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Published: January 16th 2008
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Arrived here late Friday night. Bit of a shock being on my own after the group bubble of the past few weeks. Was immediately besieged by taxi drivers and men waving hotel cards wildly at me when I stepped out the airport. Even after getting into the official taxi queue and into a metered taxi I was still nearly ripped off by a driver who wanted to charge me 1000 rupees (at least 4x the price) to take me to my hotel. At one point he almost refused to take me there. "It's too far" he kept saying and tried to convince me to go to Colaba (the touristy area which I've since discovered is even further away) instead. Guess he had a deal with one of the hotels there. Anyway, he took me to my hotel in the end and I got him down to 500 rupees. Didn't have the energy to haggle any more ruthlessly!
So, I'm now ensconsed in the Hotel Outram, near to the main railway station and am enjoying mooching about and discovering a new place. As a city Mumbai's very different from Kolkata. It's a lot richer for a start. Even the cows are
fatter. It's busy and frenetic still but there's less people around and pollution's not as bad (walking round Kolkata made my snot go black I discovered). Near to my hotel there's families living in driveways and alleyways. Yet even they're better off than so many I saw in Kolkata whose homes were a patch of pavement or a make-shift tent tied to railings.
I didn't experience the trains in Kolkata but have braved a few here. On Sunday I went in search of a church in the nearby suburbs, having tracked one down on the internet. On the way I made the mistake of getting into the men's carriage though which was just a bit awkward. My presence provoked a mixture of tut-tuts and waheys the more packed the carriage became. I was hugely relieved to get to my station but with the carriage so full, I couldn't get out in time and had to go another stop wedged between a particularly stern tut-tutter ("Women's carriage", he kept saying, "Next time, women's carriage!") and a mischievous waheyer who kept clucking and winking but thankfully kept his hands to himself! Marvellous.
Anyway, I finally got to the church midway
through the service. It was an all Indian Hindi-speaking congregation and more traditional than I expected, with men and women sitting separately. People were very friendly afterwards and one of them told me about an English speaking service that would still be going on the other side of town. The next thing I knew he'd arranged me a lift and I was soon whisked away on the back of a motorbike by a man who kept saying "David Beckham, David Beckham" once I'd told him I was from England.
The other church was very different. Much bigger - the meeting was in a theatre - and more upbeat. Similar in lots of ways to churches I've been to in Britain and Iceland. It was OK but I struggled with the ongoing connections being made to God's blessing and material wealth. Thinking about the poor sods I'd seen sleeping on pavements I found it hard to swallow and came away disheartened. It's a view of God I find neither healthy or helpful and it just makes me angry at the end of the day.
Anyway, since Sunday I've had a few slower days, visiting art galleries, the Ghandi museum
The festival of life
I got there! A great last night too. and bimbling round markets and on the beach. Last night I met up with a lady called Josephine who is a friend of a friend of a friend and a retired Indian lady who used to work at a college with an English couple for some years. We had coffee and she's given me loads of tips and contacts for next time I come....... After that I went to see a film and everyone stood up whilst the national anthem played at the start of it. Different. Can't see that happening in quite the same way in the UK somehow.
On Thursday there's a big Christian conference and festival with a band that I particularly like (Delirious) so that's a happy coincidence. Hopefully it'll send me off in good spirits for the next leg of the journey on Friday to Phomn Pehn in Cambodia where I'll be til the end of the month. Will try and get photos attached next time I write. Have got batteries and a working camera now but can't seem to download them at the cafe I'm in. Will try in Cambodia and hopefully my next blog will be a bit more colourful.
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