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Published: June 20th 2008
Wow so here I am...in India. I am technically writing this at about 3 in the morning here on June 18th, three days after I bgan th journey to get here. I was suppose to leave Atlanta at 7:30 am on the 15th but my flight was cancelled and i was moced to the 3:30 pm flight to Newwark New Jearsey. I thought it was strange that I was switching planes in New Jersey. Who on earth was going to New Jearsey. All I know about New Jersey is that lots of stand up comedians like to make jokes that go something to h tune of "I thought I was in hell but I realized it was New Jersey." Anyway my flight was moved to the auspicious time of 4:20 pm in which case I bought some ice cream and a watch to kill time, oddly enough probably my most expensive purchases on this trip. Onc we were all boarded our flight was delayed until 5:50 pm when origionally it was suppose to be in Newark at 6:15 pm, which would have given me plenty of time to catch my 8:20 pm flight to Mumbai. Not so much time if we
were not taking off until 5:50 for a flight that that was going to be around three hours. Mercifully the god in the traffic control tower released from our holding cell us just in time for me and other connecting passengers to dash down the concouse, get our documents signed off, and board the plane...to wait on the tarmac for three hours. Once in the air I read, tried to play some atari games provided on the small tv screen in the seat in front of me. I was struggling to fall asleep, stretched out in both my seat and the unclaimed seat next to me, when suddnly I woke up and we were over Iran with three hous of the trip left to go. I tried to take a picture of Iran but even my panasonic could not catch the faint glimpse of the country that I could make out through the haze. Mambai from the air looked like a rolling ocean of diamonds as far as the eye can see. I tried to take a picture but the angle was off and the plane wa bumping and rocking like a roller coaster. It was acctually kind of fun
but the pictures turned out looking like all of Mumbai was raving. Two hours late we arrived at the airport to dash down to the baggage claim past air conditioning units that could not have been blowing out air that was any warmer then 10 degrees. When we got down to baggage claim one of my bags had been pulled off to the side along a wall with the other chosen few. I walked over there, picked it up an dtook it while the men in the blue jump suits were arbitrarily picking other bags to quarentine, I figured they would let me know if I was doing something wrong because my first guess was that they were pulling off bags that had circled too many times so they thought they might be unclaimed. But later I saw a lady exchanging frustrated words with a blue jumpwuit so I assumed that the baksheesh charade might be what was going on. I has read online about people at the airport trying to claim that your bag had a problem that could be allieviated with a baksheesh, a bribe. No one said anything when I took it and nothing was missing so
Hooray! I was surprised but the lack of stores and such in the airport but it was being remodeled so that might have something to do with it. I am not going to lie, the small knot in my stomach turned into an anxiety boulder when I saw the swarm of people with signs to pick people up. Fortunatly my momentary panic was all for not because just a few steps away to the right I could see my name on a piece of paper. This had been my number one concern about India so I cn not tell you how relkieved I was that the driver was there. Santosh, my driver, took me to Meherabad in a silver box looking car that kind of looks like those mercedes army SUVs except in India the SUVs have small wheels and look like they have been squished between two walls. Even at 12 am Mumbai was incredibly busy and awake with taxi drivers zipping around in their customized and wildy decorated standard black cars with a yellow roof around motorized rickshaws od the same color but largely without all the frills, My favortie trucks were the amptly named goods carriers which
were orange flat bed trucks that were beautifully painted with flowers, elephants, and had small decorative mirrors on the side. Pictures of all these eventually had to be given up as the Mumbai road was also a bit like a roller coaster. The Honk OK Please on every truck kept me well entertained the 6 hour ride. Every hour just felt like a few minutes.(ack computer just deleted some of this post. I will finish later! Sorry about the late post This is the first day the internet has work. Thats india for you)
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Nate
non-member comment
Man!
I can't believe you're actually there! Good luck with the internet for future posts!