Booze, Bangles and Bombay

Hello from India! 

I have to apologize for not posting anything yet but it has been crazy crazy crazy and eventually we will get on a schedule so we can blog consistently. Right now we (Kirsten, her Grandpa and I) are in a taxi cab driving through Mumbai (Bombay) on our way to their family lunch. If you've heard anything about the roads in India, you probably know that writing a blog post or doing really anything but holding on for dear life is a difficult task. Yes, the rumors are true. The. Roads. Are. Crazy. It’s the Autobahn without not only speed limits, but road rules. But here’s the thing. It works. Everyone is so good at being terrible drivers that it just works. There are like zero car wrecks. It’s definitely a roller coaster ride though for any American.

So here are some thoughts thus far about India (Well, Mumbai, since this is the only city we've visited thus far): It doesn't smell! Whaaaat?! (This blog post just got interrupted by two women beggars banging on our window to give them money…) 

Maybe it’s just the city so far but holy cow (literally…there are cows everywhere) it’s not smelly! But it is humid. So. Humid. Our hair is afrotastic. But our skin is as soft as a babies bottom J It is dirty. Trash everywhere. And India is such a mix of social classes. I don’t know if it’s because the government isn't really present or what. But there will be a really nice business hotel right next door to a skeleton of a building with homeless people living inside and all around. People seem to just build their own shops on the streets and live out of them. Then one block over is a McDonalds or something nice.The poverty is intense but expected. What’s hard to see is the dirtiness that people are living in. Another thing is there. are. no. white. people. I saw 2 yesterday but they are the only ones I've seen since I stepped out of the Mumbai airport. That was a huge shocker. I felt like I had a giant spotlight on me all the time because people ALWAYS stare. I've gotten used to it but there is definitely no way to “blend in” (worst advice ever dad).

Ok more thoughts later, here’s a quick update on what we've actually been doing: We have been staying at Seema and Puneet’s apartment in Mumbai (they are Kirsten’s relatives of some sort). It is a really nice apartment for India. There are 2 rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom (with, thank goodness, an American toilet). But let me put this into perspective. Mumbai is one the most expensive places to live in the world. This apartment cost the equivalent of 2 million dollars PER YEAR. Per year. 2 million dollars. It is insane. So it’s safe to say that the family is pretty well to do (they own their own sports store) but the apartment is the size of my family’s living room.  Yesterday we went shopping with Seema, Prekshaa and Karan. We purchased some awesome bangles and salwars for super cheap. It’s 60 rupees to a dollar so everything is very inexpensive which is terrible because how in the world are we gunna fit all this in our suitcase… Seema tried to barter for us but people see a white person and explain to her that we’re American’s so they won’t go down in their price. After shopping on the streets and declining many, many, many, MANY offers from the relatives to go clubbing and drink some booze, we went to dinner at a place called Red Box. No, no not the video thing. It was very posh and all the food was American.

Some of my adopted family in Mumbai.

The past few days we've been in Lanovla which is up in the mountains and oh my goodness it is probably one of the prettiest places I have ever been. It’s like Zions National Park on steroids. One thing I didn't know about India is that it’s green! There’s not a lot of grass and trees but when there is, it’s SO green. Why? Because it rains all the time. It’s monsoon season right now so it rains all day every day. That means it’s been like 80 degrees every day but it’s still super humid. So we stayed at this resort in Lanovla and time after time Kirsten and I realized how stupid we are. Stupid Americans. Creating first world problems in third world countries. We’ll dedicate a post just to that later. We did a lot of sleeping and eating all day long which was really nice because of the jet lag but the eating, oh man…we’ll also get to that later. Their eating habits are crazy here. One day we went up to the shops in Lanovla and walked around. This is when I finally felt like I was in India cause we were thrown In the culture. All the relatives were there, so they were like 15 of us walking the streets and I was the only white person within miles. I felt super safe the whole time though because I was surrounded by the family. The whole time I've been here I've felt safe and at peace which is a major tender mercy. We shopped at a pot shop where everything was made by hand. Kirsten and I bought a tea set…no idea how we’re guna get that home. Then we tried grilled corn from some lady on the streets (don’t freak out mom, it was fine...)

Grilled Roasted Corn.

and we got our name tattooed on a piece of rice. We tried to walk up to this dam that is supposedly kinda cool but because of da rains (say with an Indian accent), the walkways were flooded.

That’s all for now, I need to catch up though so I'll update soon. OK BYE. 

P.S. We’re keeping count of some of the things we see/experience often:

Cow Count: 17

Men peeing on the side of the road: 24

Mosquito Bites: 3