, before we split up and looked for a cheap place to stay... we ended up settling for a small place right in the village near the entrance of the beach, it was clean and it was cheap. We were in Arambol for a week and pretty much spent it riding the scooter and swimming at sunset... it was awesome. But everyday we stayed the more and more tourists arrived... the locals were not paying our cheap asses any attention because they knew the place was crawling with people more than willing to over pay for everything.... so we scooted around. The second day we were in need of an ATM and had to ride to Mapusa (pronounce Mapsa), there we were able to eat VERY cheaply and were content. On Wednesday, we went to the weekly "hippy" market in Anjuna... and Rue bought himself a huge pair of white shades... very funny, but he needed them for the motor bike... THe market was unbearably hot and most of the goods were again overpriced and coming from Nepal and Tibet...

Thursday we took a longer ride to southern Goa, it was about 90 km. Unfortunately, Rue had picked a bike that was new, fast and RED BUT the foot rests for me were very awkward so I was very very very sore by the early afternoon. We found a very desolate road after driving thru the two big cities in Goa, Punaji and Margao. and it led us out to what we believed to be Cabo de Rama... there was a nearly ruined fort at the end and we had to wait for a line of about 40 cattle to pass thru the gate single file, before we could go in... on the other side, past the entryway, we were outside again, there was a church (catholic, the Portugueses were in charge for a while) and what looked like a cementary... we found a look out and there was a beautiful bay and at the opposite end we saw an EMPTY beach... after hanging out for a little bit we set out to look for it, the beach. We never found it, I think it was on the other side of the valley... we did find a small fishing village and boat yard... and then we went to another beach closer to Margao and swam and jumped and body surfed... well I can't body surf. Rue does....

Riding on the bike is an awesome feeling... it makes you feel free and not so dependent on the world... I don't know how to explain it but we are thinking of buying a bike and getting some racks for our bags. I left half my clothes in Goa. I wasn't wearing them anyway and if I need something I can just buy it again, or better yet, get some cooler India stuff. Slowly, we are trying to get everything into one bag... which would be mine because Rue's is struggling to stay together, he's had to doctor it like 20 times already... (cheap EBAY purchase) but mostly because we don't want to be weighed down with stuff we dont need.

I got to do some yoga in Goa and hope to continue and maybe find an ashram I want to stay at for a while. I don't think Rue is going to participate in this but.... who knows... maybe.

I am jumping forward again because its hard for me to remember the things that happen in order. We are in Hampi now. We arrived yesterday. We got up at 5:32am, which was funny because our taxi was set to meet us at 5:30am to get us to Margao by our 8am train. luckiliy we were pretty set to go... and made it with enough time to spare. The train ride was very cool... we rode thru the jungle and mountains and on top of the falls in eastern Goa (starts with D... can't remember name) Rue had the best seat, I thought he was missing it because I thought he was in the bathroom but turned out he was sitting in the open doorway... My view was blocked by a tourist with a VERY large rear end that decided to get in front of my window and bend over... the train then started its way through miles and miles of sunflower fields... I think India is planning to take over the world with sunflower oil! Then it started raining and it didn't stop. I was confused by the time and we almost didn't get off the train. Rue was asleep in the upper berth again. I was convinced we arrived at 4:45pm but it was actually 14:45 military time... we made it off... into heavy rain and a mass of barefoot rickshaw drivers... they said there were no taxis in the village... but I am not sure that is true... the train leaves you in Hospet and Hampi is about 13 km away. In an sides-open rickshaw, in the pouring rain... this took about a half hour, including an unexpected stop when the rickshaw died because the exhaust or engine took in too much water... luckily two other rickshaws stopped and helped our guy out and we were on our way again. He didn't take us into the middle of the town, he said the road was too steep and his brakes were no good (thanks, dude) Instead he took us the back way by the river. We want to stay across the river but the boat was full and it was raining pretty bad, it took us another half hour to find a room. The people are taking advantage of Hampi's popularity with the "whities" because the room prices have sky rocketed from what I was told and read... there was also no electricity.

when we dropped our stuff off, we went to get something to eat. While I was browsing the menu, it hit me that something was wrong... and I started to get flashes of evil spirits and the sick days in Morocco. I couldn't drink my tea. And when my egg and tomato sandwich arrived I ate a quarter and then instantly had to take off running. Rue gave me the key. Please picture this... its pouring rain, the "roads" are a sea of mud and cow shit... the cows won't get out of my way and I am trying hold my vomit down... I couldn't remember the way back to the room for a minute and decided to stop and let it all out right on the road but then I noticed I was in front of a restaurant and people were eating. What's worse is that when I got back to the room, the feeling went away... but the chills were still there... ugh. gross. I took some medicine and fell asleep. Rue came to bed a few hours later and I had thought I had beat it because I was feeling fine... then suddenly... it came again.... I had to jump from the bed into the bathroom and aim for the toilet from across the room... I hadn't eaten all day so I am not sure where it all came from but it came... all of it... and it was a pretty good aimed projection. Sorry... too much detail I know... instantly I felt better... Rue was kind enough to clean up my mess.. and today I ate and feel ok... I think I puked the bug out. yuck.

so we are in Hampi.. and I don't know what else to say... there are boulders and mountains of boulders and many many temples... we need to find a better place to stay and cheaper or we are not going to stay long... the place is swarming with foriegners and we prefer it not to be like that... we have no plans of what is next... to be continued.

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