Blogs from Maharashtra, India, Asia - page 128

We landed in Mumbai, de-planed and I said goodbye to Ashis - he's going to be in Goa at the same time as me so we exchanged email addresses, and he's agreed to show me some night life - and I met Louise and Carly at baggage claim. We got our bags safe and sound, changed some money, and the co-ordinators for IDEX (our volunteer company) and Situ, a delightful British Indian girl I'd actually chatted to online. Situ and I shared an insane taxi journey through the Mumbai suburbs, at about 50mph on both sides of the road, round other vehicles, pedestrians and autorickshaws, with the driver practically sitting on the horn all the way - to speed up, slow down, overtake, signal, to say thanks, because he's been cut up, because he's happy, because ... read more

Hello again all, Its time for me to leave India and with the Passport problem I had its taken a bit longer than expected so I had a few days to kill, Mumbai certainly the place to do that. I'd heard a number of mixed messages from Mumbai being dangerous but to be honest like everywhere I've been there's been no problems I've never felt under threat at all. The first few days in Mumbai were spent in Colaba which is right at the bottom of the Island. Its a great place and full of youngsters and quite a few travellers as well. It's within walking Distance of most of the Sights of Mumbai so I went to see the gate of india and Niriam point which is Maharashtra's answer to Manhattan Island, its where all ... read more

Dear all, I hope you all are doing great and are enjoying the last summer days (well, it should be summer for most of you). It’s two o’clock in the morning and I’m all alone in the apartment which, in this city and with these living conditions, is an amazing feeling. I just got back from a day of shopping followed by watching the latest Bollywood success. It’s all in Hindi of course but following the dialogue is not really necessary to get the picture… The funniest part was actually not the movie but the moment before when everyone in the audience had to stand up while they were playing the national anthem. This Tuesday was a public holiday (Independence Day) so we took the opportunity and went to Goa over the weekend. We are still ... read more

We alighted from the coach ... still aching from Joe Camel and seeking solace in a new city, alas not! It was raining and we were mobbed from the hustlers. With rain and wind in my face I tried to shrug them off..you tend to get a bit aggressive after a while...zero tolerance creeps in. But my brave front was useless as I didn't know where I was. We asked the guy who was hassling us for three hundred metres did he know where an internet cafe was but he even failed to find that for us and as when it rains in India it can be pretty frightening, we booked into the first ok shabby hotel. My impressions of Ahmedabad were that it was a noisy, polluted, congested city. We played it safe .. venturing ... read more

Dear all, I hope you are all doing great. I am, as you know, really bad at writing e-mails and the same seems to go for this travel-blog… Life is still spinning fast around here and every day is filled with enough new impressions to fill a new entry. So, I won’t bore you by writing everything that’s happened, but here are some chosen pieces: 1. Monsoon and Malaria Just as I was (very naïve it seems) thinking I had survived the worst part of the rains, the weather gods decided to come down on Mumbai once more. It’s been raining non-stop for three days and around 60 people have died. It’s really difficult to describe exactly what a mess it is. Since there is no drainage system in place the roads will get flooded in ... read more