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Published: February 1st 2015
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Happy New years everybody
NYE was quite a good, having discovered Old Monk, Goa’s premium rum packaged in a deceptive plastic bottle. We indulged in this for 3 days straight together with some friends we’d made in Varkala. The night itself was spent dancing to some Drum&Bass and Reggae sounds at a beach shack till the Sun came up. No one seemed to know the time but various fireworks got us hugging lots off locals. Yvi limped home having (almost) pulled off an outrageous dance move that resulted in her landing on the side of her foot.
The first day of 2015 was seen in drinking Old Monk and banana lassis, laying on a sun bed from noon till midnight and watching dolphins jumping up and down. We set off some Chinese lanterns full with our New Year wishes with friends whilst listening to Candle in the Wind by Elton John. It was beautiful. Our friend’s lantern crashed into the sea along with all their hopes and dreams. We felt pretty lucky at this point but that was all to change.
Two days later we returned to our favourite train station in India to discover that Jude’s bike,
Dabba Wallahs
5000 Wallahs deliver office worker daily with hot lunches. The way it works: After the office worker leaves the house in the morning at 8, his wife will start cooking lunch, so around 11 the Dabba Wallah comes to pick up the lunch box from the wife and brings it to the office so the office worker gets his fresh cooked food and doesn't have to eat food from outside... Yes we were shocked by this too, but they just don't think cooking the lunch the night before would be fresh enough... Rusty, was still missing. After 2 hours of standing around we were eventually told that Rusty had in fact been stolen from the train station in Kerala. Happy New Year indeed. Jude got very angry, especially when he realised that the beautiful bell, with inscription, his friend’s had given him as a leaving present was on the bike along with the hard leather saddle that his bum had spent the last 2 months breaking in.
We’re back in London now…well, we thought about it, but realised that the weather was shit in London so booked a train to Mumbai for two days later. In the intervening time we were treated to some first class Goan hospitality by a family we met on the train from the beach. Romi and his family took us in, fed and watered us, ferried us about in his car and introduced us to the entire family.
Still dealing with the potential consequences of the theft of Rusty, we arrived in Mumbai and set about buying a new one. Jude put word out to anyone interested in cycling in South India what had happened so for the next week we received about 10 calls/texts
a day with bike offers. To distract us from the stress we did some sight-seeing around Mumbai, it’s massive, seriously massive. We initially rented a bike for Jude and our first trip was during rush hour which was not particularly fun. Just imagine everyone in London, pedestrians and all, on mopeds, in cars, crossing junctions in every conceivable way beeping the shit out of each other.
Eventually we decided that public transport would be the way to go but this was perhaps more shocking. People actually hang out, in-between and on top of trains. Jude had the pleasure of hanging out of the door first-hand on his first journey. When the train started moving Jude looked around in horror, uncertain whether to just jump off. A little man looked up at him, smiled, put his arm round his waist and basically said ‘I’ve got ya’. Jude felt slightly more secure when at the next stop another layer of bodies hung around him. We’ve since found out that 10 people a DAY die on the trains in Mumbai, to which all Indian’s reply, ‘well there’s enough of us’.
From then on we travelled only by first class.(Yes we are
real adventurer)
We had an amazing tour through Dharavi, one of the World’s biggest slums, home to 1 million people, and countless businesses, packed in like sardines amongst dark alleyways that weave in all directions. Most businesses work together in a network, passing goods from one to the next. Everything gets recycled, the air is coloured with toxic fumes from plastic and metals works. We saw Zara shirts, Levi’s Jeans and bakeries that flatten their biscuits with stomping bare feet.
People in the slums like to get up early as the queue for the loo is often large. Each toilet is shared by over 1500 people! To be honest we had expected doom and gloom from the slum but it was a very vibrant and social (you’d have to be!) atmosphere.
One evening we met Dimple and Jay, who are best friends of Yvi’s mate Kam in London. They kindly invited us to stay with them so we did. Dimple is a Bollywood dance choreograph, Film producer who also runs a Dance school in her community, what a dream for Yvi. Plus Jay loved Whiskey and had a stocked bar, what a dream for Jude. For one
week we lived a life of luxury with driver, maid, and attended some exclusive clubs. One night we got taken on a night ride through Mumbai to eat Strawberries and Cream at the beach. This is a very popular thing to do as this is only times cars can go fast and unfortunately there are not too many other things going on in Mumbai’s nightlife. Another day we got invited to learn the art of graphiograffi from India’s first Graffiti artist Sunil Gogia.
While Yvi was dancing, Jude sorted himself a luxurious bike, delivered from Bangalore and assembled in Mumbai. He spent a small fortune for his new purple Troll. Thanks to all the hard work of Arvind and Sajid the bike got delivered and put together within 4 days and we were able to get back on the road. We've had a great time in this historical, cultural, colorful place but we are also happy to leave this seriously hectic, no privat space knowing, blaring loud city.
Now we are rolling through Gujurat in hope to see the white salt dessert by full moon.
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