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My 16 hour bus journey to Mumbai went without a hitch and I managed to bag myself a bed at the salvation army for the length of my stay. My first couple of days I just spent walking around and exploring the city. The colonial architecture here is really beautiful and well maintained and I felt pretty safe on the streets on my own. It felt much cleaner and relaxed than the cities we visited in the north and although i still attracted constant stares from the locals it never felt intimidating...In fact I began to find it quite amusing at times and didn't realise how much I got used to it until I got to Bangkok a few days later and wondered why everyone was ignoring me. It is annoying though because you can not just chill on a park bench without a group of men staring or boys taking videos on their camera phones. And they don't even try and pretend they just stick it straight in your face. Sometimes they ask if they can have a picture with you...to which we started to reply "yeah 10 rupees" and stick our hand out to which they never really had
much of a reply. Of course there were times when the attention was intimidating particularly the last week I spent alone when I did get my bum grabbed a couple of times but a short sharp no was often enough to attract some attention and make them scuttle off in shock. Apart from times like this the attention ironically made me feel safer if anything, as there was always a pair of eyes on you. One time that particularly sticks in my mind is when I went to a shop to buy something and after a small chat with the shop owner I turned around to see about 8 faces jousling for a view in the shop doorway before they all scuttled off again.
Mumbai has some beautiful buildings and sights but my main reason for allowing myself 4 whole days here was because I had heard that they were always looking for tourists to play extras in Bollywood movies. Many people I had met in India had done it and had great stories of wearing elaborate costumes and being involved in big wedding scenes. Ann and Shane even appeared in a scene alongside Jesse Metcalfe (the gardener from
desperate housewifes).
Sure enough on my last day I was approached by a guy looking for extras for a wedding. A Canadian girl Tara and a Mexican girl (who had already done one day with him) and I decided to go along together. He explained that it was a 3 hour drive away and once there we would given Saris and have our hair and make-up done. We were warned it would be a long day and we may not get back until 2-3 in the morning which was ok with me (despite having to catch a flight at 10:00am to Bangkok I was up for it). So we went downstairs and got in a car with 2 Chinese tourists and a bunch of Indian models (yes there were 11 of us in 1 jeep - the driver, the agent, 1 more in the front, 4 in the back and 4 in an open boot). And this is where the nightmare began.
First we got stuck in traffic for an hour (in a hot jeep with 11 people, in the middle of the day with no air con) then we got a flat tyre, then when the driver
got on an open highway he started driving like an absolute nutter, accelerating up the back of huge lorries and slamming on his brakes whilst drinking Kingfisher. We told him to pull over and after some serious words he calmed down. Our "2-3 hour drive" ended up being at least 6 hours after we had gotten out of Mumbai and we didn't arrive until after dark. I started to freak out and ask him exactly what the plan was as if we had to drive 6 hours back again we would have to have turned around right then to get back for 2-3 am and I had an early flight to catch to Thailand. He seemed unsympathetic to my case and I found out that if i didn't go to the wedding he would be in trouble with his boss who demanded he had white girls there and this day he had not been able to find as many as normal. After ranting to him and his boss for over 30 minutes he finally gave in and told me he would buy me a train ticket to get back to Mumbai because it seemed he held little hope for getting
back anywhere near when he promised. So we went to the station and it transpired that the next train did not leave until 11pm so we agreed I would go along with the others and he would drop me back at the train station later.
So I came back to the hotel and got my outfit which wasn't a Sari at all but a terrible oversized skirt and suit jacket and a roll neck jumper. No hair/make-up and not even a chance to have a shower after being cramped in a jeep all day and we were off to work. It was only when we arrived that we realised that we had all got our wires crossed and we weren't working in a wedding scene for a movie but an actual wedding and I cant tell you how much fun we had. It was an unbelievably lavish wedding of one of the most wealthy families in the state. No expense was spared as an Indian wedding is used to display how wealthy and powerful a family is - we had been hired because we were white and it showed status if they could afford to be served by white
people?! There were enormous ice sculptures and displays of flowers and enough food to feed an army.
I was told to just wander around and make my presence known and at times just had to stand next to VIP guests and smile. It was bizarre. Even more strange was the fact that they had employed people to wear santa costumes and giant parrot outfits? we had a wail of a time and i think they decided perhaps they had bitten off more than they could chew hiring us as Tara and I ran around taking photos and eating all the food and generally causing havoc. 11pm came around quickly and as promised the agent took me to the train station and put me on a train. Although I nearly missed it after the rickshaw broke down and I ended up being pushed in it the last few hundred metres along a busy stretch of motorway! By this point I just sat there laughing wondering how I had gotten into this crazy situation
The train was the most unbelivable journey I have eevr taken. I just had a free standing ticket as that was all that was left and
Take Away coffee stand...
No wedding is complete without one luckily I managed to make my way to the women's only carriage, which made me feel a bit safer but you couldn't have fitted more people on there if you tried. There were about 5 people on each bed for a start, as well as bodies under the beds stretching all the way through the corridors. I found a spot in the corridor scrunched up in the corner with my head banging against a loose train door where i tried to catch some sleep. The journey on my "express" train took 5 hours, which just went to show how far away from Mumbai they had taken us. I got a taxi across Mumbai back to my hostel arriving at about 5.30am which was just enough time to shower, pack and go straight to airport for my flight to Thailand.
Ultimately I couldn't have thought of a more perfect way to spend my final day in India. It summed up the whole experience of traveling here perfectly. It was tiring, frustrating and confusing but also exciting and fun and an adventure into the unknown.
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