bollywood baby!!

---

Well, our journey continues down the coast from Diu to Mumbai. What a city!

A little while out of the sleepy little ex-portugese enclave and a good ten hours left, we settle in on our train to get a little sleep. Seriously Britain, sleeper trains and buses are fantastic! what a way to travel! The constant battering of touts isn't that funny at times but hey ho.

We all got to Bombay and made our way to Colaba on the southern point of the city. This place is massive! 20,000,000+ people and counting is ridiculous!! We shopped around for a little before checking into the Salvation army hostel dorm rooms which were not quite as bad as i'd imagined them to be. Our first night in the dorms was ok, i had a few lads to chat with while hanging out of the bathroom window for a smoke. That night was also Jill and I's first night apart since before we came away so it felt a little strange.

On our second day, we did the tourist thing and went to India Gate and Victoria Terminus which were both really impressive. We wandered down the main street in colaba and a guy came up to me, gave me a card and said "Hi, i'm looking for extra's to be in a Bollywood movie tomorrow." we had a natter and he agreed to pick me up in the morning at the hostel... Well the morning came and i went downstairs and waited for the guy... he pulled up in a bus filled with other western travellers and took one look at me and said "it is office scene, could you shave and cut your hair?" now the shaving bit i had no problems with but, my hair is NOT cutable(people have lost fingers for such things! the only person who could get me to cut my hair is no longer with us). Disapointed, he got back on the bus and took off.

Jill and I, with the help of James decided to go through our funds and our possesions and sort some replaceable things out to sell to get the money for the last bit of our trip so out went the mosquito net, rucksack, first aid kit, sheet sleeping bag, guide books and the rest of the small library we had with us, spare camera, battery charger and rechargeable batteries along with a bag full of phone chargers, wires and other electric stuffs. Armed now with a big bag of sellable items, we headed down to the stalls. after a while we came across a big book stall and shifted the books to the guy there. 1,000 rupees richer we head to the next stall which happened to also be a book stall and asked the guy if he knew anyone who'd like to buy this big, more or less brand new bag of stuff. Within three minutes we had a crowd of more than thirty indians around us when, all of a sudden, the crowd parted and a big, gold laden indian guy strolled in with his chest out and a sense of authority around him. Now the bidding began... After about a half hour of bartering and "that alone is worth xxx's", we settled on a price of 2,000 rupees for the bag and its contents which the guy was quite obviously really chuffed and he strolled off with his chest so inflated i could see it splitting down the sides. Nice bargain for you bud... treat it well.

So now, here we are, 3,000 rupees up and about to board our bus to Goa. The last stop on our subcontinental trip.

Bring it on Goa!!! Shanti Shanti.

---