Leaving India... or at least trying to!

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Well, the plan was to be on my way to Canada by now. But as I said before, India is always full of surprises! This time I suppose it is my airline that surprised me by sending me an e-mail saying my flight was canceled and I was now booked to leave in 6 days!!!!!!!

At other times this might have been a good news, but not this time, as I am supposed to be in a workshop in Canada this weekend, and in Costa Rica in 5 days... Plus, when I am ready to leave, I am ready to leave.

Finally now I am supposed to leave tonight, but we'll see what happens. I might have to land in Ottawa and take the bus from there to Montreal. That will be quite a sight with me wearing sandals and no winter jacket. Well, no jacket at all, in fact.

My last few days in India were good, nice to be back in Goa briefly enjoying the beach and seeing some friends. Of course I took advantage of that time to also visit my favorite indian restaurants...

I had again another bizarre experience in the public transports... Took a bus to Mapusa on my way to the railway station. It is about 10-12 km from Candolim, where I was staying. For some reason, this bus was probably the slowest bus I ever took in India. It was stopping everywhere and for a long time everywhere. Needless to say, it was getting VERY crowded and the conductor was quite unhappy about backpackers taking extra room with big backpacks... So we were going at crawling speed until we got to a junction where we stopped. The conductor and his friends were constantly looking back, as if another bus was following. Then all of a sudden, these guys started to whistle like maniacs, loud and fast, looking back and it was really like riding a horse that just got whipped. The bus started to go full-speed, I even wondered if we were going to take off. It was crazy, noisy and bumpy. But I was happy we were moving. Maybe we were racing another bus behind? And then, again very suddenly, we stopped again. Now everybody in the bus was looking behind, heads outside the window, and I was really trying to figure out what the deal was. The bus even turned around and again at full speed we backtracked for a km or 2, then we stopped for a few seconds and turned around again. I wondered if they had just raced past the Prime Minister and had to go back to pick him up or what??? Finally when we got to the bus station I was told that someone had forgotten a bag at the bus stop and we had to go back to pick it up. Maybe we had been racing a little too much. Nevertheless we probably broke the record for the slowest bus ride between Candolim and Mapusa. One hour. But again I am sure it could have been worse!

After this, my train journey between Goa and Mumbai was almost uneventful. Well, the train was late and another train with the same name but going the other way was parked right where "my train" was supposed to be parked, which could have caused me to take the train going south instead of north, but luckily I found out about this one time and managed to get on the right one.

Then I arrived in Mumbai, which was very nice as this city now feels very comfortable. I know my way, I know my favorite restaurants and even managed to find a new really really nice restaurant. Very indian, very inexpensive and serving another one of my favorite breakfast (poha or powa). Yummy. That was the highlight of being stuck here for another day: I got to enjoy more indian food. I am starting to think I should write my indian restaurant guidebook. I think I am obsessed by food.

So nothing big to report. Just another day in India, with all the little events that make this place special.

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